After blasting the fairies into puffs of flame over Jericho's futile protests, Stiletto made her way to the ring toss booth to try her hand at the game. The objective was to land four plastic rings on four bottles and the overall goal was to try and ring the golden bottle to win a prize. Stiletto could do that without too much effort. She casually walked up to the rings, gathered them in her left hand, and then sidled up to the booth, where she surveyed the field before her.
The bottles were neatly lined up in five rows of five and the golden bottle was in the middle of them all, sticking out from the sea of green, red, blue, and yellow bottles. The golden bottle would win this, but Stiletto first wanted to do a practice throw, so she aimed at a blue bottle on the second row and threw the red ring in her hand in a smooth underhand motion. It landed on the neck and fell right down. Next was a slightly more challenging throw to a green bottle in the fourth row, the second-to-last bottle in that row. Stiletto repeated the gentle throwing motion and watched as the green ring she tossed glided through the air and landed right on the neck of the bottle, then fell down around the base.
With her first two throws successful, the blonde then aimed for the golden bottle in the center of the third row. It looked like it was challenging her to ring it and that was what she would do. Shuffling the rings in her hand so that the gold ring would be saved for last, Stiletto took the red ring into her right hand, focused for a moment, then threw the ring in the same underhand motion she had been using for the past two throws. Once again the ring flew in a gentle arc and rung the neck of the bottle, but wobbled back and forth and eventually flung itself off, hitting the right side of the booth. Stiletto frowned.
Stiletto took a minute to refocus, steadied herself, and used a different throwing technique. Instead of using an underhand throw, she instead flicked her wrist to launch the gold ring at the golden bottle. The blonde watched it soar through the air in a flat arc and ring the neck of the bottle. Then the waiting began.
The gold ring wobbled back and forth and even jumped diagonally a couple of times, threatening to leap off the bottle and onto the ground. Stiletto felt something approximating hope as its frantic movement began to slow down and the ring threatened to stop moving and fall. Her hopes were soon put on hold as the violent movement began anew and the golden bottle appeared as if it would not be defeated. After four more diagonal leaps and a lot of spinning the ring finally fell down onto the bottle and victory was hers.
Stiletto walked over to the booth to claim her prize, which was a circular mask with a red half and a white half. It also featured an odd eye shape and a smile permanently plastered onto its face. She tried it on for kicks and grins and found that it fit surprisingly well... it hid her face and did not bob up and down as she moved. The satisfied blonde carried her prize away from the booth as she began to look for The Black Cat... she had left no prints, she had used her ability to be just another face in the crowd, and she would not appear on any electronic surveillance equipment the carnival had thanks to another special ability, so she had very little fear of being apprehended by waiting authorities.
Her dark-haired guildmate was not faring so well earlier and the blonde felt a measure of concern for The Black Cat. As Stiletto walked away from the carnival and found her guildmate a fair distance away, her concerns were justified. She spotted her guildmate unable to move while being menaced by two mages who looked like they could use fire. They were rambling on and on about how summer would come to dominate all the seasons and about how they would teach The Black Cat a lesson for harassing their child, a redheaded boy that practically screamed
obnoxious.
Stiletto calmly looked around and did not see any witnesses other than the three who were menacing her guildmate. That was good because the blonde did her best work away from prying eyes. Donning the mask that she had won, Stiletto's first course of action was to silence the child without killing them. If the child got away he could twist the story and bring authorities down on them, so keeping him from getting away was imperative. She had just the idea to keep him from alerting anyone.
Stiletto calmly aimed and fired a Stun Burst that kept the child from moving, then used a Reaper's Sprint to silently close the distance with him. Once she was close she punched him in the back of the head for a non-lethal knockout. His surprised parents quickly turned away from The Black Cat to face her.
"Who the Hell are you? Why are you attacking our child? You're with that awful dark-haired person! I KNOW YOU ARE!" The woman of the pair snapped angrily as she strode towards the masked Stiletto to deal with the masked interloper interrupting their rant session. Stiletto strode forward to meet the angered opponent and ducked the sucker punch the woman threw. The mage retaliated with a Roundhouse Kick that hit the woman in the head followed by a Palm Thrust to the chest that knocked the woman down and sent her rolling back onto the ground, where she tried to get up for a moment before passing out. The man's fury reached its peak and he focused fire magic into his hands.
"You hurt my wife and my son! I'm going to roast you alive and have fun doing it!" The man taunted. Stiletto kept quiet as she used a Dash Punch to catch him off guard and slug him in the face at the end of the "flash step." Surprisingly the man stayed on his feet after the punch and headbutted her in the face, then grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her another headbutt that knocked her off her feet. The angry man smiled as Stiletto looked at her shirt, the shoulders of which had been burned away.
"I'm going to enjoy roasting you and your little friend alive!" He taunted. Stiletto remained calm and aimed for the man's nether regions as he strode towards her, then shaped her right hand into a gun and fired a Rubber Bullet shot that hit him between the legs. He screamed a high-pitched scream of pain and fell to his knees while holding himself. Stiletto used the chance to stand up and perform another Dash Punch that struck the hurting man in the face and launched him backwards, knocking him out when he hit the ground.
The masked blonde turned to The Black Cat and walked over to her.
"Problem Two solved." Stiletto spoke to her colleague.
- Stiletto's Mask:
[Word Count: 1,226]
[Diana's Word Count: 1,711/1,500]