Devil's Advocates' HQ

[Rino]

"Ring me if you have problems. I'll throw some 'bad' guys your way for you to kill and prove yourself the noble heroine." Rino replied just as casually, not turning around.

"The people who consider themselves heroes and 'gullible' always seem to go together, they should fall for that, and you'll be in. Good luck." Rino smiled as he looked out, despite Hope not being able to see it.

Now things were getting interesting!

[Hope Mêler]

"Thank you, sir!" Hope smiled happily as she got in the elevator.

The foyer was bustling with activity again, and no one took notice of the girl running out. Hope was ready to act the part as the good girl now.

[Rino]

Rino returned to his office, and sat down in his chair, overlooking the latest paper work on the musuem and the arrival of the gem he was tracking.

He heard heels click as another of his staff entered the room. He looked up and smiled.
"Carla." He said simply. "Something on your mind?"

The woman stood before him was dressed in tight red and black leather, with long flowing dark hair and a clear operative look to her. Clearly not one of Rino's lawyers.

"That girl. Hope. You think she can handle what you assigned her?" She asked simply. Rino laughed, spinning a pen inbetween his fingers.
"And so what if she can't? If they find her out, they'll do....what? I figured it was a risk we could take. They're gullible saps anyway, no matter how bad she is at acting, they'll never catch on."
"Understood, sir."

Carla went to leave, but Rino simply laughed louder, leaning back in his chair.
"You're jealous, aren't you?" He smirked broadly.
"She's too pathetic to be jealous of, sir." Carla replied, forcing a smile.
"I knew it!" Rino grinned. "Carla's jealous of Hoooope! Carla's jealous of Hooooope!" He sang mockingly.
"Are you absolutely sure you're an immortal demon sir, and not, say, seven?" Carla inquired with a mocking smile.
"Fairly." Rino shot back. "Okay, I'll make you a deal. Get me all the information on the Circle you can. Prove we don't need her, and I'll give you the pleasure of getting rid of her."
"Easily done, sir. And I won't have to do any of this double agent crap to get it."
"We'll see, won't we?" Rino laughed, twiddling the pen again. "Watch it though, she has a head start."
"It won't matter." Carla smiled. "The further ahead she gets, the further I get. She can get all the information for me, it's just that she would have to keep ahold of it. I won't be doing that."
"So you make her do all the work?" Rino smirked.
"Isn't that what you're doing anyway, sir?" Carla shot back.
"Touché." Rino laughed. "Now get out of my office!"

"Yes sir." Came the cold reply as the other woman walked out.

[Hope Mêler]

Hope turned a corner with Jaden and Kunoichi following closely behind her, and ran down the street. She soon stopped, in front of a huge skyscraper with the sign "Devil's Advocates" neatly put above the fancy glass doors.

"This is it," she said, walking slowly up the stone stairs to the doors. "After you," she bowed and grinned.

[Kunoichi]

Kunoichi looked up, the building was massive, dwarfing nearly all of the commercial buildings around it
"So this is the demon's base? I guess my suspicions about lawyers weren't far off the mark"
she commented.
Kunoichi opened the door for the others and waited to let them pass, her eyes all the time scanning the lobby for signs of danger.

[Carla Glenn]

"Hello everyone!" Smiled a sudden face, walking across the lobby towards them, heeled boots clicking on the pristine floor.

Carla had been told by Rino to expect a follow up meeting at the main building, but she hadn't expected Hope to be with them. She smiled a bitter smile, and resisted the urge to blow the irritating slayer's cover. That would just annoy her boss.

"I know, I know, before you say it, not office appropriate attire." She pointed to her leather garment with a phony smile. "But we're having a casual Friday in the upper office, you know..." She explained, before realising something. "Urr, even though it's Wednesday." She said a little cagily. "Urm. They have a strange sense of humour up there."

She had already decided how she would deal with these people. They knew Devil's Advocates was a front for Rino's activities.

So what would be more annoying than not giving them any indication of that whatsoever, and just treating them like the company would treat clients? They'd be confused and out the door, and it'd be hilarious to boot!

"So, can I assist you in anyway. We handle any case, big or small. We even offer a no win no fees basis for compensation claims. So, how can I help you? By the look of you, I wouldn't say you were here about invesment plans or buisness transactions..."

[Hope Mêler]

"Charming," Hope smiled weakly and looked at the woman's outfit. Then she casually pushed her away and walked inside. "We'll be fine thank you, just wanna have a look. Do some... dam--, business. But err," she paused. "First we want to look around a bit. So, leave us alone."

Stupid woman, she thought to herself, wanting to punch the woman in the face, but that would probably not make Rino any happier. Wait, I don't care about that... She grinned.

"Go away now. Shoo shoo!" Hope waved her hands in another direction and smiled in an annoyingly happy way.

[Carla Glenn]

"Ma'am." Carla smiled sweetly to Hope. "This is a law firm, not a shopping mall. Unless you are clients of ours, we cannot offer you special treatement, and we work at solving cases. We do not have products to sell, so there is nothing to look around at."

She gave another smile, half bitter, and half sweet.

"Now while it is very pretty here, and I'm sure you want to look around and admire our nice fountain, our pleasant desks, and those little pens with the chains on them, if you are merely here to loiter, I shall have to ask you to leave."

Carla decided she could get used to this being polite thing. It was so...

...rude.

She smiled again.

"So, can I help you with something?"

Her hands twitched, ready to take her gloves off.

Oh come on, just try something, little miss show off slayer.

[Hope Mêler]

Hope returned Carla's sweet smile, deciding that the false politeness should be returned in the same fashion. She took hold of her hand and shook it, maybe a little too eagerly.

"I'm Hope, nice to meet you. My two friends are Jaden and Kunoichi. The reason we wanted to look around was that the interior of the building of a firm tells a lot about its structure and problems."

She continued smiling.

"And I'm getting some confliction information here. That," she glanced at the fountain, "would suggest that you have enough money to waste on silly things like indoors fountains, but you have 'those little pens with chains on them' which tells me that you can't afford to lose simple pens! And who'd want to make a deal with a poor company?"

She threw her hands out, as if in exasperation and sighed.

"Clearly, you see that 'looking around' is not the same as merely being ' here to loiter'. You should maybe consider that although you fail to see a purpose in someone's actions it does not mean that they don't have any. So, if you don't mind, we would like to look around."

Suddenly her face lightened up and her smile turned into a wide grin.

"Oh, wait! Maybe you would be kind enough to give us a tour? I'm sure we can come to a business agreement later, but as I said, knowing the exact condition of the company we're about the make a deal with is of an utmost importance to us. We have of course done a lot of research, of which looking at your fine, fine building will be the last point."

She paused.

"I'm sure your boss wouldn't like you to lose potential customers. So, on to that tour!"

[Kunoichi]

Kunoichi smiled, she could see the game going on between Hope and the newcomer
how well will it work?
her hands subtly reached inside her jacket to her kunai, ready to draw if things got interesting

[Carla Glenn]

Carla smiled. That was Hope's plan? Pretend to be a buisness woman?

God. She hoped she was better at undercover work with the circle than she was here.

Y'know, enough to remember to put on a disguise or something.

She retracted her gloved hand from Hope, slightly disappointed she hadn't left the glove off so Hope would have fried herself.

"I'm Carla." She smiled, knowing they hadn't met yet, but putting up an act anyway. "Mr Rino doesn't like to lose potential customers no, but he also likes to meet them in person. He just got back from a buisness trip, I do believe. I have a proposal."

She grinned. This would be good.

"Miss....Hope. Why do I not give you your guided tour while Mr Rino meets with your associates." And eats them, or something. "That way they can discuss your buisness deal and I can show you the building." And fry you.

"Oh, and for the record, people love those little pens with chains on. They like to jangle them. Besides, it'd be senseless to lose pens. You don't become rich by giving away freebies, I'm sure you know."

[Hope Mêler]

Carla, I officially hate you. Hope thought angrily, but she put on her sweetest smile and shook her head. Not because she cared about her two "friends", but because the thought of spending a split second alone with that woman made her want to stab herself. Or Carla. Mostly Carla.

And there was this thing that if she willingly made a deal that would place two members of the Circle in a room with their nemesis she'd probably lose the trust she'd gained.

Think as if you like the Circle, think as if you like the Circle. You don't want them to die. You don't want them to die. Dammit.

She knew that Rino enjoyed the "game" he'd set up with the Circle; seeking them out, beating the crap out of them, scaring them, and in the end, killing them. Slowly. Therefore it was probable that they'd get out of the Advocate's alive, even after an encounter with the demon. Their "time" had not come yet.

Hope sighed.

"If you can just give us a moment, Carla." She smiled and turned to Kunoichi and Jaden. Together they walked out of that damned woman's hearing distance.

"The way I see it, we have three... four possibilities here," Hope started, whispering. "One, do what this Carla says - she'll show my around, and you'll meet Rino. The positive thing with this is that we'll probably see a lot of the infra-structure of the building."

"But no," she shook her head. "I don't think Austin would approve of any of us willingly meeting Rino, at least not at this stage." She paused.

"So, the second choice, we don't care what Austin would think, and demand that all three of us go and meet Rino, not only you two. At least this would make me feel better about myself... I don't want to leave anyone alone with that demon, and specially not my new-found friends!"

She smiled.

"The third: We leave this place. I say bleh to that, it's like letting Carla win! So, the fourth, and my favourite - we do some fightin'. Beat her up, then poke around. If we're quick we'll get a lot done and still be out of here before Rino comes." She raised an eyebrow. "I think."

[Rino]

Rino had just reached his office when the phone rang. He answered it with a slightly weary:
"Hello?"

Couldn't anybody do anything? I mean, he told people when he wanted them to do stuff.

"No, I don't need anything, Franchesca." He replied casually. "Some visitors from the circle are here, but Carla's taking care of it. If they make their way up here, I'll send them home with their organs scrambled." Now, that was a nice idea. "You just have a good time with your boyfriend. And if you get any information out of him, instead of, y'know, fratenising with the enemy, that's all the better."

Rino didn't actually give a damn about what Franchesca was up to, but it was more fun if he pretended he did. It'd make her be more loyal, at least.

Rino grinned as he listened to the description of Hope talking about him. That was good. Plenty of ways to build up fear of him in the Circle. Although, at the moment, he was wondering if he had overestimated them. Especially if half their rank was in the building. He could just blow it up and kill half of them right away.

But that would be a waste. He'd lose his high definition TV.

"Okay, well, just keep me informed. You find anything out, let me know. Like where their secret base is. Bye."

Rino hung up, and sat against his desk, watching Hope and the others on the monitors. They were stupider than he thought.

[Carla Glenn]

Carla folded her arms and watched the others discuss their plan out of earshot.

Was she really like this with the Circle?

'Oh, excuse me, I just need to have a discussion about plotting against you over in the corner there'.

Yeah, good plan, Hope!

Carla idley removed her gloves, getting ready to fry them. They were probably going to try and fight. If they didn't, she could just put them on again.

Or fry them anyway. That might be fun. Especially Hope. She really wanted to fry Hope.

Until she was on fire.

Yeah, that sounded good. She liked this plan.

No! Rino wouldn't like killing in the ranks. She told herself. She'd just have to wait until they started something...

[Jaden Kalen]

"Hope we have no choice, if we meet Rino again I think that we might leave here a bit less intact" Jaden reached for his guns. Nows the time for action, The way I see it is that as we are in the building then Rino probably knows we are here and there for has put some traps out for us" Jaden paused for a moment. "Like that Clara over there, shes up to something. Anyway Rino probably watching us on the CCTV at the moment so what ever we do he's watching. But I'll leave it up to you two" Said Jaden his hands still on his guns.