"Uh...huh..." Jonnovan took another look at the picture, trying his best to keep the soggy little photo from getting any wetter. On it, a a red-haired munchkin of a girl stared back. The efreet wiped his cellphone once more and grunted. "I still don't believe it. She took out a major crime syndicate? Oh whatever, so she completely trashed their mechs before they had the chance to put their plan into action. Same dif." Jonnovan roughly pushed past the swell of city-goers as he traversed the streets of Clockwork Delta. It had been a while since he'd paid the technology-choked city a visit, and was disappointed to see that nothing had changed.

That was to say, crime bosses and drug lords still ruled the city as the spineless mayor twiddled his thumbs pretending that none of it was happening. It seemed that there were still a few vigilantes that sought to bring hope to those without. Sadly, the bad guys were usually the ones with the money. Therefore, Jonnovan usually found himself gunning down those he had the most respect for in this world. Today, that person happened to be some girl that looked like she should be in high school. With a sigh, the efreet pulled up his hood a little further and entered town square.

The metal structures had always seemed so ominous and oppressive, reaching up so high that they all but blotted out the sun on even bright days. Today a dim, ambient light filled the city as rain clouds poured down into the metal jungle. Receiving the last of his orders, Jonnovan grunted his understanding and hung up. After slipping the cellphone into his pocket the efreet took a seat on a bench under the awning of a small food cart. He set three bucks onto the counter and waved to catch the server's attention. "Two chili-cheese dogs, extra hot sauce, hold the onions."

His target supposedly came here every day for lunch, so this was as good a place as any to wait for her. Jonnovan took a bite of his dog and understood why she came to this cruddy little stand...damn good food. Absently, the elemental listened to the rain patter against the tin awning. Sometimes he wished he'd been born a water elemental instead...but not often. Jonnovan took one look at his ash-gray palm, then at the glowing lines crisscrossing the opposite side and smiled. A wisp of flame licked at his skin before dying away.

Cyrille released a loud yawn, not even bothering to cover it with her hand politely, as she walked down the street. She held a rather large red umbrella in one hand and rested the length of it against her shoulder as she pocketed her other hand. Accompanied with her red hair one would imagine that she would be one of the most conspicuous bodies on the street. As a self proclaimed provider of justice, that only recently took down some organization or another, the action of not even hiding who she was could be seen as either foolish, or incomparably arrogant.

Whatever the reason, Cyrille just continued about her daily routine and this meant getting her lunch at the hot dog stand at the corner. Arriving at the tiny cart she noticed the owner give her a bright smile as he recognized a regular. She strode up to the stand and happily placed a five dollar bill on the counter.

"Hey Mic, two regulars with everything on it and a large soda please!" She grinned happily as the familiar man took only a moment to prepare everything with practice ease. Thanking him against she practically inhaled one of the hot dogs before almost choking on it and rapidly downing part of the soda as well. Cyrille gave an elated sigh as she did so and took a small break to notice the scenery around her.

The rain was constantly pouring without a hint of letting up. It wasn't even light rain and if one were to go out there without an umbrella they would probably feel every single heavy drop on their body. Cyrille sighed. Sometimes it sucked to live in the city but she couldn't complain. Looking beside her she noticed another patron at the food stand and smiled at the thought. Not many knew about this place and it was nice when the stand got more customers.

Without another thought Cyrille took the smallest of bites out of her second hotdog.

"Seventy million credits," Jonnovan muttered under his breath. The words were all but lost amid the clattering rain, but they were not meant to be heard anyway. That was simply the limit placed on how much collateral damage he was aloud to cause on this mission before credits were deducted from his pay. As he finished the last bite of the greasy chili-dog, Jo gave a satisfied little sigh and slapped the counter, waving for another. A moment later the world exploded in a flash of heat and force.

Jo was already moving, quickly hopping backwards into the rain to view the results of his handiwork. Moments earlier the efreet had infused the cart with the elemental essence of fire and detonated that same energy in the same moment, creating an explosion that would outright kill a normal human at point blank. As if to punctuate this, Mic lay on the ground amidst the ruins of his stand some twenty yards away, parts of him charred and not drawing breath. The mercenary had been informed that this woman was some sort of metahuman, and it was unlikely any single charge would end her so quickly.

Placing another charge of energy on the very ground upon which he stood, the efreet prince raised his arms in a brawler's stance. "You still kickin', girl?"

Cyrille grunted as she shakily rose from the ground. Months of messing with the wrong people led to Cyrille becoming incredibly sensitive of suddenly dangerous situations; so when she noticed energies flowing about the strange hooded man when he touched the cart she almost immediately set into action. At ground zero of the explosion Cyrille released a large ball of electricity in the direction of the explosion; doing so dispersed the energies of the flames that could burn her but did nothing against the force in which the air slammed into her. And so Cyrille was sent flying through the air to tumble haphazardly on the wet ground when she landed. Her body lacked burns but the trip certainly had her reeling. She was, perhaps, a good thirty to fourty meters away from the original blast point.

Standing shakily on her feet Cyrille shook her head as if to shake away her disorientation as well. Whoever the man was the redheaded girl could tell he was definitely after her life; to Cyrille this meant she didn't need a who, what, where, when or why; all Cyrille needed was a how she was going to beat him into the ground.

"Yeah, I'm alright." Cyrille shouted back as yellow sparks crackled along her body. Water droplets seemed to levitate slightly of her body, possibly charged with electricity, and her hair straightened upwards almost rigidly in its. "Though I'm gonna make you wish I wasn't." She grinned as she pressed her fist against her palm. As if to emphasize her point electricity crackled upon her hands as well.

Raising her open right hand above her hand she clenched her fist and, as if on cue, a bolt of lightning raced from the sky to strike the man on the ground he stood upon. Given the distance from the target and the minimal energy she placed into it, the bolt shouldn't have been powerful at all; at best it would have given the man a strong jolt to the system to warn him that Cyrille wasn't fooling around.

Markings now glowing dimly, Jo's body was already beginning to heat beyond human levels. In the poorly lit and gloomy metropolis, the elemental was already beginning to stick out. Only seconds after the initial blast those civilians present at the square had scattered. Now, the combatants were utterly alone. Jo smirked and dropped his guard when the girl responded to his call. He had been worried for a moment that he had put a little too much power into the charge and killed the poor thing outright. It was a little strange that she had not taken the opportunity to go on the offensive while Jo thought she was down.

"Hey, that's good," Jo flashed a grin that looked all the brighter against his black skin and shrugged off his hood to reveal blood red hair, "Seems we have similar senses of fashion..." the efreet took one look at the Cyrille's attire and scowled playfully, "Although it looks like I've got you beat in clothing." at the girl's threat, Jo shrugged. It was not uncommon for a mark to bark obscenities and promises of death... at least, not uncommon when they actually survived the initial attack.

Jonnovan raised an eyebrow in silent inquisition when Cyrille began her electrotechnics display. In his home-plane of Aesr, attacks launched by members of other elemental manifestations were commonplace. It had been a while, but Jo still remembered his last bout with a storm giant quite vividly. The brutes loved to call down bolts of-

"By the Burning Throne!" the efreet was on his rump now, staring across the square at Cyrille with an expression somewhere between surprised and amused. Although he hopped to his feet with great enthusiasm, it took another couple seconds to shake off the odd tingling sensation that accompanied being zapped. Jo grinned again and nodded. "Alright. You've got my full attention, miss Cyrille. I'm Jadden'sir Nousseri the Eighth. Most people call me Jo."

Before that last word was finished being vocalized Jonnovan was skirting around Cyrille in a mad dash. With practiced ease the mercenary withdrew Osiris, a veritable hand-cannon in size, and loosed two self-propelled shells that screamed out of the barrel and made their way towards the ground at Cyrille's feet. The resulting explosions would be around ten feet in diameter each, with power enough to be the equal of a charge or two. To make matters worse(for the electrokinetic, of course) the blasts would not simply be fire and force, either. Each slug was filled to the brim with a napalm-like substance that would keep burning with chemical fire and would not be easily extinguished if it got on to Cyrille.

Still running, keeping a measure of distance between Cyrille and himself, Jo charged another patch of wet concrete through the soles of his feet and smiled.