It was hard not to forget the mission and start laughing.

"You see, every year we choose a real historical person from the Victorian era and use them and their life story as a sort of theme for the convention." Magnus had a perfect view of her dear friend's face in the mirror as Benjamin launched into an enthusiastic explanation. "Nicola Tesla was a nineteenth century mad scientist, he patented all sorts of crazy inventions that were hundreds of years before their time," confusion, irritation, then a hint of pride flitted across the vampire's face. "Of course most of them didn't work," and promptly dissolved in favour of rage.

"EXCUSE me?"

Magnus put a hand out to stop Tesla before he did something he'd regret. "What my friend means is that we're not from the press." She looked around, there was only one other person in the hallway, another convention attendee if her all-leather outfit was any indicator. Magnus lowered her voice. "Listen, a few weeks ago you made a purchase from an online auction. Now this is a little difficult to explain, but that object is very important and very dangerous. I'm going to need you to-"

"Hand it over!" Magnus had expected some quip like that from Tesla, but it wasn't his voice coming from directly behind her. The faint click of a gun being readied confirmed it, and she slowly turned around to come face to face with the leather-clad woman pointing a very real weapon at them.

Magnus slowly raised her hands in surrender. Tesla did the same, with even more reluctance; he'd just been slighted, and he certainly wasn't above misdirecting a little anger in a fight. If it came to that.

"Well, looks like I wasn't the only one to trace that auction. I'm impressed, I think only a handful of people on the surface would recognize a real Praxian artifact if they saw one." Their new opponent was tall, blonde, and evidently in peak physical form. Her eyes looked almost feline, but bright purple, and something about her smile gave the distinct impression of predator. Definitely an abnormal, but not a species that Magnus recognized. That made her either a one-off mutation, or something from Hollow Earth she'd never had a chance to categorize. "Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Which one of you is Benjamin Pennell?"

At the back of the group, it was just starting to dawn on Benjamin that this wasn't part of the convention. Magnus considered throwing Tesla into the role of Mr. Pennell, but the real man spoke up before she could act.

"I am" he said. To his credit he wasn't whimpering or trying to run, or even striding boldly forwards to face the danger like it was something out of a comic book. Pretty good head in a crisis, for an accountant.

"Good. Sixteen days ago you bought a Praxian bomb on ebay. Hand it over now, or I kill you. Capish?"

"I- I can't. I mean, I don't have it anymore."

"Well then, who does?"

Benjamin hesitated, doing the math in his head. Whoever he'd given the artifact to was going to be the next one this woman threatened, but staying silent was saying no to the madwoman with a gun.

"Do I need to make a demonstration?" The leather-clad woman tilted her gun at Magnus instead, and started to pull the trigger.

Magnus reached for her stun gun, but Tesla was faster. A sweep of his hand and their abnormal adversary's metal gun was flung halfway down the hall. Magnus' first shot went wide over the her shoulder, giving the violet-eyed woman time to draw a knife from her belt and close in with superhuman speed. Definitely an abnormal, and definitely a professional, but she hadn't figured out that the real threat in close quarters combat wasn't the one with the gun.

Before the abnormal could even finish her first wild sweep of the knife, Magnus heard a familiar hiss and ducked. The mercenary came face to face with the world's last living vampire, and her knife scraped uselessly against his nearly indestructible claws. She changed tactics immediately, ditching her blade and crashing headlong into him with more strength than a creature twice her size. Tesla was braced for another knife attack, the tackle caught him off guard and they went barrelling through the door of the nearest hotel room like it was made of cardboard.

Magnus fired again, this time the crackling bolt from the stunner hit her opponent squarely on the shoulder. Too little too late, though, the mercenary was already back on her feet and barely slowed by the low-energy blast. Her bright purple eyes looked between Magnus's gun and Tesla, who'd taken the brunt of the door and was still picking himself up. She ran for the window, and Magnus got off one more miss before she'd crashed through it and was gone.

'Damnit!" Magnus ran to the window to follow, but the crowd of confused people below already masked their assailant from view. No way they could catch up now.

Her second thought was for Nikola, of course, but a little scuff like that hadn't bruised anything but his ego. He was already up and fussing with his suit, which had also managed to survive the altercation unscathed. He was muttering something under his breath, which to Magnus sounded very much like "most of them didn't work my ass."

Benjamin was very wisely pressed against the far wall of the hallway, trying to stay out of the way. "What... what just happened?"

"Is there somewhere we can talk, Mr. Pennell? I think we have a bit of explaining to do."