Stage 2: News Director, Miss Lyra

Lyra narrowed her eyes as she took the spot Smith had occupied at the card table, then kicked one leg up across the other as she plopped her very wide bottom down into the still-warm seat her underling had prepared for her. Her skirt and blazer, a red just a bit more towards maroon than Robin's cherry, both groaned and crackled at each movement of the oversized T&A stuffed inside, as though overworking her wardrobe was as key to her success as overworking her employees.

A big grin was still spread across Lyra's face, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. A mixture of feelings bubbled inside of her-- none of them were pleasant or warm. She was annoyed at Smith's incompetence. She was frustrated at the disruption of the interview session she'd been planning to hold today. Plus, maybe, just a little...

... there might be a hint of nervousness about what would happen if she lost the same way Smith had. Smith had forfeited all of her clothes and been thrown to the public without a scrap to cover her slit. In Lyra's eyes, Smith lived a life that was practically that degrading day-to-day anyway, there was really nothing for Smith to lose. Lyra, on the other hand, had clawed her way to the top... if the same thing happened to her, it would be a long fall down the mountain. That sort of fall hurt a prideful woman like her far more than it hurt a worm like Smith.

Speaking of which, even after everything that had happened to Smith just now, the intern was still grinning from ear-to-ear, cackling under her breath with anticipation at the final comeuppance of her superior. She didn't seem to care that she was standing around, butt-naked, with her stupidly huge boobs hanging like big, wobbly eyesores.

"Can we get her out of here? It's like the intern's clothes were a bag holding all the stink in. I can smell her from here," Lyra exaggerated, making a show of holding her nose and fanning the air. "Peeee-yew!"

"Let's not be childish, Miss Lyra," her opponent across the table chuckled, wearing a challenging smirk. "Having taken a sniff of her now, I think I prefer that smell to your overdone perfume."

The girl, with her hair dyed half red, half-brown and her dealer's suit, stood out in the news room. Robin Redd, the woman of mystery, had been underestimated right from the starting pistol, Lyra now realized. She hadn't waltzed into the station and tried to right the karmic scales with nothing more than her plucky attitude and a bluff... she had some sort of supernatural power to enforce the outcome of her games.

Lyra hated that dyed hair, the youthful impetuousness, and the smug smirk on Robin's face. It all smacked of individuality-- there was no place for something like that in her news room.

The woman buried her hatred, then reapplied her lipstick in a small hand mirror and examined her handiwork. She pursed her lips, gave a couple of fake kisses, then let that huge, news-anchor grin spread back across her lips. She wanted to remind herself that she still had it next to this annoyingly TV-ready hot tamale in tight slacks. "Do you think it's easy to be a manager here in the most important news room in the world?" she sighed with a heave of the huge swells under her blazer. "I'm trusted with overseeing everything our gals say and do. How they act, how they dress, etcetera. That's because I get results. It takes a lot of hard work to get to my level, not just luck, but I've got that too if I need it." She pantomimed curling one hand like a paw, playful and relaxed. "I'm like a mountain lion in makeup-- and I'm all claws."

"Well, every kitty needs to get her claws trimmed some time," Robin shrugged as she shuffled the deck. "Anyway, with the age difference between the two of us, you're more like a cougar, aren't you? Not that I'm complaining, ha ha ha!"

Lyra's lower eye-lid twitched. "Either way, I'm a carnivore, honey! As long as you're in my news room, there's no beating me. I'm the boss-"

"I actually knew a woman who was a lot like you! She called herself the boss, too. I seem to recall her in tears, begging me to go easy on her," Robin boasted. "You've heard the news, right? About the Soldiers of Fortune?"

Lyra made a show of fluffing up her voluminous hairdo, though she watched Robin out of the corner of her eye. "Hm? What would I care about them?"

"Oh, well, they were the biggest mercenary group in the world. I imagine you were familiar with them even if you didn't report on them, ha ha. I guess the reason they were so effective was that they mostly stayed out of your news, huh? Anyway, I'm the one who disbanded them."

The other woman went silent for a bit, then chuckled through her teeth, a growl rising into her voice. "That was you? Oh, pookie-pie! Oh, my sweet little booger bear..."

Then, she cackled. She threw back her head and laughed with a whip of her long hair. The grating sound of her open-mouthed chortle reverberated throughout the otherwise silent broadcast room. Robin couldn't hide her surprise, momentarily ceasing her shuffle.

"Haaaa ha ha ha, you did me a favor!" Lyra doubled forward on the table, clutching one hand to her gut. "Our CEO did have a sort of handshake agreement with those baboons, sure! Fortuna was privately interested in trying to sanitize their image, so we did a little business together... we keep them in the good graces of world powers, they bring their tanks down on those who don't support our agenda. But this is my chance to win all of your assets, right? A full takeover always beats a handshake agreement, ha ha ha ha ha! So when I beat you, we'll own the Soldiers of Fortune? With world news and the strongest army in the world under our thumb-- undeclared on balance sheets, untraceable-- we'll call every shot there is to call, haaa ha ha ha ha! Oh, you darling little ragamuffin, we'll have more power than the president of the US of A!"

For the first time, Robin felt herself sweating a bit. That was a scary thought... she'd worked so hard to take down the Soldiers of Fortune and in doing so, she'd absorbed everything they had. If Lyra won, all of that would just end up owned by her. Lyra seemed worse than Fortuna, in terms of her ability to do harm with power placed in her hands.

"Hey... I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but you can't lose to her," Smith grumbled from nearby.

"Ditto," Betty giggled, poking Robin's cheek with her pointed tail from one side. "But you're not going to lose, right?"

"D-Do your best," Coline gulped, her voice carrying the same urgency. She could probably get a lot of flack for allowing that kind of transfer of power to happen when she was supposed to be watching over this mission as an angel.

The Indian girl who was supposed to be interviewed stood next to Smith with a cute, inoffensive smile on her face that didn't match the mood of anyone else in the room. "This is so exciting!"

"You know how you become a news director?" Lyra continued with a sigh in her voice, suddenly seeming more relaxed now that the mood in the room was swinging in her favor. "It's about directing news; part spotting trends, part exploiting them. What do people like to see, what do they not? What makes them happy? What makes them angry? If it does make them angry, does it also make them tune in? And how long can you keep them angry, chewing over that one piece of news you served up?" she continued, turning her hand over and examining her nails. "When it comes to reporting the news, seeing other people successful and content is boring. When others lose, we win. How do you turn yesterday's darling into today's public enemy? Do you get why I'm emphasizing this part?"

Robin shook her head silently.

That carnivorous flash came into Lyra's eyes again as her grin spread more broadly, showing a bit of the gums. "I'm telling you that when Miss Lyra comes up with a way to hurt somebody, she knows how to make it reeeeally sting. The kind of sting that lasts and lasts... long enough to fill a week's news cycles, anyway! That's all you can ask for in this business."

It felt like the woman across the table was more of a devil than Betty ever was, Robin thought to herself. Suddenly, Robin remembered how it felt to play against Bugs... once again, her opponent was looking at her like a nice, juicy cut of meat. Two could play at that game! Robin imagined how satisfying it would feel to peel her opponent's well-aged hams out of that multi-thousand dollar suit and smiled in anticipation.

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Opponent: News Director, Miss Lyra

Pile: 4

Difficulty: Challenging

Ability: Selective Reporting-- if Lyra would bust by going over 21, she can throw out the hand and restart. You can use one Angel Power to block this ability.

Karmic Rewards: 100 points per round win, 1100 points per game victory, +2 Angel Power or Devil Power

((Challenge coming soon))