Heritage

Hey Shoe, could you have Phantasmo approach Echo instead? Gretchen is currently invisible

Lynn stood up and paced around some more, still covering her face. "I know, I know." She ran her fingers through her hair. "She's not completely dependent on me for income, but she's the one who came to me offering to be my assistant! And she actually has gotten my head back in the game and doing good work again." She stopped, put her hands on her hips and gnawed on her lower lip. "It really has become more of a partnership, which I like. And I do encourage her to go out on her own; she always knows she can call me, but more and more she can handle herself on her own, which makes me so damn proud of her." The changeling paced over to a nearby tree, and leaned up against it. "I never had any girl friends in school; I never had many friends period, but I really hated the other girls, mostly." She sighed. "The other night, Gretchen sent over 'What are you doing', and I said 'watching this really bad movie on Netflix' and she asked, 'which one'. So I told her, and then we...just watched it together, in different apartments, getting all drunk and bitchy and making fun of it. And I wished...I wanted her to be next to me on the couch, y'know? I wanted her head resting in my lap..." Lynn looked over to Taylor, a mixture of confusion and ache in her eyes. "I've never been with a girl, like that; I've never...I mean, with Divine, if you wanted her, that just meant you had a f###ing pulse, but this..." She bit her lower lip. "Not since Bill have I really clicked with someone; where I felt, 'Ah, well, he gets me.' Someone who can look me in the eye and say, 'You're so full of s###,' but coming from a loving place." The fae smiled and sadly shook her head. "I really miss that." And then she was back up and pacing again. "So, what do I do? Do I fire her from a job she loves? Do I...I mean, i don't even know if it will work out! Maybe I've been reading the signs all wrong and she hates me! What if we're not compatible? God, this used to be so much easier when I was just a dumb kid!"

Casey nodded as Terrifica laid out her plan, which naturally was pretty darn solid; she wasn't bothered by the older heroine's correction of her earlier suggestion, as she knew she still had a lot to learn about...well, everything. "I'm guessing they're using some form of radio communication, either just between each other or with someone else they might be working for; while I'm in the air, I'll scan up and down the radio band, see if i can pick up any additional intel." She really couldn't think of anything else to add, so she looked to the super-genius, awaiting further instructions.

Miracle Girl nodded and dutifully followed the EMT to a waiting ambulance. "Here, come inside and I'll patch you up," she offered kindly. Once Casey was inside, she pulled the door closed and looked the blonde heroine over. "Okay, so how...how does this come off?" The bodysuit seemed to be throwing her. "Oh, there are these hidden zips; here, I'll do it." She carefully peeled back the suit to expose her injured shoulder, torso and thigh; she clutched the ripped materially tightly, feeling very self-conscious. The EMT whistled as she saw the extent of the damage. "Wow, those cats did a number on you, sweetie! Still, looks like it could have been much worse; mostly superficial bleeding, but you're going to turn every color of the rainbow by tomorrow." She applied antiseptic and prepared some bandages. "'Nobody make me bleed my own blood'," Casey ruefully joked. "I'm sorry?" "I...nothing." Miracle Girl looked sheepish and shook her head. "Just quoting that movie Dodgeball." She sighed and endured the medic's ministrations with quiet dignity as she tried to imagine how the missing heiress was involved in all this. Hypnosis? Mind control? Bodysnatching? There were too many variables to consider at this point, any one of which could be the truth.

GM Lance sighed and looked blissfully content as he rang up Samuel's purchases. "Life is good, sir; life is good. Oh, I've also been instructed to give you this-" He handed the magician a small brown paper bag, from which tantalizing, buttery scents emerged. "One of Mrs. Nussbaum's famous apple strudel muffins, compliments of Silberman's Books. Made from scratch every day!" He put the books into a larger bag and handed them to Sam. "Thank you for shopping with us, and hope to see you again soon!"

Seeing as Casey has no ranks in Sense Motive and a 10 Wisdom (she's still very naive), I think it's actually impossible for her to make that check, unless a natural 20 is an automatic success.

GM Nothing Up My Sleeve (1) Grimalkin/Shrike (34) [Maxed] Late Night Out (1) Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon (6) Legacy of Hatred (1) Nothing Up My Sleeve (14) Something To Be Thankful For (5) The Box of Delights (2) Twinkling of an Eye (5) Miracle Girl (8) A Bad Case of the Runs (3) Brightly Polished 24 Carat Wits (4) Patriotic Gore (1) All points go to MG, as usual.

"Great, then it's settled! Meet back here after close, and I'll-" There was a polite knock on the door. "When you've got a sec, Boss Lady, I need you to do a refund." Grimalkin frowned slightly. "Do they have a receipt?" "Yep!" The changeling nodded and shrugged. "Okay, I'll be right there; sorry to keep you waiting, Lance." "It's all good." Grim rose from her chair as the vapor swirled around her once again, rewriting her back into Lynn Epstein. The Shrike twisted her ring counter-clockwise and was once again Gretchen McDaniels, the reverse transformation being much less impressive. The barista handed Presto his coat, then shook his hand; it was a firm handshake, though not particularly warm. "Well, then. Welcome aboard, Sam-uel." That little half smile again. Lynn came out from behind her desk, shook Sam's hand and clasped his shoulder while beaming. "Yes, welcome, welcome! We'll see you tonight." So much power and confidence in such a small woman! And then he was alone in the office to collect his thoughts, which in and of itself implied trust. What would the evening bring?

Good luck! We'll keep the home fires burning for you!

These kids were good, very good; seems their parents were getting what they paid for and then some. She envied their intense focus and efficiency, so unlike the more haphazard way Lynn trained her; not that she didn't appreciate the workouts and sparring, but these teenagers were f###ing machines. No, think about this, Gretch. You're going about this all wrong. Focus on your own strengths and play to them. Think of this as a game, and you and these kids have just formed a squad. What do you best? Once she put it into terms she could process, a little bit of her panic subsided; she could now imagine herself surviving this. So when the pack came around the corner, Shrike smoothly dropped to one knee, raised her left hand and grabbed her wrist with her right, and aimed her ring at pack leader's center of mass. Here's a kiss for you, bitch.

Gretchen is targeting Rict-oria Atom with her Ring of Powah! http://orokos.com/roll/368440 1d20+8=27 Finally some decent contact! DC 23 Toughness save.

Gretchen actually lowered her guarded facade a bit once Asli began to describe her most recent album; her eyes lit up and an eager, intermittent smile flickered across her face. "That sounds really cool; I love country, mostly the old stuff like Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and Hank Williams. I'll download it tonight." She cleared her throat and shifted around in her seat. "The stuff I gave you draws a lot on punk and rockabilly, but there's other stuff, too; I hate to be catagorized. 'Falling Out of Heaven' is fairly funky, and 'The Faces That She Saw' is basically a murder ballad." She gave Lynn a quick smile. "The Burning Wood is overwrought and pretentious as hell, but my boss likes it; it's a sort of instrumental chamber piece, like a suite, about a war between a forest and a robot army." She grimaced as she poured herself some wine. "I was shooting for Zappa and ended up with Emerson, Lake and Palmer; God help me." For her part, Lynn grinned and said nothing as she ate, happy to just listen and not be telling depressing stories. But mostly, she was delighted to see Gretchen and Sam connecting with people; despite her best efforts, she still fretted over her employees like a mother hen from time to time, like the Jewish grandmother she still was. She shook her head at her own silliness. Jeez, Granny, give it a rest!

One kind of crappy thing about going to art school is all the invites to 'come and see my show!' you get from former classmates on Facebook; it seemed like every week, there was a gallery opening or demo release party or 'interactive theatrical experience' going on somewhere in the city. Usually, Gretchen McDaniels just ignored the invites or bluntly declined, but this one had actually looked pretty good; Carol Otis was a good friend in a few of her classes, the one girl she could count on to make a boring class at least survivable. Her first studio release, Making Love in Black and White, sounded like it might be good, so Gretchen broke down and clicked on Attend. Boy was that a huge mistake! In the three years since she'd last seen her, Carol had become uber-trendy and kind of hideous; she'd had a lot of work done, talked only in superlatives, and her music...dear lord, her music was pure synthetic s###. The rented warehouse space was filled with bad neon sculpture, moronic Bieber clones, and boney models who probably had Obsession flowing in their veins; ugh! During a break in the conversation, Gretchen excused herself to use the bathroom; it was small, freezing cold and little more than a tiny toilet and a sink stained with paint. Once she was done, she found a dark hallway just behind it where she could become the Shrike, go invisible and float out of the warehouse by quietly hovering just below the ceiling until she was outside. Unlike the party, her escape was a smashing success, proving once again how much better her life had become since working at Silberman's. But then flying over the rooftops and wrapped in her cloak for warmth, the barista noticed what might be a possible crime in progress. "Well, I do have the rest of the evening free now," she murmured with a shrug. Unseen and nearly silent, she dropped to the rooftop of the building in question to have a look.

Boom.

Grim nodded as she leaned forward to peer at the wand. "Probably, probably," she murmured. "Nice threads, by the way." An almost child-like smile touched Shrike's lips as she muttered,"'Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.'" The changeling grinned evilly as she gnawed on her thumbnail. "You know what we should do is, head over to Rusty's after work. Get in some target practice..." Her assistant nodded and crossed her arms. "Agreed." She turned to Presto and cocked her head to one side. "How do you feel about blowing up junked cars several miles away from civilization?"

Gretchen stood, dusted herself off and looked down at her costume. "Hmm. I actually have no idea." She reached into a pouch on her hip and pulled out a wallet. "Well, the stuff in my pockets carries over, so I'm not sure what that means." "It's inconclusive," said Lynn, nodded with mock seriousness as she laid Samuel's IDs on her flatbed scanner. "More tests need to be run, involving a wide variety of pants and pocket contents, just to be sure. Gum wrappers, paper clips, Pez dispensers..." Her assistant stopped and put her hands on her hips as she glared at her boss, "Hey, wait a minute. Am I the only who's going to put a silly outfit on? You need to change, too." Her employer shook her head and chuckled. "Okay, first off, I don't have to do anything; this is my store, my rules. Secondly, yours was way too cool! How can I possibly top that?" "Why do you have to top it? Just do the thing, he'll be impressed." Lynn threw her head back over her chair and groaned. "Fine, I'll do it!" She launched herself forward, put her hands on the desk and gave Samuel a big grin as she indicated the Shrike with a jerk of her head. "You think that's impressive? Brother, you ain't seen nothin' yet!" She kicked up a leg and threw up her hand like an old timey pin-up as a strange grayish vapor started swirling around her outstretched arm, coiling around it and down; it flowed over her completely, leaving a rather more elfin creature in its wake. Grimalkin was quite a bit thinner than Lynn, with a more youthful face, and her auburn hair was short and spiky, revealing a pair of cute pointed ears. The jeans and sweater were gone, replaced by a rather snug leather suit in black and midnight blue leather. Black soft boots adorned her feet, which matched her fingerless gloves and domino mask. "Behold Grimalkin, Mistress of Mystery! Righter of wrongs and biweekly payroll checks!" "Wow. Even for you, that pun was bad." "Thank you!" A starlet smile was frozen on her face as she wiggled her jazz hands. "So, whaddya think?" she asked Samuel through clenched teeth; her voice was noticeably pitched higher as Grim.

The store owner nearly laughed with a mouthful of coffee, but barely caught herself. She nervously rubbed a hand on her thigh as she considered the question. "Yeah, well, that's kind of the thing. I'm not...I'm not a hundred percent sure of what my feelings are; there's a lot of overlap and confusion, and I just-" She stopped, closed her eyes and squeezed her hands into fists. "It's Gretchen, Taylor, possibly; Gretchen is 'the guy'." Placing the Thermos on the ground, she began to pace back and forth across the path, her boots crunching in the dead leaves as her hands darted about like angry sparrows. "I'm not...I care about her, Taylor, I care a lot. I worry about her and want to protect her, but I'm also proud of her when she's strong. But it's...are these just weird mom feelings? Because...I'm old, compared to her; I'm like grandma old. And, maybe I'm just looking for someone to protect, y'know? Like a, like a weird case of empty nesting or something? Plus she works for me, so there's like ethics stuff. And, she's a girl, which I've-" She dropped down into a crouch and covered her face with her gloved hands. "Oh, my head feels like it's on fire..."

"But I am," said Casey as she shifted into overdrive; she took a deep breath, and then her outline became somewhat hazy and indistinct, and a low hum could be heard. It was very rare to apply her super-speed like this while standing still; normally, she'd be running all over the place. When she looked around, her head appeared to flicker and dart almost like a hummingbird. "I see them!" she yelled, far too fast for anyone but Terrifica to hear; Leviathan only her a quite splurt of sound. But then she slowed back to normal speed. "There are three of them, I think two men and a woman. The woman's pretty, in a blue and white suit with a sort of lightning design. One man is wearing a costume in purple and bluish-gray, and the other in some sort of power armor; maybe it gives him his speed?" Miracle Girl stroked her chin for a second. "If we're going to defeat them, we need to bring them down to a speed we can all handle, but to do that, we need to know how their powers work. If the suit is what makes the one guy fast, then we need to shut that down." She shrugged."I have no idea about the other two; maybe trap them in some sort of low-inertia fluid?"

http://orokos.com/roll/366938 1d20+2=16

Will do! Any descriptions I should impart? You can PM if you want to.avoid thread redundancy.

I'm thinking Casey can somehow use her Quickness to spot them, not sure if that requires any kind of roll.

Gretchen loved killing zombies; whether it was playing Left4Dead, Dying Light or Black Ops, watching Rick and Daryl do their thing on The Walking Dead, or having intense chat room debates over the relative merits of fast vs slow zombie films (Gretchen liked 'em slow; she was a purist), she'd always found the subject of zombies endlessly fascinating. Sometimes she entertained the thought of how well she'd do in a zombie apocalypse, with her basic martial arts training and technical skills. Gretchen no longer found zombies entertaining. For several seconds after she missed, she was frozen in place; even at this range, her shot went wild, no doubt due to her green status, and for a moment she thought the thing was going to leap on her and rip her to shreds. Then a crossbow shot worthy of Norman Reedus tore through its neck, followed up almost instantly by a hatchet to the face; the blood narrowly missed splashing on her. The kid who shot it couldn't have been more than fifteen, sixteen maybe; he sounded like he might have been Cajun, weird accent. Loaded for bear, as the saying went. Two other kids followed him out into the hall; from the masks and powers, probably Claremonters. Good to know she wasn't alone, though of course they were completely ignoring her for some reason; okay, sure she missed, but at least she was trying! Why didn't they- Because you're invisible, dumbass. She almost laughed out loud at her own stupidity, but instead she threw back her hood and was suddenly right there among them, all of five foot four in her heels, black leather, silver mask and cloak. "Mind if I join you? I'm the Shrike." Her usual deadpan voice was edged with fear,

"Great! Welcome aboard!" She firmly shook his hand, then she caught herself. "Damn, now we're gonna have three people named 'Sam' hanging around the store; that won't be remotely confusing." Gretchen shrugged. "Well, at least he's the only one with testicles. That should make things easier." She smirked. "Or we can could just call him Samuel." The lovely brunette looked extremely relieved as she got up and went back behind her desk and started opening drawers. "Right, of course! Okay, Sam..uel, let me get some paperwork for you to fill out, for tax purposes and such, and I'll need to make a copy of your ID." Meanwhile, a mental conversation was going on... - So, whaddya think? Too impulsive, right? - - It's actually not the worst idea you've ever had. - - Wow; that's like a ringing endorsement from you. - - But you're dancing around it. Stop being such a tease. - - What? In what way? - - The hero thing. Just tell him already. - - You're usually the one who says I share my secret identity too easily! - - Well, you do. But in this case...I think it's the right thing to do. - - Okay. Alright, I'll just- - - No. Let me do it for once. After all, I'm the one following in the legacy of his hero. - - That's...okay, you're right! Go for it. - - Cool. I've been working on this. - - Oh jeez... - After exchanging a series of meaningful looks as Lynn pulled out the various IRS forms, the two young women looked at Samuel and smiled, one warm yet tinged with concern, the other a bit more reserved but now with a hint of mischief as she moved to close the transom window over the office door. "Sooo, Gretchen and I were just talking..well, actually thinking, but you know what I mean. And we agreed that, well, there's a time to be cryptic and a time to put all your cards on the table." She sighed and shook her head. "We don't just sell books around here. As my lovely assistant Gretchen will now demonstrate." That actually made her snarky barista blush a bit a she tried to hide her genuine smile behind sarcasm. "Aw, gee thanks, boss." Then she poked Samuel's shoulder and held out her left hand, which bore a simple silver ring with a large red ruby. A ruby that now somehow looked familiar... "Recognize this?" She indicated a framed 8 by 10 of Al-Kazar on a nearby bookshelf with a tilt of her head. "Back in his day, the ring was gold. And a bit more...Liberace." She smirked again, then gave the ring a sharp clockwise twist; suddenly Gretchen rose up in the air, back arched, head thrown back and arms and legs out at her sides. There was a weird stuttering light like an old movie projector as the young woman's clothing shifted and flowed, until she hung in the air, wrapped in black leather and a hooded cloak as black as night! A bird-like silver mask covered the top half of her face, and bore another ruby, almost as large as the one on the clasp of her cloak. Hovering in the air with her arms spread, the cloak transformed her into a marvelous bird of prey. "I am...the Shrike!" Lynn herself was actually damn impressed; she even clapped. "Wow...damn it, that's..you are so getting a raise!" Gretchen dropped to one knee and clenched her fist in triumph. "Yes!"

Lynn shrugged as she unscrewed her Thermos and poured herself some coffee that smelled of hazelnut and rich cream. "Well, at least he's an equal opportunity frightener." She laughed as she imagined Jack dealing with Set. "Colt always kinda freaked out when I turned into a guy on the job; he had a hard time making eye contact, and he got all squirmy. At first, I used to mess with him, but then I had to accept the fact that it unnerved him a bit and it wasn't cool." She shrugged. "After that, I was strictly professional." The changeling was quiet for a while, seemingly content to sip her coffee and enjoy the outdoors and Taylor's company. Finally, she cleared her throat. "Hey, y'know, there's something...I need to talk about with someone, or my head is gonna explode." She squinted over at her friend. "Do we do dating advice? Are we at that level yet?"

"Oh, thanks! Yeah, that was a tough one; glad we had an expert pilot on hand." Casey frowned in thought. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I haven't heard of you; have you just started operating in Freedom recently?" She normally did a good job of staying on top of local news; not from the local TV news, which she loathed, but from regularly reading all the local papers, as well as the Denver Post, New York Times and Miami Herald every day. She also looked at her informal mentor with interest, eager to find out how she and the big fellow could help.