Heritage

A girl can tell a lot about a guy by the way he holds her while flying, and what Breakdown silently told Grim was I'm seeing someone; where he held her, the amount of pressure, it all spoke volumes. Which was fine; he was a too young for her anyway, and when you know you're an emotional basket case, it's not fair to mess with a rookie. So, a pleasant ride with light kibitzing suited her fine. At the edge of the cemetery proper, the night truly offered a bounty of ghoulishness; tall brick walls, a wrought iron gate (yikes, no touch!) and a seemingly endless landscape of gravestones beyond, at all kinds of kooky angles, with the lonely steeple of St. Stephen's standing forlornly in the distance. And mist...plenty of mist. The weird thing is, Jewish cemeteries never freaked her out; they always just seemed peaceful and serene. But put a few goyim in the ground, and hoo doggie, get a shotgun and a crucifix, 'cause you're gonna need 'em. Grim turned to her partner in crimefighting for the evening, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. "Okay, certain details of your mission could not be revealed to you until this time; this is a fact-finding mission only, at least I hope to God it is. We are hoping to view vampirus americanus in its normal habitat." The tiny shapeshifter swallowed visibly. "Tonight, we're going vampire hunting."

Between the old guy getting pissed, shedding his body to show his freaky-ass true form, and being teleported to a dark forest, Lynn was thunderstruck, left standing open-mouthed in her new surroundings, completely adrift. For maybe thirty seconds; then she got mad. "Hey!" She angrily jabbed a finger at the mysterious magical entity before her. "You are like centuries old and stuff, right? You've been around for a long time, and I respect that. What I want you to respect is that I'm just a frickin' kid! All I know about magic I picked up from watching cartoons, and movies, and forcing my older brother to play Dungeons and Dragons with me. I know squat. I am Jewish trailer trash, and I did not ask to be part of this! But you know what, here I am, trying to keep my head above water in the big leagues, and I am scared sh##less by all of this!" Her anger takes on an air of desperation as her voice cracks and tears form in her eyes. "So you don't get to bully me...okay? I have traveled through time, visited other dimensions, and I killed a man with my bare hands before I was sixteen! I have lived. So you don't....you don't get to yell at me..." At last, Lynn Epstein can only stand there, weeping.

This sounds very good to me! So what does the HQ look like? Like a warehouse, abandoned strip mall (or strip club :twisted:) or what? is is truly underground, as the name suggests?

"Actually we are headed to the Lantern Hill Cemetary by St. Stephen's, possibly the spookiest place on the East Coast. Should be pretty cool, right?" Once she sees that Breakdown is almost ready, she jumps up into his arms; despite being tiny, there are some fairly impressive muscles hidden beneath the surface of her well-toned little bod. "There we go, ridin' in style! This tip better play out, or I'm gonna kick this guy's head in." :roll: She points dramatically towards the top of the Hill. "Onward, Pastrami, my gallant steed! Onward to glory!"

I'll see you in the carnival, friend! Er, soon-to-be friend! :P

Lynn lays back on the cold gray stone, puts an arm across her eyes and holds up Taylor's phone. "Yep, you're right, you're Miss Mellow Yellow, my bad. Here ya go." She sighs deeply and shakes her head. "Un-freakin'-believable." After a few moments of silence, she sits back up and runs her eyes. "So what are you and Jack doing, patroling together or solo? You see any of the old gang?"

Or if we don't have it right away, we can save up for it next month.

Ooh, Grim actually is Struggling, so I guess her cell would cost 1 EP (never paid for it before :oops:). The other 4 are all for the HQ, though. Can we call it something cool like the Interceptor XM-1? So this team is gonna be full-on X-Men? Cool! Will Grim be able to juggle her workaday bike messenger job with crimefighting? Stay tuned!

Works for me. I'm still vague on how this all starts, though I could have Grim run into Colt at the carnival, and she's good friends with Monty. Who else knows each other? I think we need to do a hard list of who's in and who's out. If it's a once a month game, we could call it "Upstairs at Monty's - October", or the like.

We didn't pick a date for this yet; does anyone have a conflict on Tuesday, October 6th?

Well Grim only earned 1 PP last month, and I think she's supposed to have a 1 EP team comlink, so I guess that leaves 4 EP to put towards the HQ. I think we said cellphones are pretty much free if they don't shoot tear gas or anything, right? If so, Grim's still rockin' her pay-as-you go phone for personal use, though she has all kinds of interesting folks on speed dial ;)

How much overlap is there between poker players and Interceptors? I'm curious based on the timeline, folks meeting for the first time, etc.

So is there living space in the HQ? Could Grim move in full-time? Just curious.

And Gossamer is now a Tier 2 :(

Sorry, I typed that thing about the Archangels before I went back and saw the voting results on Interceptors, which is much cooler :bat: (dibs on Uriel)

Thank you guys for extending me this exclusive one-time-only offer. At first I was still thinking I might pass, since in the interest of 'niche protection' I was thinking that Grim and Blink might be too similar to feel balanced on the same team, but then I started thinking about the lack of mojo on this team; if I'm not mistaken, there is no magic, which every team needs, so I changed my mind! In fact, it's made me think about a few areas of future expansion for Grim (such as bringing back her pixie form, since I miss it so), and possibly adding a ranged 'elfshot' attack somewhere down the line. So yeah, go ahead, sign me up; hey, since Doc is sponsoring us, maybe we should be called the 'Archangels'? At first it sounds hokey, but then it starts to grow on you... :twisted:

Okay, we got the go ahead on using the upstairs room at Monty's!

Lynn gets up out of her chair and dusts herself. "Um, okay. Well, I don't actually get cold, but if you want, I can wear something a little more appropriate, I can do that." For a moment, her body is obscured by pale mist, which wraps around her completely; when it clears, she's wearing a long black robe with a hood, reaching down to the floor. She throws back the hood and shrugs as she looks down at herself. "Whaddya think, too corny? At least I didn't cover it with stars and moons."

The shapeshifter laughs hollowly. "Yeah, I have some 'concerns'. So, I'm guessing you're one of those 'good guy vamps' we're always seeing in movies; y'know, you've got a badass tricked-out muscle car, maybe a hot bowhunter chick riding shotgun, and you always do the right thing." She stops herself, clutching the phone tightly as she closes her eyes; this is not easy for her. "I, uh...I don't care about you - I mean, obviously I care, but we both know Phantom's too uptight to date someone who's actually 100% Florida squeezed Evil, so she can vouch for you." Lynn clambers down to sit on the ground Indian style, head bowed. "Tell me about the others; the vampires who aren't you."

Lynn nervously takes the phone. "Uh, fine, Guy Who Sounds Nothing Like Avenger. Was that all an act? I just assumed you had throat cancer, or like a brain injury." She smiles at her own joke; it's strained, but at least it's still a smile. "So yeah, word on the street is you're a dead guy who feeds on the blood of the living; how's that working out for ya?" Lynn's trying to keep the tone light, but there's clearly a nervous edge in her voice as she stares down at her sneakers.

Grim flashes a pair of Ozzy-style devil horns as her skin tone returns to normal. "Oh yeah, we got the fever!" She laughs, and then peers over the edge to the street below. "So, um, how exactly do you get around again? I seem to remember you flying during our quest for Nazis and canned peaches." She screws up her face in embarrassment as she scuffs a toe on the tarpaper roof. "I ask because...well, I don't fly so much anymore, so I might need a lift. I mean, I can still fly, but it takes a lot out of me, and if there's like a zombie fight or something, I want to be at my best, y'know?" She holds out her hands and a cricket bat appears, which she spins expertly. "How's that for a slice of fried gold? Whatever that means." ;)

Lynn throws up her hands in a classic East Coast shrug. "Wait, what? I don't care who you're shtupping, that's your deal. It's not your bodily fluids I'm worried about! The fluids of others are my concern; Joe and Jane Bloodbag, walking the streets of our town, all tasty and...bulging." Lynn holds up her hands and walks off a bit of her frustration, then turns back to Taylor. "Can I talk to Count Chocula for a sec? I won't mess up your phone, I promise."

Please convert Gossamer to a Tier 2 NPC; that way, she can still be used by GMs in the occasional Claremont thread. It was worth another shot, but I think I just have to accept that I'm a one PC kinda guy :roll Done by Doc

I PM'ed MBCE about using Monty's - I just think it would be cool to play someplace with a lot of character

Suddenly Lynn stops dead in her tracks and turns to face Taylor as she dials. "Wait a minute, you don't really ask a lot about 'the feeding thing'? Except when you're there?" She steps closer to her former teammate, eyes level, her right hand now clenched in a fist, not raised in anger, but desperately holding anger back. "I don't know which of those statements I find more disgusting. You're sleeping with a guy who sucks the blood of the living, Taylor; how can you even look at yourself in a mirror? In what crazy cosmic balance does any of this make sense?"