Heritage

Outside on the sidewalk, Grim loiters invisibly as she watches the crowd, once again the observer; for the first time in a while, she craves a smoke, something she hadn't felt since she was reborn in that cold alley. Her sensitive nose can't handle the stench anymore, but to have that little stick of joy in her fingers again, to flick and fumble with before raising it to her lips... It's a filthy habit and you're lucky to be rid of it; you actually had to 'die' to quit, remember? She peers upwards towards where she imagines the sixth floor must be; why couldn't they have held this darn thing in a proper hotel, with balconies and verandas, not this glass and steel monstrosity. Then she could have gone out one of the French doors, get some fresh air, and make her way back in. The fact is, she's too worked up to go home or patrol, and there were one of two other folks she wouldn't mind talking to, if only for a minute or two. Maybe I can find a service entrance. Oh for God's sake, don't be an idiot! She suddenly reappears by the doorman, giving him the shock of his life, but he quickly regains his composure and waves her inside; once she's in the sixth floor lobby, she ghosts again to have a quick look 'round. Hmm, no one dead, but a few key players have absented the field of battle. Satisfied that the party has not gone completely to the dogs, she reappears and heads to the buffet for another plate.

Wow, what happened here? Is Grim gonna haveto come back inside after a short 'smoke break'? ;)

Suddenly Lynn reappears, wearing what looks like black leather biker gear; everyone in the bar already saw her, so the thought of suddenly sporting a domino mask seems kind of insulting, but she feels that something more heroic is called for now. She peers around the trashed pub, claws still out in case the villains reappear. "Damn. Is everyone okay? Does anyone need a doctor? What am I thinkin', I'm just gonna call the cops right now." She flips out her cell and rapidly dials. "Yeah, hi. I wanna report a violent altercation involving two subjects at Morley's in the West End; you should send a squad car, ambulance and the fire department, y'know, just in case. I'm sorry, what? No, just a concerned citizen. G'bye." The phone is gone in the blink of an eye, and Lynn shudders. "Don't like cops, probably never will." The young shapeshifter sighs and puts her hands on her hips. "Mmm, this is my least favorite part; waitin' on da fuzz. Do you mind if I split, or do you really want me to stay? I mean, Ill help out with the cleaning and stuff, but cops just make me nervous."

I was gonna wait on you, M, but in the interest of keeping this thread alive, I'm gonna post :D

I think this might be more accurate, Fell: :arrow: Thunder went to the washroom to dry the champagne out of her dress. :arrow: Grimalkin disappears. :arrow: Pompadour stopped to sneer at Student Body (not so much at Battlecry and Geckoman, who he saw as victims). :arrow: Geckoman has his freak-out, and runs into the washroom, while Pompadour resists Student Body's fascinate and tears her a new one. :arrow:Pixie-sized Grimalkin appears by the Men's room and calls to Geckoman through the door, while Pompadour follows more slowly -seeing a Pixie, he stops entirely, wondering if the champagne was dosed with LSD (but doesn't seem confused himself, so rules that out). :arrow: The Claremont Chaperones accost Pompadour. :arrow: Geckoman exits the washroom and encounters Grimalkin, who returns to normal size, Thunder emerges from the Lady's room and apologizes to Grimalkin. :arrow: Fletcher "narc" Beaumont announces that he can smell Pompadour's emotion controlling scents. :arrow: Ace rescues Pompadour on his way to the washroom, Duncan Summers collects Pompadour, and speaks to Geckoman, who has just come out of the Men's :arrow: Grimalkin leaves after saying goodbye to Ace

Jack was in the john, and I think maybe still is.

Grim nods as she peers over in the indicated direction. "Yeah, I can tell he's a douche from all the way over here; God, I hate rich kids more than anything else in the world. Well, except maybe skinheads." She shakes her head and looks down at her feet for a second. Whoa, check out those calves! "Fear my calves, puny human!" But she quickly regains focus and looks back at the angry kid pimp, in his ridiculous outfit that he must think makes him look 'dope' and 'fly', and she can't help but smile. Hey, at least he's got balls; I wouldn't be caught dead in that get-up. "Look kid, ya gotta do what you gotta do, but do you really wanna do it in here, with all the stiffs and the suits on guard? Lure him outside, then hit him in the back of the head with a shovel; that's what I always do." The now-more-muscular Grim turns to see Thunder approach; she accepts her handshake and nods at her sincere apology. "Nah, it's cool; this crowd is enough to put anyone in a mood. Look at Chester Cheetah here, he-" When the waves of conflicting emotions suddenly flood her mind, Grim feels like the Tilt-a-Whirl is back with a vengeance; she feels something you might call 'emotional nausea' in the back of her head and in her guts. "Okay, that's it, this party officially blows; next year, if there is a next year, we're getting a sitter. I'm heading outside to clear my head; any of you other freaks are welcome to join me." The diminutive heroine slims down, thus making herself even more diminutive and better at slipping through a crowd, and starts working her way to towards the elevator, but not before she turns back to look at Ace to smile and shrug. "Hey, thank you so much for the invite, Mr. Dangerman Sir; it felt real good to be here with the cream of the crop!" She wggles her eyebrows and does her best Mae West. "Why don't you come down to the Fens and see me sometime." But Grim suddenly drops the act when she realizes how it might be misinterpreted. :shock: :? "To fight crime, of course! I have a boyfriend, and he's totally cool and everything. You and me, Ace! 'We fight crime!'" Then she fades from view...

So maybe the bag wasn't such a great idea after all; Grim chalked it up to experience, though she thought maybe in the future she could perfect some kind of variation on the same theme- Assuming she had a future, because it looked like she was about to die- RUNCH! Or, possibly not; man, that looked painful. Wow. Just...wow. :shock: The invisible heroine remembered reading Greek myths as a kid, loving all the intrigue and backstabbing between the gods of Olympus, but as she grew older, she came to realize that the gods were kinda horrible; petty, jealous and cruel, an Olympian might turn a hunter into a deer so his own dogs would eat him, or turn a former lover into a tree. Clearly a little bit of that wicked pantheon was alive and well today. That all being said, Grim wasn't about to waste a perfectly good opportunity like this; the lithe vigilante steps deftly over to the shaken villainess, then let's her have it.

Tiny Grim's eyes go wide at the sight of...well, whatever Weapons of Party Destruction Geckoman is brandishing; she holds her hands up in a warding gesture. "Whoa there, Pimpbot 3000! What are you- wait, hold on a sec." She concentrates for a second and fills out to her normal size, albeit considerably more muscular than her normal form; the wings disappear from sight, and suddenly the room is spinning a lot less. "There we go! Okay, so what do those things do, and who exactly do you plan to use them on?" PowerGrim turns to the ageless adventurer, then jerks her head towards Gecko's odd devices. "Gee, I dunno, things look fine from where I'm standing! Got any ideas, Ace?" :?

Grim is also converting 6 points of Dexterity into 6 points of Strength, so her totals are now Str: 16 (+3) Dex: 18 (+4).

Guess that leave out all the damn vampires ;)

For the record, Grim was not back in town yet on the 29th, since she was making her way back east from Seattle; however I did edit her April 4th News entry to reflect the explosion being mentioned in the paper.

Yeah, I don't think your the only one with that opinion This might be the last come-as-you-are superhero party we see for a while.

May 28th, 2009: Grim and Ember Fox meet in a bookstore in their civilian identities and discuss magic. (Once Upon A Time...)

Grim's little self-pity party abruptly comes to a halt when the teen pimp wannabee suddenly freaked out and made a run for the can. "What the fudge..?" Oh my god, did somebody dose him? Either there was a supervillain in the house, or one of the so-called-heroes was a complete and utter jackass. Either way, the kid looked scared. "To hell with this!" She took one final gulp of her Long island, set the glass carefully down on a nearby table, and returned to the land of the visible right before she shrunk down to pixie-size and took to the air... Grim has had about one and a third glasses of champagne, and half a Long island ice tea; she now weighs a little over a pound :shock: Whooooaaaaaahhhhhh! The room spins like a Tilt-a-Whirl, and Grim zooms wildly through the crowd as she desperately tries to get her bearings; it's a credit to her excellent reflexes that no one loses an eye. Finally she makes her way to the ceiling, bouncing off a few acoustic tiles before she gets the men's room door in her sights. Okay, I can do this...here we go! With a powerful thrum of her wings, Tiny Drunken GrimPixie makes a beeline for the restroom, stopping to flutter just outside the door. "Dude, chill out! Someone slipped you some bad shrooms, man! It'll be okay!"

I was pretty sure, but I thought I'd ask ;)

Grim stops and blinks, like she was just hit in the face by a line drive. "I, uh-" It's one of those rare moments moments when the talkative young shapeshifter is completely at a loss for words. "I won't." Once Thunder is out of sight, Grim faces crumples with dismay, and despite herself, tears start forming. Idiot! Idiot! Stupid dumb girl who doesn't know anything about anything! Why the hell did you even come, to play dress-up with the grown-ups? She makes her way over to the bar and orders a Long Islands ice tea; once she has it, she finds a dark corner of the room, fades out of sight and starts in on her drink. Well at least you can get wasted; isn't that the 'grown-up' thing to do?

Grim's taking 10 with Hide in Plain Sight, for a total of 32. Also it occurs to me that Grim is technically still underage at this point, since her 21st birthday is June 17. Should I have had her being carded? She can produce a very good fake ID with Create Object if needed.

Made it :D

Aw crap, I'm the worst hero ever. She slips free of the rest of the conversation and catches up with Thunder, which isn't exactly easy considering the taller woman's longer stride, and navigating the crowd to keep up is quite the challenge. "Hey, look, I am...beyond sorry for that; I'm horrified, ashamed, and even, oh excuse me, even abashed. And though I could see in your eyes that you really wanted to abash my face in, I was really hoping I could, pardon me, sorry, grovel a bit, and, uh, I dunno, buy you lunch or coffee or something to make it up to you." She stops and indicates the dress. "I would so buy you a new dress, if I had the money, but I don't; I would even steal you a new dress, if I knew your measurements and was, y'know...well, nevermind." Grim closes her eyes and sighs. "I'm really, really sorry, and I promise you that if we ever work together in the future, you can, I dunno, push me off a bridge or something. Whatever you wanna do."

Okay, so basically we're using for Create Object as a Dazzle effect here, not Suffocation; what do I have roll for this to work?

Wow, the mouth on this girl! And did she say- Oh. Oh! Well, how...nice for them. Grim rolled to one side, easily dodging the weird blast effect and completely missing the Betty Friedan reference (was she on Golden Girls?), but staples in her butt sounded very uncool. I think I got lucky on that last hit; time to try something new. She steps silently behind her prey, raises her hands towards Sidetrack's head, and then with a flick of her wrist creates a black bag over the villain's head! The fit is fairly tight around the neck, but not so tight as to cut off circulation or limit her ability to breathe. Right before she drops low and back, she whispers. "Careful, you might hit your little friend with that thing."

Okay, Grim made it this time. Yay!

Lynn frowns slightly, then nods as she fidgets with her sleeve. "Um, okay, that's...I have some, y'know, stuff with my mom, too. So, no big deal." She looks around the rest of bookstore, drumming her hands on the table, until her eyes rest back on Sirius. She sighs deeply. "So, ah...I keep wanting to ask you more about yourself, but my guess is, you're just gonna be all Irish and enigmatic, and tell me 'it's complicted'. Which is fine, but it's no way to kill five minutes, so..." She sits up in her chair and leans forward on to her elbows "Whadya want to know about me, Curious George? Fire away; I might even answer."

Grim has finally managed to get the last of her cats into its cat carrier, the three plastic boxes being stacked together in the middle of the room. She stuffs her messenger uniform and a few loose belongings (was that a stuffed animal?) into her courier bag, which she ties around her waist to keep it clear of any wings that might suddenly sprout out of her back. "Uh, uh, what else, what else, what else?" She moves frantically throughout the squat, digging thorough black garbage bags and piles of stuff on the floor; it's hard to tell how much of this 'panic' is real and how much is a put-on. She spots her chin-up bar braced in a doorway. "Okay, this is it, this is the last thing." The tiny heroine grows an extra foot to more easily reach the bar (which she normally jumps up to, so her feet dangle) and begins furiously twisting it loose. "So I guess you're finally outta here, huh?" Standing in the open window is a giant winged insect, looking more like a fly than anything else but clearly no known species of arthropod; he's wearing an a-shirt and baggy cargo pants held up on his odd frame by suspenders. Somehow there is a sadness in his large compound eyes as he buzzes into the room. "Carmine? Oh my god, I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again!" The still-tall Grim drops the chin-up bar and runs over to him, but stops to carefully put her arms around his thorax. "Are you in some kinda trouble, kid?" She nods, head against what passes for his chest. "Yeah, big time; there's a guy or guys after me, and I gotta hit the road, fast." She untangles herself, smooths back her hair, and indicates Wes with an awkward wave of her hand. "This is, uh, We-the Knight, or just 'Knight'. Y'know, to his friends. He's kinda helpin' me out. Knight, Carmine, Carmine, Knight." Carmine folds his pair of spindly black arms across his chest and floats there, like a disapproving insect dad. "Well, I don't like the looks of 'im." The young heroine looks mortally embarrassed as she returns to her normal height and fetches the bar. "Dude, relax, he's totally cool, plus he's standing right there! Sorry, Knight; no guy is good enough for him" :oops: