Ecalsneerg

Equinox stopped just inside the church, feeling the intense heat of the flames and smoke, barely able to see. This will not do. She raised her left hand high into the air, her right hand held out from her body, hand tracing patterns through the air. "Loki, Loki, lord of flame, These mortals weaved a wicked game, By your cunning, hallowed name, Make this raging pyre be tame!" On the last word, she levelled her left hand at the flames to absorb the energy of the heat, fire and smoke into herself, planning to eject it out of her right hand as light energy. And it happened. Flame lanced from every surface, every pew, every burning puddle of spilled wine, from the grass outside, from every cigarette, from every fireplace, from every campfire. Every source of flame in two miles lanced inwards, screeching towards Equinox, passing through buildings and people harmlessly and painlessly through the power of the spell. And hit her in the hand. Seconds later, Equinox stood there, glowing with a bright nimbus of light, once more in her black coat and costume. In her right hand, she seemed to hold a miniature sun of pure whiteness. "Huh." With that word, the light dissipated, leaving the church flameless.

"What in the-" shrieked Siobhan as the telekinetic air draft hurled her up and through the air. "You do not," she shouted over the sound of rushing wind, "Do this sort of thing without some sort of warning!" She staggered backwards as they landed down on the ground. "Skies above, do not do that again!" That was about the time she noticed the building was on fire. "Aegis..." she muttered, conjuring up a massive wall of mystic force. Ordinarily, it would be glowing white, but because she didn't want it to, and because she still wore her pentacle under her shirt, she suppressed this glow with a mere thought. And sprinted towards the double doors of the church. "Stand back!" she commanded, pushing them open.

"Ah!" exclaimed Mr Collins in apparent satisfaction. "How... refreshing... to see a proper necromancer. One does tire of these necrotheurges animating the dead rather than seeking knowledge from them. You must have seen and learned a thing or two! You know, my friends and I do particularly enjoy a good anecdote..." He took a cigar from a tray proffered to him. ""Hmmm?" "Good point, kid. Don't start now," murmured Equinox, flicking the lighter on and inhaling deeply. "They'll be the death of you." "Obviously, I lack that problem," chuckled Garfield throatily. "I study a variety of things. Alas, science and magic have come on much, and the renaissance man is dead, but I still seek to uphold that ideal. A favourite topic of mine is on the forces beyond, such as the one you act as an emissary for. I must say, you are not what I expected. A student? How odd, if my comment does not offend."

"Yeah, you end up seeing... things you want to forget. Don't misunderstand me, some things are amazing, but they're rare. The demons, and the goblins, and everything else that bumps in the night. All of a sudden it's your job to deal with it, and it won't stop." Siobhan looked at the Sheriff. "Magic's nice to have, but there's a reason it's not widespread." "Hold on," said Siobhan, holding up a hand. "If you're going to fly off and fight this thing, I'm not letting you go alone." She turned to Nick and the bear kid. "While I'm loath to split up, I get the idea you're going to do it anyway, and I don't think you should do it without either Eric or I backing you up."

Equinox is not so concerned about why than how! Diplomacy! (1d20+10=21)

Equinox looked confused for a moment. "Wait... you decided, upon getting a bad grade, to assault your teacher? I'm sorry, but how did you think that would help your academic qualifications?" She hefted the staff experimentally in one hand. "But more importantly, you don't look the sorcerous type. Where did you get this staff and bracelet?" She tried to look sympathetic to the kid. "I'm going to have to turn you in, regardless of what you say, but I can try to get a more lenient sentence if you help me with this." I hope he just found something, rather than someone handing out powerful magical artifacts. That'd be a nightmare.

"What proje-" began Liz, before clearing her throat and shifting her voice up a few notches. "Sorry, what project? Ahem." She started undoing a few bolts set into the side of the Pitchoo's hull, before flipping open a tall thin hatch, which had about twenty smaller bolts housed inside. "Word of warning, though... the reactor is efficient, but it's not necessarily fast." She started unbolting with a quick, practiced movement, eventually having to pull up a stepladder to reach the higher ones. "You'll get a lot of power out of it, but to get a lot of power in a shorter space of time, you're looking at, well... This." She flipped open the hatch, revealing a complex mess of machinery, green glowing tubes of glass, and what looked alarmingly like half-chewed chewing gum immersed in liquid nitrogen. "That's about a quarter of the ship's mass, give or take."

Network forced the suit aside from the sword blow, dodging it easily, before bursting free of the suit in a shower of blue and green sparks, hurling Cassie backwards onto the ground. "Leave her alone?" screeched the half-mad creature, levitating above Blaise's sword. "I was trapped in there and now you won't leave me alone!" With that, he made an angry gesture at Blaise's sword, sending a spark of electricity flying down from the tip of the blade, crackling into a huge burst of cracklin energy as it reached the hilt.

Ok, to jog my memory... jogged! Sense Motive (1d20+8=24) Repeated feinting = easy resisting And he dodges! However, he decides to come out anyway. And Fiats up a shiny new attack off his Electrical Control... Blast 6 (Extras: Perception [+2], Flaws: Additional Save [Reflex DC20 to drop sword] [-1]) [20PP] This is probably not accurate but doing it properly'd be a mess of linked Blasts and disarms with Extras and Flaws, and you get a HP for it anyway So... make DC 20 Reflex save to drop sword, or fail (or willingly fail) and get electrozapped for a DC 16 Stun

"And, of course," said Equinox, temporarily suppressing the spell she maintained to keep a lower profile than she was currently keeping, "He's one of the pain in the asses using inverted pentagrams and giving us all a bad name by contradicting the meaning of the thing." As the light faded from her hands and eyes, she stepped away from the crime scene and snapped her fingers. In an instant, her hair turned a light brown, her costume fading into nothingness as a plain black t-shirt and jeans appeared in their place. She had a black leather jacket draped over her shoulders, and a navy blue neckerchief with white stars on it around her neck. "Ok... let's go back to town."

"Thelema," said Equinox, standing up from the ground. She still held on to the trail, feeling the slime and viscera over her feet and hands, sliding across her legs and torso. "It's Aleister Crowley's take on Hermetic philosophy, where a magus moves past little things like service, even to morality, and to personal identity, and becomes a 'power'. He uses the term "City or Pyramids" for where these transcended adepts reside. The layman'd probably know him as the man who popularised pretentious misspellings of the word magic." Equinox barely made a second glance at the youth turning into a bear. While she was no good at bodily transfiguration, it was hardly unheard of. Instead, she merely remarked, "Don't look at me, I've got taste." A smile barely even crossed her lips, try as she might. "Now we have the problem, however, that to track the scent into town, we need to walk in as a talking bear and a glowing white witch. Frankly, picking up the trail in a less conspicuous manner back in town would probably be easier."

53EP, and you're still slower than a normal car (Speed 5). (Yes, a normal car does not go to 250MPH. But most go above 100 MPH, and the system isn't granular enough for that)

"Hmmm..." said Geckoman pensively. "Taking a step down... tried liasing with the FCPD? They got all kinds of battlesuits..." Then he perked up somewhat. "And power nullifiers! It'll stop breakouts, cos most superpowered people are pretty non-functional without their powers. People don't know how to bust out of handcuffs when they're used to tearing them off." He looked at Monolith. "I mean, I'm guessing he's hella strong. But get a nullifier on him... kitty strength!"

Geckoman saw the blaster bolts tearing through the air, and locked on with his targetting. "Is it time to shoot some armoured moron? I think it's time to shoot some armoured moron. Armoured moron... get SHOT!" With the last shout, he spun the Pitchoo on a dime, firing as he did so in a wide arc. Electrical streams exploded forth from the dual cannons towards the sniper, with as low-pitched crackle and a burst of bright yellow light and sparks.

Rolling actions... Boom. DC 25 (1d20+9=23)

Skill Mastery on K: Arcane for 25.

Equinox slipped on the plastic covers and then crouched low on the ground beside the crime scene. "You all might need to step back a little," she murmured, as her hands began tracing quick, intricate patterns in the air. White light swirled and twisted around them as the white light in her eyes suddenly flared into a near-blinding glow. She began chanting in a expressionless voice, not booming, nor whispering, but just completely at an average volume, brooking no change in tone: "Terra Mater, guide my hand, Through the earth, and mud, and sand, Those who've walked, I wish to sense, Grant me this with benevolence." Then, with one final finger movement, she placed her hands flat onto the top of the soil. Instantly, she could feel those standing near her atop the soil, pressing down like a weight upon her. But she marshaled her will, forcing all distractions aside to plunge deeper in. A barrage of perfume hit her, the rough molecules oozing over her hands and dissipating into a wet, smelly mass. She began coughing as she felt brimstone, cloying, and acrid, and blackened, managing to choke out, "Brimstone," before the hacking cough wracked at her again. Equinox shuddered as she felt gangrenous flesh sliding over her hands, clammy and pus-filled, oozing disgust and bile upon her. And then crawling east towards the town like a crawling tapeworm. "It headed back towards the town. Gangrene and pus, brimstone and viscera. I can feel it," she whispered harshly, her throat dry and sore. "It's on my hands."

Let's use Extra Effort kids! Super-Senses 8 (earth sense: Acute, Analytical, Extended 3, Radius, Tracking 2) off the magic array. And at TT's request: Awesome notice (1d20+15=34)

Geckonitiative (1d20+11=14) Give him a break. He just got up.

I'm just going to use Skill Mastery on Theology, giving me an easy 20. I got Arcane knowledge (1d20+15=21) Eh, we got another mage here :P

Equinox breathed in deeply, stopping her hand from flying to the wand hidden in her waist band, stopping her from blowing the door to splinters, then going after Vigourie, and hitting him with a small hurricane. Then she went and leaned on the wall to the side of the door. "I'll be in in a second, But I very much doubt you want me alone in a room with him right now." She bowed her head and looked at the floor. To anyone who looked hard enough, her lips moved nigh-imperceptibly, and to those who listened hard enough to hear, she was saying, "One... two... three... four... five... six... " Where her hands were planted flat against the wall behind her, her knuckles were visibly white from pushing against the wall.

Geckoman looked around confusedly at the people waving and shouting, then flicked on the radio button on his dashboard, relaying both to Victory, and to Protectron, that "I accept radio transmissions, people. I don't need flag waving to occur, jeez." He rubbed at his eyes as he straightened his goggles. "Now, what's going on he-" Then he heard Blueshift's transmission, and hit the throttle. Down towards the ground, swooping into a wide arc. "Snipers?" he broadcast on the radio. "I got me some tank armour."

Equinox looked at Arcturus and Push incredulously. "You don't get this at all, do you? I don't do magic because it's a job or a vocation. I do it because it's my faith. I don't wear a cross, or a star of David, I wear a pentacle. But to him, I'm a Satanist, trying to chow down on babies. And, frankly... if I have to solve this entire case on my own, rather than deal with the idea of someone sitting there next to me, thinking all that..." Equinox struggled with the words for a second. "I will. I do have the luxury of choosing who I work with. And I will not have any person in this room insinuating that I am wrong to have done so. Now, I'm going to keep my magic low-key and hidden, and my pentacle, as the townspeople are admittedly unlikely to react well. But he?" She sighed and shook her head, then resumed speaking in clipped, teacherish tones. "He's meant to be an expert, like us. And, in the words of a Mr Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract.'" Her voice sped up, gaining more passion and less scholarly disinterest. "I'm not letting some so-called damn occult expert walk around spreading filthy lies and misapprehensions, when a physicist can sum up this situation so much better. And I'm not running this investigation, nor do I have the authority to, but if you think I'm in the wrong... leave."

"Yeah," said Equinox to Vigourie pointedly. "I know I'm not putting up with bigots." She turned to the sheriff after he had walked away from them. "Sorry about that, but from all I know of that man, it was either force him to leave now, or end up with another murder on your hands. I'm not going to hide my faith from members of the damn investigation. If it helps solve the crime, I will, but from him? Never." The white light in her eyes was flickering from dim to bright repeatedly and noticeably in her anger.

"One riot, one ranger was never true," said Equinox wryly, looking Vigourie up and down. He's a bigot. I mean, when you get down to it, the whole conjuring of strange magical forces is worrying, but I'm wandering around wearing a pentacle. He's probably going to spin this into Satanism. But why bow to his type? Deliberately, but casually, she pulled the ornate pentacle from under his sweater to let it dangle on full show. Asshole.