Avenger Assembled

Watchdog/Daystar Power Level: 10/12 (197/197PP) Trade-Offs: +4 DEF/-4TOU, +4 ATK/-4DMG Unspent Power Points: 0 In Brief: Teenage sidekick turned Secret Service Agent pretending to be a teenage vigilante. Alternate Identity: Ashley Tran, Special Agent (United States Secret Service) Identity: Secret? Ish? Depends on who you ask. Birthplace: New Orleans, USA Occupation: Secret Service Agent, Superhero, Bodyguard Affiliations: Her charge, Jaycee Cahill Family: Phillip Tran [father, deceased], Mary Arbour-George [mother, living], William George [stepfather, living] Mary (1994), Cecilia (1997), Agnes (2001) and Phillipa (2003) [sisters, living] Age: 27 (DoB: April 1992) Gender: Female Ethnicity: Eurasian Height: 5'6" Weight: 145 lbs Eyes: Black Hair: Black, dyed pink at the tips Physical Description: Ashley is short and round-faced, with big eyes and a smile that makes it easy for her to pass as sixteen - not that she's doing a lot of smiling these days. She's grown her jet-black hair out for this mission and dyed the tips pink, another way to help herself pass as someone a decade younger than her actual age. She has the muscular build of a born athlete, with the clear physical power many martial artists develop. When not wearing her helmet, she sticks close to "Judy" and doesn't say much except when directly addressed or speaking to her 'sister', keeping most of her face hidden behind dark sunglasses and a near-perpetual scowl. She speaks English with no particular accent, though her French and Vietnamese have Louisiana and American accents, respectively. She usually dresses like a teenage girl trying to look like a punk, or at least push the dress code - leather jackets, dark T-shirts, and denim skirts or pants. In costume as Watchdog, she wears a grey armored outfit with a bright red snarling dog's face over the chest. Over that she wears a black and grey leather jacket with metal studs on the shoulders - and covering her head a modified motorcycle helmet painted the same red as her chest symbol. She wears fingerless black gloves on both hands while in combat. Her jacket comes with a hood that she usually keeps pulled up, the better to strike a more intimidating profile. At her lleft hip is a silvered pistol. Watchdog is, if anything, a sourer presence than Ashley - her helmet-muffled voice sounding tinny and artificial. Character History: Phillip Tran fled what had once been South Vietnam with his parents in the late 1970s, his family traveling through the Phillippines and Guam before their arrival in the mainland United States. They settled in New Orleans, with its heat, its French language, and its Catholic population. (His father had served in the South Vietnamese army and his mother was Hoa, an ethnic Chinese minority disliked by the new regime - they had ample reason to leave the country.) The Trans were determined that their son, only a small boy when they fled the country, would remember the nation of his birth and so taught him language, culture, and customs. When Philip was a young man, he did what his father had and joined the military - at eighteen, he enlisted in the US Army in 1989. Phillip served his adopted homeland well, fighting in Operation Desert Storm before returning to New Orleans East to marry his high school sweetheart Mary Arbour in 1991. They were a mixed couple, but Mary was a good Catholic and fluent in French - the Trans had no complaints. They settled in New Orleans East, where Phillip's military service got him a job with the NOPD, patrolling the neighborhood where he'd grown up. Phillip and Mary became the parents of five girls [(Ashley (1992), Mary (1994), Cecilia (1997), Agnes (2001) and Phillipa (2003)] and did their best to balance both worlds - Ashley grew up hearing English, Vietnamese, and French spoken in the household and in both school and afterschool programs, worshiping at the local Vietnamese Catholic Church, and was honestly very happy. Her father doted on her and passed on his deep love of his adopted homeland, its people, and his chosen career - law enforcement. Ashley loved her father and the neighborhood where she grew up - but unlike her father, she hoped to use service to others as a way up and out. Her way out, influenced by her dad's love for Clint Eastwood movies, was from an early age the United States Secret Service. Protecting the President, the symbol of American freedom, seemed like the coolest job in the world - she read about the long hours and thankless conditions, but she appreciated the need for sacrifice to get what you want. And what she wanted was the Secret Service and the Presidential Protective Detail. It would take years of training and study, especially since fate and genetics had given her a small frame that would make a lifetime of physical activity difficult. But she had the drive and the commitment to make it happen. But life had some curves to throw her way first. Ashley was thirteen when Katrina hit - thirteen when her father died. It was all very sad - a beloved local cop killed by a looter in the frantic days just after the hurricane, four little girls and one very pregnant widow left behind. She didn't believe it - despite what the outside media said, there weren't that many looters around, especially not in their relatively isolated neighborhood, and even those looters wouldn't shoot a police officer in the back for no reason anyone had ever been able to find. It didn't add up. But nobody wanted to hear it - especially not her grieving mother. A few months after her father's death, a month after her baby sister was born, her mother married one of her father's former partners - an Anglo man who was himself eager to get out of the damaged city. They moved to Lafayette, where her stepfather found a job as a campus police officer for the University of Louisiana - and Ashley made plans to get the hell out of town. When Ashley's powers first appeared on the Fourth of July, 2006, when Lady Liberty's appearance at the Lafayette, LA Fourth of July festivities ended with a certain teenager firing beams of golden light from her eyes and singing the National Anthem (an utterly mortifying experience that she is forever grateful took place just before the widespread adoption of the smartphone), Mary George almost didn't let her daughter go to Claremont even after the League helped keep the news of the "Copycat" out of the national news, and after the arrival of kindly headmaster Duncan Summers - not until it was made clear to her that the school was safe and that her daughter would be protected. When Ashley found out what the school was _really_ for, it wasn't hard for her to figure out what she wanted to do - she wanted to find the man who had killed her father! First came two years of hard training and discipline, learning everything she'd need to learn to be a superhero. What was a social life when there was work to be done? Maybe she studied too hard, and pushed her body to its breaking point - but what else was there to do? She had to find justice, even if no one else wanted to - or could. Ashley George's first time on patrol with the Raven changed her life. It was 2008 and she was sixteen, in her second year at Claremont Academy and honestly not sure if she wanted to be a superhero. She didn't have the flashy powers of many of her classmates, the first Next-Gen students like Bolt or Megastar, she wasn't a particularly outstanding student (though she did work hard, spending hours in the library every night), nor was she particularly happy in Freedom City, so far from her home in New Orleans. But the Raven saw something in Ashley she didn't see in herself - and so it was that 'Copycat' joined the Raven on patrol as an occasional sidekick. People who kept a close eye on Raven around the start of the current decade will remember Copycat in her full-face mask and cat-ears, the black and navy blue costume that she burned years ago. But never mind that. Ashley enjoyed adventuring alongside the famous hero, especially once she gained enough control over her energy-draining abilities to use them in the field - but truthfully she appreciated the private lessons more. She learned the Raven's "style-less" style of goju hand-to-hand fighting, learning how to take down men half again her size in hand-to-hand combat. She learned how to work a room and how to control a crowd with her voice and her eyes, letting darkness, mystery, and the occasional violent beating distract from the fact that she was just a petite girl whose superpowers generally didn't do much to make her bulletproof (except when she was fighting psychopaths who could punch through steel doors!) She learned other things too - Raven was Amerasian too and had also lost a parent to crime. Maybe it was their similarities that had drawn Raven to her - Raven wasn't much for talking. The problem was, after her senior year, Ashley wasn't one for listening - at least, not to Raven. Ashley George's break with superheroing began the spring of 2010; the day she caught the man who, ten years earlier, had murdered her father. On the one hand, it was incredibly satisfying. Raven and Copycat found the killer of her father in the spring of 2010, the culmination of two years of investigative work by the duo (both remotely and on-scene) that finally cracked after a lucky break. He made the mistake of fighting back when Raven crashed through his apartment door and Copycat through his window, and Copycat had the great pleasure of kicking him in the knee until he collapsed, then beating him into unconsciousness with the butt of his own shotgun. Ashley still lets herself go back to that moment when she needs something to get her blood pumping. On the other hand, it wasn't so satisfying at all. Paul Dubois was a drug dealer and a criminal, a man who had turned to marketing zombie powder and Zoom to impressionable young people in Ashley's old neighborhood. He was a bad man and taking him down was a great thing. But he'd turned to crime as a way of paying for his own addiction to zombie powder, a downward spiral that earned him a death sentence in the spring of 2012 when he was convicted of murdering Phillip Tran, an NOPD officer who had come across him cleaning out one of his drug stashes while the storm hit. It was hard to ignore how superhumans had made him worse rather than better, how a man who might have been able to turn his life around had only sunk further into the muck because of the gods and monsters of the world. She and Raven started arguing more after that, arguing about superheroes and supervillains, about how much good the former actually did when they weren't stopping world-ending threats. In the end, it was no one great thing that drove apart hero and sidekick, no great crisis that either of the two born 'fixers' could have solved. When Raven kept Copycat at arms length, endless tests and trials and secret drills only taught Ashley that her mentor valued her costumed identity more than her real self - when Raven kept Copycat close, the hidden reality of the superhero world showed her the underbelly of the gods and heroes - the dimensional vibrations where supers had gone to war with humans rather than protecting them, the criminals turned heroes who laughed at justice for their crimes, the Grue and other monsters hiding among innocent people, the codenames and secret identities and the endless secrets kept from a general public that supposedly couldn't "handle the truth". When Copycat left the Raven's side after graduation, it was not on good terms - and she didn't look back. She had better things to do. When Ashley graduated from Claremont Academy in 2010, she had her diploma and her associate's degree both - having taken advantage of the school's early college program during her time as the "workaholic wallflower." After two more years, she had her bachelor's degree in criminal justice (and a minor in political science) from Our Lady of Holy Cross College. After a lifetime of repression, college had been a breath of fresh air - she'd gotten drunk for the first time and smoked weed while she was at it and had her first real boyfriend - at least until he found out she was serious about not wanting to stay in New Orleans and that she wasn't interested in getting married right now. She had plans. First came three years (2012-2015) as a New Orleans police officer, wearing the star and crescent badge her father had died wearing, defending the New Orleans East neighborhood where she'd grown up. (Beyond her family ties, it's the largest American police force that doesn't ask questions about superpowers or vigilantism when you join - a legacy of the post-Katrina recruitment drives.) Eurasian and female, she was part of a tiny minority on the force - but she'd already been through much worse than anything the boys in blue could throw at her. She enjoyed the work, enjoyed patrolling the streets and keeping people safe, but nothing about being back in her old neighborhood changed her mind about her desire to move out of it. Her mother, sisters, and step-brothers were settling in fine in Lafayette; there was nothing for her here but ghosts. The laws dealing with superbeings and federal employment are complex - something Ashley knew even before she filled out her application to join the Secret Service. She had the grades, she had the physical training, and she certainly had the experience. She had to be careful about how she wrote about that last thing (given that Copycat had much more training in criminal justice than Ashley George could ever admit to having) - but her three years at the NOPD, her fluent command of French and Vietnamese, along with glowing recommendation letters from her former supervisor, turned out to be just enough to make the grade. She was young (at 23, just past the minimum age) and not powerfully built - but she had what the federal government was looking for. Of course, she _also_ had the meta-gene. With so many witnesses to her accidentally stealing Lady Liberty's powers as a teenager, and the extensive battery of first physical, then psychological tests she had to undergo once she admitted to having superpowers on a federal employment form, there was no hiding who she was. But she'd thought this through, and she made her case time and time again. Despite her powers she was all-too-human; and those powers could be tremendously useful as a government agent - she could shut down the powers of an attacking metahuman with a touch, and detect the hostile intentions of many different types of beings even before they attacked. Easy to overlook (albeit often mistaken for a teenager thanks to her youth, slight build, and rounded features), she could blend right into a group of agents until she had to go into action. The hard part was avoiding AEGIS. After the mandatory ten week AEGIS training course for metahumans working for the federal government, almost all of them wind up working for AEGIS in some capacity or another - but Ashley wasn't interested. Working with AEGIS would put her too close to the worst parts of the life she left behind, with its codenames and its secrets, and she wanted the best parts instead - the bravery, and the courage, and the principles, to risk your life for another because it was the right thing to do. As the first superhuman agent of the Secret Service, her promotions were fast-tracked - within certain limits. She was in her mid-twenties (and had only been an agent for a year and a half) when she was assigned to the White House, but only to manage the file room in the basement. She liked it there, only called 'upstairs' when the President was meeting with superhumans of some character or another (usually the members of the Dream Team), where she usually stood discreetly off to one side in her sunglasses and dark, conservative clothing, making sure that President Cahill (a man popular with his detail) stayed safe. She wasn't actually part of the Protective Detail - but it was still pretty damn good. Then came D-Day. On March 15, 2018, there was an incident at the White House. The general public is aware that all the radios and other electronic gadgets near the White House went dead, some of them permanently, for a good hour and a half. The Secret Service, Capitol Police, and other law enforcement agencies in Washington went on high alert that afternoon and the whole city went into lockdown for 24 hours. The general public believes that the incident was the result of a terrorist attack by robotic members of the Foundry - an attack foiled by the Secret Service. This is a lie. What really happened was that Jaycee Cahill nearly set the White House on fire. 'Sick in bed' with agonizing migraines, she was the source of the sudden 'radio black hole' that made it appear that every radio and other wireless signal in the White House had gone dead. In the process of being evacuated from the terrorist attack along with her mother and younger sister, it was she who generated an EMP powerful enough to keep Marine One from flying - and then in a sudden burst of microwave energy, emit a pulse powerful enough to nearly kill her family and Secret Service detail as their internal temperatures raised to dangerously high levels. It was Agent Ashley George, running at full speed across the White House lawn even as the grass began to smolder around the frightened teen (who had run, hands to the side of her head, from the landing pad on the South Lawn), who saved the day, grabbing Jaycee by her pressure points and holding her as she drained the energy that powered the teen's radiation. She saved the First Family, she saved her fellow agents, and she probably stopped the irradiation of a significant number of White House staff and tourists. And it was Agent Tran who was on point for the news of what had followed - about Jaycee's powers couldn't be turned off or suppressed, about how she needed to learn how to use them or she would die - and so would a hell of a lot of other people if she stayed in the White House. So what could they do? Could they really tell the world that the President's daughter had power enough, theoretically, to fry an entire city - power that had come from alien DNA that blood tests found in the President and his three daughters? There had to be another way. Ashley's not sure if this was the right way, though. She was desperately improvising when she reached out to Claremont on behalf of the Cahills, desperately improvising when she suggested a plan to both the President and to the former Raven - and it worked. Judy and Ashley Smith are refugees as far as anyone knows, from a world where the heroes failed and the Grue are everywhere, and the former is getting trained to be a hero while the latter watches her back. But how many lies is she going to tell? Have her efforts to save Judy only corrupted her? Has she served the country she loves so much - or has she made it worse? When she looks at herself in the mirror, she doesn't know who she is anymore... Complications: Agent: Ashley is technically a sworn law enforcement officer, but doesn't act as such while wearing her costume except for her duties to protect Jaycee Cahill. This is a complicated situation. Break: Ashley's complicated relationship with the Raven remains both a sore point and a point of pride. Copycat: Ashley isn't hiding her superpowers but she is keeping them to herself; she'll use them as a second resort rather than a first unless she needs to save a life. Duty: Ashley George is responsible for the life and well-being of the First Daughter, Jaycee Cahill. This is her highest priority - whatever she or Jaycee thinks about this. Enemy: Baron Samedi's drug empire indirectly killed Ashley's father. Given the chance, she'll go for him - minus her duty to Jaycee. Forget-Me-Not: Ashley's powers, coupled with her undercover status, make it easy for her own identity to slip away. Lies: Ashley lied about how she'd developed her powers when she joined the Secret Service. Nobody Knows The Troubles I've Seen: Watchdog's personality is of necessity not very nice - she has to play the part of the gritty, unlikable vigilante as a way of making sure no one pays too much attention to her. Patriot: Ashley George loves the United States of America and all it stands for. Secret: Ashley George is a 27 year old Secret Service agent, not a teenager from an alternate universe! Split Personality: Ashley's powers occasionally result in her copying certain mental traits of those whose powers she steals - this annoyance is one of the reasons she doesn't do it very often. We Get The Job Done: Ashley is the biracial daughter of a first-generation immigrant. Who's That Girl: Ashley is losing track of who she is. Abilities: 4 + 12 + 4 + 4 + 6 + 6 = 36PP STR: 14 (+2) DEX: 22 (+6) CON: 14 (+2) INT: 14 (+2) WIS: 16 (+3) CHA: 16 (+3) Combat: 16 + 10 = 26PP Attack +8 (+14 Melee, +15 Tonfa) Defense +12 (+7 Dodge Focus, +5 Base, +3 Flat-Footed) Init +10 Grapple +20 Knockback -3/-1 Saves: 6 + 2 + 5 = 13PP Tou: +8/+6/+2 (+2 Con, +4 Defensive Roll, +2 Leather Jacket) Fort: +8 (+2 Con, +6) Ref: +8 (+6 Dex, +2) Will: +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 96R=24PP Acrobatics 9 (+15, SM) Bluff 12 (+15, SM) Climb 3 (+5) Concentration 4 (+7) Craft (Mechanical) 3 (+5) Diplomacy 1 (+4) Disable Device 3 (+5) Drive 4 (+10) Escape Artist 4 (+10) Gather Information 7 (+10) Intimidate 7 (+10) Investigate 3 (+5) Knowledge [Civics] 3 (+5) Knowledge [Streetwise] 3 (+5) Languages 3 (Chinese [Mandarin], French, Vietnamese, base: English) Medicine 2 (+5) Notice 8 (+11, SM) Search 3 (+5) Sleight of Hand 2 (+8) Sense Motive 8 (+11, SM) Stealth 4 (+10) Feats: 59PP Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus 6 (Melee) Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Defensive Roll 2 Dodge Focus 7 Equipment 1 (Tonfa [Damage 3, PF: Masterwork, Mighty]) Equipment 15 [from Veteran reward] Evasion 2 Grappling Finesse Improved Initiative Inspire 3 Interpose Luck Power Attack Quick Draw Sidekick 27 (Daystar) Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Notice, Sense Motive) Takedown Attack Well-Informed Powers: 4 + 1 + 32 + 2 = 39PP Device 1 (Leather Jacket, 5PP, Flaw: Hard to Lose) [4PP] (technological) Enhanced Feats 2 (Second Chance 2 [vs. piercing and ballistic]) [2DP] Feature 1 (Cellphone) [1DP] Protection 2 [2DP] Immunity 1 (Daystar's Powers) [1PP] (mutation) Power Thief Container 6 (30PP Container, PFs: Precise, Subtle 1 [psionic senses]) [32PP] (mutation) Fatigue 6 (Extra: Linked [Mimic, +0]) {12} + Mimic 6 (All Powers, 30PP; Extra: Linked [Fatigue, +0], Flaw: Tainted) {18} + = [12+18=30/30PP] Super-Senses 2 (Danger Sense [Mental], Uncanny Dodge [Mental]) (mutation) [2PP] DC Table Unarmed DC 17 Tou Tonfa DC 18 Tou Fatigue: DC 16 Fort Abilities 36 + Skills 24 + Feats 59 + Powers 39 + Combat 26 + Saves 13= 197/197

Daystar Jaycee Cahill was born in 2002 in Guymon, Oklahoma. She's the middle of three girls, all of them named after their father J.T. (who she still calls 'Daddy', especially when she wants something from him). Her family has deep roots in rural Texas County; her late grandfather's savvy business sense made him a millionaire (and the richest man in Texas County, at least for a while) when he sold his failing cattle lands to invest in the natural gas boom of the 1930s. Her daddy met her momma Rachel twenty years ago, when he was fresh out of Harvard and a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma and she was just finishing up her BA in nursing. Rachel left her family in Muskogee behind to settle in her husband's hometown and work as a school nurse; Jaycee looks a lot like her mom, with her mother's skin tone, petite build and dark hair. Jaycee knows there was a time when her daddy wasn't a politician, but she can't really remember it. She wasn't yet in elementary school when her daddy ran for the Oklahoma State Legislature, a position he held for only a few years before deciding legislative service wasn't for him. The former political science professor at OPSU wasn't a man for legislative negotiations and dickering - he wanted to be the man in charge. Friendly to the oil industry, married to a Comanche woman, projecting a folksy-but-informed manner that let him speak cordially to both Tulsa suburbanites and farmers in the Panhandle, JT Cahill ran first as an outsider in the Republican primary, then was elected Governor of Oklahoma in 2010. Jaycee found that she liked being a governor's daughter. She was one of the most popular kids in her tony private schools in Oklahoma City, getting her attention she'd hardly ever won as a middle child back home, and living in Oklahoma City was a lot better than living in Guymon. It meant changes at home - she saw a lot less of her daddy and her momma, but she was reaching an age where that wasn't so bad. She got to travel too; out to DC and down to Austin, getting to know the children of other politicians and rich friends of her daddy's, and even got to visit. She wasn't old enough to be interested in boys the way her older sister Jaybee was, but she was sure that when she did, she'd have her pick of the best ones. She had a lot of plans. Jaycee was old enough to have some idea of what they were getting into when her daddy and momma sat her and her two sisters down in December of 2014 to tell them something very serious. Her daddy had thought hard, he'd prayed hard, and he'd talked to their mom and his friends - and Governor Cahill was going to run for President in the next election. Freshly 13, Jaycee rolled her eyes but didn't actually backsass her daddy - her daddy had just been re-elected Governor earlier that year and she figured the campaign for President couldn't be _that_ different from the campaign for Governor. And besides, it probably wasn't going to amount to anything. She had to admit she loved her dad (privately, anyway), but the country wasn't going to elect her dad, with his corny jokes and his Sooner ties and cheerful belly, President, right? The headaches started around the time of Jaycee's fourteenth birthday, just a short time after her father had been elected President of the United States. They were small at first and she got aspirin for them, then stronger stuff - stuff the White House doctors had to prescribe, then hospital visits to get her on a new type of painkillers. Her daddy's people kept it out of the media, which made her feel a little better - running for President was _not_ like running for Governor at all, and the campaign had turned her life completely upside-down. She knew how important this job was to her family, to her sisters, to America; she decided not to tell anyone when the headaches came back after a few months of treatment - or when she started hearing whispers in empty rooms in the White House, and then seeing things she knew weren't there - strange colors and patterns that she blocked out by sheer force of will. She wasn't going to ruin everything for her family by being a freak! And then came D-Day. A year later, Claremont has taught her things about the world. The worldly things she grew up fearing aren't so threatening, but there are demons in the world - monsters who would drag everything down into darkness, and righteous heroes determined to fight them. She's transforming, turning into something other than human - but as horrifying as that is, maybe she can use what's happened to her to make things better for other people. And even if life means she has to lie about who she is and what she is, if she has to keep being Judy Smith the Grue refugee to protect her family name - that just means she has to shine her light all the brighter. At least she has a sister to stand by her side. When not empowered, she wears modest A-line dresses and occasionally jeans - when empowered, she glows with a bright inner light that obscures her facial features. Judith 13:20 "May God make this redound to your everlasting honor, rewarding you with blessings, because you risked your life when our people were being oppressed, and you averted our disaster, walking in the straight path before our God.” And all the people answered, “Amen! Amen!”" Abilities: 0 + 0 + 12 + 0 + 4 + 8 = 24PP STR 10 (+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON 22 (+6) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 8 + 8 = 16PP Init: +0 ATK: +4 [+9 Ranged] DEF: +10 (+6 Dodge Focus, +4 Base, +2 Flat-Footed) Grapple: +4 Knockback: -3/-2 Saves: 1 + 7 + 5 = 13PP TOU +8/+6 (+6 Con, +2 Defensive Roll) FORT +7 (+6 Con, +1) REF +7 (+0 Dex, +7) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 76R=19PP Bluff 11 (+15, SM) Diplomacy 6 (+10, SM) Knowledge (Civics) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Pop Culture) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 10 (+10) Handle Animal 1 (+5) Medicine 6 (+8) Perform (Vocals) 6 (+10) Ride 5 (+5) Notice 8 (+10, SM) Sense Motive 8 (+10, SM) Feats: 18PP Attack Focus (Ranged) 5 Defensive Roll 1 Dodge Focus 6 Improved Defense 2 Precise Shot Quick Change Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Notice, Sense Motive) Uncanny Dodge (radio) Powers: 1 + 4 + 1 + 5 + 30 + 2 = 43PP Datalink 1 (10 ft, radio, alien) [1PP] Dazzle 1 (visual) (Stellarian might, Extras: Action 2 [Free], Perception [Visual, Area], Flaw: Range [Touch], alien) [4PP] Immunity 1 (own powers, alien) [1PP] Immunity 5 (environmental cold, environmental heat, environmental radiation, sleep, starvation and thirst, alien) [5PP] Radio Control Array 14 (28PP, PFs: Alternate Powers 2, alien) [30PP] BE: Damage 9 (microwaves, Extra: Area [Burst], Flaw: Range [Touch]) {18} + Dazzle 9 (radio) (Extra: Area [Burst], Flaw: Range [Touch], PF: Subtle) {18+9=28/28} AP: Enhanced Dazzle 7 [visual, to Dazzle 8] {28/28} AP: Disintegration 9 (microwaves 2.0, Flaw: Action 2 [Full], PF: Subtle) {28/28} Super-Senses 2 (Infravision, Radio, alien) [2PP] DC Table Unarmed DC 15 Bruised/Injured Blast DC 24 Bruised/Injured Damage DC 24 Bruised/Injured Dazzle DC 19 Ref/Fort Blinded Dazzle DC 18 Ref/Fort Blinded costs Abilities (24) + Combat (16) + Saves (15) + Skills (19) + Feats (18) + Powers (43) = 135/135

watchdog: spend 3 of her PP on the Sidekick feat, raising her total ranks in the feat to 27. The new sheet for her sidekick (now named Daystar) will go down in the other section.

I'm interested! Let me know which, if any, you think would be the most appropriate for Lady Horus and/or Wadjet.

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Stellarians The Stellarians are an ancient race of non-humanoids native to a Y class brown dwarf, an ancient sphere with a history nearly as old as the Milky Way itself.(Only a million million years old themselves, the Stellarians are relative latecomers to their homeworld.) Stellaria lies deep in the Galactic Core near Sagitarius A, a region swept with the radio waves that are the most common natural food source of its only native intelligence. With a billion-year-old civilization, they have long since tamed and controlled their home's weather and native animal life - primarily other radiophiles and the things that ate them. The natives (who in their natural state resemble ball lighting) leave their homeworld only occasionally; conditions on planets like Terra are sufficiently exotic to them (and the fleshy, organic inhabitants of worlds like that so bizarre) that it rarely seems worth the bother. They have made contact with several galactic civilizations over the millennia but they have little to offer beings so unlike them. Trade has typically been intellectual in nature - in one significant trading interaction in the Delaztri period, they traded uncounted aeons of oral histories in return for the Empire's supply of games and fiction. Occasionally contact with outsiders has been violent (though rarely, given that their planet has no resources usable by most species) but their ability to control the electromagnetic spectrum means that such invasions have typically resulted in the rapid dissolution of the invaders. Their records are ancient (and indeed some of the oldest in the Milky Way) but you need to make them a good offer to know what they know - and they may not tell you the truth. One thing about being a tireless immortal with few physical needs is that occasionally one gets bored. And while their homeworld is Jupiter-sized, eventually a Stellarian will reach a time where they have "done it all". In those times, one will sometimes use their near-perfect mental control to assume the guise of a member of another species, then go live as one of those species for a time. The Stellarians do love their stories and their myths, and gaining new ones is a rare form of currency for them - a way to make the endless games of their lives a little more interesting. Other times this trade will happen honestly - but they don't seem to quite accept the idea that other species are 'real', though - the idea that they might be hurting an organic being physically or emotionally is one that they'd have trouble taking entirely seriously...

"I am as well as I have been," croaked Sea Devil. Her gold-black eyes flicked up and down as she looked over Salvo, then she said (with the air of someone making a great confidence) "Would you like to see my armor? I hid it behind a bush over there, but I got it in SPACE. I don't know who the owner was, but I am sure he is dead now. The Star Knights said it could be mine."

Abilities: 0 + 0 + 12 + 0 + 4 + 8 = 24PP STR 10 (+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON 22 (+6) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 8 + 8 = 16PP Init: +4 ATK: +4 [+9 Ranged] DEF: +10 (+6 Dodge Focus, +4 Base, +2 Flat-Footed) Grapple: +4 Knockback: -3/-2 Saves: 1 + 7 + 5 = 13PP TOU +8/+6 (+6 Con, +2 Defensive Roll) FORT +7 (+6 Con, +1) REF +7 (+0 Dex, +7) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 76R=19PP Bluff 11 (+15, SM) Diplomacy 6 (+10, SM) Knowledge (Civics) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Pop Culture) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 10 (+10) Handle Animal 1 (+5) Medicine 6 (+8) Perform (Vocals) 6 (+10) Ride 5 (+5) Notice 8 (+10, SM) Sense Motive 8 (+10, SM) Feats: 18PP Attack Focus (Ranged) 5 Defensive Roll 1 Dodge Focus 6 Improved Defense 2 Improved Initiative Precise Shot Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Notice, Sense Motive) Uncanny Dodge (radio) Powers: 1 + 4 + 1 + 5 + 30 + 2 = 43PP Datalink 1 (10 ft, radio, alien) [1PP] Dazzle 1 (visual) (Stellarian might, Extras: Action 2 [Free], Perception [Visual, Area], Flaw: Range [Touch], alien) [4PP] Immunity 1 (own powers, alien) [1PP] Immunity 5 (environmental cold, environmental heat, environmental radiation, sleep, starvation and thirst, alien) [5PP] Radio Control Array 14 (28PP, PFs: Alternate Powers 2, alien) [30PP] BE: Damage 9 (microwaves, Extra: Area [Burst], Flaw: Range [Touch]) {18} + Dazzle 9 (radio) (Extra: Area [Burst], Flaw: Range [Touch], PF: Precise) {18+9=28/28} AP: Enhanced Dazzle 7 [visual, to Dazzle 8] {28/28} AP: Disintegration 9 (gamma rays, Flaw: Action 2 [Full], PF: Indirect) {28/28} Super-Senses 2 (Infravision, Radio, alien) [2PP] DC Table Unarmed DC 15 Bruised/Injured Blast DC 24 Bruised/Injured Damage DC 24 Bruised/Injured Dazzle DC 19 Ref/Fort Blinded Dazzle DC 18 Ref/Fort Blinded costs Abilities (24) + Combat (16) + Saves (15) + Skills (19) + Feats (18) + Powers (43) = 135/135

Aquaria looked disgustedly at the rock-eating dragon but reminded herself that people tended to get angry at her when she talked to them about religion, not that she could blame Surfacers for avoiding a topic that had to be uncomfortable for them. "They abide," she croaked. "This world is mostly sea," she added for Dio. "You should learn to like it." She knew well enough the stories of how the god of the rocks would challenge the sea when the stars were right and be drowned for its pains, and felt no need to dwell on it here. With a slice of her talons to carve it free, she tossed a chunk of bellyfish to Mutt and hissed politely at Nicole, "Oh the meat is cooked for you! And everyone else! I do not cook my fish." Turning her upper torso she discreetly spat out a bone and went on, "Cooking meat is only for bad times." She studied Hex, sniffing loudly with nostrils wide as a seal's - and evidently just as flexible. "I am sure your plants are good but I only eat them to clean my stomach." She knew Surfacers didn't like talking about bodily functions very much.

Aquaria eyed the immature Surfacer - she was...twelve? Sixteen? It was hard to remember their ages when she was primarily around fully-developed females. "The fish is for eating," she croaked, gold-blacck eyes staring fixedly at Nicole. "It has no poison - and is cooked!" she added, a distinct tone of defensiveness entering what was otherwise an inhuman throbbing from a throat as thick around as Nicole's shoulder. She proved her words by biting the head off the trout-sized fish as easily as Nicole would bite the head off a Swedish fish, giving the technomancer a distinct glimpse of the rows of serrated teeth inside that otherwise frog-looking mouth that took up the lower part of Aquaria's broad face. She chewed and swallowed with the distinct sound of breaking bones, then said, "I made the sign, yes. When the forces of Destruction came to this place, I called my gods and they answered." If she'd been defensive before, now she was distinctly prideful. "It is a mark of their favor. It should not hurt your machines. Dragonfly came with her science and they all worked I can hear they are broken! Is that bad?." She struck her trident against the ground. "Would you like some fish? I can give you a part that has no bones! There is plenty for your ghost dog!" she added with a call Dead Head's way.

Question - what do your characters sound like to someone with Super-Senses 12 (Darkvision, Radius Sight, Detect Magic 3 [auditory], Hearing [Extended], Sonar [Accurate Ultrasonic Hearing], Scent [Acute], Tremorsense) [12PP] Asking for a friend!

I sing of Hydra, glad and big. Aquaria had not been sure how she was going to introduce herself to the mystics among the Surfacers, especially since Jessie had opted to stay home that night. Singularity did not much enjoy the magic that lay between dimensions. So it was that she had fallen back on old habits; did one impress one's peers with one's might? So it was that she entered the party carrying the trident of Hydra's champion, speared upon it a great fish, and strode boldly through the dead shades of Surfacemen (who might well cling to life, knowing what awaited them in the world beyond!). "Behold!" she declared in a booming basso voice that rang out too loudly amidst the party. "The Sea Devil is here!" She did not really think of the trident's power as magical, simply an expression of how the world worked, but whatever got her to a noisy party like this was fine with her. She was sure the mighty Master Mage knew she was here - but who would come to a place like this and not make sure all knew she was there? She was confident in her leather harness, having neatly stowed her suit out of sight behind a table, her muscular green and white form adorned with blue tattoos that matched the general style of the elder sign at everyone's feet. There was a song in the air at the elder sign that spoke of the stars being right and all being well, and she liked it.

When Judy was done, she faced Ashley across the table. "So there you have it. Ah did it. Ah did it on purpose." She reached up and scrubbed her eyes, unable to cry even though her gaze was burning. Ashley licked her lips, took a breath, and said, "Why?" "Because Ah know there's something better than this now," said Judy softly. "Ah'm sorry, Ah know Ah should be loyal to my family, and Ah do love them, but this is...this is not how it should be!" she said, making a gesture with her hand to include the whole hotel room, and the world beyond it. "Ah shouldn't have to lie to everyone because it makes their lives easier. Ah want to go back to Claremont because...because it's better for me to be there as long as my parents live in the White House." Ashley considered what to say for a moment, then went on. "You know more about your powers than I thought," she admitted. "You managed to scorch that hotel room without irradiating anyone through the walls or the floors. Smart to count it out until your staff was at the edge of the perimeter." She looked her charge in the eye and said, not unsympathetically, "But this can't happen again. I will be here for you, for the rest of this year, for however long this takes, but I can't protect you if you're going to do things like this." Judy deflated, slightly, but didn't collapse. "Ah guess you must be disappointed in me now." Ashley reached across the table and took the girl's hand; as usual, Ashley was fever-hot to the touch. "Remember what I told you when we first met?" she asked the girl. "I'm with you to the end of the line." "Why?" Because I know what it's like to have the superworld crash into your life and take everything from you. Because I know what it's like to have your family turn their back on you because they want things to be normal. "Because somebody reached out for me when I needed it." Unbidden, the face of Callie Summers flashed in her mind. "And I want to help." "Okay." She took a breath, then said, "I've been thinking about becoming a real-live superhero this year..."

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August 2019 Oklahoma City Ashley had persuaded Mrs. Cahill to leave her alone with Judy for a while - "sisterly bonding time" was part of maintaining their respective characters, something that was a vital part of the charade that Rachel Cahill took very seriously indeed. When they were finally alone, Ashley held a finger up to her lips and walked around the edge of the hotel room, casually removing devices from her belt and placing them at the edges of the hotel room's walls. Understanding the signal, Judy was quiet until Ashley joined her again at the hotel card table where she'd been sitting. The notebooks of their summer story, the deck of cards, the Gideon Bible - they'd all have to wait right now. She didn't need to explain what she was doing; Judy heard the radio signals in the room briefly fuzzing into inaudible noise, and knew a similar effect was reaching the ears of any eavesdroppers. When they were done, Ashley steepled her fingers and studied her charge, considering how to play this. From the tense way Judy was shifting in her seat, she understood the game too. "I'd like you to tell me what happened in Oklahoma City last month." Another teenager would have reminded Ashley about the report the agent had already signed off on about the incident - another teenager would have protested that she'd already told her everything! But Judy was typically an honest girl, which was why they needed to have this conversation now, because if they didn't and something was changing the coming year was going to be dangerous. Ashley took no notes for the conversation - but she remembered it well enough. Judy's story went something like this. - Alone in a darkened room with a wet towel over her forehead, sipping on a bottle of water, she'd done some hard thinking. She knew her mother well enough to read her moods, and she knew Rachel had been serious about potentially pulling her out of Claremont. Her mother had never liked the idea of sending her daughter away to a place where 'she'd be exposed to who knows what kind of people, where they'll fill her head with who knows what ideas' - and when she tried to think about the school from her mother's perspective, her fears only grew. She had a boyfriend her mother didn't like, that was one strike, she had friends her mother certainly didn't like, that was two strikes, and she'd managed to avoid any serious incidents with her powers - which was, dammit, another strike. Because if she could control her powers, why do something so risky as keep her at Claremont, with all it exposed her to? Expose her to people she'd never seen before, and places like she'd never seen before, and a place where she could actually find some answers about what was happening to her - The idea came to her so fast that she sat up. Well, what if I can't control my powers? It would have to be careful, so careful, something that her parents could plausibly see as an accident despite her recent argument with her mother, something that wouldn't hurt anyone else but that could stand as proof positive that she needed more training, and the only place to get that was Claremont. Maybe her powers were a curse, something to keep her up at night, but if she couldn't turn that curse into a blessing... - At this point Judy's story broke off, her eyes burning as she looked away from Ashley. "It sounds so bad when Ah say it out loud," she whispered.

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Is she deliberately below caps?

Jaycee stepped back, crossing her arms, hating herself. "Ah'm sorry, Mama." She closed her eyes, and just for a moment, her mother's face flashed before them - not the way she was now, but burned on the inside from microwave radiation, close to death if they hadn't been so close to some of the world's best doctors. Her fault. It was her fault. "Okay. Okay, Ah'm sorry." Rachel took a breath, then let it out. "It's okay, honey, I know you didn't mean anything by it. You're just losing discipline because you've been away at that school so long." "...actually," said Judy carefully, "that school has really been helping me." She thought of Lulu, and Leroy, and Danica, and all her other friends at Claremont. "Ah only had the one accident all year." "Well then!" said Rachel cheerily. "If we don't have to worry about any accidents, that's even better reason to start keeping you home again. Ah'm not so busy Ah can't still get you a real education." Judy thought about that, the place where her stomach had been churning, and said, "...but Ah have a lot of friends there, mama. Ah told you about-" She'd been about to mention a few when her mother finished her sentence - incorrectly. "Yes, Ah know all about that boy. Ah trust you and I trust Agent George, so I don't worry about you going on some chaste dates with a fairy tale prince and his pet dragon," said Rachel, in what actually was a rather liberal statement for her. "But you know you can't ever marry a boy like that, so why are you bothering with him?" Rachel was applying her lipstick, a last step before inviting the makeup crew back in. "And as for your friends, what about your friends back in DC?" "...a lot of them turned out to be my friends because of who you and Daddy are," Judy admitted, getting a laugh from her mom. "My friends at Claremont are my friends because of who Ah am, even though I've had to lie to them this whole time." "Well, friends come and go," said Rachel. "But family's forever. You remember that, right honey?" "Family's forever," agreed Judy. She looked away from her mother as the makeup and security guards came back in, her mind working ahead, and suddenly she did something she'd learned how to do from a friend at Claremont whose bodily grace had been matched only by her personal confidence. She stood up, rolled her eyes back in her head, and pitched over backwards. Her trustfall gamble worked like a charm (who was going to let the First Daughter fall to the ground) and within a couple of seconds she was on her back in the room's small couch, being tended to by her mother and a Secret Service man she didn't recognize. (Rachel Cahill, a trained nurse, preferred to do the family's doctoring when necessary.) "Oh Mama," she said as she fluttered her eyes, "I think it's the, um, POTS acting up." She looked at Rachel, hand over her heart, and said, "Ah'm sorry, Mama, Ah don't think Ah can make it down there tonight." It had been a bold play, almost spur of the moment, and she wondered what Ashley would think about it - especially since her mother knew perfectly well that her daughter didn't have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. For her part, Rachel Cahill knew a thing or two about company manners. She smiled at her daughter and said, "Well okay, honey, you just stay up in our bedroom. Agent Johnson'll make sure to turn off all the lights and the electronics to make sure you get some rest." Her smile pulled back over her teeth. "We'll talk after the party tonight."

I did my best to edit the sheet - please go through and fix the math errors/omissions (what is her Enhanced STR rank supposed to be? Where are her additional limbs? etc)

Automatically,. Jaycee followed her mother's lead - but Judy objected even as they donned matching diamond studs. "Ah don't even mean the complementarian stuff," said Judy hesitantly. "Ah just mean the other stuff, about, you know..." She thought about words she'd heard growing up - never from her parents, of course, because you didn't talk that way about other people. "The gays." Rachel turned from the mirror to her daughter, irritation growing in her eyes. "Darlin, if this is your way of testing my limits, let me assure you that they are still there, and they are very real." She took a step towards Judy and went on. "I know things are hard for you. Things are hard for all of us," she said in a firm whisper. "But the important thing is, we are a family, and we work as a team." "We aren't a team!" Judy hissed back, with such force she surprised herself. "You and Daddy get to be Mr. and Mrs. America, and the rest of us have to pretend to be people we aren't! You know Joanna doesn't agree with half the things Daddy says, and Jerusha's gonna realize when she's old enough that half the boys who are sweet on her are just sweet because they like their picture in the paper more than they like her!" If life in the Cahill household was like the way many of Judy's friends thought it was, at this point Rachel would have slapped her in the face - as it was, for just a moment she looked like she wanted to before she said, "Do you think I _want_ to be living like this?" she asked, pointing to the dress she was wearing. "Darlin, if it was up to me, we'd still be back in Guymon and the biggest thing I'd have to worry about is going to the faculty Christmas party at OPSU. But your daddy wanted to be in the state legislature, and then your daddy wanted to be Governor, and now things are the way they are." "Your life ain't so hard," said Judy sourly. "You go on Sesame Street and you write books about how to raise good all-American children. Ah have to pretend Ah'm some refugee from god-knows-where eight months out of the year, and when Ah'm home Ah have to pretend to eat so people don't think Ah have an eating disorder." "Don't say ain't," came the automatic response. "Judy, honey, it's because we have to show people we're a normal family." "We are not a normal family!" said Judy, actually yelling this time. "How can you possibly pretend we're a normal family?" Rachel stepped back, her eyes wide. "Judy, honey, you need to control yourself." Judy heard the faintest noise from outside the cracked door outside, the Secret Service agents on duty recognizing the first of several possible code phrases, and she suddenly, achingly, missed Ashley. Why did she have to be on that stupid vacation to Louisiana anyway? "You know how dangerous it can be when you get this way."

July 2019 Oklahoma City, OK Judith Claudia Cahill studied her reflection in the bedroom mirror and felt a sharp twinge. It wasn't that she disliked how she looked, far from it. She looked very different than the hand-me-down penniless orphan in the custody of the Claremont Academy. The rosette A-line gown she wore was a shade of dove gray that perfectly matched her light tan complexion, her lips were the perfect shade of soft pink to match same, and her long brown hair was up behind her head in a bun that matched her mother's - as did the cross she wore around her neck. She looked a lot more like a million bucks than she necessarily felt - and suddenly she wished Leroy could see her, and Corinne too. "Why do I have to go to this again, Mama?" Rachel Cahill gave her daughter a practical look. She was shorter than Jaycee and darker, her brown hair a slightly different color than Jaycee's because its full color had been coming out of a bottle for some years. "Because Joanna's busy in Lawton and Jerusha's with your Daddy out in Philadelphia." Jaycee's older sister was teaching at a Comanche-majority elementary school that summer; and her younger sister was standing by her father's side out in Pennsylvania with the Vice-President that night. It was the same speech she'd given her earlier that day, but she put a sympathetic hand on Jaycee's back. "Ah'm sorry you have to go through this," she said, "but you have it easier than your sisters do. They've been carrying a lot of water for you this past year." "They never had to go down to a dinner and pretend to eat it," muttered Judy, getting a look from her mother that was rather less sympathetic. "Ah mean come on, mama, how long am Ah gonna have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome?" She spat out the syllables of the last few words, which she'd learned to memorize over the last few years very well, spreading her arms wide. "For as long as it's a problem," said Rachel Cahill flatly. Their Secret Service agents and her mother's staffers weren't actually in the room with them, but they were close enough to hear anything spoken above a whisper. "This is the perfect place for you to show your face - hardly any cameras, friendly donors, media's on our side; they'll write up some nice articles about how Jaycee Cahill came out with her mama, and wasn't that nice, and then we can get back to the campaign. Ah would think you'd be happy you don't have to do anything more public." "But why does it have to be...these donors?" said Judy, gesturing downstairs in the general direction of the men on the first floor of the luxury hotel. "...because they're very rich friends of your daddy's and because they've been helping keep the lights on since you were in kindergarten?" her mother replied, evidently not fully understanding the question. "Don't tell me you've suddenly decided you don't like money that comes from out of the ground, because if that's so I can tell your father to cut back some on your allowance." "No, Mama, that's not it," whispered Judy firmly - after all, the natural gas found on her grandfather's land seventy years earlier had made her family very rich instead of giving her "a dynasty of hog farmin'!" as her late grandpappy had put it, and it had made her daddy President of the United States. "Ah'm talking about the other stuff. You know..." There were things she wasn't prepared to say to her mother, even quietly enough that she was reasonably sure nobody else could hear. "The stuff that isn't because they get their money from out of the ground." "Oh, well, honey," said the First Lady as she neatly put on her earrings, "Ah know it sounds a little funny coming from the mouths of older men like that, but you've seen my marriage to your daddy. The man may be the head of the family, but the woman's the neck, and she can turn that man anyway she pleases. Here, do you want the diamond studs or the gold rings? I think we'd look cute as anything if we match."

Judy started briefly, then gave Aja a guilty look. "Ah'm sorry if Ah got you in trouble," she said to the heir to the throne of the most powerful kingdom in Africa. "But you...really should go meet Wail, if you really want to," she went on, crossing her legs in a ladylike fashion as she sat in the back of the van. Her cheeks were coloring but for the most part she looked a bit like a captive princess herself despite the humble origins everyone had heard about. "Ms. Collier, will you stay with me, though? If there really are bad guys around here, Ah just wouldn't feel safe!" She smiled brightly, for a moment wishing she had something to fan herself with to better emphasize the look. It was hard to tell if Ms. Collier bought it or not, but in any event the low-voiced conversation the two of them subsequently had was enough to let the teen heroes approach the conversation between Wail and Ms. Summers if they were so inclined. "It's ironic you put it that way, Mr. LaMarr, because..." The arrival of the teens changed whatever Callie Summers was going to say. "Ah, here they are. Students, you _all_ owe Mr. LaMarr your thanks. If not for him, you might have found yourselves in a very difficult situation."

Week 10 (August 15-22) Oklahoma City, OK Judy had hardly slept in the same bed for more than a week at a time that summer. She’d been in DC with her mom and younger sister for a while, visits that were tense these days with all that was left unsaid between the Cahill women - and then out in Oklahoma with all her family for the official start of her daddy’s re-election campaign, an agonizing affair that had only been made tolerable by a surprise visit from Ashley to drain her powers and talk for a while. Then it had been back in DC, then back to Oklahoma to read books to kids in hospital, then down to Louisiana with its creepy-eyed governor (she’d never actually seen her father discreetly use hand sanitizer after shaking another man’s hand before), then out to Ohio...it had been a thoroughly exhausting summer. But now it was almost over, and she’d be ending the week on the road back to New Jersey to start another year at Claremont. In some ways her saving grace had been the ‘incident’ in Ohio, where the hotel room had burst into flames around her once she was thoroughly sure that her Secret Service protection was as far away as it could be from her. She’d felt guilty about that at the time, but her plan had worked like a charm - after all, wasn’t her mother safe downstairs with the church donors, after telling her daughter that if she couldn’t pull herself together for one night she could just stay up in the hotel room by herself? It was proof to everyone that she hadn’t quite mastered her powers yet, and thus proof she could go back to Claremont for another year. Another year with Leroy, and Micah, and Danica and all her other friends - a chance to really make something of herself, and really change the world. It wasn’t going to be the same this year, and not just because Daddy was running for re-election. “Ash-Agent George!” she exclaimed as her ‘sister’ stepped into the hotel room. She’d seen Ashley throughout the summer, of course - they’d kept the biweekly appointment to drain off her powers like clockwork. But tonight they started making their plans for Year Two of Ashley and Judy Smith, sisters in crime who had no relationship at all with the family in the White House. “It’s good to see you!” She gave Ashley a hard hug, not minding at all that her mother was in the room. “How are you doing?” Ashley took off her sunglasses and smiled at Judy. “Just fine, Jaycee. Good afternoon, Mrs. Cahill,” she said with a nod to an attentive-looking Rachel Cahill, who’d bustled over right away when Ashley arrived. “Let’s get to work, shall we?” She smiled her most professional smile, and that was exactly what they did.

Week 9 (August 7-August 14) They’d picked Irene’s place as the best spot to socialize during the renovation/excavation of the center, Ashley not being ready to explain Irene to her mom just yet. Naturally, their conversation there turned to topics of mutual interest. “You just can’t beat the Sig Sauer P229 DAK,” said Ashley as she looked down at the pistol, she and Irene practically bumping elbows on the latter’s small couch. “.357 rounds, extended range, and small enough you can fit it in a concealed holster. It’ll even take down low-level metas if you know how to pick your shots.” She looked over at Irene’s weapon and said, “The .22 LR is a smart choice if you’re worried about being spotted, but it just doesn’t have a lot of-” Irene snorted. “Sorry, I just realized, here I am sitting in my trailer, comparing guns with my, uh, hunting buddy. I guess I really do fit in wid da parish after all,” she went on with a smirk. She and Ashley fell silent for a moment as they focused on putting away their sidearms. Ashley liked how smart Irene was with her pistol - she’d obviously had long practice. Of course, the pictures on the wall of Irene’s Army service, cut too short, told the story why. “Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid with it,” Ashley said, giving Irene a serious look. "I don't want to hear about Anarchkiss getting in trouble with the cops, even if they're assholes." She didn't tell her not to get into trouble - she was pretty sure Irene would do that anyway. “Cross my heart, and hope not to die.” Irene exhaled, then fanned herself - it was hot in the trailer, even with the whining window air conditioning unit going full blast. “Let’s sit out on the stoop, like civilized folks.” - “So what made you come back, even after everything?” Ashley asked, gesturing slightly with her beer. She’d only had about half of it, not wanting to actually get drunk when she had the ride back to Lafayette ahead of her. “Mama got sick.” Irene rubbed her eyes, then admitted, “I told myself she just wanted to make up because there was nobody else around for her, but I couldn’t leave my Mama in here by herself.” She made a gesture back towards the trailer, then said, “By the time she was gone, I had just about enough money to move in here and keep my benefits. Neighbors used to leave notes about how they wished I’d died in Iraq but now they’ve got cancer too so that’s Louisiana.” “Jesus, what a bunch of assholes.” Ashley remembered jeering taunts, and worse, from her own past - it didn’t mute her appreciation for Irene’s story so much as it made her understand it all too well, flavors of bigotry in a stew that was Louisiana but a million other places too. “At least your mama appreciated it.” “She was a good woman.” Irene picked up a rock and chucked it underhand, the thumb-sized pebble landing in the pond with a satisfying thunk. “So now you know. About Lieutenant Rene, and about the Army, and why I still live in a parish where probably half the people would spit on me so much as look at me. On the other hand, my job turned out to be sitting on top of $(#Ing pirate gold, so I guess things are looking up.” She took a drink, then turned to look at Ashley. Ashley felt her heart jump when Irene took her hand. “I think it’s your turn now, Ash.” “...okay,” said Ashley, reaching back to tuck pink-tipped hair behind her ear. “Okay, here goes. The, uh, the first thing I have to tell you is, I have been dishonest with you. I’m not just a US Treasury bureaucrat; I’m an agent of the United States Secret Service. My current assignment is classified, otherwise I’d have told you the day we met. I just...I’ve had to tell so many people so many lies, I didn’t…” She fell silent, looking down into her beer. When Irene replied, her voice was thick with emotion. “Oh, honey.” When Irene hugged her, Ashley didn’t resist - hell, she hugged back. When Irene released her, Ashley looked up at her friend and saw tears in her eyes. “It’s all right. I remember being there. But there’s only so much time in a life, Ash. Forget me for a minute. When are you going to be honest with _yourself_?” And for the first time in a long time, Ashley George-Tran had absolutely nothing to say.