Avenger Assembled
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"I'm not watching you do anything," Copycat fired back. "Ashley George's hands are tied. Copycat's aren't..."
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Anna regretted her inability to have a normal conversation while wearing the helmet - checking on Mr. Strix, apologizing for how her divine solar powers must have hurt him, none of it could be said in the heat of the moment without sounding like she was some sort of Shakespearean lunatic. So instead Lady Horus declared "Up!" before leaping into the air, her glowing ankh seeming to drag her up to the level of the ceiling. Once there, she zipped around to all the exits of the room where the inkfall was rapidly collecting, closing and locking windows, locking and (as best she could) sealing doors at super-speed, all the while careful to avoid being touched by the falling ink. She knew, or rather figured fast, that collecting the ink was better than letting it spread - even if it meant they had to move faster. "Pretty sure they're fine," said Wadjet reassuringly. "Vampires are tough and Lady Horus falls down a lot." She snorted inside her costume.
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Okay, what's next?
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"Leroy! No!" yelled Judy as her sort-of boyfriend disappeared into the darkness of the nightmare elementary school. Ashley swore again, this time in French, and Pan was pretty sure the act she described wasn't anatomically possible for either dragon or teenager. Judy whirled on Ashley and said, "We have to help them! Who knows what could happen to them out there!" Her accent was thicker here, a drawl that sounded right out of the South. "...no we don't," said Ashley flatly. She was doing something to her gun, taking something from her belt that looked like the head of a megaphone and screwing it in place around the barrel. "We're not just rushing off after anything. Forever Boy is right. He and I need to go rescue those children first. Those two can't have gotten far, not if the psychic space here is as small as Ms. Lupine says it is. We'll find them while we're on the hunt. As for you, you need to stay here with Ms-" "I am _not_ staying here," interrupted the kindergarten teacher, who was on her feet, tears still standing out on her cheeks but her voice clear. "I know Victoria and all these children, and I know Nicholson. I'm the only one who can tell you where to go." "And I can't leave Judy alone...fine," finished Ashley. She dressed as she spoke, all the way, seeming to pull Watchdog's armor and helmet out of nothing. "Let's go," she growled. "All right, line order is that I'm in front, Judy behind me, Ms. Lupine behind her; Forever Boy, you're our rear guard. Time to go kill some nightmares."
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Reflex vs 16: http://orokos.com/roll/695533 = 14 Well that's embarassing - I'll spend an HP and pass automatically!
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Ah, jeez! I'm melting his freakin' eyeballs! Seeing the falling ink and Mr. Strix's distress, Lady Horus took a gamble - she could potentially solve two problems with one sharp blow. And so she did, or at least tried to - gathering her strength for a terrific blow with her ankh against the floor beneath their feet, aiming to shatter the floor in one great blow. It'll get me and the ink outta the way in the same minute - unless the ink can fly! Goddamned flying ink! she thought irritably as she struck the floor with her glowing blade, again and again. Seeing the growing liquid mass, and feeling the impact of Lady Horus's blows beneath her feet, Wadjet said a bad word in her mother's native language and began fumbling quickly in her pocket for chemical charges. She hadn't come prepared for this!
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Anna dealt with the tactical problem first, zipping to Sekhmet's side to discreetly murmur "Yeah I know about that, play it cool," Knowing that Set was getting it from a vampire boy (and giving it sometimes) meant she wasn't as worried as she would be if this was, say, her kid. Thinking of her son made her heart beat faster, and she quickly took a seat at the head of the table. She dealt with the other problem next. Well, not really a problem. She'd been around a teenage boy before. "First off, Chrome-dome," she said affecionately, "we had the talk about havin' a common gimmick pretty early on if you recall. But you go on being Chromium if that's yer thing, honey, we don't judge around here. And secondly, yeah, this two are the real deal." Well, sort of. "Siddown and have some food, kids." "I judge," said Esperanza. She was still in her seat at the table, . "So is there-?" When there wasn't any wine, she seemed to lose a touch of her good cheer - but only a little. "Ah well. I hear you guys like beer more anyway," she said, looking from godling to godling. "Espy! Did you use that book just to find rude things to say to people?" "Hey, Wadjet's supposed to spit fire and venom. I'm just trying to stay on the gimmick, old lady. Here, you want the cranberry sauce?" she offered Set.
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"I..I think so too," said Steve, looking profoundly relieved. He'd thought for years that even thinking so would be the height of arrogance, but years of friendship, of love, and therapy had helped convince him otherwise. "And so do you. You have been very understanding of my...mistakes." He was silent for a moment or two, considering his next move. "And I understand that there are things I cannot give you, that a normal man could. I think that we can both have something better than I have now - that we both deserve " Tentatively, he pulled over his file of folders. "I have done the research. This can be done quietly, without attracting attention, but we will both benefit - now, and for the rest of our lives." Despite his usual reserve, the thought of having lives to spend together made his voice tremble. He took the box suddenly and tore the wrapping in a sudden movement of his fingers - and handed the small, instantly recognizable black leather ring box to Gina. "Gina - will you marry me?"
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Through sniffles (which she obviously found very embarrassing, leading to more sniffles), Miss Lupine gave them the rundown on Victoria's powers - when uncontrolled, they linked together the minds of people she'd been speaking to before bed, and sometimes the people they'd been speaking to as well. "As you can imagine, Victoria had a...troubled childhood before she was adopted and her new parents came with her to Nicholson. That's why she likes the princess dresses, and Disney cartoons, and anything that lets her imagine better things. She loves to go to the library, and she spends most of her unsupervised time looking at books. But even as happy as she was today, being in an unfamiliar place is a potential nightmare trigger for children." "Du ma may!" declared Ashley, the swearing in Vietnamese not something any of them had seen from her before. "You people just brought a potential hivemind into Claremont?! What the hell were you thinking?" "Ashley, that is not nice," said Judy, whose firmness as she whirled on her sister was unusual too. "We can be angry at each other later, right now the wise thing is to try and find a way out of here." She moved protectively between her sister and the teacher. "Now can you answer our questions?" Miss Lupine explained that there were probably no more than a dozen or so people inside the "linked nightmare", and that they couldn't actually be hurt by anything that happened in there, but anything that happened would feel real. "I should know, I was in the last one, before one of our PTA members came in and got me out..." She flushed in her cheeks at the memory. "The children aren't in any physical danger, and we'll all wake up in the morning - but there could be half a dozen children scattered around this place, going through the worst nightmare they've ever had, all night."
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Reluctantly, Copycat told them the story - how she'd gone in for the usual briefing after a long deployment, how the agent hadn't been the usual agent, and how his questions had revealed a suspicious amount of knowledge about her time as Raven's sidekick. "No way out on my own. If I go to the agency, they'll dig. If I go meta, they'll dig too. Only way out is people who already know the secret." She didn't mention that of course she couldn't have gone to Callie Summers about this if she wanted to have any self-respect - she was pretty sure the latter knew all about it anyway. Copycat took a breath, then another, and said, "I investigated Johnson as much as I could - by all accounts he's a boring career agent who works a desk in Counterfeiting, mostly in Baltimore and points north. I don't think he's ever even fired his gun in anger. I need Geckoman and the Raven to go deeper. Need to find out what he knows - and how."
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All right, @Cubismo, give me a straight-up Dex check.
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Esperanza knew who Set and Sekhmet were - she was the most Internet-savvy of the group and she'd looked up her boss's old cronies as soon as she'd had the chance. Treating your friends like your enemies and knowing your enemy's weaknesses was a principle she'd known long before she'd met Anna Cline. Beaming, she turned to look at Anna, leaning back with an arm outstretched as if expecting an introduction. Sure enough, she got one. "Set! And Kitty-Girl!" Anna put her hand over her heart, swallowed hard, and put her game face on. "Sweeties!" she said. In a flash she was on her feet and across the room, zipping over to give Set and Sekhmet both air-kisses. "What a surprise!" She smiled and said, "Esperanza, Nicci, Chromium," she added with the tone of an indulgent parent. "These are Set and Sekhmet, two very old friends of mine." She thought fast, thoughts tripping over each other and said, "Set, if you're looking to eat, the stuffing and the sweet potatoes don't have any meat in 'em, and Sekhmet the turkey is made of the stuff. These are my, ah-" "Accomplices!" called Esperanza from the table, looking considerably more cheerful than was her usual wont.
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"They're all gone and it's all my fault, w-wait," Miss Lupine was asking, looking up from her tear-streaked face at the heroes as they tried to comfort her. She had stopped weeping with Sun Dragon and Forever Boy comforting her, "how can you be here?" "Not )$_@ing again!" cursed Ashley. Having pulled one of her laser blasters out from her belt, she was scanning the room with gun drawn, interposing herself between Judy and the rest of the room. "Hello? Hello?" she shouted into her bracelet communicator. There was no response. She wanted to tell Leroy where to stick his questions but she needed the dragon-controlling teen if she was going to get Judy out of wherever it was they were. "Scout the perimeter," she barked automatically. "Stay where we can see you." Pan was not immediately familiar with the room he was looking at, though it did vaguely resemble the classrooms he'd seen in his studies of children in this dimension - the smaller ones, anyway. In fact, this was probably the sort of room Miss Lupine taught in. But this was no normal place; casting out his senses gave him strange echoes and weird, whispery noises, just like the time the Hooked Man trapped him in that illusion of his parents coming to take him away. One thing he couldn't see was outside - the 'classroom' doors were all closed and the glass in them was opaqued. "What do you mean?" asked Judy, who hadn't gotten up off the floor; at Ashley's direction, she was sheltering behind a row of surrounding cubbies with Miss Lupine. "How can you be here - in my - in my dream!" Miss Lupine sat bolt upright. "In my dream!" She put her hand to her mouth. "I know what's happening - one of our students, that little girl, Victoria, you remember her?" she asked. "She's a psychic whose powers are active when she's in a state of REM sleep. She can create a psychic field that blends REM states into one whole..." She was supposed to take her pill tonight but I must have forgotten to make sure she did, oh no! It _is_ all my fault!" she said, and suddenly began weeping again - the sort of raw, unrestrained emotion that seemed unusual in a kindergarten teacher but weren't that surprising inside someone's head. "We're dreaming. We're dreaming inside a nightmare version of Nicholson." Ashley said a word that was not appropriate for kindergarten.
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OK, guys, whatcha gonna do about this? @Cubismo @trollthumper
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Leaving Sea Devil and the cult leader to shout at each other (the former seeming to have the situation well in hand despite not having her trident with her), Ms. Thursday and Nick Cimitiere chased the fleeing cultist into the ruined structure that had once been the complex's main building. This place had once held offices, classrooms, and other, perhaps more sinister, accommodations - but it was hard to tell now. Something had smashed this place from the inside, breaking windows and pushing aside walls, and years of rain and other things coming in through the collapsed roof had done their work. Something didn't quite add up about the angles of the rotten timbers and fallen beams, and the two heroes had to pick their way carefully through (even in the air) rather than risk the whole structure caving in on them. The rain was still thick, too, cascading down through the remains of the building, coming away with a strange chemical smell as it reached their nostrils, as if it had passed through something unwholesome between sky and ground. They could hear Sea Devil's echoing voice even here, the bass calls of "You were deceived!" sounding far more annoyed than fearful. By the time they'd caught up to the fleeing cultist, he'd reached the center of the building - and a pit. A deep, dark pit that gaped wide behind him. "You think you can take this from me?" he demanded of them - his beard and eyes wild, his face younger than they might have expected. "Go ahead! Show everyone what you _really_ care about -" and then, before either of the two could stop him, he threw first the book - then jumped after it himself!
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Sea Devil shuddered all over - then closed her helmet and swam down after Sgt. Shark, opening her eyes now that she was confident she too could resist the allure of the lights below. She didn't bandy words with Sgt. Shark; everything he'd said made sense and she could still taste his blood in her mouth. But the situation was serious, and they had a coast to save. So instead she opened her senses as they went, doing her best to hear the sounds and smells of the deep trench. She'd used the power of the gods here and perhaps done some damage - well good if they were enslaving passersby with their unholy science!
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Steve joined her after just a few minutes, taking the opportunity of being alone at the kitchen counter both to settle himself and to make sure he actually had something to eat. Once he and Gina were sitting together at the table, he ate, and passed her the salt, and it took him a moment or two to realize he hadn't said anything for too long. "I have been thinking," he said seriously, "about the future." He folded his hands on the table in front of him, then thought better of it and reached out one hand to put on hers. "Since my arrival in this dimension, I believed I had no future - that whatever time I had on Earth-Prime with you was just a passing moment in a life that would end in darkness, and that I would only be deluding myself to imagine anything greater." They had worked together to fight a great many powerful enemies in that time, many of whom could easily have ended their lives. "I no longer believe that to be true."
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Lady Horus watched the inky stuff come pouring out of the books and declared, "By Thoth's pizzle!" Her first, and maybe second, impulse was to set the books on fire with solar power and see how they liked the taste of that sausage, but she quickly decided that could potentially go wrong in several highly dramatic ways. Normally I'd just hide it out here but I'm the bull in the freakin' china shop! Going too fast for the eye to see would just make people go looking for her, which meant they might find Wadjet and the others first. Well only one solution! She raised her ankh and plunged it into the floor, flipping the instrument around so it hit like a hammer's head rather than a sword, the impact shaking the room before she hit it again. "Lo! Who will challenge the Sunhawk's power?" she demanded.
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"It-thank you," said Steve with unusual animation. "I, uh, it is nearly ready." He had learned, from great study and practice, to cook like a diner fry cook - which was what television had taught him was how people ate in Gina's homeland. "I am glad I did not wake you," he added, turning his head to look at her as he stirred the hashbrowns and eggs for her plate. Her share got some of the bacon and some of the hot sauce - his would have more of the first and much more of the second. Peering at the table, Gina could see the small box in the bright blue wrapping paper on the table, next to a three-ring binder thick with papers that bore no title. Steve could see her seeing it. "I hoped we could talk over breakfast. I have not cooked for you in some time."
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When attacking those Below didn't work, Sea Devil changed strategy. She fastened her trident to the back of her armor and swam in a few powerful strokes to where Asad and Sgt. Shark were wrestling. She studied the blood madness in the latter's eyes and came to a decision. "Do not be afraid!" she croaked firmly to Asad before focusing her attention again on Sgt. Shark. Snapping open her helmet, she met his gaze with great eyes to black ones and then bared her teeth - great serrated and pointed things that if they weren't quite as impressive as Sgt. Shark's were certainly impressive in their own right. She growled deep in her massive throat, a bass rumble that resonated through the water, then opened her mouth wide in a noise that was once bellow and roar! Then she snapped her head forward to bite the tip of Sgt. Shark's snout, just enough to draw blood and leave a mark, and grabbed him by the side of the head, careful of a shark's rough skin - and positioned her face so it was the only thing Sgt. Shark could see. And then she ROARED again, a near subsonic rumble that probably carried for miles.
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Okay, let's do this! Handle Animal check: http://orokos.com/roll/693125 = 20 That 20 beats the check, even if it does feel a bit weaksauce. ? I'll go ahead and post!
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"Their city gets invaded, they fight the invaders. Didn't see them showing up here when the Atlanteans came off the lake, or when the Terminus came _here_, or when the old lady fought those giant snakes," said Esperanza with a sniff. Anna was a little too busy to mind being called the old lady right now, her hand invisible under the table where it rested on Nicci's thigh. Luckily Esperanza didn't need to think about that. "They take care of their own, but we're the ones who take care of us."
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"Japanese. Perhaps the sushi this time, from that place with all the chili..." he said thoughtfully. Freedom City, he had been told, had an excellent restaurants that didn't 'dial things down' for the benefit of consumers with weak palates. Given that his own problems with taste and touch often ran in different directions, that was a good thing. "You should eat what you can here," he said for the benefit for their guest. "Cities here are many peoples of different types together, just as they are in the Terminus, but their differences are...what makes them grow, rather than poisons them at their root." Studying Delta, he added, "I understand wearing the marks of what was. But there are...tactical benefits to concealment."
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Eventually, the room went to sleep. And dreamed. - Ashley opened her eyes with her face pressed against carpet - and then cursed, sitting faster. "J-Judy?" She was sitting on some sort of rug, a soft brightly-colored one with a map of the world emblazoned on it, and she was surrounded by low shelves and desks that looked more suited to midgets than high school students. She wasn't alone on the rug, either - Forever Boy, Dio, and Sun Dragon were all stirring from their own rests nearby. Luckily Judy was close at hand, curled up next to her sister as if they'd fallen asleep there. "Ashley?" They embraced, very briefly. And they weren't alone, either. Curled up in a ball in the middle of the rug, Miss Jessie Lupine was crying hysterically. "Oh no! Oh no! They're gone and I've lost them all!"
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Copycat flinched, Ashley's hands contracting inside her costume's gauntlets. Had he known? Or taken a lucky guess, given the gender dynamics of the Secret Service, and been proven right? You could never tell with the Raven. Any Raven. "I don't know. I don't know him, and his record is clean. I can't go through agency channels on this one." Because then everyone will know you're a liar, came her own voice in her head, clear and bright. Everyone will know that you lied to everyone to get your job, just like you lie to all those kids at Claremont.