Avenger Assembled

Sea Devil, Singularity, and their companions joined the other travelers - Aquaria's faceplate translucent to show the froggy face within, a pale shadow of the great green, sticky spawn of the stars that lay beneath the mountain and slumbered in the content of a Thing that had begun to move beyond the worlds entirely. We must sing her song for her, thought Aquaria. What she said was, "If Cavalier and I take to the sky, we can spot the unseen things - and warn the rest of you for the battle. Stay here, Singularity," she croaked softly to Jessie. She knew that the day, with its many small madnesses, had unnerved her friend and so was determined to make sure she stayed calm. "I will stay safe until we are together again." With that, she took off into the sky with a single fantastic leap, the warm electric hum of Spectrum Knight armor a symbol of an ancient past - and a dawning future that might yet be.

Woodsman didn't exactly move slowly through the seared forest, but he did move carefully - knowing that a trip could mean a sprained ankle in a situation where even a best-case scenario meant a dangerous foe at their backs. He stopped first to tie a wet rag around the bottom half of his face, then pulled up his hood before moving low and slow through the forest, giving any still-crackling patches of flame a wide berth. It wasn't too late to put down the thing they'd called up, even if he did have to fight the urge to run _away_ from the flames rather than towards them. A supervillain he could handle without a backwards glance, but a forest fire was something he understood all too intimately. And the Forest Primeval had ways of protecting itself.

Sounds good to me!

Inside the dome they stopped first in an interior airlock to shed most of their outerwear, the roar of heaters telling them they'd arrived somewhere a little more habitable than the frozen Hell outside. There were cubbies here for them to store their winter gear, carefully hand-labeled with the words "DRAGONFLY" and "JILL O'CURE", alongside the more conventional names of the scientists. With no outerwear to shed, Steve was waiting for them just inside the dome. Steve didn't say anything about his profound relief that they had come, that they had not brought the other Interceptors, and that with any luck Yoyo would never know where her two foster mothers had gone this summer. He was actually speaking, with his head cocked, in a soft voice to someone else entirely. "I'll tell them." He 'hung up', tilting his head back, and said in a soft voice, "The storm of twelve hours ago damaged the outer defenses. Miss Americana will return momentarily." It was immediately clear that the crew inside the dome was a skeleton one, and not just because of the tables of massive bones that took up a full half of the large room, the great curving ribs and skull of some monstrous reptile, its skeletal structure an odd jet black like a museum's fossil reproductions. The bones had few attendants, though, as the small crew of scientists in the room were mostly working with collections of battered metal and exotic parts, a strange sight given their remote location. Even a quick inspection as they walked over to join the scientists, (the usual [sometimes consciously] diverse Archetech crew in their various uniforms) revealed that this was clearly worked metal and high technology, albeit of great age and not immediately familiar design. "Dragonfly, Jill O'Cure, these are the last of the volunteers - " He introduced them all in a low, careful voice, from Aarush the hijab-wearing engineer from India to Zielonki the dour, pinch-faced Polish archaeologist. From the smile lines at the corner of her eyes, Aarush, and some of the others, looked like they'd like to be more cheerful than their tired, worn faces suggested. "These are our consultants from Freedom City." "I hear you're our ride if the helicopter doesn't work. Should be exciting." offered Aarush, while her colleagues went back to work. "Apologies if we're not very social, but two months of an Antarctic winter will do that. I for one am looking forward to seeing the Sun again." "Yes," agreed Steve - as usual it was hard to see fatigue on his dark face, but his friends knew him well enough to see the marks of stress. "I...it is good you are here, Dragonfly, Jill O'Cure. This is our work." He reached down and turned over a flat, triangular piece of metal about as large as a human torso - a piece of metal that for all its battering and rust around the edges bore a symbol they had both seen before - something like a Chinese dragon in yellow on a field of red, but subtly different - the faces seemed somehow warped and unnatural, as if cast by artists antithetical to humanity itself. Tattooed on the flesh of soldiers, emblazoned on the flesh of dragons, it was the symbol of the Dragon of the Terminus - Mandragora!. "

The humor dropped out of Dimitri's face like a morning frost on a summer day. "<It is different,>" he agreed. He put his hand on the picture of the dead man and hazarded, "He waited?" he inquired, picturing a scenario in his mind with painful surety. "It seems there is a new agent, yes, or group of them. We will need to see last two scenes for evidence, and perhaps this man's as well. Sandman, what do you think?" he inquired of his ally, leaning on the other man's counsel first as he considered his own thoughts. A journey into the realms of the Fae was certainly not beyond his abilities - but would Sandman appreciate the cost that they might have to inflict?

Citizen: A rush attempt. STR check: 15 + 5 + 7 http://orokos.com/roll/537057 = 45! Okay, well, Citizen will seek to push the Hydra as far out to sea as he reasonably can.

Without comment, Woodsman turned down the lights in the room, then ducked low to peer out the front window to study the van outside and its occupants. Maybe he didn't have Grim's powers, or this guy's MAX (or whatever he'd been taking), but he knew this situation all too well. A night ambush, with unknown threats in your rear and your front. He snapped out a crank from the side of his crossbow and quickly gave it a few hard pumps, the big muscles in his right shoulder bulging, then raised it to bear again. This way, he could shoot through the glass with a reasonable amount of stopping power if necessary. "Gonna shoot 'em if they got guns," he said quietly. "After that, 'sawn you."

"Yeah, boss gave us all a talk about not being a hero on this one." The corners of her eyes crinkling with concern, Keri kept up the conversation while hanging onto one of the overhanging seat straps. "Twenty-three people on the base right now, after they lifted Lizzie Reynolds out on account of her bein' five months pregnant. We could fit 'em all in here," she said, gesturing to the interior of the helicopter. "and head for Amundsen-Scott if we have to - assuming the weather doesn't turn again. Flyin' in Antarctica winter; you only do if it's gonna save somebody's life - or maybe the world, with all the hero types down there." She gave the women the sort of smile they saw a lot from trained civilians in crisis situations, or near crisis situations. "Have to leave the gear at the dig site, though. But that's probably all right. Rail guns or not, I don't think anybody's hiking into the Ellsworth Mountains in winter to steal from Miss Americana." - The Archetech base wasn't quite in the Ellsworth Mountains, but the peaks loomed over the small circle of domes that made up this remote 'geological' base, dwarfing even the substantial antenna that towered above any of the domes. The promised rail guns were there too - recently erected, they were of a make Dragonfly recognized (though of course would never build) - the sort built by the semi-retired Daedalus and marketed to companies in need of defense against sustained superhuman assault. In the darkness of the Antarctic night, it was hard to make out other details of the facility where they were headed - they could just make out the darkened shapes of more domes scattered against the side of a low hill, heavy construction equipment near the sides of the hill - and then they were touching down amid that small circle of lights amid the vast, almost predatory darkness of the Antarctic night. They could hear the wind howling outside, and the craft buffeted back and forth, but just as Keri had promised the weather favored them today. As the rotors powered down, Keri and Keith came back to help them with their winter gear - which was mostly a job for Ellie given Dragonfly's armor, though there was a change for Mara for whenever she might not be wearing her armor. "You want about four layers any time you're here," said Keri, "thermal underneath, then a fleece, then jacket, then your parka. Don't go overboard or you'll sweat into your clothes, and that's bad." Double gloves (the outer the special Antarctic brand), double socks and heavy boots. The pilots were geared up now too, in severeal layers thicker than you'd wear even in the coldest Freedom City winter. "All right, we're ready for the party." They stepped outside - and for a moment, amid the cold and the dark and the fingertips of civilization clinging to this remote place, the sky overhead was all gorgeous flowing greens and yellows, the Southern Lights looking spectacular this evening. Keith and Keri, for their part, stopped just briefly to look before heading inside. It was cold, cold, so cold that by Mara's sensor calculations she could have thrown a cup of coffee in the air and watched it freeze solid before it hit the ground. It was a very good thing she was in her suit, and Ellie so bundled up. The bulk of the helicopter had cut the wind, but they could hear it howling even so, and see the star-dappled cold all about. There was another familiar face - in white, vaguely-medieval armor that seemed to glow beneath the light of the borealis, his massive blue polearm holstered at his side and invisible. In his armor, anyway, the cold didn't seem to bother Caradoc at all, though he was craning his neck to look inside the helicopter for a long moment. "Thank you," he said, using his suit radio to cut through the wind. "Inside," he added, turning and heading for the largest dome without another word. It was, after all, very cold.

Okay, need a Will save from Miracle Girl vs. Mind Control - check the post for math here

"Mr. Milchakov, I greet you in the name of the People's Heroes and the American Freedom League. This is my colleague, Mr. Sandman. He has come from America to help us resolve this crisis." Dimitri took the old man's hand and gave him a firm handshake, as a man greets another man, then handed him off to Sandman. While the greetings were performed, he picked up the manila envelope and produced a worn bronze letter opener from his sleeve. The old Army-issue blade had seen quite a bit of use, even if you didn't count stabbing those warded against cold with it, and without a flourish Dimitri cut open the envelope and spilled its contents out upon the table before them.

It's up to you - do you want to act (by spending an HP to shake the daze), or do you want to be skipped over?

Gorilla: Activates his Master Plan! He rolled pretty well on that check. He and his allies will start getting their +2 Bonus bonus on all skill checks and attack rolls next round. He goes ahead and hits the plane! It's an inanimate object with TOU 15 (normally a plane would obviously not be that armored but hey, it's Air Force One!) The part of the plane he's hitting is now injured. New round! Firebreather: 26 Hyperactive: 23, down 1 HP Electroman: 19 Psychic: 17, Bruised x1 Chrome: 15 El Huracan: 13 Miracle Girl: 12 Argonaut: 8 Gorilla: 5, bruised x1 Hyperactive is dazed this round. Firebreather blasts the plane where the gorilla is attacking it! It's an inanimate object, so it's now Injured x2. Electroman is on fire support - he'll take this opportunity to blast the very effective Argonaut. Attack vs. Argonaut: 16 A miss! I'll have the Psychic go - have an HP, Heritage. She'll inflict a Mind Control effect on Miracle Girl. 13+2=15 ugh, what terrible dice luck they're having. Even with Miracle Girl's Vulnerability, that's still just a DC 18 check for you to overcome, Heritage.

August 2017 The Antarctic Circle Archetech Antarctic #006 (Outside Temperature -50 F) (Outside Sky Dark) "Okay, ladies, you are officially past the Antarctic Circle!" The Archetech copilot had been quite solicitous to Dragonfly and Jill O'Cure once she'd learned it was the two superheroines' first visit to Antarctica. "Welcome to the Real Down Under!" Keri Russet's Australian accent was thick; she'd worked for the Australian Antarctic Division before being hired on by Archetech as a helicopter pilot. She grinned, her head ducked low in the cramped confines of the back of the helicopter. On the one hand, the electrically-driven helicopter was a technological marvel, big as a Chinook but faster, with an engine specially modified to work in the extreme cold of the Antarctic winter. On the one hand, it was a helicopter with a passenger compartment about the size of a small bus, and Ellie and Mara had been riding in it since they'd taken off from in Rio Gallegos around the beginning of their subjective night. That had been after the connecting flight from Buenos Aires, and that had been after flying down from Freedom City. It had been a long couple of days. "With the winds the way they are and with these new engines, we're about two hours out of Ellsworth Base, so you might as well get comfortable," she offered to the two costumed heroes. "Things are a bit rugged down there - and I should know, Keith and I are gonna bunk down there till you fly out again." The pilot, a deep-voiced man with a Nigerian accent, was still up front. "You ladies must be pretty special," she added cheerfully, "you earned Keith and me both triple-pay for flying you in in the middle of winter! I'm gonna take my kids to Disneyland when this is done." The message had come for Dragonfly by long-distance text, a legacy of the tightened bandwidth at an Archetech temporary base in Antarctica at the height of the Antarctic winter. "URGENT AID NEEDED: TECH PROBLEM - MA. CONFIDENTIAL. PERSONAL PROBLEM - C." Miss Americana hadn't been around much during that summer, and come to think of it neither had Harrier, having left word with the Interceptors that he was going to be out of communication until the holiday season. Once they'd passed certain tests to prove it was a real message, had come the instructions for how to get where they were going - an Archetech "geological base" (according to their website) located in the heart of Antarctica's Ellsworth Mountains. In winter.

Tou vs 24: Psychic passes We'll say Hyperactive is no longer in melee with the gorilla, given his speed and that he took a mental blast in the meantime. Tou vs 25: Gorilla fails The Gorilla is bruised and dazed (I'll have him act anyway, HGM, so go ahead and take an HP)

Woodsman stared at the creature inside the glass for a long, silent moment, seeming to ignore the conversation taking place on either side of him. It wasn't a Feral, it lacked their terrible animalistic cunning. But it was a mockery of human life turned predatory, the look of those grey teeth and hands something he understood only too well. You knew this was going to happen someday. "Kill it now," he said flatly, his voice almost artificially even. "Destroy the town - burn it hot enough that nothing left there will survive. Put the survivors in quarantine and burn 'em down if they turn. I've seen it-" He blinked, hard, and pushed away a lifetime of memory. "I've seen it done. It's hard doing but if you let one of 'em out, might not be able to stop it. And what happens when a meta turns?"

Argonaut is up.

"Well, that's what we're here to find out!" said Sancta brightly, turning and heading for the community while inviting Gabriel to keep up. "I'm fascinated at how well your religious community has integrated itself into a community that's primarily secular. Have you found that a challenge?" she inquired. "I know many planets have had bloody religious strife in their past, but fortunately that's no longer an issue for us. Travelers in the Ocholocracy generally embrace the Infinite that lies Beyond," she said, pointing to the symbol she wore on her chest. "The Union of All. It's an area of specialty of mine." Leaning close to Gabriel, she artfully tried to wrap her arm around his. "On the planet where I was bio-born, most sentients worshiped the One who led the rebellion against the Grue in the early days of the Meta-Mind's fall. Though she was martyred for our people, her sacrifice freed us from bondage - and universally reconciled us to the new galaxy." She kept talking about theology as they went, moving from the fairly typical redeemer stories of her people to some of the more outre galactic faiths that were generally subsumed into the Infinite among space travelers. "Oh, may I see your community?" As they spoke, a quick signal informed Gabriel that his messages had been sent. - "Yes, of course," said Petra, peering at Tarrant expectantly. "We are here to promote relations with powerful sentients, so naturally we're particularly suited for that task. With trillions of sentients to choose from, and billions willing to make the journey, the Ocholocracy had no difficulty. The difficulty was ours, being selected for the mission!" She watched the display of geokinetic power as she spoke, reaching out to touch the gem Gaian Knight was using as their icon. "You know," she said thoughtfully, "if you are interested in deep diving, our technology could protect you - especially with your own abilities. Which are truly remarkable, by the way, I didn't quite believe the recording-" Pushing her lenses back up against her eyes, she took his hand curiously, turning it over in her grasp. Her hands were soft as she held Gaian Knight's, and a little warm. "Is that from technological modifications? I didn't think your race had the power for that kind of deep technological modifications." - "It was something to sharpen our teeth against," said An-Guis, shrugging slightly. "We had all the time one could ever want aboard that craft," he hissed, glancing back at the spacecraft that had brought them there. "So there was time to learn." Looking back at Tiamat, his body tense enough to show that for all his casual talk, he'd picked up on her implied threat. "I _could_ teach you my tongue, if you are truly so inclined, great one, but it might be better done elsewhere."

The 19 there, plus your 19 Skill Mastery on Gather Information w/Well-Informed, gives you:

I want to do a thread where the Hammer of Justice comes to Anna Cline's apartment in Bedlam to kill her. But I'd like someone else to run it for me. PM me or grab me in chat if you have ideas.

Wow, this looks great! Approved!

They're all from Marfa - in fact for some reason (probably mental compulsion) no tourists have actually stayed in town in the last two weeks. Once freed from the Director's control, they do remember people starting to act funny. They were never explicitly given orders, but they started doing things en masse - waking up at the same time, going to bed at the same time, visiting different parts of town, saying things that made no sense, like they were acting out some sort of play. There were cameras, too, and strange people watching them. The Connected feat will not help here, the guy has escaped! Take an HP if that is a trouble for ya. The town is scared, now that they're free from the Director's compulsion, they don't know what happened! They're not quite panicking, not yet, but they're close. The Director (under a different name) is an established supervillain - lemme know what sort of investigation (i.e., what kind of die rolls) you'll be doing to find out who! Something about teleporting and mind control does sound familiar...

"Hm," Woodsman wandered back into the server room where he'd left Sparkler and Merlin. "Found where they went out - offices on the second left," he added for the benefit of the police. "Looks like they did it with ropes n'grapple, so probably not dealin' with the Flyin' Bandit here." He took out his phone, which was still technically on Peyton's plan, and painstakingly texted Grim. (Riley texted with the phone in one hand and typing slowly with the other one, a legacy of having had a phone for just a few years. He also texted in complete sentences and with punctuation.) THEY WENT OUT THROUGH THE NORTHSIDE ALLEY. CAN THE DOGS TRACK THEM?

Okay, I think we're ready to talk to Owen - if there's nothing useful to be gained from him, though, we can probably just skip through it and get to the next step.

"Centuries ago," said Pharos, his glow radiating more in the infrared now that he and Stesha were talking intimately, "we were all different races - Lor, Grue, and others, before the Grue Meta-Mind led its armies across all of this part of the Galaxy. They dominated this region for lifetimes until a mass uprising of sentients, Lor and Grue and everyone under the Meta-Mind's rule, overthrew the Unity's power and created the Ocholocracy. It was a difficult war, but freedom was finally triumphant everywhere. With the technology gained from the Unity's homeworld, and from other races we've encountered, we've been able to uplift almost every spacefaring sentient from here to the Core. I couldn't begin to guess our population," he admitted, looking a little apologetic. "In the trillions, at least. Our government is a direct democracy, though citizens can earn more votes through productivity. May I take your image?" he asked, holding up one of the cameras. "Our own history is one reason I find you so fascinating." - An-Guis's eyes widened, his triangular teeth bared, in a response that wasn't quite a threat response and more like something Tiamat didn't get a lot of these days. "You are a magnificent female," he hissed. "Forgive my tongue, great one, there are few with such teeth among the Ocholocracy. I hope the locals give you the tribute you deserve." As he spoke, one of the giant bees was performing a slow, lazy circle for the benefit of the tourists, whose back-of-the-hand-to-elbowing seemed to be their version of applause. Petra snapped a few pictures, then leaned into Tarrant's shoulder to take an image that caught the two of them. She smelled like freshly-baked bread and sunflowers, something he'd gotten quite familiar with while living on Sanctuary. "Beautiful! I'm so glad to meet another sentient of geological science. My own interests are in deep core diving - have you ever been?"

Lady Horus Patrimony "Okay, Willy, since you asked, I'm gonna tell you about your Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Cline. I don't like to do this but you're a man now, so you're big enough to hear this. Your great-grandpa Sean was a big guy - your typical thick, meaty-looking Irishman with red hair, lots of freckles, and big, rough hands from working in steel mills ten hours a day. His dad, your great-great-grandpa, was the one who'd come over from Belfast in '97 and changed the family name from Clyne to Cline. Where was I? Anyway, he met your great-grandma Irene at a church social in Bedlam back when our neighborhood, Hardwick Park, was fulla big Irish guys and pretty Polish girls. Oh yeah, back in the day, an Irishman marrying a Polish girl was a big thing in the neighborhood - luckily your great-grandpa could handle himself in a fistfight when my ma's brothers came by to try and scare him off! Now, your great-grandpa and great-grandma, they were good old-fashioned Catholics - Latin Mass, fish on Fridays, prayin' on your knees, the whole ball a' wax. I'm a little rusty myself, I ain't seen a lotta need for such churchgoin', but...anyway, where was I? Now, most of the families we grew up around, they had five, six, seven kids at least, but Ma just had me and, uh, your great-uncle Charlie, the one that died in Dubya-Dubya-2. Charlie was older than me by about ten years and he was born hard, so Ma thought she couldn't have any more kids till I snuck in there, huh!? Anyway, Charlie was like your great-grandpa, a big, tough kid who'd go out and scrap with anybody in the neighborhood who looked at us funny. He joined the Navy soon as he turned eighteen and went off to fight in the Pacific. Real son-of-a-bitch war that one, wasn't like the one out in Europe. He died at Midway on the Yorktown. I was just eight and a half when that happened. I never saw your great-grandma cry before that day. Anyway. Your great-grandpa was a strong union man, 100%, and that meant he got into a lotta fights with strikebreakers. Bedlam had a lot of 'em back then, especially in the 30s when things were so desperate and people were starvin' in the back alleys. If it weren't for all the friends they had at church, same thing might have happened to us, because being in a union sometimes meant they blacklisted you and wouldn't hire you anywhere. So we moved a lot when I was a kid - Bedlam to Madison, Madison to Milwaukee, then Milwaukee to Freedom after Charlie died. I ran kinda wild once we go to Freedom, because that was about the time my aunt Aileen moved in with her eight kids while her husband was servin' in Europe, and yer great-grandpa was busy with the union and maybe hittin' the bar too often, yer great-grandma was busy with the church groups, and they just let me do my thing. Things were different back then, y'know? I was a real hellraiser when I was a kid. Fightin' with other girls, sassing off to priests and my teachers, smokin' cigarettes when I wasn't supposed to - your great-grandpa tanned my hide pretty good sometimes but he stopped when he figured out it wasn't doin' any good. I dunno why, I was like that, I just was crazy about everything. Crazy about all the cousins, crazy about all the moving, crazy about Freedom, crazy about Charlie...I dunno. I ain't a psychiatrist, honey, I never finished high school and just got my diploma when I was in stir, you know that. Anyway, where was I? Turns out the union local your great-grandpa was in had gangsters in it - Midnight came in and busted most of 'em up back in '46. Your great-grandpa was...I don't think he knew. It hurt him bad to know all his friends were scumbags stealing from the till. After that, things started getting worse. We had to borrow money from the neighbors a lot, and your great-grandpa started drinkin' more. That's why you never see me drink to excess, honey, I may have done some stupid things in my time but you'll never see me getting hammered on a street corner like...anyway. I fought with my parents a lot. Your great-grandma prayed about it a lot but by then I was only going to church when they dragged me by the ear. They were gettin' up in years by now, and I think they were just waitin' for me to turn twenty-one so they could turn me out with my bag. I was a bad influence, y'see, with all the cousins still runnin' around underfoot. Aileen's husband drank even worse than your great-grandpa did, and he never did get all the way back on his feet after the war. Like I said, things were different. But by then I was running, really running for the first time, and I was in Troublemakers, so I didn't care one damn bit what the old man and the old lady thought of me. I thought they were just a bunch of squares tryin' to hold me back from breakin' into supervillainy. You know, I think they knew I was in a gang, but they never did learn I had powers, not then, anyway. Could'a showed 'em, I guess, but that woulda meant not havin' a place to go back to, and I wasn't ready for that. They didn't mind I was bringin' money into the family for the first time, that's for damn sure. I left home in '52. Told 'em I was workin' downtown and stayin' with some girlfriends, but I was runnin' with the Troublemakers. Pa and Ma, they took the money for a few years, till the summer of '56 when we pulled off the big Studebaker job and the damn Centurion caught me by the hand! I got away from that golden gargoyle but not before that damn Jimmy Lucas took my picture with his damn flashbulb! Thank God I had a mask back then, and hardly anybody from the old neighborhood had seen me in the daytime, but...but Ma and Pa knew. When I came back to give 'em their share of the take from the last job, they met me at the door, told me I was no good, and told me never to come back again. That was the other time I saw your great-grandma cry. I don't blame her. I was a bad influence. I started cheatin' after that - skippin' forward a coupla months, or a coupla years, between jobs, and I'd stop by to see if anything had changed, but by '59 they moved and I couldn't get anybody in the old neighborhood to tell me where. I found out their cover story for me was that I'd gotten knocked up by some low-life and was raising a bastard kid while working as a gangster's moll, which is pretty goddamned funny when you think about it, but like I said, it was a different time. After '59, there was the big skip, and no, Willy, I ain't gonna talk about the big skip with you today, so don't even ask. Anyway. Anyway. I was outta Freedom when the big Hades invasion happened. Big battle, first major one since right after Dubya-Dubya-Two. I, uh, I got shown where they lived, never mind how, boy. They both bought it. Goddamned...goddamned centaur just...just trampled them on the street like they were goddamned animals! That bastard and his machine, if I'd gotten there a little sooner, maybe I coulda done something. You think I ain't never fought a horse-man in ten years of supervillainy? ...anyway. Wasn't my job. Heroes were supposed to be the ones lookin' out for the little guy, but they didn't do squat. Never did do squat but hurt people just tryin' ta make a dollar. And fight the Nazis, I guess, but you know it was a long time since we'd seen any Nazis by '61, y'know? So I decided I was gonna keep on being Calendar Girl - but I was gonna do things my way! I met your grandpa a little after that...but that's a different story. They buried yer great-grandma and great-grandpa at St. Sebastian, that little place in the Southside right next to the little Italian...no, I think it's a taco place now. Neighborhood's changed a lot since then. I still visit. You mostly look like yer dad, which means you mostly look like yer grandpa...but when you smile, I can see your great-grandpa in your eyes. When he smiled, he could light up a room like the Fourth a'July, and when he played the piano while yer great-grandma sang, it was the best thing in the world. Yer lucky you've got a pa and a ma who love ya, Willy. Be good to 'em."