Avenger Assembled

That'll take out the car's radiator, sure. What you notice is that guy you are rushing to the hospital is: alive, breathing, and has no real bulletholes. The blood is faaaaake - sticky-sweet stage blood to be precise!

That's an extremely good Notice check! From the description Hyperactive dashed out to you on his way to the hospital, you recognize the kind of electronic system that's used to give cues to actors - which means the transmitter for it must be somewhere very close by. Looking around, you can spot a man in the vacant lot behind the bank holding what looks like a large walkie-talkie. The man is of boring appearance - blandly white, brown-haired, but dressed in a beret and white and black striped shirt like a stereotypical Frenchman - or something else you can't quite put your finger on

"...ah, geez," said the other Richard, his anger considerably mollified at the sight of Paige. Up close, even slightly muffled by the helmet, Paige could hear the difference in his voice - a twinge of old-style Jersey that suggested a version of her husband who spent much more time around his mother. "Listen, I'm sorry I busted into your house like this - I worry a lot about my family. My wife's old man takes a real unseemly interest in the kids and grandkids, ever since-" Cutting himself off, he made a point of speaking directly to Paige - "If the other guy and I traded places, he's just a ten minute run from our place. My Paige probably found him and he's fine." He caught sight of the baby and his eyes lit up. "Hey, did we _just_ have a baby? Well good for him - and you too, honey." He laughed nervously, then went on, "I was running on the beach by Green Bay when there was this big flash of light - so big I thought it was a real hit. Next thing I knew, I was in flatscan Wisconsin - then I ran all the way here."

I need Notice checks from the both of you!

Hyperactive's quick search of the building revealed some anomalies - there really was no obvious way for the 'outlaws' to escape now that their horses had been dispersed (not that the horses would have done them any good either) but they didn't seem terribly concerned by that. Three of them kept their eyes on the glass window at the front of the building and the front door, crouching low to avoid any SWAT snipers, and the other two (including the surly leader) were in the back by the vault door, where one fellow with an eyepatch and heavy stubble visible above his bandanna appeared to be placing an almost cartoonishly-large bundle of bright red dynamite in place against the bank vault door. A close look revealed that the outlaws weren't entirely in tune with their 19th-century melodramatic style - all of them were wearing discreet earpieces like aging movie actors or politicians, the sort that would let them stay in radio contact with somebody - though not necessarily each other. The outlaws seemed to be having a grand old time inside the bank, waving their revolvers around carelessly and pointing them at the hostages, the walls, spinning them on their fingers like characters from an Old West film. The hostages, crying, screaming, afraid, didn't look nearly so happy, nor did the bank manager, bleeding out on the floor, look happy.

Father's Day and Icons in June/July, the End/? in September?

The speedsters ran, crossing ocean and land in an eyeblink, then were back on solid ground for the long cut across the southeastern United States. Washington, DC, where President Cahill was probably watching the live feed right now - northern Virginia with all its history, then slowing (relatively speaking) when they hit the rougher terrain of the Appalachians. With a marathoner's intuition, or maybe just an older man's caution, Fast-Forward hung back slightly and let the two young men take the lead, confident that Thoughtspeed and Hyperactive would give the audience quite a show through their mutual competition. Good kids, he thought with a smile as he watched the young men race. Bet my boy's faster in a clinch, though. The mountains were a low mockery of the real peaks of the Rockies, but the terrain was rugged enough that speedsters used to urban running had to be careful about choosing their footing. Enhanced reflexes greatly cut the likelihood of plowing into the ground at hypersonic velocities - but one certainly couldn't be too careful. Richard couldn't help remember the last time he and Will had raced through the southeastern United States, chasing dinosaurs when he'd taken the family back in time sixty-five million years. Good times, good times.

Sounds good! Happy to follow folks' lead.

Okay, that's three strong ones - anyone have a preference? Multiple?

Fast-Forward had been about to put his fist through this punk's teeth or get himself stabbed trying when Phantom arrived - he has no idea who Cape Lady was but he wasn't going to start a fight with her at his back and this guy at his front without getting a better read on the situation. Luckily, that was something he could do in a hurry - even if this was bad news. Dimensions! With that bit of news, he seriously considered running out the door and back to Wisconsin to see if he could try pushing his powers across the barrier - but then his time-controlling powers had never really worked that way. He'd been warned about other dimensions extensively - their dangers, their opportunities, and the problems they might pose. "...okay. Okay, well, that explains some things." He balled his hands into fists, then slowly released them. "So my family's okay. I just have to go back to my home dimension. Where's the other me?" he asked. "Run to the market for some groceries, or...?" From his tone of voice, he might have been describing a visit to an alien planet.

Sharl would have been more sympathetic a few years earlier, before the Communion. Citizen didn't think much of Lor who had let the Republic burn while they hid here on Terra - but exclaiming that sort of thing would be impolitic. He ran through the list of offenses against the Republic that called for the death penalty in his head, then the specifics of treason, and found himself offering, "There was an amnesty. Could see if you qualify." At the moment, though, under the dizzying array of images coming from his counterpart, he didn't care very much. We'll get you somewhere they can fix what happened to you, and then - He didn't have a good answer beyond that - nor, when he really thought about it, did he have a good answer for what that kind of fixing might entail. "Like I said, it's not my concern. I need you to tell me everything about how you found him."

Riley shifted, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and felt a little unsettled when it didn't come. "Okay." He certainly didn't mind a lot of work - and actually rather enjoyed writing things down, even if he was supposed to type them out instead of filling the three-ring binders full of blank white paper that now occupied a significant portion of his dorm room bookshelf. "Guess we'll look at these," he said to the others, not sure what there was to say after this. Bet Fred'nRaina'll have somethin', though. He'd actually done some detecting on his own terms, the last time he and Matt had gone out together had been a big part of it. Could be better at it. Not good at looking for clues. Well that wasn't entirely true - there were a lot of scenes he could read in an instant. Just not the kinds of scenes produced by normal people doing normal things to each other. Ugh. Teleporting dogs!

Dimitri smiled paternally for Eden and did indeed produce her chocolate, handing over a whole half-bar to the little girl while he idly caressed his drink with the other hand, the steam slowly fading as he traced his fingertips over the surface of the mug. He listened with seeming fascination to the little girl, stroking his chin and nodding at the key points of her story, all the while wondering what was happening. Is Talya pregnant again? No, she would not be so irresponsible. And if it were the dryad, she would have already announced it. That left open less pleasant possibilities. She would just have told us if there was some great battle in store. He kept thinking. "Really! Your babysitter has fire magic!? She sounds like excellent babysitter." Someone is sick, he thought. Or dying. It was hardly the first time that had happened since he'd known Talya.

"I'm the fuckin' ghost-a Hot Rod, what does it look like?" demanded Fast-Forward, vaguely stirring a memory in his son that Hot Rod had been his high school gym teacher's superhero name before Mr. Archer had retired from superheroing. He'd heard his father talk like this a few times - but never directed at him, and never quite with this tone of frantic fury. "Who the Hell are you, and why do you-" Up close and not in a two-dimensional picture, the kid looked like Charley - well, Charley ten years earlier and with a better haircut. He shifted his ground, a little. "why the hell are you standin' between me and my wife? Cause that'd be something you'd have to have a fuckin' death wish to do, ya little dumbass!" He set the picture down and raised his fists, the air around him beginning to slow as he began to activate his powers. "You get one warning, kid!"

Okay, I may like that one - what do you guys think?

Miss Americana and Harrier Day in The Life Siren, Nereid, and Glamazon had all presented themselves to the Surface as princesses of Atlantis - which was true. It was also true that up until the last two generations, Atlantean monarchs had been vigorous practitioners of polygamy of various sorts - and even though the main royal family typically followed the Surfacer customs imported by the Queen Mother seventy-five years earlier, the rest of the extended lineage did not. What all that meant in practice was that there were many, many Atlantean princes and princesses - many of whom had the powers that ran in the family line. As the Battle of Hanover Institute of Technology raged around Miss Americana, these thoughts passed through Gina Evans’ mind in an eyeblink. “Red-white-and-blue bitch!” spat Princess Ondine as she whipped a tentacle of razor-thin water at the robot’s face, keeping pace with her in the air with other tentacles that gripped the walls and ceilings of the Institute’s buildings, others that reached down to the ground. With the princess herself in the middle of a central ‘bubble’, the overall effect was like fighting a large spider made of water. “Your country is the one poisoning our waters! When the soldiers of Atlantis destroy all your precious technology, we’ll see how mighty you are then!” That’s what was happening below - the Atlantean soldiers staging the raid on the Institute weren’t targeting the civilians who hadn’t evacuated in time, or even the cops who’d assumed a perimeter - they were targeting HIT’s technology, and not giving a damn about how important the research was or who got in the way. “You idiots are trying to destroy technology that’s going to save your precious waters,” Miss A countered, deftly dodging another plume of water. “The only thing that’s going to unring the bell on oceanic pollution is super-science, and lord knows there’s not much of that going on under the sea.” She managed to tap a few commands into her tablet between exchanges, and suddenly the fans in the room were whirring at top speed, wicking away water as quickly as they could dislodge it from the central mass. The fans (souped-up by energy that Miss Americana had redirected from the small reactor on campus) drove Ondine out of the computer core that Miss Americana had been protecting, freeing Miss Americana herself to take to the sky and properly rejoin the battle. Of course, this also opened her up to more attacks - the water ‘tentacles’ were harder out here with more mass to draw on and fewer ways of immediately dispersing them. Of course, out in the air, she had far fewer worries about collateral damage. Telling herself that it was nice to get stress-testing of the waterproofing features every once in awhile, Miss A devoted a substantial percentage of her attention to the battle while still keeping an eye on the events unfolding around the city. Ondine was a canny fighter, but not entirely used to landlocked battles, and she didn’t seem to be able to produce limitless amounts of water on her own. Every time a tentacle struck the ground, the thirsty soil lapped up some of the water and contaminated a little more, making it harder to work with. This resulted in an entire segment of the fight when Miss A was skimming along barely a foot above the grass at better than sixty miles per hour, but bizarre or not, it worked. After nearly ten full minutes of fighting, two eternities by the metrics of superhero battles, Miss A finally managed to smack a power restraint cuff onto the wrist of the recalcitrant princess. Regular supercuffs took care of the other flailing limbs, till the young woman was down on the damp ground, waiting with ill grace for the police to pick her up. “Just for the record,” Miss A informed her sweetly, “I’m not a red-white-and-blue bitch, sweetie. I’m _the_ red-white-and-blue bitch.” With that she took to the sky, looking for other trouble spots. Taking Ondine out seemed to be a major victory in the local ‘front’ of the invasion - absent their commanding officer, the Atlantean raiders were in the process of retreating with their loot or simply retreating altogether. Whether out of cowardice or simply not carrying weapons capable of harming a superheroine, the few groups she encountered didn’t seem inclined to make an extended fight of it, one way or another. But the mountain sometimes came to Muhammad. When she detected a sonic vibration in the air, Miss Americana paused and took out her sensors, trying to determine exactly what she was sensing - until Gina realized that the sonic vibrations she was feeling, hard enough to rattle her teeth, were happening not to the robot but to her somnolent body inside her basement laboratory! Miss A immediately changed course, flying at top speed for her own home. It would’ve been the work of an instant to end the gestalt and be back in her body, but what good would that have been? As Miss Americana, she was strong and fast, with weapons and the ability to fly. As Cyberknife, she was the scourge of evildoers online, respected and feared in equal measure. As Gina Evans, she was a squishy, all-too-human technopath with little ability to defend even herself. That wouldn’t do at all. On her way, she called Caradoc via their communications implants. “Are you near Base One?” she asked tersely. “Something’s going down there. I’m en route.” There was a moment’s pause - it had taken Gina a while to convince Steve that he should actually speak to her during emergencies rather than simply arriving at full speed. “En route.” Faster in the air than Steve, Miss Americana arrived in her own neighborhood first - there was no battle going on here, which was why it hadn’t come up on the radar of other superheroes, but there was certainly something going on. A squadron of Atlanteans, heavily armored elite troops, were escorting something as big as a tank down the street in front of Gina’s block - it looked like a cross between an artillery piece and a conch shell, moving along on the heavy treads that the Atlanteans used for vehicles so heavy they had to travel along the ocean bottom. The rumbling got louder as she flew overhead, almost deafeningly so, and for a moment her connection to the robot bobbled, a high-pitched whine like electro-static interference that seemed to be coming directly from the still-inert heavy artillery of the Atlanteans. There were no civilians out on the streets; Freedom City residents tended to be experienced enough to get out of the way when superbattles were being waged, but Miss A suspected that her neighbors were sitting in their own basements, feeling the vibrations and hoping that this wouldn’t be the one that didn’t eventually wind up in a comic book. She debated the wisdom of closing immediately with the squadron, but decided to hold off for a few moments. Caradoc was on his way, so a hesitation would provide backup as well as a chance to gather some intel on the conch-tank. Though if they parked it in front of her house, all bets would immediately be off. She waited behind the roofline, close enough to intervene in seconds if it seemed necessary. The Atlantean squadron wound up setting up shop not in front of Gina’s house but perilously close - parking their vehicle in the middle of the nearest cross-street. Once there, obviously carrying out some sort of drilled command, the Atlantean soldiers began a rapid series of movements around their craft, leaping and jumping with the speed and agility that being out of the water typically gave the deep-adapted humanoids. They seemed to be setting up their device for deployment, throwing levers and beginning to open the brassy, slightly abstract ‘cannon’ that they were accompanying. The shriek of a jet engine, the effects of a holographic disguise that partially masked the unmistakeable sound of an Omegadrone in flight, caught her attention - Caradoc could turn himself invisible but there was nothing that could be done about the noise he made in the air. The Atlanteans caught the sound too, and began handing out the brassy-looking swords they preferred to use in melee combat when they lacked innate powers themselves. “Engage?” came Caradoc’s transmission by radio - evidently they weren’t yet putting out enough to block the implanted tech Gina had put in. He was never one for extensive conversation at a time like this - and was close enough that he could see what she’d been calling him to. “Yeah, let’s go for it,” she agreed. “Don’t hit that big thing unless you have to, we don’t know what it does or how it reacts to energy. Take out the Atlanteans and hope we can render it inert that way.” Suiting actions to words, she closed in on the group like a sleek bullet, sending a barrage of laser blasts at the highest-ranked Atlantean. He probably wasn’t the actual technician operating the thing, but he would likely be giving the orders. “Surrender now!” she called out, her voice automatically amplifying itself. “Put down your weapons and lay on the ground or you will be subdued!” The Atlantean officer drew his sword and pointed it at her - shouting something about “Destruction to the Surfacers and their technology!” It was at that moment that Caradoc entered the battle, having sorted out the situation quickly, by the expedient of landing directly on top of the Atlantean officer and smashing him to the ground with enough force to crack the asphalt beneath the two of them. Caradoc’s armor bore the marks of fighting, scratches and dings that would have to come out later, but he looked little the worse for wear. Gina couldn’t see his face - but she could imagine it well enough. “Come, thou varlets! You face the lady of America and a knight of old!” Miss A laughed, she couldn’t help it, but lost no time in picking off more of the Atlantean soldiers, incapacitating them neatly with blows or energy bolts until none of them remained standing. When the immediate threat seemed dispatched, she took a closer look at the large piece of questionably technological armament they’d been hauling. “Thanks for the assist,” she called down to Caradoc. “Any idea what this thing might be? I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” “You had them in hand.” With the Atlanteans dropped, Harrier dropped the Caradoc persona - though not the holographic disguise. “Let us see what the shell disguises.” There was a lot he wanted to do - smile up at Gina with his own eyes, head to a nearby basement and embrace her, but there was much to do that day. He used his pike to pry open the shell of orichalcum around the weapon, revealing an interior that was still alien to Miss Americana’s sense of technology but was understandable when Gina gave it a close enough inspection. The curly bits that looked like shrimp cast out of brass were the power source, and the part that looked like a whale’s skeleton on the inside of the outer shell was the antenna - transmitting whatever energies the internal ‘heart’ were producing. When the shell off, the radio interference was strong, and getting stronger, - enough that Gina had to concentrate to maintain control of the robot. “Right, let’s get this bad boy shut down before it brings down a commuter plane or something.” Biting her lower lip in concentration, tasting the ghost of blood from far away, she reached into the weapon and began disabling it, disconnecting the power cells one by one with great care. It wasn’t exactly finicky work, the Atlanteans were great architects and sculptors but only average engineers, but the doubling vision and shaky hands made it considerably more difficult. “If I check out here, you know what to do, right?” she asked Steve, her voice a bit distant in her own ears. Slay the King of-oh! “Miss Americana will return home safely,” Steve promised her, resisting the urge to pat the robot’s shoulder. Whatever they were like in private, neither of them were the sort to be bogged down with sentiment now - plus, if he disturbed her work, who knew what might happen? He could see the robot stuttering slightly, the electromagnetic radiation from the machine interfering with his own systems as well, and knew Miss Americana needed her back protected. But the Atlanteans were in retreat or unconscious, and with his blade in hand they were safe while he worked. “And this day will end with our victory. Perhaps tonight I will cook some fish...” “Ugh, no, the whole city already smells like fish.” As more of the little power cells came uncoupled, Miss A seemed to be having an easier time functioning. “I want chicken nuggets and french fries. Real ones, in the Fry Daddy, not the lame oven-baked ones.” She staggered slightly as the last power cell gave way, the sudden restoration of full function nearly as disorienting as the interference had been. Steve’s hand was right there, of course, catching her before she could so much as stumble. “Okay, it’s inert. Do your thing,” she invited, gesturing expansively towards the body of the weapon. If they’d been somewhere other than a suburban street, Caradoc would have gone for something spectacular - overloading the inert machine with enough energy to make it explode, perhaps. But instead he went about this surgically - striking again and again with his pike, driving blows deep into the guts of the machine, until strange fluids were leaking away onto the pavement to boil away in the low pressure of the sea level atmosphere, chunks of steel and brass and other things littering the pavement, and the Atlantean anti-tech device was as dead as the whale carcass it now vaguely resembled. Miss Americana could make out satisfaction in Steve’s posture as he stood by her side. This time he did put his arm around her shoulders, albeit briefly. There was an invasion happening, after all. “You did magnificent work. We should take our prisoners to Freedom Hall.” “Yeah, no sense leaving them to stink up the neighborhood,” Miss A agreed uncharitably. Maybe it was the interference field, or the proximity to her home turf, or just a very long day, but she sounded more like Gina than Miss Americana for a moment. Some of the Atlanteans were already starting to come around by the time they were scooped up for transport, but midair and weaponless, they didn’t provide a lot of trouble. Even though the city was still littered with pockets of fighting and trouble, for now this neighborhood in Hanover was safe and quiet.

Hrm. Force field. Woodsman stared at the monster and fired - the bolt striking a tree just a few inches above the rabbit's head. For a moment Jann thought Riley had missed until he saw the other boy counting down on his fingers. Three. Two. One. The subsequent blast wasn't large, as battles went, but it was big enough - a concussion that would have fractured a human's skull had it hit that close. Not only did the blast sweep over the rabbit - the wrist-thick tree Woodsman had shot proceeded to crash down on the animal too. No. Not an animal. Woodsman reloaded, thinking of bears that operated in packs, and wolves that were smart enough to take down the human with the flashlight before hitting the rest of the party.

~Dammit, what the hell is going on?~ It was Richard's psychic voice - but something was wrong - the effect reminding Paige of a radio dial turned almost but not quite to the right station, so the thoughts were overrun with static. The knowledge that Paige was somewhere in this stupid little shack persuaded Richard that he needed to punch in the goddamed door - and so he did! With one mighty blow, he punched the door through time, in one hit aging the wood a century, in another hit aging it another, and then with one last punch kicking the now-rotten, crumbling wood out of the frame entirely. He ran inside the house, casting about wildly for Paige - and in that moment's pause was beset by the simultaneous sounds of a crying baby and the shrieking of a loud home security system! Normally he could have handled that easily but between everything else today, it was too much. Swearing profusely, he slammed his helmet down on his head, the bafflers cutting off his psychic contact entirely. He'd intended to search the house for Paige, but instead he found himself staring at a living room full of pictures of himself and Paige cast through a funhouse mirror of flatscan suburban normality, together with two, no, three kids - none of whom he recognized. Shutting out the sounds of raucous confusion in the house, and anyway a step or two ahead of them, he picked up a framed picture of himself, Paige, a boy and a girl, and a baby, standing in front of Freedom Hall!?! He'd been in his share of fights, some of them mortal ones, but all he could yell was "WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING!?"

Woodsman: is not going to try and Startle the thing! So he'll try a regular attack. This'll be his regular Blast with the concussive descriptor - if that's an issue. http://orokos.com/roll/518286 = 17 That kind of stinks so I'll spend an HP on it. http://orokos.com/roll/518287 = 28 with the HP Okay! That's a DC 21 Toughness ave.

Content Warning: Cussing June 18, 2017 5:35AM Bedlam City, Wisconsin Fast-Forward skidded to a halt in the middle of Hardwick Park. Not bothering to take off his helmet, he looked around wildly before declaring "...what the hell?!" 5:37AM Chicago, Illinois Millennium Park Fast-Forward stared up at the statue of the Barnstormers, ignoring the few flatscans in the park this early. "WHAT THE HELL!?" This time he did take off his helmet, never mind the risk when he was away from home, and cast out with his psychic connection to his wife - finding her in Freedom City of all places? She'd probably felt that but she was just waking up - and he didn't have time for her to catch up with him. "Come on, man, wakeupwakeupwakeup-" He ran in a little circle, hitting himself on the side of the head, using the psychic feedback Paige had taught him to break out of an illusion. Nothing. Motherfucker! Finally deciding it was worth the risk, he put his helmet back on and girded his loins for the run into Freedom City. 5:38AM Freedom City In front of the Cline household Staring up at flatscan suburban hell for a long moment, Richard Cline took off his helmet in honest bafflement - and decided to leave it off since whatever was happening had evidently happened right through the helmet's psionic bafflers. He tried the door, found it locked, and banged on it - surprised when what looked like mundane wood didn't immediately shatter under his fist. "Hey!" he called, both out loud and psychically, hot anger and bafflement turning to fear loud in both voices, a second before winding up for a blow that would have knocked a regular door out of his hinges entirely. "What the hell is going on!?"

Anna took this opportunity to transform, donning her helm as transcendent golden light cascaded over her body, so bright that for a moment the two-bodied detective could see nothing. When woman was replaced by goddess, the floating Lady Horus scooped up Esperanza, her position showing she'd carried the badly injured before. "We shall return when those unwanted guests are gone, my kind hosts - you have my thanks." Lady Horus promised, a moment before vanishing out the back way in a blur of divine speed that made her simply disappear from view. A moment later came the pounding on the door, loud and fast. "POLICE! OPEN THE DOOR!" Knowing Bedlam cops, there were only seconds before they broke it down - and decided anyone inside the room must have been carrying a gun and shot them to death by officers who might get a long weekend of suspension for their pains.

The pictures were signed and the autographs made - and a few short speeches recorded for the benefit of the camera. And then the boys were off! From Fast-Forward's perspective, everything seemed to slow down to a crawl - slow enough that the cheering crowd, the flashing lights, and everything else around them were frozen in immobility. A moment later, he pushed his powers the other way and his own perceptions sped up to fantastic, superhuman speed. He started running even as the frozen echoes of the starter horn echoed around him, a smirk on his face as he took off at supersonic speed down the streets of a Freedom City frozen into almost immobility. He'd be able to talk to Paige on and off through the race, but at these speeds, Will would be his primary contact point telepathically. Of course, they had other ways of talking. Into his radio headset, he called to the other racers, "Hey! Delaware Bay in five! You boys ready to get wet?" They'd temporarily veered off the roads for the opening stretch of the race, planning to cut across Delaware Bay, the Delmarva Peninsula, and then the Chesapeake before they hit land. The empty beach path Richard had chosen flew by in a blur, ocean and land so many shadows.

Woodsman's response was short and to-the-point - just like Riley himself. "We'll do it." Riley's inability to turn down a challenge had gotten him burned, bruised, and bloodied more than once in his nearly two years at Claremont - but it hadn't gone away. He picked up a couple of folders and started flipping through them, handing some to the others when they showed interest. "'Sa good team." He'd knew everybody there was good in a fight and good with their brains - and having seen them do their stuff, that was really all he needed to know. Guess she doesn't want us fighting teachers or Next-Gen this time, he thought. Prolly for the best.

Woodsman Initiative: http://orokos.com/roll/517825 = 13 Ugh, i have the worst luck with Riley's initiative

Woah - had Miracle Girl been down here mating with this giant Surfacer? No, Aquaria thought, that didn't make sense - Miracle Girl was a juvenile female and too young to do that. Still, Sea Devil made a point to gather up a discarded cloth from the ground, one that looked like a towel that must have been dropped by the jailer at some point, and handed it to the Surfacer. If all those misshapen muscles were going to be a distraction to her flying friend, better to cover them up. "The gods bless our journey," she croaked in reassurance to the big Surface-man. "The ones that lie below this world as well as yours - and know we war to protect all worlds."