Avenger Assembled

The elevator closed around the two women, its inner walls lighting up with a soft white institutional light. "It's nothing special," the Patriot told Carmen as they descended, "it's just my space and some personal stuff. You have to have something that's yours in the office or you're always going to feel like a stranger. Believe me, I get enough of that as it is." The elevator descended. An instant before the doors opened, the Patriot cursed explosively, her pistols flying into her hands. "Get back!" She stepped in front of Carmen as the doors opened, revealing a large, furred individual that looked like a wolf walking bipedally, albeit with humanoid hands that it raised in front of it. The wolf cursed explosively, then said in a distinct Italian accent "Hey! Hey! It's all right! I am not causing any trouble!" The wolf smelled like oil and cloves to Carmen, a thick tangle of scents like a candle store crossed with a New Age pagan's front parlor.

"Ah yes," said Neko, nodding at Sharaf's words. "Very interesting indeed," she added, carefully pronouncing the words. "You would be...one of the good ones," she said brightly. She looked down at chat, scrolled through the many comments there, and then decided to fall back on one of the standard questions she'd gotten from Merlin. "What is your favorite kind of food?"

"Thank you very much," agreed Neko pleasantly. "It looks like we have a very busy chat today," she said, looking down at the laptop in front of her. "I will start with a question from the audience to start things up. Our first question is from BadWitch666, a big fan of the show. She wants to know..." Neko hesitated fractionally, shrugged, then asked Sharaf, 'Are you a cop?'"

Neko Musume was out of place and out of time; in a gigantic building, surrounded by a crowd larger than the entire population of her village, all of them dressed bizarrely, almost all of them speaking a foreign language, with only a few occasional hints of home on the screens and the walls, all of them twisted into unfamiliarity. But Catgirl was in her element! Smiling and wide-eyed, even when the former made her cheeks hurt a little, she moved from strange place to strange place with the dexterity of a cat leaping through a forest, studying strange art, eating strange food, and talking live into her hovering robot buddy. When she had her livestream to Twitch established, she was quite the subject of interest from the crowd, both those who knew her show and those who were interested in her ears, tail, and robot. The former she could direct to the online store where they could buy special films she made for them, the second - well, she knew how to deal with that. In Merlin's opinion this was a good, well-run con; a safe place as much as such things could be, and she had to agree. Neko was just looking at some of the ornamental weapons, debating whether or not to buy one for Owain, when there was an interruption. First came a loud, piercing whine across the public address system in the convention center, so loud that Neko gave a pained "Nya!", stepping back and folding her ears flat. Then the big television screen on the far side of the room playing some kind of alien Momotarō shifted to the face of a smirking white woman wearing a feline costume, a leopard-print outfit that clung scandalously to her lithe body as she looked at the screen and said, "Hey nerds! You just got robbed by Faster Pussycat! And you don't even know what I stole, ha-ha! Sorry to interrupt your yiffing!" There was a great to-do in the crowd, lots of loud voices raised in argument and fear. When the screen went dark and the voice stopped, Neko decided that a pair of small gods was an excellent way to solve this mystery. She overheard fragments of argument "probably just for publicity" "you can't freak out every time you see a costumed freak in this city" "what a jerk but I love her costume" Automatically narrating as she started that search, she turned to Red and said, "A curious mystery! If you know what Faster Pussycat stole, comment in chat!" Now where were Set and Sekhmet anyway...

Okay. Neko goes for Bear-Knuckle. She first intimidates him: 28 (standard) She then surges and inflicts her Obscure effect on him, blinding and deafening him. She then retreats behind cover. One of Neko's HPs goes to Owain, who spends it to shake his dazed. He bites again: https://orokos.com/roll/951413 25 That hits, and should inflict a DC 23 save, though the fact that Bear-Knuckle is blind, deaf, and maybe Intimidated might change the calculus there.

A while later: It was some months later; close to a year, in fact. There'd been more beers in the interim, and more team-ups. Ashley had even introduced Keith to her girlfriend, a pointed-ear alien explorer who'd recently been assigned to the Solar System. This visit was for slightly different reasons. She'd handed Keith the reason for her visit, a little thing he'd actually already heard about from the community: a printed invitation for the Patriot herself to be the grand marshal of the 2023 Pride Parade. There had been some - discussion about that, given what was known about the Patriot's life before becoming a superhero - but the Freedom League had a way of winning people over. It was certainly not the first parade the Patriot would have headed, given what Keith had seen on the evening news. "So that was just - I don't know." Ashley opened a beer. "This wasn't you, was it?" she asked suspiciously, dropping into Keith's armchair. "Because if it was, I am flattered, but they can get someone better."

All right, I'm a little lost - where are the bad guys in relationship to O and N?

"The outdoor alarm is faulty, Daisy has to go shut that down at least once a week. And I have more than just a room," said the Patriot. "Here, this is a little dramatic," she admitted. "But it's effective." She walked up to the small bookcase by the side of the room and pulled out a volume, watching as the shelf rose up into the ceiling to reveal a carefully-concealed door. "Here," she said, tossing the copy of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin to Carmen. "Keep that as a souvenir. Too much drama can make you look like some kind of dipwad, but a little judicious use of it can make a strong impression." She laid her hand on the handprint shape by the side of the door, then said aloud "Beyond the Years", making the secret door itself slide up, revealing an elevator inside, one bright and shiny chrome on the inside. "You want to see what things really look like around here?"

Smiling, Neko went into action, her 'camera' revealing itself to be a hovering red robotic ladybug that zipped around her, and around Patrioteen, before settling into position on top of her laptop. She made sure her guest had water and so did she, then settled into position for what increasingly seemed like her work - or at least how she would earn her pocket money - for as long as she was at Claremont. They figured out how things would go, she would make her introduction and then introduce the Patrioteen, then they would move into the questions. She counted down for Sharaf with her hand, mouthing 'now' just before they began. As the peppy tune of Kimini 100 Percent played and Red's eyes glowed visibly, she danced in her seat, yellow eyes wide and smile big, and then when it was done she said "Konichi-Wa! Welcome to my livestream of Catgirl Reacts! Thank you as always to our sponsor the Espadas Self-Defense Studio! Remember, if you want to kick butt-" she punched the air like a child playing at boxing, "and look good doing it, do it the Espadas way!" it was obviously memorized, but she said it with great enthusiasm. "Yes hello, I am so happy to see everyone, hello!" she greeted a few people by name in the chat before she said "I am happy today that I have a very special guest to meet you! The famous teen hero Patrioteen!" Red turned around to show Sharaf as Neko declared, "This will be my first live interview with a celebrity guest! Konichwassup, Patrioteen!"

"I only met him a couple of times," said the Patriot evenly. "He was - mostly retired even before I was in high school." She hesitated, looked like she was going to say more, then said, "You probably heard a lot about him in history class. Jack Simmons, the cop-turned-hero-turned-cop, the man who fought Hitler and founded AEGIS. Oh, and betrayed the Liberty League's secret identities to the government." She smiled thinly at that. "A lot of people hated him for that, but if you look at the circumstances, I think he was the guy who was willing to make the tough choice even if it turned out to be wrong-" At that moment, there was a flashing light on Daisy and the Patriot's desk, and the blonde secretary stuck her head in the door just long enough to say "I'll get that," before she disappeared out the outer office. "Anyway," said the Patriot, smiling, "the other guess is that if there's nothing really of me in this room, there must be something somewhere else...if you'd like to see that," she offered.

Up close in the space of the outer office, Carmen was able to tell that the perfume smell was coming from the secretary rather than the heroine - whatever Daisy actually smelled like it was impossible to say. The Patriot herself smelled like grease and the road dust they'd just left, which made sense given recent circumstances. Speaking of which, it was hard to read the Patriot's face, but the look she seemed to be giving her was decidedly - measuring. "Lots of the Patriot's history," she said, leaving Daisy behind as she headed into an inner office that looked to be decorated with much the same color scheme and general fashion sense. In here there were no extra desk decorations, just a shut-down computer and stacks of file folders, not even the desk image of other heroes that Daisy had had on her desk. "But there's nothing in this room that has anything to do with the woman behind the helmet. Which should suggest...what?" she asked.

"Since 2020, or thereabouts. My previous employer skipped town and I was at - loose ends before the Patriot found me." Ashley steered Carmen away from the staff as they headed for a door marked The Patriot, where a white star against a red, white, and blue background sat on frosted glass like the picture of a tooth in an old-time dentist's office. Daisy went ahead of them, flipping on the lights as they came, revealing - what turned out to be a pretty standard office waiting room. The pictures on the wall were of various patriotic scenes, ranging from Norman Rockwell paintings to the various Patriots and Lady Libertys in action, the big wooden desk by the inner door clearly Daisy's from how she moved by it to check her mail. There wasn't much at all on her desk, which smelled of her perfume even more heavily than Daisy herself did, just a publicity image of famous heroes Psyche and Phalax that might as well have come with the frame. For her part, the Patriot studied Carmen before saying, "Tell me what you think of the decor here. Be honest." She stood in front of an image of the newest Lady Liberty, fighting terrorists along the US-Mexican border, and folded her arms behind her back in a pose that unconsciously mirrored the second Raven.

"I'm just an administrative assistant," said Daisy with a smile that was almost dazzingly white even in the semi-darkness of the parking garage. "The Patriot was kind enough to hire me when she was looking for a secretary/social media manager who could work all night." "Daisy and I knew each other when we were teenagers," said the Patriot evenly. "We both had some issues with the hero world when we were kids." The two women seemed to exchange a look, then Daisy folded her hands in front of her primly. Inside the elevator upstairs, there was silence for a moment before the Patriot and Daisy talked briefly about conditions that night. It sounded to Carmen's ears like all was quiet; the Vice-President's last set of phone calls had all been returned, Sovereign Citizen hadn't appeared again since his last sighting in Florida, and the latest stack of reports had all gone off to AEGIS. Upstairs, the door opened in what certainly appeared to be an almost-deserted lobby, occupied only by a couple of uniformed security officers and an older, stockily-built African-American woman in a janitor's uniform running a floor buffer. The Patriot made a point of introducing her charge to all of them; Felipe, a Hispanic man who smelled distinctly of cigarettes you weren't supposed to smoke indoors, his partner Roland who looked about as white and blonde as Daisy (albeit without her charisma), and Barbara, who'd been cleaning floors in this building for twenty-years. The Patriot was obviously friendly with all of them as she made the introductions; asking Barbara about her grandkids, mentioning that Felipe was Boricuan off-handedly, and seemed to fit right in despite her strange costume. Carmen got a couple of odd looks from the night craw; but no more; it seemed like people around here had seen weird before. "So what do you want to see next?"

Summer 2022 Freedom Federal Building The Patriot Cycle, powered down and disguised as a regular motorcycle, parked in the ample parking garage of the Freedom City Federal Building. It was after hours and largely empty, though the scattered few cars Ashley and Carmen had passed on their way in showed that it wasn't completely abandoned. They weren't even alone on their level. "Good evening, Patriot, La Puma Negra," said the smartly-dressed young blonde woman who was there to greet them. She'd gone heavy on the perfume to Carmen's senses, enough that she smelled more like Elizabeth Arden than anything else. She was younger than Carmen might have expected for someone with such a high-level job. "Hi Daisy," said the Patriot, matching her secretary's tone. She was in full costume tonight, geared up and helmeted, and had suggested Carmen do the same 'or whatever you're comfortable with.' "All quiet?" "So far," said Daisy, a faint smile tugging at her bright red lips. "We've learned not to say 'everything's fine,'" said the Patriot, returning her secretary's look. "That's a curse. So, any questions before you get the tour?"

"Take a chair," offered Neko warmly. "We can talk." She folded her hands in front of her and gave Sharaf an alert, big-eyed look, ears pointing towards him. "I will ask ten things," she offered. "Is there anything I should...not?" she inquired, tail lashing behind her. Inwardly, Neko was excited - her first interview! Merlin was pleased at how well this was going to raise their profile; and Neko herself was delighted both at that and how it would surely help cement her ties to her temporary - current? home. "Do you mind that we will be live?"

Ashley moved away from Persephone, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up, and considered her options. Maybe she had been made from that interaction, but she hadn't been called out - always a good first step. And if Persephone thought she was just going to sit idly by and monitor her bugs, she was in for a hell of a surprise. The Patriot, of course, would never check her social media on a mission - and neither would Agent Ashley Tran. Copycat, however, the goofy part-time heroine with a social media page now mostly maintained by Daisy Gibbons in the wee small hours of the morning Freedom City time, certainly did. She took out her phone, a pleasant smile on her face as she watched Persephone move off - and then her carefully plucked eyebrows ran into each other. She started typing, thumbs flying, I AM NOT- then quickly backtracked before she could even type the "H" word and took a moment to compose herself, physically and mentally. Everyone here is messing with you and they have powers that let them do it far beyond the abilities of mortals. That's just how it is. You can handle this. What Set got back instead was "guess I scored a trick! LOL! Text me if you want one too." And then with a smile, Ashley put away her phone and smiled at Jean. "So, what do you think so far?"

Yikes https://orokos.com/roll/949653 okay, he failed by 11, so he's staggered and dazed.

Richard, like most people who had been in the business, knew there was something up with the Emerald Cities - something that had been up for a long time. But he wasn't particularly worried about it. Lots of places had bad guys in positions of power; it was just sometimes they liked to put on costumes in their spare time. He didn't have much patience for that. A guy who actually had power in the world who then used his powers to get more power was just an asshole, not like the people he'd grown up around. Anyway, whatever was going down in the Emeralds was something to deal with another time. He considered the situation. With anyone else, he'd have expected a trap. But Preston wasn't stupid, most of the time. Taking Richard by surprise when it counted was damn near impossible, and of course he was in constant communication with the most powerful telepath in the world. "Yeah. See you soon, meathead." Then he was off.

"Good enough," said the Patriot easily, her helmet strapped back on. Standing up, she offered a hand to Carmen. "Come on, let me finish showing you around the park." She smiled. "I'll tell you the story of the first time I met somebody like Quirk, and how the Raven got him to..."

Neko's Claremont studio was set up in a spare reading room in the library, the soundproofing in the walls just what she needed. The wall behind Neko was decorated with anime posters and Japanese art by the time Sharaf arrived, a seeming broad assortment of colors and shows picked with no particular theme. Neko herself was sitting in front of her laptop, ears up and tail behind her, wrapped in a bright pink kimono that seemed a little at odds with how she usually dressed on-campus. When Sharaf arrived, Neko gave him a wave and said "Ah, Patrioteen!" She smiled, eyes wide, ears up, her front teeth just a little pointed. "How is the weather?"

"This...city," said Ashley, biting back another oath. Her helmet in hand, she sat down heavily on the gravel next to Carmen. "There's always some god, or terrorist, or pervert, or some..thing like that." She held up her helmet, looking at their reflection in the costume's eyepieces. "There are other places like it; the Emeralds, Vibora, that craphole up in Wisconsin...but there's no place like Freedom. I'm actually from New Orleans," she admitted, "I only came here to go to school." Twice! She began fastening the helmet back on, carefully setting it on her head and then strapping it around her ears. "It's a good place if you're not like everyone else," she allowed. "How do you like it?"

Quirk looked down at the sad little catgirl on Puma's lap, his eyes widening. "Ah, jeez!" He dropped to his knees and started smiling real big. "It's okay, honey-baby, I'm sorry! I get so mad playing these games, I forget to make them fun for you too. Look, funny face! Funny face!" He did something to his face then, the lights around them settling back to normal. It was hard to describe exactly what it was; not necessarily frightening or gross, just that suddenly his face had the usual three dimensions and then maybe an extra two or three in there, Ashley and Carmen weren't really sure. And then he did it again and again while making noises that no earthly creature could have made. What they were sure of was that Quirk's daughter thought they were hilarious - or at least worth a smile. "Funny face! Kitty!" She gave Carmen an exuberant small child's kiss on the cheek, then hopped off to toddle into her father's arms. "Bye-bye!" And then, with barely a sound, they were gone, and so were all the prisoners and other toys he'd brought with him. And then Ashley stood up. First she said something the nuns had told Carmen you were definitely not supposed to say; then she said something else in French, then something else in a language Carmen didn't know. Then she looked down at Puma and said, "Oh, hell...you okay?"

Fast-Forward's response was sharp. "I'm standing here talking to you, so you know they're fine." Richard looked away, trying to modulate his tone a little. Just a little. "The girls saw it coming; the boy and I got the civilians out of the way. People could have died," he said bluntly, "and you know what'll happen to your wife, and your kids, and this nice house, if they start digging into it." He'd technically been a superhero longer than he'd been a supervillain but under enough stress the former were always 'they.' "Where is Mike now?" An effort not to call him Mikey.

Ashley considered her options, not wanting to screw up her protege's head but not wanting him to walk into a bad situation. 'I'm just a weak, helpless girl' was a game she'd played herself more than once, and she was reasonably sure a magical girl who'd been trained in the school of the Hinomaru would be smart enough to play that game with every heroic boy (and maybe a few heroic girls) at Claremont. But teaching him to mistrust his classmates certainly wouldn't do him any favors, even if he did listen to her. "Just be careful," she finally said, keeping her tone light. "Remember that if she is afraid of you, she may be trying to be your friend just to protect herself. If I was her, it's what I'd do - and you have to assume she's just as smart as you are." She smiled. "Have fun on the show. I'll make sure to be watching."

"Oh!" Neko slipped off Leon's lap and curled up next to him, tail twitching behind her. "Thank you for liking," she said, tilting her head and smiling sweetly. "There are many things to eat here," she added, nodding her head at the words. "My favorites are the ones with movies. I am going to watch Ōdishon next, have you seen that?" She cocked her head to the side as she looked over at Naomi, eyes going wide as she silently observed the other girl. "It might be too gory. I watch those on weekends, Danica does not like them."