Avenger Assembled

Neko narrowed her eyes at Natalia and prowled off, her tail poofed open slightly, but didn't say anything until she'd actually made her way up onto the church roof. The stairs hadn't been easy to find with her own eyes, but a quick search through the eyes of cats had spotted it for her with no trouble. Up on the roof, she tied the mask around the lower part of her mouth while audibly muttering in Japanese somewhere in Magenta's direction. "Nya! I am not actually a cat!" She sat down in a particularly sunny spot on the roof and took a moment to calm herself. "This place smells and so do these stupid birds." For their part, the birds seemed to be giving her very little notice, which wasn't really helping her mood any. She closed her eyes where she sat and thought of chasing birds out of the bean fields by sending terrible images against them. "Maybe that's what I need here..." But first, she just needed to rest in this nice warm spot... - Down below, Owain hesitated a moment - then spoke. "I have not our fair Irish lass's gift for singing, but I have a riddle, if you of the future can handle the riddles of old!" He looked around from his work to the others, smiling. "In Latin, it goes "Terra fui primo, latebris abscondita terrae; Nunc aliud pretium flammae nomenque dederunt, Nec iam terra vocor, licet ex me terra paretur..." He stuck out his tongue in brief thought. "Which in your tongue would be... "Earth-child I was, skulking in groundTill smelt-flames offered a new name and price:No longer earth, I can purchase the earth." With that he looked at the others in the chapel with him expectantly, a challenging smile on his face.

Neko took a few moments to calm herself, taking deep breaths, and let herself be soothed by Danica and Tori's gentle voices. "Okay," she told Tori. "He can fly." She made a little wave up towards where they had come from. "We are going to eat Thai," she added after Danica had finished speaking. She started to point off in the direction Danica had suggested, then realized abruptly she wasn't actually sure where they were going once they left campus. She looked at Tori, noting the girl's bond with animals, and tried Do you speak the language of cats? To Danica's ears, it sounded distinctly as if Neko had simply started meowing at the girl. (This was usually how Neko sleep-talked.) At some point during the conversation, Neko had acquired a cat that she now held in the crook of one arm, a short-haired Japanese Bobtail whose brown and white coloration matched the odd color of Neko's hair, its eyes the same color of yellow as it watched the two girls.

Sea Devil (with Phantom and Set in the bathroom) The rearrangement of space and time beyond the ken of mortal men was not something Aquaria found intimidating - but the experience was certainly startling. When everything around her had stopped moving, she crouched low and listened, retracting her helmet so she could truly hear the song the building and those within it sang. "The others are close," she rumbled. "So is Death." She had no name for the thing they had seen but she knew the stink of it and had heard the dissonant song of unholy magic that lay all around it. That thing was certainly no good. Pacing around, Aquaria began to realize that she, Phantom, and Set were sealed in what looked to be one of the rooms where Surfacers went to void their bowels and brush their tiny teeth. Sealed in, the walls of Blackstone closing in - she raised her trident suddenly, eldritch energy crackling around the tines. Something like a portal began to form, the effect like an irising web of tentacles - then faded. She hesitated, lowered her trident, and kicked the door before her. The wood gave a distinct crack and began to splinter...

The second person in line was a wiry older woman who looked to be somewhere in her late fifties to Osla's eyes, her hair a shade of blonde that bespoke no natural color at her age, her clothes a dark blue velour tracksuit over beat-up old sneakers, gold on her fingers and neck making her a bit like a grandma from Stark Hill. She had been shifting anxiously from foot to foot as she waited in line, and when she got to the front she threw open her arms, called past the checkout girl, and declared "Hey Sanchez! What's a lady gotta do to get served around here, huh?" Her Jersey accent was thick as cream, almost like someone doing an imitation of a 'broad' from an old gangster movie. Sanchez stormed up to the front and declared "Oh, it's you!" in an accusing voice. "Mrs. Cream and Sugar herself! Maybe we don't rush to serve you because you give my customers a hard time, eh?" "That is Ms. Cream and Sugar thankyaverymuch and I never!" declared Anna overdramatically. "Here, I'll show you!" She opened her purse and slapped a fifty down on the counter and declared, "Pay for the next five people, huh?" It was money from the neighborhood, even, though there was no reason to mention to anyone that she'd taken it from the Yardies down the road a couple of nights before. "There, that's Hardwick pride right there!" she added before saying, "And don't forget about me! I want it black and I want it hot, just like-" She leaned over the counter and whispered something to Sanchez, who roared with laughter before waving her to a table. Anna was obviously something of a regular around here from the mixture of tolerant smiles and resigned, dead-eyed stares she was getting from the crowd, but that didn't seem to bother her. Who would ever think anything of someone who acted like her?

Angelic/Daystar The Ghost In The Shell During the Eurotrip 3AM Scottish time "Oh! Eira!" Judy found Eira on the roof of the train, the android girl sitting cross-legged and unsecured atop the flat metal surface. Glowing a faint, iridescent shade of rainbow, Judy supposed she was far less discreet than the other girl. "Ah'm sorry, Ah'll leave you out here to-" Come to think of it, she wasn't really sure what the punk rock girl - woman, now? would be doing up here in the first place. The train's wifi was definitely not as good up here, she could tell that much. "No, no," said Eira, waving a hand dismissively. "Come and stay out here if you like." It was all quiet down below, she knew; all the humans below, even the ones with magical stamina, were sound asleep. That left just machine intelligences, and aliens. As Judy sat down carefully on the top of the train, Eira thought again how frustrated she had been to find that the "Smith girls" had so utterly fooled her during their time together at Claremont. She must be more clever than she had first thought. "I suppose it's just the two of us tonight, yes?" "Yes, well...it seems that way," said Judy, raising her voice just a little over the train. "Nobody here but us non-sleepers." She wasn't quite as smooth sitting down with the robot, and was surprised when Eira reached up a steely hand to grip onto hers, holding her securely as she took a place opposite her. She wasn't about to turn it away, though..."Careful, she said a little nervously. "Ah'm hard on technology sometimes." "I am well-made," said Eira with a dismissive wave with her free hand. She smirked. "After all, I made myself, after a fashion." With help from Dragonfly and Miss Americana, of course, but there was no reason to dwell on that now. "What brings you out here, Judy?" Judy hesitated, looking at Eira and remembering her sharp tongue in dealing with other girls, then shrugged to herself. The opinion of a high school kid didn't really matter now, did it? "Ah came out to listen to the stars." She looked up at the dot-dappled sky overhead and pointed. "Ah can hear them really well here, much better than Ah could back in Freedom." She smiled, her eyes glowing rainbow bright, and commented, "They're singing tonight." "Hmm." Eira looked up at the stars herself, tuning into the radio broadcasts available in the area and noting the radio emissions that were reaching the planet's surface through Earth's atmosphere. "I do not have your senses. But it is very - pleasant out here. I suppose your nature keeps you warm as well?" "The cold never bothered me anyway," said Judy with a wry smile. She looked at the robot and said, "What about you? Ah guess a little breeze isn't any problem for you?" "I could walk through the Arctic Circle naked and not be bothered." Eira grinned. "That is no idle boast, by the way, I have done that." Judy blushed, her skin turning a pretty shade of rainbow. "Eira! That's - Ah just don't know what to say to that." She shook her head, despite herself smiling a little. Eira seemed to be more pleasant to be around when she wasn't around other teenagers. "Ah guess machines are different than humans." She was far too well brought up to say 'people,' at least to the other person's face, anyway. "And you've been that way since you were - ten, right?" "Eight," said Eira reflectively. "I was eight years old when I was given my first new body. Far inferior to this one," she said with a shrug and a gesture at herself, "but it was far superior to the one Nature gave me. I do not miss it." "Not _ever_?" Judy asked, surprised, thinking of the nights where she'd missed food, and smell, and comforting familiarity of breathing, and the sleep that came from inside herself rather than a gift from Ashley. "You never missed being human?" Eira hesitated a moment on her own, sensing the real feelings in the girl's words. "You must understand, I was uploaded when I was eight, but I was sick for many years before that. I was...weaker, and frailer, than other children for almost as long as I can remember. I remember laying in a bed in hospital and wishing that something, anything would come along and make me better, but knowing nothing could do so. The way I think of it, My organic body was holding me back. I was given a better one. That is why I am a superhero," she said, "and not just a machine intelligence somewhere. I want to help other people the way I was helped." "That's a good and worthy sentiment," said Judy seriously. I guess you don't have to look like a good girl to be a good girl. "Ah'm sure the people who made your body are very proud." She hesitated, then pressed, "But what about...you know...the spiritual side of things? Don't you ever wonder about that?" Eira's lips curled in a humorless smile. "Ah yes. I wondered if you might try to save my soul on this trip. Worry not." She tapped the side of her head. "There is no 'ghost in the shell', there is nothing there to save. I know this to be true." Judy blinked, not sure she had heard the other girl properly. "You - you don't have a soul? You believe in souls and you know you don't have one? How can - how can that not bother you?!" she called, a little too loudly even over the noise of the train. "Well. One cannot miss what one has never had, yes?" Eira shrugged. "What I am is what I have been for almost as long as I can remember. There was something else there, but it has gone where souls go when they escape the flesh. It has nothing to do with me." She hesitated, then said, "Besides - what do I need with one?" She looked up at the stars and said, "When I look at the stars, I know the names of each and every one. When I look at Pan, I know how much we mean to each other. When I look at Miss Americana, at my parents, at those who care for me, I know how much I feel for them." She snorted. "If that is no soul, then let the universe come to me and find the difference. For I can see none. And I can see a great many things." For the second time, Judy was left with nothing to say - or rather, with nothing to say that would be polite. So instead she said, "Do you want to know what the stars are saying?" When Eira nodded, she leaned back and pointed to the skies above. "That there is a big...a big old star just at the end of its life. It has a companion star orbiting it closer and closer every year, and one day they're gonna meet and the whole heavens will feel it." She smiled. "Maybe Ah'll be there to see it when it does."

"A skateboard, eh? I could see myself on one of those...but they would be so unstable in armor!" Owain objected to Ryder's idea, though not unkindly. He certainly seemed to like the idea better than contemplating the task ahead of them. "Now suppose I had one of those gasoline horses, the motorcycles, now that would be swell! " Neko looked uneasily at Natalia and Ryder, aware they were talking to her and about her but sounding the words out in her head. Natalia could be rude and Ryder was nice, but it could still be confusing. Owain murmured a few words to her quickly in his own Japanese, and she brightened. "Good balance," she agreed, easily standing on one foot to tap the bottom of her other foot. "I can dance on board," she added to Natalia, "I had wood shoes." She was wearing what were obviously second-hand sneakers, the faded colors of the Freedom City Blades showing loyalty to a team she couldn't have identified with a map. Wrinkling her nose, she headed inside the church, and truthfully found herself a little relieved. From what she'd heard about conditions inside the place, she'd been expecting all sorts of bodily fluids and effluvia all over the walls and ceiling, but this place was simply very dirty - and dusty. She covered her mouth and sneezed, her tail poofing out behind her, and then again. "Up," she said, indicating that she'd be working on the bird and graffiti-encrusted roof of the church. There was plenty of work inside the church for the teens, enough that they all were busy. Luckily the hazmat crew that had come in before them had taken care of biohazards in the church bathrooms and kitchens downstairs, but there was still graffiti on all the walls, a fairly significant mouse and bird infestation (the latter especially where Neko was working), and trash almost everywhere. The inside of the chapel itself was mostly untouched by the worst of the graffiti (and luckily the art looked as if it had survived), but someone had definitely gone through here (and everywhere else) and stripped out the copper wiring and fixtures. That explained why the lights didn't work. Owain looked at the site, took a breath - and went to work, mop and bucket in hand.

"I like stories like that," Neko was telling Danica. "They are - romantic, and are very bloody!" She smiled at that, though the look on Danica's face suggested she had perhaps picked the wrong word. Come to think of it, the Red Bridal did end with the doomed young lovers meeting their end by an oncoming train. Maybe it wasn't really the right story to read around Danica, who was of a rather sensitive disposition in Neko's opinion. When they almost ran into Tori, she hesitated a moment, then momentarily fixed her gaze on the girl's bird. She didn't make a hostile move, but automatically a low chattering came from inside her mouth, and the pupils of her eyes grew bigger and bigger until her topaz irises seemed to vanish entirely.

"Good tidings! Good tidings! This is an auspicious season, with great fortune for the coming year!" agreed Aquaria. She considered a moment, casting a goggle-eyed gaze about the room, and croaked noisily "I have a question! I am sorry if everyone knows this. But does everyone know that is a human boy and not a cat? Because that is what that is!" she asked, pointing with her three-fingered hand directly at Cat-Sith.

A running long jump sounds badass! He's about thirty feet up, so stunt however you like

"Okay, Thai." said Neko with a nod, feeling pleased that the school had assigned her someone with so much power. There were real advantages to having someone with so much experience as her guide to Claremont! She headed off, hands in the front pocket of her hoodie, sneakers making her almost silent as she padded after Danica outside. Danica's machine was one of her favorite machines around the school, though not quite so interesting as Ryder's bugs. It was a little frustrating to have to walk slowly with Danica around campus sometimes, but the ride made everything easier. She thought about inviting Owain as they passed his floor, but then remembered he was going to teach James how to fight with swords that afternoon. "Are there many Thai people in America?" she asked curiously. "There are - not many people there"

Neko responded to that by swiveling her ears around and folding them down onto her head, then running her fingers over them as the white color faded from her hair and eyebrows. In a moment, she looked like any petite Asian girl of her age, though there was still something distinct about how she cocked her head and smiled with a squint. "That is easy." She considered a moment. "I have a pizza with - pepperoni? It was very, um, thick, and greasy. But I have never had Thai food. Is it - is it like noodles, tied together?" she asked. Her eyebrows moved together, and she suddenly looked worried - "Will there be trouble if we go out? I don't want trouble with the headmistress." No one had said a word about corporal punishment at Claremont, but she was sure a school with such powerful students must have fearsome ways indeed to keep them in line.

Fall 2021 Neko and Danica's room "Falling in love at first sight is less common in Japan than in the West; party because of the - peculiar constitution of Eastern society, and partly because much sorrow is prevented by early marriages which parents arrange. Love suicides, on the other hand, are not infrequent; but they have the particularity of being nearly always double. Moreover, they must be considered, in the majority of instances, the results of improper relationships." Having been speaking in a low whisper as she read the Hearn book, Neko closed the book with a sigh and set it on her desk, the largest piece of furniture on her side of the room. With much more care in picking out her words, she said, "Enough for today." Turning in her seat, she said to Danica, "Can you want to buy some food?"

The call with Eira's parents was rather painless as such things go. Pan had witnessed, and heard about at length, much worse between the Katastroffs. When it was done, Eira nodded in satisfaction. "Excellent. My father and mother actually approve of you, do you know?" She smiled and kissed Pan on the cheek as she reached down to pull her trousers on. "I do not know what has come over them." She stood up to finish pulling up her trousers, a custom-fitted pair of black slacks that hugged her new body like a glove. She was just a little taller and certainly a bit denser now, though with a careful aestheticism to her frame that bespoke many hours of labor. "Come on," she said, reaching down to take Pan's hand. "Let us see what the others are doing, yes? If we must spend our time riding this silly thing, we should do it in good company." - "Micah!" The moment she spotted her sometime boyfriend coming out of the door, Judy ended weeks of long-distance romance by running up to him and giving him a firm hug and peck on the lips. Then she stepped back, keeping a safe distance between them, and declared, "Well howdy there cowboy." She smiled, adjusting her sunglasses for a moment, and said, "Fancy meeting you here."

"Well! That is good!" said Aquaria nervously, hoping she wasn't going to get into another fight with the Atlantean. "I hope she remains well. I am well! And very strong!" she added, striking her trident against the ground. Phantom's arrival made things a little less awkward. "Yes!" exclaimed Aquaria, excited to be noticed by such a powerful shaman as Phantom. "Behold!" she shoved an arm inside her armor and fished around wetly for a moment, then produced a large, succulent-looking Atlantic blue crab whose limbs were flailing about in surprise. "An auspicious blessing!" she added, handing it either to Phantom or to her well-toothed son, depending on who looked the most interested in taking it. "If anyone is worried about anything," she added loudly, "it is not anything Deep Ones are doing! There are no Deep Ones around this city! Except for me!" She hesitated a moment, then started sniffing around the drinks table.

Hmm - Talos is hovering in the air, what's Thoughtspeed's 3-D movement power?

Judith Claudia Cahill was one of the most famous women in the world - and probably would be for the rest of her life, however long that wound up being. So she'd entered the train, once her ticket was purchased, by discreetly disappearing into the ladies room at the train station and then reappearing in a shower of rainbow light in the cabin she shared with Lulu. "Well aren't the two of you sweet," she commented with a smile from behind her dark sunglasses. "And he's right, Lulu, thank you so much for all of this." She gave Lulu a hug too, her skin noticeably warm. - Over in the other cabin, Eira was sitting on her bed, talking to a holographic display of her parents. "I told you we would make it safely to the train," she told them in Swedish, sounding only a little annoyed, and mostly affectionately. "The new body handled the flight in an hour and a half, and I never even dropped below 75%." She was plugged into the train's power as she spoke, her dataspike driven deep into the car's outlet. "Everything is going to be fine." She put her other arm around Pan's shoulder. "So do you not need to call." Eira's new body was slightly taller and fitter than her previous teenage one; her sweater fitting tightly but discreetly. "Hmm," said Eira's father, who for his part looked content with his daughter's words. "And you, Pan, how was your trip out?"

October 2021 Southside Serbian Orthodox Church (formerly) The Southside Serbian Orthodox Church had been a center for the Serbian community in this part of Freedom City since the turn of the last century. But though the Southside was still the working-class neighborhood it had been in 1900, now it was a neighborhood full of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, immigrants who had their own community centers and own churches. The SSOC (or St. Stephen's if you wanted to get technical) had stood vacant and abandoned for over a decade, a remnant of what had once been a thriving place. But now good times had come. The long-abandoned building had been sold to a local organization and was about to be refit into a community center and skatepark. In a few months, skilled artisans would come in and carefully remove the art that long-dead craftspeople had laid down on the walls and ceilings to a Serbian-American museum across town. But in the meantime, ten years of neglect means plenty of time for a lot of cruft to accumulate, cruft that a group of young metahumans were just right to handle discreetly. So it was that early one Saturday morning, the teenagers had been dropped off outside St. Stephen's with empty dumpsters, gloves and cleaning equipment, and all anyone could need to clean the place. They had permission to use their powers, even wear their costumes, albeit discreetly. "This is such a shame," said Owain, his usually-jovial face solemn as he stood outside the church's side entrance. "A house of God left abandoned for so long, and to lose what it was even if they save the bones of the place. I wot not wither to go with such a task," he admitted. "At least you don't have to smell it," commented Neko in Japanese, wrinkling her nose as she looked at the long-abandoned church. She had actually fallen asleep leaning against Owain on the ride over, which meant her ears and tail had been visible the whole time as they were dropped off and given their instructions.

Oh God, thought Ashley, seeing the future of the trip at once and not liking what she saw. It's a room full of teenage Captain Thunders, each one competing to thunder the loudest. One in the sweater seems all right but jeez, a little mousey. She took just a moment to steel herself, then said, "Historical record's probably thinking of the metahuman terrorist." Goddamn piece of crap history. "This is supposed to be routine, but hey, you're in the game, sometimes it goes wrong. Luckily you've got your team at your back. All right. Let me get your names, and let me know if you prefer your super-name or your actual name." Once she had that, she waved as they were joined outside by Larry the bus driver. Larry was an older guy with beefy, hairy arms and a greying mustache, a wool cap pulled low over his silver hair. He'd been at Claremont for a long time. "Hey, Larry! You got the donuts?" "Anything for my favorite all-American," said Larry, winking at the Patriot and raising a big brown paper bag stuffed full as he pressed the button to open the side door. "Come on in, kids!" Once inside, Ashley directed the students to their seats before she raised her voice in a sudden crack of sound that briefly filled the small space. "Listen up!" She paced the narrow corridor between the seats, looking at each student as she passed. "I know this seems like a bulls### assignment your teachers put on you to take time away from whatever is actually important to you." She pointed to the metal-lined chest at the rear of the bus, the carefully-strapped down one that actually held their precious cargo. "But the Centurion was one of the best people who ever lived. He was an immigrant who came to this country, made himself one of us, then made all of us better. And he literally died for each and every one of us, and we owe it to him to make sure that future generations know who he was and how he lived. We're going to make sure these pieces of his home make it safely to that museum." All right, laying it on a little thick, she thought to herself. But hell, these kids were born ten years after he died. The least they can do is get it laid on a little thick about the Centurion. The bag of donuts was going around now, mostly chocolate glazed and plain but a few other flavors for the interested, all of them slightly mixed together by being in the bag. "Okay. I'm the Patriot. You can just call me Patriot. We're gonna spend the day together, so let's, uh..." Oh, Jesus, this is always death. "do some kind of icebreaker." By now the bus had started moving. "Two truths and a lie - I used to be a police officer, my husband's name is Albert, and I was born in New Orleans."

Neko looked at the box, took a deep breath, her ears flat on top of her head. Then she put her hand on Danica's. "So did I." She considered what else to say, then said, looking at the walls and then at the box, "I would help. If you want to be friends. I would like to be friends."

That hits! DC 24 Will save: https://orokos.com/roll/916103 = 28! Alas. Okay, Thoughtspeed is up, @KnightDisciple

There was a great wet swirling in the air as a circular shape appeared near Heroditus, one outlined by suckered tentacles like the pieces of a metal iris. Then the tentacled gateway opened and out stepped a vision; a figure wrapped in shining pearlescent armor from the depths of space, wielding the dark trident of Great Mother Hydra herself, and bearing on her amphibious body the marks of the blood of Dagon, Hydra, and Lost Lemuria. The Sea Devil peered about with big froggy eyes, then jumped in surprise when she realized who she had arrived next to. "Atlantis-Man!" She had met Heroditus before and the meeting had not gone well. "Is-" She thought desperately of Surfacer pleasantries and croaked awkwardly, "how fares your sister?" She waved with her trident to those she knew. "Behold! It is Phantom, the mightiest mystic of the Surface! And her male child, the one with the teeth!"

"Tis another spell," said Owain with a shrug. "To speak with animals was the first spell I learned from Menw, the greatest of the knight-enchanters." He considered a moment, then offered, "You men of the future have changed the world much, even in the years since I first came to this realm. There once were flocks of birds that darkened the sky, and beasts so vast that only armies of the greatest warriors could tame them. Now your woods are quiet, your skies ablaze, and your seas empty of fish. Hm." He flapped his wings, then said "Say! Would you care to meet the lady who came with me to Claremont? She has rooms above our own."

A lot was going on at once. For his part, Owain took this opportunity to gather up his own dishes and comment, "Nay, honored host, 'tis no burden, but our duty as your guests!" At least among the local household, anyway. In his opinion the school could use a few more servants about, but given the need to keep the strange family at its core a secret from its enemies, he could understand why they chose to maintain a minimal household. "Such a fine family!" he offered to Erik and Talya as he reached the sink. "You are blessed to have so many strong children." For her part, Neko was doing her best to sort between multiple conversations at once, several of them not in her own language. She clutched the plates she was holding, wondering if Erik thought she was going to do them wrong. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do then? she thought before saying, with great hesitant care, "I will...help Owain, okay?" By the time Raina was explaining to her the way things worked these days, she had rolled up the poofy sleeves on her kimono and tied them up with a cord from within. "They would not be the first," she told Raina, her tail twitching. "They cannot be the worst." She hesitated, bit her lip, and illusion bloomed over her face as she expressionlessly went to work over the dishes. "I would like to know computers," she said to Merlin in an oddly calm voice. "I know a robot at the school. Her name is Magenta."

Ashley thought, eyes rolling behind her eyepiece, Spare me from #($ty teenage misogynist Raven-wannabes. She didn't remember him being that much of a dick the year previously, but he'd been interacting with her and Judy under very different circumstances than this one. She actually responded by yawning slightly and leaning back against the bus, looking down at the clipboard she carried just in case of electronics failure. "You must be Utsawa. Or do you prefer your super-name?" She checked his name off the list with a stroke of her pen, then looked past him to wait for the others. The driver was probably still getting coffee from the teacher's lounge, which meant they still had plenty of time.

That took some translation, and a demonstration, but as it happened Neko did like pretzel sticks and Dr. Pepper very much, even if she had never actually had the latter before. "Like Coca-Cola, okay," she said. "Thank you very much." This was a comfortable place, and Danica was a comfortable person. She stood up and walked around the room, her tail twitching slightly, and looked at the posters and books on the walls. She hesitated a moment when she ran her fingers over a WORLD HISTORY text that Danica had kept after the ninth grade, and said, "Danica. I need to tell you, I..." She looked frustrated for a moment then said, "You - you know about the war? Between America and Japan?"