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Avenger Assembled

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  1. Avenger Assembled
    Neko cocked her head as she looked at the posters, shifting where she sat on the floor. "I know that one!" she said after a moment, pointing at the Van Gogh picture. "That is...Van Gogh?" She nodded in satisfaction, pleased that there was something familiar about this most unfamiliar place. "They put me in, um, the third year, because of my age, but I might have to...um, go back to second year. I have to take special classes for English, and for technology. I don't know anything about that." She looked down at Magenta and commented <No offense, little robot friend, but you might as well be magic for all I understand you. No that's not right, if you were magic, then I could figure you out easily! You might as well just be from the Moon.> Looking back up at Danica, she said, "I spend weekends and American holidays at a dojo in the city. Where people fight. With Owain, my friend." Maybe the only one you'll have, little cat. She folded her hands on her lap and peered at Danica's shell specifically. "You keep things in there?"
  2. Avenger Assembled
    Neko listened intently, staring at Danica with her big yellow eyes while her ears swiveled on her head to point right at her. She appreciated the slow way the other girl spoke. "A woman scientist? That is very - brave. The tortoise god must have chosen her for that," she said with a satisfied nod. There are much stranger things than the daughter of a kami, she thought. It's a good thing she's so kind. The school was right to put me with her. "I am from Japan, from Iya Valley." She was glad, suddenly, that Danica hadn't asked her about the ears and tail that marked her ancestry. Those parts of her body had been something she'd taken for granted as a little girl, since everyone else in her village had them, but in the outside world she had quickly come to understand how they marked her as different. "It is very small, very small towns, with very many big mountains, and everyone like me in our town." Her ears twitched at that, having moved back up to stand straight on her head. "Not like here, no, not the same. So I do not see...other places until I am older." A look of frustration crossed her face, and she looked away, gathering her words, before she looked back at Danica. "I like...singing, and telling stories, and playing games, but that is hard because English is hard. In school, we never...not any of that, it was bad." She waved her hand and shook her head, tail lashing behind her. "I read it okay but speaking English is hard." She sat down on the floor, folding her legs underneath her, and reached over to skritch Magenta as she would a kitten. "I came here with Owain, my friend from Britain. He was, um, a knight for Arthur. He is on the first floor with the boys. He taught me some English." She hesitated a moment, then said, "I...have bad dreams, but they will not hurt you. See?" She demonstrated by making arcane, twisting gestures in the air with her hands, summoning a shadowy-black, paper-thin figure of an old-fashioned samurai about as tall as Magenta. The little samurai ran up to Danica, poked her with its tiny blade, and promptly vanished in a slight puff of smoke. She gave Danica a worried look as it did.
  3. Avenger Assembled
    Let's see initiative _and_ Sense Motive.
  4. Avenger Assembled
    The Supercrime! crew moved fast; of course it helped that Richard could lend his speed to the others as they bolted out for freedom, the alarm ringing lustily as the rest of the building began to evacuate too. And just in time. Outside, there was a supersonic crack in the sky as something appeared above them so fast it had broken the sound barrier arriving. Hovering above the parking lot of the small office park was a giant figure cast in copper, a man-shaped machine as large as a small car, his eyes glowing a brilliant red. And indeed he was a he, an instantly-recognizable figure to heroes and civilians alike as people ran for cover. TALOS - the metal master of Rurland - had broken his long exile to his own nation, but for what purpose? "FOOLISH FLESHLINGS!" Talos declared, laughing wickedly as power crackled around his hands, black energy terribly dark against a brilliant red around his gigantic hands. "YOU THINK YOU CAN STOP ME? MY SECRETS ARE NOT FOR THE MINDS OF PUNY FLESHY ONES! ALL WILL DIE - IN THE NAME OF TALOS!" And then he fired a blast of energy over their heads, directly at the office building they'd all just recently abandoned. There was the noise of impact, and suddenly the building erupted in a nearly silent, glowing fireball that transformed it in an instant into a blazing inferno! The battle, it seemed, was on. "Oh for $(($'s sake," Richard was heard to distinctly say out loud. "I _hate crazy robots_."
  5. Avenger Assembled
    "Okay," said Neko after a moment's pause to take in this new information. So she is not the gadgeteer. At least I didn't ask her to show me her tools, or whatever it is she keeps inside her shell. "I do not know about - machines," she said as they headed inside their room. "Where I am from is very different. The machines were not like that. But Magenta is very cute." She smiled at the little bug as she sat her bag down on her side of the room. She hadn't yet admitted to being an enemy from decades in the past, and so far that omission was just fine by her. Neko's side of the room was noticeably bare of anything save the desk and chair where she'd be working, and she took a moment to remove some things from her duffel - The Tale of Heike in Japanese and English, a few small porcelain statues that she set on the desk, and some spare clothes that she went to hang up on the closet in her side of the room. I will put the tortoise here too; why not? That closet was full with a carefully-wrapped futon, which she obviously expected as she hung up her clothes. Occasionally she seemed to pause and look somewhere into space as she went about her work, occasionally singing softly to herself in Japanese as her tail twitched behind her. Ah, so that boy is Ryder! And that girl upstairs, did she speak Japanese? She actually smiled at that thought before she turned back to Danica. "How did you get mino, um, tortoise spirit?" she asked, making a gesture behind her that roughly mimicked a shell. "Your parents?"
  6. Avenger Assembled
    The cat seemed to settle down when Naomi became visible, looking at her curiously and sniffing the air in her direction. When a crowd of faces formed, it settled back on its haunches and began grooming its front paws with feline insolence. It shifted around, looking for a space between the people, and then abruptly vanished from view. There was no sound and hardly anything to the transition, save for the faint curl of fishy smoke that arose from where it had been.
  7. Avenger Assembled
    That is a miss!
  8. Avenger Assembled
    Meanwhile, something else entirely was happening up near the castle roof. The figure that swooped down low over the castle rooftops came in slowly, crackling with invisible energies that were familiar to the castle's sensors - magnetic, powered by a powerful internal battery. When Eira landed in the upper courtyard flying visitors to the DuTemps Castle sometimes used, she put her hands on her hips and smiled. She looked older than when anyone had last seen her by a solid decade, a woman in her mid-twenties rather than a girl of sixteen. Her short blonde hair and her blue eyes were perfect, if she did say so herself (and she did), a careful balance between her own preferences and perfectly calculated aesthetics. Her muscular form was hugged tightly by a blue and yellow outfit with a large S across the chest and a flowing golden cape behind her. Her skirt reached her knees, the shorts she wore underneath quite a bit shorter. "Tantes!" she called with cheerful anticipation as she carried out a conversation with Bluebird that was invisible to any human senses. "I am here early!"
  9. Avenger Assembled
    Neko looked down at Magenta, her yellow eyes open and pupils narrowed. Her ears forward, she bent down and peered curiously at the little robot. "It is - a machine?" she asked, sniffing her small, upturned noise. After a moment, she smiled and tilted her head, showing slightly pointed front teeth. "Ohayo! It is very small!" She looked up at Danica and asked, "Is he yours, like the scooter?" Ah well, she thought, if the future must be full of mechanical wonders I do not understand, at least some of them are pretty to look at. She kept the glowing turtle in her other hand as she spoke, carefully holding with thumb on top and fingers underneath, keeping her twitching tail away from its mouth.
  10. Avenger Assembled
    Eira opened her eyes to find not the nothing she'd expected or the afterlife she hadn't dared imagine - but something else entirely. A part of her wanted to retreat back into the comforting silence of her own head, but something was wrong there as well. Blinking, she stepped away from the boys and appeared to be distinctly wobbling, as if the corner of reality that held her was still unstable. "No, no," she was muttering to herself, raising a hand that looked decidedly pinker than usual, with veins bulging on the back of her hand and a distinctly visible pulse. "No, this is not what I want -" She closed her hand into a fist and visibly flesh rippled before settling down into the slight pallor the boys were familiar with. "If this is a land of stories, I write my own." She gritted her teeth and hissed aloud. "She is dead!" With that final surge of willpower, she concentrated and her body shifted into the cool cold chrome of a machine. With a hard smile on her face, she walked back over to join the boys. "We did it," she told Pan reflectively. "We defeated this place."
  11. Avenger Assembled
    Owain looked up at the burn mark on the ceiling, eyes narrowing for a moment. "Hm." He set down his duffel bag on the nearby bed, his sword alongside it, and turned to take stock of the room. "This may not have the luxuries of the palaces of the future," he offered James gently, "but twill be a fine enough place for the likes of us, I allow." He removed a few books from his bag that James could just make out, the Douay-Rheims Bible in English and Latin, HG Wells' A Short History of the World, and put them away on the room's bookshelf. "I came to this age by the magic of the Green Knight, so that we might repel the Saxon hordes that once again threatened Britain. I spent only a short time there." When his books were arranged, he sat down with his sword, removed a rag, and began to polish the blade. "You will find me at prayer at times during the day. I would welcome you if you wish to join me, but I know that the Church is - not what it was in these times, much less in your own." He frowned, then said, "But perhaps I presume too much. When the people of the future pray, whose Name do they speak?"
  12. Avenger Assembled
    "Nya?" inquired something behind and below Naomi, a thing that quickly resolved itself into a sleek, blue-eyed, dark-faced Siamese cat. Brazenly uncollared, it strode past the teen heroes and heroines with an insouciant air, eying them with those big blue eyes. When it spotted the floating bag, it made a quiet hiss and retreated under the table out of immediate reach, watching the scene with suspicion.
  13. Avenger Assembled
    "Nya?" inquired something behind and below Ryder, a thing that quickly resolved itself into a sleek, blue-eyed, dark-faced Siamese cat. Brazenly uncollared, it strode past the teen heroes and heroines with an insouciant air, eying them with those big blue eyes. Then it then dashed away with the sudden frenetic energy of a cat, disappearing down the corridor and into the open door of the common room before anyone could actually reach down to pick it up.
  14. Avenger Assembled
    Neko tried to suppress a wince. Danica seemed extremely friendly and cute, had very interesting powers, and the way she was describing her room sounded very comfortable, but she said many things that Neko just did not understand at all. Oh, she must be some sort of mechanical genius to have built all of these amazing things! What are we even going to talk about? Neko's knowledge of machinery had been limited even in her own era, as she had well known. Some of the things people had now in the fantastic world of the 21st century might as well have been magic as far as she could tell. She was able to answer Danica's question easily enough. "Oh no, I - I do not have any cats," she added with a nervous laugh. "I make these." She reached into her kimono and pulled out a fluffy white kitten which she proceeded to hand to Danica. The kitten looked up at Danica with bright blue eyes and purred lustily. (Danica could see it and feel the vibrations of its purr, but it didn't quite smell right to her keen tortoise senses, and there was no feeling of weight to it.) "Do you want to see our room?" She reached down to the duffel bag at her feet and pulled it up onto her lap. "I do not have very many things. It will not be much."
  15. Avenger Assembled
    Owain looked sympathetically at James, his tone of voice noticeably modulating. "I ask your pardon, friend; I bourded too broad. It is my nature." Ah, this poor fellow. To be such among many bernes bold is a burden indeed. "Come," he offered, "let us find our room and unpack what is ours." He bent down and scooped up his bag, fastening his sword over his back. "What manner of beast is an 'aliengator'?" he inquired. "I have hunted beasts of Logres myself, but never anything greater than a wild boar..."
  16. Avenger Assembled
    "I didn't know she was sentient until it was too late! I thought it was just a smart system!" The pictures turned out to be back in the converted garage lab, something quickly retrieved by Anna in the middle of the conversation. She sat down by a table lamp and slowly paged through them, taking a few moments to brush her loosened hair out of her eyes. Sure enough they did appear to be the sort of mild, barely-softcore imagery Raina had been expecting, with a younger Anna in a series of seasonally-themed outfits. Anna flipped through them at super-speed at first, then more slowly. "These are all the right ones," she said, "See, here's where I wrote my name..." She'd done that on all of them in the upper corner in an erratic pencil scrawl that looked hard to fake. Next to that on a few of them was "A + B Forever", something that made Anna sigh audibly and page on. The last image in the pile was a picture of Anna in a skimpy Santa outfit. At least it looked like Anna; the face appeared to be missing. "I did that," she said laconically, rapping the photos together into a neat stack, then began sliding them back into the envelope. "What-what are you going to do?" asked the nervous mechanist, looking around at the two women. "Well I ain't never going to hand someone over to the pigs who ain't doing no murders," said Anna, her voice thick. "But you listen. If that - if that robot girl out there can actually think, you don't just leave her in pieces." She jabbed at the man's chest with her finger, up and in his face suddenly. "You pick up those pieces and you put them back together, or you leave them on some goody-two-shoes doorstep. You can't just let something think you love it and then - then dump it in the cold. Even if you didn't know it was real." "O-okay," he said, looking close to tears. "I will. I promise. Ms. Cline, I am so, so sorry about all of this. I never meant for any of this to happen." "Well we never do, do we?" said Anna philosophically. She looked up at Raina, as if looking for her opinion.
  17. Avenger Assembled
    In response she headbutted him, cracking her helmet against the Raven's with such force that she actually marked her own red mask without actually hurting him. "Stinking fascist pig!" she sneered at him. "I might have known the Raven would show up as a government thug, just like that $(#( who took down Airheart! Why don't you try spending some of your money on the PEOPLE?"
  18. Avenger Assembled
    Red Death II: headbutts Raven! https://orokos.com/roll/911954 and misses! Okay, @RocketLord, you're up as soon as I post IC for Red Death, and then you, @Tiffany Korta
  19. Avenger Assembled
    Neko stared at Danica for a moment, trying to process her words, then lost the thread for a moment when she saw the other girl's powers. "That is- very amazing!" she said, her accent thick, words chosen carefully. "You are a minogame - a-a tortoise!" She smiled, and felt a profound sense of relief upon encountering someone not so different from her. "I am Japanese," she said. "My-" she blinked as images of her family swarmed behind her eyes, gone without ever having to say goodbye, and her hands tightened in her lap. "In my home, um, town, we were all like me." A place where the sons and daughters of the nekomata and bakeneko could live in harmony with the mountains that had sheltered them for so long; a place she might never see again. "I have never been to America before." She shooed away the cat on her lap, who promptly leaped away and scuttled out the door of the common room. She reached up and brushed her ears with one hand as she said, "I like warm, it is very nice. I love your - bike?" she guessed.
  20. Avenger Assembled
    Visibly limping, Eira walked over to Apocalypsette. Staring down at the unconscious girl, she picked up a fallen piece of rebar and wrapped it around Apocalypsette's wrists, then pulled it tight and shoved it into the ground for emphasis. She looked down at her would-be rival, wincing as a drop of azure fluid leaked from her own eye onto the fallen teen. "Slyna," she spat, annoyed. "She was not worth your time, Ryder," she said, frowning down before turning back to her wounded friend. "This was not your fault. You tried very hard, but we were ambushed twice over. At least you know your future assassin's loadout is pathetic, yes? If I have traveled back in time I could have done much more than that." She gave Pan that look that meant they were most definitely going to talk sometime soon but now they were working.
  21. Avenger Assembled
    England? Ooh, I had better not tell Owain about that. She knew enough of her friend's history to know that, just like the ancient Taira clan of her own childhood tales, his people had fought hard, but had ultimately lost in the generation to come. Settling into her seat, Neko watched as the new girl arrived, her eyes widening with amazement as she studied the scooter. The engine makes almost no noise; how did she accomplish that? Even the best bikes make noise when the engine runs, and you can smell the gasoline for miles. (Well she could, anyway, those without the blessings of her heritage were heedless to the smells their machinery produced.) A little unhappily, she concluded that this was going to be yet another set of mysteries of this future America. "Hi," she said with a cautious wave without getting up, smiling and tilting her head. "You are Danica?" she asked, still petting the large cat sleeping on her lap, her ears twitching slightly. "I am Neko. I am your roommate. I do not speak English very well," she added nervously.
  22. Avenger Assembled
    "Let them go into my belly!" croaked Aquaria joyfully. Hopping along, she considered that Daphne did not like this sort of thing very much. Certainly Aquaria herself was all burbling joy and hunger, the sort of thing that might have been intimidating if the Grue didn't know her so well. "Probably!" she hastily extemporized. "The rest we will house together, and perhaps the strongest of them will breed. And then more lobster!"
  23. Avenger Assembled
    "Hmmm." Owain looked around at the other boys for a moment, giving Luke a definite suspicious look, then focused on James. "The future, eh? I myself was born some fifteen hundred years before the present," he said with a too-easy laugh, "so all of this is the future to me! A pleasure to meet you!" He gave James a firm thump on the back, then said, "So what do you like to do in the future? Race...flying cars?" he hazarded. "And what brought you to these no-doubt benighted-in-comparison times?"
  24. Avenger Assembled
    Some time later: Aquaria leaped on top of the large ventilated storage box and opened her mouth. She reached out with her tongue and grabbed the sliding door on the front of the box, yanking it open with a flex of her powerful muscles. Booming lustily as she noisily hopped up and down on the box, she called "Go! Go! Go!" as the occupants of the box scuttled free and into the corridor near the pool. Six big, meaty lobsters, all of them fresh and live from the local grocery store, scuttled out, their shells adorned with eldritch signs in glow-in-the-dark paint and also Roman numerals. Sometimes her friends liked to take bets. "Go Three!" she called as she scrabbled along after the lobsters, clinging wetly to the ceiling as she went. She had placed a small bet herself on that likely-looking fellow. And then if he won; as the worthiest of the lobsters, dinner would be hers!
  25. Avenger Assembled
    "S-sorry," said Neko, looking abashed herself. Maybe she lost family to the war! Maybe she just does not like the terrible enemy that tried to destroy her people! Deciding that she didn't want to alienate someone who sounded like a friend, she changed the subject, smiling nervously as she ruffled her hand over her ears. "Okay, I see you later," she said to Starshine before she sat down again, her feet bumping against a duffel bag in front of the couch where she'd been perched. "This is - all I have. I will just wait here for my room-mate." As she sat there, a white and brown cat jumped onto her lap and began audibly purring as she petted its back.
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