alderwitch

"Yeah, its still clinging to life. Its a hardy thing..." Taylor said a little guiltily and gathered the baby close, offering her other hand to Stesha. She glanced towards the noises and frowned. Taylor had her own blind spots she preferred to keep about her husband. "Let's get out of here." They'd tumble out in the living room from a very droopy looking plant that was really hanging to life by sheer will alone. "Thanks so much, Stesha. Do you want something to drink, maybe? I'm going to get the baby settled down in the nursery and then start scrying this... monster out. I don't suppose you and Derrick would be up for watching the baby once we do track down his current hiding place?"

Taylor gave her uncle a relieved smile and gathered the baby up, carefully keeping him from her exposed skin as they made their way up the stairs. He was starting that 'hungry, so hungry' fuss but she waited until the door was safely shut to curl into a chair with him and get the baby settled. She lifted her brows at her uncle and asked quietly, "Did you actually want to speak to me in private, Uncle? Or were you just providing a convenient excuse. One that I appreciate very much, I might add."

"I'm the Chosen of Heshem, a name that means very little to most here but quite a bit to the realms those two are empowered by. I'm the Guardian of the Dimensional Veil." He could hear the capital letters in the way she spoke before she blew out a very human sounding sigh and muttered, "Which, more or less, means I'm here to make sure that this little debate stays a verbal sparring match only. For the record, the chances of that actually happening are very slim. To none, really." Her burning white gaze never left the two feuding godlings and she raised her voice slightly, to point out, "I would look less than kindly on anyone drawing weapons. Or throwing punches."

Alex rolled her eyes and said fondly, "It's a good thing that I put my super genius to making some money or you two would eat us out of house and home, I swear. Lead on, guys. Let's just leave at least a little something for the other mall-goers." She smiled at Zoe as she no doubt would bounce ahead and back and then slipped her slender hand into Mike's, leaning her cheek against his arm as they strolled towards the mall's food court. She did have the presence of mind to point out gently through the psychic link to both of them, 'There's a good chance that someone will recognize me, but if things get ugly, we'll just go somewhere else. We don't need to make things worse with some sort of altercation.'

Have an HP as I enjoy not having to make contested rolls for a few last threads. <.

"Best in class, eh?" Bombshell asked archly before holding his wallet up in one slim hand. Her lips curved in a crimson smile and her blue eyes sparkled as she held the slender leather folio. She flipped it up idly, letting it spin in the air before she caught it and held it out to him, wiggling it a little at him as she offered it with mock gallantry, "Missing something there, sport?"

"Yeah, well, that only draws more women too you. I'm afraid to let Jack out of the house with the baby. He'd end up with a horde and it would take hours to chase them all off." Taylor said, only half joking as she heard the baby start to get riled up. Calling over her shoulder, Taylor started to work her way through the crowd of family members towards Jack Jr. "You could develop a skin condition, maybe. Or a hunch. Excessive gastro-intestinal issues? All that fake belching from when we were kids might come in handy now."

"Then you should also remember that the Veil was created to keep things from crashing into each other. The entire Coil in all of its infinite twists was created to keep everything from collapsing into Entropy." Taylor opened a door with a gesture to a small and ascetic room, her lip curling in distaste. Except for the small pallet on the floor and a wall of bookcases filled with scrolls, there was little else in it. A small bundle of clothing neatly stacked in one corner that looked like jeans and tennis shoes and a Freedom City university sweatshirt. She shut the door and headed over to a blanket covered mirror to start pulling the sheet off of it. "However that all sounds so vague, so detached. It's hard to understand why until you make a critical mistake and actually see that sort of collision happen."

Taylor snuggled into his arms for a moment, her grin a little wicked. Her fingertips traced over the chain around her throat thoughtfully but she only leaned up to press a kiss on the corner of his lips. "Don't worry, I'll find him. I'll call Scarab if I have to. Between the two of us, there's no way he'll be able to hide. I love you, you know." When he released her, she glanced over to Stesha and in deference to the stress of the evening, asked, "How about we travel your way, you can drop me by my place, right?"

"Greetings, Idisi, O girl-child of Odin's. Shield-maiden. She who choses the slain." Phantom's voice rolled out of the dark shadow of her hood, strange and echoing. She floated forward, the long tattered hem of her cloak writhing over the ground with her movement to join the group. "Or would you prefer the more archaic forms? It has been a while since I had cause to visit Valhalla but well do I remember the greetings. Does this satisfy you?" She looked down at the young man, her head tilting back to reveal a masked face under the cowl, "I came to observe but it appears that I will be more than a watcher to this little scene. I am Phantom.

"Do you really think you and I are still in the same category," Bombshell asked with a moment of genuine curiosity. "I get called everything from 'petty thief with delusions of grandeur' to 'forgotten hero'. I don't know, Ace, the world changes and I don't change with it. I think the line moves around me rather than my morals shifting ovemuch."

"Omnivourus, as far as I can tell," Taylor responded, her expression a little lost. It wasn't the sort of topic covered in What to Expect when You're Expecting. "Pretty busy. We both are. I've got those last classes to finish this summer, and magical and mundane work. He's been busy with all of his projects and we're looking ar moving someplace with a bit more kid friendly appeal." All normal things through an abnormal lens. "And we never ger 'just us' time now which makes it hard."

"No, not really. I don't think I have a good yardstick for normal. I mean, Dracula's goons invaded my wedding and I live in an ensorcelled apartment." Taylor said honestly as she glanced back over to the baby and the family clustered around it and sighed, "Ace turned out so strange after his childhood that it makes me worry how the baby will do. I mean, he's got fangs. He'll be homeschooled for years until I can figure something out."

"Well, of course it didn't work. You hadn't been a virgin for, what, forty years give or take? Won't those silly monkeys ever learn?" Bombshell parried back with a wicked grin. Her bright gaze strayed to a case over his shoulder for a moment and then back to his face. She curled her fingers around his bicep tighter and smiled. "Now, enough of such maudlin talk. I haven't seen your name in papers lately either. Famous Ace Danger, finally retiring?"

"Sssshhhh," Taylor waved her hands, casting her family a nervous look. They knew she was a superhero but Phantom's exploits were background enough that it didn't really click just what league she was in. When Taylor was sure there was no interest, she added, "Ace Danger doesn't impress you but Gatekeeper does? Of course I know him. Same company, different job and all that. I know the Master Magus too but he's straight. And a little wierd, honestly."

Taylor Chun was playing with her infant son when the familiar tingle started at the base of her neck. 'Guess this means I'm off maternity leave now.' It took a few minutes to hand the baby off to his father and less than that to transform and wink over to the mystical disturbance. To those in the park, the shadows unfolded into a grim faced and ghostly cloaked figure who uttered no word of greeting and merely turned white hot glowing eyes on the scene as she waited to see what would unfold.

"Uncle Huang's magicked the tea," Taylor muttered as she passed the warning along and mentally ran through the list of supers she knew. She'd have to ask Jack. He always kept tabs on the private lives of their friends better than she did. "Well, there's always Ace Danger. I dunno if you go for older men. He whisked me off to Paris to shop once. There's an interdimensional guardian I know that spends his day job as an art student San Fransico too."

"I do hope that's not a joke about his death, Ace. Your sense of humor gets more and more bent with age, I swear," Bombshell gave him a dirty look to mask the small pulse of guilt for not being there, "He was trying to get them to reduce my sentance when he died. I told him it would never work." She shrugged and tossed her hair over one shoulder, gliding along on spindly peep toes, "Bite your tongue. If I'm ever infirm, I intend to be thrown into a volcano like a pagan sacrifice."

"Oh, no," Taylor replied, her voice soft and stricken. She went quiet for a moment, glancing away from the knot of family to look up at his face, "Well, that just means I can play matchmaker, right? I mean, my whole crowd runs around in spandex. They're pretty to look at, at least." And they understood secrets all too well. Taylor took up a place on the wall next to him, with her hands shoved in her pockets and a weary expression on her face. "Too pretty sometimes." Taylor muttered.

"The rumours of my reformation have been greatly exagerated. Although Scarab has made an excellent pitch to my better nature, I remain undecided. The last time I heard that speech it all ended very poorly. For me, of course," she paused to lean her cheek into Ace's and gave a bright smile for the cameras. It fell away once the photo op was over. Tilting her chin up she examined the area around them and sighed, "Among the ghosts and relics, yes, I suppose I do belong here. Forgive me, these sorts of reunions always leave me maudlin."

"Thank you, uncle," Taylor murmured, pulling yet another teething toy out of her pocket and popping it into the baby's mouth before she turned him over to be passed around the family. Fortunately, he tended to bite down on whatever was presented but Taylor had concerns about when he got old enough to be discerning. As it was, rather than having that fuzzy unfocused look, Jack jr's eyes tracked like an infant predator, microfocusing on things that moved in his field of vision. Taylor stepped back, nervously watching the baby get passed around her all too human family. "You know, you're the only one Mom has to bug now. Everyone else is married and dutifully producing dimpled chinese kids," she said companionabally to Jackson but her voice was concerned. Taylor was the only member of the family to know his secret, after all, and she slid an arm around his too thin waist.

"Well, I pretty much ought to, you know. I have a bloody angel heralding that I've reformed. You know how I hate the whole going soft thing. Its a damnably hard rumour to escape. You are awfully wealthy, so your prize for winning really should be much smaller than mine," She returned his smile with one of her own and ignored the appreciative looks their direction. She knew full well what a handsome Aryan looking couple they made. They'd both used it shamelessly during their war years for thair side. She stopped at one of the cases to idly look over the mementos and changed the subject slightly, "So they really did declassify the Atomic Man project. I thought that would be buried a few more decades at least. Are you going again, this year, to the veteran's ceremonies?"

Taylor picked the baby up out of his seat, holding him firmly with all his blankets tucked around him out for the perusal of her family. After blinking bright blue eyes at his cluster of relatives, he gave a blink of vague disinterest and began working his fists free of the swaddling industriously. "Thanks. Thank you..." Taylor said giving her family a bright smile, dimples flashing in her cheeks. When her great uncle worked his way over, she held out the baby cautiously. After all, he was of Ace's set. Quietly, Taylor said, "We named him after you; Jack Huang Faretti, junior."

"Well, I dare say you Yanks have more than a few of my countreyman's possessions nailed up on display, Captain," Bombshell said in her usual mix of playful and threatening. She made no move to reclaim her hand, however, and let him draw her closer to thread that hand through his arm. She bent her blonde head close to his, "We could play a game, you know. You guess what I'm here to take and if you guess right, perhaps I'l come up with a prize, hmmm?" She trailed alongside him, giving Ace a few moments to turn that over in his head before she turned to look at a display that had her own image arms linked through an officer who was long gone and she sighed, "Or perhaps I'm here to enjoy the homage even if my more colorful exploits have been edited out. Isn't that always the way?"

"Why is it so quiet? Tell me there isn't a cake." Taylor hissed back as she was manuevered towards the family room, her feet dragging. "I told them not to make a big production." Still, she dutifully trooped with Jackson into the room and ignored the pang of guilt that seeing him always caused. Not for the first time, she continued having his memories wiped away.