alderwitch

"If nothing else, you could probably learn to track the psychic link to me back." Alex said thoughtfully as she untangled her arms from around his neck. She pecked his cheek in silent thank you and took a few steps away toward the pizza place, "I'm sure I can reach you still even that far out." Taking his hand, she happily led the way into the pizza place and they managed to score a booth towards the back. Alex's ambient glow drew more than a few startled looks as they squeezed into the back. Alex tossed her backpack into one back corner and scooted in. After they'd placed their orders, she changed the subject, "So, you've an idea on what your plans are after school." It wasn't exactly a question but Alex tried very hard to make it sound like one. One of the perils of being so wound through each others thoughts was if Alex missed very little with their friends, she missed virtually nothing with him.

Phantom's expression under the shadows of her hood was a distinctly 'what the hell' face. She resisted the impulse to shield her face from the pictures with one hand like some starlet facing the paparazzi and settled for turning so that her cloak shielded her as much as possible. Between that and her hopefully blurry intangible form, Taylor hoped that she wouldn't show up in too many cell phone cam pictures. "A wormhole bomb to distract while he steals, what? Some sort of classic film? Why are super villians all so insane?" Mystified, she frowned at the blank screen before turning questioning looks back to Stesha and Dark Star.

Is my 25 with skill mastery enough?

Consolidated for me if no one else Patchwork Girl: 29 Arrowhawk: 25 Grim: 19 Moira: 19 Phantom: 17 Colt: 16 Arcanix: 16 Iron Golem: 16 Ace: 16 Atlas: 15 Fleur: 15 Avenger: 14 Dark Star: 12 Doc Archevielle: 4 Grim is up.

"Well if we've all just met, it sounds like a free for all?" Alex said tenatively, glancing down at her mentor's old costume. She twisted at the waist to try and get a look at the backside while she answered Mike, 'It is clearly a good idea because last time ended poorly. That means its working on our gaps in our training.' That could have been an answer straight from Archer (and probably was). Giving up on checking out the part of the costume she couldn't see, Alex added, "Although, if this is an actual event out of the archives, 'Scarab' and 'Raven' worked together before the League's founding, and Mark's dad worked with just about everyone, but certainly the Centurion. Its one of Mark's scenario's so it is his rules."

"Creepy," opinioned Psyche but she nodded at his assessment, "Although I wonder what's causing an aversion down at the microscopic level. Or, worse, its not an aversion so much as perhaps everything has been killed down to that level. We should test that before we all tromp over and trigger some sort of trap. The lizardmens thoughts held said all his compatriats that attempted the mountain died screaming." She turned a face gone pale to Mike and asked quietly in a voice that cracked halfway through, "You're the heartiest of us, Mike, and the least likely to be affected by anything. Would you go first?"

"We could... But then we'd have a baby with a birthdate a few months after the wedding." Taylor made a face. She was already not looking forward to the explanation to her family. The coming out of the super-hero closet had been bad enough. Not to mention all the hassling her mother had given her about the wedding before hand. Of course, Elena might be willing to manipulate a few minds... No! She was NOT going that route. No matter how tempting it might be. "And then there's my college courses, and my job, and all of the duties that come with being Phantom. I can ask James to help out a bit longer but he's still a rookie when it comes to dealing with interdimensional hijinks outside of the infernal."

A 12-14 week old male fetus. With the basic readouts that I assume Doc is running, he could easily diagnose that Taylor's anemic and her heart and regenerative abilities are working overtime to replenish her blood supply. Her heart is pumping at an accelerated rate even taking into account her adrenaline response to the machines (which is not insignificant), and her blood pressure is low but not dangerously so.

We'll be waiting on AA's return for the bad guys rolls, but here's the quick list of our team's init. Arrowhawk: 25 Grim: 19 Moira: 19 Phantom: 17 Colt: 16 Ace: 16 Atlas: 15 Dark Star: 12 Dr. Archevielle: 4

1d20=17

Alex understood his innate terror but she couldn't help seeing the wonder. She sighed softly, a wistful sound, and twined her thin arms around his neck, 'That's amazing. That's a lightyear in about a minute give or take. Maybe half that. That's just incredible. We've hit a new plateau with the upsurge. Once you get used to it, you'll probably start traveling light years in under ten or less. That's the estimations they had for peak potential.'

"Yes, I'm really, really okay," Alex said firmly, sounding a little more like her usual self. She reached up to cover Mike's hand on her shoulder and her expression softened, "Really, really. I'm so sorry for worrying people. I should be more prepared for Mark surprising me and its good that he did. Otherwise it could have happened in the field. That's why we do this training stuff, right?" She squeezed Mike's hand and affirmed privately for him, 'More embarassed than anything now. I'm a-okay.' Alex nodded at Mark and added aloud, "Sure, lets run your scenario then."

Alex touched tender fingertips to the sides of his face, silently encouraging. She sent him that wordless, bolstering stream of bottomless support before she reminded him tenderly, "You're still you. You know this. A person defines their power, not the other way 'round. Don't be afraid of yourself, my love.' It would have sound hokey if she'd called him that aloud but that was the best defination her mind could find for what Mike was to her. 'It's intentions that make someone dangerous, power just makes that easier.'

Taylor was intangible the moment the lights exploded, whipping around through the chair. Of course. Of course, something big and bad was going to show up to the party. Her fingers curled into fists and she sent one desperate look to her family's white and frightened faces. This was why she'd never told them, she'd never wanted to drag them into this aspect of her life. For one moment, she was terribly tempted to let Jack do the talking and try one more time to keep the wool over her parents eyes. With an expression of disgust for herself as much as the party-crashers, Taylor let the eldritch power fill her hands as she summoned the Eye of Heshem from the void. It had been one piece of jewelry that she hadn't planned on wearing. She slipped the heavy chain on over her head, settling it where it belonged in the hollow of her throat. "I think," Taylor said, her eyes gone white with rage and power, "That you are most definately not on our guest list."

On second thought, that little paper shirt wasn't sounding so bad. With an act of will, Taylor fought down every instinct that told her to phase and phase now, as she was surrounded on all sides by that needle-in-the-brain sensation that the doctor caused. Apparently his mad-devices created a similar sensation. She managed to not twitch a muscle but by the time the machine had shut off her pulse was hammering and her palms were damp. As soon as she could, she was out of the device and intangible. Her body flickered from solid to intangible and back to solid again rapidly enough to look like some bizarre strobe sensation. It took her almost half a minute before she could calm down enough to not phase through the floor when she went to stand on it. Her subconcious registered the good doctor as some sort of threat and standing in the electrical field had not done a darn thing to convince it otherwise. Taylor chafed her arms with her hands, trying to scrub the sensation off of her skin and turned a curious expression to the hologram. Creepy. At least it was clothed for the moment. She snuck her hand back into Jack's once she was sure it wouldn't just pass right through his, "Impressive."

As she had a beeline on Deadhead's presence, Phantom teleported mid-flight to catch up with the zombie. She vanished and reapeared next to the waiting zombie. "Something has twisted space to seperate us and keep us alone while it hunts us. I'm unable to find Avenger's signature and Atlas has no magic that I can track." She floated down next to the cultists that he'd dispatched and they vanished one after another into her cloak's shadows as if dragged in to someplace.... else. "I cut through the stone to get to you but I imagine that whatever is hunting us will be here before we find anyone else."

Alex let out a cheerful whoop of joy and clung to his neck, her face turned out against the wind rushing by. At the speeds Mike travelled at, any sound would have been difficult to make out so she easily switched to their mental link to keep up their conversation, 'I don't know how you don't spend more time just flying. Especially since you could go out into space. Its so amazing. I wish my powers protected me the way yours do so I could go with you. You'll just have to bring me back memories.'

Alex reappeared looking very apologetic exactly where she'd vanished, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm fine. We can keep going. I didn't know that you could do that, Mark. All of a sudden things got all slow and foggy and that's never happened before. It was hard to think and it scared me. I didn't even know a non psychic could do anything like that. It's fading and everything. I over-reacted and I'm so very sorry." She was visabally flustered in a way that none of them had seen before in a training session. Alex walked over to check on Erin's head wound while she continued to rapidly talk, "I lashed out at you with all my strength without even knowing if that shield would hold and I feel just terrible."

Whatever Edge drug out of himself, Psyche recoiled sharply and her lips parted on a cry of sharp and acute pain as she flung her hands up to protect her head ineffectually. Genuine distress reverberated down her connection with Phalanx along with actual panic and the hastily constructed shields Mark had errected around their minds shuddered under the completely instinctive blast that she lashed out with in response. Running on pure flight response when that attack did nothing other than startle her opponents, Psyche shifted gears and vanished to everyone's senses completely.

1d20+11=14 Drops my wisdom from a 32 to a 26. Hrm. Okay, lets try this on for size. DC26 Will save for Edge to make vs Psychic Blast. I'll change my array to Concealment and vanish.

(1d20:11+0=11)

"I figured as much. I meant some of our other friends, though. Like Elena." Taylor replied, referring of course to their gold and scarlet clad friend. "How do you think its best we handle this? Its going to become obvious enough in short order unless I start hiding, at least to anyone we see on any regular basis. Then there's the costumed crime-fighting part of our life. I run around in a bodysuit under that cloak." Here she scrunched up her nose again but continued onward gamely, "Personally, I'm reluctant to hide out. Its not sure fire enough and I won't have any allies to call in if something does go wrong."

"Okay," Alex agreed amiabally, still floating where she'd been when Mark activated the control panel. "Its fine, though. We all know I'm best at planning stuff. I'd rather have to work in suboptimal conditions as I think that pushes my abilities faster. I'll get better at thinking on my feet that way." She grinned and Erin felt Alex's presence brushing against her thoughts. 'Thought I'd pop open communication while we're waiting. We'll lose contact when I have to focus on other things but this way they can't hear us.'

Alex was the last to wrap up her warm-ups. She was by far and away the least physically athletic person here, especially as she didn't use her flight to cheat because if you were going to cheat, there was no point. She might as well blow up the training dummies with her brain and call it done then. She floated down next to Phalanx a little breathlessly and apologized. "Sorry about that. I'm done now. What's that about teams? You mean, smaller than the four of us?"

Taylor turned her attention back to the table and grinned as she ran down her own list with dry humor, "Got married, doing school, working as a transcript translator free lance. All of that in between saving life as we know it on a regular basis." She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, "Still adjusting to sharing an apartment with anyone, though. Jack's so darn quiet, I sometimes forget he's there and then he accidentally startles me into a wall. Grim?"