alderwitch

Taylor tilted her face up to him, looking both young and happy. For once, she'd let herself relax and enjoy the time with her family. With everything that had gone on lately, it was a treat to be able to relax for once. She slipped an arm around his waist and gave a little shrug of her shoulders. "More or less. Although, the focus of the attention changes depending on the event. Wait until you see the wedding. That's got all the extended family coming over too. Dad and Mom have a handful of siblings each and they've all got kids. Not to mention the extended, extended family that's travelling out from all over China." She paused to add, "I warned them that you had a work engagement you couldn't get out of for the ceremony but you're invited to the reception, of course."

"You're so pale, you might anemic. Supplements." She opinioned at him, giving him a final pat on the arm as she shooed him into the living room. "Mom, quit poking. Not everyone is so enamored of vitamins," Taylor slipped back through the cluster of family to Jack's side once more as they entered the living room. Like most of the house, it had that comfortable lived in feeling to it. This was the living room that Taylor and her older siblings had all piled onto the couch to watch movies together, according to Taylor's stories at least. As they were close in age together, Taylor's oldest brother was only seven years older than she was, so the Chun household had always been a noisy one. That really hadn't changed, actually, despite the fact that all the children were adults. "Everyone should be. I fed all you kids vitamins before it was ever 'the thing' and do any of you get sick? No! Not as often as the Marks kids were sick. One of them always out with the flu or some nasty bug but you were always healthy." Jackson, standing near them lowered his voice and added in a tone designed not to reach his mother, "Of course, with doctors for parents we never got to fake being sick, either."

Phantom tossed one hand out, the eldritch power flowing out to surround the case and lift it high in the air. "Never good when they push blinky red buttons."

A chorus of greetings answered back as they both stopped to pull off their shoes and stick them in the cubby holes just inside the entry. Once they were deeper in the house, Taylor was swept up in a mixture of hugs and gentle scolding for being so busy lately. Out of deference to Jack, the conversation was mostly in English but the Chuns still had a tendancy to throw off the odd phrase here or there in Cantonese. Although Taylor recieved the brunt of the attention, being both the the family daughter as well as birthday girl, Jack was included in the noisy activity. Jackson was nudged aside by his own mother who gave Jack a quick hug. It was from her mother that Taylor had inherited the dimples, although that and the height was the only similarity between mother and daughter. Mrs. Chun had tightly curled brown hair and bright blue eyes that smiled up at him. She didn't even come to Jack's shoulder as she pulled back to look at him and asked, "Did you lose weight? You kids, you work too hard. Come on in."

Do I need anything to grab the case he just put down with my tk?

Phantom's laugh was quick and husky in the darkness. Smacking the flashlight against one gloved palm, she finally activated the dim beam that cut through at least some of the oppressive darkness. "Atlas, you said there were rumors of a 'giant thing' running around down here. Any idea where abouts in the sewer system? I can scry about but it'll take me less time if I have some idea of where to start."

What's the save DC on that? Also, init: Alex : 1d20=11 Thrasher : 1d20=8

"I'm not surprised that the signal got all degraded. Considering the jurry-rigged nature of technology I'm not entirely sure that they ever understood, we're lucky we didn't end up splinched in a wall somewhere." Alex volunteered helpfully, "Mike, what about the base you guys fought in. Anything alien there?"

"It depends," Alex opinioned in response to the doctor, "If you have access to a powerful and charasmatic super hero, that will likely take the least effort. However, you also are dealing with that individual's own motivations and if that person ever falls from public favor, so falls the product they're pushing. Designing a mascot takes more time but the experience would be better controlled, the outcome more certain. Hypothetically speaking, of course."

Taylor rattled off the names of the basics, and gave him a few places he might be able to find them. As well as a few books to avoid at all costs, "There are certain magics that would come easier to you but I don't reccomend them. Generally magic is a tool that can be used for good or ill, but some practices are by the nature of the acts involved inherently evil. I mean, not to sound all Yoda on you but the dark paths are the easiest ones and for you that's doubly true." She lifted her shoulder in one shrug and flashed a smile that dimpled her cheek, "But truth be told, magic in general should come easy to you so I wouldn't worry over much about it. Just steer towards the white magics where you can. First off the cuff lesson. You've got white magic, things that are only benevolent. Healing's a classic example. Grey magics which are like the blasts I fire. They're selfish but only harmful based on intent. Black magic's are corrupting and hurtful and that's all they can be. And they are very, very good at hurting other people. That's why you get so many street witches and warlocks that do a little blood sacrafice and terroize people but people like myself and Eldritch are pretty darn rare."

Alex was already shaking her head, "Definately deliberate. I can feel all the civvies. It's probably part of the test." She nodded her agreement with the plan, "Gotcha. I'll move the civvies out of the way. I'll need probably ten to fifteen seconds to thrall them all. If you can distract him for that length of time, great. If he's stronger and more dangerous than we're guessing, call out and I'll give you some cover with my telekinetics."

Taylor sat down next to Lynn on the ground, folding her legs up under her tailor-style. She accepted the phone back and vanished it back into the void with a flick of her fingertips. "Sometimes, we work together. I mean, I help him and he helps me out. We also still tend to do our own things, too, of course. We both lead pretty 'mundane' lives." Taylor actually made the air quotes sign with her fingertips around mundane. Leaning back on her hands, she added, "I've run into Dark Star. Wasn't ever close to Arrowhawk. Ace still shows up to hassle me often enough that nothing's changed there. As for Scarab, I'm giving her some time before I talk to her again. There was a lot of nasty things said that night, so it seems prudent to let everyone cool down."

"They're too enraptured with you to ask," Taylor said teasingly as she opened the door to the Chun's house only to be greeted by her closest brother - Jackson - standing there to greet them with, "Surprise!" As Taylor stayed solid under his arm, it clearly wasn't that much of a surprise. She stepped forward to give Jackson an entirely limp wristed thump to the arm. Her brother ignored it and hugged her until she squeaked and squirmed free. As Taylor straighted her skirt and jacket with a harrassed expression, Jackson turned his attention to Jack with a wide grin and an outstretched hand, "Hey, man, how you doing?"

Alex joined her in leaning over the roof to look at the behemoth waving his lamppost and bellowing. True to Erin's words, the civilians stood around cowering rather than running. "As long as I can see things, I can use my powers..." She trailed off suddenly, her eyes narrowing on their bad guy. "That's weird. I can't see his brain like all the other sims. Something must be blocking me."

Taylor shrugged and waved off the payment suggestions, "This is something you need to know. Sooner rather than later. My duties are to stop interdimensional crossovers and I think this will only help with that. Her hand vanished into the void and she pulled out a battered silver phone. "Well, I was thinking we could just exchange cell phone numbers."

"Daikaiju Island." Alex volunteered, picking up the thread of conversation automatically. Her expression at the doctor's explanation had been politely dubious but, of course, she hadn't voiced any disagreement. Wrinkling up her nose in concentration, Alex spread her hands palms up. It took a few long seconds to project the visual illusion, and although it was a strain, she managed to generate a miniature visual of the island between her hands. Keeping her focus tightly on it, she replayed the images from her perfect recall between her hands. "We located the base on the island and made our way there once we knew they had transporter technology."

Skipping to the end sounds good :D

Well this part is just Jack and Taylor visiting her folks. But we were considering super hero kareoke for afterwards :D

"Its not easy juggling but I enjoy it most of the time. I like what I do. I like making a difference." Taylor shrugged and tilterd her face up to the night sky. "I'll keep it in mind. Thanks. You want a lift anywhere?"

"Job and school and full time door guard for the multiverse," Taylor confirmed with a laugh, "And for a while membership in the Knights of Freedom before they dissolved. Significant other who does know about the secret other life and a huge family that doesn't. I don't get a lot of downtime." She smiled and glanced back down at the city, "I'm a linguistics student at the university. I do translation work."

Okay, Alex acknowledged, picking up the communication link mentally even as she floated up into the air to follow Erin's rooftop jumping. I'm going to have to land. I can't hold a force field and fly at the same time. Once we get there, I'll pick a spot out of the way and deal with any civilians that need to be moved while you wear him down. I might be able to blast him mentally.

Taylor laughingly protested, "I'm not uptight. And he'd better not have a hot bowhunter chick otherwise he has some serious explaining when he gets here."

OOC thread for Taylor's 21st!

Date: October XX, 2009 Despite her newly expanded closet, it was a little difficult to find something that was both acceptable for the parents as well as something she wanted to wear for the evening after with Jack. Although she had managed to dodge her parents while dealing with the imp problem, there was no way Taylor could wiggle free of seeing them for her twenty-first birthday. Nor had she really wanted to as she was very close to the large clan. Taylor slipped out of the car on one sandled heel and smoothed her skirt down. In the end, she'd gone for a fun but definately flirty skirt and a fastened jacket over the shimmery top below. She was pretty certain that the jacket made it parent-appropriate. She was more certain that it showed off her tanned and toned legs. Priorities. "They know we're doing a special dinner-thing, so it should be a food light party," Taylor flashed a smile up at Jack, her hands tucked behind her back as she waited for him to come around the car. "I'm not sure how many are here, though. It could be anything from just my parents to the entire clan."

"Of course, anyone can be broken. That, too, is human." Taylor's smile flashed white in the moonlight and dimpling her cheek, "Even with my own debatable humanity, I can be broken. It's almost happened before." Taylor gestured, spreading her arms out, "You pick yourself up, pull yourself back together and promise you'll do better next time. That's all anyone can do."