alderwitch
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Taylor looked up from her paperwork and flicked the phone open to answer Stesha, "Barring sudden demonic invasion, no. I don't have any real plans." She was seated at the school library, so she closed her books and quickly made her way outside where she wouldn't end up getting shushed at, "Why?"
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Alex sighed and fixed him with her patient 'you're being absurd' look. "Of course this changes things. It was always destined to fail, but it would be wrong to date him with what he knows about our psychic link now. It was never serious, at least. It couldn't be for either of us." Her voice was a little sad and a little wistful but calmly resolved about that at least.
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Alex patted his hand and said soothingly, "I'll have a talk with him. Make sure we're all on the same page and everything." There was a pause, as Alex made a mental note as she had a great deal to say to Eddie. Hopefully he would prove accomodating. She was uncomfortable with the emotional response that made her feel like if he proved recalcitrant, poking in his brain would be just fine so she moved on. "Mark and I aren't going to be together any more after this." She said it quietly, and a little sadly for how things ended. But Alex knew Mike would not process that fact on his own without having it pointed out to him. "I was going to break up with him, but I didn't want it to be like this."
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Alex sighed and pushed him back down with gentle fingertips, "Of course it's your business. Don't be absurd. That's not what I need to talk to you about, well, not entirely." She sat down next to him and picked up his large hand, holding it gently between hers, "You should hear this from me, as I'm sure that the gossip will rear its ugly head again. I'm still a virgin, but Zoe isn't. She had sex. With Eddie. They're dating."
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Her smile flashed, startling white in the shadows of the hood, "I'll tell you what, I'll give you the origin story but lets get out of the alley first. Otherwise we're liable to be interrupted by some fool mugger at the dramatic climax." Phantom held out one leather gloved hand for his, "I can take us anywhere you want to go. You can pick."
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Phantom lifted one shoulder which sent her cloak rustling like a living thing around her as it settled, "Magic isn't quite so binary. While the church does have its own focus on combating those things, I've had need to deal with demons before. There are more eclectic practicioners out there like myself but we're more difficult to track down than those that hold allegiance to institutions."
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"Oooooh," Alex made the appreciative murmur as she crouched down next to the object with wide, curious eyes, "We saw no Grue although we did encounter similar technology. We aprehended a scientist from whom I accessed the information on how to manipulate and utilize the device over there. I still have the memories if you'd like access to them, Doctor." She made the last offer easily, her hands carefully behind her back as she looked the transporter over for similarities.
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"Of course we'll take care of each other," Alex said entirely truthfully even as she neatly sidestepped the question with a guileless smile, "Mind if I talk to Mike for a few? He's kinda had a few bombshells dropped on him, and I have a few other things I need to catch him up on before we have a repeat of the incident on the quad." Alex's oblique reference she hoped would be enough for Zoe to pick up on the fact that if she didn't want her boyfriend shaken like a can of paint, she'd best let Alex gently break the loss of virginity thing.
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"You could learn some actual magic. There are spells that can nullify the powers of hell, you know." Phantom pointed out, tilting her chin up so that she could look at him. Standing as close as she was, the effect of the cloak and cape was not enough to cover just how short she actually was, "Among others."
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"Even though no ritual was performed here, I can still track the entities. They possess enough necromantic energy in their forms that they leave a trail to my senses." Phantom volunteered mildly from where she had quietly been examining the grave site. "As long as they don't utilize more magic to cover their tracks, at least." She gave the assembled group a faint smile and began floating away from the cluster to make certain that she picked their trail and not one of the OTHER necromantic signatures in the area as both Avenger and Deadhead were stronger presences than the group. Once she'd picked up the trail again, she called to them, "This way."
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"Zoe," Alex said with a stubborn tilt to her chin that she'd obviously passed down to her offspring, "There's a chance that the future isn't mutable enough to change. I don't care what 'me' it was that had you, you're not going to dissuade me from looking after you now. Thirty years, it might all happen again. Mike and I might die but at least we'll know that you'll be safe and in good hands. You can think of it in those selfish terms if you'd rather." Alex reached out to brush the hair out of Zoe's face and give her a smile, "You're not some unwanted fifth wheel. You're more like, I dunno, getting an extra twinkie in a package that only would have had two."
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"It's hard to dream if you don't sleep," Taylor said in what could have been an attempt at a joke but wasn't. She reached back out for him, almost tenatively, as she'd pulled away at his revelations, "It's terrifying, isn't it? All of a sudden, you'll realize there's something you've stopped doing that everyone normal on the planet takes for granted. Then you spend a few heart stopping moments searching your memory, trying to remember when the last time you did that thing was. What it felt like. Why you even did it in the first place. Like a mini-panic attack, as you try and run through the list you've concocted in your head of what 'normal' is to make sure there's no other scrap of humanity you've dropped when you weren't looking. No other part of what used to be 'you'."
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Alex released Mike to grab at Zoe's shoulders'. Her daughter - and that was still taking some adjusting to think about - was already taller than she was. Alex's hands were firm but not tight as she looked up at Zoe, "It's not right that you had to watch us die. It's not right that you're here alone. It's not right that a lot of things happen, Zoe. Life isn't fair, it simply is." Her voice gentled but she didn't pause for breath as she continued, "You're here now, and that's all that matters. It is our choice, Zoe, but it's you're overcomplicating what that choice is. It costs us nothing to love you, Zoe. Nothing. I don't care about the future, what matters right now is the present. How could I let you be so very alone if I have the power not to? What kind of person would I be?"
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Alex watched them go, her hazel eyes fixed on Mark's back as it burned itself into her perfect memory before she seamlessly shifted her attention back to Zoe, her expression once more serene. "Sit down, Mike," Alex said quietly, pushing him into a chair like the diminuative dictator that she was, "I'm pretty sure that you've got that backwards, Zoe. It's our job to protect you." Her hand still on Mike's shoulder, her touch firm she said the words that Zoe wouldn't, or couldn't, "Zoe's not my sister but we do share half our DNA. She's my daughter from what I'd guess rougly thirty years in the future. Give or take." She paused, her had tightening on Mike, "She's our daughter."
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"You'd better! Unless you want me to try out my driving by ESP and guess work," Alex said lightly, pretending to put her fingers up to her temples like some sort of crazed fortune teller. Before she punched James shoulder lightly and declared, "Shotgun!" Of course, there were only the two of them heading for James car, "You going to follow us back, Erin, or shall we see you when we see you?" Alex figured that the first drive in her first car was something Erin might like to experience all on her own, and she was more than happy to oblige.
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"We can't always chose our paths but you can make it difficult for the people shoving you down it. Other than frying the occasional imps," Phantom said softly with a rare burst of empathy. She knew quite well what it was to have her destiny charted out. "If you want."
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Alex pulled back from Mike as she felt him relax, giving him a tiny smile before it faded as she flicked her gaze to Mark. Her expression looked both sadder and somehow older than usual. She made no move to touch him as he approached as that would have felt awkward but she did glance him over to confirm that Mike hadn't done anything. "No, that's not what I meant. Though, this wasn't how I intended to talk about this all, it appears that's what we're going to do anyways." She gestured for them to head for the study rooms that Erin had suggested. Once they'd trooped in, Alex shut the door with a quiet click, and started softly, "I broke into the lab last night and ran some genetics tests."
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Please remove diehard from Phantom's Regen with the new house rules. That'll give her 7PP to spend. I'll put 3PP into the total of her array, raising the PP available in it to 34PP Magic Array (34 pp) (PF: Alternate Power x 8) [41pp] BE: Blast 11 (Extra: Affects Corporeal, PF: Accurate 1) {34} AP: Comprehend 8 (Animals 2, Codes 1, Languages 4, Spirits 1; Extra: Affects Others, Area Burst) {32} AP: Detect Magic: Ranged, (Acute, Analytical, Accurate, Radius, Tracking (3), Extended (5)), Detect Dimensional: Ranged, (Acute, Analytical, Accurate, Radius, Tracking (3), Extended (5)) {30} AP: Dimensional Pocket 6 (48,000 lbs; Extra: Continuous, PF: Progression x 4) {34} AP: ESP 9 (20,000 miles, Sight/Hearing; Extra: Duration/Sustained, Flaw: Standard Action; PF: Dimensional, Rapid x5, Subtle) {34} AP: Nullify Field 8 (40 Feet) (All Powers (Drawback: Only Magical and Dimenionsional Descriptors), Area Burst, Touch; Extra: Duration/Concentration) {31} AP: Stun 11 (Extras: Affects Corporeal, Ranged; Flaws: Action/Full; PF: Accurate x 1) {34} AP: Telekinesis 15 (Str 75; PF: Accurate, Precise, Indirect) {33} AP: Teleport 10 (200,000 miles; Extra: Accurate PF: Change Velocity, Easy, Progression x 2 [x5 mass] {34} And then the remaining 4PP into her insubstantial array, getting the reactive extra on insubstantial and her FF up to caps: Insubstantial 4 (Affected by Fire; Extra: Action: Reactive) (PF: Alternate Power) [25pp] AP: Force Field 11 (Extra: Impervious 11, PF: Selective, Subtle) {24} Mana successfully channeled
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"Zombies," Phantom concurred as she brushed her fingertips over and slightly through the headstone before she floated out to land next to the others. "Although I don't believe the body was risen here. No ritual was performed here, nor no sudden influx of necromantic energy. I can tell you that whatever dug up the body was infused with power. Several of them, by my buest guess. It's an assumption, but whatever is taking the bodies and raising them probably has a relatively involved ceremony that they wouldn't want to perform at gravesite. Some necromancers need more ritual than others."
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Phantom floated over the now empty grave, her expression dark under the shadows of her hood. Ghostlike, the ephemeral edges of her cloak drifted through the dirt piled high on either side of the now clearly empty grave site. She made a faint tsk-ing sound deep in her throat as she drifted over it to get a good look at the grave marker, before she began casting the detection spell. Hopefully that might give her some insight into what exactly was causing it. Necromantic, but highly doubtful it was vampiric, she imagined. It was probably zombies. And it wasn't even Halloween yet.
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Alex gave Zoe a frown and informed her tartly, "No one in this family is a 'nasty skank'. People are talking because clearly they both lack the sense that God gave little green apples and because apparently someone wants to see Mike turn Mark into a red smear on the school quad. Of course we haven't had sex. While I won't say that pregnancy is impossible considering the insanity of the super-hero life style, it would certainly be immaculate conception." Alex realized that she wasn't giving the simple answer and she didn't want Mike's temper - uncertain as it currently was - to be set off again so she repeated as he approached, giving Zoe a gentle pat on the back, "I'm not pregnant and I haven't had sex with anyone." Then, with the sort of intuitive understand that she'd always had of Mike, she stepped out of the crowd and wrapped her arms around his waist in a gentle hug with the calm assurance that it would drain away the last of his wrath.
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"Just because they avoid me, doesn't mean its out of fear. Much like criminals avoiding cops, its because I can be a series set back in the current plan but that's about it." She said with the thread of long standing aggravation. Much like mortal police, Phantom didn't kill, which meant there was no ending stream of revolving regulars that made her life as busy as it was. Phantom shrugged and answered his unspoken question first, "There are other half-demons although its rare to see one with any real demonic power. Usually they're the product of an incubi, which don't tend to do much more than sleep around and refuse to pay their speeding tickets. Hardly high on the scale of massive threat. More like your average college student than anything else." Her wit was just as acerbic as her words but the flash of smile below her cowl as she spoke was genuine enough. "Sounds like a plausible theory. Somehow you don't sound down with the plan. I can't imagine why not as, man, does that being torture and spied on sound like real incentive to me. I know that puts me in an excellent mood." Phantom's voice dropped a little flat as she had personal experience with both of those.
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"I do pleasant and cordial far better when I haven't spend the last two months blasting demon spies back to hell," she retorted as she pushed her hood back to look up at him better, "Irritating, but nowhere near the threat of the enforcer demon I all but tripped over. A trap meant for you, I might add. Usually the infernals give me a wide enough berth. Getting my attention is generally not a good way to stick around Prime. Its not a big leap to guess they're trying to find another way around the Pact. So why are they trying so hard to retrieve a half-demon?"
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"About as long as I can," Taylor's grin flashed as he broke through the surface of the water, "Forever." This time she followed him rather than retreating. She had to go a few feet further in than he did before she could stand up on the sand. "Which would make a dunking contest either very boring or terribly entertaining."
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"Of course I'm not, and of course I didn't," Alex said, planting both hands on her hips and her chin jutting up so that she could look up at them both. Her flat denial of the possibility wasn't the most flattering for her erstwhile boyfriend but Alex wasn't exactly in the frame of mind to phrase things better. Her cheeks were flushed and the curls of her hair almost seemed to vibrate with her temper, "Oh, you can be so blind, you know that?"
