alderwitch

Alex did not make the Science check with a 16 unless she gets the bonus for eidetic memory. As for survival: 1d20+11=19 nope.

"We're out of time," Phantom said and with a sharp gesture the surface of the mirror they'd been scrying through rippled like water. Before the other heroes could blink, Phantom picked up the mirror and flipped it over, giving it a little shake, and Jack's doppelganger was dumped out onto the carpet of the library. At the looks from her teammates, she shrugged under the cloak. She had a lot of tricks that she didn't break out for just any occasion.

'I'm in the supply room. You have someone with you? And they're hurt. I'll be right there.' The two women heard the words in their head rather than aloud before the young woman herself came zipping around the corner to stop short at the sight of the battered octopus lady. Her expression knit in concern and she explained as she dropped to her feet, "You must be in a lot of pain. Its going to take me a few minutes to fix everything alright. Ask any questions you like, I can talk and work at the same time." Psyche extended one hand out carefully and the sparkling glow that covered her extended out over Fusion, bringing with it a tingling and soothing numbness. With her expression creased in concentration, Psyche focused on rebuilding the woman on the cellular level.

When the light cleared, the ex-thief had apparently been destroyed leaving not even a smoldering pile of ash. Fortunately, she was a good deal hardier than she looked and had used her years of training to vanish from any observers when she'd shaken off the effects of whatever the heck that spell had been. Thanks so much for providing the distraction yourself, gents. She ghosted up by the magician that she'd smacked around earlier and silent as a shadow reached out to grab the back of his skull and smash his face into the frame of the mirror. "Oh, come off it. I was playing this game with the Thule society before you blokes were ever born! They were better at it, actually. Sorry."

Bombshell's going to take advantage of the pillar of bright light to vanish with Hide in Plain Sight as a move action. Then she's gonna sneak around, surging to gain a second move action to sucker punch the bruised sorcerer holding onto the mirror by smacking his head into the shiny frame. She'll spend one of the HP to clear the fatigue from that. Stealth check is an auto 32 Attack: 1d20+9=21 For a DC24 Tough save.

Talya's grin widened at Jack's response, really both parts but she laughed at Elena's blunt speech and her nose wrinkled up in an expression of commiserating amusement with Jack as she explained, "Several millenia has made her extrodinarily blunt while that telepathy has made her uncomfortabally honest. Eventually it becomes an endearing quirk of character, I promise, once one adjusts. The important thing is to establish bounderies early and often. She does so enjoy managing people." Talya lowered her tone to a husky whisper and added, "She's actually more shy than you'd think about herself." Then she turned to Elena and let the finger tips she kissed brush affectionately over the Latina's cheek. "I hardly think its as unlikely as you seem to think that someone's attracted to you, darling. Not too mention there's that oh-so-male fantasy that Ace has already tossed out onto the conversation already. Thank you for that, by the way, Ace. I'll remember that later when the opportunity presents itself to get even." Her tone was as amused as it was sincere.

Scarab was led down into the small basement and locked into a cell alongside Bombshell. Her lover was laying down, hands behind her back and long legs loosely crossed with her heels propped up against the far wall. She rolled to her feet with lazy grace, her hands bound behind her back once again. "You brought me company but still, no bread or water. This is a terrible secret prison and I've been in some real dives before." She drawled bumping one shoulder against the bars as she ignored the gun waved in her face. She kept the bored and amused expression on her face until the door closed at which point it fell away like a mask. With a wiggle and twist, the cuffs dropped off behind her and she went over to the Scarab where she knelt down and carefully began to unlock the cuffs with a small bent wire. "Have these off you in a jiff, darling," Bombshell said gently. "Then we'll wait for the cavalry. I'm afraid I didn't bring cards but we'll manage to stay entertained somehow."

"" the Scion of Sobek crowed his triumph as he thrust the jewel towards the costumed crusader and spat out the last of the spell. Scarab could see her Ka flow out of her body to glow ever brighter inside the jewel in his fist. For the first time in a very long while, Scarab was utterly alone in her head. ""

Scarab appeared in the appointed clearing and the sound of guns being cocked was almost deafening. This branch of the scions had gone very militaristic to support the waning numbers of the mystics. Only three had escaped the last time but they had spent the last few decades garnering strength for the next show down with their ancient enemy. The guards wore urban camoflauge uniforms, their heads capped with orange berets that matched the orange sigil encrusted robes of the two human sorcerers who stood off to the side, their faces hidden with deep hoods. At an unseen signal, the ring of soldiers parted, the sorcerers moving in eerie and silent symmatry to flank the newly formed entrance. A twisted figure moved slowly up between them. Although like the sorcerers, he was robed in orange, but instead of a human head, he had the head of a hideous crocodile, one thick scar bisecting his eye ridge and twisting the corner of his fanged mouth into a grimace. "" The dread Ka-Khemet himself hissed. He spat words in ancient Egyptian, a thick milky crystal held in his wrinkled hands, "" He thrust the crystal up in one leathery hand and began intoning the litany of Heru-Ra's noble ancestry of gods-who-were-men and Scarab felt the sudden sickening drain of all of her vaunted psychic prowess being drawn slowly into the crystal held in one withered talon. Within the items milky depths, a red pulsing glow started throbbing.

Talya's hands sank into Elena's dark hair to hold her close and after she broke the kiss, Talya left her forehead to rest against Elena's for a moment, her eyes closed. There was a flicker of teasing emotion from Talya's mind, love overlaying sorrow and a whisper soft flash of guilt before Talya pulled away, her small smile once more in place, "Darling, I'm British. You know we're terrible with the showing emotion and I am certainly worse at it than many of my countrymen. Still, for you, I will make the effort. I should go. They'll miss me. I'm going to borrow a cell, I'll call Ace on the way. And I'll see you soon." When she was gone, she called Ace's cell and left a quiet and terse message. "Remember Prague? July, 1942. Scarab has details." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few quick calls to Scarab's leaguer contacts and she was done before the local news station blipped onto her radar. They were all to happy to turn the grainy tape to the hero. It was the usual melodrama that was expected. Just enough details of the poisoning they had on-line to prove they were valid and dire warnings to come alone to a specific location. They refrained from making it clear just who they were but the trappings of ceremony in the background would have given it away to Scarab's keen eye if Bombshell hadn't already informed her. The location wasn't far from the base they were using, an old run down warehouse and scrying the area would reveal that the bulk of their armed forces were ringing the area with guns and two priests on hand to deal with Scarab's arrival should she decide to 'not come quietly'.

Bombshell could have vanished on him, but she didn't. As skewed as her morals were sometimes, she'd always stuck to the rules of any of her games once since down. Honor among thieves and all that. She flew only a few steps ahead of him, leaping and twisting to sail across the rooftops. Her soft soled boots only made a whisper of sound as she pelted out across the next rooftop. It was when the gap between the buildings was just a little to large to make easily that she lost her slim lead as she had to twist mid leap to head for the nearest fire escape instead of sailing clear across the chasm. She caught the ladder and hauled herself up onto some stranger's balcony.

"I need to put some sort of adaption in for cold weather. Or figure how to keep environmental factors from affecting my body. Then I could go with you to see outer space again..." Alex said wistfully, her gaze travelling upwards. "For now, however, I'll have to borrow a coat." She shook herself from her daydreams and then leaned over to kiss Mike on the cheek. Alex had to float up a little to do that before she headed off for one of the restrooms to change into her costume. Alex showed back up to help them look for the transporter, her short skirt and boots covered by a thick parka and snow boots. Only her hazel eyes were visible between the hat and the jacket collar.

Talya made her way into the kitchen and back out with drinks in hand, skirting around the various heroes with graceful ease on her clicking heels. She didn't feel the need to drink in social groups generally but it did give one something to do with their hands during awkward situations, and this looked to have several awkward situations rising up. She returned to the small cluster of adults and silently held out the glass of scotch for Ace to take. It might have been decades since they'd last been anything like an item but she knew his tastes hadn't changed much. "I brought you water," she said politely to the angel, "I wasn't sure if you drank but rather to be safe than sorry. You seem terribly difficult to offend but it would be a shame to waste good wine." With her glass held loosely she watched the ego jockeying with one arched brow and the tendril of hair sneaking along the ground with an amused raised eyebrow before she hid the smile behind the rim of her glass. "Well, at least there should be plenty of entertainment."

Talya shook hands as the group widened, her smile going soft for a moment at Elena's very public declaration of affection and she reached up to give the other woman's fingers a small squeeze. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as Elena went off and she shook her head, giving the hand another fond pat as she remarked, "As if the moralistic speeches weren't a dead give-away to your identity, darling. Fortunately, you do always look stunning in scarlet." She shook Eli and Colt's hands with a polite smile but that widened into a wicked grin when Jack announced his name, "Oh, we've met as well, actually. Midnight rooftops and black leather and all that. I do love this era." Talya offered her hand to him, her blonde locks slipping down to obscure one eye as she went from polite charm to full on flirt with Elena's hand still on her waist. She wasn't trying to make the other woman jealous. The idea Elena might be jealous was so patently ridiculous to Talya that it never even flickered through her surface thoughts and if it had been suggested, it would have made the blonde laugh. It had never worked on Alexander after all and lord knew she'd tried it often enough in the early days of that relationship. So she simply winked at Jack with the one visible blue eye and reminded him, "We played a little game. You won."

"Hmm," Phantom took a step towards the mirror, better able to accept a doppelganger of herself than the ones of Jack and Moira. She knew there were other Taylors, just no other Phantom. "We're fortunate that my alternate self shares my gift for languages but not my metaphysical prowess. She needs to be stopped before she figures out a way around the barriers. I imagine that the other Moira is similarly powerless. I doubt any embrace of a goddess would be successful and should it be, she would have likely seized control of this little group and clawed her way higher up the social structure. Is there anything else we need to know?" Phantom wrinkled her nose in distaste at her feral eyed counterpart as she nibbled on her hand. "I don't think I can pass as my alter ego. My heart still beats and from what Avenger's intimated, that's something that is noticable."

Bombshell autohits both of those rolls with a 20 in notice and a 30 in bluff.

Talya relaxed under the intrusion. Not for the first time, Elena was treated to the very structured way that Talya organized her thoughts. It was rather like reading a zen master or another non psychic who'd spent years undergoing the sort of mental and physical training to achieve near perfect focus. Talya's mind was always very different from the way she presented herself in the world. Martial and militaristic, it was certainly a hold over from the woman she'd been many, many years ago. First she provided the information on the installations for Elena to pass on to the teams that would be taking it out and then the complex where Talya herself was a 'guest' and Elena would be as well, no doubt. It had only a handful of the actual mystics with real power but that was plenty, and a good thirty or so standard guards. It was an old military building on the outskirts of town that had been re-purposed to temple and jail. Then she gave Scarab the details on their intent to contact her with the usual threat delivered to a news station and location that they'd be asking for her surrender at. "You'll probably hear from the station in the next hour or two." Talya reached out to gently touch Elena's face, her touch unusually tender and her expression shuttered. "I'll call Ace and work out the extraction plans. I... you know I do love you, don't you?"

"And do you really want to gamble that even all those marshaled forces are going to be fast enough - good enough - to stop this plan they have in motion. Just one waterway poisoned and we lose. I know you, my darling. I know you'll sacrifice yourself when you play out all the odds in that brilliant mind of yours. All the good of the many outweighs the good of the one." She smiled, displaying those perfect white teeth in a smile that was sharp edged and wicked, "So, we cheat. It takes a day for them to trust that stupid crystal has gotten a firm enough hold. Take what you need from my thoughts and feed that information to all of your friends and then turn yourself in. They'll have a day to take down the Sword of Damocles at which point we'll make our daring escape. It shouldn't take Ace an entire day to infiltrate as a guard. An hour tops or he's lost his touch. You and I can do a day of incarceration standing on our heads. Simple." Talya downplayed what it would take to escape deliberately as she didn't want to be left behind. She wasn't going to be, of course, but she'd rather not argue with Elena over it. She took the time for Elena to process that to carefully suppress what she was hiding with all the training that she had.

Taylor chuckled at her husband, "It doesn't quite work like that. JJ, here, is one possibility of a multitude. Actually more of a probability than a possibility but still, time can change. He's a trunk line existence. Which means that its more likely there will be minor changes than major changes but it is still always possible for the future to jump to a completely other trunk line and move forward. That doesn't mean that this JJ will stop existing, just that he'll be part of a different future dimension such as an Earth Prime 1e designation and...." She saw the series of blank looks she was starting to get and sighed, "Timey wimey wibbly wobbly ball of stuff," Taylor quoted although it was unlikely that anyone in this crowd but her adult son would get the reference. "It means that you shouldn't rest on your laurels but you can probably crank the paranoia back down a notch."

"We haven't tried to fill that niche. Mike won that fight we had. She's been left to her own devices and I'm not exactly happy with the results. She's had relations with Eddie and now James. Do you think she's being safe? My kid? I'm not exactly confident at this point. And if she has a kid of her own, she's hardly going to be able to deal with that." Alex said unhappily, hugging herself tighter, "She's drinking and doing everything too fast and too hard and with her power set, its not even just herself that she's putting at risk. That car stunt on the way over here? Not okay. She's like a ticking time bomb of a teenager determined to act out as many ways possible. We may not be the parents she wants or is used to having but by God she's going to learn some sort of self restraint if I have to have Mike sit on her."

Alex considered his words thoughtfully before nodding her head in acceptance. She made a mental note to call and reassure her mother and juggle her activities around this new one which should prove interesting. "Thank you, Mr. Summers. I'm sure it will be quite an experience. Is there anything else, sir?"

"I don't know, sir. You won't turn me into the authorities. Not only for the risk to the school but with my own activities and outing and the current socio political climate, it would be very dangerous to all super empowered youths should the fear of Terminus children catch hold. But you also won't because my activities are well within the acceptable margin established for other hero psychics." Alex said, reaching up to rub her temples as she obediently turned her thoughts to the problem as she was bidden, "You could expel me but that leaves me entirely without any overarcing guidance. Were you uncomfortable with my actions, that seems a poor response to take. Not to mention the very real concern you are no doubt entertaining that I am reaching the end of my own emotional endurance and starting to fray under the pressure. It is a reasonable concern and one that I entertain myself upon occasion. I do make mistake, after all. I am still human and still seventeen. It is possible I have overestimated my ability to cope with the challenges I'm juggling." Alex returned her hand to her lap, lacing her fingers together. "My family is out of town and a paper will be of little effort and hardly serve as punishment. I enjoy writing and the library." "What I need on an emotional level, is a break from the adult responsibilities on my shoulders and my error, if any, was in the legal realm if not the ethical. So, I suppose if I were, Mr. Summers, I would try and find a poetic marriage of the two but if you can accomplish that, sir, you are wiser than I," Alex drew to her conclusion with another quiet exhalation, "as I have been trying to find a way to make ammends but have remained unsuccessful."

Alex shifted uncomfortably in her chair, her gaze straying back to her linked hands and she let out a little sigh. Her gaze flicked to the window that looked out over the school quad and she replied quietly, "I avoid thinking about it when I can. It makes me feel a little sick when I remember that moment of utter blankness before their normal brain patterns assert themselves. It's like holding a hundred glittering fireflies in the palm of your hand and then extinguishing them all at once. I don't like editing memories. I don't like taking away free will but that's the power I have so I try and use it judiciously and I live with the repercussions of my actions just like everyone else does." She looked away from the window and back to the headmaster expectantly, "I know my powers frighten people. I know why. I know just how easy it is to change someone forever because I simply want them to be different. It's easier for me to understand than other psychics, in someways, because I've always had these powers. Mike holds back on his strength, I hold back on my mind, because its so very easy to break the people around us."

Shaen, I'm'a give you two HP here. One, because Scarab is stuck in a catch-22 that is very heroic and although its the plot set up that we discussed, she should still get an HP for that and the second for having one of Scarab's old enemies looking for her personally due to her legacy.

"I made a mistake." Talya said simply, rubbing the chaffed skin as the manacle fell away, her fingertips rubbing over the skin thoughtfully. She didn't seem unduly bothered by the faint markings and Elena's quick check confirmed that it was mostly surface wounds. She'd taken the backhand to the face and her shoulder was bruised from a self inflicted dislocation to get out of the handcuffs but other than that, she was mostly shaken and no small amount angry herself. "A grievous mistake, I must confess. And now, now we are all but out of time." She put one hand on top of the painkillers and looked up. "Listen to me, Elena, its the scions. They've set up a way to hold the city hostage unless you surrender yourself into their clutches. The mean not only to kill you, but to trap your entire essence into this crystal. When you die, your curse will be stopped. You'll be trapped outside of the cycle for all time. They stand poised to poison millions should you, or anyone, try to stop them. They have the time and capabilities to make good on their threat. It took me far too long to find a window to get out of their cell and if they notice I'm gone, they will know that you've been warned."