Electra
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Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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In an instant, Miss A was beside Citizen, her own hands moving nearly as rapidly as his as she input security codes and instituted failsafe procedures. In a moment, the holograpic projection of the rapper vanished, with his image appearing a second later on a flat wallscreen. "I've sealed off the computer systems in this workspace," she told the others, "and isolated the unit he's on specifically. Decontaminating the holoprojection system now. Citizen, this might feel weird for a second." Sharl's holographic image flickered for a moment, then stabilized as the program finished running. "All right," Miss A said, once the immediate threat seemed to be contained, "now show me." She looked over the programming he'd found, nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I see. It looks as though they didn't expect the program they created to achieve AI level. That's a hell of a thing to do by accident." She looked up at D-Gray, still present if no longer holographic. "What's the last thing you remember before the concert today?"
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Both Koshiros looked upward immediately when Tulink told them that there was someone upstairs, but for the moment at least, everything seemed still and quiet. "If you see what we need, go get it," Koshiro whispered impatiently to the computer construct. "We're wasting time." "Hey, ease off him," Koshiro whispered to his counterpart with a frown. "He's just doing his job." Despite whatever masquerade this Sharl was trying to pull, Koshiro couldn't quite stand by and let his own alternate self treat the AI like a dumb machine. Erde-Koshiro gave him a look that was more puzzled than angry, and Prime-Koshiro shrugged. "We've all got a job to do. I haven't got a clue what vacuum tubes are supposed to cost."
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Koshiro looked down at himself, all silvery-blue metal, mannequin-shapeless and naked, and wished he had control of his paper again. At least with paper, he could make himself some clothes! He paused and considered, looking at his fingers. Those had turned papery pretty easily. Closing his eyes, he imagined himself covered in a layer of construction paper, the sort he sprayed with water and molded to give folded projects a clothlike texture. He imagined molding it, forming a shirt, pants, wrapping shoes around his feet. When he opened his eyes again, he was wearing clothes, more or less, though they looked a bit strange, unhemmed and unfinished. They also had a vaguely construction-papery texture, but he wasn't going to quibble about that. He pulled the hood up onto his head and looked over to Sharl. "Try and blend in," he told his roommate. Walking with more certainty now, Koshiro began heading towards the door. "Let's get going then. We'll get food on the way, but we don't want to have to answer a lot of questions till we know what's going on, right?" Since the alarms were already blaring, he didn't quibble about pushing open the emergency door and walking out. It seemed safer than using the impromptu exits that had been created during the fight.
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Miss Americana blinked once with surprise as the sergeant's disability became apparent, but that changed quickly to a close scrutiny when she did the trick with the rebellious computers. She would have dearly loved a moment to sit down and interface with the system till she found out what made it tick, but right now they had other priorities. With a nod to Sharl, Miss A fell in behind the wheelchair, keeping a close eye on their surroundings as they headed into the warehouse. There was no telling what you might see in a STAR Squad holding area. As they walked, she fell back and murmured in Wail's ear, "You knew her mother, right? Any ideas on how we handle this one?"
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"You're doing fine," Erin encouraged, holding onto Trevor's hand as she navigated her way along the side of the cylinder. "I won't let you float away. Try this!" Loosening her grip on him for a moment, she leaned forward and turned a sommersault, tucking her legs in and making it look quite effortless. "It's almost like being in water, but you can't drown." Zero gravity was fun, but almost as amusing to Erin was the sight of the normally hypercompetent Trevor finding something he wasn't already good at. It wasn't like she wasn't proud of all the things he was good at, but it was occasionally a little intimidating. It was nice to know he wasn't great at everything right away. Erin was careful to keep that thought, and her grin, to herself as they began drifting.
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"If we're dealing with rogue Grue, juveniles or not," Fleur pointed out, "the Captain and possibly Penny are the best equipped to know what we're looking for and to be able to find it." She didn't look entirely happy about that fact, but continued. "We could take Scraps and Penny to stay with the bees, for the sake of argument. It won't take but a minute to get them to Beedom Valley, and the bees will take good care of them. They really couldn't be better protected anywhere on Sanctuary. I'd rather not take any children into danger if we don't have to. We may have to move quickly once we get started. The clock is already ticking for my plants."
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"Sure," Miss A told Voltage. "I've got a set of pylons and baffles against the wall over there. If you'll set up a containment unit, I'll get some robotic actuators placed on Chimera and disable her more destructive functions, then we'll have a little chat with her." It was easy enough for Voltage to figure out how to assemble the sophisticated containment unit, which looked to have been something Miss A had designed and constructed herself. While he did so, she worked over the robot spread out on one of the tables, carefully disconnecting the circuits that created Chimera's sophisticated defensive and offensive capabilities. It was nothing that couldn't be undone, she wouldn't attempt a permanent reconfiguration on the fly, but it would provide an added measure of safety during their questioning. It took significantly longer to prepare the robot than to put together the unit, but eventually Chimera was sealed inside, an actuator affixed to her back to remotely operate her on/off switch. A touch of Miss A's finger brought the robot back to life. "Chimera," she said clearly. "Can you hear me? We have you in a containment unit and your offensive capability is disabled. We just want to talk to you."
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Koshiro took in the cafe with some interest, especially noting the presence of several attractive girls around his own age, drinking coffee or chatting with friends. He was busy right now, and there were way too many potential monkeywrenches around to make a move anyway, but there was always another day. He took a closer look at Kimber when he realized she had a new pet as well. A housecat was definitely more his speed than a giant dog. "Hey, kitty," he said to the cat, voice quiet and surprisingly friendly. "That dog's not gonna hurt you. Are you nice?" He offered the cat his hand to sniff, then cautiously extended his fingers to pet its head.
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Wander's brow furrowed as Cannonade ran straight up to the villains and announced his intent to attack them, loud enough to raise the dead. Maybe they needed some further discussion about how to run an effective pincer tactic. It was hard to remember sometimes that he hadn't had the combat training that the Young Freedom veterans had gotten at school, which put him at something of a disadvantage. At any rate, his bold move had provided a distraction, so she moved quickly to take advantage of it. After making sure that Orion's eyes were trained momentarily on Cannonade, Wander leapt into the air, vaulting nearly to the top of the rotunda ceiling and well over Orion's head before dropping to land behind him, three display cases away. Holding her bat like an oversized nightstick, she raced at top speed over the cases before falling off, bat-first, right on top of the unwitting Orion in a move that carried them both to the ground.
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Wander is going to target Orion and attempt to give him a solid whack with her bat. Start with a Fast Acrobatic Bluff on the move action, skill-mastered and inspired for a DC 32 to avoid flat-footedness. Follow that up with a Charging Inspired full Power Attack, which will result in a net +2 to attack, -2 to defense, and +5 to damage. With a crappy crap roll of 17, the only way that could hit is if he's really flat-footed when he's flat-footed. That misses, so going to spend an HP to reroll. That's a 29. Toughness DC is 30 if she hits.
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While the others were talking, Koshiro focused on the paper in his hands, an effortless series of motions suddenly made alien and difficult by the strangeness of his own fingers. The more he tried to concentrate on the paper, the more likely his own fingers were to flatten out like paper themselves, ready to be folded up into any number of useful shapes, except of course for freaking fingers. Frustrated, he looked up from the work for a moment. "If we're going out to the bay, we might as well kill two birds with one stone and get some food while we're there. There's a bunch of little places for the tourists, and that thing's going to be just as stuck on the bottom of the ocean an hour from now. We don't need anybody passing out because they've never had anything to eat." Apparently not paying attention did the trick, since when Koshiro looked down again, he'd finished folding the lidded box he'd been struggling with. "Use this," he directed Kimber, passing over the toy. "Toss it in their direction, but think about it being big, big enough to fit around all of them, and strong like metal. The paper does what you want it to, but you have to be clear about it."
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Koshiro's brow furrowed at that. He was already leery about the idea of getting new people on the team, but he hadn't exactly stopped to consider the fact that he was the only human on the team, and the only one who did things like breathe air and eat normal food. He might need some more votes on his side in future debates on how missions were planned. Come to think of it, he'd better take a hard look at all the places Sharl was considering for headquarters. "Yeah, I guess we could maybe use another person or two, if they're good enough," he allowed. "Who did you have in mind?"
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"Absolutely," Fleur agreed immediately, and indeed, she looked so entirely harmless, it was easy to believe it. Smiling at the girl, she reached into the pouch at her belt and withdrew a single, nearly invisible seed. "My name is Fleur, and I live not too far away from here. Scraps mentioned that sometimes he found green things for you. Greens are my specialty." She rolled the seed between her fingers, and in moments the seed was a leafy stem with a pleasant herbal scent. A second's concentration had a showy pink blossom unfurling at the top, bee balm to anyone with an eye for flowers. Fleur extended it to the girl invitingly. The import of the Captain's interrupted message was not lost on her, nor was the danger of sharing a Grue ship with a Grue, but right now her priority was the frightened child, whatever species she was.
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Koshiro's snort of laughter suggested he completely understood Indira's eagerness to get out of her house for awhile. Indira's house was nice, and in a nice neighborhood, but everything about it screamed boring, conformist, and without the least shred of historical interest. Just to look at it, you'd never imagine that aliens lived there, which was, he supposed, exactly the point. "Sharl thinks we need to have a headquarters, and his boss is loaded enough to pay for one. I figure it can't hurt to check things out, right?" He was still giving Lora the holodog a respectful berth, but at least the creature was quite a bit less intimidating when it wasn't up close and entirely too personal. "We thought everybody should be in on it, though. You got any idea where Kimber is? We didn't see her floating around the dorm anywhere."
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Erin returned the kiss with equal fervor, holding onto him with an embrace strong enough to nearly take the wind out of him for a moment. She laughed, a sound that was nearly giddy with relief and the last remnants of nerves. Already the memory of her interlude in the fountain was fading away, even as the glow began to ebb from her skin and leave her still warm and strong, but normal-looking again. She lifted her hands to his cheeks, looking into the darkness of his eyes. "I'm sure we've had closer," she told him, then grinned and kissed him again. It was a few moments before she could pay any attention to the Furion healers that still surrounded them, and even then she couldn't bring herself to feel embarrassed. "Thank you all for your help," she told them. "I'm in your debt."
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Ten seconds after Erin disappeared into the fountain, very long, quiet seconds, she was back, pushing her way through the light and sputtering slightly as though it were real water she walked through. She stepped out of the fountain and stood on the lip, wiping her face and looking a bit lost. The red and black mottling was entirely gone from her skin, which now shone ever-so-slightly with the light from the fountain. Her clothes were unchanged, still in tatters from the fight, but her bat had gone from matte black to shining silver. Dropping her hands, Erin looked around. "I feel... better," she ventured tentatively.
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Erin hesitated a moment at the edge of the fountain, looking around at the incredibly strange and otherworldly tableau. She liked Redbird, and Red Falcon had proven himself a trustworthy ally to the last measure, but these were still alien beings. If she'd learned anything from Redbird, it was that Furion attitudes towards things like death were a lot different than human attitudes. But really, what did she have to lose at this point? She could already feel her muscles starting to spasm, locking up one by one before being freed by her overtaxed regenerative powers. Might as well do it now rather than face being tossed in when she couldn't move on her own anymore! It would also she suspected, be considerably harder on Trevor if she clutched now and refused to even try being cured because she was afraid. She'd put him through enough already, even if he'd sort of paid her back by insisting on going toe-to-toe with Madrigal, even though the rest of them were right there... She was stalling. Taking a deep breath, Erin took one last look over her shoulder and gave Trevor a quick smile, then walked forward, as confidently as she could manage, and stepped through the showering curtain of light into the fountain.
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"Come right this way," Miss Americana encouraged, dropping her robotic burden onto an electric cart and motioning anyone else carrying parts to do the same. She leaned in toward the wall for a retina-scan that confirmed their authorization to land, then heading towards what seemed to be a very large freight elevator. "We'll go the back way, it's quicker." The elevator was nearly the size of a convenience store, and the sensation of it moving downwards was somewhat disconcerting, but there wasn't far to go. As they descended a handful of stories, Miss A addressed the air. "Security, I need temp authorization badges for the heroes Cannonade and Voltage, gamma level, delivered to my lab. Thank you." The doors opened soundlessly into a large laboratory that gleamed with stainless steel and smelled faintly of ozone. Robot parts were everywhere, from single joints going through stress tests to holographic models of circuits, to nearly complete robotic bodies, with and without skin, waiting like silent sentinels in the corners of the two-story open plan room. The statuesque scientist led her colleagues to an open space in the center of the lab, one ringed with tables and clearly waiting for any projects she might bring in on the fly. "I'm going to rig a containment field to keep Chimera imprisoned so we can turn her back on," she explained. "That's the most straightforward way to interrogate her, anyway. I just need a moment to rig a remote to her off switch, just in case. Citizen, would you help D-Gray transfer himself to the ambient projectors? That should be more comfortable for both of you, and perhaps you all can speak with him."
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Koshiro frowned at that, scratching his chin as he rustled up his keys and stuck them in his pockets. "A headquarters?" he asked, not sounding exactly convinced. "How do we even know there's going to be a team still in the fall?" he pointed out. It was too hot for a hoodie or jacket, so he tucked a few squares of paper into his wallet, just in case, then shoved the wallet in his back pocket. "It's not like we've even got a leader anymore since graduation, and CT was our big gun, whatever else he was. We start screwing around out there, we're liable to get our asses handed to us." At Koshiro's beckoning, a handful of cranes took off from the desk, fluttering into the air before obediently flattening themselves into his hand. He stuck them into his pocket too, then headed for the door. Sleeping through breakfast was nice in a lazy way, but left him ravenous. "You talked to the girls about it?"
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ic Celebrating Liberty Through Meat and Explosions [IC]
Electra replied to trollthumper's topic in North Bay
Erin blinked at the news about Mark's mom, and even opened her mouth to comment before she realized she had nothing productive to say about the matter. Losing his dad had been very difficult for Mark, but by all accounts it had driven Martha around the bend. It was hard to tell to what extent, since Mark was very protective of his mother, but Erin suspected that there was a reason Mark didn't invite his friends over anymore, or bring his mom to any get-togethers. When Erin thought about it, she wasn't sure she'd seen Martha Lucas since graduation. Judging by what Erin had seen of her before that, Travis probably had the right idea. She set down the table in the shade of the screened-in porch, which was itself large enough to hold an open-air restaurant. "I'll have a..." she called, only to be interrupted when Joe went caroming into the sky with a delighted yell. She shaded her hand to watch him, but for the moment he seemed to be in no real danger. "A cheeseburger," she finished. "Mark, where did you get that thing anyway?" -
Wander goes on 24
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--It's a thought, Corbin, but I'm not sure that would do more than slow it down. We'll keep it in reserve.-- Erin reached up and groped for Trevor's hand as the bikes landed, squeezing his warm fingers with her cold ones before she moved to dismount the giant motorcycle. She moved slowly, gingerly, more like an old woman than the graceful athlete she'd been an hour ago, but she managed to stand on her own two feet by the time the healers arrived. When Coyshur offered his hand, she hung back just for a moment. "I left Charlie at my apartment this morning," she murmured to Trevor. "Just... if anything happens, take care of him, okay?" She took a step forward and took the healer's hand, waiting for whatever would come next.
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"Edge and Midnight, you find that fourth guy," Wander murmured, opening her bat as she prepared to move out. "If it's Orion, we can't afford to have him at large. 'Nade, if you break west, I'll go east and we'll pinch them in the middle of the room." Nudging open the door, she blinked a few times in the dim light, then ran out on soundless feet. It seemed like it was going to be a simple operation, but she had learned better than to trust in appearances. At least she had a team at her back she trusted completely when things went sour.
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Fleur listened carefully to the entire conversation, her brow furrowed in concentration. At this point, after everything else they'd learned today about what lay buried beneath the surface of what she'd thought was an empty world, the idea that there were unsupervised Grue children running around seemed as likely as anything else. "How do you know all this?" she asked the Captain. "Who are you, anyway, and what are you doing still in Freedom City after all this time? It can't be much healthier for you to be here than for the rest of us."
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"It was too short," Koshiro said brusquely, "but it was nice to get the visit. I got to be there for my sisters' birthday party. They're old enough driver's ed this year, so that would be scary except they're never going to have an opportunity to practice with a real car. " Koshiro was generally close-mouthed about his family back in Detroit, but Sharl knew him better than most of the other students. Not that it was saying much. "My mom had this stupid summer cold thing," he said with a frown at the memory. "Except she's basically had it all summer because she's too damned stubborn and busy to rest. I told her she should go to the doctor, but she won't." He shoved his dirty clothes into the hamper harder than necessary. "I need to get back there to stay, so I can help out. This sucks."