Electra
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Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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Miss Americana spread the robot out on the floor, indecorously tugging on its clothes to reveal the torso as she searched for a way to pop the chassis. "Burn down the walls of time and space?" she muttered aloud. "That's a hell of a catchphrase. But I'm pretty sure this robot was no AI. Someone was piloting it and set it to self destruct. If we're lucky, and can get inside, we might get some information about who did it and where they are now." She looked up ruefully at Wail and Grayson. "As for why, well, I'm afraid that question might be outside my pay grade. Is anybody hurt?"
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Miss A will attack Drone 4 with her beautiful patriotic lasers! Attack is a 28 DC 29 toughness save. Move Action to interpose (unofficially) between Drone 2 and Cannonade, who is looking a bit battered.
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Papercut was startled and not entirely happy when Ghost Girl's breath turned his paper cranes sooty black, but he had to admit that it did nothing to dampen their effectiveness. In fact, they looked a little more intimidating that way. Maybe, once this insanity was settled and he was normal again, he should try folding a few with black paper. But for now he had other concerns. "That's good," he called to Kimber, voice growing progressively less tinny. "Now get the plane, it should be in the hoodie pocket. Blow it out of your hand, then control it with your will. Make it come back to you, and you can jump on it and go help Citizen!" He turned back to the fight, only to see it wasn't much of a fight anymore. Sylph was unconscious on the ground, and Granite was an icy unmoving block with Cobalt Templar's ghostly arm buried in his chest. That was just weird looking. Papercut braced, his unnaturally long arms bunching up, ready to deliver a blow, but loathe to do so unless the guy actually had some game left. It wasn't fair to gang up on a helpless guy, even a villain. "I think he's done," he called to Corbin.
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Granite looks enough the worse for wear that Koshiro's not going to hit him again unless he somehow manages to become aggressive through the staggered-dazed-helpless trifecta he's rocking. Readying a strike action to be triggered if Granite actually makes an attack. Move action, help Kimber some more with origami magic.
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"Yeah, that was awesome," Erin agreed with a cheerful lack of modesty as they walked back into the building. "And don't think I'm not going to keep that image right at the front of my mind next time we run into her at one of these things." She looked around as they went in, but aside from the terrible mess, the place was pretty empty. "So what do you think the odds are that Typhoon hears about all this tonight?" she asked, tilting her head and looking at the disaster. "Cause if we're going to have to face him down too, I'm getting the hell out of this dress first."
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"I'm fine," Stesha began automatically, even as she put a plate of cookies out on the table. She stopped, sighed, corrected herself. "No, that's not true. Something bad is happening to the plants here, and I think it might be connected to whatever killed this planet in the first place." Briefly she sketched out what Anne had told her about the old biological weapons, then what she'd found in her own explorations. "Right now the concentration of prions, if that's what they are, in the air is very low," she told them. "And I flushed out what I could, locked them away for the moment, but that isn't going to last very long." She poured water over loose-leaf tea in her pretty china pot, then poured coffee into an insulated carafe and brought them both over. Sitting down, she took a cookie herself. "I'm concerned that if any of us go back to Prime, we risk taking the infection with us. On Sanctuary, with me giving the matter my full attention, a rapidly multiplying plant disease is a problem. On Earth Prime, it could be an ecological catastrophe."
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"I'll go check on him," Erin murmured back. "You keep an eye on the royals for as long as you can, make sure we didn't miss anything or anybody out to get them." Running her fingers once more over her tousled hair, she walked outside and blended into the crowd of confused partygoers just beginning to disperse. Erin made a note of Meaghan on the ground, largely unharmed despite the quick pummeling she'd taken, but her focus was on finding Trevor. Spotting him through the crowd, she deftly wove her way through the milling people to come up next to him. "Daisy's gone," she told him quietly, "and the family is away. I think we're just doing mop-up for now. Nice move with that assassin, by the way," she added with a quick smile. Laying a hand on his arm, Erin took a good look at Trevor's face. "You okay?"
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Fleur was already there when Carson arrived on her doorstep, making a pot of tea for lack of anything better to do. Keeping busy made it easier to stay calm. She gave Carson a distracted smile. "Oh, hello, that was was quick. Tarrant should be here in just a moment, I'm almost sure he's home today. Would you like anything to eat, a sandwich, cookie, cup of tea?" Some of the baby's toys were scattered on the floor, but neither Amaryllis nor Derrick seemed to be in residence today. Stesha was wearing the cowl that made up the biggest part of her costume, but with the hood back, he could see that her long, long hair was in an unusually disordered state. Some of the pins were out and the braids were unruly and uneven, as though braided in frustration and then half-undone by restless fingers. Even her usual crown of flowers was sitting askew and looking a bit wilted. As soon as Tarrant arrived, Stesha repeated the offer, even as the teakettle began to whistle. "I hate to bother you when I know you both come to Sanctuary to relax," she began, "but I'm just not sure what else to do. Moreover, I'm not totally sure it's safe for any of us to go back to Prime just now."
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Prime Things were starting to happen way too fast for Koshiro to follow. One moment he was busy seething over being babysat by Corbin and trying to come up with a smartass remark that wouldn't get him suspended, then suddenly strangers were flying in like there was some kind of disaster about to happen. And then a disaster did happen, and suddenly there was a body on the floor and another guy with his own face, not to mention copies of the other guys. Weird copies though, like someone had tried to gritty them all up for a faux-urban TV show. Koshiro didn't like when things happened too fast for him to process. With a quick motion, his body was covered in a thin but sturdy layer of crinkled paper, and a fan of cranes was in his hand, waiting for deployment. "Where the hell did you come from?" he asked the newcomers, especially the one who looked just like him. Also Prime Agent Watanabe didn't like it when things happened too fast for him to process. One moment he was trying to keep an eye on their contact and his own team all at once, and suddenly they were someplace entirely different, the contact was dead, and they were facing off with a group of unknown hostiles, one of whom was impersonating him! At least that's what he thought until he watched his double don a suit of paper armor and produce what were obviously paper birds, inferior to his own but real nonetheless, as though he intended to fight with them. What could be going on here? He spread his own armor, black paper instead of white, over his clothes, but elected to stick with the gun for the moment. He didn't speak, even though he was being addressed. The best way to get by was to not make any waves.
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Stesha shivered at the sensation, not at all reassured by the momentary respite. Prions were self-multiplying, and there was a lot here for them to eat. Carefully, she opened up another flower at her feet, then shed her contaminated gloves and dropped them inside. As the flower closed and shriveled, Stesha reached for the small handheld radio clipped to her belt, Sanctuary's "state of the art" for communication. "Gabriel, Tarrant," she spoke into the reciever, "We may have a situation developing here. I could use some help. Could you come over to my place as soon as you can?" She kept her voice casual, for the benefit of the villagers and the bees, who also had access to the general channel, but anyone who knew her well enough could hear the worry underlying the words.
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Stesha is attempting to use her nullify power to take the infectious agent out of the air. Power check: 1d20+10=29 A nice roll, though perhaps not terribly effective. But it's the first logical thing to try!
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"You seem perfectly sharp to me," Stesha assured the woman almost absently, preoccupied with the story Alice had told. She was no expert, but she'd had enough biology classes to be very alarmed. "I'm going to look into this right away," she promised, setting Amaryllis down in the grass. "Could you watch Ammy for a few minutes while I do? I think Caroline is in the cookhouse if you need help." It was hardly novel for Amaryllis to spend time in the village while her mother worked, though under the circumstances, Stesha felt an extra stab of worry as she teleported away. Her first stop was at her own home, which was close to the eastern border of the reclaimed zone in what had once been the west side of Downtown. She slipped on her belt, gloves and cowl, though she didn't bother with a mask here. As she stepped outside and began to walk east, it was alarming to see her carefully nurtured garden of a world beginning to wilt and curl at the edges. Leaves fell under her feet like it was autumn instead of June, but not a single one of them crackled or crunched. It was as though they'd fallen and turned oddly squishy instead of drying out. Kneeling, she examined a once-pretty hyacinth that had lost its blooms and turned black on the undersides of the leaves. She plucked one, then turned it over to examine it with a magnifying glass. It was immediately obvious that this was no poison leaking through the soil or spreading through the air. A strange covering, almost furlike, coated the underside of the leaf. It was some sort of disease, but no plant disease she recognized. The leaves had no vascular turgidity anymore, instead they were floppy, even spongy. "Spongy," she murmured aloud, her mind racing back over old articles she'd read, sorting through half-forgotten information. She remembered a piece she'd read about a disease that caused this sort of microscopic damage to tissues, and how it had a plant analogue... fungal prions! Unfortunately, remembering what she'd read was of little comfort at this point. Fungal prions typically didn't cause disease, and if they'd been mutated, or more likely, engineered, into being more like their mammalian counterparts, the situation was very grim. Closing her eyes, Stesha dug her fingers into the grass and reached down for her connection with the earth. Every one of these plants lived her at her sufferance, and she knew something of each one of them. As her mind reached out, examining them, even communicating with them on a basic level, something became even more clear. The infection was spreading, and it was spreading through something in the air. There wasn't very much of it anywhere, but what there was, was virulent. If she couldn't bring it under control, she was going to need serious help, and quickly. Stesha rose and touched her fingers to the flowers in her hair, teleporting herself even closer to the ruins of the city. She raised her hands in the air and concentrated, exploiting that connection with the plants to bend them to her will. What plants and trees were still healthy responded, moving their limbs, spreading their leaves, trying to take the toxin out of the air before it could spread any further.
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Fleur got a 26 on the Life Science roll. I will put it to the GM whether she should get situation/synergy bonuses for her ranks in Medicine, Profession: Florist and/or the Communication Link built into the planet itself as part of its HQ relationship with Fleur. Also making a note of the extra HP for being vulnerable to the sickness.
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Stesha listened to Alice's recitation with concern, even as she joggled a cranky Amaryllis on her hip. Just past her first birthday, Ammy was typically good-natured, but today she'd been out-of-sorts all day, and Stesha had to wonder if she was feeling the same itchy strangeness. She'd put it down to weather or a soap reaction until now. Cupping her palm under a nearby tree, she grew a banana into her hand, peeled it, and gave it to the baby. Derrick was away as usual, doing his work in deep space, so there was nothing for it but to bring Ammy along or trust her to a babysitter. "What sort of bugs do you mean?" she asked Alice. "Do you mean actual insects, or some sort of a disease? We scanned this planet back when I began working here, and didn't find anything terribly dangerous. Do you think that something could've been in hibernation, asleep and waiting, all these years?" The thought was more than a little unnerving. Given her frequent commutes to and from Prime, a disease on Sanctuary could have far-reaching implications. "Were they ever able to fix it, way back when?"
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Fleur chuckled. "No, not exactly. I suppose people do work out of their comfort zones around here. Miss Americana hasn't been here herself, but she's provided materials and advice. She helped me find a development grant through... ah, through ArcheTech, actually, to help set up the village with water and power. Supercape put a giant roof on the biggest structure here, the building where I put civilians I teleport out of emergencies on Prime. I'd take you to see that, but he warned me that if anyone thinks about it too much, it might disappear." She shrugged with a grin. "I couldn't tell if he was teasing me, but I don't like to take chances." She led him to the top of a rise along the riverbank, tall enough that they could see the village a little ways away. It was very modest, a dozen houses made of stone and soil, a tall windmill, a few electrical lines, and one central prefab structure. The buildings were surrounded by large gardens and what looked to be an orchard with an assortment of climatically improbable trees that were nonetheless thriving. A handful of goats and sheep grazed in a fenced-off pasture, and the pleasant smell of baking bread carried in the air. "Midnight helped me repair my generator last time it blew, and Jack has been a great help with the bees. I'm not totally sure what he did, but Curlbee insists that Jack is responsible for his great success with the queen in her last mating cycle. I really wasn't brave enough to ask." Some of the people working in the village began to notice them standing on the hill, to judge by their attention and waving. Fleur was apparently a popular figure here. She waved back, then looked to the Doktor. "I can introduce you if you like, or we can go over and see the bees. The river runs near Beedom City as well, you might find an appropriate spot there."
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Erin kept her eyes locked on Trevor as he spoke to the Madrigal Martinet, even as the mental command echoed in her head. The visible pain leached away from her face, leaving her blank and impassive and ready to work. Even so, she didn't go far from the main event. Razorwhip had the singular bad fortune to have been set down just a few hundred feet away, whipless and looking worse for wear. In the space of a heartbeat Wander was in motion, the edge of her skirt fluttering silently behind her as she raced across the island towards the ludicrously-dressed Hound, who obviously saw her coming and was already bracing for a fight. Raising her bat with one hand, Wander launched it like a javelin, saw Razorwhip move to dive out of the way. Her run became a series of impossibly fast aerial flips, each one delineated only by a puff of sand where her feet touched. She closed the distance with Razorwhip just in time to grab the bat from flight, whip it around, and smash it across the luckless woman's head. "Not today," Wander repeated in a mutter as Razorwhip fell to the ground.
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Wander's going to take out Razorwhip, since that notable is on the ground and nearby. Move Action Acrobatic Bluff: Skill Mastered and Inspired for a DC 32. Standard Action Charging Power Attack with bat, Inspired: A 22 That's a DC 30 Toughness check, and Wander is at -2 to defense for the rest of the round.
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Tried rolling Knowledge History, but couldn't even make the DC. Ah well! I would like to have both Koshiros put up their armor.
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Earth Prime Despite Corbin's modulated volume, Koshiro jumped about a foot in the air when he spoke, the cranes fluttering around him in an alarmed white cloud. He swore, quietly but vehemently, as he dropped the flashlight on his own foot, then turned to look at Corbin. "We're not doing anything," he said flatly, even as Sharl chimed in with his story. "We're not hurting anything, hell, we're not even skipping our homework. Aren't you graduating in like two days? Don't you have better things to be doing with your time than narcing for the Headmaster?" Despite Koshiro's healthy mix of respect and fear for Headmaster Summers, he was rather more dismissive of those who chose to become lackeys. Corbin, who was practically an adult superhero for gods sake, shouldn't still be taking orders like a freshman. Erde At the back of the group, Koshiro waited and watched, keeping one hand on his gun and one hand on the pocketful of origami falcons he carried in his pocket. They were supposed to be low profile on this trip, which in a city torn by the resistance meant the gun was fine, but superpowers might be problematic. Too bad the powers worked so much better! At least his mission wasn't solely to fight on this little exchange project. With the hoodie nearly hiding his face, he looked at each of his comrades in turn, wondering what came next.
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Earth Prime "It's Freedom City," Koshiro pointed out, his flashlight supported by a bevy of cranes as he took photos of the faded signage at ground level. "Half the time if they say a building is haunted, it probably actually is. I mean hell, we have one on our team, right? 'S not superstition if it's real." He took a few careful steps, snapped a photo of the trapdoor. "And even down here, you're likely to get tagged by some patrolling hero if you try and walk off with a big-ass statute middle of the night. Detroit should be so lucky." Snorting, he took the flashlight back from the obliging paper sculptures, playing it over the door. "Wonder if this goes down to the speakeasy. That's where the really cool stuff would be. Come on." Moving with practiced caution over the creaky floor, he made his way over to the trapdoor and eased it open.
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"Good work," Miss A told Sharl, glancing up at the figure of D-Gray up on the stage. "We'll get the program back to the Lab and see what's going on there. As soon as we finish..." She returned her attention to Chimera, running expert fingers up and down the midline of the robot's back, then around the neck and down the arms, still maintaining her headlock. She struck gold in the left armpit, toggling a hidden switch that had Chimera going limp with an electronic whine. "...A little troubleshooting," she finished. "Go help mop up those drones before they tag anyone in the crowd," she told him. "I'll be right there."
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Well, that helps get a terrible rolll out of my way, at least. Initiative: 11
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Wander glared at Nightmare Doom as she spoke, looking as though she wished she had eye lasers with which to incinerate the portal creator. She had little interest in looking through the portal that purported to lead to her personal hell; she was already conversant with what that would look like. Instead, she looked to Midnight, trying to meet his eyes. --I can't let her hurt you,-- she thought fiercely in his direction. With her hands white-knuckled on the bat and agony written on her face, it was clear Wander wasn't happy with the terms of the deal. --Say the word and we'll tear this place down on their heads. Screw their bargain!--
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Papercut swiveled his "head" from side to side, taking in the scene even as the fight raged around him. It wasn't just him having problems, everyone was different now, everyone had somebody else's powers. How the hell could that have happened? Now didn't seem to be the right time to think about that, so instead he zeroed in on Kimber, who was looking unusually healthy and holding a very familiar handful of birds. He watched as she tried in vain to shake them to life, shaking his own head. "Ghost Girl!" he called, his voice weird and echoey, but more like his own than before. "Put them on your hand and blow on them. They need you to give them life! Same with the plane!" He didn't know if she'd have his plane, since it had gotten soaked to death minutes earlier, but nothing else about this situation made a lot of sense, so who knew? He took an experimental step, then another, feeling the strange material that made up his new body flex and flow. Just another kind of sculpture, he told himself. Only this was Silly Putty instead of paper. Wraith could do all sorts of insane stuff with this, make hammers, whips, blades, extra legs... As he thought about it, the stuff of his arms began to change again, forming long, thin blades where hands should've been. His legs changed too, becoming longer and thinner, nearly springy. He could work with that. Lurching forward with the surprising speed of his new form, he launched himself at Granite, crashing blades-first into the ice-cube man and making visible cracks in the watery surface.
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Okay, let's see if I can do this without screwing it up horribly. Move Action: Instruct Kimber in the use of the origami sculptures in her stolen pants Spend HP to Surge Surge Move Action: Shapeshift into Whip-Blades form Concentration Check: 26, pass Standard Action: Charge attack on Granite with Strike 5, +2 attack for Charging And that's a critical hit, 33. I think that's going to be a DC 28 toughness save, then.