Electra
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Reluctantly, Jessie reached out and took the shield, handling it with the tips of her fingers as though not ready to make the commitment of a whole hand. It was heavy but that didn't matter to someone of her strength, it was more the bulk that was a bit daunting. No slim collapsible baton this! But it was well balanced and solidly made, and the metal gleamed with a soft polish that was sort of appealing under the strange colors. "What does the sign mean?" she asked Aquaria. "I mean, if it's Lemurian, I can't even read what it says."
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Jessie's first instinct was to recoil, though it was less from the Lemurian artifacts than from the weapons of war. She had a bat of her own, one Erin had given her when it became clear that Aquaria would keep dragging her out on adventures whether she liked it or not, but these were different. These were no little baton, as innocuous as a can of pepper spray. These were weapons of war, designed for a warrior. If she took them up, it would be an admission that she understood her life was defined by conflict and struggle and causing pain. Erin's words to her in their first battle together already rang in her head whenever Jessie struggled in school or missed another day of classes. All we know how to do is fight. "They're beautiful," she told Aquaria and meant it, because despite their unsettling designs and dark origin, they really were. "Don't you think you should be using them?"
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Sparkler goes on 17
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"I'll get it later," Jessie said with a vague wave, moving to sit as far as possible from the large pile of raw fish. She had her own pile of books: a history textbook and a writing style manual and a glossy book of magazine advertisements. Drawing her feet up under her with a pillow to soften the uncomfortable jut of the tracking anklet, she cracked open the history book. "I'm glad you got to keep some of it," she told Aquaria. "I thought they'd send it all back to museums or something. Nothing dangerous, I guess?"
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Singularity flinched very subtly when Phantom cut into their conversation, though she didn't seem to actually find fault with the content. She picked at the black cuff of her uniform sleeve instead, idle habit or nervous habit. Phantom's opening of the portal drew another flinch from her, this one more pronounced as the heroine seemed to try and withdraw her whole body from the vicinity of the portal without actually moving more than a couple of inches. "I think I'll stay here," she told Phantom and the others. "If Aquaria, I mean, if Sea Devil is leaving the dimension, one of us should be here in case her ankle monitor goes off."
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Singularity blinked, seeming a bit surprised at being addressed. She turned to SFX while still keeping a healthy chunk of her attention turned towards the discussion in front of them. "Not much about the magic stuff," she admitted. "That isn't my department. But Aquaria wants the artifacts to be given back to the descendants of the Deep Ones they were stolen from in the first place, but Siren wants to give them back to the people who stole them first and then got them stolen again." Her lip curled just a bit, showing her opinion of the Atlantean heroine. "It's possible that one of the things in the truck could be powerful enough to counteract the Serpent Crown, but not if Devil Ray manages to complete the transformation first." She sighed and rolled her neck. "It sounds like we're going to have to go underwater again. I hate going on underwater missions. Have you ever been?"
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"Some of my best friends are mortals," Stesha assured him, "they come and visit Sanctuary all the time. You're not breaking any rules. Maybe bending them just a tiny bit," she allowed, her smile widening a bit more. "And I could probably get in touch with you through that lovely diffenbachia you've got by the door there, but phones do tend to be more efficient." A little reluctantly, she pulled away from him enough to take out her cell phone and flick it to life. "I'm pretty free on Friday, if you've got time," she suggested. "I'll even cook dinner Well," she amended with a crooked smile, "I'll pick up dinner and serve it on plates at my house, and I'm pretty sure that counts."
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ic (IC) Pop Quiz: All You Have Is Your Fire
Electra replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in The Fens
"Really? A blood sacrifice right out here in front of everybody?" Raina snorted incredulously. "I guess you're just giving up the whole "we don't do evil magic, it's just the spirits beneath the earth" crap," she observed, rolling her eyes. "Honestly I don't know if I should be more pissed at you for lying to me or at myself for being so dumb and believing you. That's the reason I got tossed into superhero juvie, you know," she added, twisting the metaphorical knife even as her dad had to deal with the real one. "If I hadn't tried to protect you, they might have been nicer to me, but they figured I was just a chip off the old blocks. Whatever. Let's close this damn thing." Without even reaching for her parents, extending her own powers alone, Raina groped for the edges of the portal and attempted to pull them closed using mostly brute force. -
Singularity had been quiet ever since her debriefing with Pseudo, though she'd cheered up a little upon receiving confirmation that fighting Devil Ray did not count as a violation of the terms of their probation agreement. The sly humor she'd displayed at the DuTemps building was gone now, replaced by a blankness that didn't look like indifference so much as it did a partial separation from reality. She did look up when SFX reacted to the visitors, jerking her head up to catalog the new arrivals as "not a threat" before returning to her slumped watchfulness. That in itself was progress of a sort; it had taken quite some time for Jessie to begin believing that Phantom wasn't just looking for an opportunity to send her back to Anti-Earth. "What's going on?" she asked.
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Her lips curled into a smile as she met his gaze. "I think I could get hold of one," she told him, "not much use in being a plant controller if you can't coax a flower to bloom a couple of decades early." Her pulse sped up a little under his fingers. "I'd say you should just come over to my place sometime, but I don't know how you feel about interdimensional travel. I live in a little offshoot universe that I've been fixing up for a couple years now. It's nice, but some people don't really enjoy traveling that far, or have to stay on Prime for whatever reason..." She was babbling now, just a bit, and made herself stop. "But you're definitely welcome."
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In an instant Singularity was on top of him, leaping so quickly it was almost impossible to track her movements. She forced Devil Ray to the ground as his engines cut out, the two of them tumbling end-over end in a brief but intense tussle. They finally stopped moving for a moment with Singularity at a clear advantage, jerking one of the villain's arms behind him in an arm bar while she tried to secure a headlock and he tried to wrest free of her super-strong grip. By this point she'd apparently given up on her own unique attempts at combat banter and was merely hanging on with grim determination so he couldn't use that trident again.
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Singularity is going to move in and attempt to grapple Devil Ray so one of her buddies can finish him off. This time she's going to do a Fast Acrobatic Bluff, using her skill mastery in Acrobatics, so he will need a DC 26 check to avoid being flat-footed. Next she will do an All-Out Grapple Attack vs Devil Ray. That''s a 27. Which means a Grapple Check as well. In which Jessie steals and spends Aquaria's other HP. She gets a 38.
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Singularity stepped forward, regarding Devil Ray from flat, empty brown eyes. Seemingly from nowhere she'd conjured a slim black baton about two feet long, which she held like an extension of her body. "No," she said calmly, completely ignoring both the gun and the cracks in the barrier. "you won't. If you're very lucky, you will crawl away from here with your own blood in your mouth and your eyes swollen shut, wishing you'd never heard of the ocean. But maybe you aren't so lucky." In a move that was almost too fast to see, she lashed out with the bat, smashing right across the armored faceplate. It rang like a gong, leaving a visible dent in the metal.
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Okay, let's see here, what are we gonna do with poor ol' Singularity? Powerful Intimidate, with move-action penalty. It's a bad roll but a good modifier, for an 18. Standard action is going to be whacking him with her bat. All Out Power Attack for 3 And I rolled a one! That is the worst. Luckily, Aquaria graciously lends Singularity an HP from her supply. She gets a 26. Damage is increased by 3, and her defense will be dropped by 3 till next round.
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Initiative 19 for Jessie, ugh.
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Singularity, who'd just gotten off the phone with the Freedom City police, stiffened immediately at SFX's words. Almost too quickly to see, she'd moved from the side of the truck to the back doors, wedging herself between the two heroines and whatever might be capable of threatening them. She was close enough to nearly be caught by the rising barrier, but her reflexes got her out of the way in time. "There's something alive in there?"" she demanded of SFX, any previous humor now replaced by flat efficiency. "Let me in there, I'll deal with it. You should stay back, it could be dangerous."
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"Well, as you can probably hear I've got my hands a little full right now," Hologram said cheerfully, no pause in the conversation to indicate she'd received the text. "But if you'lll vouch for her, you can bring her over to my place and I can at least introduce myself and see if we can't pair her up with a few resources. What's your ETA, and have the two of you had lunch yet? If you're still out in Emerald City, I could send Richard out to pick you up and save you the trip. Bryant!" She pulled the phone away from her ear and he could hear her cheerfully scolding someone for smushing bananas into their hair. Still a tossup as to child or small animal, really.
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Hologram picked up her phone quickly, but seemed a bit distracted. "Paige Cl- sorry, Hologram here," she said upon picking up the phone, static and bumping making her a little hard to hear. In the background there were squealing noises, like a small child or some kind of tortured animal. "Citizen? Citizen, right, you went to school with my son? Miss Americana's sidekick?" Her voice warmed a little as she placed him. "Just one second." The phone went staticky again, then more squealing. "You do not throw that, Bryant Halliday Cline, you put that in your mouth and you eat it right now!" She had an impressive mom voice. "Now what can I do for you, Citizen?"
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Stesha's breath caught just a little as he ran his fingers over her wrist, but when she looked up at him, his eyes were trained on her arm thoughtfully. "Like maybe a fleur de joie blossom, like the one that gave me my powers," she offered, her voice quiet. "They're hundred-year bloomers, very beautiful." Her skin was humming when he touched her, feeling more alive than it had in a long time. It almost seemed worth it to get a tattoo just for more of that. Or maybe just pay him to ink a design on her skin with a brush, or just trace it with his fingers. It sounded like a good return on investment at the moment. "So you're from London originally, then?"
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ic (IC) Pop Quiz: All You Have Is Your Fire
Electra replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in The Fens
"Mooooooom!" Raina hissed, her fair skin coloring to an embarrassed red. 'Are you seriously asking me that now? And here?" She looked around at the tumultuous gathering, then back at her mother, whose expectant face made it clear that she was, in fact, asking that question now and here. Raina folded her arms. "Fine then, if you really want to know, there was this thing where my parents went off to prison a couple years ago and left me alone with a bunch of asshole relatives who dumped me into reform school, resulting in my teenage rebellion being supervised by the state of New Jersey instead of the people who were supposed to be taking care of me!" Her voice had started out taut, but quickly climbed in both pitch and volume until she was nearly yelling. "And don't tell me it wasn't your fault either, because I know you were doing evil magic and that why I ended up getting ARRESTED BY SUPERHEROES in my PAJAMAS! So yeah, maintaining my "honor of Astraea" was not super high on my priority list, especially when the only way to have fun in Grandma and Grandpa's hick town is by being down to-" "Raina, language!" Her mother snapped, looking scandalized. "ARE YOU EVEN SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?" Raina demanded, not even realizing she was at full shriek till her throat began to hurt. "I'm eighteen and it's been four years since you went to jail and I swear and I drink and have sex with people I don't care about, and sometimes I even do superhero work when I feel like it, and you have nothing to say about it because you weren't ever there!" She sucked in a breath of air that wasn't quite a sob. "But what do you know, four years has made me a lot more powerful than I was, so hey, let's close a portal!" -
"No, you don't," Singularity put in, appearing suddenly at the head of the path. She looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh. "Though Aquaria would probably get a real kick out of it. I don't think anybody's ever taken her up on the whole singing thing before." She looked to Aquaria. "Devil Ray again?" she asked, then sighed. "I'll go get my weapons and call in to Project Freedom." Rather than get back on the elevator, she pushed open the door to the stairs and literally bounded up, hitting the first landing in a single jump, then disappearing from view.
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Now Singularity smiled, just the tiniest curve of her lips, but it did seem as though she approved. "That's good to hear," she said gravely as the elevator doors opened. The scene itself was certainly nothing scary, a glassed-in atrium full of plants and the heavy, almost drugging scent of tropical flowers. Butterflies were fluttering everywhere and the air was thick with humidity. Beyond the glass walls, the Freedom City skyline spread out in all its glory. "It's okay!" Singularity called out into whatever might be waiting in the thick undergrowth, "she says she's not scared!" Raising her eyebrows, she made an "after you," gesture to SFX.
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"I don't really work with her, she's my roommate and sometimes I follow her on her adventures to try and keep her out of trouble," Singularity told her with perfect frankness, her face blank. "But if you're looking for someone to give you information on Deep Ones, there's absolutely no better source." Now there was an expression on her face, a twitch of the lip that was hard to quantify. "She doesn't want to scare you, but I told her that anyone who wants to be a superhero in Freedom City is made of tougher stuff than that. What do you think?"
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"That's really nice," Stesha told him, leaning in for a better look. It occurred to her that he hadn't let go of her hand, but it wasn't something she felt like complaining about right at this exact moment. "I think the waiting for a year bit is probably a good idea," she agreed as she straightened. "Especially in my case, since those same smart science friends suggest that forever might be more than a figure of speech for me. That really is a very long time to live with a tattoo I didn't think through beforehand." She smiled a little ruefully. "Why London Bridge?"
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"If you want," Jessie allowed, skinning quickly into her own uniform. "But if she's going to be a hero in Freedom City, she's going to need to get used to seeing scary things. It might be easier to start her out with scary sights that aren't going to try and eat her. Just don't do the thing where you lick your eyeball," she suggested with a half smile. "That's a little too much." Clipping back her hair with a silver comb, she headed for the lobby. The elevator doors nearest SFX slid open, disgorging a tall and muscular young woman in a form-fitted black costume. From a distance she looked like any of a dozen twenty-something blonde superheroines, but up close there was something eerie in her brown eyes, something dangerous and carefully controlled. She gave SFX a small, polite smile. "My name is Singularity. I'll take you to see Sea Devil." She turned and headed back to the elevator, obviously assuming she'd be followed.