Electra
-
Posts
11,284 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by Electra
-
Merlin's gonna go for the computer and see if he can work a little monkey magic on it. Raina will use Diplomacy to intercede on his behalf if the techs get weird about it. She's got a +11 in that, Merlin has a Computers and a Craft Electronics of +18 with Skill Mastery. I'll roll for him if he needs to get higher than a 28.
-
Raina lost no time in adding the accessories to her outfit, but she did take a few moments to admire herself in the mirror. It had been a long time since she'd really gotten to dress up, and it was nice to look like herself again for an evening. So much so that the idea of going to a fancy dress ball with mobsters took a minute to sink in. "Mobsters?" she asked quizzically as she shrugged into her wrap. "Are those even a thing anymore? Like with the tommy guns and the horses head in your bed and "on the day of my daughter's wedding?" She was more fascinated than concerned, though she did double-check her broom before cranking it down to pencil size and shoving it into her handbag. "That's so weird."
-
"Uh, what?" Raina had no idea what was happening, but that also was not entirely unusual for her lessons with Talya. Bombshell liked keeping her erstwhile sidekick on her toes, which often meant confusing the hell out of her, then letting her make sense of what was going on while it was still happening. At least today she understood what she was supposed to be doing: getting dressed. Getting dressed was something she could do very well, and the gown just happened to fit perfectly. (The shoes did too, but that was less surprising considering they were one of Talya's favorite bribes.) A hunt amongst the cosmetics uncovered a few sparkly combs to put up her long blonde hair, while a little tasteful makeup completed the outfit. After giving herself a quick twirl in the mirror to approve her look, she pushed open the door to find Talya. "Okay, I'm ready. Where are we going?"
-
"Thank you Phantom, I appreciate that." Normally Paige would've run Bryant across the street to their neighbor Ned, whose daughter was Holly's best friend, but a situation like this called for a little more paranoia. It wasn't often that the superpowered danger showed up at their home and wearing the face of a loved one, after all. A light mental touch had the diaper bag floating obediently down the stairs and into Paige's free hand. She rummaged quickly to make sure that the diapers, prepared formula bottles, and spare clothes were all present, then slung it over her shoulder. Phantom and her husband had a child a bit younger than Holly, surely Avenger could change a diaper and administer a bottle. They couldn't take the chance of the trail going cold. ~I'd like you to stay with Bryant but I won't make you,~ she told Will silently, already knowing what his answer was going to be. Another quick thought had her flannel pajamas disguising themselves as her uniform, so that all she had to do was slip on her shoes by the door. Without hesitating, she hid the baby's face against her shoulder and stepped into the Void.
-
"Don't do that," Raina advised, "most of the students around here don't have that much disposable income, and most of the ones that do aren't very smart. With a few notable exceptions," she added, grinning at herself in the mirror. "You need to sell to adult heroes, people who have some money and aren't looking to be bitches to a high school student with a good idea. There's gotta be some kind of Facebook group you can dig up, or even a bulletin board at Freedom Hall or something. Or get yourself in with one of those super-tech companies, see if they'll help you get started for some equity in the company or a share of the profits or something. You've put this much work into the product already, you might as well get it off the ground as a real business."
-
Raina busied herself with her new ex-sword fireball, obviously trying not to show how pleased she was with Talya's compliment. It was the work of a few moments to turn the ribbon of flame into an intricate burning rose, complete with the faintest suggestion of a stem. Merlin, who had finished all of the grapes while she was distracted, called from his corner of the room that she had better keep her guard up even after the fight looked over, or eventually Talya and Erik would use that as a teaching opportunity as well. She rolled her eyes but munged the flower back up into its much more utilitarian ball form. "I think it's more time for snacks, and ice packs for old guys with bruised butts. Are the girls around?" Not that Raina would ever admit it at school, but a lot of her mentoring sessions seemed to end with fruit snacks and cartoons alongside Erik and Min and Talya's little girls.
-
Oddly enough, Singularity seemed to become calmer the further the party progressed into the Blackstone prison complex. The nerves and uncertainty she'd obviously felt at the crime scene had faded away, replaced with a quiet that was almost like serenity. Ignoring the borderline hostility of the guards, she walked the corridors like someone well familiar with the route. Apparently noting Aquaria's overt discomfort at their surroundings, she licked her own hand several times and then put it reassuringly on the Deep One's arm. "It's okay," she reminded Aquaria, "they're keeping things safe down here. Let's see if we can talk to the woman nicely, she might trust people like you and me more than actual police officers." Both their security anklets had turned from green to amber upon entering the prison, but since neither of them were actually violating their probation, it didn't seem like something to worry about.
-
"It's really good," Raina told Fred, glancing her way in the mirror, but not paying too much attention to her while she was sniffling and pulling herself together. "I think I might have to actually pull together a real costume now to go with it. The school uniforms look stupid on their best days, but it'd be especially lame with this to accessorize. Anibal's just going to have to take me shopping again." She grinned into the mirror as she applied her lipstick, and only rolled her eyes a little when Cathy hugged Fred. It didn't look like Fred was about to lose her composure in any damaging way, so some spontaneous hugging was allowable.
-
Raina was holding her typical "barely listening" pose, even as she soaked in what the headmistress was saying and tried to analyze it for traps and pitfalls. It didn't sound that different from what she and Riley had done for an extracurricular earlier in the year, except for the addition of the two page paper. Ugh. Maybe she'd borrow Merlin's GoPro and try to submit a vlog summary instead. It'd be worth a try, anyway, Callie Summers sometimes rewarded out of the box thinking. "So can we wear our own costumes on this one," she asked, "or do we have to go with school uniforms?"
-
"Are you going to be able to find my Richard?" Paige asked Phantom worriedly. "Is there anyone who might be able to help? I can make some calls, we know all sorts of heroes." Being helpless never sat well with her, and at least trying to get in touch with more assistance would give her something to do. "We've time-traveled, but I don't think he's skipped dimensions under his own power before. He probably won't be able to get back on his own." Automatically she reached out mentally for both her boys, comforting Will's nerves and Bry's fretful hunger as best she could. It was bizarre to be able to see Richard, any Richard, and not be able to sense him at all. "Why are you wearing that helmet?" she asked the doppelganger.
-
Paige chose that moment to come down the stairs, leaving the bags at the top, but keeping the baby carefully shielded in her arms. He'd stopped crying by now, and was now watching the scene with huge gray eyes. "I can't find him," she told Phantom aloud, the strain obvious in her voice. "I should be able to find him anywhere on Earth within a few seconds, I've done it before. Even if he were unconscious, I'd sense him." She stared at the doppelganger of her husband in disbelief and dismay, then brushed a hand over Will's arm as though to reassure herself that her son, at least, was the real thing. "Whoever this is, it's not him."
-
"Take your time," Raina encouraged as she threw the lock on the bathroom door to keep out any other unwanted intruders. She walked back to the counter and began rummaging in her makeup box again, ignoring Fred's difficulty long enough for the girl to pull herself together without too many eyes on her. A little careful application and another tiny fireball had Raina's eyelids flickering and smoldering like her hand had been a minute ago, a striking and rather eerie effect. "This would be completely kickass in the dark," she decided.
-
"Found her," Raina said drolly, spinning so her back was to Phaedra's back and her attention was on Talya. Erik was always more likely to pay attention to the foe with a sword in hand, so that seemed the safest course of action. "You just don't want me to have any fun," she accused Tayla, even as she flipped a small, well-controlled fireball in her mentor's direction. It poofed away into nothingness as soon as Talya dodged it, well before it could hit the wall. She could've used a lighter to reignite her flame but instead, curious, she reached out a hand for Erik's sword. The blade suddenly stretched mightily, extending in an arc over Phaedra and coming to Raina's hand. She nipped off a bit of it for a new fireball, then released the rest of it to snap back into place at the end of Erik's arm.
-
From upstairs, Paige tried to track the confrontation through her mental senses and the voices she could hear through the air vents, but it wasn't easy with whatever psychic baffle the stranger had up and Bry's continuing fretful whimpers. ~Don't you try and fight with him, William Cline!~ she pathed insistently, loud enough that it might cause a wince. ~You're faster than him, we can get out- what's that?~ The intrusion of yet another mental presence in the house was confusing and disturbing, but at least this one didn't seem to have harm in mind. ~What's going on down there?~ By now Paige had the diaper bag and the emergency go-bag from the closet and was ready to go out the window if necessary, but not without Will.
-
Raina glanced over at Fred for a second before looking back to the Headmistress. "Just so long as we don't get flunked if it turns out we can't actually do better detective work than The Raven," she reminded Summers. "This isn't exactly any of our wheelhouse, so we should at least get points for effort. And we're going to need full access to the school's database, even if we start running into things that might be restricted." It would not be too hard, she figured, to make whatever investigation they embarked upon last long enough to justify a morning off. And Merlin would like the database thing.
-
Even sleepy, even after a restless night with the baby, Paige was a veteran super and she could wake up fast when she had to. Unfortunately, her best speed was nothing when compared to Richard, any version of Richard. Her first impulse was to run downstairs and see what was happening, but she ruthlessly quashed that idea. Instead, she reached out along the well-trodden paths of her psychic linkage, finding Will's psychic pattern reassuringly clean and normal. ~Will, baby, wake up! Something's wrong with your father.~ A tightly focused burst of impressions conveyed everything that her words could not. ~I need your help.~ Throwing on her bathrobe, she raced across the upstairs hallway to the nursery and gathered Bryant up out of the crib, holding him protectively against her chest. "Shhh, shhh," she murmured, keeping her gaze focused on the closed door that was the only thing separating them from the intruder in the house. Now she could barely feel him at all, whoever he was, he was nothing more than a shadow of a presence on the first floor.
-
That morning, Paige was enjoying a dream about a perfect bubble bath in a tub the size of a hotel swimming pool, the sort of dream that always seems to occur moments before the alarm clock goes off. Or in this case, the moment before one gets a psychic poke from one's husband and the door starts rattling off its hinges. Her lovely dream shattered into fragments, leaving nothing more than the faint whiff of lavender in her nostrils and a sense of melancholy. ~Richard?~ she asked, sleepy and cross. ~What the hell are you doing? Did you forget your key?~ Paige sat up in bed and yawned hugely. She'd been hoping for a quiet morning, with Holly off on a school-sponsored sleepover trip, but there was apparently no rest for the weary.
-
"Please, Madison. At least I don't keep my broomstick wedged where you're keeping your magic wand these days," Raina countered, apparently paying more attention to her fancy makeup than to her antagonists. "You and I may get our powers from training, but most of the people here, including most of your buddies, got their powers from some kind of accident somewhere down the line. Somebody got a little nonhuman nookie, or maybe a little DNA mutation, or somebody's lab exploded in an exciting way." She looked at Celeste and gave her a very brief raised-eyebrow smirk before returning her attention to the cosmetics. "Really it's a little bit hypocritical to start bitching about how people got their powers now, especially since all this is school-sanctioned." If Raina was even aware of the fact that Madison was expressing the same concern she herself had voiced not five minutes earlier, she gave no sign of it. "Now if you came in here to tinkle, why don't you just get on with it?"
-
Raina smirked. "If I thought that would work, I wouldn't show up for nearly so many classes," she pointed out. "But I've already got a mentorship training thing setup that takes a lot of my time. What's this extra thing you want us to take on, and how much time are we looking at?" Raina wasn't about to admit that just keeping up with schoolwork and training at the dojo took nearly all of the hours she wasn't actually in classes or sleeping, because that would be admitting that she cared about the grades she was getting with finals coming up. "Do we get to go off-campus for it?"
-
Raina rolled her eyes, the flames on her fingertips flickering out even as the design painted on her hand continued to flicker as though lit from within. "Oh, unbunch those granny panties, Madison," she advised. "It's a costume effect, Fred's been working on them for our superhero thing." She showed the back of her hand to the invading trio with negligent scorn. "I know you guys were probably too busy with Disney Princess videos to watch The Hunger Games, so I can see why it would throw you. But we're not doing anything wrong."
-
"Holy 8888!" Raina's curse was half delighted squeal as she watched the transformation on Cathy's skin. "That's so cool!" Her earlier hesitation instantly forgotten, Raina drew a quick little sigil for protection on her hand in brown eyeshadow. The sigil wasn't magic in itself, not before it was charged, but it looked more sexy and mysterious than just spreading it out on her hand. A flick of her lighter had fire dancing on her fingertips as she carefully moved it close enough to trigger the makeup's effect.
-
Singularity was staring off at the tables with great intensity, but that could mean anything from great focus on a small detail to complete inattention, caught in the whirlpool eddies of her own mind. "Look at the water glasses on the tables," she finally said, glancing towards Terrifica and the detectives. Her voice was very quiet, as though she still hadn't decided whether speaking up at all was a good idea. "A whole line of them are empty, right there. Just those, on both sides of the aisle, every single one is just about drained, while all the other ones are just about full. That seems weird." Her furrowed brow suggested the young woman didn't know what to make of it herself.
-
Raina was already busy experimenting with the eyeliner on her eyes, but she paused long enough to give Fred a look in the mirror. "The makeup is good," she told the alchemist, "but I'm a little worried about anything that's billed as an "alchemical mystery." Before I put anything else on, I really need the over-under on my hand turning into some kind of base metal when I least expect it." She took an eyeshadow from the kit, but waited to apply it until she had more explanations. Even Raina's reckless streak had its limits. Merlin whispered something into her ear, at which point she told him to go away and try to stop being the worst for just a tiny fraction of time. He rolled his eyes, a sort of informed gesture from a monkey, but scampered away towards their bedroom.
-
Raina began to unpack her case with expert speed and skill, fanning out her palette of colors before going to work with the makeup remover and a cotton pouf to take off what she was already wearing. "Feels pretty good," she observed aloud. "Not too astringent, but it's working anyway. Not too oily." She patted her face dry and applied a light coating of moisturizer, then began to actually play with the makeup. Merlin sat on the counter above the sink next door, offering truly unhelpful commentary about how none of this would be necessary if humans had an adequate amount of facial fur, and whether this counted as animal testing for the labeling process. Raina threatened to tape his mouth shut, but he seemed singularly undeterred. "When do you plan on going into production with this stuff?" she asked Fred as she blended the base under her jawline.
-
Raina and Merlin both rifled through the box with great interest, putting their heads together over various formulations and colors. They'd seen much of the lineup during testing, but Fred had obviously gone all-out on the final product, including several things she'd been keeping under her hat during development. "Well, I guess there's only one way to see if it works," Raina finally announced, flipping the box shut and sliding back down off the bed. "Merlin, would you mind getting into the controls for the building? We're going to need a lot more light in the girls' bathroom." She headed out with the box under her arm, not even bothering to check whether the others would follow.