Electra
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It wasn't as though Raina hadn't come into the simulation expecting a twist. This was Mr. Archer, the mean teacher, the just-over-borderline sadist, who liked to pick at psychic scars and scabs just to see if they would bleed. She'd expected demonic magic to come up anytime now, but she hadn't expected this. "Mom?" she yelped when the first figure ripped off its mask, hesitating in midair with violet flames still poised on her fingers. On her shoulder, Merlin chirped in near-echo as her father revealed himself as well. Then there were knives, and blood, and even though she knew, she knew it wasn't real, Raina felt the entire world take one long, lazy swirl around her as bile rose in her throat and her fingers went numb on the handle of her broom. The fire in her hand grew hot and red, so bright it was almost hard to look at, so hot that the edges of Raina's hair began to frizzle near it. The same color began to spark in her blue eyes, but then Merlin was there, patting her hair with his tiny hands, murmuring into her ear that it wasn't real, that Archer would pay for this. "Shut it down, Merlin," she rasped, unable to tear her eyes from the bodies. "This is over." The monkey immediately pulled his phone from her pocket and went to work, absolutely certain of what he was doing.
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"Oh hey, I know this one, they're doing Book of Revelations: The Musical," Raina announced into her microphone, even as she sped lower on her broom. "See, magic is always all effed up in these simulations, I think it's some kind of innate phobia on Mr. Archer's part. He oughta go lay on Dr. Marquez's couch for awhile. But we should probably not let them do the whole blood sacrifice thing. No blood, got it, Woodsman?" she repeated firmly. With a flick of her thumb she drew her lighter and formed a fireball, then with one deft flick of her wrist sent it hurtling towards the altar. In moments, the grotesque thing was engulfed in purple flames.
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Raina took a good long look around before adjusting her comm mic and contacting the others. "It's way messed up out here," she reported, "Like I'm talking 'the stars in different patterns, alternate universe kind of happy crappy. There's rioting in the streets, some noncombatants hiding in the buildings but nobody in immediate danger that I can tell. Some kind of ritual going on in the park next door, I can't get a read on it yet. Knowing the way Archer feels about magic, it's probably something cartoonishly evil." She flicked one defiant glance towards the sky where the invisible observation window would be. "I'm going to try and get in closer, see if I can get a taste of the magic. Wait for me before you start shooting anybody, Woodsman." Angling her broom to keep her in the shadow of the building, she dropped to within a few dozen feet of the ritual and reached out again, trying to determine what exactly was going on in the wildly gyrating circle.
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"Yeah, lemme see what I can do," Raina said, surprisingly cooperative for once. Raina's magical senses were always a little bit off in these training scenarios, since the magic was simulated in a way she didn't quite understand, but she extended them anyway as she walked into one of the empty apartments and tested the window. They didn't slide open, but she found one that was broken already and encouraged it to break a little further. Carefully wriggling her way out the window, she flew up to rooftop level to try and get a better look at what was happening all around them.
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"I'm Singularity," Jessie replied, rocking lightly on the balls of her feet as she kept an eye on the situation all around them. She didn't like being away from Aquaria in such a volatile situation, but the slightly-built human scientist seemed far more vulnerable at the moment. She stepped between the pharmacist and the scientist, confounding his aim by presenting him with a point-blank shot at her own back "Are you going to be able to help all those people out there?" she asked, watching Fred at work. "Can I... should I be doing something?"
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There was a time when being thrown back into her own past would've thrown Paige entirely off her stride, when the memories of shame and fear would've swamped her or the sheer confusion baffled her long enough to keep her inert and quiescent. That ship had sailed decades ago. She leaned against the doorway and gave August Roman a penetrating stare right back. "Too late for who, August?" she asked conversationally. "Too late for him? Absolutely. You know what kind of monster he's become, don't you." It wasn't a question. "He's always been that. Too late for you? I don't know. You made a very bad choice, I suspect, somewhere along the line to here. Struck a deal that went very bad. But you're not a criminal mastermind for nothing, Roman. Where's the loophole? How do we fix this?"
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Raina was far less restrained as she clattered down the long hallway into the training room, her caroled "this is soooo stuuuupid" preceded her by at least thirty seconds. "I should get a freaking religious exemption for this, the full moon is on the summer solstice this year, do you know how much I have to do to get ready?" she demanded of the room in general as she finally appeared, clad in her training uniform and sporting a freshly-peeled willow wand. "It's like if Christmas and... I don't know, something else that is not as important but still important, maybe Lent or something? Like they showed up on the same day one year. Everybody would lose their minds, or at least get a couple extra days off, right?" She shucked off her backpack and let Merlin clamber out of it and onto his usual perch on her shoulder. Even as Raina continued to rant about her need for increased holiday time, both she and her familiar were keeping a very sharp eye on the darkened observation windows above them, and the thumb of Raina's wandless hand caressed the wheel of a palmed disposable lighter. "Did you guys get any word about what we're going up against tonight?" she finally thought to ask.
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"Treasure?" Wander nudged Jessie into a spot behind her, a gesture that was part protection and part sibling dominance. It was clear that nothing and no one was going to approach Singularity without Wander having something to say about it. She returned her blank-faced countenance to Captain Ruby. "Its only fair that we compensate you for your time and effort in getting Jessie and Aquaria back to us," she allowed. "But you're right about the credits thing, all I've got is spare change from my last trip to space and that's not going to do you much good. We can, however, probably help you get hold of whatever raw materials you might find useful or valuable. Is gold a thing out in space? Or precious gems? We've got a friend who can help us set you up." In the broad and varied economy of space, Erin figured, letting Mark do his thing was much less likely to crash a commodities market.
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Paige followed the angel toward the building, reluctance slowing her every step, but never quite halting her progress. Sickly black energy began creeping over her skin, dripping from her fingers in gobbets that dissipated before they hit the ground. "Why do you cry out, except at some vision of horror?" she murmured to herself aloud as she stared at the hospital. "The house reeks of death and dripping blood, the stench is like the breath from a tomb..." It was hard to think at all, with the overwhelming dread her usually spotty pretercognition was flooding into her mind, but it was amazing what the brain could dredge up at times like this.
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Raina wasn't very happy to be scolded over her incredibly reasonable use of fireballs to kill the swarming flies, but it didn't seem prudent to buck Asad's authority at the precise moment, with the police banging on the door. Instead she gave Echo a week smile. "Hey, fancy meeting you here, right? Glad to hear about the whole spine thing." She purposefully kept her eyes averted from the bug man, deeply concerned about what he and his buddies might do if she vomited. Anibal provided a very welcome human shield. "You know," she murmured into his ear, "this place is not at all what the Tripadvisor reviews promised."
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Fleur fails the save rather miserably so she will spend her next turn healing herself of boils.
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As soon as the enormous Deep One wilted and began to shrink, Singularity dismissed it as a threat and began to look for other targets. The scene was still a wild melee of rushing bodies and blowing smoke from somewhere, but she had experience reading battles (did she? of course she did. but where and when?) and it only took her a moment to notice an ally in trouble. A quick bound took her over the general scrum and put her down between Reagent and the Deep One who was threatening her. "Go to the others," she told the alchemist, "just keep your head down and run." With that, she rushed the armored Deep One in a ridiculously brazen attack, no tactics, no attempt at active defense, merely plowed into him with her body, her right fist leading the charge. It was surprisingly effective, actually. The Deep One went flying backwards off her fist, obviously stunned and not looking ready to continue the attack anytime soon.
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Raina waved a dismissive hand to the question about school, craning her neck to watch Talya drive and get some idea of where all the switches and levers were. "It's school, it's all stupid stuff I'll never use and long lists of what not to do. At least we'll get summer break soon. They signed me up for classes for summer too, cause otherwise I've got noplace to go, but at least it's not as many." She indicated her opinion of this development with an eloquent finger pointing down her throat. . "Anibal's good though. Maybe I'll get to visit his place this summer, remember how the other half lives. What about you?" she asked in return. "How's your... thing going?"
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"I'm not sure," Paige admitted, staring at the creature with very wide eyes. "But as far as I can tell it's not ready to attack us just yet. It's interested in us though, so maybe playng isnt' a bad idea. Are you guys getting this?" she asked the camera crew, glancing over to where they and the production team had gathered up. "Somebody get a hand in Danny's belt loops there, he forgets to run when he's filming." She closed her eyes again and attempted to reach out mentally to the creature, sending out impressions of friendly calm and curiosity, wondering if it was capable of any sort of understanding, much less response.
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Jessie is going to use a move action to get in on Fred's fight with the Deep One. She'll do an all out power attack as well as she can, so Power for 2, all out for 2. That roll was deeply disappointing, so I'm stealing another of Aquaria's HP (luckily Aquaria's life is like SUPER COMPLICATED right now) to reroll. She gets a 25 although the roll there was also terrible.
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Hologram's expression said clearly that she didn't want to try and pinpoint anything about this phenomenon, but she took a deep breath and closed her eyes anyway. The good part about such an overwhelming mind-contact was that it had been extremely memorable, a mental signature all but stamped on her gray matter. She wound up sitting down rather abruptly on the pavement, but with some gritting of her teeth and the beginnings of a really fabulous headache starting behind her eyes, managed to grate out, "Hospice. He's in the hospice ward. Need a hospital map to pin down where that is."
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"If it's not going to cause permanent damage to him, then by all means do it!" Fleur advised, sliding along after the shambling man on a moving carpet of vines. "He's literally a walking disease vector, we have an obligation to the public health to lock him down. If you can hold him in place, I can teleport him away. Then we can see about fixing what's actually wrong with him." She skidded to a stop and began preparing another snare of vines in the direction he was going, but she had little hope of success after the last time. "He has to be stopped, and if we can do it without seriously harming him, so much the better."
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Paige bent double to choke up phantom water, tears trickling from her eyes as she retched for a moment or two before getting herself under control. "God, god..." she muttered, taking hold of the offered hand to pull herself back upright. "They're hurting him..." She said it aloud and echoed it over her psionic link as well, though her control was strong enough that not a hint of the actual experience was broadcast to her husband and son. "He's not far," she managed to add, rapidly regaining at least the appearance of composure as she wiped her face with a tissue. "Somewhere in the city, I think, but I couldn't sense much more than that. His consciousness is overwhelmed. I think he blacked out while I was reaching to him. I hope he did," she admitted candidly. "You have to find him."
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"You don't have to bring the banter if it's not your style," Wander told Woodsman. She kept one eye on him and one eye on the building, her voice still pitched barely above a whisper. "But it doesn't hurt to keep a couple of good threats in your pocket. Bad guys aren't likely to know if you recycle the same ones over and over." She drew her bat and opened it with a flick of her wrist, making the slim baton extend to nearly five feet of silver that gleamed in spite of the darkness around them. It wasn't the world's most stealthy weapon, but Wander herself wasn't nearly as sneaky as some. "What do you think?" she returned the question to him. "Are we ready?"
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Paige is feeling incredibly willful today, with a nat 20 on the save. That's a 32.
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Merlin indicated with a certain air of offended dignity that he could already hotwire a 2012 Volvo if he so desired, he just typically did not do so because Raina would have to be the one to drive it. Raina stuck out her tongue at him. "I could drive a Volvo right now if I wanted to," she assured him. "It's not exactly rocket science, right Talya? Couple of pedals and a steering wheel!" She very carefully tucked box, pendant and note into her backpack, then all but bounced out the door to the car. Merlin put his little head in his fuzzy hands, resigned to going along too.
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Singularity will attack the giant Deep One again. She's going to power attack this time, a full power attack, and also a +2 All-Out attack because she doesn't actually have that feat. She misses! Aquaria is lending her an HP to try again. She misses again! So she's down two on her defense and has missed her attack. Posting another swing and miss from the sidekick is pretty boring, so feel free to move on with the initiative
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Raina looked completely blank for a minute, as though she couldn't begin to comprehend what Talya was sugges"ting. The shock was quickly replaced by mounting excitement. "Are you serious?" she demanded, her eyes going wide. "You're gonna show me how to drive?" From inside Raina's backpack there was an alarmed chirrup, and moments later Merlin stuck his head out. Merlin thought this was an idea fraught with difficulties, chief among them being that Raina should not be trusted with anything more technically complex than a can opener, and probably not an electric one at that. "Oh come on," Raina objected, glaring at her familiar. "If you're just gonna be that way, you don't even have to come along." That idea didn't sit well either, as Merlin opined that if Raina were going to do something dangerous, he'd better be there to make sure she didn't kill herself doing it. Raina heaved a sigh of the much put-upon. "We're both going," she reported to Talya, brightening up immediately. "What kind of car?"
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In the nearly nine months she had spent as a semi-willing guest at Claremont, Raina had missed half as many classes as she'd attended, and for most of the rest she'd made little effort to be on time. Training at the dojo was different though, and today she arrived punctually and with her workout clothes already on, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. The box caught her attention instantly, and while the note grabbed her curiosity, the pendant itself quickly took up her entire attention. "Pretty..." she murmured appreciatively, holding it up to the light. "Talya? Are you here?"
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Raina was more than content to let the experienced heroes deal with the frankly horrifying... whatever the hell it was that was still ranting and raving even after being captured and pinned. She didn't want to get anywhere close to the creature. Instead, she put Anibal's comforting bulk between herself and the monster and concentrated instead on potshotting the new flies with miniature fireballs as they tried to crawl from the vents. "This is so insanely gross," she muttered, shuddering all over. "Just looking at them makes me feel like they're in my hair, uugggggghhh." Another dozen flies met an untimely and sizzling end from an especially vindictive little fireball.