Electra

Erin slid off the roof, landing with only the softest thud of shoes on concrete, and made her way over to Riley. She turned over the hapless would-be terrorist and examined his neck, noting the faint line of blood there. She stuck two fingers in the gag, making sure it wasn't so tight as to cause permanent damage, and did the same with the zip ties, then gave Riley a curt nod of approval. "You may want to get a knife if you want to use it as a threat that way," she murmured to Riley, too softly for the prisoner to hear. "Keep it fairly dull, it'll still scare the hell out of them, but you're less likely to accidentally kill somebody when they panic and run themselves up on the blade. You get the information?"

Erin watched Sitara carefully as she approached, but extended her hand wilingly enough. "I'm Erin White, but I go by Wander. This is Midnight. We appreciate your help in getting Jessie and Aquaria back home. Did you have any trouble along the way?" At the same time, Jessie descended the ramp again, this time with Aquaria in tow. She nodded in agreement with Midnight's sentiments, giving Aquaria a small smile of encouragement, then stepped off the ramp to stand behind Erin, safe on solid ground, safe with her counterpart between her and everything else. She murmured something inaudible into Erin's ear. "What?" Erin turned to focus on Jessie. "We promised you would pay them for their work," Jessie mumbled more loudly, her fair skin coloring with sudden embarrassment. "They work in space, you know, doing stuff for money. We gave them the ship we took, but it was broken, so I said if they helped us get home, we could pay them. You could pay them." She ducked her head, studying her new alien shoes. "Ah." Erin pursed her lips and took a breath, glanced at Midnight, then turned back to the Voidrunner crew. "So, what's the going rate on ferrying stranded Terrans back home?" she asked the group at large, still not entirely sure who was in charge.

The touch of Roman's mind sent Paige reeling, and if it hadn't been for Richard's hand in her own, she probably would've fallen. As it was, she staggered and nearly fell out of his ambit of speed. saving herself at the last moment when she managed to reestablish her mental shields and gain a small amount of perspective. "There's something terribly wrong with his mind," she told Richard. "Something there that shouldn't be, that wasn't before. He's got a really impressive natural mental defense, and something that could breach that, well, it could breach almost anyone. But I can't help but think he accepted whatever it was in willingly, and then lost control. It sounds very much like something he'd be arrogant enough to do." She clung to her husband's arm as they approached the center of the psychic vortex. "He doesn't want it now, though. It's burning him alive and he's lost all control. We have to stop it."

Another quick teleport had Fleur stepping out of a plant just ahead of the unfortunate fleeing disease vector, but only by a second or two. She tossed a handful of seeds in front of her in a wide spray, and everywhere they touched the ground, thick vines sprang from the earth, fully formed and seething like snakes. The instant her quarry touched down in the midst of the vines, they were on him, first dogpiling him with sheer weight, then wrapping around him like a cocoon, all but mummifying him in a shroud of green. "All right," Fleur reported, "I've got him for the moment, he's blind, deaf and helpless till he breaks loose. What now?"

Fleur is going to teleport in right near where the guy is about to land, and she's gonna lay a big plant snare for him. That's her regular snare power: Snare 20 (entangling vines, PFs: Indirect 3, Obscures Senses 3 [Visual + Audio], Reversible, Subtle) She rolls the attack, it is bad, spending an HP to reroll, it is still lousy, but it is a 23.

Paige stared out the window at Richard's complex attempts at conjuring magic far beyond his ability to control. He used his magical textbook like a swiss army knife, whipping out spells as needed in a fight or to stopgap a problem, not to realign the stars and see the future. Ordinarily she would've gone out and tried to talk some sense into him, tell him to leave the magic to the experts, but not today. Instead she watched, bitterly envious that he, at least, had something concrete to do. Paige hadn't been raised in an especially observant Jewish household, but she still knew the most important stories, and Pesach was right up at the top of the list. There was no misunderstanding what was happening to the world, what mad homage August Roman was playing at. There was no question what lay at the end of this horrifying road, when the other plagues had run their course. She'd considered sending Will away, of course. She had contacts in the super community, there were places he could go, off-world, out of dimension, that would almost certainly be beyond the reach of whatever twisted form the final plague would take. But Will, for better or worse, was twice the heroic soul that either of his parents were. If they'd found him a place, he wouldn't have gone. If they'd forced him, he wouldn't have forgiven them, or himself, if anything had happened. So she waited, and she watched, and she tried to ignore the threatening migranes that were the overloading of her nascent premonitory powers, and she cleaned. She cleaned the entire house with a thoroughness it hadn't seen since they moved in, scrubbing the entire place top to bottom, going over the kitchen as though she were expecting a white-glove inspection. She didn't know what she was expecting out of it, but it was something to do, anyway. And if a few times she stood on the front stoop and stared contemplatively at the doorposts, well, she didn't know what she was expecting from that, either. All there was to do now was wait, and hope that somebody was going to see it coming.

"Let me take a listen and see what I can find," Paige offered. Leaving her hand on Will's shoulder, as much to keep herself standing as to support him, she closed her eyes and lowered the mental walls that normally protected her from the thoughts and emotions of the entire Freedom City population. As always, the cacophony was a little deafening for a minute. Unconsciously she raised her voice, though the room was silent to the outer ears. "Just one minute..." ~Elias, Elias, can you hear me?~ She started small, started close by, then moved her perception in widening circles from there.

"Ick, ick, ick, ick, ick!" Raina chanted, frantically brushing at her clothes and swatting at the air with her free hand as the flies swarmed around them. "Ick, ick, ick, ick, ick!" She looked liked she might have continued that indefinitely, until Anibal's words seemed to bring her back to some semblance of reality and she remembered the fireball in her hands. "That's right, I can!" she added defiantly, "and I will, cause you're gross!" She raised the fireball to her lips and blew on it, and suddenly a sheet of flames was scorching the room, bending harmlessly around the humans even as it incinerated every insect in its path. Raina took a deep breath and felt somewhat better already.

Sparkler will stunt off her Sun array, Damage 10 (Range: Area, Extra: Shapeable, Selective, Flaw: Full Action) She will then obliterate as many of the little flies as possible because the big thing is scary, but the little ones are touching her, yeeeeeeeek!

Erin suddenly wished she'd changed into her uniform for this meeting, but at least she still had her bat at her belt, just in case something went wrong at the last minute. Working with aliens could be very tricky, and she knew that Jessie and Aquaria had gotten into trouble while they were gone. If this were some kind of ruse, or a convoluted sort of extradition, well, Erin just wanted to be ready. All the same, she felt considerable relief when the ship settled itself on the ground and the ramp extended. She studied the people who came out first, automatically assessing the possible threat they would pose, then returned her attention to the exit door. Moments later, there was a slight movement at the hatch as Jessie peered cautiously out. Erin was obviously not the only one concerned by the possibility of a feint at this point. Erin gave her a slight wave, and suddenly Jessie came barrelling down the ramp at several times normal human speed. Erin thought for an instant that Jessie would hug her, but instead her blonde doppelganger pulled up abruptly just a couple feet away, looking at Erin with wide eyes. "We're back," Jessie said needlessly. "I -we- didn't mean to run away. I'm sorry." Erin stifled a sigh. "I know. It's okay." She reached out and put an awkward hand on Jessie's shoulder, then gave her a good up and down study, checking for damage. Jessie seemed to be okay, if even more twitchy and nervous than usual. "You're back now, that's the important part. Are you okay? Where's Aquaria?" Jessie looked over her shoulder. "Still in there," she told Erin, indicating the hatch with a subtle hand motion. "She's afraid. She thinks she's going to have to go to prison because it's her fault we violated our probation. That won't happen, will it?" She leaned in, lowered her voice conspiratorially. "We can say it was me," she offered, her words quick and forceful. "if I was the one who touched the thing, then it was my fault and I would go back to Blackstone. It wasn't so bad, I would be okay and she wouldn't-" Erin gave Jessie a little shake by the shoulder she was already holding, then reached out to take the other one as well. "Nobody's going to jail," she promised, quietly but firmly. "Things happen to people like us, and it's nobody's fault but the bad guys. I've already talked to Project Freedom and it's fine. Go get her, okay?" Jessie nodded and turned, heading back up the ramp to fetch her friend.

Hey all, it's finally that time! After five years of dating and a yearlong engagement, Erin White and Trevor Hunter are finally tying the knot! We're trying out a new style of thread for the big event, an open vignette-style storytelling, so that everybody can write their own little tale for part of the day and post it, then at the end we'll put everything in order to tell the story of the wedding. Full details and the structure of the day are in the first post of the thread. This thread is open to any character, though obviously only characters who have reason to attend the wedding should be written as attending. Other characters can be written as defending the city while many of its heroes are taking the night off. If you have any questions, feel free to tag Electra in chat, or post it to the Campaign Discussion thread. Here's the link to the thread: With Lovers and Friends I Still Can Recall

8:00am A heavy layer of dew covered the grass that morning, clinging to Stesha's tennis shoes as she jogged across the broad lawn behind the manor house. The sun was barely above the trees but she'd been working for hours already, bringing to life all the drawings and plans she'd made up for this singular day. It was paying off, too; the flowerbeds were alive with a dizzying array of color and life, while the chairs and trellises were decorated with thousands of blossoms in lighter and more muted shades, appropriate to the day. It was both easier and more difficult, Stesha had discovered, doing floral arrangements with the full use of her powers. It saved a lot of time and effort in shipping, trimming, arranging, and transporting flowers, but on the other hand, she'd gotten far more ambitious than she ever would have in her florist days. Still, it was all for a good cause. Stesha didn't know Trevor or Erin particularly well, but she knew they were good people, very young people, who'd already given many years of their lives to heroic duty. She knew how Trevor's voice softened when he talked about his fiancee, and she'd seen how Erin's often-impassive face brightened when her intended came into view. Most of all, Stesha understood about love, and the breathtaking excitement of making a lifetime commitment to one person loved above all others. It was something that deserved to be celebrated at its start, no matter what might happen to it later. “Mama, mama, look at me! I'm the flower girl!” Amaryllis shrieked joyfully as she ran barefoot across the grass to her mother. She wasn't dressed up yet, still in her favorite bib overalls, but her green hair was done up in intricate ringlet curls that Stesha would never in a million years be able to replicate. As she ran, she left behind a trail of blooming violets and white clover. “I got pretty!” “Look at you, you sure did!” Stesha agreed, scooping up her daughter and giving her a quick spin. “You look beautiful! Come on and help me finish the edging by the pond, okay?” They walked hand in hand down to the pond behind the ceremony space, Stesha consulting the list on her phone as they went. “Mama, the tree is sneakin' away,” Ammy observed conversationally. “Mm, what?” Stesha blinked and looked up, only half-listening. Ammy pointed. “The tree. It's going out of line. It's sneaky.” Sure enough, one of the stately old elm trees on the western border of the property had broken ranks and was edging almost imperceptibly towards the venue area. Stesha frowned at it and extended her senses to get a taste of it. Something definitely not right there. The tree didn't have a mind of its own, but it was being used by something else to get a look at things. “You're right, baby, that tree is very sneaky. We better stop it.” With a flick of her fingers, Stesha teleported both of them across the yard, directly in front of the tree. “Whoever you are, you're biting off way more than you can chew,” she informed the elm coolly. Resting her hand against the bark of the tree, she focused her will for just a moment, and the tree was suddenly nothing more than a soft waterfall of mulch. “There we go, all better. Remind me that we owe Mr. Hunter a tree before we go home. How about some breakfast?”

((This post is reserved for an ongoing timeline of events in the thread)) Morning 12:15 AM Edge and Redbird talk weddings 8:00AM Fleur de Joie and Amaryllis decorate the yard and destroy an enemy scout. 10:00AM Monsoon and Psyche get to know each other over pampering. 11:00AM Woodsman and Blue Jay help deal with a bad guy - and talk shop. Afternoon Evening 5PM Harrier and Miss Americana dance - and talk about dreams. 11:59PM Aquaria takes care of cleanup, and thinks of other matings, far away.

((Welcome to Trevor and Erin’s Big Enormous Wedding Thread! This is an experiment in how to tell a big story from many different perspectives. Below you’ll find an outline of the progress of the day, including some details of location and timing, as well as some story hooks requiring superhero intervention. This thread is open to everyone to post vignettes and mini-vignettes telling their characters’ stories from that day. Because this is not a traditional vignette offering (read: you do not get vignette pp for this), and it is also not a regular thread, we’re relaxing many of the normal posting rules. Your vignettes can be of any length, a full page is not required, and you may post more than one per character if you wish. The prohibition on multiple characters per thread is also lifted, so post with as many of your characters as you have stories for. Double and triple vignettes are still allowed, if you so desire, and also have no length requirement. As vignettes are added by players, expect that events of the day will change and develop. Later posters should try and read the vignettes that came before them so they can be sure their work will fit in with the way the day is going. That does not mean vignettes have to be in chronological order! Feel free to jump ahead or backfill anywhere you like, so long as it is on the wedding day. Story hooks are first come, first serve, so posting early isn’t a bad idea. If you don’t believe your character would’ve been invited to the wedding (and yes, not everybody knows Wander and Midnight!), feel free to post stories about your character protecting the city while a sizable chunk of its superhero population is taking the night off. Feel free to ask in chat if you have any questions, and have fun!)) Once upon a time, a girl and a boy fell in love. They were superheroes, so it wasn’t easy, and it was sometimes messy, but that was okay. They had adventures together, lived together, celebrated and mourned together, and eventually they decided that together was absolutely better than apart. There was a bridge and a motorcycle and a teddy bear and a ring, and then there was a wedding in a garden on an April afternoon. All their friends were invited. Some things didn’t go exactly as planned, and a few uninvited guests tried to horn in along the way, which happens to heroes a lot. Luckily their friends were also superheroes, and they were determined that the happy couple should live happily ever after, at least for today. Preparations for the wedding began in the morning at the Hunter estate, with Erin and her bridesmaids and selected female friends in the house, and Trevor and his guys down in the basement. There were caterers and decorators and florists around everywhere, which made things a little complicated when some heroic intervention was needed to safeguard the venue from preemptive villainy (though at least the florist and the gardener were superhero-savvy!) Mani-pedis, makeup, lots of last-minute advice and a champagne brunch rounded out the morning for the wedding party, along with a few shenanigans designed to make sure that bride and groom didn’t encounter each other before the ceremony. In the afternoon, all the dressing-up began in earnest, and then the pictures. So many pictures, professional and otherwise, with people who don’t often get photographed with their own faces and looking their best. The photographers didn’t always confine themselves to the wedding party either, arriving guests might find themselves captured on film a few times for the album. The venue was beautiful, the sprawling backyard of the estate was lush with green grass and bedecked with growing flowers, as though a wedding had grown naturally out of the earth, spontaneously sprouting floral trellises and chair nosegays in just the right places. It smelled fantastic as well, and if the gardener was spotted diving into the pond after a few lost items, it didn’t detract from the ambiance too much. There were a few diversions to entertain the guests, a book to sign, a little display of childhood photos of bride and groom, a table of snacks. There was also a nasty traffic jam on one of the roads leading into North Bay, but it was sorted by helpful guests before it became a real problem. As the 3pm wedding start time approached, guests began to move to their seats while music played and a breeze whispered through the trees. The ceremony was beautiful and quite peaceful, though it’s hard to say what behind-the-scenes machinations may have been required to keep it that way. J.J. Faretti and Amaryllis Lumins nearly stole the show as ring-bearer and flower girl, despite subtle interventions from their parents. Otherwise, the simple and brief service, conducted by Claremont’s headmaster emeritus Duncan Summers, was focused on Erin and Trevor, who stood under a flowered trellis to exchange handwritten vows and rings in front of all their friends and family. With the business of the day taken care of, it was time to celebrate! The Manor’s ballroom had been prepared in case of bad weather, but a perfectly clement day meant dinner, drinks and dancing on the lawn and patio. A minor problem with the catering was quickly sorted, and if the bride and groom disappeared from their own party for a little while before arriving for dinner, nobody was inclined to say anything about it. There were toasts and a few short speeches after supper, and then the bride and groom opened the dancing with a showy and energetic swing dance that most people who knew them as heroes wouldn’t have expected from them at all. The dancing went on late into the night, helped along by a custom coffee bar manned by two experienced baristas. At one point in the evening, the power went off for nearly ten minutes, but inventive guests worked around it and the problem was quickly solved. Trevor and Erin left around 9pm in a hail of bubbles and sparks and flowers and beams of light from their friends, taking off on Trevor’s motorcycle with Erin’s skirt securely swept up over her arm as they waved and departed. Even with the guests of honor gone, there was plenty of partying left to do, and it wasn’t till nearly midnight that things quieted down and the cleanup was taken care of.

"Whoa, maybe we should think this over," Raina cut in, raising a hand but not actually so much as touching the vial of stuff. "I'm not a scientist or anything, but I'm pretty sure an experimental pool of one isn't going to tell you a lot about how safe something is for anything but that one person. No offense Fred," she said with a quick wave, "but your potions don't exactly have a pristine track record. It's not like you're not going to get better, Robin, and probably a lot faster than anybody else here would. Is it really worth taking the risk to speed the process up a day or two?" Raina looked almost physically pained to have to be the voice of reason, but there were risks and there were risks.

"All right, I'm catching up with you guys. Good news is, I can fix the boils if he gets a hit in on anybody, so don't worry too hard about it." Fleur finished healing the last of the afflicted people in the group she was near. "I'll be back very soon," she promised the crowd, "we're going to stop this from spreading any more." Touching her fingertips to the pink flowers in her hair, she watched the boil-carrier hurtle through the air, then headed in his direction, teleporting as close as she thought she was likely to get.

Just a few yards away, Wander crouched on the edge of the roof and kept an eye on the proceedings below. She nodded slightly at Woodsman's target selection, and approved of his smooth and silent approach as well. When the talking started, though... She turned slightly to her partner, a second dark shadow on the rooftop. Crapping a match out his ears? she mouthed, knowing that Midnight would pick it up even in the dark. Erin shook her head and prepared to jump down should it become necessary.

Raina goes on 20

Stesha nodded to him, then spoke up. "If you like, we can trace your family for you and help you to reach out to them. The League has extensive resources and a fair amount of experience, so I'm sure we can turn up something." She walked over to one wall, which seemed to be made entirely of woody vines interwoven with broad green leaves, and dug into a stack of plastic tubs that were sitting there. "But first things first. We should find you some clothes and shoes, and get you something to eat." She held up a couple of blue t-shirts and looked at Leilani appraisingly, her tone at once comforting and matter-of-fact. "What sizes do you wear? Would you like spaghetti? That's on the menu in the lunchroom today."

Fleur goes on 26.

There was a moment, albeit a brief one, in which the tactical portion of Jessie's mind saw an opportunity to stem the tide. She didn't trust that portion of her mind very much; it was something that had never been trained into her, but rather had seeped in along with a lifetime of borrowed memories overlaid with later-acquired skills. It was the same way she knew how to cook and drive a car, but it wasn't always reliable. It told her that if she caught the Deep Ones at their chokepoint behind the monster, took them down in their numbers with the skills she'd honed fighting zombies, she could stop their rush entirely here, and possibly dissuade them from further advances. But the monster was hurting Aquaria, and it had to be stopped too! And really, despite the monster she knew herself to be, Jessie didn't think she could do to those Deep Ones what she remembered doing in all the other mass-combatant fights she'd been in. There were children in there, for god's sake. So she ignored that voice of borrowed experience and instead stretched her baton along her wrist like an extension of her arm, then made a leap for the monstrous yelling creature. She scored a solid hit on it, with a reverberation that sang through her bones, but it didn't seem to be affected at all, and suddenly Deep Ones were everywhere...

Singularity is going to attack the monster! Straight up melee attack till we see what it's made of. She gets a 21 DC 25 toughness save, and she is prepping an Interpose on behalf of Aquaria or Reagent.

Paige quickly rose from her seat and put a hand on Will's shoulder, projecting the low-level wave of love and peaceful calmness that she'd been soothing him with since he was a restless fetus in the womb. ~They're police officers, baby, they're paid to think the worst in every situation. It's not good for their souls, but these two aren't bad guys.~ She rubbed Will's back lightly and focused on the detectives again. "Have you asked another psychic or a precognitive to reach out and try and get into contact with him? It's possible he hasn't left the city, or at least the tri-state area."

Paige gave the detectives an incredibly bland look. "Detectives, I assume you didn't arrive on the latest turnip truck to Freedom City, so I'm not going to insult your intelligence or experience. A young man who is experienced at fighting and whose movements are hard to pin down might be getting into trouble, but it's hardly the only possible etiology in a city like this." Pursing her lips, she glanced towards the stairs to the second floor. ~Will, honey, could you come down a minute? Something has happened with your classmate Elias and the police are asking questions. Do you know if he might be involved in any hero work right now?~ "You're right though," she continued with barely a pause, "that it's worrisome. I haven't seen him in, oh, probably six months or more. Do you have any clues to where he might be now?"

"Yeah sure," Raina told Robin blithely, "if you can't pass an O-sat, I'm sure we can cheat it somehow. It's not like you need that to, I dunno, freaking live or anything!" She gave Robin a very gentle shove against her chest, just in case Robin had been planning any kind of early escape maneuver. "You may as well stay here anyway, school's boring as hell, just like always. At least here's you've got television and no classes. Milk it for all it's wortth while you've got people feeling sorry for you!" When even that did not elicit the hoped-for rest, Raina sat down on the edge of the bed and looked over towars Riley and Fred. "What are they on about, anyway?"