Electra
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Raina looked skeptical. "Some kind of matching red hat, like the guys in old movies wear, or Carmen Sandiego. Something classy, nothing with a propeller on it, for pity's sake. But hey, it's your choice, your head doesn't really look, like, freakishly small, just kind of undersized," she assured him unhelpfully. "Other heroes use hats, you see them in the training videos and stuff. Guy graduated a few years back wore a hat and a gas mask all the time, plus a coat and belt thing. He probably figured out some kind of trick for it." She shrugged. "Maybe you could just bobby pin something to your head. Can you actually get the sword out from there?"
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Gina tried the taser once more, frowning when it again had to effect, but by then she had bigger things to worry about. Her car was still surrounded, despite the clones having bigger fish to fry right now, so escape was out. Radio frequencies were still being blocked, so she couldn't summon Miss Americana. All she could do was duck down in her backseat, watching as Harrier thudded implacably down the pavement, ready to destroy everything in his way. It was, she had to admit, just a little exciting, even as it was also terrifying on several levels.
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Stesha grinned and leaned forward to accept the bite, licking sauce delicately off her lips. "It's good!" she decided. "Definitely got a kick to it." She picked up a piece of her own bread and sampled from her bowl. "It must be hard for doctors, finding time for yourselves and your families while you've got this skill that is so needed, and the hours you're expected to work are so long and weird. Not needing to sleep has got to be a big advantage! I know it pretty much saved my life when Ammy was a baby." She laughed. "Honestly, I don't know how anybody handles it any other way. So, what did you wind up telling your sister about tonight?"
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"They're not allowed to have any paper or any representations of people," Raina replied, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. "Photographs can be used as magical foci... if anybody could do magic with these things on them twenty-four hours a day. They pretty much can't have anything. I think they can watch TV that's outside their cells, but no books or writing utensils or anything. I don't think they get to see each other either. I don't really know what they do all day. I don't know what I'd do, besides go crazy... She was interrupted when the door on the far side of the room opened and a woman walked in, flanked by two guards until she was through the door. She was tall, like Raina, and had ashy blonde hair that had once been expertly colored but was now liberally streaked with gray for several inches from the roots. She wore magic suppressing bands as well, though unlike Raina's dull gray ones, these glowed with a sickly green arcane energy. Obviously a beautiful woman once, and still lovely in her bones, Rochelle Sanderson did not appear to be thriving in maximum security. Raina's head came up the instant the door opened, and in a second she was all but flying across the room. "Mommy!" All her questions, all the things she wondered about, all the things she'd learned that didn't seem to add up, all of it was forgotten as she clung to her mother and sobbed. "Mom, Mom, Mom, I missed you so much!" Rochelle seemed no less affected than her daughter, staggering a little under the sudden impact of her sixteen year old daughter jumping on her like a toddler, but she wrapped her arms around Raina and clung right back, tears seeping from closed eyes. "Raina, my sweet baby girl, You shouldn't have come, but I missed you more than I can stand."
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Singularity didn't bother to look back to Ruby or even to Aquaria for instructions. She understood exactly what needed to be done in these circumstances. These circumstances were, she sometimes thought, probably the only thing she was actually good at. Swinging the severed arm in one hand like a nightstick, she closed in on the shrieking eldritch alien. "Your mutliated god is dead," she told him evenly, "and so are you. You won't destroy anyone today." She brought the arm up, smoothly as if it were a baseball bat, and delivered a blow to his head that made it krong like a a very sour bell. It was a good, solid hit, but he didn't seem nearly as dead as she'd epecred. She was going to have to work harder on that.
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Sparkler is stunting off her Sun array, which leaves her with few options for fighting, but really good hiding! Concealment 10 (all senses, Extra: Attack [+0], PFs: Close Range, Selective, Flaw: Passive) [12/20PP] + Concealment 4 (visual) [8PP]
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Raina took Eden by the hand and hurried back into the living room, snacktime forgotten. She'd been told about VINCE, but seeing him in the flesh, so to speak, was a different story. Either the AI was a little glitchy or he maybe was as fond of obscure nicknames as Erik, but right now that was the least of her worries. "What's going on?" she demanded, trying to hear what was happening downstairs. "Can you get ahold of Talya and Erik?" Operating on instinct, she scooted Eden into the far corner of the room, behind a chair and in the most secluded, protected place she could see. "All right honey, you stay here for a little bit, and I'm gonna do some magic," she told the little girl. "I don't know what's wrong, but I'm going to make sure nothing bad happens." She pressed Mia into her sister's arms, then pulled out her compact. "You're going to be invisible for awhile, okay? Nobody but me will be able to see or hear you, so it's like the best hide and seek ever. And you might not be able to see me, but I'm not going anywhere, I'll be right here in the room. I just need you to hold still and be quiet and take care of the baby. And then we'll get into the ice cream." Raina gave Eden her best encouraging smile, then smeared her finger in the powder and rubbed it all over the mirror, obscuring it entirely. She hummed a few bars, then blew a little powder onto the girls, sprinkled some onto herself. In moments, the room might as well have been empty, but for a curiously lifelike toy monkey on the couch.
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Gina attacks with her stun gun! She rolls a 14!
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"Of course you have," Raina muttered in Seven's direction, but it was clear her heart wasn't in it. She fumbled while trying to put the cuffs on, a maneuver that would've been awkward at the best of times, even with hands that weren't just a little shaky. It was immediately clear when the nullifying properties took effect; the instant the second cuff snapped into place, Raina sagged to the floor like a balloon losing its air. "'M good," she assured Talya, even as she leaned forward to almost touch forehead to knees. "Dizzy for a minute. It always does that. Lose a sense, it messes with your proprioception." She knuckled her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to pull herself together. However horrible losing her magic felt, it was nothing compared to what Merlin was going through, all alone back at the school. She couldn't even think about what it was like for her parents to be half-blind and half-deaf for months now, cut off, trapped in this hell. Instead she pushed herself shakily back to her feet, hating every instant that the cold burn of the manacles touched her skin. "Are we done now? Can we go?" she snapped.
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Singularity is going to attempt to brain the bad guy with his own detached prosthetic limb. Like you do. She rolls to Startle, gets a 26. She rolls to hit, power attacking for 2. She gets an 18. Blah. If that is not enough to hit, she will beg her buddy Aquaria for an HP.
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Talya could feel Raina's heart hammering under her fingertips, but the teenager managed to put on a passable show of blase confidence in front of the new mage. "Don't worry, Ossifer, no magic here!" She raised her bare hands and let the too-loose sleeves of the jumper fall to her elbows. "Just here to visit my parents while they're trapped in indefinite pretrial detention, which I will definitely agree is totally constitutional while I'm here on an island with hundreds of armed guards." She smiled, showing a lot of teeth but also the white all around her eyes. "What do I have to do?"
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Miss Americana obligingly scooped the tower up once more and followed Gina into the kitchen, the truffles not so much as budging despite the handling. The caterer had assured her that the chocolate fudge anchoring the truffles would withstand pretty much anything short of actual pulling by fingers, and so far, so good. "Ah, my friends usually call me Miss A," she offered. "Americana does get to be a mouthful. You have a lovely home," she observed as she trailed after the matriarch. "And enough room for the children to play, that's so nice. Can I help with anything in the kitchen?" She managed to cut herself off shy of babbling, but only by the slimmest margin.
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Raina hastily looked around and found a wastepaper basket, thankfully empty, under the desk. She took it over to Fred, at the same time nudging her into the seat. "Okay, how about you just have a little sit-down and let your stomach settle down, cause I don't think that wine will be any better if you see it again." She handed Fred the basket, positioning it so any vomit would be likely to hit it first. Taking a risk, she crouched down next to Fred, which was something of a feat in her dress. "Look," she said, her voice a little softer, "I get that you don't want to see anybody get bullied. That's fair. But Phaedra's not like you or Cathy or Robin. At best, she's more like me, and we don't need anybody to defend us in social combat. At worst, she's something a lot different than any of us, and doesn't give a crap what any of us think about her anyway. Either way, there's no reason for you to be getting all upset. You want some ginger ale or something?"
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"What, no romance after all?" Raina mocked lightly, folding her arms and leaning against the edge of an ornate, if dusty, desk. "Anibal's gonna be so disappointed. And Phaedra can't be that concerned about her background if she comes in here fricking dressed as a fallen angel, not to mention reeking of infernal magic. I have been informed by pretty much every authority figure I've met in the past year that even dabbling with infernal magic makes you evil and worth suspicion, so it seemed like she might need a little checking out. Why you flipping out about it?" she asked in return, lowering her chin to regard Fred. "You're not pissed that I didn't like your wine, are you?"
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"It is scary," Raina told Anibal, giving him a sober look. "If she's from Throne, that means she's either a fallen angel or an infernal creature. The whole angel-cousin thing probably means fallen angel, but that's not really much safer than an out-and-out demon." She turned her gaze on Phaedra, giving her a long, suspicious look. "It makes me wonder a lot about what a fallen angel would be doing here, living on Earth and going to mortal high school. She shook herself when Fred wandered over, the practiced smile sliding back onto her face. "I'm all yours," she told Fred, sliding off Anibal's lap. "Well, what parts of me aren't spoken for already. Don't forget to ask truth or dare, Phae," she advised as she strolled out of the room.
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"You're not wrong about that," Stesha admitted with a sigh. "Sometimes I think back on the last six or seven years and I can barely recognize myself. Which is both good and bad," she admitted with a touch of a smile. "I've learned a lot, helped a lot of people. But sometimes I miss the me who barely had any responsibilities and whose heroic deeds were mostly brightening up peoples' gardens and weddings. It's a little like having kids, I guess. It changes you in all kinds of ways, but you wouldn't give it up. I wanted to be a parent enough to make the changes. Derrick loves Amaryllis, but he wanted to be a hero more than he wanted to change into a father. And I think that's his loss." She squeezed Ellis' fingers gratefully and then released his hand as their food arrived. "Wow, this smells amazing, how do I eat it?"
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Singularity goes on 18
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"I am so sorry," Paige told Daphne, her face flushing with embarrassed color. "Richard's mother is very outspoken, and we don't agree with a lot of what she says, but she's in her eighties now and not likely to change most of her views. You are absolutely welcome in our house, and if Anna doesn't like it, she doesn't have to stay." It seemed like Paige would not be at all displeased by that outcome, actually. "Let's find a place where Mother Unit can safely watch the action in the kitchen, shall we?" A few moments of work and a little moving stuff around saw the top shelf of Paige's baker's rack cleared off, offering a vantage point that would take in the whole kitchen while avoiding the danger of spills and bumps. "Now Daphne, have you ever cooked a turkey?"
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"Right then." Raina leaned against Anibal's shoulder and surveyed her chosen target. "I've never even seen you before tonight, yet here you are dropping in on the party with some weird story about being the niece of an angel or a Freedom League member or I don't even know what. It all sounds pretty damn fishy to me. And your eyeballs keep changing color when you're not paying attention to them, and that's weird too," she opined. "So here's my Truth question for you, where the hell are you even from?"
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Raina, who was obviously pleased by all the attention and admiration, did a little twirl to show off her entire disguise. She'd left the dress and fantastic shoes alone, but the rest of her looked about ready to fall to pieces. When Winifred spoke up, Raina stopped spinning to chortle at her. "Don't think you could resist my sexy zombie disguise, huh?" she teased. "Well, I'd hate to make anybody have to address any awkward fetish issues they might have." Her eyes sharpened when Phaedra chimed in. "It's the same spell, yes," she agreed coolly, then raised her compact again. She drew a few lines on the mirror with her lipstick and hummed, and suddenly the zombie effect was gone, replaced by the subtle skin tinting she'd had before. Walking back to the couch, she perched herself on Anibal's lap and wrapped a proprietary arm around his neck as she surveyed the room. "So... Phae... truth or dare?"
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Merlin chirruped urgently that it was cyanide poison, and nobody should attempt mouth-to-mouth or the poison could spread. Raina nodded, her eyes huge as she stared at the convulsing man. Merlin gave her a hard nudge and gave her the phone, which stirred her enough to have her dialling 911. "I'm at Pat's Pizzaria in Bayview, there's a man here convulsing and not breathing, somebody said it looks like cyanide poisoning. He needs an ambulance, he needs help, he's going to die!" Her voice was high and sharp-edged by the end, panic and adrenaline making her hands shake as she held the phone. In the meantime, Merlin was scrolling frantically through his own phone, navigating between websites and absorbing information as only a hyperintelligent monkey could do. He ordered a nearby waiter into the kitchen for two clean and empty plastic bottles with lids, a plastic bag, and as much plastic wrap as they had available. He then jumped up onto the table and addressed Anibal, instructing him to turn the stricken man onto his back, tilt his head back, and use his fingers to push the man's jaw up towards the ceiling. For a monkey, he was surprisingly authoritative.
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"But would he take off his shirt to do it?" Raina's smile was barely worthy of the name, faint and fast as it was, but at least it made an appearance as she unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her car door. By the time she was out of the car, she'd slipped back into the pose of confidence she'd worn on campus, looking nearly cocky as she strolled toward the waiting boat. "Hey, you looking for us?" she called down to one of the men manning the boat. "We've got an appointment at your jail over there."
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"Yeah, I see it," Raina muttered. Under the makeup, her face had lost some of its color, and she'd moved from twisting her fingers to rubbing her wrists with her fingertips. She was quiet for a minute as they drew closer and closer to the jetty where the boat to the prison was waiting. Finally she burst out with a rush of words. "Listen, if anything weird happens there, if I pass out or they arrest me, or anything bad, could you make sure to call the school and have somebody check on Merlin? I don't want him to be all alone and not smart anymore, he wouldn't be safe. He's in my room."
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Gina goes on 25!
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Raina turned away towards the window and began winding her hair around her fingers, her shoulders curving in slightly towards a classic sullen teenager pose. "If they're bitches, I'm going to call them that," she insisted stubbornly, her voice defensive. "If they were boys acting like that, I'd call them bitches too, but the boys don't do the same crap, least not to me." She went silent then, staring moodily out the window at the sparsely populated roadside and the distant ocean.