Electra
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Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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"Nothing would go wrong, or everything would go wrong," Erin pointed out. "Nina was really surprised the first time I took her out on patrol to realize how quiet the city tends to be when you're not out with Mark and looking for trouble. I don't think his powers are designed to let him get bored." She shook her head when Alex mentioned the whole sex thing. She'd been wondering, and suspected that Alex would know she'd been wondering, but some things were better volunteered than asked. "Is he still hung up on the idea of hurting you by accident, or is it something else now?" she asked with faint exasperation. "Cause if it's that, he needs to get back into therapy or something. It's been years now since you came into your forcefield power stuff, you'd think he'd get used to the idea. Even if you have to be careful sometimes, that doesn't mean it's not a lot of fun."
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Raina continued to lay on the floor for a moment, still looking a little stunned, before survival instinct kicked in and had her scrambling to her feet. "What the hell?" she demanded, sounding almost as outraged as scared. "What the hell?" As Robin and the monster exchanged blows and Cathy and Hannah did their best to change the topography of the room, Raina busied herserlf with her tools. Tugging a small compact mirror from her pocket, she flipped it open and breathed on it, fogging it completely, then hummed a few bars of some old-fashioned song. Instantly she disappeared from sight without so much as a ripple of light to mark her presence. Suitably concealed, Raina grabbed a lighter from her other pocket and flipped it open, lighting it with one practiced flick of her finger. Raising it to eye level, she whistled a quick and cheerful rendition of "Pop Goes the Weasel," then smiled grimly as the fireball hit the monster dead on. It wasn't going to be enough, but at least it was something for now.
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Raina will spend her move action peeling herself off the ground, then start busting out some powers. She'll put up her Concealment to become invisible, then launch a fireball at Alkahest, hopefully without hitting Robin. Raina rolls a 19 DC 25 toughness save
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"Mike's mom gives everybody that look," Erin assured her. "I remember the time she came to eat lunch on campus and I was having like a hamburger and fries or something like that. You could tell she was was just sitting there waiting for me to keel over right at the table. She was like literally mournful about it. I felt like I ought to tell her about some of the stuff I ate back in the day, and if that didn't kill me, nothing would. But it seemed kind of inappropriate for the table." She chuckled softly. "You should take however much time you need to, just make sure you're both on board with what you're doing and where you're going. It's a lot easier that way. Which means I should probably take my own advice and try to pin Trevor down over a date. Maybe in the spring."
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"Thanks," Erin smiled a little as she studied the quiet nighttime streets below them. HAX was nearby, so close that Erin could be there in a few seconds if she ran, but she was off work this evening. Steve or any of the others would text her if there were any trouble, and tonight it looked like most of the criminals were content to stay in the air conditioning and ride out the heat wave. The large almost-pyramid of Archetech gleamed with lights a half-mile away, a monument to hubris as far as Erin was concerned. But it was quiet tonight as well. "We really did grow up, didn't we?" she asked meditatively. "Look at us, responsible jobs, salaries, taxes, huge binders full of wedding stuff. Who'da thunk it?" She snorted. "Half the time I still feel like a screwed-up sixteen year old who barely knows what's going on, I'm just getting better at not showing it."
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"I dunno," Erin admitted. "I'm not sure what he'd want to do, and with his grandpa this year, I'm not sure it's a good time to ask. But I'm okay if he just wants to keep Hunter, I just don't want to give up my name completely, you know? I already have to use Keeley instead of Erin on my official forms, it's like if I become Keeley Hunter, it's not really me at all. Too weird." She shook her head. "And Erin White-Hunter sounds like I'm going to go hunt elephants in darkest Borneo or something, not exactly the vibe I'm going for." She smirked briefly. "What about you, how are you gonna do the name thing when the time comes?"
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"Pretty terrifying," Erin admitted, with an ease she wouldn't have had with anybody else. "You knew me when, you know how I was back then. Part of me was just ready to die doing something heroic because I didn't see any kind of future for myself. The idea of loving anybody ever again was so scary, because I know I can lose them anytime, and I didn't think I could ever go through that again. And now here I am, just throwing myself into the deep end, getting married, maybe-probably having kids someday, if all my future adult children are to be believed. Just opening that door wide and practically begging for all that pain again." She moved her shoulders in a half-shrug. "But at the same time, I guess I know the damage is already done. I don't know how I'd live without Trevor, so getting married to him doesn't really change that much except the way we file our taxes. What do you think about Keeley Erin Hunter-White?"
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Raina goes on 10
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Raina yelped a surprised expletive as the statute began to split open, throwing up an arm just in time to protect her face as the thing exploded in all directions with a rush of magic that made her skin tingle. She lowered her arm just in time for the nearly-naked statue girl to fall on her, which drew another few squeaky curse words from the startled witch. Instinctively she made a grab for the statue girls arms and attempted to pin the flailing legs with her own, unable to roll over effectively, she instead grabbed the girl like a giant stuffed animal. "Hey! Hey, calm down, you're okay! You're okay, dammit, stop hitting me!" She craned her neck to look at the others. "Little help, please!"
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Raina turned her head again to grin broadly at Robin, obviously pleased to find someone on her wavelength. "Why not? Creepy statues need a little touch too, right?" She gave the statue girl a look of wide-eyed innocence. "Now you know I don't normally do this with girls. You... you're still going to respect me in the morning, right?" Closing her eyes, Raina arched her back off the ground in the best full romantic-heroine style and gave the statue an enthusiastic open-mouth kiss right on the parted lips. It tasted, she decided, like kissing the Blarney Stone on her first trip to Ireland, but probably with a lot less germs.
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"You're not doing anything, I am," Raina pointed out cheerfully, still on her back but turning her head to look at Cathy. "But you should really blame Robin, she's over here practically daring me to lick it. I wonder what ancient-ass jade statue tastes like?" She turned back to the statue, fully ready to give it the Tootsie Pop treatment, but stopped when she looked again at the tortured face. It was hard to fathom how something carved from stone could look like it was in so much anguish. She lifted her hand instead and ran her fingers over the smooth stone cheek, carefully avoiding the little bumps that were teardrops. "It's really horrible, isn't it? I can see why nobody ever wanted to put their name on it, give all the little kids screaming nightmares attributed to them personally. Poor unloved creepy statue girl."
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"Holy crap, look at that one!" Raina had been seriously contemplating ditching the assignment again, but she perked up with interest at the sight of the macabre sculpture. At least it was different from the endless rooms of landscapes and old dead people. Once again slipping the velvet rope, she crouched down next to the statue for a better look. "Whoever made this one was seriously screwed up in the head. Like, how do you get a model for something like that, anyway? She looks almost like she's real." With no self-consciousness at all, Raina flopped over onto her back on the floor next to the pedestal, the better to get a good look at the statue's face and strange hands.
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Gina flinched at the sound of the car, though her eyes were still closed, and hid herself behind Steve's considerable bulk. "Fear is the mind killer," she muttered under her breath, quick and staccato like a prayer. "Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to... permit it... goddamn it, I have an eidetic memory, why is this so hard?" Steve could feel Gina's pulse hammering in her wrist like a trapped thing beneath her skin, could see the sickly sheen of perspiration on her face. By now they were approximately fifteen feet from the front door of the house, standing on the empty sidewalk. She forced her eyes open, squinted against the sun, then hid beneath her hat. "What now?" she demanded curtly.
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As soon as the plane touched down at the airport, Miss A was on her communicator again. "Argonaut, this is Miss Americana. We need to present a united front on this if we want to get the drop on whoever is behind this, not to mention save our public relations bacon. Can you meet us at the airport and we'll go from there? I'm getting maps and blueprints of the scene, as well as live satellite feed, so we can see exactly what's going on. So far they seem to be in a holding pattern for the most part. I assume they're waiting for us."
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Papercut soared over the fight, wiping blood from a shrapnel cut off his face with an irritable gesture. "Is it just me, or are there a f*** of a lot of these guys bearing down on us?" he called to the others, mostly rhetorically. The skeletons were bunching as they neared the heroes, their jaws clacking and their bones clanking in very disturbing ways. With a flick of his bloody fingers, he summoned his cranes once more, a slightly battered but game flock, already flecked with snow and yuck in places. "Get 'em," he commanded, and the murder of cranes descended at a tremendous rate of speed, plowing into the skeletal ranks and this time doing quite a bit more damage. Mindful of his precarious position, Koshiro took advatange of the distraction to fly just that much higher.
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Koshiro will continue to use his stunted power from last round, Blast 8 (Extra: Area [Targeted, Cone]) {24/24}, against the skeletons. He will then use his move action to try and get out of range of those projectiles.
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"Oh, I don't know," Erin deadpanned. "I was pretty dour back then, and sometimes hearing about his poetry was the only thing that could make me laugh. I think he was really doing a service to humanity. But I suspect it's probably better for his mental health that he isn't writing like that anymore." She relaxed somewhat from her ready crouch, sitting back on her heels as easily on the thin ledge as she would've on solid ground. "Mike and I were both pretty messed up in different ways back then, for all we were both strong and hard to damage. I'm glad he's getting better from most of it. It feels good to get better."
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Raina seemed torn for a minute, then took a look at each of the other girls and heaved a sigh. "All right, fine. But it had better not take too long. Why did the boys get to go to the natural history museum anyway? At least there I might have found some stuff I could talk to." She dragged the assignment back out of her knapsack, straightened the crinkled edges. and took a look at it. "Okay, the scale model of Freedom City was built by Nicholas Delray, who could really have used some practice sculpting water. What's next?"
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"Call me shallow when you're wearing enough money to put a kid through a year of college and you still manage to look like you bought it off a truck?" Raina called after her, but the moment was past. She glowered into the scale model of Freedom City, rested her hand on one of the larger churches. "God, if you're in there, please give Madison herpes. Amen." She straightened up, stepping back over the rope. "Well, that was fun," she told the others, all false cheer. "Shall we blow this popsicle stand? I bet we could get out a side door and out to the street before anybody noticed we were gone."
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Wander Where They Have To Take You In Like Riding A Bike It's Five O'Clock Somewhere The Golden Chain Fleur de Joie The Ashes of This World Mea Culpa Miss Americana Patriotic Gore Paradise Sparkler Hard To Be Cool (In A Minivan) NPC How To Build a Better Scythe (Papercut) A Picture of Sophisticated Grace (Singularity) All points to Sparkler this month
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"She knows," Erin confirmed aloud, unaware of the mental communication. "She's already assembling, like, binders and stuff of wedding plans. I think it may get a little crazy. But I think we're going to do it here, just on the grounds, not in the HQ or anything like that. It's really pretty here most of the year, and easier to control access than at most other places." She glanced over to Trevor. "But we haven't really started planning anything yet. Haven't even set an official date. We're not in a big hurry, and this stuff takes thought. Anyway, that's not really what we're here for right now." She gave Mike another up and down assessing look. "You still look kind of rough," she observed. "You need another drink, or are you ready to be done with that part now?"
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Raina turned from her examination of the model, her smile turning absolutely predatory as she surveyed the crowd of new girls. There was a time when she'd have been at the head of that formation, so it wasn't an unfamiliar scenario, just a slightly reversed ones. Deliberately keeping her hand resting on the model. "Oh look, girls!" she chirped, her voice frighteningly cheerful, "it's the Claremont High glee club, here to brighten our day!" She leaned in Hannah's direction as though about to impart a confidence, then spoke without lowering her voice. "They're hoping that by next year they'll actually grow some boobs, then they can be the cheerleading squad instead. Madison's going to get some for her birthday." Straightening, she gave Madison and her cronies her most infuriating smirk. "But hey, since we're all such good friends here, and nobody is going to be doing anything to freak the mundanes, how about you all go elsewhere and figure out which of you is wearing last year's shoes?"
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"This is lame," Raina declared with a sigh, staring at her sheet of assignments before shoving it into her knapsack. She hopped over the velvet rope to walk right up to the model of Freedom City, taking an experimental poke at the cellophane of the South River. She was still annoyed over having to leave Merlin at home, even though he hadn't particularly wanted to come anyway. Maybe she was more annoyed that he got to stay home and she didn't, given that for once maybe her dorm room wasn't going to feel like a refrigerator for a few hours. "Freedom City's supposed to be so futuristic, where's the interactive technology? Or at least like the televisions and stuff? I feel like somebody's gonna walk up with a set of Barbie dolls so we can play with this thing."
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Raina began to speak again, but was interrupted by an annoyed chitter from the brown and white capuchin monkey on her shoulder, up until this moment partially hidden by her hair. She rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, and this is Merlin, my familiar. He's obnoxious and will eat your snack foods." That got her another annoyed burst of monkey-speak, but she ignored it this time. "Looks like lots of flying people, that's cool. I've been wanting to work on my flying a little more. So I've never been to Freedom City before, except for the craphole bus station. What do you people do for fun around here?"
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Time stretched out, thirty endless seconds, then a minute, but Steve's hand never even wavered. Finally Gina reached out and put her hand in his, exposing her fingers to the naked sun. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she stepped over the threshold and off the stoop, till she stood with him on the sidewalk. "I don't think I can do this," she whispered, her voice raspy. "It's too hard."