Gizmo
-
Posts
11,085 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by Gizmo
-
"Well." Trevor removed his sunglasses with one hand to look out over the water at the dipping sun before removing his beaten black fedora with the other and running a thumb contemplatively over the weathered brim. Dropping the sunglasses inside the hat he crouched to set it down near his feet, making sure the added weight was enough to keep it from being pushed about by the wind. Rather than straightening back up, however, he methodically undid the buttons on his suit's jacket so that it hung open as he rested one knee against the concrete and looked up at Erin. Producing a small, black box from his pocket he cleared his throat conspicuously. "Not pie..."
-
Shifting closer as Erin placed her head on his shoulder, the quirk at the corner of Trevor's mouth gave way to a full smile. It was strange in some ways to think about how long ago that night had been but looking back he found that meeting the reticent powerhouse in the common room of Claremont's dormitories represented a definite line in his life, a break that placed every other event into the categories of 'before' and 'after'. There had been other defining moments, certainly, but his parents always would have left, his metahuman mutations always would have developed, his grandfather always would have revealed his legacy to him. Inviting Erin to join him on the back of the Night Cycle had been a choice, heart in his throat and pulse pounding in his ears and he could see how the arc of his life had pivoted around that point. There was nothing he regretted less. "Jump us up there?" he suggested, glancing up and down the bridge and waiting for a break in traffic and the glare of headlights.
-
"I know what you're going to ask and no," Kimber told Indira once Tarva had left, failing to keep a note of mournful regret out of the last syllable. She opened her mouth and began gesturing with her hands in an attempt to explain what had transpired and ended up simply groaning and throwing herself backward, levitating parallel to the ground with her hands on her face. "Oh, forget it. I don't even know what's going on any more. For once I wish I could actually sleep, 'cause nobody has ever been this tired. Ever. Ever ever." Certainly the Kinigosi had rarely heard her friend sounding so spent but from the peeks the phantom kept taking from between her fingers in the direction of the middle tent it didn't seem like she'd given up on the cause of that exhaustion just yet. "Oh, got the bone, by the way," she added, the flap of her backpack flipping open seemingly of its own accord, revealing the dirt caked humerus. Kimber waved splayed fingers back and forth wish as much meager enthusiasm as she could muster. "Yaaay."
-
"Raincheck on the dancing," Trevor agreed as he nodded to Redbird in the rear view mirror. Her hologram nodded and took the next right turn, muting the speakers in the car to prevent herself from making a high pitched sound that would have been wholly unbecoming of a Furion warrior. It didn't take more than a minute or two for Erin to deduce where they were headed. After all, it wasn't exactly the first time a rare show of spontaneity from Trevor had brought them to the Pramas Bridge. That was alright with the dark haired engineer, though; the location was important but it wasn't the point in and of itself. Still, it was a little different this time anyway. Even he wasn't going to try racing up the suspension cables in the lumbering four wheeled sedan. Redbird pulled the car up at the foot of the bridge and Trevor stepped outside, forcing himself to go slowly and keep his breathing measured. Remaining calm in the face of the physical manifestation of entropy had been child's play compared to this. "Memories," he called over the roof of the car as Erin exited the vehicle, hands in his pockets and the corner of his mouth turning upward.
-
Smiling into the kiss, Trevor let out a murmured, "Wow," in response to the dress and slipped his hand into Erin's, fingers intertwining. He leaned forward to follow her and extend the kiss for longer than was probably good for her subtle lipstick but eventually remembered that they had somewhere to be and led the way outside. "Better late than never," he reasoned, still seeming to be in little rush as they walked to the stately black sedan in the driveway. Already installed, Redbird's avatar flickered to life behind the driver's seat when she saw them coming, starting up the engine while Trevor opened the door for Erin. They'd only just gotten far enough for the mansion to disappear around a bend behind them when he spoke up again. "Hhn. You know, can always mail diploma. Have better idea for evening." He looked sidelong at the auburn haired woman and raised an eyebrow enigmatically. "Unless you were looking forward to three hour long ceremony?"
-
Jack of all Blades / Jill O'Cure Interceptors: Mia (3) Freedom's Finest #1: Cat Scratch Fever (3) This Is Your Song Vignette Midnight II Midnight Elegy (4) This Is Your Song Vignette Ghost Girl Incursion: Blockade Runners (1) Ghost of a Chance (2) Let's All Visit Kimber's Corpse (11) This Is Your Song Vignette Set / Sekhmet Teen Romance Superhero Drama (4) Rock / Nae-Dae Incursion: Interstellar 66 (1) GM Incursion: Troopers (2) Freedom's Finest #3: Corrupt To No Good (3) Rollover and GM point can all go to Rock!
-
The smaller man struggled with the fervor of genuine madness against Wildcat's pin but even without the enhanced strength of his powers there would have been little danger of him escaping. That didn't stop him from shouting abuse and slurs at his captor along with a sizable dose of largely incomprehensible ravings. Letting out a long breath, Jill shifted her force field from protecting the uncovered water supply to shoving the barrels of toxin into the far corner of the room with a broad wedge. "Dios. Quick moves, Kitty." Boots clomping against concrete, she walked around to stand in front of the two men wrestling on the floor, shaking her head before kneeling down and poking a glowing finger into the madman's forehead. With a groan he promptly passed out, drooling from the corner of his mouth. "Alright, now we call for help." Lifting the cuff of her crimson jacket to her mouth the masked medic spoke into a communicator tucked inside. "Vince, I'm going to need a bomb squad at my location and a couple squad cars if you can swing it. Mooks made a run for it but I have to keep an eye on things here."
-
"I already referenced Pollock whilst we spoke on the telephone!" Set objected, pursing his lips in genuine annoyance and placing his hands on his hips. "Truly, the derivative detritus which drips from your diseased delirium knows no dissolution. Mayhaps some restrains fashioned of ice, oh noble nymphaeaceae?" He kept a cool grey eye on Marvelous while inclining his head toward Temperance. He spared a moment to look both the elementalist and hologram over head to toe, irritated frown smoothing as he found them none the worse for wear. "Neither of you encountered much trouble, I should hope? I rather believe I took on the lesser task, matching what passes for 'wits' with yon dullard. Oh, another D word, fabulous!"
-
In some ways Trevor was very good at keeping busy. Certainly he had enough projects to fill his hours, between resuming nightly patrols, finishing up the last of his university practicum project and refamiliarizing himself with the trappings of a legacy for which he was now the sole custodian. Knowing every nook and cranny of the Manor's network of caverns felt urgent now, as did updating his mental inventory of the equipment and vehicles stored there. There were things tucked away down there that he'd never had cause to investigate before and which, objectively, would most likely never be relevant again that were no longer curios and curiosities but the representations of a grave responsibility. In that sense he was very, very bad at keeping busy. Always given to thinking things through from every angle and having trained himself to allow for multiple trains of thought at once there was precious little chance of actually occupying his mind. Walking from display case to crate to vault left him with plenty of time to think and the creative elements of his schoolwork had been done with months before, leaving only the crunching of numbers and physical assembly, tasks that required little of his immediate focus even if they were time consuming. He has time to examine in some detail how their home had changed, the new tenor of the intangibles. He learned to differentiate between Redbird's normal boisterousness and when the autonomic machine intelligence was actively trying to fill the silence with her shouts or fill empty space with her hologram. He refined his ability to know for which social events he could make excuses and when his absence would generate too much talk, when a bottle of wine and a note of apology referencing a frivolous ski trip was even better than a personal appearance. Mostly he thought about his grandfather, he thought about his parents and he thought about Erin. On the night of his class' graduation ceremony he stood by the front door, regarding the collection of potted flowers in his immaculate suit. His narrow toed dress hoes had been brought to a polished shine and for once his hair didn't look about a week past due for a trim. Straightening the black silk tie around his neck with one hand, he idly reached into his jacket pocket with the other and turned the contents over in his fingers.
-
Without a word Kimber let herself float just high enough into the air so that she could wrap one arm around the taller woman's shoulders and place her other hand gently behind Tarva's head, pulling her toward her chest. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut to keep herself from starting to cry again she slowly stroked impossibly black hair and made soft, comforting shushing sounds, thickened by the tightness in her throat. She'd meant what she'd said before but only now did it really sink in that there wasn't any grand gesture or perfectly worded encouragement that going to put things right. All she could do was be there, listen and hope that someday that might start to be enough. Luckily, she supposed she wasn't about to run out of time. She'd meant it when she'd said that Tarva was stuck with her, too. She didn't have it in her to give up on her friends.
-
Inwardly Kimber added another item to the list of things she'd promised herself she'd do to Steelgrave when she encountered him again, once she was prepared, once she was strong enough. Some of that unbridled hate spilled over her features before she was able to exhale and let it go for the time being to focus on what was more important. "I know," she agreed simply, expression mournful. What she'd sensed while in the Terminus had convinced her of the fundamental difference between natural death and what the Annihilists did to their victims. "That's not what I meant, though. Whatever happened, they were real. You remember them. They're part of your story and part of you, at least as much as the stuff that came after. So teach me about who they were?" She'd meant it to be a calm instruction but her voice lifted in pitch despite her, making it a request.
-
True to her word, Kimber said nothing while Tarva related her story, sinking down into a kneeling pose as the shadow priestess sat down. She refused to let go of the other woman's hand just yet, not entirely sure Tarva wouldn't race out of the tent at the first opportunity and choosing to ignore that she could probably slip through her immaterial fingers whenever she liked. She listened in attentive silence, not even daring to make murmurs of acknowledgement or sympathy. Only once they reached the point in the story that she already knew did she bite her lower lip, hesitating before haltingly prompting in a quiet voice that was barely more than a whisper, "Do... do you want to talk about... them? Blades and Beanpole?" She was terrified that she'd overstepped her bounds, reopened the worst of all Tarva's wounds at an already vulnerable moment but it seemed like what she needed to talk about more than anything else.
-
LaMarr was out the door after Harry a beat later, with considerably less acrobatic flourish but considerably more thunderous momentum. One arm stretched outward like a firing piston, he enveloped the costumed hunter's face in his palm and squeezed his finger around the other man's skull with the pressure of a tightening vice before angling downward to slam his target headfirst into the suburban lawn. The entire movement took only seconds and when the broad-shouldered civics teacher straightened back up to his full height he was holding the unconscious hunter off of the ground like a ragdoll. "Paige!" he bellowed back into the house even as he raised a hand to assure Harry that the immediate threat was dealt with, "Honey - the wife - something ain't right there!"
-
Wail Standard Action: Unarmed Attack vs Intruder; Charge +2: 1d20+10 21 Improved Grab: Opposed Grapple Check: 1d20+25 30 Move Action: Ready Interpose. So that's a DC 28 punch followed by an attempt to pin vs. 30 and getting ready to put himself in the way of any additional attacks.
-
"I don't know!" Kimber shot back hotly, chin jutting out defiantly as she refused to break eye contact with the taller woman or let go of her hand. "I usually don't know what I'm doing but I try anyway! Trying's all I've ever got!" Previously when Tarva has seen Kimber get this worked up over something the reaper had come to the surface a little: eyes like chips of ice, a mouth full of too many teeth, hair billowing backward. This time, though, it was the human side coming to the fore, the palate of blues looking more solid than the witch had ever seen without relying on illusions. "I do know I'm not going to fix anything by talking but I don't think you need fixing! Okay? I don't even have to talk, I can just listen. But I'm not letting you shut me out just because I'm a little harder to lie to than you thought!" She planted her feet in determination, even if the soles of her boots were still a few centimeter's above the tent's floor. "Seriously. I walk though walls, I get into everywhere. It's super annoying and you're stuck with me."
-
Bright red and shapeshifting says one thing to any Freedom City native: Grue. The shapeshifting aliens have tried to invade Earth more than once but they've always been beaten back, while a handful have actually stayed on Earth like the Freedom League member Pseudo. One of the more persistent Grue villains is the Meta-Grue, who has the combined powers of the Atom Family on top of his people's usual shapeshifting and telepathy; Jack of all Blades and Geckoman's fight with the Meta-Grue a few years back was widely televised and was briefly a bit of a sensation given how handily they took the alien down.
-
The masked figure reared back in surprise as Echo landed, gracefully putting several feet between them in a single bound. As he moved his hands shifted shape again, the fingers of the left extending into long, wicked talons while the right completely reformed itself into the barrel of a shotgun that merged weirdly into his long coat around the elbow. When he got a better look at the young woman he straightened and his hands quickly melted back to normal. "Oy gevalt bro-sis, you nearly gave this one a heart attack," he sighed, his voice tinged with a heavy German accent as he placed a hand on his chest in an exaggerated show of surprise. He turned the movement into a deep bow, rising with a lopsided that smile that would have been pretty charming if his features hadn't continued to shift from moment to moment, eye colour, cheekbones and nose refusing to pick a style and stick with it. "Howdy. This one is Jac-ack-ack-ack--" With a shudder he seemed to get himself under control and continued without acknowledging the lapse. "But you can call this one Jack, bubbala. Unless you're planning to get between this one and that varmint Bench, then wir müssen kämpfen, comprende?"
-
The scientist can't come close to beating that! He's pinned. Go ahead in-character.
-
"No!" Kimber blurted a moment before she screwed together her determination and rushed forward to catch Tarva's hand before the shadow witch could finish stepping out of the tent. "You caring is why it's so good you did survive!" she attempted clumsily, pressing her lips together in frustration when the sentiment came out clumsily. After what had just happened holding the shadow priestess' hand felt fraught but she squeezed anyway, desperate to make herself understood before the other woman could leave. "Bluebird told me more about the Annihilists, how they don't care about anything and they make other people the same way but with you they couldn't! You still care and that's-- it's just-- please don't go." Looking at Tarva with big, sad eyes of seawater green-blue she placed her other hand around the first, surrounding slim, pale digits. "Just stay. We can talk, talk about anything you want! Please."
-
Kimber's chin shot up from staring at her knees to meet Tarva's eyes as her hand moved from her mouth to her nose. "O-oh god, you're so scared and I want to hug you b-but--! Tarva, I swear, I swear, I'm not going to let them send you away or send you back or whatever you think might happen! That's what I meant, I wasn't going to let any of that happen no matter what, s-so you d-don't..." She took several rapid breaths, on the verge of hyperventilating despite not having actual lungs. The tears continued to stream down her face but she managed to get the quivering in her chin under control. "I do like you. I like your poetry, I like that you like to sing, I like that you took time to learn a bunch of Canadian songs before the trip. I like how you can look confident even when you're not. I like that you don't give up even when it would be a lot easier. A-and I like that you're really pretty, which I didn't really know I liked until recently but I guess I really like it, s-sometimes, anyway..." Her whole face had turned a dark azure by then but she maintained her momentum. "And you don't like me that way and that's fine! I'm a little em-motional right now, but it is! It's f-fine. Pretending that you do is so much worse. If it's not something we'd be... be sharing then I don't want it. I could never want that." The phantom wrapped her arms around her own shoulders and squeezed tightly, her voice taking on a weak veneer of her usual chipper cheer as she bottled up anything else she was feeling as tightly as possible. "I promise, you're still safe. If I'd been stronger you wouldn't have had to feel like this but I'm going to get stronger. I'm going to make it happen, just like you said. I'm going to be strong enough to protect everybody."
-
Kimber's eyes went wide and her mouth fell open as the robe disappeared but after a reflexive look in the direction the garment had fallen it was Tarva's face that had her full attention. What she found there had her shooting backward through the air to the other side of the tent, undisguised heartbreak etched into her own expression. "Oh-- oh, no, I..." One hand came up to cover her mouth while the other clutched at her stomach as though overcome by sudden nausea. Of course Tarva thought this was something that she had to do, Kimber had said as much to Indira on the plane, she couldn't believe that she'd still let this happen, hadn't fixed things properly before this could happen. "Nonononono... I t-told you that you didn't have to, ever have to, I did, but I let y-y-you..." The rest of the beleaguered sentence became unintelligible as tears filled the young undead woman's eyes and the words coming from her shaking head dissolved into a barely discernible rhythm of, "M'sorry, m'sorry, m's'sorry..."
-
"Well, I don't really know if..." Kimber began before losing her train of thought in favour of noticing how starkly the teeth in Tarva's smile contrasted with the pitch black of her... well, dress wasn't really the right word, but... At that point the poltergeist realized she'd been staring silently for long enough to be noticeable and simply slid backward through the air to make room in the doorway. "Mmhmm." Besides Kimber and Indira's bags packed full of supplied the tent was empty on the inside, with only the built-in lining on the floor making it at all preferable to the dirt and stones outside. "We didn't bring any sleeping bags or blankets or lanterns for in here," the ghost explained with some obvious distress, focusing on not letting any of her inherent chill spill out of her ethereal form as it had earlier. Thinking about earlier made the focusing especially challenging. "Sorry, this probably isn't any better! You don't have to stay up on my account, really."
-
"Oh, um, yes! Just a second." Being able to ignore gravity certainly made turning around inside a tent less cumbersome and Kimber had the door to the tent flung open almost immediately, her head sticking out. In a moment of self-conscious embarrassment she looked over her shoulder at the humerus sticking out of the top of her backpack and quickly folded the top flap over the bone with a telekinetic push. "Ah, mission successful!" she clarified with a bit of forced cheer, giving the shadow priestess a smile that reflected a tiny bit of pale moonlight. "I didn't wake you, did I? I-- um. I actually don't know if you even sleep, come to think of it. N-not that it's any of my business anyway! I just meant, that is, uh. ...hi?" She gave a small wave reflectively then clamped her mouth shut for long enough to hear whatever it was Tarva wanted to say.
-
In fact nearly two hours had passed by the time Kimber floated back into the clearing, shovels caked with dirt and other stains that were harder to identify in the dark of night bobbing up and down in the air behind her. The phantom's shoulders were sagging and weariness was etched across her face but levitating just above her outstretched hand was the unmistakeable yellow-white length of a human humerus. Letting the digging tools fall blade first into the ground so that they lodged themselves upright like little imitations of the trees surrounding them, she took a moment to compose herself. At some point she's subconsciously let her ectoplasmic clothes becomes rumpled and her hair disheveled to reflect how she was feeling. With a little exertion of willpower she schooled herself back into a more presentable appearance and surveyed the campsite. The campfire had been responsibly put out once it was no longer needed, the remaining charcoals cooling in the pit. Soft music coming from a tinny portable speaker mostly covered up the rustling from Eve and Becky's tent and Kimber was glad that the trip had been fully enjoyable for at least some of them. She doubted Indira had been able to sit still for too long with so much new territory to explore around them and if the sleepless Kinigosi was stalking through the woods there was no question where Avro had gotten to. There was no sign of Tarva but the black tent sent up between its red and blue twins was zipped up as surely as the other two. Not sure if she was disappointed or relieved, Kimber headed for the third tent and undid the double zipper on the door with a wave of her hand. Once she stowed the bone away she could try to track down Indira and Avro or maybe just enjoy the quiet for a while. Emotionally drained as she was, the latter sounded like the better plan.
-
The man in the labcoat got back up to his feet with a groan while Wildcat was busy with his underlings, holding the sides of his head less like someone nursing a concussion and more like someone trying to keep his brain from leaking out of his ears. "N-no! NO! I'm the one who sees, you blind fools! I'm the one who heard his voice, heeded the warnings!" Throwing his coat to the floor of the filtration plant he revealed what had blunted the effectiveness of the feral vigilante's knuckles: a vest strapped around his torso and over his shoulders and very nearly covered with long tan lumps connected to each other with bright red and blue wires. "The serpent has awoken!" the deranged man insisted as he fumbled for a small remote dangling from the vest. "I will make the city clean again!" Seeing the bomb, the paramilitary thugs shouted in surprise, quickly losing interest in attacking the heroes or whatever they'd been promised in return for their services and made a break for the exit, back the way Wildcat and Jill had come.
