Gizmo

As he turned around to face her, Knightfall could see Hematite scowling even through his mask. "What the frell are you thinking?! We've still got no twipping idea what's going on in here, don't just jump in!" Shifting from foot to foot as the floor beneath him began to glow, the temperamental powerhouse clenched and unclenched his fists audibly at his sides. "You're not even wearing a full frelling mask! You do remember we're worried about some sort of infection, right?!" "Troy." Blackbird's hologram stepped froward from Hematite's shoulder and turned about to float in front of his face with her back to Knightfall, arms crossed and gaze imperious. "We have discussed these behavioural patterns. Desist." "What? Hey, that's not--" he began in a sputtering objection, raising one hand to point an accusatory finger at the autonomic machine intelligence's avatar. "Troy." Groaning loudly, Hematite ran a hand over his face. "Fine. Fine." Once Blackbird had stepped out of the way, he looked back to his extradimensional sibling. "Sorry, Knightfall. Let's just... figure this out and get out of here quickly. Pretty obvious where we're supposed to be going. Do me a favour and at least stay behind me, alright?" ***** Outside on the lawn, Daybreak looked upward to the window he'd jumped through, giving Tensile a thumbs up while listening over the commlink. "Nice shooting for an old guy! Is Hematite saying anything?" Hearing his twin's acronym of farewell he stood stock upright and hefted his hammer. "Wha-- Knightie! Did she just jump in one of those things? She totally did, didn't she! Well forget this noise!" Without further preamble, the black and gold clad young man was vaulting through one of the oily slicks hanging in the air where he'd destroyed one of the shadows, disappearing into the hazy parallel scene. "Daybreak--" Midnight objected, reaching out with one hand a beat too late to stop the impetuous time-traveler. Grating his teeth, Trevor scanned the pile of ruined fountain for any signs that the original intruder was rousing before turning to Mystery. "Do not even think about it." Looking back and forth between the past version of her father and the rift through which Daybreak had hopped, the teenaged psionic tapped the tips of her index fingers together indecisively, unsure if she could agree to the demand in good faith. "Um..."

Still waiting on Tsunami's IC post anyway, KD! However, in the meantime: Cobra Mech Toughness Save vs. DC 30.: 1d20+12 21 22 - Tsunami - Uninjured, 3HP 21 - Thoughtspeed - Uninjured, -5 Defense, 3HP 12 - Sekhmet - Uninjured 12 - Set - Uninjured, 3HP 12 - Cobra Mech - Bruised x6, Dazed, Blind, Deaf 11 - TNTeen - Uninjured, 3HP

"Impressive find," Midnight commented, the soft, toneless words coming through the filters of his mask with an eerie lack of inflection. Anything that old was a monumental discovery from the perspective of any archeologist or natural historian but for the young engineer it was the device's continued operation that was most impressive. To remain intact at all after the ravages of millennia was one thing but its energy efficiency would have to be near perfect to still be holding a charge. That suggested creators who were both extremely advanced technologically and whom might expect to still be around to use their tools after those millennia. Pulling out a small tablet computer, he pointed the glossy black band across its bevel toward the artifact and tapped away with the mildly conductive fingertips of his gloves. "Any signal shielding?" he inquired bluntly, a minute gesture toward the ceiling managing to indicate the entire structure by extension. If the power source was contacting its creators or whatever it was meant to be powering, he wanted more answers first.

"I'm on the Internet," Set objected with a frown, his voice a little strained as he struggled against the headlock Sekhmet had him pinned in, forcing him to bend almost horizontally from the waist. The goddess snorted, ignoring the hands trying to break her hold while she placed her free hand on her hip. "The point tis thereby proven, methinks." "Hilarious," Set drawled flatly, his head briefly taking on the narrower shape of his black furred pseudo-canine persona and slipping through her grip. Jumping back a step before she could catch him again, the godling shook out his brick red dreadlocks as he resumed fully human form. "Moving on, wolfskin belts be traditionally nothing but infernalism and Faustian bargains and so on but those are largely Germanic tales and truly everything be witches this and devils that there." He sniffed haughtily as he pulled out his smartphone once again; as a god of darkness and chaos he took some umbrage at the habit some storytellers made of associating practically everything with the so-called Prince of Lies. "Regardless, our young exhibitionist tis himself no more a magister than a bodybuilder. Hm... Mayhaps, though, you might tell us more of the '#beastdreams' hashed-tag... did we never get your name...?"

Jack of all Blades (V.I.N.C.E.) The Interceptor It’s 2:37:16 PM in Freedom City and the sun is high in the sky, shining though partly cloudy skies and heating things up a balmy 82° F, though with 48% humidity it feel more like 84°. I can tell you the wind is coming from the east at ten miles and hour, there’s a UV index of six and we’re still a couple degrees cooler here than we were this time last year. I could tell you all that and a heckuva lot more thanks to the digital meteorological instruments, historical databases and streaming weather reports at my proverbial fingertips. I’m the Mark V iteration networked computer entity but since that’s got all the style of socks and sandals you can call me Vince! Mr. Vince if you’re nasty, wink wink, nudge nudge. I can also tell you that this very picosecond my pal and server space landlord, Jack of all Blades, is bouncing off the top of a street lamp at the intersection of 46th and Foster, fighting something that looks more or less like an upright woolly mammoth in a renfaire costume. That’s pretty much just a normal Monday afternoon for Jackie boy, which is why he’s tackling the pachyderm on his own while the rest of the Interceptors deal with their own crises du jour. Well, I say ‘on his own’ but in a city with this many traffic cameras, ATMs and security feeds you’re never really alone. Which is a good thing since our boy’s got sort of one-track mind. We’ve been through some rough stuff since we met, Jack and me, and I’ve seen him really grow and change over the years but you put someone in front of him and he’ll still file them under ‘someone to protect’ or ‘someone to fight’ and won’t hold back on either case. That’s probably one of the reasons I like the guy so much. Under this winning personality I’m still software, after all, and nobody loves a binary distinction like an AI, lemme tell you. â€Hope you packed your trunk, ‘cause you’re going on a trip!†While I’m waxing poetic, Jack’s tangled the mammoth’s legs up with his grappling line and sent him tumbling end over end. I’d have probably gone with an Empire Strikes Back joke but then again I live on the Internet. I save a clip of it anyway and pack it away with the rest of his one-liners. It’s supposed to be for training purposes but honestly I’m working on a best-of supercut. I try not to throw around words like ‘epic’ but let’s call a rose a rose, right? The mammoth’s back on his feet and charging, shouting some junk about the coming elephant uprising. I mostly tune him out because even if he’s way to slow to catch Jack he’s still headed right up towards Charles and at his current speed a bus full of folks heading uptown along Monument. Luckily one of the first tricks I learned was how to play around with traffic signals. A four-way red light is going to cause a headache for some poor shmoe working for the city but nobody’s complaining when the super-powered brawl passes through the conveniently empty intersection. Now, unlike my swashbuckling swashbuddy, multitasking is pretty much my jam. I don’t have quite as much under the hood as I did before my original processors got blown all to hell but I’m not above borrowing a little bandwidth when the situation calls for it. That’s how I can tell you that while Jack is switching from a fire sword to one made out of whatever weird blue-green energy the mammoth just shot out of his nose - look, frankly all biology is at least a little gross but that’s still disgusting - there’s a group of teens back in the West End sneaking up on a convenience store, hoods up and at least one of them with his hand on the gun inside his jacket. Funny thing is its the same store where Jack threw down with that knucklehead with the energy whip, before we even met. Same guy’s running the place still, too, which tells you something about how stubborn West Enders are, I guess. More importantly I’ve got an angle from an electronics store across the street that lets me get a good enough look to pull up the teens’ drivers licenses and do a couple quick checks. None of them are squeaky clean but it’s all dumb kid stuff. Shoplifting, possession, trespassing on empty lots. I could have told you just from the way they're shaking they’ve never done anything like this before. Before they can so something monumentally stupid, I hijack the half-a-dozen TV screens in the window they’re walking past. I stick to the classics, black background with neon green code streaming past, sharp burst of static to get their attention. I keep my avatar a little shadowier than I usually like; the trench coat might be a bit much but the kid from the Centurion’s Sanctum would have approved, anyway. â€Now Paulie, shouldn’t you be in summer school right now? Those math grades aren’t going bring themselves up.†Pulling up high school transcripts might be an invasion of privacy, sure, but it’s for a good cause. Besides, their firewall is more a joke than the thing about the mammoth’s trunk. â€And Hui, your little sister’s birthday’s coming up, you think she wants to spend it with you in jail? Tut tut, young man.†I know, I know, what can I say? Information wants to be free! I’ve got something for the other two as well but the whole bunch are already running in the opposite direction fast as there can. The one with the gun tosses it in some bushes in a panic and I slip a little something into the local precinct’s duty roster so someone will know to swing by and confiscate it. While that’s going on the old guy behind the store counter hasn’t looked up from his newspaper and Jack’s posing with one boot on top of an unconscious elephant man. Like I said, I’m an AI, I like a good binary. In the real world, though, out there with all you wacky fleshbags with your laughter and tears and anger and love, well, there’s more than a little grey to go around. Those kids were maybe #CDCDCD, #B5B5B5 at the worst and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being an Interceptor it’s that sometimes a guy just needs a second chance. A police report pops up about a couple of the mammoth’s big-eared brothers causing a commotion over at the zoo. I hop off the screen near the convenience store and onto the ATM closest to Jack, straightening the lapels of my green blazer and slicking back my hair. â€Don’t get too comfy there, Jackie! Looks like we’ve got a whole pack o' 'derms to deal with! It’s day saving time!â€

"Oh, one minute, Lucy!" Kimber called, floating quickly over to the unmoving guards, tilting her head to one side as she looked them up and down. The phantom's pupils fade from view behind her domino mask, eyes turning to an icy blue-white. The omnipresent sense of death in the area was almost overwhelming but she focused specifically on the corpses in front of her. "Hello! Is anybody still in there?" Shifting her tattered reaper's cloak aside she revealed a sizable backpack that clearly hadn't been there before, its translucent blue shading matching the rest of her ephemeral form. A sizable Canadian flag was stitched proudly onto the bag. "We're tourists! Could you maybe give us some directions? We'd really appreciate it!"

The double-edged way Accolon phrased his ultimatum sat poorly with Trevor, who walked a few steps further into the room, placing his back to the camera streaming them to those watching outside and facing the displaced man impassively. "Hhn. Fatalistic." The word was soft and carefully spoken but there was a note of admonishment in his stance. "Enough of blame, enemies. Choices to make." His gaze burned though his sunglasses directly into the Frenchman's eyes, pitting the dark haired detective's considerable presence against Accolon's attempt to fixate on Erin. "Infinite worlds. Could search for one closest to yours. May be a Roland Accolon here. Could search for him." Shoulders squared and jaw set, there was very little of the unimposing socialite to be seen out of the camera's view. "Could ask if protecting others was a job or the right thing to do." Each syllable carried just as much weight as Accolon's recited prayers.

Hekatonkheires Toughness Save vs. DC 35.: 1d20+10 24 That's a second staggered status, which knocks him out! For fun: Toughness Save vs. DC 40.: 1d20+10 29

Hekatonkheires Intimidate Check vs. DC 25.: 1d20+17 35

Set In descending order of most likely to be relevant: Knowledge (Arcane Lore) check.: 1d20+15 29 Knowledge (History) check.: 1d20+10 18 Notice check.: 1d20+15 18 Gather Information (Well Informed) check.: 1d20+15 21

"So, what do you think we've, hnh, gotten ourselves into now?" Hematite asked nonchalantly, rolling one shoulder and breathing heavily through his mask's internal air supply as he tried to shake off the attacks he'd weathered from the faceless assassin. It wasn't simply a question of injuries; he felt as if someone had ripped his heart from his chest and put it back in upside down. He could hear Blackbird's breath in his ear as well, despite the autonomic machine intelligence's nonphysical nature. She felt what he did when their fiber sync was so high and it took some time for the Furion bloodlust to die down. On a normal day Troy might have given her a hard time about translating that into an unsteadiness in her auditory output but this time they had more important things to worry about. "The symbols..." she began, sensors in the suit feeding information onto the HUD. "Referential to the Cosmic Coil, the branching... haa... paths of all realities, all timelines." Hematite walked closer to one of the eerily white walls and peered at the pale green glow of the runes there. "So like jumping from our future to Earth-Oddly Chipper Cyborgs or Guns Guns Guns World?" he asked, frowning as he leaned forward and tried to make sense of what the suit and Blackbird were struggling to analyze. "No, these chart a path back, from the very tips of the highest branches down to the base of trunk. Interesting." Blackbird evidently felt recovered enough to allow her hologram to wink back into view over Hematite's shoulder, walking through the air as she followed the 'sentence' of the symbols. "This substance--" "Nanotech," Hematite interrupted, taking a startled step away from the wall before realizing that the floor beneath his feet was just as covered. "Has to be but the power requirements alone... If you were in control of this you could change any of the symbols on the fly, right? Make adjustments to the spell or algorithm or whatever. We're deep in 'sufficiently advanced technology' territory here." He glanced around, nerves on edge. "Starting to think this isn't really a punch it 'til it stops sort of situation." "You may assume I am registering a properly scandalized reaction to that suggestion."

Hematite Investigate check.: 1d20+10 12 Knowledge (Cosmology) check.: 1d20+10 27 Knowledge (Technology) check.: 1d20+10 28 Notice check.: 1d20+10 14 ...too be fair, he's had a rough day.

Trevor did not answer Blue Jay's question directly, instead pulling out a palm sided tablet computer from his jacket. With a few swift taps he brought forth a stream of information, eyes darting back and forth behind his sunglasses as he flicked from page to page, thread to thread, following up on crumbs of information, sifting through oceans of data and rotating the pieces of a three-dimensional puzzle in his mind. "Ville d'Ys? Saint Eligius. Hhn." Slipping the tablet away again he took long, even strides that carried him into Accolon's ward. "Patron of clockmakers." The words were soft but precise, enunciated so as to be perfectly clear without being clipped or harsh, drawing attention to the dark haired young man standing in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. "Strength. Accelerated healing. Some speed, likely. And temporal inertia." That last entry to the list of the powers Accolon had demonstrated was meant more for Erin, the term likely meaning little enough to anyone without their repeated exposure to reality altering powers and time-travel abuse. "Gifted abilities. You're a champion. Charged as a protector."

Alright, just covering the spread here, regarding Roland, his behaviour and any Earth-Prime counterpart or family he might have. Gather Information check.: 1d20+10 23 Investigate check.: 1d20+15 22 Knowledge (History) check.: 1d20+10 27 Knowledge (Streetwise) check.: 1d20+10 16 Notice check.: 1d20+15 31 Sense Motive check.: 1d20+15 32

Cobra Mech Toughness Save vs. DC 29.: 1d20+13 26 22 - Tsunami - Uninjured, 3HP 21 - Thoughtspeed - Uninjured, 3HP 12 - Sekhmet - Uninjured 12 - Set - Uninjured, 3HP 12 - Cobra Mech - Bruised x5, Blind, Deaf 11 - TNTeen - Uninjured, 3HP

The titan reacted predictably, taking a startled step back and shielding his face with a few dozen arms. When he lowered them he was greeted by the sight of a snarling lioness already leaping toward his head. Sekhmet mauled deep gashes in his cheek and shoulder before tumbling with feline grace down to the street behind him, leaving the giant with a goddess on one side and a dragon on the other. "Nrgh..." he sputtered, wiping blood away and shaking off the disorientation from the battering he'd received. "C'mon, what're you doin', playin' with me or what?" Sekhmet snorted derisively though her opponent's continued consciousness gave her pause. "Rrrr. I too tire of this farce."

"Strike him down, in my name," Ghost Girl commanded, her voice echoing imperially as she pointed toward the ice creature unaffected by her show of authority. With that said she raised both arms and disappeared in a blinding flash of light only to fade back into view next to Temperance, back in her usual, hooded form. With a broad wink to the elementalist, the poltergeist raised a hand, a slowly rotating sliver of jagged metal levitating above her open palm. "Sooner we play pin the shard on the giant the better, eh? C'mon!" Keeping close to the ground she sped off, her flight swerving around tree trunks and icy stalagmites on the the way toward the Heart.

Something in Tarva's tone jostled Ghost Girl from her transfixed staring at the fiery hair of the gigantic simulacrum. "Aw, don't worry so much! You just need a hug." Turning to her corporeal teammates, the phantom gestured significantly with her chin. "Somebody give her a hug. Everything'll be fine! Nobody's getting taken alive. You already reek of death, Tarva!" Kimber's tone was chipper and reassuring while something cold and calculating gleamed briefly in her eyes before subsiding. She didn't need to turn the full extent of her undead sensitivities toward the sorceress to notice the proverbial blood dripping from her hands. What she intended to do about that in the long term was difficult to predict. "So! Power duct it is, right?"

"Pfft, nerd," Daybreak scoffed at his twin sister's theatrical attack, even as he produced a small silver object from his belt and turned toward the shattered remains of the bay window. He spared a glance at Hematite's hazy form before making a snap decision and focusing on the shadowy creatures menacing Midnight and Mystery on the lawn below. "No way am I telling Gale we went back in time and I didn't get in any hammer time!" Striking the head of his hammer with the tuning fork-like object produced a pure, sweet chord of notes as the metal began to glow with light that reminded Erin of the Silver Tree. Tossing the fork aside, Daybreak raised a wrist and fired a grappling line built into his costume into the remaining window frame. "Alley-oop!" Sprinting forward the black and gold clad young man swung out into the air, releasing the line at the apex of his arc and letting the momentum carry him into a somersaulting spin accelerated by the weight of his weapon. "WahooOO! Welcome to the mosh pit!" he shouted in an exaggerated, heavy metal growl as he landed with a brutal two handed swing that tore through the closest demon like wet tissue paper. With practiced ease that belied the apparent recklessness of his tactics Daybreak kept the sledgehammer moving in a roundhouse spin that took out another of the things just as quickly. "Hey, nice landscaping, Mysty!"

Daybreak Move Action: Arrange Gadgets: Affects Insubstantial 2 (on sledgehammer) [2PP] (polarize Furion metal) Speed 1 (100' per Move Action) [1PP] + Super-Movement 1 (Swinging) [2PP] (grappling line) Standard Action: Charge Shadow Demon (Outside); Power Attack 2.: 1d20+10 25 That's a DC 29 Toughness Save, and with Takedown Attack 2 and Extended Reach, I'll throw these out just in case: Attack Shadow Demons (Outside); Power Attack 2.: 2#1d20+10 29 13 The first of those would be a critical hit thanks to Improved Critical 2, the second is probably a miss.

"Rift?" Hematite grunted in confusion as he pressed one hand to his stomach to help stem the wave the nausea that threatened to wash over him even as the effects of their attacker's sorcerous assault began to fade. The time traveler felt like he'd been dragged down a mile of bad road but the bizarre readings from the space the shadow creatures had occupied until moments before kept his attention focused. "Hnh. Shoulda figured this thing'd get weirder before it was over." Realizing that he was the only one present with anything approaching sealed life-support, Hematite let out a disgruntled huff before starting off toward the oily shimmer in the air. "Blackbird, button us up. Back in a minute, twips. Don't burn down the manor." Without further explanation he stepped through.

"Geai Bleue," Trevor greeted the teenager calmly with a shallow nod that carried the weight of a polite bow. The dark haired heir knew well enough to stay out of Erin's way as she hotly confronted Cleary, falling back to keep an eye on the situation as a whole. He didn't have any good answers concerning Accolon's predicament; for all their experience with alternate realities, parallel timelines and multiversal duplicates the harder he tried to understand the governing rules of such things the more the shifted like sand squeezed between fingers. Listening to the Claremont student's report, he made a faint murmur of understanding. "Hronos, Fast-Forward," he supplied, trusting the archer would fill in the gaps quickly enough. Given the flicker of expression on her face when she'd seen him walking behind Erin he could only assume she'd already made an intuitive leap regarding his identity. For all he knew she'd already seen him without his mask during the day long overlay of their world. As a refugee from the Terminus and one of the group rescued from the Curator's worldship he hoped Blue Jay harboured enough good will toward him to avoid taking advantage of that information.

27 - Knightfall - Uninjured 24 - Sojourner - Uninjured 24 - Wander - Injured x1, Bruised x1, 1HP 20 - Shadow Demons (Inside) x3 17 - Hematite - -5 Constitution, -2 Charisma 15 - Daybreak - Uninjured 15 - Tensile - Uninjured 14 - White Hunter 11 - Midnight - Uninjured, 3HP 10 - Shadow Demons (Outside) x3 - Uninjured 7 - Mystery - Uninjured

Cobra Mech Reflex Save vs. DC 21.: 1d20+3 12 22 - Tsunami - Uninjured, 3HP 21 - Thoughtspeed - Uninjured, 3HP 12 - Sekhmet - Uninjured 12 - Set - Uninjured, 3HP 12 - Cobra Mech - Bruised x4, Blind, Deaf 11 - TNTeen - Uninjured, 3HP

"Tis the thing about a quality cult," Set answered Tsunami's question aloud as he numbly hopped atop a nearby bench before stepping across it over to the top of a newspaper dispenser. "Established correctly they can easily continue for generation upon generation without any further upkeep. For all his many, many failings my elder self certainly knew how to stir up a zealot or two." As he spoke the godling began gesturing with his hands and in response dark, foreboding clouds began to gather overhead. Taking note, Sekhmet gave Set a curt nod of understanding marred by a sour expression that clearly communicated how annoyed she was to be following her charge's lead. Sprinting forward she transformed midstep into her lioness form, a tawny blur of lithe muscle that vaulted across the mech suit's limbs, leaving deep claw marks as she pinballed back and forth. Her trajectory ended with criscrossed mark on one of the armor's shoulders. Set snapped his fingers and as Sekhmet leapt away crimson lightning surged downward from the storm clouds, precisely striking the weakened metal, leaving a charred tear.