Gizmo
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The Ragin reeled from the solid blow, nearly topping over sideways from the upper body momentum as its rhinoceros-like legs stumbled to the side. It looked as though the momentum of the fight was swinging back around in the boys' favour until the beast's outline flared again, powered by some bottomless reservoir of preternaturally pure rage. It shook off its momentary stupor and reared back like a horse, its towering form rising even further over their heads. Chitin scrambled out of the way as its feet came down nearly on top of him, bouncing awkwardly against the ruined street in his armour as the shockwave reverberated like a huge bass drum beat. Kensei avoided the attack more gracefully, drawing their foe's attention as the more immediate threat.
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Ellie made a small sound of muted surprise at the transformation. "Right, magic. Well, that's handy. And it also brings us neatly back around to talking about you feeling uncomfortable even when you're trying to fit in with what's quote-unquote 'normal'." She gave Danica a small smirk and folded her arms, unwilling to be deterred from the topic any further. "I've got a daughter who's way less talkative than you, Mary Shelley. Can't deflect forever. Are you thinking there's things about yourself you'd want to change or is it more how people are treating you? I know it seems easier to just grin and bear it but for you especially that could mean toughing it out for a very long time."
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Giraffe Ragin Fiat: Clear Daze! Chitin gets an HP! Full Action: Stomp vs Kensei and Chitin! This is an Area effect so a DC 20 Reflex Save followed by a DC 25 Toughness Save! Of course both of our heroes have Evasion 2 so actually a DC 20 Toughness Save on a failed Reflex Save and no damage at all on a successful Reflex Save. Chitin Reflex Save vs DC 20: 1d20+6 11 Toughness Save vs DC 20: 1d20+5 6 Toughness Save vs DC 20, HP Reroll: 1d20+5 8 which becomes a 18, so still taking a bruise, ow! > 22 - Kensei - Uninjured, 2HP 18 - Chitin - Bruised x1, -2 Defense, 2HP 16 - Giraffe Ragin - Bruised x2
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"Guess we're testing top speeds today! Cyan!" Always close at hand, the light blue Robug hopped down from the awning over LentALL's front door to land on Chitin's shoulder as he started sprinting after Kensei. Rapidly toggling the chambers on his belt he threw out his arms while the belt's tinny voice announced, “Bush Cricket Instar! Hop to it!” Debris left in the Giraffe Ragin's wake was blown back away from the running teen by the gust of displaced air, his silhouette obscured briefly by the light pouring forth from the armour's pocket dimension. Before it had faded a blur launched down the street, prodigious leaps taking it from the street to a nearby wall mounted flagpole then the top of a street lamp and a second storey balcony. His final jump propelled him into an airborne kick, catching the monster directly in the side of its toothy head as it reared back to avoid colliding with Kensei. Chitin landed on the far side, the heel of his leading foot carving a shallow divot in the pavement as it absorbed his momentum. The cricket armour's cyan plating on the chest and legs caught the midday sunlight along with the now strawberry red eye pieces of his helmet as he turned to give his roommate a thumbs up. “Wasn't a hundred percent sure that'd work while I was running without tearing itself apart! Nice!"
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Chitin Move Action: Switch to Bush Cricket Instar! Standard Action: Charge Giraffe Ragin; Power Attack 2: 1d20+11+2-2 13 Hero Point: Charge Giraffe Ragin; PA 2, HP Reroll: 1d20+11+2-2 18 which becomes a 28! Giraffe Ragin Toughness Save vs DC 22: 1d20+10-1 16 22 - Kensei - Uninjured, 2HP 18 - Chitin - Uninjured, -2 Defense, 2HP > 16 - Giraffe Ragin - Bruised x2, Dazed
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26 - Hard Bargain - Uninjured, Demoralized, Feinted 25 - Thru - Bruised x1, Tricked 23 - Lou - Uninjured, 3HP 23 - Wadjet - Uninjured 23 - Lady Horus - Uninjured, 0HP 22 - Gremlin - Uninjured, 3HP 21 - U-CRZY - Uninjured 12 - Dr. Thorne - Uninjured, 3HP > 6 - Judex - Dazed, 0HP 5 - Meza - Bruised x1 @KnightDisciple Judex is up with a pending daze! Anything you'd like to do there?
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"Clever as ever," Winifred congratulated Merlin, giving Fang another squeeze before releasing the hound to enjoy her bribe before standing to take a seat in the booth. She let Raina keep the the outside and slid in on Riley's other side while giving Matt a look and audible hum that indicated she found his monosyllabic reply satisfactory and he should be tremendously grateful for her magnanimity. "My card has an asterisk next to my date of birth. Still officially older than you, young Master Smith," she teased. "Are we doing gifts, then?" She produced a slate grey envelope and slid it onto the table next to Raina's first glass, the witch's name written on it in flowing calligraphy using ink that did an excellent impression of thin lines of flame. "As someone only quite recently cleared to enjoy spirits in responsibly moderation, I'm not sure what to order. Suggestions for a poor, lost English girl, for old times' sake?"
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"Now this is the sort of project I miss seeing. Tragically few opportunities for spring-loaded anything these days. Fine work, Smith." Winifred fawned over the switchblade as Raina turned it over and demonstrated its workings until the sudden canine appearance stole her attention. "Fang!" She wrapped the hound in a big hug and scratched her enthusiastically behind the ears. "You know to leave poor Merlin alone; we need at least one sensible voice of reason at the table." Still half leaning overtop of Fang she looked over her bare shoulder to the newest familiar face. "Matthew." Her raised eyebrow suggested she was waiting for either an apology or an explanation but she couldn't keep her lips from quickly upward into a fond smile.
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"I shan't pretend I didn't fret on occasion but we all respected that you needed the time and space." It seemed best not to mention that Robin had had to persuade her once or twice against marching up to Raina's door to check on her after the extended trial. "Thank you, Smith. And wealthy enough to have a guest room if you were planning to do something absurd like sleep atop your motorcycle while you were in the city, yes," she told the rugged survivalist as she returned the hug, both of them considerably more comfortable with the physicality than they'd once have been. "How many times has he mentioned the 'gators' so far? I believe he feels a sort of spiritual kinship with them, it's really quire beautiful."
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"Sometime around 1850, as I recall," Winifred replied with a smirk, easily falling back into the familiar style of banter. Her lip colour was almost black with a subtle emerald undertone while the rest of her makeup softened or accentuated her sharp features in just the right way. She'd gotten a lot of lessons from the very best in the industry over the past few years, after all. "Although I suppose there was a moment a short while after than when someone insisted on helping me pick out a bra that fit properly. That likely didn't hurt my unfaltering, meteoric rise." She was still piete, especially next to the taller woman but there was noticeably more definition to the muscle under Raina's fingers and the small wedge of hip visible between the waist of her pants and the bottom edge of her top. Green eyes shone with amusement and a faint bit of colour rose to her cheeks while she waited for the blonde to finish her inspection. "It is tremendously good to see you, you know. Happy birthday."
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Enjoying the warm weather while it lasted Winfred Wei entered the bar with a recognizable clipped stride and cool expression but an outfit that was a significant departure from her high school wardrobe. A backless forest green halter left her sleeve tattoo on display, metallic ink catching the low light so that it looked like spun wire set into her skin. The chemical structural formula set into a music staff wound up from her wrist and over her shoulder. The space between had been filled in with flowers in warm bronzes, wrapping around the music staff like a trellis, reflected light flickering like embers the disappeared past the neckline of her top. She'd kept her black hair short, making no attempt to hide the jagged tears in the top curve of one ear, even drawing attention to it with a row of piercings. Loose off-white slacks flowed around sharp brown boots as she scanned the crowd imperiously. That look gave way to a pleased smile as she recognized the occupants of the back booth and headed in their direction.
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"That's one way to put it. The Curator dumped us there with all of our equipment, remember? Blue Jay and Beekeeper - not the one you're thinking of with the giant bees, this was a young guy in power armour - tried to shoot him out of the sky. Which, considering they thought he was a normal drone was pretty ballsy in retrospect. At the time it was, uh, 'tense'. Some less than family friendly language was exchanged, heh." She decided against clarifying that most of that language had come from her less charitable assessment of the the teens' judgement in the moment. "Once we sorted things out we found out we weren't the first ones to be dropped there. Quickstep - she was just a kid at the time, barely a teenager - she'd been there about a month and a half already, just trying to survive. Doc Stratos we ended up figuring had been there maybe more than a year? It was tough to keep track."
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"Okay, Miss A is maybe a bad example. She's very popular is what I'm saying!" Ellie waved away Danica's questions. "But yes, you've got the right idea. It's tough to have to keep things from people you otherwise trust but you have to think a couple of steps out, who you're protecting, who somebody else might tell, that sort of thing." She pause and regarded the high schooler with a vaguely apologetic look. "I get that you don't necessarily have the luxury of just putting on a mask. The cartoon jokes alone if you used a bandana would be the actual worst." Discussions of secret identities didn't seem more than tangentially useful to the girl with the tortoise shell.
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"Wander and I were, y'know, work friends and people I trusted trusted her and that's a bigger deal in the community than it maybe sounds like." She leaned back again in her chair and actually allowed herself a small smirk. "Everybody likes to play Fantasy Freedom League, right? If you could have anybody on a team or who would win in a fight, that sort of thing. I'll tell you right now, at the end of the world, in the ass-end of nowhere, up against who knows what there is nobody you should be picking over Wander. I'm serious, I don't care about flashier powers, bigger names, whatever. She's smart, she's absurdly tough, she always makes it out the other side and she doesn't leave anybody behind. The rest of us don't make it home without her there, end of story." Jill rubbed the back of her head ruefully. "I knew Harrier already, too. Friend of the family, you could say. Which was good because a couple of the other people there had about the reaction you'd expect to running into a heavy combat Omegadrone in, y'know, an already high stress situation. That part could have gone better."
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"So I wake up in the hospital, no idea how I got there, yeah. Remember going to sleep normally and then bam, here I am, full costume and gear but totally alone and it sound like the end of the world outside. First instinct is that I've got a concussion but I rule that out pretty quickly. Second instinct is to run directly toward the what sounds like a plane crash because, well." The masked heroine gestured to herself from top to bottom with both hands by way of explanation. "I run out the front door and it's just bones. Like a mass grave after scavengers got at it." She paused for a moment to inhale through her nose and exhale through her mouth. "But I also see Wander out there, heading in the same direction. As in toward the explosions because, well."
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"Like I said, literally just how hard he could push us before we broke down. Each of us woke up in a replica of somewhere that we'd recognize but... apocalyptic." Jill leaned forward a bit in her seat and interlaced her fingers. "Shelled out, on fire, empty except for the bones. Harrier thought it looked like the aftermath of a Terminus invasion and he doesn't do hyperbole." She shook her head, nose wrinkling in distaste as she relived those first terrifying moments. "It was bizarre to find out afterward that putting all of that together to mess with us wasn't even the main thing the Curator was doing. Even the robots were just a distraction, mostly. But creating a whole fake hellscape - and it turned out to not just be the city but a whole damn planet - was so easy for him, picking apart our memories to figure out what buttons to push was such an afterthought that I guess he was just like, 'might as well'. Like the devil finding time to come up with a special punishment for every little soul. I'm not even trying to be dramatic here, it's just the scale the Curator operated at."
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"Well, from my perspective it started when I woke up on the floor of a deserted hospital to the sound of explosions outside," Jill answered matter-of-factly, spreading her palms in a small shrug. She let out a quiet breath and caught herself; the point of this interview wasn't to be glib. "I think the first thing you actually need to understand is that the Curator is - was just plain mean. You've probably talked to a bunch of people about how he was driven by, like, pure curiosity or whatever and you expect a giant, ancient, space computer to be super logical but everything he did to us - the people who were replace, I mean - was... it was just..." She rolled her shoulders uncomfortably and grimaced. "It was the same sort of 'curiosity' as a kid with a magnifying glass burning ants. Because he could have just kept us sedated or in cold storage but he wanted to see how hard he could throw his new toys against the sidewalk before they broke."
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"I did take you away from sitting around your dorm in your pyjamas, true. I appreciate you shuffling your schedule for me." Ryder nodded along agreeably with Natalia's assertions. He said it so cheerfully it was hard to even interpret it as actual teasing. "Hm. Well, are we at a point yet where I can suggest going to my family's place without it being like a whole point of principle that you can't eat free food because poison or betrayal or whatever? Because after hanging out invisible on the ceiling for that long I am actually super hungry."
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Ellie waffled a hand back and forth in the air between them. "Not specifically but let's just say that the mask stuff is sort of a family affair and things get more complicated when somebody knowing your secret identity means they can figure out someone else's secret identity by association and it's never just yourself you're putting at risk. And, y'know, there's the intentionally ticking off violent criminals thing, it's a little different than if you're somebody everybody loves like Miss Americana or whoever." She reflexively traced and hourglass shape in the air with her hands as she said the name then realized who she was talking to and tried to play it off as another vague gesture for emphasis. "Well. Anyway. These days we've got a better support system. Anyone who comes for our family has historically not left with all their original teeth. Nice try changing the topic, by the way."
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"Why mess with perfection, sure," Jill joked just a little bit stiffly, craning her neck to give Kelsey better access to her jacket's collar. She nodded in thanks as the sound tech stepped away and resisted the urge to fiddle with the microphone or her mask. "I think I'm good whenever you are. Anything other than 'check one-two' for the sound check, yeah? Yeah, I've seen plays, I'm cultured." Pausing the deadpan stream-of-consciousness banter long enough for the filming crew to do their jobs the masked medic did her best to learn where to look and how loudly to speak before looking to Paige for the go-ahead.
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Jill followed Paige's lead and sat down opposite the host, rearranging herself a few times to try to find a sitting position that would look natural. Settling on one she let out a long breath and all of the restlessness seemed to abruptly leave her body language. Gymnast mode off, surgeon mode on. She gave Paige a quick nod and cocked an eyebrow. "Usually people are more worried about getting a word in edgewise. But yeah, sounds fine. I guess my question would be how graphic you want me to get? Some of the stuff on the Curator's ring world was... pretty dire. Related question: what's your show's policy on swearing?"
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The giraffe 'ragin' largely ignored Chitin's kick and rather than continuing to wheel about stomped its massive feet and threw its head back in a roar of racing ascending arpeggios. As it did its outline vibrated in time with the notes, peaking waves turning nearly into spikes. Its translucent yellow form grew brighter and denser, visibly gathering strength and shaking off some of the damage Kensei had inflicted upon it. Its knees bowed slightly for a moment before it launched itself over the swordsman's head like a show horse clearing a hurdle. The pavement cracked where it landed and the beast took off at a gallop, sending cars screeching out of the way as it looked for a more opportune target to vent its frustrations upon!
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"Sounds like a plan, Kensei!" Chitin flashed the other teen a thumbs up and bounded forward, taking the same path between the thing's rhino-like legs Utsuwa had but in reverse. He rolled out on the other side just as it was rearing around to face its first attacker and used newspaper box as a stepping stone to jump high into the air and deliver a windmill kick to its backside. "Hey, so it's like an electric rage demon, right? So it's a Ragin!" He pronounced it so as to rhyme with 'Raijin' and made jazz hands as he landed on the street in case the pun somehow hadn't been obvious. "Right? Get it?"
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Giraffe Ragin Standard Action: Regeneration, clearing one Bruise. Move Action: Gallop away at Speed 3 looking for an easier target to vent its frustrations upon! > 22 - Kensei - Uninjured, 2HP 18 - Chitin - Uninjured, 3HP 16 - Giraffe Ragin - Bruised x1
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Chitin Move Action: Acrobatic Bluff: 1d20+10-5 19 Standard Action: Attack Giraffe Ragin; Power Attack 2: 1d20+4 20 Giraffe Ragin Sense Motive vs DC 19: 1d20+2 13 Toughness Save vs DC 22: 1d20+10-2 23
