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
-
Initiative. (1d20+9=14) Is the Unicorn magical enough for Jack's Detect Magic to negate the Partial Concealment?
-
Midnight exhaled deeply enough that a wisp of inky mist seeped through his featureless mask into the air as he cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders briefly. Kneeling back down so that Singularity could see him from her pinned position, he unfastened his disguise once again. "Erin, look at me. Alright? We're trying to help you," he assured the frightened young woman in a steady, almost rhythmic voice, "but we need you to be brave and grown up and calm down now. Can you do that?"
-
"Eh, it's the classic sexy librarian set-up," Jack opined, sauntering into the warehouse with his impossible blade rested against his shoulder, somehow not burning the fabric or his greatcoat. "Tightly wound, repressed day job just means all that, heh... 'juice' is bottled up with nowhere to go." Casting about with his metahuman senses for a moment, he wrinkled his nose. "Gah, it's like eating cotton candy doused in Chanel No. 5. Maybe she was just looking to get- wait." The fencer brought his rapier down into a ready position, his body language sloughing off the feigned nonchalance. "...never mind, something's definitely hinky in Neverland."
-
"You could try to be a little more subtle, for an old woman's sake," Gina drawled good-naturedly at the heavy handed innuendo. "Don't be ridiculous, you're much too pretty to be old," Erik quipped, standing up to gather everyone's empty plates and carry them over to the sink. His mother snorted. "Speaking of being well trained..." "I try. Anyway, this doesn't have to be a time sink," he told Mara. "I do want to go over some basics first chance you get, but beyond that we can figure out whatever works. All kidding aside, I'd feel better knowing you've got every edge available out there." Although his tone remained light, his voice contained an obvious sincerity.
-
"Aw, I thought we'd made that clear, kiddo," Erik told Mara with a beatific smile. "You're not operating independently any more. You're part of the family! Which means getting dragged into a training room you don't want to be in. You rely too much on your tech," he critiqued with a glance toward her messenger bag. He hadn't actually seen inside it, but one costumed hero to another it wasn't hard to figure out what the young woman was keeping in there. "Sooner or later you'll get caught in a tight spot without it, and being able to throw down on your own will be handy." "Obnoxious though he's being about it," Ellie added pointedly, "he's not wrong. Look on the bright side: exercise clothes... working up a sweat... getting the blood pumping..." Under the table, one of her feet slow traced its way up her girlfriend's calf. Her brother pulled a face. "This is a lot less fun for me if you're not miserable."
-
"Ooh, yeah," Erik nodded with a broad wince. "Dressing up in an unusual outfit and fighting supervillains and evil aliens and assorted threats to the city. Pretty weird. I mean, who does that?" Ellie narrowed her eyes with a predatory look. "You realize that she now has full punching you privileges, right?" Her brother waved one hand unconcernedly. "Yeah, yeah. Speaking of which, though, saw that tussle you two got yourselves into at the restaurant on the news. Well, Vince saw it and recorded it for me. Nicely done." "We pretty much kicked huge butt, it's true," Ellie confirmed, looking quite pleased. "Of course," Erik cut in, "would have gone better if the martial artist hadn't nearly taken you out in one hit, hermanita. Guess who's running hand to hand drills in the Wreck Room this weekend?"
-
Skidding backward to avoid a falling chuck of soil, Midnight started toward the others and their scholarly evacuator. "Point taken." Grabbing onto Supercape's arm with his gauntleted hand, the black clad vigilante used the other to toss a trio of matte black egg-shaped devices behind him, thin rings around them lighting up in glowing red quarters as they cycled through a notably short countdown. "Now would be good," he noted flatly.
-
Erik choked on his orange juice, pounding on his chest with one fist as he coughed out, "Oh, snap." The socially uncertain inventor was evidently more comfortable with certain topics than he would have guessed; he felt vaguely proud of both her and his sister, though he suspected that he really didn't want to dwell on that general train of thought. "Well, it helps when you're raising good kids," Gina noted with a small but warm smile. "But thank you, dear." Ellie gave Mara's hand another squeeze. "And parental failings or not, you turned out pretty great," she reminded her girlfriend, "so that works out."
-
Notice check. (1d20+10=20)
-
Ellie grinned mischievously and knocked her foot lightly into Mara's leg. "Oh, you know you love it." "Huh, I'll bet," Erik snorted, leaning back in his chair. Off a look from his sister that could have peeled the paint from the kitchen walls, he responded with exaggerated innocence. "Whaaat?" "It's alright dear," Gina promised Mara with a weary smile. "I've built up a tolerance over the years." She gave her children a flatter look. "The way you would with small, frequent doses of poison."
-
Moving slowly and deliberately so that Singularity could see what he was doing, Midnight very lightly placed one glove atop the hand tugging on his sleeve. "Then we're going," he assured her simply, keeping his voice soft and level. Lifting his hand again, he looked to the rest of the group and nodded brusquely toward Supercape. "Sage, escort the Gravois family first. Erin, I need you to go with Wander and Edge, alright?" The request sounded much stranger coming from the taciturn young man than the clipped instruction. He lifted his illuminated gauntlet slightly. "I'm last through."
-
Ellie laughed at the play on words, giving Mara a warm grin. "Esa es mi muñequita; can always count on you for a math pun." "Mm, I can definitely see why you let her integer confidence," her brother quipped nonchalantly. "I took it as a good sine, yeah," the younger sibling agreed primly, rising to the unspoken challenge, "though we seem to be getting off on a tangent." "Dios, dame fuerza" Gina sighed, closing her eyes and taking a deep sip from her coffee mug.
-
"Hawt," Jack opined with an affected accent at Nick's explanation. As the group reached the warehouse and encountered the heavy lock, Jack stepped forward to get a closer look, tugging fussily at the hem of his greatcoat. "Huh. Brass. Figures. Well, clearly this is going to require delicacy. A subtle precision! Patience and restraint!" A tiny flame appeared in the fencer's left hand as he flipped his lighter between his fingers, the spark surging like a living serpent to his other hand even as he whipped in a diagonal slash with a sudden burst of speed. The padlock and chain clattered to the ground in several, red hot pieces, while Jack took a step back and gestured grandly. "Ladies first."
-
Propping the unconscious but steadily breathing security guard up against the wall, Jack laughed aloud at the interplay between the young couple, wincing and pressing a hand to his chest as he did, pulling it away slightly red and sticky. "Heh, well that's getting a bit ahead, right? She was just trying to kill me," the fencer pointed out, getting back to his feet and wiping his hand on his pants. "Really, there's every chance-- ah, who'm I kidding? I'm adorable. She just needs to get to know me."
-
Refastening his mask, Midnight let out a quiet breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as Supercape appeared. A part of the methodical youth had been planning all along for the possibility that they would be stranded on Anti-Earth long term, and having their ride home before them lifted a considerable amount of tension from his shoulders. The rest he'd release when they were firmly back on Earth-Prime, and the bridge was sealed behind them. ...at which point I can start worrying about the inevitable counter-attack.
-
Jack of all Blades (51) Double-Edged Blade (6) Interceptors: Planning for the Big Day (4) The Last Picture Show (8) Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (27) Manic Pixie Dream Girls (6) Vignette - Fifty-Two Pickup Midnight II (22) We'd All Go Down Together (22) Wail (23) Irresistible Force (9) Shadow Dance (14) Reputation Chart 20 Questions NPCs Jill O'Cure (55/2 = 27) Head Case (36) Girls, Interrupted (8) What the Doctor Ordered (10) Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1) Contributions Added Blueshift and Protectron to the Visual Guide.
-
"I have my moments," Erik confirmed with exaggerated modesty. After a pause, he continued more seriously, "Hey, you know I meant the 'freaky genius' bit as a good thing, right?" "It's true, his vocabulary is just severely limited," Ellie elaborated with a dry look. "Plus he considers the ability to do long division alone a staggering display of intellect." Her brother raised his hands in amused surrender. "Alright, alright, I was asking for that."
-
"The nerve, stealing your shtick like that!" Jack raged with mock ferocity, shaking his fist and giving Grimalkin a teasing look. He stopped short of giving Gabriel a hard time about his reaction to Lynn's display; the fencer didn't see much difference between the pixie's glamour and the white-clad hero's sonic nudging, himself, but he didn't feel the need to argue the point just yet. "So..." he drawled innocently to Nick as they started off, "think this is like a sex magic thing? I'm asking for purely tactical reason, of course."
-
Gina looked a little surprised by Mara's expression, but not displeased. "Heh. Thugs are always a superstitious bunch, especially in Freedom. Good for you for taking a bit of the city back." "You're always working on something to help," Ellie observed with a small, proud smile. "Anyway, we don't have to figure out a story this second, I was just thinking about it." "You met at a Christmas party," Erik supplied airily, without looking up from his plate. "Bam, done."
-
"Hmm, well that explains the refurbished warehouse, I suppose," Gina mused, pursing her lips slightly and looking from Mara to Ellie. "Certainly not the safest neighbourhood..." "Magic!" Ellie imitated drolly, letting her free hand light up with shimmering blue light for a moment. "Nothing we can't handle. Besides, Mara's convince the local criminal element that the space around her place is haunted or something. They won't go near it." Turning to her girlfriend she continued, "I mean a civvie story, too, in case someone asks out of costume."
-
Before Gina could interject, Erik cut her off. "Magic burger and fries," he reminded her. "I'm sure they're perfectly healthy, and she already said she doesn't eat it every day." "Hmph. 'Magic'," the elder Espadas scoffed. "You get that from your father, you know." Ellie tilted her head thoughtfully. "Hmm. We should probably come up with an alternate 'how we met' story, just in case," she suggested to Mara.
-
"Oh, hotel, naturally," Wail assured his hostess, placing one hand on his broad chest. "We were terribly gritty and down to earth that way." His expression fell almost imperceptibly as his thoughts trailed backward through time. "There were a lot of time-travelers about in the late eighties, you know, I suspect because they knew what was coming in the nineties. Well." Clearing his throat pointedly, he looked about. "You've done a remarkable job with the place."
-
"To be fair, that's not a guy who skips too many snacks, if you know what I mean," Erik pointed out, miming a rotund belly with both hands before giving a shrugging gesture indicate that he was simply putting that out there. Gina looked between the three young people, both eyebrows raised. "My goodness, I thought you were making that one up." "No, that was definitely one for the 'so strange it has to be true' column," Ellie noted with a shrug, squeezing Mara's hand back. "I think it turned out pretty well, though."
-
"Alternate dimension?" Wail asked by way of clarification, raising his eyebrows slightly behind his sunglasses. "Is that the new thing? In the seventies you could just about flip a coin between previously abandoned hotels and underwater domes. Honestly, it got to the point where folks'd try to differentiate their base. 'My dome is near the ice caps!' 'My dome has a miniature rainforest!'" He shook his head with a smile, remembering. "There was a brief fad in the late eighties for sticking your HQ a couple decades in the future, but the continuity was such a damn headache."
-
Ellie caught Mara's hand as she brushed her hair, intertwining their fingers before briefly leaning over to tap her forehead against the blonde's. "Told you it'd be fine," she grinned, subtly sliding her chair a little closer to her girlfriend. "Don't worry about it too much," Erik reassured their guest with a faint smirk. "You only really have to deal with us for holidays, birthdays, that sort of thing." "Just don't forget to eat," Gina cut in sternly, indicating the remain tamales on Mara's plate. "Honestly, I'm going to make sure the lot of you take care of yourselves if it kills you. You made some extras for her to take back with her?" "Wrapped up in the fridge," Erik sighed with a slight snort, shrugging in defense as his mother brandished a fork at his own plate.
