Gizmo

Letting his cheek rest against auburn hair, Trevor took a long, slow breath before making a soft sound of agreement. "Mmh. I think I'm okay with that," he decided. "Not everyone understanding. So long as you do, and I can do the same for you." The youth wasn't sure he had the words to properly articulate what he was feeling, but he did know it felt good; better, perhaps, than any other feeling that sprung readily to mind. "Heh. Have to be careful, or you'll have me actually looking forward to birthdays."

Smiling broadly enough to show both rows of teeth, Trevor touched his forehead lightly to Erin's and slipped his hands about her as if preparing to dance. "I don't know how it is you understand me so well," he told her, his resonant baritone betraying more emotion than usual, "but I love it." Rocking back and forth slightly to silent music, the young man managed to widen his smile even further. "And I love you."

Trevor was silent for several long moments as his eyes traced the lines of the painting, fingers not quite touching the glass before rising to rub his jawline. Opening his mouth, he managed to clear his throat thickly before closing his mouth again. When he finally spoke, it was in a soft, reverent tone. "Erin, this is... I don't know what to say," he admitted. Setting it down very carefully next to him on the bed, he rose and stepped over to take her hand. "It's wonderful. I... Thank you."

Trevor grinned as he let the day's earlier frustration settle to the back of his mind. "No, no you don't." He blinked once as Erin swung the sizable package into view before accepting it with both hand, unsure how to balance it's weight. "Wow, uh... big," he noted, making a small note of amusement at the completely unnecessary observation. Sitting down on the foot of the bed, he carefully peeled off the tape to unwrap the present with as few rips as possible, an unconscious habit developed over year of taking things apart and putting them back together.

"Heh, thanks." Returning the kiss, Trevor sauntered back into the room with a shrug. "Oh, fine. You know me; I'd forget it even was my birthday if nobody reminded me." Retrieving the phone from the bed, he carried it over to one of his desks, placing it in its recharging dock. "Had a thirty second conversation with my father, and a somewhat longer if one-sided one with my mother. She suggests I 'try to be a little less strange' to avoid 'scaring this one off'." He offered Erin a wry look. "Didn't have the heart to argue the point."

Straightening abruptly at the knock, Trevor looked about the room with a slight wince before jumping up to hastily toss a few strewn clothes into a tidier pile and shove the disassembled remains of a blender against the wall. Deciding it was about as good as it was going to get, he stepped swiftly to the door and opened it. His slight frown turned into a more visible smile as he saw Erin. "Hey. C'mon in," he invited stepping back from the doorway. "Sorry about the mess."

Trevor Hunter paced slowly back and forth across the length of his dorm room, one hand holding a cellphone to his ear while the other rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Mmh. Yes, the transfer went through without issue. Thank you." Listening to the person on the other end of the line, he paused to tidy up some of the mechanical parts strewn about the floor. "No. Was hoping - Of course. Let you go, then. Goodbye." Throughout the terse conversation, his tone remained level and almost without inflection. Only after he thumbed the screen to end the call did the dark haired young man sigh, sitting down on the end of his bed.

Erin felt a small smile pull at Trevor's mouth as he returned the kiss. "Have my moments," he allowed with wry modesty as they headed toward the school's garage. As promised, the back of the blue pickup had been laden with a stack of thick, folded blankets ranging from soft to insulated camping gear, along with a large covered basket with a pair of stainless steel thermoses protruding from one end. The self-inflating mattress and waterproof tarp, on the other hand, may have suggested a certain level of over-preparation.

"Thought it might." Never one to be caught without a contingency plan, Trevor had naturally made standing reservations at a handful of reputable restaurants around the city as well, but gratifyingly his first instinct had proven to be correct. Spending the evening in a crowded establishment hadn't held much in the way of appeal. Standing up himself, he wrapped his free arm around Erin's waist with a small smile. "Packed a bit of a basket, too, if you're hungry."

Trevor shared Mark's bemusement at the musician's sudden attempt at conversation, but was less subtle about hiding his suddenly stonily impassive expression, his beaten black fedora seeming to tilt a little further down over his sunglasses largely of it's own accord. "We're not troubled," he responded in a quiet, toneless voice, crossing his arms. The young man appreciated the offered out, but he wasn't about to leave Mark high and dry. Fortunately, if his gregarious friend was a master of conversation, the heir to the Hunter estate was a master of avoiding conversation.

"Heh," Trevor breathed with muted amusement. "Well, let's not underestimate how much I enjoy formulating battle plans with you," the young man admitted dryly, reaching out to offer Erin his hand. "That said... wasn't sure how much of an event you wanted to make of it, but there are a couple blankets and thermoses waiting in the back of your truck." With a light cough, he shrugged nonchalantly. "Supposed to be a clear night. Could drive a ways out from the light pollution..."

"Of course," Trevor nodded immediately. Psionic blockers tended to be only marginally effective against upper tier telepaths, but they could still make the difference between instant domination and being able to put up a fight. "Should bring the earrings I gave you in Dakana, too." The memory caused him to smile reflexively, and reminded him of the occasion before they'd been distracted. Glancing in Mark's direction he cleared his throat lightly. "Well. Won't get everything figured out tonight."

"Ha, I didn't even know they'd rereleased The Court Jester!" Erik laughed, looking through the stack of DVDs. The shapeshifter had been spot on in discerning a certain genre preference amongst his movie collection. "These are fantastic, Lynn, you really outdid yourself." Trying on the vest, Ellie beamed. "Okay, shopping as me is so morbidly sweet," the teenager admitted as she accessed the fit of the garment and found it to be excellent indeed. "This is so right up my alley, too." After a moment's hesitation, she gave the older woman a brief hug before reclaiming her seat. Leaving the vest on, she balanced the hat from Billy carefully in her hands. "I've got the perfect spot for this, too, on the shelf next to some of my texts. Awesome." Her brother was quiet for a few moments as he held the sword with similar reverence, testing its balance and inspecting its length with the seasoned eye of an expert. "Damn, Bill, this is some piece of work," he commended, leaving it at that. There was little need for further words between the two weapons experts. When Mona revealed her paintings, both siblings offered impressed commentary, with the elder striking up a pose to match the one from his portrait. "We need to set these up gallery style downstairs," he suggested. "Total class." "I'm always saying there aren't enough hours in the day," Ellie admitted looking over Eli's offering with fascination. "Still not hugging you, though," she smirked as she reached over to muss the blond's hair before moving to retrieve the remaining gifts from under the tree. "I didn't really expect these to still be there when we went back for them, but..." she admitted as she handed them out. The clink of glass on glass revealed the contents of Bill's gift before the paper had been removed: six broad bottles in a cardboad tray. "Remember Mac, bartender from that place we, heh, met the FCC Firebirds? He started up his own microbrewery on the side, and it turns out it's basically fantastic, so." Erik had been back to the bar a few times, often enough to have been subjected to Mac's unfortunate first attempt, and could honestly say the improvement was a clear as night and day. "These were my idea," the younger of the pair noted as she handed Lynn her present. Beneath the paper was a stack of eight storybooks featuring an assortment of fairies and pixies. "They had one of them in the children's ward, and I found out it was part of a series, so..." The young woman shrugged briefly, obviously a little embarrassed by the sentiment. "I thought is they were a little girly, which probably mean's they're perfect," Erik drawled as he waited for Eli to finish unwrapping his gift. Inside were that month's issues of both a popular science periodical and a collection of short science fiction stories, along with cards explaining that each for the first of a year's subscription. "They've got all of these online subscriptions now, but we figured you can probably flick through pages way faster than browser pages load," the swordsman explained. "The first one's probably more useful, but the second one's to remind you not to grow up too much, huh? It'd make me look bad in comparison." Mona was presented with what turned out to be a photo album. Inside were a number of shots from years ago, featuring much younger versions of both the Espadas siblings and their then babysitter. Towards the back of the album were several more recent shots, many taken in the very room they were sitting in. "Our mom found a bunch of those cleaning up a couple months back," Ellie told her, looking over the statuesque paragons elbow, "and we hunted down the rest once we had the idea. I had no idea how often mi hermano ran around without pants on..." "I was six!" Erik protested, although he quickly fell into chagrined laughter. Doktor Archeville's parcel was revealed to be a study white apron stitched with the phrase 'Küssen Der Koch' in black, red and gold letters. "I was actually worried that one was kinda bawdy until Ellie translated it for me," the swordsman admitted with another chuckle. The material was thick enough that it could probably be used for more extreme applications of chemistry than cooking, which had seemed appropriate, since for the good Doktor, that line might be fairly blurred. Finally, Erik produced a trio of CDs for Vince, featuring short musical stings and sound effects intended for television and radio talk shows. "There's a bunch of stuff on there," he promised, listing off a few of the tracks. "Wahn-wahn-wahn things and toilet flushes and like a half dozen different gong sounds." Popping the first disc into one of the stereos wired into the AI's systems, he regarded their adopted family with an easy grin. "Merry Christmas, guys."

Jack planted his face in both his hands with a long groan. "Curl, buddy, you are freaking killing me over here." At the very least, he was quickly beginning to appreciate Beeatriz' frustration with her fellow fire-breather. "Alright, I'm going to try to break this down even more," he sighed after a moment to compose himself. "Sick flying stunts might make you look special, but the goal of romance is to make the lady feel special, see? The first part gets her attention, but after that, it's all on romance."

"Hrm..." Trevor's brow furrowed at Mark's question. "Yes. Getting stronger, too, but Alex has proven surprisingly... observant, even without the aid of her powers. Have to assume Pathos is more so. Certainly has more to fear." Working with Eve had given him a better idea of the specific parameters of his odd resistance to extra sensory perception and mental assaults, even as the petite French gymnast had learned to work around it. Assuming The Blank's mutancy mirrored his own closely enough, it wouldn't surprise him to learn that Pathos had her own countermeasures in place. Whether or not those would work on Trevor personally... there were too many unknowns for his liking by far.

"Man, this whole caste system thing you guys got going on is bonkers," Jack assessed flatly before realizing that the brusque judgment was potentially terribly insulting. "I mean, I get that, y'know, you're talented at different stuff, and that's cool and all, but you kinda keep using it as an excuse." Having committed himself at this point, he sat up to better address both Beeatriz and Curl-bee. "You're all, 'I don't need to set a good example, that's the workers' job' and 'no point trying to reason with drones, they're not built for it'. But seriously, we are having a conversation right now and I don't care what species you are, your dad makes up half of who you are whether either of you like it or not."

Jill accepted the cheat card from Grim but placed it face down in front of her without much of a glance as she occupied herself throughout Fusion's explanation of the game's rules by surreptitiously sliding her leg under the table to brush against Dragonfly's. Although her brother had somewhat downplayed the spade themed element to his heroic identity since the showdown with Jakken Staff and his followers, and Jill herself had never made much public acknowledgment that she technically held the position of Jack of Coins, there was no denying a more than passing familiarity with card games. Whether that was some inherited predisposition or the result of growing up in a competitive though close family was hard to say. "You wanna just make up some chips, Grim?" she suggested when the topic of betting came up.

Jack of all Blades (69) A Very Interceptors Christmas (5) Science of Stabpunching 201 (14) The Unearthly Girl (13) BeeFFs (29) Double-Edged Blade (8) February 2011 Vignette Midnight II (114) Hunter In The Forest (3) Somewhere That's Green (4) The Sun Shines Night And Day (34) Worlds Enough And Time (20) Certain Flaws (8) Love Is All You Need (17) Another Sunrise (28) February 2011 Vignette NPCs (64/2 = 32) Jill O'Cure Visiting Hours (2/2) All-Access Pass (44/2) Certain Flaws (7/2) Place Your Bets, Ladies! (10/2) Blaise O'Glory Eighty-Eight Miles Per Hour (1/2) GM (3/2 = 1.5) Double-Edged Blade (3/2) Contributions Visual Guide and Young Paragons

Trevor looked a Mark silently for a moment, giving the reality warper time to fully explain his proposal. Gradually and with supreme subtlety, a new expression pulled at his mouth. It lacked the curvature to be called a smile or a frown, more akin to a carefully contained baring of teeth. After another beat, the young man raised and extended a fist toward Mark, knuckles upward. "Perfect," he commended. He knew The Blank would have layers of contingency plans in place, but the sheer scope and magnitude his friend was suggesting would keep the white clad sociopath busy.

"Singularity is not Erin," Trevor spoke up abruptly, though his tone remained measured and low. "The Blank isn't me. Can't keep thinking of them as versions of ourselves." The young man's expression was grim as he folded on hand over his other fist and rested his chin atop them. "Every world we visit, that's what gets us into trouble. There are commonalities, can use that, but they're distinct beings." He looked between Erin and Mark. "We do this because Singularity is a person who needs our help. Nothing else."

Trevor shook his head a little at the card Mark handed him, but allowed himself a small smile. Saccharine though the probability controller's sentiments could be, it was hard not to be won over by the sincerity and lack of guile behind them. None of which stopped him from being by far the most powerful being in the room. "We're going to need him there," he commented softly to Erin. As much as she was still upset about Mark healing Hex during their last encounter, by that very virtue he'd hopefully keep them from crossing any of the lines that seemed so suddenly burred on Anti-Earth.

Blue sparks of electricity ripped violently over the robotic drones, but evidently UtiliTek's designs had included EMP shielding, as only one of the towering automatons menacing Geckoman fell with a great chatter and creak of metal. Oddly, the Freebooter seemed somehow invigorated by the attack, the futuristic monocle covering one eye glowing for a moment. "Haha, yes, you've certainly got me shaking in my custom, flared cuff leather boots, girlie!" the piratical plunderer laughed aloud. Coming up from the crouch he'd dropped into to avoid Miss Americana's beams, Jack of all Blades smirked broadly. "Dios, so this guy's shtick is he's like me only a huge nerd?" "Phaw, more like I've actually got two brain cel-" the Freebooter began with smug contempt before Jack chimed in again, interrupting him. "Nerd!" "Now hold on-" "Neeerd." The fencer turned his attention back to Grasscutter's display case only to find it alarmingly empty. Instead, the deadly blade rested in the hand of a young woman in a stylized red and gold outfit, loose pants belted tightly about her waist and a red mask adorned with a triangular emblem concealing her face. The costume's scheme left little doubt as to which group she was affiliated with, and the intricately engraved katana in her other hand similarly made clear her intent as she silently took a swipe at Jack, forcing him to slide backward a step. Narrowly avoiding the blow, he narrowed his eyes, suddenly all business as strong thrust of energy rapier knocked Grasscutter out of her grip to the floor. Undaunted, the sudden arrival gestured with her now free hand as a tattoo on her forearm seemed to melt away and reform as a very real wakizashi. "Well, hot damn," Jack noted with a respectful tilt of his chin that failed to match his grin.

A new challenger approaches! Initiative. (1d20+9=18) Crimson Katana Move Action: Snag the Grasscutter! Standard Action: Attack Jack of all Blades. (1d20+14=27) Jack of all Blades Move Action: Auto-36 Feint vs. Freebooter. [Bluff vs. DC 36. (1d20+16=24)] Free Action: Set-Up Miss Americana. Standard Action: Disarm, Power Attack 5 vs. Crimson Katana. (1d20+15=27) Opposed Check: Opposed Check. (1d20+15=29) vs. Opposed Check. (1d20+2=17) The Grasscutter is now on the floor! 19 - Spellbound - Uninjured - Extra Effort 18 - Crimson Katana - Uninjured 17 - Jack of all Blades - Uninjured - 5HP 16 - Geckoman - Uninjured - 3HP 16 - Security Guards - x1 10 - Freebooter - Uninjured - Feinted Against Miss A 3 - Robots x5 3 - Katanarchists - x13 3 - Miss Americana - Uninjured - 3HP

"Dios." Finally sitting down, Jack reclined on the massive insect's back, supporting himself on his forearms. "Alright, Curl, follow my logic, here. You're trying to impress a female, yeah? So if romance if for females, guess who else it's important to?" After a beat, the fencer eaborated, "You, is what I'm getting at, comprende? And yeah, you probably are going to look foolish." Jack broad grin was lopsided and cocky. "The trick to romance is looking so foolish it wraps back around to looking awesome instead."

Robots #1-6 Reflex Save vs. DC 18. (1d20+2=9, 1d20+2=9, 1d20+2=7, 1d20+2=15, 1d20+2=17, 1d20+2=5) Reflex Save vs. DC 18 Drain. (1d20+2=13, 1d20+2=13, 1d20+2=14, 1d20+2=3, 1d20+2=18, 1d20+2=18) Robot # Toughness Impervious 1 +14 9 2 +14 9 3 +14 10 4 +9 4 5 +16 12 6 +16 12 Toughness Save vs. DC23. (1d20+9=11) #4 is Zap'd! Freebooter Reflex Save vs. DC18. (1d20+8=13) Reflex Save vs. DC18 Drain. (1d20+8=26) Toughness Save vs. DC23 - 4 Absorption = 19. (1d20+8=27)