Gizmo

"No, it's fine. It's just... embarrassing, mostly," Trevor admitted, leaning back in the booth. "When I first started dancing, the instructor paired me up with Maeg. You can't partner with just anyone; it won't work. And... look, you have to appreciate I was a thirteen year old boy who didn't socialize much normally. I'd hit a growth spurt so I was pretty much nothing but elbows, and the dancing made me feel... comfortable in my skin, I guess. Especially once my body started changing in other ways," he added, a tiny wisp of black smoke rising from his extended index finger. "Maeg was pretty much my best friend for a long time there, and I... thought..." he trailed off for a moment, grimacing and taking a long pull on his coffee to give himself a moment to compose himself.

Jack looked incredulously over at the rock slinging hero, casually blocking a blow from a clone out of the corner of his eye. "What? Seriously? Do you not know who I am?" "You're not as famous as you think, hermano!" Jill called out, creating a force field ramp to slide down to street level. "I'm totally famous," the swashbuckler insisted. "Jack of all Blades! Defeated the Meta-Grue downtown? Fought off the Crime League at the Liberty Dome? Any of this ringing a bell?" "Such a diva," his sister scoffed. "I'm Jill, Jill O'Cure."

As the patriotic paladin charged into the conflagration, figures in royal blue and deep crimson bounded acrobatically from the roof of a nearby deli. "Who was that?" the smaller of the pair asked, cocking an eyebrow over her bandanna mask. "Lady Liberty's very attractive, younger sister?" the elder sibling suggested as they sprinted toward the burning building. A wisp of the flame leapt from the bar to spin itself into a long, thin ribbon, solidifying into a blazing rapier as it reached his outstretched hand. The teenage girl pulled a face as her own hands went forward, a shimmering sphere of translucent blue energy blinking into being around them. "Classy, hermano." "Always, hermanita. Now let's go save some lives!" With that, Jack of all Blades and Jill O'Cure crashed through the front door.

"Don't want you getting anywhere near her," Trevor responded with vehement alarm. His expression almost immediately turned sheepish. "...which is absurd, because you'd demolish her in under six seconds. Sorry. Maeg is just... she's toxic." Even saying that, he couldn't help smiling in spite of himself. "Might still very well be the sweetest thing anyone's ever offered to do for me, though." Turning his hand so that their palms were facing and their fingers interlocked. "Glad things turned out this way, too."

"Wait, let me see," he cautioned, holding up a forestalling hand. Stepping closer, he gingerly examined the contained robot, his superhuman vision allowing him to easily pick out fine details. The design looked familiar, and further inspection confirmed his suspicions. "Talos." On their world, the ancient automaton was the sworn enemy of all humanity. Hopefully, that meant that on Anti-Earth... "Looks like the rebels found us."

Alright, Trevor makes an atuo-25 Sense Motive check on the bot, along with Craft [mechanical], Knowledge [streetwise] and Knowledge [technology], respectively. (1d20+15=30, 1d20+5=22, 1d20+5=7)

20 with Skill Mastery going to cut it?

"Ooh, geokinesis," Jill observed interestedly. "Look, if you're just going to make up words..." he brother responded as he swung down on his grapple to the street below, booting a pair of the clones in the head and setting down lightly on the street in the space cleared by their blinking out of existence. Still of the rooftop, the teenage girl rolled her eyes as a gesture caused a shimmering, translucent blue barrier to block a clone thrown trash bin. "He controls rocks with his mind," she called down. A flick of his wrist brought Jack's lighter into his hand and lit in one smooth motion, a blazing rapier forming there with the ease of practiced motion. "Well, I can see that." As ever more duplicates swarmed the street, he turned to the goggle wearing fighter. "If you're waiting for an invitation to break out the steel, pal..."

Trevor paused, an assertion on his lips that he was sure Erin could have taken Aaron with the home field advantage until she asked a question that proved just how much better she'd gotten to know him than nearly anyone else. "...I'm just guessing," he qualified unconvincingly, "but she must have been hiding her eye's secondary mutation for weeks." He reflexively adjusted is sunglasses, even in the nearly empty diner, making a swift gesture with his other hand. "It was just stupid social drama, obviously." He always felt ridiculous talking about trauma's to Erin; he pointedly refrained from digging into the details of her past, but it was clear their respective hardships wouldn't even be measured on the same scale. "Knowing it happened to someone else, my... sister, sort of, though... ngh." He gritted his teeth and adjusted his grip on his mug.

With a brief tic of hesitancy, Trevor nonchalantly slid into the same side of the booth as Erin, feeling quietly emboldened by the evening so far. "Some of the philosophical ramifications are staggering," the soft spoken young man agreed, looking down into his cup of black coffee. "Mostly I worry a little about Tricia," he admitted with a small frown. "I got the impression a few things might have been... harder on her than they were here."

On a rooftop nearby, a figure in royal blue stood watching the fight below, one leg propped jauntily on a brick outcropping while his greatcoat flapped in the breeze about his ankles. "Hey buddy, want a hand down there," the swashbuckler known as Jack of all Blades called, cupping his hands around his mouth. A coltish young woman in crimson appeared next to him, stepping closer to the edge of the roof to get a better look. "You're asking permission?" she observed with a raised eyebrow. "Some people can be very touchy about the team-up thing," Jack advised his sister. "Guy's got a sword, see? Little professional courtesy rarely goes amiss."

Lowering the hand, Trevor tipped his chin down, letting out a short, wry breath with a smile. "Think I could get used to being wrong like that," he told her drolly. "There's always that diner we went to the first time I took you out on the Night Cycle," he suggested, "since we're already out that way." That impromptu ride seemed an eternity ago, considering everything that had transpired since then.

"Definitely understand that," Trevor agreed. Privileged upbringing aside, the Night Cycle meant a lot more to him than most of his equipment or civilian possessions. Considering the question of destination, a bit of bemusement slid into his expression. "Nowhere specific, honestly. Just like being with you." The teen winced almost immediately, covering one side of his face with a hand. "Now that's why I don't say things out loud much," he noted, chagrined by the trite sentiment.

The black clad rider grunted again, adding, "Welcome. Try to stay out of trouble." His tone wasn't accusatory or pedantic, largely by virtue of a complete lack of emotional inflection in it's hollow echo. Even in the light of the street lamp, the matte finish of his costume and motorcycle made him a shadowy, indistinct figure, a wraith intense enough to frighten away other dangers. Waiting and watching until the petite woman had entered the apartment complex and closed the door behind her, Midnight pushed off from the curb and opened up the Night Cycle's engines, speeding off into the darkness of the night.

Satisfaction practically beamed through Trevor's reserved demeanor as he gave Erin a modest shrug. "Haven't done anything too fancy," he responded, "just tweaked what was already there." The young man wasn't accustomed to praise in general, and reflexive downplayed his accomplishments. Still, in this case it meant a little more to him than it might have coming from someone else. "Glad you like it," he admitted after a moment.

Grunting shortly in affirmation, Midnight started off in the indicated direction, the Night Cycle's whisper quiet engine making the acceleration seem more sudden than it actually was. With a passenger of questionable resilience, the daredevil driver stuck to the speed limit for once, maintaining a stony silence until they pulled up to address he'd been given. Remaining seated with one foot on the curb to steady the motorcycle, he half turned to look over his shoulder, waiting.

Gonna break out those silver knuckles again, slightly modified. Corrosion 3 (blessed silver knuckles, Flaw: Limited [Drain Toughness Only vs. Targets with Vulnerability or Weakness to Silver], Power Feats: Improved Critical 2, Incurable, Mighty) [10PP] That'll let him meet his Damage cap with Sneak Attack!

Midnight weighted the zombie's observations judiciously in his head. His inclination was to think about magic in terms of exotic technology, and he wasn't entirely clear why the presence of two styles of sorcery was so surprising. More like schools of martial arts, he mused, training implies commitment which implies division. If there were two distinct groups at work here, it radically changed the layout of the situation. "Fine. Let's move." Taking point, the black clad youth silently slipped into the shadows of the cave's mouth.

Ah, pop it on Jack, he needs the help more than M2 for this month!

Trevor grinned in the passenger seat as he tucked the sunglasses away again, recognizing the reaction he'd had the first time he started seeing what the vehicles in his grandfather's collection could really do. Erin's breathless laughter sent a vicarious thrill through him, unwritten with deeper emotions he didn't have names for. "Tch, your reflexes are better than mine, just need practice," he insisted. The pickup might not have had the same finesse as his preferred transportation, but it had a lot more space in its frame to play around with, opening up significant possibilities.

"May have to start referring to it as 'the Wandermobile'," Trevor warned in the interests of fairness, raising his hands in a helpless shrug. That late in the evening and far from the city center, there was barely any traffic to speak of, as the lean young man checked in the rearview mirror. "One sec." Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, he retrieved the sunglasses he was careful to always have on him when they left the campus and placed them ceremoniously on his face. "Hit it," he instructed in complete deadpan.

Trevor gave the athletic girl a sidelong glance. "Yeah?" The lanky youth settled a little more into the passenger seat, shoulders relaxing slightly as he watched yellow dashes disappear beneath the truck. "...cool." He wasn't usually one to ascribe labels to such things, but it felt surprisingly natural, an obvious progression. Silencing the spiteful, doubting whisper in his head, he let the calming rumble of the engine wash over him instead, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. "I like this truck, too."

"Well, it's a thought," Jill drawled serenely, "but I think the idea is to have adults mentor students, not the other way around." Jack clutched his chest in mock sorrow. "I see how it is. One minute it's all, 'brother dear,' but in front of the popular kids you're just too cool for ol' Jack." The swashbuckler sniffed stoically as though holding back tears. His sister rolled her eyes in response placing a gloved hand on each hip.

Question: if there's no light at all in the cave and the undead don't give off any heat, does that effectively neutralize Trevor's Super-Senses?

"Uh, Trinity, mostly," Ellie answered Acheville, eyes darting about the group, clearly a little overwhelmed by the welcome. "I ended up doing, well, triage at one of the bigger ones when all those giant monsters attacked. They weren't really checking credentials, so, y'know." The coltish girls hands fidgeted at her sides without her old ponytail to play with. Her brother gently knocked his shoulder into her's with a knowing half grin. "So. Movie. Your call, hermaita." She blinked, quickly regaining her confident demeanor. "Good thing, unless you all want to be stuck with nothing but Princess Bride and Errol Flynn until the end times." Jack crossed his arms with mock outrage. "They're classics for a reason." "Mmhmm," she rolled her eyes indulgently. "The Incredibles seems apropos, Monie. Wanna try out that force field ball with super speed things one of these days, anyway."