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
-
Ellie paced back and forth across her brother's living room, trying to balance burning off nervous energy with remaining quiet enough to avoid waking her nieces and nephew. There hadn't been much debate over who should stay behind to watch over them, not given the protective nature of her powers. Leaving her there without backup had been a point of more contention but she'd stubbornly insisted; the team needed all the muscle they could muster if they were going to catch their creepy antagonist off-guard and shut him down quickly and between her mother and Vince she wasn't exactly alone. Besides, Talya's friends should have been on their way by then in theory, all of them experienced and capable. That didn't make the near silence of the apartment any less unnerving, nor the thought that a mind controller could theoretically send anyone to attack them. Vince wasn't even providing his usual commentary to go along with the displayed security feeds, 'lost in thought' as he devoted most of his processing power to things other than making conversation. The young medic ran a hand through her hair and let out a soft sigh, trying not think about what she would do if any of the people on their way had fallen under the Major's control because that line of thought clearly went nowhere pleasant.
-
Set's entire rippled and cracked like the surface of a frozen lake broken by the fall of a boulder. Shaggy black fur and glossy ruby scales sprouted and fell away to be replaced by leathery green carapace and coppery feathers. Too many limbs, too many eyes, too many teeth. A sound escaped the shapeshifter's throat - throats - throat that was more surprised than pained, unsure if it was a growl or hiss or screech. The riot of forms stopped after no more than a heartbeat and once again human by all appearances the godling collapsed against the towel, dazed. "Tis unfortunate for him," she observed absently, making no immediate move to take Huang's hand. "He ought to see someone about that. Unrelated, how many legs do I have? I wish to say... two? Two seems as though tis the correct number."
-
Jack of all Blades / Jill O'Cure (22) The Nothing From Coming For You (1) Interceptors: Sounds of Silence (1) Turned Every Witch Way (20) Midnight II (1) You May Not Believe In Me (1) Ghost Girl (2) Horrowshow (1) The Nothing From Coming For You (1) Reagent / The Alkahest (8) Quarrel in the Quarry (4) Interceptors: Handclap (1) Pop Quiz: Or Are You Deceived? (3) Lou Lubrano (2) Knock on the Door Job (2) Rollover and Ref Point can go to Lou, thanks!
-
Midnight II Toughness Save vs DC 32: 1d20+12 21 Toughness Save vs DC 32, HP Reroll: 1d20+12 26 Woof, still dazed.
-
Reagent Bluff Check: 1d20+10 12 Wah wah. She'll use Skill Mastery on Knowledge [Physical Sciences] and Craft [Chemical] to get 30 on each and look for anything behind the bar she can use to her advantage.
-
ic (IC) Pop Quiz: Or Are You Deceived?
Gizmo replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Grenville and Ashton
Pushing herself into a sitting position with a pained groan Winifred looked about her cell blearily, struggling to orient herself. The wailing pulled at her already frayed nerves, making it difficult to concentrate or make sense of where she was. She focused on the tiles on the walls first, piecing together what had happened at the show. They'd been incapacitated and she was being held prisoner. Matthew wasn't there with her, she needed to find him. Who's baby was that? Why was there a baby in the cell? What had that horrible whistle done, how that worked? All those people at the club...! The teenager reared up, shooting unsteadily to her feet and nearly toppling over again, stumbling until she found her balance. She recognized the twisted reflection in the adjacent cell now, bloody and feral. "Oh, Lord. 'Feral,'" she gasped with a shudder, retreating until her back was pressed against the far wall. She thought back to seeing Smith side by side with his double, the same face having lived a different life, thought back to Mrs. Faretti's class explaining the nature of parallel worlds. She remembered the muttered fragments of information her friend had shared about where he'd come from and the sort of creatures he'd trained to fight. "Woodsman's world. That's the me from... No no no!" -
Let me know when there's an opportune time for Fred to duck behind the bar and start mixing up something helpful.
-
"You can always keep pretending," Erik suggested, his voice light in a way that served to assure Raina he too was ready to move on from heavier topics for the time being. "I think Min enjoys feeling like she's pulling a fast one to get you to eat better anyway or she would have asked you herself." Some of that might have been from dealing with fussy toddlers and some of it might have been Talya rubbing off on her. Holding the door open to the school before following Raina in he added, "I'm not actually going to hound you over the sword thing but if you want to work on it let me know, yeah? I know you're already putting in a lot of time training with Talya and I've been told that running fencing drills isn't widely considered relaxing, weirdly enough. No accounting for taste."
-
Midnight Initiative: 1d20+5 16
-
ic (IC) Pop Quiz: Or Are You Deceived?
Gizmo replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Grenville and Ashton
It wouldn't have been accurate to say that Winifred enjoyed performing in front of an audience. After a few attempts there was still a distinct ribbon of anxiety wrapped around her stomach, one she suspected would never entirely go away but that wasn't enough to spoil the steadying feeling of picking out the rhythm on her bass, the sense of trust and collaboration of playing with someone else. In some ways the thrum of the amplifiers so close by and the energy of the crowd added to that feeling but that was just proverbial icing. This was a way in which she could overcome her negative feelings and create something rather than destroy and that alone might as well have been the secret of transmutation itself. Adjusting her mic stand one last time more to give her hands something to do than for any real need she looked to Matthew with a small nod, ready to launch into the opening bass line of Christmas Nights in Blue on his signal. -
Lou waited with a flat expression for any comments about his unusual state, seemingly a bit nonplussed by the relatively tame reaction. Some stammering and awkward silences he could deal with. He took a deep breath and exhaled, the pavement-like texture fading from his hair down like a receding tide until he looked fully human once again. "No point killing them," he bluntly answered Alice's pragmatic suggestion. "Order's already out to whack you three, killing a few of their boys isn't going to change the bosses' minds about that." He considered for a moment then added, "Zip ties'd be pretty good, though. Let them crawl around a bit when they wake up." With a faint smirk he hunched down and fished about in jackets and pants pockets to phones, wallets and weapons. "Hope one of you knows a place to lie low. I just burned alla my goodwill."
-
Winifred allowed herself a quiet groan at the thought of some team of adult heroes having to subdue her alter-ego, trying to remember if she had heard of the 'Liberty League' before. Without the benefit of historical context the names tended to run together somewhat. "Charmed, miss. I apologize for the... inconvenience. I realize this was not the best first impression I might have made." That was obviously an exercise in dramatic understatement but her dignity required at least the thin veneer of reason that her reality so often lacked. Turning weakly to Riley she added, "As a rule, Smith, were a hostile creature to be looming over me I should rather expect you to shoot it. You couldn't have known the specifics of its biology." She glanced back at Monsoon before returning to her friend. "How much trouble do you suppose we're in?"
-
ic (IC) Pop Quiz: Or Are You Deceived?
Gizmo replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Grenville and Ashton
Winifred gave the stained glass window a long, dubious look before following Matt to the stage. "Well, I'm certainly glad I packed my cane in my instrument bag," she noted dryly as she unpacked, the delivery of which was undercut by the way she looked from her bandmate to the hounds expectantly. "Because his name is Abel? And the window-- It's wordplay, Fang, really." Grumbling she continued to set up, careful not to jostle the other supplies tucked into her bag. She didn't expect she'd need any of them that night but after the 'Winterfold' debacle she'd made it policy not to visit unfamiliar locations without bringing some alchemical essentials, just in case. "I suppose the poor fellow's already heard all the jokes. Have we decided on a finalized set list yet?" -
Erik sighed theatrically as he extricated himself from the booth with more acrobatic fluidity than was probably strictly necessary. "See, this is why you're their favourite. Can't compete." Returning to the counter he picked up a pair of small to-go cartons, carefully accommodating the flavours Mia was absolutely refusing to touch this month. He held the door open for Raina as they headed back, making a small sound in the back of his throat as something occurred to him. "Speaking of, melon balls went over alright?" he asked, directing the question both to the teenager and the occupant on her backpack. "Min's convinced that Claremont doesn't feed you well enough."
-
"It's a weird situation," Erik agreed, resting an elbow on the table and leaning his hear against his closed hand. "I don't think there's any easy answer there but you don't have to decide right now and it's okay if you change your mind down the road. If you do want to visit them one of us will always go with you. If you don't want to see them we'll support that, too." He didn't bother raising the possibility that the Sandersons might not be convicted; they both knew the trail was practically a formality at this point. He gave her a faint smile even if she hadn't looked up yet. "And I know talking about this stuff is pretty much your least favourite thing of all time but if you need to vent or just be pissed without having to pretend for bit I'm not going anywhere."
-
"Hey. Raina, look at me." Erik leaned forward over the table to try to catch the teenager's eyes as she speared the preternaturally blue puddle. "He was my boss and my friend but he wasn't my dad. Hell, my old man wasn't even my dad." His expression didn't read as pity so much as genuine concern, a sort of frank focus on her body language and reaction as he spoke slowly and carefully compared to his usual rapid-fire. "I told you all that because I think it's similar and I think you and me react to that sort of thing in similar ways but it's not the same. The fact that you've got your life back on track as much as you have is freaking amazing, kid. I'd be more worried if you didn't miss them." Erik's eyes hardened as his jaw set, teeth grinding quietly. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you what I think of your folks but they sure as hell don't have a stupid daughter, alright?"
-
Erik opened his mouth to reply then closed it again, pressing his lips into a thin line as he considered. "Part of me does," he admitted after a long pause. "A lot of the best things in my life wouldn't have happened without him and it'd honestly be easy to make excuses for him. But... okay, this is going to sound bad but stay with me." He bought himself a moment to marshall his thoughts while finishing the last of his waffle cone. "People are going to let you down. Sometimes people you trust and sometimes in big ways. Maybe they're not who you thought they were or they just do something selfish. And you can decide to just not trust anybody but that leaves you more vulnerable not less." He spread his hands in an apologetic shrug. "But for me what that does is just makes me not want to be one of those people, see? I want to be somebody who's worthy of trust, I want to have my friends' backs and do the right thing even if it's not easier for me personally. Because the only person you really get to control is yourself." The fencer rubbed the back of his head, a little self-conscious about the philosophical tone he was wandering into. "So if it were just about me maybe I'd give the guy another chance. But it's my team now, my people and I'm not willing to roll the dice for them, too. If that makes sense?"
-
It took Winifred a few moments to get her bearings and focus on Riley's words, bone deep weariness written across her face. Guilt and shame joined exhaustion as she recalled enough of the initial fight with the golden creatures to realize what had happened. "I tried to hold it back..." she muttered in a small voice, rubbing her face across the sleeve of the jacket wrapped around her. Tattered garments and unfamiliar replacements could only phase her so much any more. "I thought I was going to make it but then it was in my mouth and--" She gagged reflexively and had to focus on her breathing for a moment before she could meet her friend's eyes again. "I didn't hurt you?"
-
"It... was a little more complicated than that. We'd been working together for years by then. I trusted the guy. He was my friend." Erik's teeth grated audibly over that last word but he pushed on. "So we pulled the bad side out of him and it turned into a giant monster and it was a pretty crappy night all things considered. But what was left over was still the guy who'd lied to our faces and screwed us over by not dealing with his baggage. We trusted him but he never trusted us." He finished his scoop of ice cream and bit into the cone. "You let that stuff fester, especially with powers involved? He was smart enough to know exactly how that was going to shake out. So I told him to stay the @#$% away from my family."
-
With a single scoop of surprisingly plain strawberry in hand took a moment to visibly steel himself, exhaling softly. "So that super genius I mentioned? Guy who brought us together in the first place. Turns out he had this bad side he couldn't control and that he didn't tell us about." The fencer grimaced in spite of himself, looking away briefly. "Used some technology to turn a bunch of us into puppets, make us hurt people. And then he blew it up. Our base. Our home. With Min inside. Chris, too and all of Vince's servers." Anger crept into his voice and there was a soft crunch as his thumb dug a divot into his waffle cone. "He's the one that built Vince in the first place. #$%@, he just wanted to make the guy proud. Managed to upload most of himself or something, I don't really know how that stuff works." Ice cream started to dribble onto his fingers and he paused the story to eat enough of it to keep pace with the melting.
-
Erik gave Merlin a nod of acknowledgement and grunted noncommittally. "I rode a unicorn once. Basically a horse with a sword on its head, so." It was a bit of a reach but it was about as close as he could come to empathizing with the experience of owning a pony. "Pony's sort of a pet, yeah? It'd suck if somebody took your dog or whatever. And I said it doesn't go away but it can get better." He walked over the coat rack attached to the wall in the space between the training room and the entranceway. "C'mon, we'll go to McGillicutty's. Ice cream does not last long here." The ice cream parlour was only about a block away and it was a good excuse to get some fresh air and a bit of a cool down walk anyway.
-
"That's fair. I'm still probably going to make you sit through some Zorro at some point on movie night. Because swords are the coolest." Erik took a few more leisurely pulls from his own bottle of water while retrieving Raina's discarded foil. "And not for nothing but you actually picked that up pretty quickly and in non-ideal conditions. Talya was right about your footwork getting good." He packed up the practice weapons and turned back to her, water bottle pressed to the back of his neck. "So. I know you don't want to talk about it... but do you want to talk about it? You don't have to. I owe you ice cream either way."
-
Erik gave a small nod of understanding, largely to himself and not looking particularly victorious. He set his own foil down and quickly retrieved a pair of water bottles from the mini fridge tucked in amongst the equipment racks. Keeping a pace back to give Raina her space he held one out to her. "So I'm kind of an asshole. Half asshole, on my old man's side. Jokes." He couldn't keep all of the concern off of his face but hoped it at least didn't come across as patronizing. "Deep breaths, yeah? That was a pretty good workout there." He tilted his head a little trying to get a better look at her expression. "Scale of one to immolation, how mad at me are you right now?"
-
"See, to the untrained ear that might sound like a sarcastic deflection," Erik drawled, abruptly adding a new component into the routine, holding speed until he was sure Raina had integrated into her own repetitions. "Y'know, I dated a couple cheerleaders in high school. Got to compete in front of some decent sized crowds, made the other guys look like they were standing still. Not rich, sure but I had that free ride lined up, who knows, maybe Olympics." With the new step successfully added he continued, trusting Raina's pride to keep her motivated as the burn started to set in. "Then hey, because of some @#$% mi mama can't walk and I'm working at two different convenience stores so that mi hermanita can maybe go to school. And getting powers, hey, that was pretty great but it didn't make up for the bad stuff, it didn't all even out so I felt fine. When the things that are important to you get taken away and you can't stop it? No amount of magic is going to make you feel less powerless. Somebody saying 'look at all the good things in your life' isn't going to make you less angry." He stopped the drills and let out a long breath, the faint sheen of sweat having returned to his bare shoulder. "Look. Ask me why I don't live in a brownstone with a bunch of loveable losers anymore."
-
"I didn't say it was a good example," Erik clarified breezily, going through the came cycle of movements, a little more quickly this time. "Although how's your school full of meta-kids doing? Comfortable for your super intelligent monkey and that kid who used to be a statue? You've even got a slightly mental sharpshooter from another dimension. We should make bingo cards." He sped up just a little more with each repetition, just enough that Raina had to continue to work to keep up as she got more and more comfortable with it. "But I'm not talking about exciting anyway. I'm talking about pissed. You can't tell me you don't have reasons to be pissed."