Gizmo

"Of course it isn't," Winifred huffed, giving Rivera a withering look over her shoulder before pausing and considering the sloshing contents of the pair of stoppered beakers in her hands. "...well. I suppose these technically could react rather violently but only if the ratio were just right so the chance of a catastrophic accident seems vanishingly small. I wouldn't spill them on anything one wished to keep, mind, but--" She stopped mid-sentence and pursed her lips as she caught his expression. "I'll just put them on the higher shelf out of reach then, shall I?" She carefully deposited the bottles on the ledge above Smith's desk, held upright by wire stands to reduce the likelihood of any mishaps. "I appreciate the effort toward politeness," the time-displaced teenager added as she turned around to retried her bag. "I gather the practice has fallen largely out of fashion. It would be pleasant to prove something to someone, however." In the awkward silence that followed she adjusted her saddlebag's strap over her shoulder self-consciously and searched for a graceful way to change the topic or excuse herself.

5:30 PM Trevor Hunter had never, so far as he could remember, been so surrounded by so many genuinely smiling faces, so many people legitimately invested in his happiness and in sharing his unbelievable good fortune. The parade of hugs and handshakes, the good wishes and advice seemed unending as each of his friends made their way over one by one or in groups to congratulate him before heading back into the heart of the reception to continue mingling. Erin had been pulled away by one of the bridesmaids and several of their guests had taken the opportunity to have a private word with the groom for one reason or another. He felt honoured and supported in a sense he found it difficult to put into words, lifted up by people he loved and respected. It felt terribly selfish to admit, even if it was only silently to himself, that it was also absolutely exhausting. "Penny for your thoughts?" came a soft French accented soprano below and to the left of Trevor's eye level. There Eve stood, looking up at her friend with sage green eyes and a slender snow white eyebrow arched upward at the question. It might strike some as curious for a telepath to actually ask someone what they were thinking, but not this telepath and not where Trevor was concerned. Eve let the question linger in the air as stood next to the groom and rested her head against his arm. She'd have leaned it against his shoulder if she could, but she couldn't quite reach it. The corner of his mouth twitching faintly in a hint of a smile Trevor let his posture relax a bit. With a sensation something like exhaling he allowed the old psychic link they'd forged years ago to widen a bit, made easier with proximity. It was enough to allow emotion to flow freely in both directions, accompanying his reply. "Just about reached limit for socializing in one day," he admitted wryly, looking out over the crowd, laughing, chatting, dancing. There was a fond lightness colouring his thoughts that was different from the cool composure Eve generally associated with him. There was a note of weariness, most definitely, but it was a good sort of tired, the sort that same with worthwhile exertion. Eve chuckled. "Those who move in such rarefied heights can't afford to have such a low tolerance for socializing," she gently chided him. She lapsed back into companionable silence for a few moments, looking out across the small sea of guests. "Well, you might be able to get away with it," she added with a hint of amusement and acknowledgment of Trevor's ability to manage impossible situations flowing across their link. He snorted quietly, giving the Frenchwoman a sidelong look. "I make do." He fell back into that easy silence for another minute or more, glad to spend time with a friend who didn't feel the need to fill every momentary break in conversation. Erin was around the reception somewhere but with so much going on he'd momentarily lost track. Eventually he asked, "Set a date?" Eve would never have been so gauche as to announce her engagement on her friends' wedding day but she hadn't left her ring at home, either and they both knew he was too observant to convincing feign ignorance for the sake of a later, dramatic reveal. "Not yet," Eve said, her eyes flicking toward the ring on her finger. Though it was fairly new it was a comfortable weight, one that made her smile and her heart soar and Trevor felt a sudden surge of happiness through their mental link. "I'd prefer something quick, quiet and intimate," she said, a strain of longing in her voice, "But remember what I said about rarefied heights." Trevor made a flat sound in the back of his throat at that, though the tenor of the empathic link still brought a small smile to his face as he continued to look out over the crowd. "Friends. Family," he noted with a small gesture that encompassed the gathered wedding guests. "Socialites just need to know there was an exclusive event they can lie about attending. Scandalous." He regained his immaculate deadpan for that but ruined it immediately by raising an eyebrow in what was for him a comical exaggeration. A note of melancholy floated between them as he considered who was in attendance and who was not. "Wish we hadn't waited. Mhn. No," he contradicted himself immediately with a small shake of his head. "Right time. Only… wish my grandfather was here." "I do too," Eve said quietly but earnestly. She had been fond of Travis Hunter, the original Midnight, and in fact had grown up on stories about the man. Not the legends that the public knew but the secret stories from Amelie Dutemps' journals, the ones that spoke about the bond between Midnight and the Red Fox. She perked up when the music changed, and giving her best friend a quick hug she stepped back and smiled at him. "Come on," she said holding out her hand, "I want to dance." Taking the offered hand with a courtly half-bow Trevor matched her smile and allowed himself to be dragged toward the dancefloor. "Well. Twist my arm."

"Winifred, though consensus seems to have settled on the diminutive, yes," the alchemist confirmed as she stepped inside the room and closed the door behind herself with a soft click. Moving over to Smith's side of the room she placed her bag down on the end of the bed and opened its flap, looking over to the desk to judge the optimal place to leave the equipment she's brought with her. "I, ah, realize I didn't make the best of first impressions at Faretti's party." She stopped what she was doing long enough to look over to Rivera and try to judge his reaction from his expression. Embarrassment flickered over her own features, though she did a good job of maintaining her composure. "That was not how I make a habit of comporting myself, I promise you."

Jack of all Blades Erik makes that Notice check automatically with Skill Mastery.

Winifred blinked at the open door for a moment before looking down at the hound with a pointedly arched eyebrow but not giving voice to any specific suspicions just yet. "Ah, Matthew. You do realize I don't understand whatever reference you may be making, yes?" she reminded him, accent as ever clipped and precise even as she allowed herself a faint smile. It faltered briefly as she looked back down the hallway to see one of Smith and Rivera's neighbours elbowing another boy and doing a poor job of pretending they weren't watching her. She in turn did only a slightly better job of pretending not to be bothered. "Would you mind if I came in for a moment? I have some things to drop off."

"Yeah, the kids' novels kinda skipped over that part but I think I'm getting the gist," Erik told Talya, giving her fingers a gentler squeeze in return and taking a half-step closer rest his chest against her shoulder. He didn't need to read through the rest of the journal to intuit that things hadn't tied up with a happy ending. Looking ahead he tried to think of what could reasonably detain Ace for long. "Do you think he got trapped under some rocks or something like that?" he asked aloud, seemingly apropos of nothing. "Ace, I mean. Like it wouldn't kill him but he'd just be trapped pretty much forever." There was an awkward pause before he admitted with a small cough, "Uh. ...I've been talking with Steve."

Winifred wasn't one to spend time in the common areas of Claremont Academy's dormitories unless she was on her way from place to place. It might have had something to do with the way common room emptied conspicuously quickly any time she sat down to read in one of the armchairs there or the way normal conversations turned into urgent whispers when she walked by in the hallways. For her part the alchemist liked to think that she was simply good at making efficient use of her time. With that in mind her strides where swift as she made her way through the boys' dormitory with a worn but carefully patched saddlebag full of chemistry equipment. She kept her back straight and chin high but her eyes didn't waver from looking straight ahead no matter what looks she could feel aimed at the back of her head. Reaching her destination she rapped quickly on the door, calling, "Smith."

Erik opened his mouth for a moment to protest that he didn't need any assurance but the silent, pointedly look his mother shot him from over Talya's shoulder turned his excuses into a short sound in the back of his throat. "I know. I know! I just need some time getting used to the idea." His chagrined expression said that he knew he'd already had a good amount of time for that. He'd honestly thought he'd made a sort of peace with it back in the days at the brownstone but that had been before the girls. "But no, it should be close by, right? We'll figure it out." He offered a sheepish smile and gestured toward the door with a nod. "It's gotta be more than just 'somewhere you're currently living'."

"Well there's an oxymoron," Erik replied glibly, stooping to grab a pair of stacked boxes and carefully heft them to shoulder height. His posture was easy and relaxed with nothing to suggest he was going to offer more than a few token grumbles over the matter. It was, by any reasonable measure, an exceptional bluff. Besides her own prodigious powers of perception, however, Talya had had opportunity to become familiar with the very specific sort of relaxed that meant that Erik was poised to spring in any direction faster than conscious thought, a coiled spring of trained muscle and hair-trigger reflexes waiting only for a target. Had the shoulder blades under his light t-shirt been a fraction of a centimetre closer together or the index finger of his free hand tensed the way it did when he was feeling outward for the spark of energy he would ignite into a weapon... But in the span of a blink he had exhaled and a more genuine if less complete relaxation worked its way from his chest outward. "Did you have an idea of where to put it? There's a couple spots if you wanted to hook it up with Vince but maybe it makes more sense to leave it off the grid?"

Initially Erik's hesitation as he read the journal aloud was mostly due to being aware of his own painfully halting translation skills. He'd learned enough Persian from Mona as a child that he liked to think he could hold a reasonably fluent conversation but his ability to read Farsi was questionable at best. He got by well enough on context to give them an idea of the book's contents but the more he read the more it seemed a tremendous invasion of privacy. It would have been awkward enough reading someone else's personal correspondence aloud but the expressions on Talya and Dimitri's faces made the nature of that correspondence clear. As soon as the Russian called for him to stop reading he closed the book gingerly, looking all to happy to hand off the responsibility for its safekeeping. Moving closer to Talya while the other man worked, Erik searched her face quietly. "I, uh, already feel pretty lousy about taking the book off that guy now," he admitted eventually, keeping his tone light and attempting a weak smirk. "Never woulda made a good pickpocket, I guess, huh?"

"Ha! Neat." Ellie gave the drone that ventured closest to her a small pat before it was sent off on its mission. Semi-autonomus, combat ready robots with cloaking abilities probably should have been more intimidating but leave it Mara to execute the idea in a way that was more than a little adorable. Once their ad-hoc command centre was set up she took a seat on the bottom cot of the worn looking bunkbed wedged into the corner of the little room and patted the space beside her meaningfully. She waited until her girlfriend took the hint and sat down then promptly let herself fall sideways, using Mara's lap as a pillow. "Yes, good," she judged, even as the second word devolved into a full-bodied yawn. "Let me know if they spot anything, alright? Just going to rest my eyes." It wasn't more than a few minutes before the engineer recognized the familiar, steady sound of Ellie's breathing while she slept.

> 26 - Tsunami - Bruised x1, 2HP 25 - Monsoon - Unconscious 20 - Frostbyte - Bruised x1, 4HP 14 - Temperance - Bruised x1, 4HP 12 - Ardent - Bruised x1, Staggered, Dazed, 0HP 8 - Dam - Uninjured, Bruised x2 Blood Golems x6 - Uninjured Still waiting on Tsunami whenever you're able, Thev.

"Wanted to give you ladies fair warning to stop talking about me," Erik explained airily with a broad, lopsided grin. He let a hand drop to rest lightly on Talya's hip when she came close, tilting his head to catch her cheek in a kiss in return. His expression turned more sober at the mention of the packet of emergency documents and supplies she'd shown him previously, exchanging a nod with his mother. "Good call, just in case." He didn't need to put too fine a point on it; they all knew that if something bad enough happened to require the use of Talya's preparations chances were he wasn't going to be in any shape to retrieve the them himself. He had a talent for being right in the middle of emergencies when they happened or for causing emergencies wherever he went depending on one's perspective. Not letting himself dwell too long on that train of thought, he adopted a more cheerful look. "We should get going, then. I called Min while they were brining the truck around and she's doing that thing where she's excited for something and getting impatient but won't admit it because centuries and eons and so forth." That assessment was probably coloured a little by his own sense of urgency. After all the work renovating the apartment he was looking forward to having Talya moved in 'officially'.

APPROVED

That would be one configuration, sure! It's often a good idea to keep at least one rank of Flight up in a Dynamic Array so that you don't, y'know, fall out of the air. Just remember that if her max configuration for that Alternate Power slot is Damage 2 (Kinetic Expression; Extras: Penetrating 10; Feats: Mighty, Affects Insubstantial 2, Improved Critical 2, Takedown Attack 1) that would be {18/20} not {20/20}.

That's the idea! Penetrating is a little different from most Extras because like Impervious its rank isn't directly tied to the rank of the Power (I probably would have designed it as a ranked Power Feat but that's neither here nor there). She has Damage 2 with Mighty and a +8 Strength bonus for a Rank 10 effect in total. That's why I tweaked your notation to say 'Penetrating 10'; you want to specify now many ranks you're applying the Extra onto, up to 10 in this case. Penetrating 10 costs 10PP and is overkill in most situations but she can easily afford it in that Alternate Power slot. Like I said this is different from most Extras where it was to apply to every rank of the Power but as another example a character could have Protection 12 (Extra: Impervious 6) [18PP]. Anyway! Since Penetrating is so situational its pretty easy to drop it when allocating PP in the Dynamic Array, which keeps your math super easy. Make sense?

Flight 5 [10PP] + Damage 2 (Feats: Mighty, Affects Insubstantial 2, Improved Critical 2, Takedown Attack 1) [8PP] is still only 18PP. The Array gives you up to 20PP to use. You're correct that she could also go all-in to do up to Super-Strength 10 [20PP], though, yes!

You actually don't have to take out the rank of Takedown Attack if you don't want to. Each Alternate Power slot in your Array has 20PP to play with, not 18! You're paying for 20PP in each slot, plus 2PP for an additional two Alternate Powers after the first then 3PP to make each of those three powers Dynamic, allowing you to 'mix and match' between the three instead of making them discrete options, for a total cost of 25PP for the Array. I expect most of the time in a fight she'd forego the ten ranks of Penetrating - since that's only situationally useful when fighting someone with Impervious - and use those 10PP for some combination of Flight and Super-Strength. For example: Damage 2 (Kinetic Expression; Feats: Mighty, Affects Insubstantial 2, Improved Critical 2, Takedown Attack 2) [9PP] + Flight 4 (Quantum Freedom; 100 MPH) [8PP] + Super-Strength 1 (Quantum Powerhouse; Effective Strength 31, Heavy Load ~1600 lbs) [2PP] ...which is still only 19PP total, but you get the idea. You don't have to spend all 20PP in each Alternate Power slot but at the very least they should each be notated as {X/20} not {X/18}.

That's situational enough the it would be better suited as a Complication. A GM might toss you an HP for vetoing her ability to catch an opponent flat-footed, for instance, but in most combat situations her opponent will already know she's attacking them, particularly after the first round. It's also her only real attack option so it's not like it's giving away any secret tactics! Noticeable is generally going to apply to passive powers like Protection - where anybody looking at you can tell if you're 'armoured up' or not - or powers that are innately subtle like Mind Control - where an obvious 'tell' that the victim is being controlled significantly impacts the utility of the power. If you're looking through Ultimate Power most effects call out whether Noticeable or Subtle could be applied to them, based on their default state. As an in-genre nod most powers are reasonably showy by default! Danny Rand doesn't save a PP because wrapping his fist in dragon chi looks awesome but Ben Grimm does get a point back compared to Luke Cage because nobody's ever going to be surprised that bullets don't work on Aunt Petunia's favourite nephew.

Jack of all Blades Knowledge (Physical Sciences) check w/ Jack-of-all-Trades: 1d20+1 15 Pretty good! But not good enough. Knowledge (Pop Culture) check w/ Jack-of-all-Trades: 1d20+1 10 Also no. But he'll read it out loud for the others, sure.

Fixed up some formatting to make your Powers easier to read. Arrays can be a little tricky to notate as you're starting out so don't be afraid to reference the Character Sheet Template or Sample Characters for examples. Overall looking quite good! A few small things: Right now she's paying 15PP for just 14 Feats, so you've got a spare PP floating around. Flight is noticeable by default so it can't have the Noticeable Drawback (You'd want the Subtle Power Feat to make her Flight silent, for the sake of argument.) That may be where you spend that extra PP! Similarly, explain for me what you're going for with Noticeable on her 'Kinetic Expression'. Punching somebody in the face is usually already pretty noticeable! A glow or similar 'special effect' isn't worth a Drawback on an active attack where it's already clear that you're the one attacking.

APPROVED

I've added in the notation you still hadn't done and fixed some other notation, like adding PP totals at the bottom of each sheet. Don't forget to reference the sample character sheet in the future to save time. The only immediate issue I see is that Stalwart is only using 49 of his 56 Skill Ranks.

"Animals," Gina grumbled derisively at the notion. It wasn't the first time Talya had seen the Espadas life philosophy in practice; woe to anyone who fell under the category of a threat to the family. The matriarch was at least less inclined to brooding than her eldest and moved on easily enough. "Mara set up my computer to back up automatically, something about the 'cloud'." The retired officer shrugged in bemusement. "It's awful to say but I still only understand about half of what that girl is saying even when she's not talking technology. Hm. Is that worse for you, being older, or does staying young keep you from getting crusty up here?" She tapped the side of her head with a smirk. Three quick raps on the front door sounded before Erik opened it and let himself in. "Hey, ladies, all set?"

I'll do that then! She'll keep moving to try to stay out of immediate danger but she's out of the Obscure cloud now.