Gizmo
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Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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Jack held off on a sarcastic reply in favour of motioning for quiet as artificially hued light appeared from around the next bend in the tunnel. Around the corner the cave descended abruptly and opened up into a massive chamber filled with whirring machinery that hummed with power and danced with lights in parts of the spectrum that were difficult to look at to human eyes. At the far side of the cavern was the largest chunk of technology, clearly alien in origin but recognizable as a vehicle of some kind, presumably an interplanetary craft. In the center two dozen or so figures were working quickly, most in long, flowing robes while a few were dressed in sharp looking business casual fashions. All of them had bright red, mouthless faces with pointed ears: Grue! In the center of the cave, barking orders was someone else Echo recognized. Turning unknowingly toward the spot where the heroes were spying on the proceedings was Bench himself!
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"Oh, this is a thing that's happening," Erik confirmed emphatically in a growl that reverberated throughout his entire chest. Dipping down quickly he scooped Talya up in both arms before she could protest, one arm under her knees and the other supporting her back. "This is what happens when you talk about being bored in range of Min's plants," he added, tilting his head to kiss the mostly-former thief on the neck just below her ear where blonde locks fell away. He was acting entirely on runaway momentum but then that had historically worked out pretty well for him and Talya had a point: it would have taken a very particular sort of stupid to disagree with the dryad's suggestion. "Could you get the door, love?"
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A weighted throwing disk had already materialized as if by magic in each of the disguised detective's gloved hands by the time the princess had raised her voice. They'd both known perfectly well that this had never been about recovering a few choice trinkets - though Trevor expected he'd have agreed to come along even if it had been - and considering they were infiltrating a prison this scenario had been high on his list of possibilities. The first disk cracked loudly in the back of one guard's skull just below his helmet as he turned to flee from Nina's show of power before rebounding and smacking into the elbow of his more courageous comrade as he reached for his weapon. The other disk took the guard with the third best fight or flight response time among his peers out at the knee and by then Midnight was in their midst, a whirlwind of kicks and escrima stick strikes that turned their disarray into a one-sided dissertation in applied physics. As Nina hugged her friend the last guard standing collapsed atop his fellows with a groan, leaving Trevor to silently watch the door while the two women conversed.
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"Yeah, she has some pretty good ideas now and then," Erik agreed a little breathlessly, casting a grin at Min. Smile aside both women were close enough to feel that practically every muscle in his body was tensed, the way he got when he was waiting for the first punch in a fight to be thrown, ready to leap in any direction at a moment's notice. "Missed you, too," he admitted quietly. "Not, ah, not exactly how I saw the reunion going, y'know, but, ah, stammer stammer ramble ramble." He gave the words a melodic lilt to them until they were practically nonsense syllables, letting off just a fraction of his piano wire taught tension. The kiss had been great, better than great, but he was completely at a loss for what he was supposed to do next. He was acutely aware that he was the only one on the rooftop who had actually only been around the block as many times as he looked. "...girls are asleep?" he asked his wife, swallowing a little more slowly than usual.
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"Yeah, that's gonna happen," Erik confirmed with a shrug that was understanding even if it wasn't quite sympathetic. "You ever play guitar? Kinda like learning that, just gotta treat the bruises like milestones. Better follow-through that time, though. What do you think, Talya?" He turned his attention away from the answer for a moment to frown at the familiar rifling through his forms and records. Taking a few steps closer to the desk he folded his arms. "You're smarter than the average monkey, right?" he surmised with a cocked eyebrow. "'Cause I do actually need all of that in one piece. An unpleasant amount of my time consists of paperwork these days, and that's without monkeyshines."
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Erik found his balance again as Min pulled him toward her, laughing softly into the kiss at how easy it apparently was to tease him. Leaning into the dryad, he obviously wasn't expecting it when she spun him around close enough to their guest that his hand landed instinctively on Talya's waist. "Well I wouldn-- oh madre de Dios." His sienna skin tone wasn't dark enough to hide the full faced flush that extended down to his neck as he looked between the two women before getting stuck on the blonde's clear blue eyes. "Min, I don't think-- I mean, don't get me wrong, just-- I know the flirting is part of your shtick, Talya, so-- Oh, I'm going to the special hell," he sighed in resignation before closing the distance, his cheeks warm and lips slightly dry as he did his damnedest to live up to the example his wife had set. This kiss was less exploratory and more urgent, his hand sliding up the back of her turtleneck to rest between her shoulder blades while the other gripped Min's fingers almost frantically. He'd never been one to let good sense come before action, after all.
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Erik quirked an eyebrow at the surprisingly expressive monkey while still keeping most of his attention on Raina's second attempt. The startling clarity with which the familiar made his meaning known might have been a tip-off regardless but the metamagi's senses picked up on the warm glow of arcane power that suffused Merlin and waxed as he responded to the teenage girl. Well, hearing her call him her 'familiar' would probably be the tip-off, he admitted inwardly, but either way at least he could assume the nature of the their new student's fireball flinging abilities without needing to make any awkward explanations about his own status. "Again," he confirmed out loud with a nod. "Give it some vinegar this time! Or we can let Talya keep describing portions of my anatomy in greater detail but I feel like that's not what your Academy had in mind."
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Erik had a dry rejoinder ready as he swung back up onto his feet that turned into a nonplussed, open mouthed silence as Min greeted Talya rather more warmly than he'd been expecting. He waited, blinking slowly, until the kiss ended to briefly check to see if he'd somehow sustained a head injury of some sort while sparring eventually concluding that he probably wasn't actually hemorrhaging into his brain. He supposed the Englishwoman had technically offered and his wife had never been one to stand on ceremony or to waste time. "Uh. Well," he managed somewhat inarticulately, reaching out to lean nonchalantly on the half wall surrounding the rooftop and missing on his first attempt, "Glad everyone's... getting along?" Maybe it was a European thing.
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"Haha, oh man, you've got a monkey in your backpack, that's amazing!" Erik crowed delightedly, face lighting up as he hunkered down to grin at Merlin. "Talya, look at his little tail! Haha! Hey little monkey guy, welcome to the school." The instructor managed to tear his attention away from the tiny simian long enough to actually watch Raina's first attempt, rising back up to a standing position and nodded approvingly. "Not bad, Dora the Explorer! The first swing always feels weird but you've got the right idea. You're generally going to do better with your eyes open, though." He gave the teenager a reassuring grin, leaning into the goofball persona a little bit in the hopes of making her a little more comfortable. "Give it another go and you can continue to benefit from these startling insights."
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Craning his neck until he could see Min clearly, Erik gave her an upside down grin. "Hey, love. Welcome home." He probably should have been more worried about the compromising position she'd found them in but at some point they'd realized that the statement 'I know this looks bad' permeated enough of his day-to-day life so as to generally be assumed and left unsaid. He grunted softly, finding that between the position of the leg wrapped around him and the slender blonde's weight pinning him against the rooftop he really was pretty effectively pinned, unable to get much leverage without tossing his guest about unceremoniously. Covering with a small cough and trying to look casual despite everything he added, "If I get too fresh I think Talya might really kick my ass, ha. You remember me talking about Bombshell, yeah?" He shifted his weight again without much better success and finally turned his head back toward Talya, close enough to feel the heavy breath of her exertion against his cheek. "We should probably get you off. Of me, I mean. Hoo boy." How his cheeks were starting to colour a shade or two darker, bounteous aplomb or no.
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"No such thing as bad publicity, I'm told," Set drawled as she followed Talya's lead over the bar then Dimitri's by tossing back the shot set aside for her without any of the hesitation her youthful appearance might have suggested. She shuddered from the cold more than the taste before leaning over the bar so that her chin was resting over top of her crossed arms. "No apology necessary, old man. Tis probably for the best to have those around for whom my elder self's... trespasses be less academic. You know the value of a good grudge, I always liked that about you." She let her head loll to one side despondently so that she could look over at their hostess, brick red dreadlocks falling to one side as she pursed lips painted brown-black. "Boy troubles. Blood troubles. I don't see how I was supposed to know twas his first time..."
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Erik took the form from Raina and scanned it briefly, maintaining the presence of mind not to frown slightly until the teenager's attention was on Talya. He'd seen enough kids fill out the same sheet to infer what all those blank spaces meant before he set it aside. The British woman's comment brought his attention back up with a blink. "Hm? Hey, c'mon, I've still wearing a shirt and everything!" he protested, looking a bit like a kitten who'd been called to task for being too fuzzy. Even so, Talya's proposed plan to start things off was sound and he moved back into the main room behind Raina. "You can stick your broom over by the practice swords, I guess?" Tilting his head slightly to side and pricking up his ears he gave the bag on her back a closer look. "...I think your knapsack is laughing at me."
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Set flicked his gave in Sekhmet's direction only to find her watching him right back with narrowed, golden eyes. Hastily turning back to his phone he mulled over a response. He hadn't been feigning his interest in resuming his impromptu liaison with the dhampir but part of him wondered if he shouldn't play things a little cooler. The selfie he'd left on Huang's phone had seemed like a pretty clear message but he'd still needed to initiate the conversation again; did that matter? Was he coming on too strong? These sorts of things were much easier in person where momentum could carry things along rather than with so much room for analysis and reanalysis. Besides all of that, Sekhmet wasn't actually wrong, annoyingly. He liked Phantom, too, and if she'd forbidden her son from speaking to Set, as much as that stung, he could understand where she would be coming from. Don't want to cause trouble with your parents : ( Well With your mother specifically She be rad Your father tis an asshat >: (
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"See, I can tell you haven't dealt with enough of these Claremont kids because you think you can joke about that, Talya," the man in the sleeveless workout shirt drawled, shuffling through a stack of paper until he found the form he was looking for and handed it to Raina along with a pen. "Not even a little fireproof, do not try to set me on fire, please and thank you. Also, fill this out." The page was all fairly standard fare, with spaces for emergency contact numbers, relevant medical conditions and so on. "Like she said, I'm Erik, good to meet you. If you're feeling nervous about today don't sweat it too much, we're just going to be getting an idea of where you're at, figuring out what'll work for you." He sat on the edge of the desk and gripped the molding with both hands in a way that unintentionally caused his pectoral muscles to flex distractingly behind his thin top. "Cool?"
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"My elder self had many very nice, very expensive possession and the Prima Donna of Pilferers was an incomparable authority on the reallocation of such possessions," Set reminded Dimitri with a flourish of fanciful language that seemed a little bit forced as the godling bit back on a sigh. "Paths crossed indeed. Feels strange to be the one breaking into your abode unannounced, oh honeyed hostess. Then again, we managed an entire introduction without anyone calling me a whore so the day appears to be improving. Huzzah." The redheaded Heliopolian waggled her hands back and forth in mock celebration but still took a moment to bow politely to Talya, not having completely forgotten her manners. She'd managed to reach some potent combination of the weariness of the genuinely timeless and the surly brooding of a teenager who'd not gotten her way, adjusting the straps of her cross halter where slouching had set them askew and stepping inside. "Many thanks for your hospitality; troubles indeed."
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"Scratching seems like it would be cheating," Erik commented with a half-smile as he slipped into a loose and ready fighting stance with the sort of thoughtless grace that came from having performed an action thousands of times under all conceivable conditions. The banter was reflexive more than anything; Talya wasn't about to be distracted by the goofball routine but there was a zen mantra element to it, a clearing of the mind to focus solely on the physicality of the moment. "C'mon, supermarket model, show me what you got." Before she could respond he was sweeping toward her with a low kick from his right leg. Talya hopped over the telegraphed move easily enough but Erik used the split second of hang time to sidestep around to her side and launch a rabbit punch combination toward her ribs. The British woman was already twisting in the air, however and caught the blows on her raised forearms, letting the fencer overextend an arm used to the additional reach of a blade by just enough to let her grab under his shoulder in the first step in a lock. She didn't get the chance to move onto the next step before Erik was stooping low and cracking his frame like a whip to yank her off of her feet and rolling over his back. A lesser opponent might have stumbled as they hit the rooftop but Talya made it look like it had been part of her plan all along, getting her feet back under her and twisting his arm where she still had a grip.
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"I'm not making excuses, I'm just saying I won't fall for the same thing twice," a male baritone protested from behind the broken wall that separated the entrance area from the rest of the school, accompanied by a soft grunt and a creak of padded floor that suggested someone swinging up onto their feet. "Next time you lift your leg like that I'll have you flat on your back and -- oh, hey!" If the blonde woman could have passed for a movie starlet in the classic mold the man with tousled, dusty brown hair that appeared behind her did a passable impression of a romantic comedy lead. A lopsided grin set in angular features and a day or two of rakish stubble greeted the teenage arrival along with a wave from a bare arm wound with lean muscle that made Raina think of a swimmer or gymnast more than a body builder. "Claremont sent you over, yeah?" he asked, brushing damp bangs back from his forehead and picking up a clipboard lying on the unmanned reception desk and lifting the first page to scan the sheet behind it. "Sanderson?"
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Always with the snakes SIGH At some point Set was probably going to have to accept that he was never going to entirely shake the association with his elder self's preoccupation with serpents. He supposed there was only so much he could expect from someone who went around telling people to call him Ouroboros. Certainly wouldn't stop him from giving Huang a hard time about it, regardless. Glancing back upward he requested, "Some privacy, mayhaps, Mistress of Dread?" When Sekhmet growled in warning the godling added, "Very well, but you cannot be upset should you read something over my shoulder you cannot unread..." Grumbling, Sekhmet stepped back away from the couch to take a seat at their kitchen counter. "Thou shall not be sneaking away anywhere this time," she warned, splitting her attention between her charge and her mug. Rolling his eyes, Set focused on his phone again. Always a pleasure to leave myself in good hands Might you be amenable to picking up where we left off, then...? He let out a slow, calming breath as he hit send. Every indication was that Huang was very much interested, he reminded himself. There was no use letting past rejections make him too wary to try again and even if the answer was negative, why should Set care? He proceeded to chew on his lower lip rather than form the answer to that question into words.
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We're out of combat and any initiative order so have at it!
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As the remaining jotun skeletons converged on Ghost Girl and swiped with their massive, jagged claws their attacks passed through the phantom with as little resistance as there'd ever been, as did the shrapnel of ice and bone resulting from Frost's annoyed assault. With the shambling horrors dealt with in full Kimber circled around the far side of the bluff to come up behind the cornered pack of timberwolves, brandishing her scythe. "Bad day to be flora, fang face," she observed almost sympathetically before putting her implement to its intended use. With the light of the ritual faded and the last of the scavengers dealt with the rocky clearing resumed its preternatural quiet, the mystical equivalent of the scent after a heavy rain hanging in the air. Floating down to a ledge near the summit of the bluff as her friends began gathering back around, Kimber whirled her weapon overhead in a blur of arcane metal. With a flash as quick as blinking the scythe disappeared and a pendant hanging from a fine chain had appeared around her neck. Her booted feet touched the ground, one sinking slightly into the snow with a soft crunch that broke the silence, then the other. Looking down at her hands without a word she took another few crunching steps to where Koshiro had landed his massive paper plane and reached out. Rather than putting her incorporeal arm through his chest this time she gave him a light shove had forced him back half a pace. With a widening grin that spread to encompass her entire face the poltergeist began to laugh, bright and loud until the sound of it filled the glade.
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"Oh! Congratulations!" Kimber beamed at Jessie and clapped her hands together excitedly. "This is such a big day, then! Did you have a cake? You should have a cake!" The poltergeist bobbed up and down in the air a little, acting more like she'd just found out it was her guest's birthday than that she might be hosting a hardened criminal. She looked around the kitchen trying to remember if they had any icing she could put on the waffles and if that would actually be appetizing or not. "Barely more than two years, too, gosh. I spent like fifteen years totally out of my gourd in an abandoned cabin in the woods after y'know, kkkk!" She ran a thumb across her neck and stuck out her tongue in case the emphatic sound effect didn't convey what she meant clearly enough. "And you're already moved into a new place and meeting new people! So is that where you and Aquaria met? You guys seem like really good friends!"
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"If I promise not to make you sit through any proud dad stories can you not call them 'my brood'...?" Erik requested with a good-natured sigh and a melodramatic eyeroll. With his sister acting as Yolanda's de facto mother, Steve turning out to be weirdly good with kids and even Chris having mused aloud once or twice about starting a family - and immediately and loudly denying it - he didn't get too many jokes at the expense of his family man status. At some point his single, non-parent friends had become the distinct minority. "You make it sound like they're nesting in the walls! But since there's a pretty firm upper limit on how nicely women can ask me things these days I guess I'd better be polite and just run circles around you like a gentleman." With that challenge he set aside his cup again and cracked his neck in either direction, sloughing off some of the soreness from the class Talya had walked in on. He gave her a teasing smirk. "Think you can manage avoiding all the plants? I'll understand if you're feeling rusty."
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"Aw hell," Wail groaned as the pint-sized terror darted toward him. He had really not been planning on fighting a small child when he'd woken up that day but as usual it looked like the universe wasn't keen on taking his personal preferences into account. "Harry, the girl won't be able to bite me but I don't know that I'm fast enough to catch her," he called, spreading his stance and throwing his arms outward to turn himself into a passable impression of a brick wall. "You need to work with me here, man. Can't let her get far enough to hurt herself." He turned his focus back to the transformed girl, trying to predict where her feral movements would take her next.
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Winifred took a look at the unusual colour of the the proffered chips and decided to limit her experimentation to the bar of 'cake', letting the apple sit in the lap of her makeshift skirt, more useful for the time being as a tangible, recognizable object than as food. "Well, if one is going to be flung traumatically forward in time by a century and a half, you seem an extraordinarily fortunate group to which to awake. Thank you." Chewing the bite cautiously she decided she was hungry enough that the taste and texture were really beside the point either way. Swallowing she added, "Did you see what caused me to depetrify in the first place? It's all quite foggy..." Headmistress Summers chose that moment to arrive back at the bus, walking up the pair of stairs with silent footsteps. "Funny, I only remember excusing Chevalier to accompany our new friend to the bus," she drawled before raising a hand to forestall any hasty excuses. "I'm glad you all wanted to help. How is she?" She directed the question to the entire group but looked directly at Winifred with an analytical but not unkind eye.
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"Yay! It's always so tough to tell without being able to try them, I have to go off of smell mostly," Kimber confided, bending down a bit to rub Avro's back where he had comfortably settled back down onto Jessie's lap. "I think mostly 'regular people' are what everybody thinks everybody else is," she continued philosophically, folding her legs underneath herself and hovering in the air so that she was looking the other woman in the eye without craning her neck. "I haven't met that many people who are really regular, anyway, but maybe that's just because of the sort of people I already know! Hard to say!" She grinned broadly and shrugged, unconcerned with what that said about her or her circle of friends. "I think you're pretty good at meeting new people! You met me and Indira okay! Project Freedom sounds familiar but I can't remember where I heard about it?" The phantom tilted her head to one side waiting for an explanation.
