Semi-Autogyro

Claude held out his isochronon as he rotated to find the correct bearing, "Day-mon. Not De-mon. From the Greek meanin', so ya don't have ta worry about packin' your holy rollers." He idly corrected as the device began humming, emitting an actinic violet light from what looked to be vacuum tubes. He swept it back and forth in front of him as he continued his explanation. "They're basically native to the fourth dimension, but sometimes they find their way into ours. When that happens, they can't literally eat anything here except time to survive. So if we can wrestle this one back to where it came from it should wander off." The device in his hands made a noise like a typewriter return, causing Claude to smack it a bit. "Anyways, there was enough temporal anomalies in the park that it was the equivalent of ringin' a dinner bell. Why I don't know, but don't let it catch you. 'Specially you, Mona. Last thing we need to add to the situation is makin it' a T-baby on toppa everythin' else..." The isonchronon gave a two-toned beep and Claude pointed further into the park. "It's lookin' to be by the planetarium...but it ain't movin' for whatever reason."

Claude gave a squak of alarm at the unexpected presence of the two ladies, making a misstep as his boot caught the curb. Luckily he managed to roll with it enough that it was a somewhat graceful recovery. Once back on even footing, there was a deer in the headlights look of panic that quickly shifted to a considering look on his face. "Wha? Ya shouldn't be able ta come..." The proverbial lightbulb must have happened, because he groaned in frustration as his gaze fell on Fulcrum. "Terminus energy. Shoulda remembered. Dammit, Doc is going to have a field day with this." The last sentence was muttered more to himself. "Well, the cat is outta the bag. Call me Gnomon. I'm with Guardians of Time and you're now temporarily deputized to deal with a illegal temporal incursion. Judgin' by what my isochronon is tellin' me, it's most likely a daemon. Wathever it is, it's in the park and if we don't stop it it'll drain any livin' things for their quintessence to feed itself. The older the prey the better, so unless if ya have any more questions we need to get in there before it's the size of a Mack truck."

Claude slumped a bit with an annoyed look on his face and gave then an irritated sigh at the arrival of his mentor, fingers drumming a staccato rhythm on the table "One of these days you're gonna explain how you always manage to arrive at the perfect time ta cut me down, Doc." Looking back at Nick, he gave his roomie a wry grin before shaking his head while holding up a hand to refuse the dosh. "Nah man, save it for later. As the sayin' goes, 'but wait, there's more!'". The Southie then took the time to grab a spoonful of potato salad. "We're just getting to the big reveal, Doc." Claude said shortly after swallowing. "If ya want ta grab some more grub, it's on the island over there."

Gnomon - 3 Posts = 1 PP Punching Up = 3 Posts

Claude frowned and softly sighed at the two pulled punches, "Slick moves from a man outta time." he complimented quietly to Benny before tapping the larger teen on the arm admitting his capitulation. "Allright, ya got me," the Southie admitted easily, straightening fully upright after being released from the clench. "But givin' me little options by cornerin' up means I can't do nothin' about your better reach and I can't use footwork like I'd prefer to. Had to ape your style to close the gap effectively without eatin' a combo to the kisser." The Bostonian explained, not seemingly concerned about getting made an example of. "Plus, I was tryin' to sucker ya into thinkin' I was goin' to keep repeatin' the liver shot to make you complacent and drop your guard. Didn't work, but them's the breaks." Claude grinned. "Sides, if I wind up with only my fists available against a guy like you then I've royally screwed the pooch and deserve what's comin' to me for bein' a dumbass." Satisfied with the outcome, Claude stepped off the mat and let someone else have a go while Benny hammered the importance of fundamentals again.

Claude scoffed at Benny's statement. "Tch. I'd need at least a trebuchet for ya, pally." He approached the corner the Brooklyn bomber was in, most of his weight on his toes so he could potentially weave around what got thrown at him. He shifted his hands into a peekaboo style, intent on protecting his face and core as he darted forward to throw a furry of strait jabs with his right at Benny's mug, followed by left hook directed at the liver again. Hopefully his opponent would be more concerned more concerned with the jabs to ward against the repeat strike. The Southie again made to withdraw after the exchange not wanting to be caught and manhandled by the other boy's meathooks.

Claude had been strangely quiet through the whole show electing to watch the pair with a calculating gaze; apparently coming to a decision as Ashley tapped out. The boy from Boston waited until Ashley had cleared off the mat before stepping in, electing to check the springiness of the floor with a few bounces as he moved in front of Benny and dropping into the southpaw hitman stance he had used earlier. "For the record, lightweight vs. heavyweight ain't exactly a fair cop. David versus Goliath usually winds up with Goliath feedin' Davy boy his teeth." Claude stated as he raised his left glove for the other to tap, his body language taut like a coiled spring. As soon as their gloves made contact, the Southie threw a feinting jab with his right and followed up with a liver blow with his left to try and take advantage of his opponent focusing on the initial strike. It was clear that Claude was trained primarily as a outboxer, with how he tried to make space by using footwork to try and slip outside Benny's reach immediately after delivering the combo.

Gnomon - 14 Posts = 2 PP Park Time Job = 1 Post Punching Up = 7 Posts Tech Compliance (Open) = 1 Post Here & Now & Then = 5 Posts

"Yeah, Yeah. School o' hard knocks is a brutal teacher." Claude said, actually agreeing with Ashley as he moved back to start shadowboxing again. "Harsh, but better than dyin' in a ditch." "Really, Inky? You're proud of the ability to take a beatin'? Trained since you were little to do it?" Claude gave the boy from Brooklyn an arched eyebrow. "'Mosta the time that wouldn't be somethin' to crow about. Unless ya like the taste. Sides, people like Sunshine over there could turn you into takoyaki if she felt inclined, no fists needed." He grinned at everyone. "That bein' said, I'll echo Muttley's sentiment here and quote the Tao of Ed Gruberman: 'I wanna beat people up right now'."

"Ya see, the cube was merely an sort of 'capture' of Freedom City at that day. Like a file copy on a flash drive. However, I didn't plan on it still bein' plugged into the supercomputer so to speak. I basically crashed it by using my brain as a neural link. With all the conflicting extraneous data, it scrammed like nuke reactor and dumped me into the physical site of the mainframe as a failsafe." Claude shook his head ruefully. "The good news I was outta the loop. The bad news I was pretty sure I did a number on my gray matter, since I started realizin' I knew stuff about the place I was in: The Dolorous Clock. The worse news was an alarm started going off. I'm an ex-con. I made it about twenty feet on sheer instinctive panic before I ate the floor again. I'm pretty much down for the count between the nausea, the nosebleed that wasn't stoppin', and the cherry on top bein' the head trauma that the alarm was not doin' any favors for. I dunno how long I was there, it was all kind of fuzzy for a while but next thing I clearly remember was seein' a pair of red jackboots dead in front of me..." Claude was gesticulating wildly as he explained, clearly building up to a reveal. "And then you promptly threw up on them." Came a new voice, tinged with amusement. Entering the room, the man needed no introduction. Red shirt and boots, black pants, dual ray guns, and the iconic jetpack. Doctor Tomorrow.

Claude took the criticism in stride, made some corrections and kept at it. Even if he gave Benny an odd look at saying that he wasn't light on his feet. Granted, the only time he really needed to be punchin' fools is if everything went to hell, but that was a common occurrence as far as he was concerned. Most people who he had to deal with as a Guardian were not the subtle sort. Still, it would be rare that he'd throw down face to face. Usually he'd just ambush or sucker punch his opponents with feints and distractions. Then a bead of sweat managed to get into his eye, so he decided to take a quick break and grab a water much like Grim was doing. Wiping his face off with a towel, he glanced over at the only person wearing a costume in the gym. Was that a tattoo? The sacred heart? Relatively normal, especially when he considered how much a holy roller Sunshine appeared to be. Waitaminute. Tyler? Hadn't Nick said that Grim was at the LGBT+ club? The boy from Boston eyes narrowed as he noticed what looked another name in vietnamese inked into her arms as well. Moments later, the repository confirmed his initial guess. 'Phillip', it read. Huh. Odd. Yet more pieces to try and solve the puzzle that was angry grrl. Still, that was a problem for later. Now, it was back to punching.

Claude gave an exaggerated eye roll to Benny's instructions, but he still complied. The two jabs followed by the slip to deliver the hook, all delivered with punishing precision. Whoever had instructed the the Southie was a professional as Claude defty moved backwards out of sheer habit to avoid the counterpunch that would usually come after delivering a straight a combo like that. Lightly bouncing on his toes, he glanced over to Heroditus. "Huh, I never woulda guessed that some people take the 'science' part of the whole 'sweet science' thing literally." "Eh, whatever works." The Bostonian said with a light shrug of his shoulders as he rendered his verdict. A quick step took him back within striking distance of the pads in Benny's hands. Jab. Jab. Hook. Disengage.

Claude blinked at Bennys' outburst and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Alright with me," he said as he set his jaw with a mullish glare at the floor and began flexing his hands to get the tape settled right. "For the record, I even if I needle someone, I'll still work with them. I'll shove personal feelings aside to get the job done, but I'll never leave someone else holding the bag." Claude said still facing the floor, voice oddly serious with his normal accent missing. Claude quietly fell into his preferred stance after that, specifically the hitman style: his left arm hanging near the waist while his right arm was closely drawn to his chest area. It wasn't as powerful as the normal orthodox stance, but it let him leverage his gangly arms to deliver wicked fast flicker jabs. He waited until Benny was nearby and focused on him before addressing the other teen. "I appreciate the lesson in basics, bossman, but that don't exactly help me. Bit past these lessons but I don't wanna stop the newbies from learnin'." The Bostonian threw a flurry of light jabs with his left before comboing into a cross smash with his right. "If ya want, I'll busy myself with the speed bag until ya need me."

Claude sighed as today was apparently all about doubling down. He cleared his throat before piping up at Leroy and Ben. "Yanno, I'm all for the Tim Taylor school of tinkerin'. But there's this little thing called collateral damage you might want to be concerned about here, pally. It's fine if you're okay with meltin' your own face off or turnin' your own insides to gravy, but the rest of us didn't come here expectin' to have to deal with that happenin'. Especially, showin' off like you are and then asking for permission. You're excited, I get that, but try an tone it down a bit instead of going from zero to Von Neumann device. This ain't a popularity or a tech measurin' contest, after all." Apparently done, the Bostonian turned back to his groups whiteboard and started drawing a circuit diagram.

Claude continued at Nicks' nod to continue, silently appreciative that his new roommate was apparently saving his questions for later. "So, there I was spendin' the days impovin' myself when I figured, why the hell not go get my head shrinked? Went to a few, some good some quacks. Till I ran into one Dr. Chiba Kobayashi, I really was just spinnin' my wheels." "At first it was because she entertained the fact that I was living my life on repeat. Till I convinced her otherwise with stuff I shouldn't have any idea of knowin' about, heh." He chuckled in fond remembrance at the memory. "Eventually she helped get my head screwed on straight, then one day she asked a question that changed everything: 'What if you are the only one aware of what is happening and everyone else is stuck like you are?'" He gave Nick a level look. " Now I ain't a saint and never professed to be one. But if that all was somehow my fault or I was the only one who could help, I had ta fix it. I ain't my old man. I own up to my mistakes, especially after seein' what they did to me. I owe Chi everythin' for pullin' my punk ass outta my funk and gettin' me back to my feet so I could look beyond my own problems." "The issue I quickly ran into was time. Irony, am I right? I had all the time in the world and not enough at the same time. The reset, well, reset everything to five in the morning once it hit midnight. So, I only had around nineteen hours to somehow stop the loop." Claude paused to take a few bites of his food. "Anyways, I won't bore you with everything I tried or what I learned in the attempts. You could fill a library with that, which was where I found the concept of the the noosphere. Basically, it's the idea that there's a sort of 'collective unconscious' that all humans, especially psionic metahumans interact and broadcast into. Think of it like human cloud computin' if you get that analogy. So, what if I could forcibly update this unconsciousness to make it so everyone was aware like I was they were in a loop? Talked to some psions, made some tech, tried out a few things, and got some promisin' results." The Southie took a long drink from his water. "Sorry, bit parched from all the jabberin'. The only issue was that then everybody would be freakin' out like I was when I found about livin' on repeat. So I tried tweaking it and set to see if I could use the noosphere as a storage medium for everyone's' memories. That was both the right and wrong thing to do." Claude looked rather chagrined. "I broke it. The loop and everythin' else connected to it." He patted the pocket where he had put the cube away in. "The feedback went straight into my brainpan and the next thing I know I'm no longer in Freedom City but sitting in a weird ass clockworks with one hell of a migraine drippin' blood from my nose like a faucet, with the cube sitting on the floor glowin' red hot while smoking like an addict with a pack a day habit." "