Raveled

Blue Jay had managed to snatch a few hours of sleep under the watchful eye of an Omegadrone. It certainly wasn't the best night's sleep she ever had, but she at least woke up slightly less tired than before. The young archer stretched and started checking over her gear as the rest of the group roused and went through their morning routines as best they could. "If we need to go fast," she offered, "we should get a car." She looked at the bulk of Philadelphia rising on the horizon. "There should be lots of cars in there. Maybe even an airplane. And if it's like Freedom City, there'll be almost no one around to complain if we take one."

I'm fine with that.

Tona smiled as her friend sidled up alongside her. This day was looking to be boring, but at least she didn't have be bored alone. And the kiss warmed her through and through. At least, it seemed like it was going to be boring until a group of garishly dressed people popped onto the stage. From their words, Tona assumed they were heroes, or at least trying to be. And then Warp and El Herald jumped up there, and the whole situation seemed to get much more tense. Except it wasn't. Or at least Walsh didn't seem too worries about a half-dozen very powerful individuals who weren't very happy with him. Tona found herself admiring the politician's courage, even if his words didn't reflect her own feelings on the matter. She looked at Sam. "Think I should give him a native's view of T-Babies," she asked, "or can Warp handle it?"

GM Leroy looked around, apparently checking the shadows for anyone who might be watching. "Nuthin' happened to me," he said, "but Maggie, and ol' Henry, and the new guy, Amar? They just gone and vanished. Poof, no one's heard from them in weeks." He shook his head dolefully. "I ain't gonna let some monster in the tunnels snap up Leroy, no sir no how." The police officer managed to coax the homeless man into the back of the police cruiser and pulled out a map of the neighborhood. He showed Arcturus where Royal Station was supposed to be put in, before pulling away and returning to the police station. The subway station had been planned to be a grand building in the style of the time, but ever since the plan was abandoned the building was simply a huge, empty shell. A little bit of investigation found out that one of the wooden slabs covering the door was loose, and he was able to slip into the dark building.

Blue Jay drew, nocked, and fired all as one smooth motion, almost without thinking. The arrows all struck home on the hulking dead man, but the creature seemed to barely notice the pinpricks. The archer broke to the side and tried to get some distance between her and the charging zombie, but the patchwork man proved quicker on his feet than she could have anticipated. He barreled through the narrow hallway and swatted at her almost casually; it barely caught her, but even that glancing blow threw her against the wall, hard. Her limbs turned to jelly and she fell to the ground, ears full of the roaring of her own heart.

Combat! Blue Jay's Ini (1d20+15=29) Using Ecal's Improved Powerhouse with no Con, Fort Immunity, and no Impervious Toughness. ZombieHouse's Ini (1d20=13) Man, if only this was Shadowrun. Initiative 29 Blue Jay -- Uninjured -- HPx2 13 ZombieHouse -- Uninjured -- GM Blue Jay Standard Action: Arrow Flurry. Blue Jay's attack vs. ZombieHouse. DC 20 Tou + Autofire (1d20+15=31) That's way over the maximum, so DC 25 Tou. ZombieHouse's Toughness save, vs DC 25. (1d20+14=29) Le sigh. That is why we Toughness shift! Move Action: Getting the hell out of the way. ZombieHouse Move Action: Leap through the wall! Standard Action: Charge! ZombieHouse's melee attack + charge. DC 30 Tou (1d20+5=23) Well, hell. Blue Jay's Toughness save, vs DC 30. (1d20+9=17) :thud: Rerolling. Blue Jay's Toughness save, vs DC 30. Reroll (1d20+9=17) That is a 27. Bruise x1.

It is generally not a good idea for a character to be undercapped defensively, especially a PL 7. You are going to find that the character is taken out of combat very, very easily by the vast majority of opponents. I would rebuild the Shapeshifting array so that the character always hits their defensive caps.

Tona Baudin was part of neither group. The young woman stood off to the side, observing both groups, trying to write down everything both sides said while still trying to catch the reaction of the crowds. She didn't normally follow politics, she didn't pay attention to the greater world outside her interests. Which is why she'd been saddled with extra civics homework, covering this political rally-slash-debate. The only problem was, Tona had no idea how to handle two people yelling their points into the air at the top of their lungs. She wondered if it would all be faster if the two representatives would just charge out into the middle and fight it out, but she supposed that's what all the yelling was supposed to avoid. She sighed and made use of a brief break in the angry speech-making to rotate her aching hand, then bent over her writing again.

One moment, Blue Jay was struggling to get air back into her lungs and wondering if she physically could reach the limits of the city before the green wall came up, and then someone in a Claremont uniform was grabbing her hand and the scene around her changed to forest. She spun around and noticed Wander, the Omegadrone, and presumably the third member of the group, already standing there and watching her. Blue Jay's first instinct was to run, or hit someone and run, or shoot an arrow and run, but she didn't now how far she'd get in her current condition. So instead she forced her to rise from the crouch she'd dropped into instinctively and hold her hands at her side, even if her palms were itching for a weapon. She nodded to Wander first. "The Brave." Then the drone. "I'm hoping you're the One Free Drone." And finally to the older girl in the red coat. "And you're... Jane, right?" Her eyes settled on Quickstep and she frowned briefly. "I... didn't except to see anyone else from Claremont here." She stepped back so she could see the city rise while still keeping the entire group in view. Her mouth hung open slightly as the entire metropolis was carried into the air, but at the Omegadrone's matter-of-fact tone she snapped it closed and crossed her arms, affecting indifference. "If we're going to stay out of sight," she said, "standing next to the crater of the city isn't going to do us any favors. We should stay on the move."

Blue Jay, reporting.

Blue Jay ducked back under cover as the flying ships swept around the city, her fingers itching to draw an arrow but common sense telling her that hiding was the better option. They didn't seem inclined to attack, so the archer decided that the best solution was just to run. She ran out of the store and rounded a corner, heading south towards Pramas Bridge as fast as her feet could carry her. Blue Jay was in damn good shape, she was young, and she ran every single day, but she was still human. She reached the riverfront before the burning in her lungs grew to be too much and she was forced to slow down, coming to a stop near a cafe with blown-in windows. She leaned against a metal table and breathed deeply, watching the ships fly their circuit. "What," she gasped aloud, "what are they doing? Why... why don't they... attack... if they're going to?"

Tona cut away from the group, moving through the forest with an easy, unconscious grace, turning sideways to slip through bushes while barely turning a leaf and stepping over patches of thick bracken without ever being truly aware of what she was doing. In fact her conscious mind was all tied up in the conversation she'd just had. Tona had always assumed that she would go back home after learning things at Claremont, that she would eventually travel back to the Terminus and... and do something, make things better for her world and her people. She wasn't sure if it was possible to rescue a world that was already in the Terminus, but if Omega had been killed than anything seemed possible! Maybe even to shut down the Doom Coil and undo all the terrible fates of the Terminus and its victims! She found herself facing a wide-boled willow tree and she started climbing it automatically. But now Sam wanted to come with her, and Cerys and probably Mali once she found out about it. And maybe even Subito, though his nosiness hadn't done anything to endear him to her. Sam had only briefly talked about her world but it hadn't sounded nearly as terrible as Tona's home, and she was certain that neither Cerys nor Mali had ever experienced anything like the Terminus. Tona reached the crown of the tree and wedged herself between two branches, looking back towards the campsite. In the deepening dark it glowed in the firelight, a beacon of light and warmth in a night that would quickly grow very dark. She leaned back against the wood and felt something poking her in the butt; she pulled it out and was surprised that she still had her skinning knife on her! If she had spaced out on that, her mind must be more preoccupied than she realized. She wiped the blade clean on her pants-leg and worked at the pommel, twisting it around and sliding it off to reveal a concealed honing knife. She went to work on the blade, grateful for any physical activity to keep her hands busy while she thought.

"No, I damn well will not sit down and be quiet!" Tory pushed against the crowmembers, who struggled to keep him in the brig without resorting to violence. "I don't want any damn dinner, either, take that crap away!" The guards pushed back suddenly and Tory tumbled to the ground. He picked himself up quickly though and faced them down, glaring. "I'm a citizen of Freedom City and the United States. I know my rights, you can't just hold me here!" He picked up a glass and tossed it against the bars of the jail cell. "You know what? This is looking more and more like some supervillain grabbing folks off the street to do whatever his sick little mind feels like! How do I know I shouldn't be calling for the Freedom League anyway, huhn?"

Tona frowned, turning to look at Sam with a sudden and total concentration that she rarely turned on anyone that wasn't about to get an arrow through them. She tried hard to recall the other girl's actual, real appearance behind the magical mask. She tried to mentally impose the blue and yellow sea-shells on the image. "Definitely the blue," she said. "Your face is too... um, too cherche des malades. Not enough blood to your joues for yellow, I think." She glanced over at Changeling, saw the woman considering a long, interconnected string of jewels. The archer spotted a brooch closer to hand, featuring a red robin in flight. She picked it up and wrapped it around her wrist experimentally. "What do you think?" She tried to ignore how the older woman behind the counter was glaring at her even harder.

Jessica sprang up from the couch. There was a dull ache all along her left side where she had hit the ground, but youthful exuberance let her act like it wasn't there. "I'll be just a minute," she said, dashing up two flights of stairs to her workroom. The computer had done its job; while it was cracking the disc's encryption, the waldos had been at work repairing her suit. It certainly did not look nice, what with the jets unpainted and bolted on, but it would fly. She redressed and came down the stairs more carefully, testing her increased weight on each step before committing. Before long she was standing on her porch again, ramping up the jets slowly to see if they could take the strain. They rattled a bit as they settled into the mountings, but before long she was hovering solidly above the concrete. "We'll make a bee-line," she said, winking at her ally behind her helmet. "No reason to hide we're coming, if they know we took down their attack drones!" With that she was off and streaking through the sky.

Starlight allowed the energy to flow out of her hands as Asad took out the last of the super-powered terrorists. She flew into the air and bypassed the soldiers who stormed into the place, setting down near Young Britannia. "Young Britannia," she said, her normally stoic tone tinged with relief. "I am glad to see that you came through the combat." She glanced down at her friend and back up, giving the other woman a tight smile. "And unharmed. Congratulations." She nodded to Asad and turned to listen to Athena's proposal. She formed an eyebrow so she could raise one at the suggestion. "Are you saying that Director Powers wants us to do the job of AEGIS? Are we to be deputized?"

Starlight kept a hand focused on Erasmus. She easily saw through his deception, and a part of her wanted to obliterate this human stain from this world; he had crawled around in her head, an action too close to the Meta-Mind for her to easily let it go. After a moment she decided that killing him would assuage her immediate desire for vengeance, but seeing an alien blow a surrendering man to dust wouldn't go over well. She floated to the ground, never letting her eyes stray off Erasmus. When her feet touched the ground she gestured and a energy bubble appeared around the man, lifting him into the air. "You will take us to where you made these machines," she said, "and we will destroy all the plans and prototypes. And then we shall decide what to do with you."

AA, question on the table. Can BK and Jay get to Claremont before it's closed off?

"I don't think they had super-science shark mutagens in ye olde times," Glowstar pointed out. "None of these guys look like chemistry majors. Uh, not that most chemistry majors that I know have dorsal fins and rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth, but you know. I think we should be more worried that someone came along and gave this junk to them." He shrugged, toeing the collapsed pile that used to be the shark effigy. "We should tell Doctor Kirkstorm what we found out, and hand over the mutagen to the cops. And hope to hell that no one here took their work home with them, you know?"

Blue Jay chewed her lower lip for a moment. "I don't want to make anyone too angry," she said finally. "I don't... we shouldn't... It wouldn't be a good idea here to kill them." Which wasn't to say her first instinct wasn't to kill them, but even though these people were her enemies they weren't Omegadrones or the Steel General's twisted mockeries of flesh and metal. They were regular people who had made a lot of bad decisions, but that didn't mean that she had to kill them. "Can you make them scared, instead?" She pulled an arrow from her quiver and tested the edge, a part of her mind already picking out targets.

Blue Jay crossed her arms. "I don't know anyone named Jill," she said. "But I lived with the Furions for a little while, and they told stories of Wander, and Sage, and Edge, and Cobalt Templar, and Midnight. The Brave, the Fleet, the Mighty, the Swordsman, and the Marksman. They were a team, and a year or so ago they... They killed Omega." Jay paused to let that fact sink in. Killing Omega, the herald of decay and unchangeable fate. Bringing an end to the Knight of Entropy! "You, um, you have to understand that the Furions don't keep diaries or write newspapers. Everything is heroic songs and cycles and poetry. I don't know the exact details, but they put a definitive end to him. Or at least as definitive an end as anyone can." Jay moved to the door of the supermarket, looking out over the ruined street. "Which, yeah, doesn't explain why'd she be working with Annhilists and Omegadrones now. I just don't have all the answers right now, I'm sorry." Jay was quiet for a few minutes as she considered their options. They could always leave town. She would be far more comfortable in a forest of any description, than in a ruined Freedom City. Of course before they left there was still one place she had to check out. "Bee-Keeper, there's a place I have to go. I didn't think we should be separated, so you should come with me, but... it's a secret. A really big one, so if you come with me and we make it back, you've got to keep it. You can't go telling anyone about this place, ever." She took a deep breath and held it. "It's a school for superheroes."

My home Internet is down, so access and posting will be intermittent.

"Fleur de Joie's word counts for an awful lot," Jessica agreed. The hero's story of trying to make a name for himself separate from the others that had worn the armor touched something in Jessica. The revelation of her grandfather's actions while the first Ironclad had shook her, and made her reconsider her choice to wear the armor. She had come through the other side, but she could commiserate with some of what the new Bee-Keeper had felt when he decided to take up the mantle. "I can actually kind of imagine what it would be like to fight another superhero," she said, casting her mind back a couple of years, grinning. "In fact when I was just getting started I --" The story was interrupted when her silvery bracelet began vibrating. She touched it and sat up, tapping the low coffee table in the middle of the arrangement of furniture. "Seems like we have something," she murmured. The big-sceen TV at the focus of the furniture woke up, revealing a computer's desktop. The wallpaper was quickly replaced by a series of windows, which Jessica began to flip through with dazzling speed. She typed at the table like it was a keyboard, and maybe it was because before long the screen was displaying a satellite topography image. "New Jersey," Jessica said helpfully. A red line appeared at the northernmost point of the state and followed a blue line to the ocean, then followed the coast south. "They traveled underwater," Jessica noted, admiration tinging her voice. "That's why no radar tower caught them. Smart." The line reached Freedom City and stopped, but Jessica was already zooming in on the red line's origin. "High Point State Park." A few more tapped commands and the window split, the left half opening up a Wikipedia article. "Highest point in the state of New Jersey," she read off. "Well it would be. Otherwise that name would just be silly." Jessica sat back, leaving the map up on the screen. She looked across at Bee-Keeper. "I hope that armor is waterproof," she said.

Most of them are muscular to one degree or another. Everyone is armed with at least a pistol. There are some folks talking, some folks watching TV, some folks playing with their phones.

Blue Jay kept her eyes focused on the warehouse below them, and for a few moments it seemed like she had't heard Kit's suggestion at all. When she did speak, her tone was low and firm. "No. Appearing in the the middle of them would be bad. Too many guns, I don't want to be in any kind of crossfire." She crossed to the side of the building and peered down at the door guard. "Crimson Tiger, I want you to take out the door guard and get the front door open, get their attention. Kit, cover her and make sure she doesn't get shot. Once they're all watching the door, me and Blood will hit them through the skylight. That should scare them enough that they'll try to run. Alright?"