Raveled

"Um. I'm not exactly sure where he is. I was just supposed to keep an eye on the passengers, I don't know where everyone was going to be. He likes being in charge, though; he's probably all the way forward, maybe even in the control room." The man rubbed the back of his neck, clearly uneasy. "You two aren't going to, like, hurt anyone are you? Most of the guys are pretty decent people." Tona crept forward and peeked through the window into the next car. It wasn't another passenger car, instead it was a diner car full of upholstered booths. In the corridor of the booths were several other passengers, all kneeling with their hands behind their head. A few more armed cultists were visible at the far end of the car, and directly in front of the next door was a large, coiled, reptilian form. It didn't look like the dinosaur was paying much attention at the moment, but if they just burst into the car they would have to deal with it.

Steel rider fixed Fast-Foward for a minute before speaking. "A month ago I believed the same, sir. Then animals appeared at the edge of town, slaughtered in Satanic fashion. And then... the children started disappearing." Miras felt her heart skip a beat. "Children are disappearing? Have you found... anything?" She didn't want to say what was at the forefront of her mind, but images off late-night news programs marched through her mind. The rider glanced at Miras but kept talking to Fast-Forward. "Nothing has reappeared yet." The other riders grumbled among themselves, shifting their steeds and their weapons uneasily. "Those damn savages. They must have took out children, doing all manner of heaten things to them."

"Well, yeah. That's sort of Dr. Rex's thing. He thinks that humanity would be better off if we weren't the apex predator, so he came up with a serum to make people dumb and angry and then he cloned some dinosaurs to go around hunting people." The soldier frowned. "He thinks that if humanity knew we weren't the most powerful things around we wouldn't treat the planet or other people the way we do." He was quiet for a moment and then added quietly, "That made a lot more sense when he was saying." Tona shook her head slowly. "So a crazy man thinks that dinosaurs will solve everything. Sounds about par for the course. Let's just hope the serum really does wear off."

One of the riders snorted in time with his horse. "As truth, you say. We all heard the thunder, and rode here, and now we see you dressed in that. Will you tell us next that you were intending to hunt snow hares?" He gestured towards Fast-Foward's leather jacket and white bodysuit, a far cry from what the rest of the riders were wearing. "Righteous!" The steel rider barked out and the mouthy rider cringed. "Keep a civil head in your tongue, boy. We know not who they are or whence they came." He returned his heavy glare to Fast-Foward and Miras again. "Though you did appear in thunder and a flash. I will ask again, are you with the evil that has bedeviled our homes?" "We are not with any sort of evil," Miras insisted. "We don't even know where we are right now. We're... a little bit turned around." "You are in the forests outside of Freedom," the steel rider said. "Freedom City, as they seem to be calling it now."

"I don't know if I could take going to jail," the man said slowly, "but if you can stop Dr. Rex I won't fight the police. You better hurry, though. I don't know how to stop the train, and if the Doctor gets to the engineer... well, who knows what he'd do under the influence of the serum?" "The serum?" Tona asked, curious despite herself. The man glanced at her and nodded. "In the soup. We were supposed to make sure it got to everyone. It makes people strong, and angry. Like really powerful steroids, I guess." "Is it permanent?" "Um." The man rubbed at the back of his head. "I'm not really sure. I don't think the Doctor got it exactly right this time, because he had us on the look-out for a certain boy. He said that if we could find him, his family would have the chemicals the Doctor needed to stabilize the serum -- so maybe it'll wear off with time? I don't think it'll matter, because once the Doctor has what he needs he's just going to release the dinosaurs."

It was dark for awhile, and when Miras opened her eyes the first thing she noticed was the quiet. There was no siren of emergency services; no screams of panicked crowds; not even the usual hustle and bustle of city life. The only thing that broke the silence was the occasional birdsong, and the far-off sound of something rhythmically striking the ground. She sat up and looked around her, noting immediately that she wasn't in the city anymore. All around her were trees, unbroken virgin forest stretching in every direction. She turned around and saw Fast-Foward sprawled out on the ground, then turned back as the striking rose to thunder. A group of men riding honest-to-Allah horses broke through the treeline and quickly surrounded her, pointing swords and guns at her and Fast-Forward. Miras went very still and slowly raised her hands in the air. She wasn't sure that bullets could actually get past her powers even at such closer range, but she didn't want anyone to start firing. She was staring at the men, noting their old-timey clothes and the smell of horses (the smell of horses kind of overwhelmed everything) when a man on a steel-gray horse with steel-gray hair trotted up to her. He didn't have a weapon drawn, but every single one of the horse riders watched him. "Speak your name, witch, or in the Lord's name we shall cut you down!"

“Greg was trying to get new shifts at the plant,” Anne said, looking at the coffee cup but not picking it up. “He was working all the hours he could get.” That was an interesting fact for Joe to absorb, since he was pretty sure Greg wasn't around the plant anymore than usual. “We need money for Taylor's medical bills, but I can't imagine Greg would take a job that kept him away from home for this long.” Asli picked up her coffee and added her two sugars, two creams, stirring quietly while she watched Joe. If there were any irregularities in the story of a steel worker's wife, he would spot them faster than she would.

Let's say the power put him at Indifferent, the skill puts him at Friendly.

The terrorist smiled at Sam through his tears. “I can't,” he said. “She left more for some jerk that made six figures. Said that I would never accomplish anything. So when I saw Dr. Rex’s wants ad I thought, this is a way to impress Sandy. She'll see I'm not just some bum, she'll see that I can really achieve. But now… You're a superhero, aren't you? You're going to break it all up, and we're all going to end up in jail.” “Kit!” Tona had crept forward from her hidden position and was within striking distance of the man. “Why are you trying to talk to the crazy cultist? Just punch him!”

If she goes out there on DI's dime her first enemies will likely be the Cryptid Clans, maybe even do a variation on Mongrel's origin -- heroic paramedic gets bit and runs off to the wood, someone has to go in and find him, and there's literally no one better at it than Tina. Why deemphasize super crime? What are PCs supposed to do?

Since Blue Jay doesn't have any strong ties to FC these days (short of protecting Fleur) I'm looking at moving her to RC. I think I can get her out there on a job from Danger International, when a DI worker goes missing in the Atlas Mountains. It'll give her a chance to try out the city and settle in there, if just shortly.

This is a thread to collaborate on threads for Emerald City, specifically for ways to get FC heroes out to the West Coast, either temporarily or permanently. It's also a place for those who have the book to help those that don't.

He is looking at photos of a young woman, about his age. There's a few of her on a school campus, on a bike, taking a selfie next to him, her with a ring, her in a wedding dress, more of them together.

You get those, no problem. Want to see what he's looking at on his phone?

They both watched as the man continued patrolling, then paused and turned to look out the window. As Tona and Sam watched, he went though a full range of emotions, letting his MP5 hang off the sling as he stared out into the darkness. His expression shifted from introspective to pensive to crestfallen over minutes, until he was merely blank and trembling with emotion. Tona glanced back at Sam and was about to move up when the man turned around and sank to the carpeted floor, drawing his knees up to his chest. He dug into his pockets and pulled out his smartphone, unlocking it and scrolling through something on the screen. In minutes, he was openly and quietly sobbing, tears rolling down his cheeks as Tona gave Sam a bug-eyed look. She knew how to handle armed enemies, not enemies having an emotional breakdown next to an automatic weapon!

Anne followed Joe inside, looking around his apartment. "I... I don't really know what happened," she said, "but I haven't seen or heard from Greg for two days. The police say they can't start looking for him until there's some evidence that he's really missing and..." Asli stepped out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel before slinging it over her shoulder. Anne's eyes went from Asli to Joe and back again, before widening in shame. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I'm interrupting, I can leave!" She turned towards the door but didn't make it two steps before Asli grabbed her shoulder. "Hey, it's alright." Asli turned Anne around and looked the other woman in the eye. "Whatever you have to say is way, way more important than what we were doing." Anna hesitated, biting her lip and glancing around. "Seriously, we're here to listen to you. Joe, could you put a pot of coffee on?" Asli lead Anne over to the table and sat her down, making sure that she could see only Asli. If Anne thought she was intruding, it would help if she could put as many people as possible out of her mind. Anne sat and chewed her lip for a moment before speaking again. "It's Greg," she said. "He hasn't been home for two days. Th' police say that they can't start looking until there's evidence of foul play. But I haven't heard from him in two day. I know Greg, he'd never just go off like this and leave me and Taylor. Something's wrong!"

Results 1d20+6: 12 [1d20=6] He is questioning his life choices and wondering if being in a weird snake/dinosaur cult is really the best decision. Go post away.

The guy is already pretty calm. Emotion Control isn't going to make him docile, he'll still shoot. Just shoot very, very calmly.

Tona threw Sam a glance but led the way down the corridor. She glanced in each room as they passed; most had curtains drawn across the porthole, but the few that were clear showed men and women in all sorts of outfits, beating the fold-down beds or tapping their heads against the walls or possibly watching their reflection in the dark windows. It was eerie, to see so many people reduced to animalistic fever. Tona hoped the people could be helped once this was all over. The pair passed through the car without a problem, and except for a moment of fumbling at door they slid smoothly over to the next car. It was another sleeper, with the cabins offset in the opposite direction from the last one; Tona prowled forward like a jungle cat, all coiled muscle and power, moving soundlessly on the carpeted floors. She peaked around the corner and saw a young man in the starched white uniform of the train company, with the matte black of a combat vest over it. He was marching in the other direction so she couldn't make out what he was holding, but it probably wasn't more soup.

Tona took the zipties and effortlessly tied up the woman in the sweater, easily avoiding her jerky blows and chaining her feet and arms together. After a moment she bent the woman's legs back and fixed them to her wrists, leaving the woman in the sensible sweater effectively hog-tied on the floor. The man allowed himself to be led back into the compartment; it wasn't too different from Sam and Tona's, except that the pair of soup bowels in this room were empty. With the immediate threat dealt with, Tona ducked back into their compartment and reappeared pulling on a pair of leather bracers. "We should go forward and check out the driver's seat." She paused and considered her words. "Cockpit. Joystick. Whatever. We should go and make sure that the driver isn't banging on the controls like a madman."

Miras and Fast-Forward moved in synch, each of them being careful not to get in front of the other. To the rest of the world they were an effortless, green-blue-black blur, but Miras was laboring. Keeping the enchantment on the bombs going and keeping her own magic under control while adjusting to Fast-Foward's borrowed speed was wearing on her, and the added stress of the bombs wasn't helping. She rejoiced inside when she saw the choppy waves of the Wading River. The pair of them stopped at the edge of the embankment and heaved the whole package into the water. Miras sighed and relaxed, letting the magic run out. Except it didn't go anywhere. In the perverse logic of the world, now that the energy wasn't needed it refused to dissipate. The entire world went blue and the edges of her vision started shaking; she turned to Fast-Forward and tried to step back from the edge of the river, but it felt like her legs were encased in gelatin. She opened her mouth to shout but suddenly the entire world seemed to rush away from her, contracting to a single blue point, before exploding. As the whiteness washed over her with a roar and a rush of air, the pressure in her head expanded a thousandfold and she passed out.

Miras had the tip of her tongue clenched between her teeth, her whole being bent to the task at hand. As she added to the mystical diagram, the ambient magical energy of the world began to flow around her. The smallest ebbs and flows of mystical power were caught in the symbols like sea water in a tide pool, charging them and filling the air with a feeling like static energy. The magus reached out to make the last few adjustments and a sharp crack of electricity jumped from her fingers to the grommets punched in the tarp. It was getting hard to breathe; her own bubble of magically sped-up time was interacting with Fast-Forward's mutant abilities and overlapping oddly, making it so she had to think about every movement carefully. If she just moved on instinct, she went almost too fast to control. It was like running down a hill and being constantly on the edge of toppling over. Carefully, slowly, but in a blur of speed to anyone existing outside the bubble of time magic and mutant speed, Miras climbed to her feet. She griped one edge of the tarp and whispered the words that set the magic spell in motion. A blue dome began to glow around the explosives piled in the center and a low, almost subsonic thrum sounded through the underground garage. She licked her lips and spoke carefully, making sure to fully enunciate so that Fast-Forward understood her. "Now we need to get them to the river," she said. "If we can get them into the water, when they go off they won't hurt anyone." She gripped the tarpaulin hard enough to turn her knuckles white and tensed her legs, ready to run.

I'm going to be out of town from Mon 11th through Friday 15th, going up north to some cabins. The cabins are supposed to have wifi, so we'll see how that goes, but if I fall off the face of the earth for a week that's what happened.

The Garnet Rhino, the Carborundum Vulture...

"I'm sorry," Asli said. "I was just trying to check something out on the street and I didn't see you." She looked out at the street again and noticed the ment getting out of the car, and also noticed their clothes. She sucked in a breath between her teeth and stepped in front of the younger man. "Better get back inside," she said, her tone suddenly low and cold. "It might get dangerous outside." She quickly stepped up to the entrance, putting her arms over the open doorway and leaning there, blocking the group from getting past. "Hello there, boys," she called out. "I'm afraid you're a bit late for the circus act. The rest of the clowns have already packed up and left." She smiled sweetly, daring them to react to her words.