Raveled

Brain stood almost at attention in Duncan Summers's presence. This was the man who had looked beyond the accident of his birth and decided to give him a chance, to prove that he could be more than just his parents' son. Even if Brian hadn't been brought up to be courteous to his elders, this man would've commanded all his respect. "Just one, sir," he said. "I know the -- that nature of this school isn't common knowledge. About people here having superpowers, I mean. But I saw some kids out on the quad using their powers openly, and some others who wouldn't be able to hide what they were if they wanted to." He felt a special empathy with that group and resolved to buy himself a pair of mirror sunglasses the first chance he got. "I guess my question would be, how open are we? I'm guessing that flying from class to class isn't a big deal, but what about flying into town? What are the rules for heroing? Do I have to join a team or wear a mask? Do I take a class? Do I need a license? Back in Little Rock," he added, trying to helpful, "the local team are all deputies of the sheriff's department. Is that how it works out here?" He paused and considered what he just said. "I guess I have more than one question after all."

Ironclad's sensors tracked several viable targets in the area, but the one that was focusing on was the blazing hound streaking through the night. She really thought that it wasn't going to wake up, even when she dropped it into the fire. In the future, web it. Regardless, the heroine darted off after the beast. In a matter of moments she had recalibrated her wrist blasters to a more damaging setting, and as the beastie surged into a straight sprint she came to a sudden halt, hovering perfectly still. She took the time to line up her shot and slammed a mighty blow out, hoping and praying that the thing wouldn't get up again.

Ironclad's Attack on Hound. Full All-Out Attack, full Power Attack (1d20+9=24) Defense goes down to +4, everything else remains the same. Almost sorry I wasted such a great attack on something that's almost dead anyway.

Ironclad noticed the sudden, searing attack by the sniper on the golden robot hero. She tucked into a steep dive, pulling out a bare dozen feet or so above the action, and brought both of her wrist blasters to bear on the baddie. The red-gold bolts punched holes in the metal roof and slapped into the sniper's concealed legs, knocking him down. He struggled to get his hands and feet under him, but he was moving slowly, groggily.

Initiative order is Ironclad -- Uninjured -- HP x3 Protectron -- Uninjured -- HP x1 Geckoman -- Uninjured -- HP x3 Victory -- Uninjured -- HP x2 Power Corps Sniper -- Staggered + Stunned -- GM Blueshift -- Uninjured -- HP x2 Clad's Attack 1d20+9=25 Hits. DC 24 Toughness. PC Sniper Toughness vs 24 (1d20+11=18) Fail by 10 means Staggered + Stunned! Archy, you're up.

Brian Harris should've been in school -- in chemistry class, in point of fact. However when he reported to class he found the corridor choked with a stringent yellow fog, the area already being walled off by the faculty. Normally he'd go to the library to study for a bit, but a scheduling error meant that his next class period was free. He decided to fly down to Liberty Park; it was one of the prettier parts of the city, and it was free to walk around there. He was strolling around the perimeter of the park, window shopping at the stores across the street, wen the news was interrupted. The program was being broadcast on a widescreen HD TV, so even from across five lanes of traffic the teen hero had no trouble seeing the door blown off its hinges and a large muscle-bound man stride into the studio. He couldn't hear any sound -- the display was likely muted -- and he couldn't read lips, but the news team's reaction and the assault on the anchor told him all he needed to know. He strode over to a nearby news stand, whose owner was reading the latest issue of the Daily Word. "Excuse me," Brian said, "can you tell me where that's happening?" He pointed at the TV were the supervillain was still ranting away. The vendor flicked his eyes over the TV, then returned his gaze to the tabloid and pointed briefly at one of the towers that crowded around the park. Brian touched a finger to his hairline and mouthed a sarcastic thank you -- then took off like a shot. The sudden displacement of air created a powerful, if short-lived, vortex in front of the vendor's shack, pulling magazines and newspapers off the rack and scattering them across the sidewalk and into the street.

"Damn." There was a sudden flicker of movement on the rooftop, a subtle and eye-twisting ruffle of the roofing, as the Power Corps sniper rose to one knee and turned. The camo-cape fluttered out behind him, still concealing his form from the waist down, but the blaster bolts spitting out from the snout of his rifle were visible to the entire group. Several of the neon-yellow bolts soared off into the sky, but several more caught the robot hero Protectron squarely in the metallic chest.

Notes, notes, notes. Initiative for the PC sniper (1d20+5=14) Ini for Ironclad 1d20+3=18 Ooo, nice. And yes, this does mean it's time for people to start rolling dem bones! PC Sniper attacks... Protectron! All that gold makes him such a good target. 1d20+11=22 Hits, DC 24 Toughness from Archy, please.

Glowstar exchanged a worried look with King and then stepped forward. "It was all me," he admitted. "There's a lot of mooks and gangbangers in there, but at least one woman had superpowers. I think she blasted Herne through the wall before we even attacked. Um. But yeah, I went in and managed to take everyone out before they could do much of anything else." He paused for a moment, then asked, "Am I going to get into trouble for this? It's my first time doing something like this, and I don't know exactly what's allowed and what's not."

Jessica sat on the edge of the exam bed and lay back, her legs bent at the knees and hanging off the edge. She resisted the urge to kick her feet idly, and folded her hands over her stomach as the music slowly filled her head. It was certainly a different experience than she felt at most doctor's offices; then again, she should have expected something out of the ordinary from the very best in, well, every field. That's not to say that the experience was unpleasant -- quite the opposite in fact. She found her fingers tapping along to the drum line and forced them to stillness. Doktor Archeville had told her to remain quiet, and so she forced herself to keep rock-steady. Still, The signals shifted slowly, from jazz to rock to electronica -- from digital signals to infrared beams to radio and wi-fi. Doktor Archeville slowly lowered the shielding around the room, exposing Jessica to more and varied signals. The young woman's body responded; her entire brain lit up like the city skyline at night, her eyes started moving under their lids like someone dreaming, her limbs witched as electric signals triggered the wrong neurons, and her core body temperate rose by three degrees. There was all sorts of interesting data coming off Jessica's body, and she was swimming in information herself, pure binary song. She scoured through Archetech's database, inhaling volumes of low-security files, barely touching on the protected stuff before retreating. She found one file, digested it, and sat bolt upright. In the time it took her to go from horizontal to vertical the strange signals disappeared and she was left staring at Archeville. "There are werewolves in city?"

Initiative (1d20+3=16)

Ironclad floated above the heroes as they followed the spectral hound through the streets. She took the property damage in with a quiet horror, trying not to imagine who would unleash something so powerful with apparently no morals and no control. It was a miracle that no one had gotten injured before the heroes stepped in. Now she hovered over the street, probing into the light fog ahead with her suit's sensors. She didn't recognize the gangbangers dancing around the bonfire, but she was pretty sure the fire marshal didn't know anything about it. The heroine floated silently over to the fire, then dropped the still-paralyzed hound in the middle of the fire. "Evening, gents!" she called out with forced cheer. "Want to help your local zoo? Start my identifying our roasting friend, here!"

Brian had been dreading this moment, but he wasn't about to flake out at the last second. People may say all sorts of things about his parents, but he was determined to show that they had raised him right. He stepped forward and offered the female police officer his hand. "Actually, I did that," he said. "I go by Glowstar, but my name's Brian Harris." He glanced at the destruction and winced as something inside fell down with a crash and a tinkling noise. "Um, I did stop a lot of bad guys doing it."

Ironclad rolled her eyes underneath her mask and opened a private communication link with Dragonfly. He's not the brains of the outfit, she texted. Be happy that he doesn't get it. Aloud, she spoke to her friend and fellow heroine. "I've alerted the police," which was true; it didn't take more than a second for her to do so. "Can you pop these two in a bubble and we can all go outside to wait for the cops?"

Ironclad picked herself up off the floor and dusted herself off. "I'll carry it," she said, walking over and hoisting the beasty up. She took the opportunity to watch Dead Head closely through her sensors, her limited suite probing the wrapped figure for information. He's room-temperature. How can he survive like that? Is he thermal-shielded, or perhaps his biological make-up is different? And what about that dog -- how could it fly and talk? Was it the superpowered one in the relationship, and its owner merely skilled? But then why run around with a shovel?

Skimming the skyline, Ironclad flew above the city on one of her pre-designed patrol paths. It took her over most of Freedom City's criminal and villainous hotspots, while taking a minimum amount of time; an increasing necessity with all the things taking up her time recently. She noticed a large airship descending from the clouds and quickly identified it as the Pitchoo, belonging to one of the more memorable heroes in the city. Flashes of light closer to the ground advertised other heroes in the vicinity, and her communication suite buzzed with the noise of far-off radio conversations. She curved her flightpath, heading towards the gathering of heroes. Atop the warehouse roof, the group was being observed by a bodysuited figure with an oversized scope attached to his blaster rifle. He was almost motionless, except where he tracked his hero with the business end of his weapon. He was concealed from view by a light-bending camo cape, draped over his back and legs; his arms and head were hidden behind a cooling unit. He toggled a tongue-switch inside his head and spoke into the communicator concealed there. "We've got trouble. Lots of it."

Jessica sipped at the bitter coffee. She normally would have sweetened it, but but she didn't want to give Sa-Ur something else to critique. She couldn't imagine having a parent literally looking over her shoulder -- for once in her life, she was very glad that her parents allowed her to live her life without any interference. The young woman took a swallow of her coffee and turned to address Quo-Dis. "So, Quo-Dis. You talked a little bit about how things are taught among your people. How does it compare to Claremont? Do you have a favorite teahcer or class?"

1d20+5=6 Blueshift's Extended senses mean that she can detect the guy on the roof.

Glowstar'd be up for this, obviously.

Jessica shook her head. "Just an overgrown bean-counter," she mused. "Well, I don't suppose you've examined his source-code closely enough to determine who wrote him in the first place? I don't mean that he should be property," she added hurriedly. "He's sentient and free-thinking; he deserves all the rights and liberties of anyone else. But if someone, some company wrote Sharl, they might want him back." She watched Sharl and Protectron interacting, even she held her side-conversation with Miss A. "If the Lab's going to be the target of lawsuits by Majestic or the Grant Conglomerate, wanting their in-house super-program back, I think we should prepare for that."

Jessica hadn't had much of a chance to examine Protectron in the month he'd been residing at the Lab, so she was doubly-excited when he showed up. She raised an eyebrow at the food assortment that the robot handed her friend, but there wasn't time to speculate on that. There was just so much to watch! Sharl, alone, was a fascinating enigma, but she wondered how Protectron would react to this fellow non-organic sentient? Not to mention the fact of his origin. She sidled up to Miss A so the pair could converse at a lower tone. "You said you found him on the Internet," she whispered to the other woman. "Where, exactly?"

Jessica Parker's studies had overflowed her personal lab space and were encroaching on her office/study. Biology textbooks were stacked five or six deep on the floor, and there were several holographic computer screens floating in mid-air at different points. All of the screens displayed information on the latest efforts in cloning. It was hard going for the genius teen; the life sciences weren't her field, and cloning was a cutting-edge application of it. She was trying to fit a half-dozen years of study and degrees into a few hours of cramming -- she hadn't even begun to run tests on the dozen or so vials of blue-red blood arranged on her desk. Her head was beginning to throb unpleasantly and half a dozen pencils had been thrust into the ceiling already, a testament to her growing frustration. Everything affected everything else and half of the science seemed built on supposition and hope! This wasn't any way to engineer a creation! "Intelligent design," she huffed. "Yeah, right." As such, Miss A's announcement of a new arrival was a welcome break. She half-ran out of her office, making her way over to the elevator. She met Dragonfly halfway and the two young women chatted as they rode down together.

Glowstar took a few quick steps away from the sobbing man, retreating back to the hole in the wall. He started at Volcano's sudden appearance, but soon settled, rubbing at the back of his neck and surveying the damage. "Yeah. This is... sorta my first time doing this sort of thing." He turned to the other hero. "Is there, like, a city reconstruction fund or something that I could point this way? 'Cause I know that not too long ago this city was fighting off kaiju, so there must be one heck of a reconstruction company around."

Jessica suppressed the urge to give her friend a raspberry. "Of course! I'd love to show folks around," she said, smiling broadly. "But not everyone at once. Shall we take, say, five or so?" She gestured to the nearest half-dozen reporters and lead them away, metal boots going click-clack on the tile floor. “This area,†she said, “is available to be rented out, for scientific or technical conferences. Located as we are in Hanover, we’re also looking into internships with the HIT and other colleges in the city.†“Will classes be taught here,†one of the reporters asked. Jessica gave a small smile. This was one of the questions she had prepared for. “It would be impractical to shuttle students between the campus and the Lab. Which isn’t the say there won’t be field trips,†she added. “There’s some technology here that isn’t really available elsewhere in the city.â€

Brian considered the offer for a moment, then shook his head. "I shouldn't keep Mr. Summers waiting," he decided aloud. "I'll have plenty of time to explore the gym later." As the small group cut across the campus, the young mutant conjured a ball of red-black energy in his free hand, staring at it for a long moment. It wasn't hard to guess that he was wondering how the color scheme would go with a blue and yellow jumpsuit. What it meant when he released the energy to float slowly up into the sky, though, was harder to guess at. "So, is there any sort of structured training? Maybe some sports teams?" he asked, a note of hope in his voice.