Raveled

Jessica's response to the entire mess was to take one large step back. She had her own family troubles, she had no idea how to handle anyone else's. It seemed, though, that they were going to be getting a chaperon for the rest of the evening, and she might as well be polite to the woman. If nothing else, teenagers should avoid causing an interplanetary incident. She inclined her head respectfully to the older Ultiman and lead the group back to the shop. "Would you like some coffee, Mrs., er, Ur?" What should they call the woman? "It's, um, part of this... courting ritual." Her ears colored to talk like that about a date but she deferred to the alien's sentiments, here.

Brian Harris's stomach was tied into knots during the flight out to Freedom City. Excusing the fact that this was his first time on a commercial airplane, indeed his first time very far from his hometown, it hadn't even been a month since his home was broken into by federal police and his parents had been outed to the world as supervillains. (Some Christmas that had been.) Now he was expected to make a new life for himself in Freedom City, and he was almost positive that the old woman sitting across the aisle from him was an undercover AEGIS agent. Some of his troubles were forgotten as the plane banked for final approach and he caught a view of Freedom City itself spread out out past one wingtip. He knew it would be larger than where he came from, but it was almost impossible to imagine how much bigger. He was supposed to protect all of that? Little Rock was only half a million or so and it had four full-time superheroes! A sinking feeling started in his guts, though that might've been the plane losing altitude. Once in the terminal, he nodded respectfully to the older woman in the suit -- Harcourt, she said her name was -- and held his hand out to Mark. "Um. AEGIS only let me pack one suitcase, and the carry-on." He shrugged, making the drawstring satchel he wore over one shoulder bob up and down. From its shape, it didn't seem to have much in it. "They said they had to check my other stuff, and they'd send it along as soon as they could." He turned to address the other Claremont student. "Hello, Mark."

Ironclad looked between the half-open garage door and the pile of packages and machine in her hand. "Not gonna fit," she commented flatly. "I guess that's the first thing to do." She placed the motorcycle down carefully and ducked under the rolling door. She located the motor for he door without any trouble and started examining it closely. Her helmet reappeared as she accessed the suit's sensors, probing the abused and aged machine. The young woman started humming under her machine and pulled a set of tools from her belt, probing the device physically before she started more serious work.

"No contest," she said. "Zombie in the mail system." Robin sipped her drink and sat forward in her seat, letting Gabriel stew on that comment for a moment. "The mail system has a lot of precautions that they didn't use it, and one of them is X-ray scanning. Apparently, one of the local mail branches was scanning a random package and it turned out to be a leg." The sorceress boxed out a form with her hands, at least twenty inches long. "From below the knee, including the foot. In some kind of Styrofoam container, packed in dry ice. There were several similar packages, all boxed in the same way with the same lettering on the labels, and they all had body parts -- different ones, actually. Like someone had sectioned a human body and put it into the mail. So they -- the mail personnel -- picked up the last box and it started swearing at them. They opened it up and it was a head, still swearing at them. "I got called in by word of mouth and, to make a long story short, it was a dead man still moving around. He'd been some kind of archeologist back in the Twenties, and found a brass ring that contained a djinni. The djinni granted him one wish, and this guy wished that he would see the whole world before he passed on. The djinni granted the wish and the guy immediately tested it by shooting himself. He died, but his spirit, his soul didn't move on. The djinni didn't make him immortal, it just stopped him from passing on when he died and tied his soul to his now-dead-and-decaying body. "At some point this guy realized it was cheaper to get sectioned and travel via next-day mail. So that's what he did, packing his bits in dry ice and getting sewed back up when he got to his destination. It worked, I guess, until they started X-ray scanning packages." She fell silent, letting Gabriel absorb the strangeness of the story, then spoke up. "So, it's only fair. Weirdest villain? Excluding succubi?"

Jessica left the coffee shop with Blake, separating once they were outside. She scanned the parking lot methodically, sectioning it with her eyes, looking for a threat or something that would've caused Quo-Dis to shout and run out like that. "Where did she go," she asked of no one in particular. "What was that language? Is this something I'm going to need the armor for?" A low pressure started building in the young woman's mind, an irrational dislike of the alien girl. This was supposed to be a fun night out meeting Blake's friend, and Corbin's date had spent most of it either propositioning the young man or talking up Nazi propaganda. She was willing to make allowances for how someone was raised, but this was getting to be ridiculous.

Jessica stared for a moment, her brain running in circles. Take it out? Cure her? It was a miracle. It was the next twenty Christmases and birthdays rolled into one. It was everything she could've wanted, and more than she'd hoped to dream for. She opened her mouth to say something approximating "Yes yes, a thousand times yes, do it now, get it OUT of me.' An image came to her, out of the depths of her perfect memory, and stopped her cold. It was a brain, hideously malformed, flat where it should be wrinkled and creased where it should be smooth, potions starved or else overfed and left to bloat. The organ had been tortured beyond Mengele 's wet dreams and it resided in her best friend's head. Mara had never had this kind of chance, and even if something could help Jessica a week after it started it wouldn't help a woman who had been like that for twenty years. She couldn't take the easy way out, not when her friend didn't have a way out. Jessica closed her mouth, swallowed, and opened it again. "No," she said. "I can deal with all of this on my own. Bust, um, thank you very much for the offer." She rubbed at her eyes with the heel of one hand, moving to a sitting position on the exam table. "The project I've got in mind is kind of personal. I've got to integrate this data, but I'll be sure to give you a call. Okay?" Had she just given Doktor Archeville the brush-off? She must really be distracted.

Jessica pulled her armor out of the kiln, her hands stuck in thick mitts to protect her from the heat. She examined the piece carefully, brushing bits of vitrified slime monster back into the kiln, and when she was satisfied she slipped the armor back on, buttoning up the suit again. Before she returned to the lobby she stopped by a cabinet and pulled out a stack of warning labels. She stuck them all on the kiln; biohazard, radioactive, heat. cold, caustic, sharp object. She double-checked that the kiln door was locked and plastered more labels over the door seal. Either was being paranoid over the possibility of some particle of slim monster reanimating and running amok, or she was taking the only sensible precautions. In any case she started designing, in her head, a system to clean and disinfect her armor. Satisfied that the situation was contained, she rode back up the elevator to the ground floor, stepping out just as Miss Americana welcomed the reporters inside. Her helmet was folded back and away, and as she walked up to Dragonfly she was grinning widely. "I missed the speech-making," she observed. "What a shame, isn't it?"

"You'd be surprised," Robin said. "The magical world has always been closer to the mortal world than folks like to admit. In prehistory, the Atlanteans manipulated arcane forces, which eventually lead to their doom. Early societies relied upon sorcerers and miracle-workers that were closely associated with religious organizations. That didn't change for millennia, for one reason and another -- that book you're so interested in buying records the secret history of folks not too dissimilar from myself, or yourself. Not so many of them as there are now, perhaps, but they fought the same battles." Their server returned with their drinks and the sorceress took a moment to drink deeply from her cup of soda. Refreshed, she continued speaking. "In this age, it seems like science has become the religion of the masses, but that doesn't mean that supernatural dangers have left us alone. The Freedom League draws on Eldrich when such things rear their heads, and there's a half dozen cults that routinely threaten the city with histories that stretch before the written word. Not too many people think to turn to religion when faeries are knocking down the door, so they come looking for people that know how to handle things -- people like me."

Jessica rolled onto her side and rose to one elbow, watching the holographic display with bright eyes as she absorbed Doktor's diagnosis. It was certainly chilling, watching him pinpoint the metal deposits in her body and talk about how they could be --probably were -- responsible for her sudden superpowers. When she mentioned looking over her armor though, she shook her head. "The armor wasn't involved," she said. "The armor wasn't physically damaged; the villain dropped an EMP and shut down my sensors, forcing me to open my helmet. That compromised the environmental seal and let the gas in." She sat up and leaned forward, staring hard at the projected images. "Is there a chance I could get a copy of these scans? I have a project I think they could be useful for."

Jessica returned the hug for a moment, then broke it off to drag a couple of chairs over to Blake's table. "We were just out seeing a movie." She glanced over at Mara, grinning at her. "I dragged her out of her dark cave, so I kinda owe her lunch." She seated herself and waved for her friend to take the other one. "So you've got clients now? That's good!" She turned to Mara and gavethe other woman the quick version: "Blake was in Claremont until recently, but now he's started a business as a sort of magical troubleshooter for folks."

Equinox's chilly magic rocketed down the hallway caught the errant sorcerer full in the back. He fell to the ground and froze in place -- literally, as ice crystals formed over the man's skin and clothes. He tried to move, to summon energy and direct it at the closing witch, but all he could do was discharge it as a random shower of sparks and bright flashes. He ground his teeth in frustration. With his entire body frozen, he couldn't even yell and scream his defiance at the heroine.

Fort save. [http]Fort save vs. Paralysis. Is this even worth it? (1d20+2=10) Yup. This build sucks.

Ironclad hovered above the fight, hesitant to swoop in and strike lest she hit another hero. She saw her opportunity when the two heavily-garbed heroes slammed the hounds off and away. It took her a second to decide, but she eventually settled on the one that was already stumbling around. If they could put that one down and focus on the other one with all their might, this fight would be finished a lot sooner. The heroine gave herself just enough of a boost to do a quick flip in mid-air, then cut her flight systems entirely. Her whole armored form, two hundred and fifty pounds or so, landed on the beast's back. Just for good measure, she fell into a kneeling pose and slammed the creature's head against the mall's tiled floor.

Activating Clad's Disruptors, using Charge vs. Hound 1. Let's see if we can't put that puppy down for the count, shall we? Charge vs. Hound 1. (1d20+11=13) Oh god, that's horrible! Spending a HP to reroll that attack. Charge vs. Hound 1. HP reroll (1d20+11=12) -.- Becomes a 22, and IC has obviously decreed that Ironclad will be useless this fight. Nevertheless, if it does hit Toughness DC 24 for damage and, if they're living, Fort DC 24 for Drain Toughness.

Gear Guard III Steel Cavaliers II Tech Titans I

Jessica gave a small shrug. "I've encountered him before -- or, I should say, them. The villain acts and operates and talks like a scientist, but he's usually dressed in rags and cast-offs. He's got some sort of minion, a reanimated dead man with some nasty electrical abilities. I don't know what name they go by, if any," she added, "but I've been calling him Doctor Dishabille or Doc Hobo." The young woman eyed the slender, silvery tool. It was beyond her current understanding, but that didn't stop her from trying to dissect it in her head. "I asked you to tell me what's going on in my head. Wouldn't be very fair to ask you to do that without looking at the organ, and this is less fuss than cutting my skull off." She scooted back until just her feet were hanging off the edge of the exam table and then lay back, settling her hands over her stomach. "Please tell me you don't need to strap my head down."

Cosmic Crusaders!

Well, if we have a functioning or partly functioning space cruiser we might end up defending the planet from space-based threats (like the Grue) or even going on more cosmic adventures than sticking strictly around the city.

Smart arse. I like Gear Guard and Steel Cavaliers. Any other ideas? (Alloy Allies!)

Jessica moved to the exam table and hoisted herself onto it, perching on the very edge. She hesitated before answering Archeville's question; how much could she reveal? She was all out in the open, but Dragonfly valued her privacy. Jessica might poke and prod her friend to be more open and sociable, but in a situation like this she wanted to respect her friend's wishes. "Well. I had become aware of thefts of several high-tech devices, along with some chemicals from various warehouses around the city. I narrowed down the possible targets for another theft and came up with a specific warehouse, owned by Dawes Tech serendipitously enough. I got inside and planted RFID trackers on all the items inside, then staked the location out with another heroine. "To make a long story short, we tracked the thief to an abandoned subway station out by the airport. He was mixing some chemical agent; my armor was compromised and I got gassed. I ended up at Freedom City Medical Center, and you have the records of what went on there. After the treatment I started... hearing machines, mostly. But not just machines, anything with a microchip or any sort of electronics. And it's not always auditory; sometimes I can feel the presence of electronics like an itch or a heat on my skin, and just the other day I patched into my webcam and managed to see through it, even controlling it with just my thoughts." The inventor moved her gaze down to the visitor badge she still wore and began fiddling with it, turning it over and over and tapping it against her fingernails. "It's interesting and exciting sometimes, but I'm also scared. This is my brain that got messed with. I know enough about biology that when anything happens with your brain, it's a serious matter. So I went to talk to Doctor de Havliand -- we work at the Lab together -- and she recommended me to you." She shrugged. "I don't really know what I want, to be serious. Maybe just an assurance that my brains aren't going to melt, or that I'm not going to get a stroke because someone's computer BSODed."

So it was brought up in chat that the name Iron Knights might get the team confused with the Knights of Freedom. Any ideas for a better name?

Jessica walked alongside Doktor Archeville, her powerful young brain taking in everything she saw; the stone man with the anti-gravity disc, a tree woman getting a laser haircut, something that seemed nothing less than sentient electricity jumping from one Tesla coil to another, and many other metahuman oddities. She suddenly felt like a heel, taking up so much of the good Doktor's time with what now struck her as a petty concern. Still, i she left now this time would be a total waste. Hungry for something to distract her from her self-depreciating musings, her mind latched onto the problem Archeville had presented her with. "Assuming the force-field was transparent," she said, "you could learn a lot without ever touching him. Visible-wavelength laser thermometers exist, and I'm sure you could adapt a laser microphone to work as a stethoscope, or even rig it as a heartbeat monitor. Don't know if it would reveal irregularities like an EKG would, but just stick him in an MRI machine and get the organ modeled while it's working. Brain pattern's a tricky one, but they're doing amazing things with SQUIDs these days." Jessica kept up a steady stream of technical chatter, almost stream of consciousness style as she dissected the problem laid out in front of her. She got so into it that she didn't notice when Archeville stopped and might've run into a wall if he hadn't grabbed her. She fell silent and blinked once or twice as her mind descended from the lofty heights of mathematics and engineering. They were in a smaller room, with white tiles on the floor, walls, and ceiling. She realized that the low-level, ever-present jabber of machines and computers had cut off almost as soon as they entered the room. "Oh. A Faraday cage?" She glanced around and rolled her neck and shoulders, trying to relax, and finding that it was oddly difficult. Had she grown use to the background noise so quickly?

Jessica broke of the kiss and tuned to face the other couple. She flashed them a bright smile, apparently unconcerned with having been 'caught'. "Hey, you two! The place is right over here." The quick make-out session had left her flushed and quite warm, so she technically didn't need to walk so close to Blake -- but she did anyway. The sign proclaimed the store to be Italian Coffee & Creme, with a neon tower of Pisa that constantly leaned and righted itself. Inside it looked like any of a thousand Starbucks clones, albeit with a brighter color scheme and more low-slung chairs. The interior was heated by a couple of art deco fireplaces and plenty of patrons, and Jessica finally slid away from Blake. Their fingers stayed intertwined though, as they joined the queue in front of the ordering counter. The young woman ran her eyes over the menu and made an appreciative sound. "The only question," she said aloud, "is to get coffee first, or ice cream?"

Robin fought down a grin at Etain's choice of words. "So that's how you spend your day? Going around the city, looking for things that, ah, interest you?" She shook her head, finally showing a smile. "Sounds like a nice life, but not too profitable. Do you live with your, ah, gaurdian?"

Robin shrugged. "I've been in some fights and defended myself. Odd conflicts are inevitable in this city, it would seem. I'm not saying I wouldn't have survived without my magic, but it certainly gave me options I wouldn't have had otherwise." She cleared her throat and wished their server had brought them some water. "As for helping folks, there's lots of people in your same situation. Not being pursued by demons -- not most of them, anyway -- but people end up in trouble of a magical nature, and they don't have anywhere to turn to." She shrugged again. "I can't just them them away."