Raveled

Robin stepped closer to him and ran her hand along his face, tracing the strong lines of his jaw. His arms went around Her and she responded in kind, hugging Wesley close, her head on his chest. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, "but it wouldn't be fair to force my lifestyle on you, Wesley. You have no idea what I live with, and I don't want to make you change enough to accept." She looked up at him, the same sad smile on her face. "I don't want to see you change so much that you could accept it." She put her cheek flat against his chest again, staring out across the park to where the concert was setting up. Groups of teenagers and young adults, closer to Wesley's age than her own, were gathering there. Some groups were sharing around cans or bottles, and others were sharing around paper twists that could be cigarettes, or marijuana, or any of a number of illegal substances. They were preparing for a night of celebration and excess, and until a little while ago she had been ready to join them. She sighed, feeling her chest trying to expand and being stopped by Wesley's huge form. "I guess you're not feeling much in the mood for music right now," she said softly.

Robin's mood plummeted at Wesley's question, the emotion in counterpoint to the physical sensation still flooding through her body. She was tempted to simply lie there on the large man and ignore the question, but she couldn't in good faith do that to Wesley. She did roll off him and walk a few paces away, hugging herself and forcing the enhanced tactile sensation out of her head. "Wesley. I like you, I really do. You have a good heart, and you're a lot of fun. But..." She turned to him and smiled, a bit sadly. "I'm... I'm almost twice as old as you," she lied. The sorceress had never revealed the secret of her prolonged existence to the man, and she wasn't about to now. As far as he was concerned, she was only in her mid 30s. "My life is very different from yours. And there's still things about yourself that you need to figure out. I feel very much for you," she assured him, "but I don't think it's... forever. Do you understand?"

Robin made happy little noises as the finger traced down her back, shivering slightly and arching her back at times to increase the pressure a bit. Even the slightest touch just felt so wonderful at the moment, she felt like she could stay here forever. When Wesley tilted her face up, she smiled and wiggled up his body playfully, kissing him on the lips. It was a long, involved kiss, and she took her time enjoying it. When she was done, she smiled down at Wesley. "What is it you want to know," she asked in a playful tone. While she waited for his answer, she nuzzled at his jawline and his long hair.

Robin giggled as Wesley pulled her on top of his massive form, then gasped as he touched back of her neck and sensation flooded through her. It felt like she feel every distinct point on her skin as clearly as she could see; in an instant, her entire epidermis gained the sensitivity of her fingers or tongue, and the sensation was overwhelming. She closed her eyes and just concentrated on feeling for a moment. It took some time for Wesley's statement to penetrate, and when it was an effort to gather her thoughts and answer. She opened her eyes to lock them on her boyfriend's, and her eyes were glazed and distant. The feelings surging through her were almost like a drug, they were so powerful. "Don't need a concert," she said sleepily, lowering her head to his bare chest and rubbing at the exposed skin with her cheek. "Got everything right here." She raised one knee and stroked lightly at the only part of Wesley's pants that wasn't artfully shredded, pressing her body tighter against his.

Ironclad -- Jessica -- felt her heart leap into her throat as Kid Cthulhu -- as Blake -- hell, as her boyfriend was thrown off a stricken car and plummeted towards the ground. She let go of the steel girder she was clutching and raced over, catching him just before he splattered onto the boardwalk. She let him down gently and they both regarded the Ferris wheel again, the machine slowly grinding towards a diabolical speed. "To heck with this," Ironclad muttered under her breath, and stomped over to the operator's station. Motive power for the entire contraption was provided by a huge engine located in the base of the wheel, transmitted to the primary axle by way of a fanbelt. Ironclad simply charged up her wrist blasters and severed the fan belt, stealing the motive power and letting the device slowly spin to a half.

Clad activating her S-Strength AP. Str roll to stop the Ferris wheel. 1d20+9=27 Booya.

After what seemed like an eternity, the suit's systems finished loading up and the gold-and-green armor swept over Jessica's head, sealing her off from the world entirely. She allowed herself a moment to be envious of Blake and his fast transformation, but then her mind was working on the problem of stopping the Ferris wheel without killing everyone on board. The controls were a possibility, but the chances were that anyone who could hack -- and what could this be but some elaborate hacker prank? -- into the park's systems and take control of them so totally would be able to bypass that. "When in doubt," she decided, "be direct and brutal." It was one of her grandfather's favorite aphorisms, and Ironclad decided to implement it now. She zipped out of the carriage one her own flight systems and quickly located one of the main braces on the Ferris wheel itself. Activating the lifting servos and rerouting power from her gauntlets, she hugged it tight and hauled in the opposite direction of the wheel's own spin.

Jessica tried to stand but tumbled to the floor as the Ferris wheel accelerated. Her pack slid across the floor of the car, but she managed to snag it with her foot and draw it towards her. She ripped open the top and started peeling off her shirt and jeans, revealing the complex circuitry of her interface suit. She slapped on the core components of the suit and waved through the start-up procedures, but it was just too slow, too slow! She swore and dug into the source code literally by hand, bypassing security measures as she tried to bring the suit to readiness now!

Jessica's body and tongue and lips all moved against Blake, expressing a desire that she either wasn't willing to face or wasn't willing to act on just yet. Eventually she broke the kiss and lifted her head to stare at the ceiling, leaving her pale neck exposed. Her heart was thumping in her chest so fast she was having difficulty feeling the individual beats, and her entire body felt hot and electric, like she might simply explode into bliss at any moment. Her hand curled in Blake's hair, holding him close, but after a moment of staring at the top of the carriage something started to bother her. "Blake," she gasped, still not pulling away from him. "Blake, we're not moving."

Jessica respawned and started strafing immediately -- only to run off a cliff and fall for ten seconds before the game killed her. So she respawned, strafed in the other direction, bunny-hopping as she went. She picked up a machine gun, a sniper rifle, and before long she was hauling around a rocket launcher. She made a few experiments with the game's physics model and, by the unlikeliest of circumstances, ended up very nearly balancing on top of FlyFlyDragonfly's (apparently) very flat head. She bounced off and started racing alongside her teammate. "Hey, Mara," she called out. "Been racking up the kills?"

Jessica eyed the clock on the wall and did the math. "I'll shoot 'em to you later. Got school in the morning, need to get to bed at some point." She typed in the ISP one-handed and connected to the match, clicking the 'ready' button and allowing the game to choose her avatar at random. The game world loaded in less time than it takes to say, and Jessica's avatar materialized in a pseudo-SF space station. Everything was made of blocks and straight lines, and she could practically see individual polygons. She tore her eyes away from the graphical atrocity to start maneuvering around the level -- only to have her screen flash red and black and to start staring at a respawn timer. Someone had killed her? Two seconds after she loaded? The girl checked the notification list in the corner. "Mara!" FlyFlyDragonfly had just shotgunned IronBootsies. "You teamkiller," she said, her lips curving into an evil little smile, flexing her fingers as she waited for the respawn counter to tick down. "Okay. That's how you wanna play it, huhn?"

Jessica grinned, typing rapidly on her keyboard. "I found a server that'll let us use those mods you talked about. The triple jump and the cost rebalance. You ready to go kick some newb-ass?" While she was talking, she booted up the program and started navigating through menus. She hesitated just before typing in the ISP, though. "Mara, are you sure you wanna play UT Gold? It's, like, ancient. I've got GoD 3 and Bloodstain 2 and Heart of Valor: Congressional Honor. I've got 'em on my FTP server, too."

Jessica made happy noises as their lips and tongues met, tilting her head slightly so that they could press closer. Her entire body felt alive and electric, and she felt a... well a spiky heat was the only way to describe it, settle in her core. She moved closer to Blake even thought that wasn't particularly possible, moving them both across the bench seat towards the side window. Before long she was pressing him against it, fully absorbed in the kiss. Omega himself could be invading right now, and Jessica wouldn't even care.

Jessica squirmed happily in her seat, even as she chided him. "School's important. You do good in school, you get a good job. You're gonna need a good job to get your own apartment. Otherwise RAs and your friends are always going to be walking in on us." Her eyes sparkled with humor as she looked at him, her lips curving into a smile. The Ferris wheel settled into a smoother motion as the last group was loaded aboard and Jessica scooted sideways on the bench seat, pressing closer to Blake. She glanced out the window and commented, "We're pretty high. I don't know if I've ever been this far up outside of my suit or an airplane." She leaned towards her boyfriend, one arm slipping around his shoulders and the other going to his waist. "Keep me safe?"

The pair of teenagers loaded into a carriage a quarter of a way around the wheel, and there was much slow moving as the rest of the carriages were loaded up. Each new set of occupants was easily identified by a sudden lurch of the entire Ferris wheel and a slow glide to bring the next car into position. Jessica clung to her boyfriend all through this process; they tried to kiss once or twice, but ended up butting heads and now just sat there, blushing at each other and waiting for the process to complete. "So, um," Jessica began, trying to break the silence, "how's school been?"

Robin's smile widened and she showed her teeth, running her hand up his muscular, tattooed arm. "Maybe later," she said, her eyes on his. "We don't want to miss the concert." Her hand reached his head and stroked his long dreadlocks, before tugging them gently and pulling him to the ground. Robin rolled slightly so that she was on her side, her body pressed up against Wesley, their eyes on a level. "Unless that was your plan," she said quietly. "Get me out of the house, take me to an out of the way place and seduce me." She leaned forward and kissed him slowly, leaving a peck on his lips once she pulled back. "Was that it?"

She giggled as they moved down the boardwalk, holding onto each other tightly even once the dizziness passed. "I'm having lots of fun, Blake," she said as they maneuvered into the end of the line for the Ferris wheel. She kissed him lightly on the forehead. "I like hanging around with you and talking and, well, just being around you." She blushed but kept talking. "I always have fun around you. I... I'm very... I want... Oh, to hell with it." She cupped his head and tilted it up, bringing her face closer and kissing him on the lips. It was a purposefully slow kiss, long and involved. When she pulled back, her entire body was tingling and she was flushed for a different reason. "So, yeah. Something like that."

Jessica started to answer, then the ride tilted and her seat fell out from under her. She screamed, half in amusement and half in terror, and clung to Blake's arm, her nails digging into his bicep. Before long it was apparent that she wouldn't be able to hold a conversation on the wildly dipping and whirling contraption, so she just hung on for dear life and shrieked out her excitement, leaning into the curves and feeling the wind whip her short hair around. Once the ride ended and the seats all settled to the ground, she stumbled out and giggled a bit, holding onto Blake so she didn't fall. "Okay," she admitted. "That was fun." She straightened up and looked across the fair, pointing at one ride that towered above the others. "Oooh, a Ferris wheel! That'd be fun, wouldn't it?"

Jessica Parker settled into the folds of her ergomonic, foam-padded leather chair, easily the most comfortable seat in the house and positioned where the girl did most of her sitting -- in front of her top-of-the-line computer system. She double-checked all her supplies: soda in a cooler, pretzels within easy reach, and headset around her neck. She booted up her CLI web browser and pinged a particular ISP randomizer. "Mara. You online yet?"

Robin giggled as Wesley picked her off the ground and started speaking in that atrocious accent, and when he started running through the streets at superhuman velocities she began yelling in a happy, excited way. The zipped over to the park incredibly quickly, and as Robin touched the ground again her face was flushed and dark against the white makeup. She turned to face Wesley as he settled next to her and kissed him deeply, her tongue touching briefly against his before she pulled back. The sorceress lay back on the ground, staring at the night sky. "Wow," she breathed. "I never knew you could do something like that, Wesley." She turned her head and grinned up at him. "I can sorta see the appeal of owning a fast car, now. Wind in your hair, the world flashing past... It's quite a rush."

It was a lovely day out in Kingston, and the layout of the marina was designed to take advantage of the land's natural beauty. The Pilings were on the est side of Route 9, the docks feeding out into the blue waters of the Century Narrows, and the sweep of the land pulled the eye away from the skyscrapers of Freedom City and towards the shimmering waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Robin sat in her blue Volkswagen in the parking lot, pouring over nautical charts and absently stabbing at a bright-yellow GPS device sitting on the console. Maybe she couldn't investigate underwater, but there were people in this city who could, and after a few phone calls Robin was scheduled to meet one here. Now she was waiting, and trying to figure out where to send her ally.

The OOC thread for this thread.

Robin was conflicted. On the one hand, taking the case meant that she’d miss out on at least a day’s worth of sales. Money aside, the waster wasn’t her element; if she got into a fight out there, she’d probably end up a ghost herself. On the other hand, she couldn’t just turn him down flat, and leave his family to wonder what had happened to him. Not to mention the fact that the ghost should never have been able to get into her store in the first place; her wards were specially designed to stop that. Maybe if she found out how and where he died, she could figure out how he had bypassed her defenses.

Fifteen minutes later, Robin and the dead man were sitting across from each other at her little kitchenette. She’d hung the ‘out to lunch’ sign on the store’s door and brewed herself a cup of tea. Now, having listened to the ghost’s story, she blew carefully on the hot drink and sipped it, considering what she’d heard. “Let’s go over the facts again,†she said, her tone cool and deliberately measured. “Your name is Randy Scott. You work for a high tech company in Hanover, doing something terribly important with networks that I would never understand.†She waved her hand in the air as if brushing aside the issue. The ghost frowned, but didn’t interrupt. “You have a wife and two kids. Your company took out an obscene amount of life insurance on you – and you think they won’t pay?†The ghost shook his head with quick, frantic motions. “I inherited a ship from my granddad a couple years back – an honest-to-God sailing vessel. I take it out a couple times a months when the weather is fine.†He wrung his insubstantial hands as he talked, squeezing them until they were pale. “But the company put a rider on the insurance, anyway! If I died due to an accident while sailing, they only had to pay for retrieval and burial.†“And you did die at sea,†Robin pointed out. "But not because of an accident,†the ghost insisted, leaning forward. “I was attacked! Something ripped out the bottom of my ship and dragged me under! Please, my wife’s an elementary school teacher! My son’s in grade school and our girl’s in kindergarten! My wife can’t make the tuition payments without the insurance money.â€

Robin cleared her throat loudly, but it wasn’t until she called out to the man that he glanced up at her. Their eyes met for a moment, and all the color drained from his face. “You can see me,†he breathed. “You… You can really see me!†Robin blinked at his tone of voice, standing slowly. “Yes, I can see you,†she confirmed. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t be able to?†The man took a couple of shaky steps towards her, hands held out in supplication. “Please,†he begged her, “please, you have to help my family. I’m dead and I can’t help them, but you just have to!â€