Fox

Mara raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips and looking down at her well-worn, only-mostly-clean overalls and old pajamas shirt. "....overalls are like pants," she defended. She hadn't actually been considering it, but the more she thought about it the more the idea bothered her. "....yes, okay. First impressions. Re-impressions? Won't take long. Can you bolt on the last arm?" She pointed at the piece they'd been working on, assembled but unattached. "Think that will be it before we plug it in. I'll...go get changed."

"Yes, we will." There was only the faintest trace of doubt in Mara's voice - born only of things she knew they had absolutely zero control over - and she gave Ellie a relieved smile as she stepped away and grabbed one of the many parts still sitting next to her contraption. "My...doesn't actually have a name. My thing is almost done," she said, sliding the arm-like array into place and slipping some screws in one-handed with an ease earned with practice. "Kind of like a landing pad? Should keep the tear in place. Safer. Could use your help, if you don't mind grease and bruised fingers."

"You are brilliant," Mara complimented, giving Ellie a swift kiss on the cheek. "Location isn't a big problem - time/space...thing. Lots of math. Basically followed my path back here. But, mmh, bullets...." Little lights danced behind her eyes as the wall-dominating monitor behind her main workbench flickered on, displaying a crude but clear model of a human body suspended in mid-fall, multiple small shapes - bullets - suspended in front of them; given the date in one corner of the screen, it had apparently been created quite some time ago. "Bullets, yes," she said, "but force field...yes and no." An idle gesture and a thought had the point of view zoom in and rotate to display at least two bullets less unsettlingly close to the figure's midsection. "Mostly yes. These, maybe one or two others - mostly working from memory - these, no, if she isn't already hit. Even with a computer controlling the field, no. Can only approximate where she'll end up," she explained, sounding almost apologetic - though whether to Ellie or the suspended model of her mother, it wasn't clear. "Time within a few minutes, space within a few feet. Not close enough to stop these. Didn't even think it would BE today - original calculations were...not correct. Work I do here bends space a little. Sped her up - should have realized before now."

"Yes....kind of. Complicated. Physics are...." Mara paused for a moment, making her 'I'm translating this into English words' face, tapping a finger against her arm as she recalled that day. "Had a tear here. Was testing my prototype suit, think it attracted the tear. Went back to when she died, because...universe has a sense of humor...? Don't know. Very coincidental." She frowned, obviously unhappy with not having a good answer for that bit, but shook her head. "Found her when his thugs were shooting at her. Panicked. Used prototype suit to open tear wide enough to take us both back...mostly. I got back. She's....mmmh." Mara made very vague hand motions, pacing a bit and scowling at the limitations of human communication. "....between places. Times. Not travelling in time at the same speed, sort of. Arriving soon."

"...okay, so." Mara stood up straight and rubbed her temples, taking a short breather from the contraption that was taking over her main worktable - its normal covering of half-finished projects and widgets had apparently either been salvaged for parts or shoved unceremoniously onto the nearby floor and off to one side of the warehouse floor. She'd thrown some overalls on over her pajamas, but otherwise had apparently been doing nothing but building since the phone call. "...okay. Remember the weird...time portal...thing? 2011? Portals all over city - spacetime tears. Archeville." Even behind the concern and slowly draining frantic energy, there was a special tone reserved for Doctor Archeville's name. It wasn't a particularly flattering one.

"No, head's okay. Ish. Head is normal. Just need - wire. Heavy gauge...Puppy, where is half-inch wire? Yes? Thank you. No, sorry." In the background of the call, Mara could be heard working on something - there was a sharp hiss as she lit a torch to cut through the sought-after cables. "Kind of an emergency, though. It's--" She paused, torch hissing in silence for a moment before being flicked off. "....okay," the heroine said, as sincerely as was possible. "I...need you to help me hopefully save my mother. ....sounds crazy. Promise that I am not crazy."

Friday, September 6th, 2013 Mara's Warehouse, Greenbank "....can't be right. Can't be." Mara Hallomen looked wide-eyed down at Puppy, her food forgotten in its bowl on the counter. The young woman had taken a rare day off from her job at HAX to work on some personal projects - one of the perks of being the boss - and had been idly sifting through some data while she sat in her kitchen getting a snack. Now, snack time was over; she suddenly had a lot of work to do, and no time to do it. A quick thought had her computer dialing one Ellie Espadas, as Mara started frantically digging through the racks and bins of parts in her warehouse. "Ellie? I...need your help. It...mmmh, capacitors capacitors capacitors...." She sounded stressed, which was normal, but also almost frantically concerned, which was not. "....there, yes. Sorry. Really really really need your help."

Gaian Knight and Tiamat were hot on Comrade Frost's heels, the former in no small part because he could feel the earth tremor in a deeply unsettlingly wide area. Getting above-ground to see the plants' struggles in action only confirmed his worst fears. "Tiamat, we need you in the air," he said, taking stock. "People are going to be stuck on those buildings, and we need them down before the vines bring them down the hard way." His companion wasted no time in returning to her familiar, scaled form, but she hesitated. "I'm...not going to be able to make it all the way across the city," she cautioned. "I mean, a couple of the nearby buildings, maybe, but--" "Tiamat." It was the closest he'd ever come to snapping at her, and that was enough to get her into the air. Gaian Knight barely noticed. His attention was inward, on the faintest ghost of the connection he'd made earlier, tracking down Fleur de Joie and the 'Mother'. His eyes glowed through his goggles, feet shimmering gold where they touched the solid ground as he reached deep into that anchor, sinking himself into the foundation of the world. He could feel them - all of them, the roots, the plants, the vines, thrashing and surging as they fought. The plants had eaten into the earth, surrounded it, grabbed hold with parasitic fervor. All across the city, the earth grabbed back. From every crack and crevice dirt and stone flowed upward, climbing and crawling across buildings and plants like plants had crawled across them first, a city - a county - of petrification and clawing stone lattices surging straight up to slowly but inevitably seize anything that wasn't human. "We probably need to calm or kill these plants if they don't die out soon," he said, in a calm tone completely at odds with his tense and outstretched body, and in a voice that sounded like it was at the far end of a stone tunnel. His sword had, at some point, drawn itself unbidden and hung motionless in the air in front of him, point down. "I am pretty certain that I can't keep this up for long."

For the sake of Math, and as an interesting experiment on whether or not it's even possible, GK stunts something like the following: Snare 12 (Extras: Area (Burst), Selective, Flaws: Action 1 [Full], Distracting, Range [Touch], Feats: Progression 9 [Area, 5000'/rank radius], Reversible) [22pp] + Super-Senses (Extended X on Tremmorsense) I haven't bothered to calculate the required Extended rank on Tremmorsense, because he has some 18pp to play with and that's some serious overkill. He is, essentially, snaring the city. Thematically he's limited to things on the ground, and using tremmorsense to distinguish between plants and people. He is basically blind for the duration, and using his power on this scale is very, very bad for him. I suspect something like the Traditional Psychic Nosebleed will be in order. Huzzah! IC pending GM approval, natch. It's a big, silly-big power.

I'll wait for the rescued Knight to respond there, I think; Mara will have more to work with if she has a better idea of what kind of shape our star NPC is in.

Aoiroo Silhouette: 12 Posts = 1 PP Changeling: 0 Posts Catalyst: 0 Posts Philtherian: 0 Posts Arichamus El Heraldo: 12 Posts + 13 GM = 25 Posts = 3 PP + Vignette = 4 PP King of Suits: 1 Post = 1 PP Red Moon: 0 Posts + 5 GM = 5 Posts = 1 PP Wave Eye: 1 Post = 1 PP GM: 18 Posts Avenger Assembled Comrade Frost: 3 Posts = 1 PP Harrier: 21 Posts = 2 PP + 1 Ref = 3 PP Edge: 1 Posts = 1 PP Azuth65 Silver Spider: 2 Posts = 2 PP Wisp: 3 Posts = 1 PP, bringing Azuth65 to SILVER STATUS. :golfclap: Blue Rose Kit: 2 Posts = 1 PP Stormbreaker: 0 Posts = 0 PP BType Freedom Eagle II: 2 Posts = 1 PP Cubist Jubatus: Vignette = 1PP Electra Fleur de Joie: 2 Posts = 1 PP Wander: 5 Posts = 1 PP Miss A: 13 Posts = 1 PP Papercut: 20 Rollover posts = 2 PP Elegy Gloaming: 12 Posts + 12 GM = 24 Posts = 2 PP + 1 Origin Story + 1 Interview + 2 HellQ +1 Reputation Chart = 7 PP (goodness!) GM: = 12 Posts Fox Gaian Knight: 5 Posts = 1 PP + Ref Point = 2 PP Dragonfly: 6 Posts = 1 PP Wraith: 0 Posts = 0 PP + Vignette = 1 PP Geez3r Maxima: 4 Posts = 1 PP GM: 1 Post (No help) Gizmo Jack of all Blades: 4 Posts [Can roll over] = 1 PP Midnight II: 4 Posts [Can roll over] = 1 PP Wail: 4 Posts = 1 PP Ghost Girl: 0 Posts + 8 Rollover = 8 Posts = 1 PP + Vignette = 2 PP Set: 5 Posts = 1 PP + 1 (ref) = 2 PP, and can now be up to PL13! GranspearZX Arcturus: 1 Post = 1 PP Crusader: 1 Post = 1 PP GM: 1 Post HG Morrison Foreshadow II: 14 Posts + 1 GM = 15 Posts = 2 PP + Vignette = 3 PP Glamazon: 11 Posts = 1 PP GM: 1 Post Jackgar Prime Victory: 1 Post = 1 PP Knight Disciple Gabriel: 3 Posts (Rollover) = 1PP + Vignette (1 PP Roll over to Cobalt Templar) = 2 PP Fenris : 4 Posts = 1 PP + VIgnette = 2 PP Cobalt Templar: 10 Posts + 3 Rollover = 13 Posts = 1 PP + Vignette + Rollover Vignette + Wiki Article = 4 PP Raveled Ironclad: 5 Posts = 1 PP Starlight: 1 Post = 1 PP Blue Jay: 3 Posts = 1 PP GM: 6 Posts Shaen The Brain The Inspector: 1 Post = 1PP Sorus Blue Fox: 3 Posts = 1 PP + 1 Ref PP = 2 PP Willow: 3 Posts = 1 PP + Hell Q = 3 PP Supercape Supercape: 0 posts + 45 (GM) = 45 = 3pp + 1 (ref) = 4 PP Rene: 2 posts = 1pp + 1 (vignette) = 2 PP Lord Steam: 6 posts = 1 PP Bloody Mess: 9 posts + 14 (Supercape rollover) + 2 (Rene rollover) = 25 posts = 3pp + 1 (vignette) = 4 PP Pitch: 19 posts + 31 (Supercape rollover) = 50 = 4pp + 1 (ref rollover) + 1 (Rene vignette rollover) = 6 PP GM: 45 posts Thevshi Velocity: 29 Posts + 21 GM = 50 Posts = 4 PP Tsunami: 21 Posts +6 GM = 26 Posts = 3 PP GM: 26 Posts Thunder King Crimson Tiger: 10 Posts = 1 PP Graft: 6 Posts = 1 PP Solar Sentinel: 1 Post = 1 PP, and can now be up to PL9! TiffanyKorta Blodeuwedd: 7 Posts = 1 PP Merge Trois: 0 Posts + 2 GM = 1 Posts = 1 PP Revenant: 6 Posts = 1 PP Young Brittania: 0 Posts + 1 GM = 1 Post = 1 PP GM: 3 Posts (Applied to Merge and Young Brittania) Trollthumper Nick Cimitiere: 8 Posts = 1 PP Cannonade: 6 Posts = 1 PP + Vignette + Ref Point = 3 PP Temperance: 9 Posts = 1 PP + Vignette = 2 PP Cavalier: 12 Posts + 4 GM = 15 Posts = 2 PP + Vignette = 3 PP GM: 4 Posts Vahnyu Hronos: 5 Posts = 1 PP Net Fly: 4 Posts = 1 PP GM: 5 Posts

"Fleur first," Gaian Knight agreed - or corrected, it was difficult to tell. His disapproving, still-glowing-eyed gaze was fixed on Tiamat until she got back onto the platform, and he had the terse voice to match even after she was on board. Either way, his finger pointed not straight up, but off to the side in the direction they'd been initially heading. At his gesture, the earth opened up into a continuation of their tunnel, platform picking up and accelerating toward their companion. "Hopefully the so-called god will stay put. I'd take him with us, but I honestly don't know if he's safe to move."

"See, Fleur de Joie's nice than I am," Tiamat said, looking down at the Green God with pitying red eyes. "And I respect her, I really do. I figure she's got you bound up pretty good. But here's the thing." The woman crouched down next to their foe, frowning. "Here's the thing: I wouldn't trust me to stay down if I was just all wrapped up. So I can't really trust you to stay down, you know?" Countless years of brawling had left Tiamat with a finely-honed sense for the force a body could take - bodies of all kinds, big and small, young and old. And so when she wound up with her mace, it was with the carefully-measured minimum strength necessary to render him unconscious...though she didn't envy the headache he'd have. She stood back up, hanging her mace from her belt and dusting off her hands. Gaian Knight's extremely disapproving look got an (almost convincingly) rueful shrug. "Gonna owe Fleur an apology, I think."

Excellent! Tiamat's already in melee range, so she's going to go ahead and try to coup de grace him. Auto-hit, so none of that nasty roll business. With her mace, that's a DC30 Toughness save (DC25 + auto-crit); assuming he's still up after that, it's a DC25 Fort save vs. KO.

Does the Bound condition apply to the Green God on both ends of the fight?

Something seemed hinky with Supercape's (the character, not the player!) pp total, so having discussed it with him we went back and re-totaled his pp awards. Looks like somewhere along the line the math had gone wrong! Supercape's sheet has been updated to reflect the full 182 earned pp, and Supercape has earned the Orichalcum veteran award.

Happy birthday, Sorus!

"We aren't executioners, Frost," Gaian Knight warned. Both hands and both eyes were glowing now, little rocks orbiting him like tiny moons. "It isn't our place, or our world. But you're right about one thing - this has to end." His hands made fists, and without any other warning the base of his platform shattered into a cloud of fist-sized blunt stones. From atop his much-reduced perch the hero swept his arms forward; like two swarms of over-sized insects the cloud split apart and drove straight for the Green God and his vines.

Moar blast! Ranged Attack Roll vs. Green God (autofire blast) (1d20 + 12=30) DC27 Tou, +1 per 2 that roll exceeds Green God's defense, to a max of DC33 (+5).

Dragonfly made a distracted, mildly grumpy noise behind her helmet, taking in the room and trying to keep her brain from spending too much time on pulling the technology design apart and trying to figure out what its purpose might be. priorities "Stopped to pick you up an industrial grinder," she shot back. "Have to make sure you're shiny again for your League photoshoots." She made a fist, a glowing blade of twisted space forming an inch off the end of her fingers, and made her way toward the captive Knight. "Whoever took you probably knows we're here. May have to work fast."

Gaian Knight/Tiamat >Here There Be Dragons (2) >Leaves in the Wind (3) 2+3= 5 posts, +ref point Dragonfly >The Man Who Fell to Earth (1) >Spring Thaw (5) 1+5= 6 posts Wraith Vignette: >See Thee Rise (Ghost Girl/Wraith joint vignette) 0 posts, +Vignette Tiamat's posts and threads have been rolled in under GK's for simplicity. Ref point to GK.

Milestones that I am at least aware of (from the sheet edits I did): Supercape's Rene DeSaens has reached 250pp and is now MAXED. Supercape's Pitch has reached 190pp and can now be up to PL13. TiffanyKorta's Merge Trois has reached 160pp and can now be up to PL11. Trollthumper's Cavalier has reached 160pp and can now be up to PL11. Vahnyu's Net Fly has earned a total of 30pp and Vahnyu has earned his BRONZE VETERAN AWARD.

"Sounds like we may as well start with that," Gaian Knight mused, looking down at the earth - and through it - and pondering. "Carefully, though. We know nothing about this creature, whatever it is; it's hard to tell how it'll react to stimulus. I really wish we just knew more about it, but the picture I get is vague at best and we may not have the time - or the safety - to do any real imaging." "Hurrm. Just so long as you don't go angering Great A'Tuin or whatever," Tiamat rumbled - she'd remained in her natural dragon form but was at least making an effort to keep her head down - so as not to attract undue attention - hunched in a semi-circle around as much of the non-heroic group as possible. "I can only catch so many of you if you go falling off the side of the world." That earned her a raised eyebrow from Gaian Knight, and she snorted. "What? You think I can't read?"

Both Gaian Knight and his sidekick seemed relatively unfazed by the root assault - the latter ran the back of her free hand across a shallow mark on her face, looking down at the small blood smear and grinning. "Not bad for a mummy," she complimented. She was off the platform then, closing distance to the Green God and bringing her steel mace down at him with a strength that was impressive even for her not-inconsiderable build. The blow caught nothing but roots, but that didn't seem to dampen her spirit in the least. "Not bad at all! Maybe you'll be interesting after all, withered old man!"

"Don't like it," Dragonfly muttered over her suit's radio. She'd brought up her force field as soon as they'd gotten near the building, but otherwise she was quiet - her handful of space-bending engines running in relative silent mode as she and Fenris made hteir way toward the basement. "Bad people who hide behind or under good places - never ends well. Takes a special kind of criminal to shield themselves with charities or orphanages or whatever, maybe. Don't like it. And really don't like anything that...buzzes in the back of your head. Really never ends well. Coming from the basement, I think - down, anyway. Going to check it out."