Ari

"We are Dotrae, we wish to understand you. We have heard," Dol-Druth broke in without noticing the atmosphere "that you have transferred from an authoritarian state dominated by exceptionals to this one, significantly less so and dominated by more common humans. Our representative hss argued against that being worth exploring, a singular case, a minor anecdote in the broader scheme, but we feel otherwise." The Speaker relaxed against the back of the chair...then thought better of it when it creaked warningly in protest. "We ask that you describe your adaption to this new environment, what has helped and what has hindered you. We believe this maybe helpful in evaluating the general trend of your species' direction by the Guild of Seers. It may even be relevant to future assessments, which have been stalled since the Incursion War." The alien's antennae twitched "If you think telepathic contact would be more efficient or helpful, we will accept a temporary merge."

""We are the Speaker." Dol-Druth's eyes were round, black buttons, staring out from a corpse-pale mound of smooth flesh, exaggeratedly large next to his pursed, thin mouth and broad nose. Whatever chin his skeleton had was lost, and by the looks of it long ago, in the shapeless mass that extended from massive shoulders to terminate in slender, sensitive antennae. "We need no title. We are not the Star Knight Sri Jay-Miï." Brushing off some quasi-imagined dust from an iridescent beige suit he added, sourly grinding voice adding considerable depth of distaste "We also find most of your food and drink unpalatable. We ate a pile of fungus before we arrived taller than you." The enormous alien had to stoop and go sideways to make it through the door, bending until he could collapse into a chair with a sigh of relief. "Regardless we thank you for the kind and gracious hospitality, Ms. Nameth. We eagerly await discourse with this youth, and hope for a productive and mutually beneficial interview. Our Speaker will be at their most self-suppressed. We understand the need for security and preservation of secrets in lonemind civilizations, much as we despise such behavior." Missing from the planet inspector's usual ensemble was the silvery frazzer and his chunky suitcase, containing his personal dataset. A weapon and unknown recording device here would have been beyond the pale. The flat black voids flickered a little, maybe blinking "We await the meeting at your pleasure, Nameth."

GM Powers listened intently, nodding along silently until Endeavor came to the close of her story. Taking a deep breath, the old spy leaned back and regarded the ceiling. "Mz. Hino, last year there was an attack of SHADOW agents in Freedom City. They were in only one small section of the city, but you can understand how terrifying it is to have the enemy you've been shouting into peoples' faces about for decades just walk in. Many of the agents exhibited super-human powers." The eye rolled ghoulishly down to look at Sakurako "If I was half as obsessed as that fat f*** Senator Bell thinks I am, I'd say this is all a SHADOW gig. But this is different. And different means I can surprise people by giving them a new song and dance. And it has a definite location, we have a witness in you, the shifter and that bastard Volt. This explains the freak power outage in Bedlam, so there's physical evidence of science-terrorists on our soil I can get a hold of. Which means my Service gets a reevaluation of its funding, which means-!" Slamming his right hand on the table as he leaned across it, Horatio Powers smiled earnestly at the young superheroine, offering his left, glimmering with a small gold band, to her "...you just bought yourself a government agency, lock stock and barrel, a trick supercrooks have been trying for sixty years. I'll help you. And everyone else in AEGIS." "We don't like people who kidnap or hurt kids, weird hangup."

"Uhhhhhh..." Ishmael goggled blankly at the other two. This wasn't how it worked. When the Golds needed to work with the Old Hawk or the Little Dragon ('Mr. Takazumi Tetsuo and Mr. Takazumi Ryu' he reminded himself hastily. The last time anyone called Ryu 'Little Dragon, in earshot it had cost him both little fingers) they already had a plan, they just needed help making it happen. With a sudden, jarring sense of unreality Salmon realized There is no plan. We have no idea what we're doing. We're all new to this. On the outside, the lanky boy looked down at the ground for a moment. Every now and then he shivered. Inside, Ishmael was fighting to contain the searing delight. His mind felt much clearer now, and in a moment he knew what would work without fail. Straightening up, Salmon nodded to Sha'ir "Thanks for the fin-up. Spellsmith, got it. Listen, uh..." he paused again, realizing he hadn't let go of Emerald Spider's costume. He very quickly did so, darting several yards away and (hesitantly) back in an instant. Blushing furiously he gave a swift, apologetic half-bow, mumbling "Sorry, wasn't thinking, won't do that again." He clapped his hands together, firmly dispelling the cloud of thoughts hailing from the Sea of Wow She's Pretty, Even Under That Mask "Okay! So, Sha'ir, you can make portals? How'bout you send us to inside where she's hiding, me and Spider bust in and you make sure she can't just run away? Together, we can beat her no problem!" "I'll show you where she's holed up. C'mon let's wind it!"

GM Dr. Spencer surveyed the sky full of robotic eyes. "Biggest takeaway from all this, for me, is changes to history require countless choices, not independent turning points. Just imagine all the ways you influence the world around you. Buying, talking, hearing, seeing, feeling, going, every choice has impacts far beyond what any of us has the capacity to fully understand. Even the hero Foreshadow confines his insights to fending off large disasters and violent crimes, which are themselves largely byproducts of billions of choices or abstentions. Humanity is often likened to bodies of water, where I feel it's more accurate to look at us as an avalanche. Maybe an avalanche under water and capable of slight self-direction..." A blood-red eagle insignia briefly filled the screen before the drone carrying it darted into the city far below. For the first time, Spencer stopped smiling as she watched the flow of traffic and people, only a few thousand feet away and impossible to reach, in a world whose familiarity made itself alien. "As for precision, we can track individuals between realities. Single persons, leave them for a month, come back and find them instantly. One of the first people we chose was Mark Leeds, the Centurion. We never found one of him. I suppose it goes to show how different a world it would be where he wasn't dead. A tribute to the exactitude of my mathematics! Let's keep this rolling, people, to the prototype GENIE ENGINE!" Spinning on her heel and once again beaming from ear to ear, Spencer began moving down the dotted line, only to stop, swivel around and march briskly up to Buffy. Reaching into her suit coat pocket, she took out the Window remote and handed it to her. "Here, airship-aficionado. This zooms in, this out, these pan, this follows, yadda yadda, these ten change which segment of the multiversal angles you're solving for so you can see some of the other worlds. Give it a shot, you can hardly break anything!" The other students instantly, if subtly, gave Buffy a certain berth. Of all the looks she could see, not a one was envious. Part of being a Freedonian was a jaded air, the other was a good instinct not to push the big red button. "You too, Rare Cautious Cate." Her raptor-like eyes pierced Kat's like gimlets "It's just looking, nothing you see can get through or hurt you if you don't ram into another Window. Please do not or you will have ample cause to regret it." "Off we go, folks!" Waving over her shoulder, Dr. Spencer marched the troupe off into the cavernous gloom.

'Kus. Strike one. Why don't I put on sunglasses and talk about how important living family is.' "I mean, uh..." Salmon blurred, vanished and reappeared, sans bowl "Salmon, sorry, I'm not-! Look, there's..." Fumbling and stammering, Ishmael cast about for how to explain what he meant. Which didn't help. Salmon couldn't know too much, or Koschei would look into his mind and they'd know him '"We are probably being watched. Each of the crime family heads has powers, and the way they talk there's gotta be more. They're siphoning off super-tech to fight you. If we get caught they'll vivisect us. KessKorp is making death robots in a basement under-' Wait...that was it! "Cybertribe! Er," off of Temperance's look, he hadn't hid his relief very well "sorry, I was just...you know how sometimes you want to say a word but you don't know what the word is and then suddenly it just appears and everything seems great? Yeah that just happened. Anyway! They're these weird computer people, and some of them can, like, mind-control robots, and he's a" waving at Citizen, Salmon squinted for a moment "well he's in a robot, right? Or something? Autonomic intelligence manipulating electronics in a facsimile of life? Well there's rumors they want to take him on and I don't wannim blindsided, and that time he saved a plane with that other robot made a lot of people start getting ideas and that's seriously all and I didn't mean to get all 'where's your dragon'." Ishmael found it pretty easy to look abashed and awkward. Right at the moment he'd have welcomed a nice, refreshing ice tomb.

I feel the second gives you more room and makes things more interesting. Having outright powers might dull the consequence of losing her godly essence and such. Having lots of skills, meanwhile, might make a lot of sense and helps with the side of Moira being more experienced than wise, but it's a little static. The second option is more open and more interesting. I'd say take the mind-link and get more feats, skills and saves. Maybe an Attack+/Damage- shifted AP style for more slippery folks.

The alien princess could not be able to leave, for instance, because: 1) The mélange spice reason, the slow death is the alternative to the quick if she leaves Earth's chemical soup. 2) Being forced to remain on Earth is part of some hideously cruel peace agreement. 3) The powers she now has let her be everything she couldn't in her old life. 4) The Rey: she has to wait for someone. What if she leaves, and she never finds them anyway? 5) She sees Earth as in danger from something like what happened on her world. 6) She has nowhere to go and thanks to her family's reputation she'd be hunted if she left.

GM The questions fazed Dr. Spencer not at all, in fact she quickly regained her jittery good cheer. "Very good points, both of you!" "It might come as little surprise that the Guardian was created on contract from Daedalus, specifically to forestall such possiblities! With the Window's remote, we can change our point of view to almost anywhere in these other realities! We thoroughly explore them before even thinking about contact!" As she spoke, Dr. Spencer culled the spiral-shaped remote in her palm and manipulated it like a hand-held writing ball. As her fingers flew, the view changed, sweeping out over a downtown Freedom very like the one they knew. In a flash, the Guardian had turned to regard the massive towers rearing above the city. In another, it had come close enough for the audience to see they were shelters for a cloud of drones hovering over the city. "In this reality, one of those where people go on the red, the United States is an effective military dictatorship. The ASTRO Labs here is an arm of the government, and everything they do is watched. Another Earth contacting them would be an implicit threat in their view, according to extensive study of their relationships with other cultures on this world." "And just in case, if we do make contact and want to make sure...one moment, please!" Dr. Spencer dashed into the darkness beyond the floodlights, grumbling snd cursing as something squeaked. What looked like a ten-foot-tall fridge hove into view, Dr. Spencer shoving it along with teeth gritted and shoes turning out to be the cause of the squeaking. Pausing to rest when it was next to the Guardian, the woman grinned at the audience and gestured to the thing she'd been hauling "Behold! A full-spectrum analysis device! I call it Geordi! It lets us examine the makeup and state of any object on the other side of the Window, lensed through the dimensional distortion for perfect accuracy!" She banged a fist against its side. The sound it made was impressively solid. "We've prevented a shape-shifting infiltration with this bad boy, three d-frequency tracing bugs and a bonded spirit from getting on this side. And that was before we got more cautious!" "Any further-further questions?" She asked eagerly.

GM Eyes sparkling, Dr. Spencer took out a slim book from the messenger bag over her shoulder and held it up for all to see "What I hold in my hand is another timeline's version of the New Testament. In that world you just saw, Christianity never left Israel." "We've exchanged books, played music, touched hands and transmitted nearly every other sense through compatible World-Windows. Don't worry! We made sure no diseases could be transmitted, a very pressing safety concern!" Her enormous grin undercut the heartfelt earnestness of her words. "Uh..." One of the students raised his hand cautiously "Could...people come through?" "Oh no! Not at all!" Spencer for the first time looked a little less than delirious with joy "We tested with petri dishes, and nothing living survived the transmission. And without matching to another Window, we can't do more than watch, we're too out of dimensional sync. Even touching requires that neither person cross the threshold."

GM "Don't worry, Mz. Hino, it's nothing dangerous." That we can tell said Rogers' awkward silence as she and Dr. Turinsdottir helped Endeavor out of the bed and to a shower, where blessedly hot water and a change into real clothes(and her suit) made an excellent prelude to the meeting with AEGIS' supreme Powers. The doctors handed Sakurako off to short, bubbly agent Elizabeth Nguyen("Please, call me Beth!"), who eagerly chatted about recent super-science news on the way. The hallways were full of agents going this way and that, those who had a second sparing it to smile at or otherwise greet the recovered superhero, a few shouting well-wishes over the hustle and bustle. The administrative offices, by contrast, were silent as tombs. Agent Nguyen stopped by the door marked Chief Director Horatio Powers Beth knocked twice and opened the door after a gruff voice barked "Just get in!" Horatio Powers, once the best agent that AEGIS had seen for decades, was a weary, angry-looking middle-aged bald man in a blue suit, an eyepatch over an empty socket spiderwebbed with crow's feet, the old white scar still livid, but flushed red now. Powers was glaring at a manilla envelope on his nearly-empty desk, a good match for the sparse and military-meticulous office. Looking up at the new arrivals, he rose and marched up to Endeavor, looking her up and down. "Good to see you on your feet, Mz. Hino. I've already informed your parents of your recovery. Good people, visited often. I'm glad my people got to you before it was too late." His remaining eye burned like a coal as it swept over to Agent Nguyen "Take that...thing to Meriwether. Then report to Maddox, we're almost ready for Operation Westwitch. Dismissed, agent." Beth nodded, caught the envelope Powers tossed her way, gave Sakurako a comforting shoulder-squeeze and trotted off into the hallway. The door shut behind her automatically, a recording barking "Don't come back 'til the job's done!" Powers ran a hand over his face. "Don't get in the habit of yelling, please. Just don't. Take a seat, Endeavor. Now, this Ghostworks, what sets them apart from the pack of s***s out there kidnapping people to experiment on them? Do you have any idea why the evaded me for so long?" "We have all the time in the world, so omit no detail. Lunch should be here in twenty, you like tuna casserole?"

From his seat, Ishmael watched in disbelief as more and more superfolks glided in. If this was the kind of company Archetech's western branch could get, the Daigobatsu across the river would need to seriously up their game. Even Saito Solutions' famed hosting of the Dalai Llama hadn't been this casually visited by Names. And that one, even the Hermits of Ming Xi Visions had turned up in their silk masks and austere silence. He looked between the new arrivals to his fellow Emerald City Originals(Damn you, Pollard...), but the memory of their first team-up was still a little too fresh. Besides, Spider knew he had a crush on her and she'd be sure to bring it up. Temperance's Snow Queen act had certainly been dramatic, but she seemed approachable and friendly. Certainly more than al-Misri, the Lion of the Golden Hall. With a speed and grace that belied his inexperience, the Salmon cleaned up his dishes and got himself a new serving, thanking the caterers profusely as he set out across the floor. 'Well, at least she hasn't had any reason to smirk at me yet' "S'cuse me." A glovéd hand tapped Temperance on the shoulder, which turned out to come from the lanky guy in the fish-motif'd suit, a bowl of shrimp and noodles steaming in his other hand and a dab of wasabi on his chin. From behind the embroidered tribal-pattern eyes, the Salmon squinted at the new arrival "I get the cold doesn't do for you like it does me, but d'you mind turning it down-" he paused, thinking it over "-up-" he shrugged "-not so Frozen?" He offered his hand "I'm Salmon, the riverrunner. New to the hero thing, but here that goes for most of us. 'Sides him anyway." He jerked a shoulder at the Emerald Citizen. Having a Centurion of the West Coast was a new experience for the Gems of Columbia, and his recent rescue of a damaged passenger jet had made waves. Including in a few places that most people would think before treading. "You should stop by in the spring. The cherry blossom festival is somethin' else, and usually people are pretty happy to have ice around then. It gets hot up on that hill, which every time people forget." As he spoke, fingers twirled chopsticks at super-human speed to coil and compress the pasta and meat into tidy, well-sauced globules, which one by one vanished into his mouth. 'Should I...he's no kama of mine, and he doesn't need some babysitter, but...' "Listen," he added, glancing between Temperance and Citizen "Could you-would you tell him to be careful? This place isn't as dangerous as Freedom, but, well..." The gestures he tried to make to subtly get his point across were hampered by the bowl.

The aethereal creatures set to work, worrying the spiders out of their lairs and gobbling up the ones unlucky enough to be outside. The spiders reared and fought, but they were almost defenceless against the darting, agile beaks and claws. In moments the mystic poison was drained away, the hummingbirds drinking from the astral wounds and vanishing into the sunlight. The boy groaned weakly and shifted, turning his head in the direction of the other two. With an effort, the Salmon tore away the part of his mask that covered his mouth, got slowly to his feet, stumbled over to the designated garbage-disposal container, dropped it into the bin, and was then violently sick. The Salmon then stumbled over to the water-dispensing machine opposite the garbage bin, washed off the bile as best he could, and then returned his attention to Sha'ir and Spider. "Hey, uh, thanks. I dunno what happened, some bats' dude got...spiders. Had a mask over his mask. I'm...the Salmon. You're Emerald Spider, you're...real cool. The jigo are you, man?" He demanded, pointing unsteadily at one of the three Spellsmith's occupying the alley. Ishmael slumped against the alley wall, visibly struggling to get his reeling brain under control. Suddenly his head jerked up and in the blink of an eye he'd crossed the distance between himself and the others, grabbing Peri by the front of her costume, yelling frantically "I saw where the maomew-I mean, where Faster Pussycat went! She's in a warehouse by the docks, we can catch her! We have to!"

GM December 15th, 2016. 1.42PM A.S.T.R.O. Labs showroom, behind the labs proper, where they used to show off new jets and guns. "...Which brings us to the pride of our tour, the Guardian of Infinity!" Dr. Spencer gestured grandly to the towering apparatus, a of aluminium tubing on either side of a sideways, elongated oval as wide across as a city street and tall as a house. Hydrogen fuel cells hummed away, connected to the titanium oval by thick bundles of cables that vanished into the complex of struts and and bars around it. Running a good yard from it was a large black/yellow striped square. With "please do not approach the distortion of space-time" signs at each front-facing corner. The floodlights they reflected shone down on both the meticulously-curated and presented showcase floor and relics of the Lab's glorious past. Up above their heads hung replicas of various weapons and vehicles that had been the end of countless Germans. Around the guests was the future. Spacial-temporal distortions and all. Said distortion was a remarkably mundane affair. A city very like the Freedom City outside, with people looking very like those gathered before it. The first sign of difference was the omnipresence of Arabic letters. The second was the giant mechanical eagle that crashed into the ground, causing havoc as citizens rushed to shelter. As it rose up, it was struck down again by the now-visible superhumans pursuing it. Their host grinned and produced a spiral-shaped remote from her suit-jacket. "Yes, citizens! A world like our own, but not! With this device, constructed by my colleague Dr. Brandtford and myself, we can see any-" A world where domes were the major architectural style. "-neighboring-" Crosses filled the skyline, with images of saints on every window. "-divergence-" At the intersection, drivers floored it on the red light. "-we choose!" Spencer beamed at the crowd, tucking an errant lock of thick brown hair behind her ear "And best of all, we have made contact with a few alternate Labs, who had made devices nigh-identical to this one! Who knows what the future holds?" She scanned the gaggle of visitors, the vast majority of whom were students at Freedom City University "Any questions?" Dozens of twentysomethings glanced at each other. Spencer's grin was a bit too far that side of manic.

GM The apologetic-looking doctor(whose nametag read "Lian Rogers") signaled for the other to leave. Adding "Tell Powers" before Turinsdottir vanished into the wider world outside. "Not to the public," admitted the doctor as she checked a bank of monitors on Sakurako's left "but the wakeworms have been extensively tested, and they don't have any adverse effect on humans. Especially-" glancing at the young superhero, her mouth clicked shut. Leaning in to examine a drip connected to Endeavor's neck, she went on "Ghostworks is an organization we've suspected to exist for at least ten years, but never found any hard evidence, which was fitting but dangerous. No wonder. Under Bedlam? Jesus. Kidnapped, escaping, somehow befriending that monster Volt, flying a VTOL across the US..." Rogers shook her head and worked in silence for a while, gently reaching into the membrane to check Sakurako's limbs. "We did manage to repair your suit, but the other...stuff is in pieces. I'm sorry. If you could make that sonic screwdriver, though, I'm sure you can fix it. But for, just rest and-" The curtain swept aside to admit a returning Turinsdottir. "He's waiting. Do you feel like you can sit or stand, Mz. Hino?"

GM AEGIS central command, "The Iceberg", inderneath the Federal Building in Freedom City, NJ, USA.ò The infirmary. Bed 22. July 5th 2016 "Mz. Hino." Sakurako had been floating in darkness for a long time. The voices were pretty frequent, and added variety to the inchoate shapes that slid by. Sometimes they were her parents, sometimes her friends. Once, she had seen and heard Hannah looking down from some white void and whisper that she was coming for her. "Mz. Hino...time to wake up..." This time, there was the gentle tug at her shoulder. This had happened a few times before, she had woken up and gone home to her happy parents and favourite flying jellyfish with the fifteen finger puppets. Once, there had been a dog. That was weird. "Alright Turinsdottir, we do it your way. Fire her up." Then very suddenly the black void was wrenched away, Sakurako was staring out at a room drenched in red, white and blue, curtains shielding most of it from view. Next to her were two severe, military-looking women in scrubs, hair caps and face masks, one holding a silvery syringe and nonchalantly removing a cylinder of something blue. And wriggling. The other looked very apologetic. "Mz. Hino, do you feel any pain? Do you know who you are, what happened before you came here?" By now the glare was dying down, and the wet, warm feeling she'd had was revealed as submersion in some strange, greenish liquid. Instead of a normal bed, it more resembled a flattened bathtub, covered from her neck down by a pale blue plastic sheet. Her whole body felt like it had been used to beat carpets but otherwise felt fine.

GM From behind her five shots cracked out. Then there was a distant, piercing scream that stopped like it had been switched off. But the five gunmen had seemingly shaken off the effect of the flare arrow and the howls and their own screams were replaced with snarled curses as they set out to find where their enemy had gotten to. "Why'd the boss gotta send us?" One bellyached miserably, wipng his streaming face with the hand holding his gun "Wese ain't his crack guys, don't he want this **** dead?" There was a chorus of commiseration snd shared sense of being wronged, but the rest were less inclined to talk while stalking their first metahuman quarry. So focused were they on finding Arrowhawk that they walked right by her, straggled out in a long, disorganized line. Also disorganized was the flight pattern of the helicopter above, which was dipping and wobbling in the air like a badly-held note at an amateur opera. Its floodlight swung back and forth, casting the streets into a strange, almost cartoony mix of white and black. There were still no sirens.

Scarpians(x5): Bruise(x5)-GM The Chopper: Unharmed, Nullified(Gun)-GM Arrowhawk: Unharmed, Fatigued, 3HP The Scarpians finally recover from the Dazzle and move out to find Arrowhawk. However, with her Concealment and their low Notice that just puts them in position to be picked off. The Chopper is starting to have real difficulty maintaining altitude. Arrowhawk is up.

I will, if nobody else better suited has the time or inclination.

20 on the opposed power check. It could not beat that with a natch score. The gun is ice arrow'd and cannot function. Also the added weight throws off the helicopter's fine balance...

Alright, so how about making this a New Year's thing? A fresh start. Those brain geniuses at Lockdown fitted Kaiju Kong with a device to make him more self-aware, more conscious of the harm he's been doing. So now when he's broken out he's just as strong and way smarter and mentally-tougher than before. The new Freedom League goes into action during a retirement party for some of the League's oldest members, right before the big farewell speeches from longtime Leaguers. They're joined by the Project: Safeguard supers and together stop the Typhoon Terror from raising the roofs off every house in Michigan.

GM Though their eyesight was still obviously out to lunch, the men of Scarpia were not to be denied. At long last they managed to get their aim centered into something about torso-height. If they had been aiming anywhere near where Osla was, they might have posed a marginally credible threat. Instead their sights were directed into the buildngs nearby, whose already dim lights had quickly gone out when the firefight started. The crumbling brick and concrete slabs that made up the apartments in this part of downtown wouldn't put up hardly any resistance to the military-grade firearms present, and the unpredictability of blind gunmen ensured hiding was no better defence than a prayer. Up above, the chopper pilot seemed to think better of making another sweep and ducked up and back. The mounted Gatling gun spun, but didn't shoot. Yet. The floodlight tightened, sweeping back and forth with the sway of the aircraft, slowly fixing on Arrowhawk's precise location. The floodlight was blinding and the rotor blades deafening, but the smell of hot steel overpowered any other. All around her lay the shattered, torn-up road and sidewalk that bullets long as her head was tall had impacted. Even her armor wouldn't be proof against that. But the people most in danger here didn't have any armor at all...

GM There was only enough time for the Kittens watching Sha'ir to begin shouting a warning before the attack struck. A few hands squeezed on triggerpads, but the shots harmlessly gouged the glistening limestone as they fell. On the field and walkways the crowd paused, watching silently, uncertain what to make of all this. The sun shone down, the sea breeze blew, the thin cirrostratus clouds moved sedately overhead. Seagulls sang. Almost as quickly as it had begun, the first supervillain attack either Emerald City had seen in decades was finished. With a BANG the New City Hall's enormous doors burst open, the building's security team flooding out to secure the area even as the sirens of the ECPD rapidly drew nearer. The squad of Brande Management personnel who raced to the podiums and silenced the NCH's holo-screens favoured the heroes with a glare as they carried their charges out of sight. Below the duo, the pool of reporters and other sundry media apertures seized the moment and rushed under the heroes, shouting a desperate flurry of questions at the enigmatic apparition and the home-grown tech-head. Dozens of cameras, phones, boom mics, mics and recorders were hoisted up to better catch the faces and words of these new gods. "Wait! Courier-Express, Pollard!" A forty-something man with balding hair, an ill-fitting sweater and fogged-up glasses waved his pad and pencil frantically, shouting over the crowd "You in the robes, who are you? Did you know this would happen? What's going on?" "Lu! Channel 8!" A trim bald young woman in meticulously Casual Light Winter Wear that probably cost more than the Spdr suit shouldered to the front, brandishing her phablet "Who was that woman? Where did these people-" she kicked one of the Kittens in the mask "-and their tech come from? Is this linked to recent thefts at KessKorp?" Wailing morosely, the ambulances from ECU burst in seemingly from nowhere, skidding to a halt to let out the EMTs and their equipment. They glanced uneasily at the floating people and the superfelonious feline's hired help, but checked them for wounds and other injuries all the same before prepping the lot for transport. Mars, Talbot and Everett were hustled off in record time. and a short step later The portal led to an alley near the intersection of Pilchikamen and Kahkah. It was spacious, clean and had nothing out of place besides the young man in the salmon-styled costume slumped against the wall, bile dripping out of his mouth onto the ground. To Sha'ir's eyes it was obvious what was wrong: the boy's body was a practical nest of venom-green spiders that crawled in and put of his body, feeding on his life force and corrupting it with poison from their glistening fangs. Over Peri's headset, Myung-sook's voice burst into her head ~"Pey! Who is that man? How long have you been seeing him? And where are you? I saw you go into some sky-hole and your feed cut for a second! Are you in that military town across the river? Did that woman strike there too?"~

The Kittens can only make a DC25 Toughness save on a natural 20. So I'm ruling they fail that. Assuming both go through they find Salmon unconscious and infected by the mystic's power. He's suffering from Exhaustion, Nauseated and Sickened. Worryingly, there is no other sign of the mystic.

GM Oddly enough, none of the Kittens said so much as a word, instead drawing odd-looking, almost bulbous orange guns and attempting to get a bead on the ascending Spider. The heroine was much faster, however, and in a few short seconds half of the jacketed errand-dogs of evil were lying unconscious on the ground. Each one that fell shifted and distorted at the space-shofting field's touch, the simple black replaced with gaudy gold and yellow, with a snarling cat mask shivering into place over very different faces than the ones they had worn moments ago. The other half, meanwhile, had caught sight of the other ascendant with with his magnificent grimoire and emerald eyes and quickly divided their forces to fight on two fronts. Only a few of their shots lanced, white-hot, against the Spdr suit, but every searing bolt of energy aimed at the Spellsmith went wide. The Kittens still never said a word, though their own disguises were dismissed with some invisible signal. They kept to a loose square on the white flagstones, evidently hoping they could avoid a mass-dispersal like their comrades. Elsewhere... A chase between speedsters feels much longer than it really does, even for those without the capacity to process information at super-human rates. What felt like hours passed for the Salmon as he slid under cars, swerved around corners and dodged pedestrians that would have been minor inconveniences for anyone moving at less than 100 miles per hour. But he couldn't pause for even a second, lest he lose the white-gold blur of his quarry. Luckily, Faster Pussycat didn't have his extensive, intimate knowledge of the southern Dragon's Eye. As they raced, her unaware of the other speedster and Salmon all too aware of the clear gulf between them, Ishmael quickly began to get an idea of where the feline felon's destination was. When they arrived at a recently auctioned-off shipping warehouse, the boy didn't need a second look to see this was the end of her line. He could outswim most boats and she wouldn't be going anywhere soon ('I hope...') so as to not draw attention. Spinning on his heel, the river runner hurtled back the way he had come. He'd seen how fast and hard this woman could take down a normal person and Ishmael didn't dare risk fighting her alone. He had to get help, needed a plan... The Salmon looked up just in time to see the poison-green fist before it hit him right under the sternum. Then the world exploded, he hit a wall and blessedly lost consciousness.