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February 2019 Midnight Manor Loyal worker though she was, February was not exactly Aquaria's season for outdoor work. She could stand very cold water, but air was different and it was nearly freezing out there! So instead she was working in one of the Manor's big kitchens today, cleaning the hard-to-reach areas up on top of the cabinets, and cooking up steaks as she went. The fine fat fish she'd caught earlier that year was more than half her height and thick, and had been soaking for a whole day in big pots full of delicious-smelling things. Now things were cooking on the stove, and soon there'd be enough fish for herself, Jessie, and perhaps Trevor and Erin as well! They had been content to let her salt the fish and store it in their home for a while, her apartment with Jessie lacking the kind of space one needed to store significant quantities of really good fish. She had other reasons for wanting to talk to them too, especially when Jessie wasn't around. She sang to herself as she worked, hopping from foot to foot, and opened the front of her suit to smell the good things sizzling on the stove. She was in her suit for a variety of reasons, comfort when she went outside, and also so she didn't make too much of a mess in a place where Surfacers made their food. She knew what they sometimes thought of that, even though Jessie was typically too kind to say anything. They could be so fastidious!

Did I never start an OOC for this? Shame, shame! I did promise some actual numbers - so @Gizmo, let's see a Tactics check from you. @Electra, you can take Erin's Notice for Skill Mastery (which may not be high enough), or you can roll it - with the caveat that it's what _all_ the Erins will roll.

July 13, 2018 Midnight Manor Even now, Midnight Manor was one of the safest places in Freedom City. "Sea Devil and Singularity have made contact with Foreshadow. The plan is in motion." Redbird had been more subdued than usual lately - hadn't they all? Even with the evacuations the dead, wounded, and missing in Freedom City were four, maybe five figures; not to mention the heroes, no, the friends they'd lost. "Good." Through his radio link to the Manor, Harrier spoke with the slow, deliberate intonations of a man whose breathing came with difficulty. "Are you prepared?" He'd done his best to help them. They had a map of their destination, a rough sketch of its likely defenses, and more besides - Steve had stayed up all night, multiple nights, dictating to Redbird when Wander and Midnight had been deployed to the action. There was very little else he could do. While the others talked, Mark studied the screens showing the continued carnage of the fight in Freedom City - maybe it was all confined to an isolated few areas this time, maybe this was just touches of Hell on Earth instead of the real thing. He closed his eyes and thought of Nina and Richie, safely away from all this - unless all this spilled out over everything, and took them just like it had taken his friends in the DuTemps Building. When we get back here - I need to fix things.

And the OOC.

There you go

August 2, 2017 Freedom Medical Center Keeping things low-profile, as was the plan, meant that any image Mark had had of landing on the rooftop were quickly stifled by the reality of the need to look like any typical expectant family and friends arriving at the hospital late at night. Redbird dropped them off at the front doors and they headed inside, where the front desk attendant quickly directed them towards the secure elevator to the maternity ward. On the sixth floor. As the elevator ascended, an ominous rumble came from somewhere in the shaft - but Mark looked up and declared out loud, “No!” And with that, they continued to their destination, where as parents in labor but not particularly active labor, Mark and Nina were immediately handed a large pile of forms. Ready to walk around instead of wait, Nina handed them quickly to Mark. By the time they were about to head for their secure room, two visitors arrived. Iyar al-Iryani was the first of the extra guests to arrive, sweeping Nina up in a careful hug briefly stymied by another contraction. But Nina seemed to appreciate the company, and Iyar took her other hand. “Just think, Nina,” said Iyar with animation on her face. “Someday this day will be a holiday.” “You’re right,” said Nina, smiling at the thought. “This will be a good day - no, a great one.” “Thank you so much for all this,” Iyar said to Trevor and Erin, her accent notably thicker than her friend’s. “You will be remembered on this day.” She knew the Liberty League well enough to know who had planned all this. Exchanging a glance with Erin Trevor suggested, “Best left out of history books, maybe.” Having a commemorative plaque in their honor in some Socotran municipal park might be tough to explain down the line. Something reminiscent of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth all the same. “Will settle for favourite American uncle.” Erin had stationed herself at the entrance to the elevator lobby, keeping an eye on the stairs and the banks of elevators all at once. She was close enough to hear the conversation, but far enough away from the action for comfort. Part of her job in the grand scheme of things had been screening content to show to Mark to keep him grounded in the reality of normal childbirth, and it had been… educational. Now that she was married and in her twenties, the idea of wanting children wasn’t nearly as foreign to Erin as it would’ve been even five years ago, but the getting of them was still a daunting proposition. “Yeah, aunt and uncle should work just fine.” “Oh, you guys…” Mark was close to tears, maybe because the moment was so emotional, maybe from fatigue, but Nina, still walking around, was articulate enough to say, “Thank you both so much. We owe you our lives, and so does our son, as soon as he makes his way out here…” Things got a little more complicated with the arrival of Martha Lucas, carrying a grandmother’s big bag of goodies over her shoulder and looking a little out of breath. Things weren’t exactly frosty between Mark’s mother and the rest of the Liberty League, but they weren’t quite friendly either - not with the lingering memories of what she’d done to Mark when he’d been in high school just before the barely-prevented end of the multiverse. But Mark had put those memories aside and obviously wanted his friends to do the same - especially today! Luckily they had this small suite of rooms and waiting room to themselves tonight - even in Freedom City, the metahuman wing of the hospital wasn’t so crowded in the dead of night when there wasn’t a major super-battle going on. Hot on Martha’s heels came Dr. Hussein, the Iraqi-born physician who was working as Nina’s primary ob-gyn. The hijab-wearing woman was no-nonsense and intimately familiar with all sorts of metahuman health issues, particularly maternal ones - she was exactly the kind of person Mark and Nina had been hoping to find. “All right, it’s time to go to work,” she said briskly. “Mother, let’s get you in your room - Father, we’re going to need you in just a few minutes…” Mark had been sitting his mother down and making sure she had her books and her sketchpad, now with Nina heading off to the delivery room, he found another moment for Erin and Trevor. “Okay, guys - I’ll keep you updated as much as I can. In another couple of hours, you’re going to meet my son!” He hugged Erin, and he hugged Trevor, and seemed to take a moment to gather himself, pushing aside his own nerves and jangling emotions for the support role he was going to play. “I’m gonna be a dad!” And with that, he headed off to join his wife in their hospital room! Nina and Mark had discussed their birth plan with Trevor and Erin ahead of time, just to make sure everyone knew what was what. Nina had intended to use an epidural and take her chances with a possible C-section, but strong painkillers and other sorts of sedatives usually made her powers unstable. That meant a natural birth, albeit one spent mostly in the tub full of warm water that Mark had practiced making until he could practically do it in his sleep. Since this was Nina’s first pregnancy, what that really meant for the people outside the delivery room was a lot of waiting as the hours of the late morning crept by into dawn, punctuated by occasional sounds from inside the room (mostly of Nina’s music, an Eritrean pop star she found soothing) and texted updates from Mark. Hours ticked by - not enough for it to actually be light outside but it was definitely thinking about it out there . Martha Lucas set aside the drawing of Mark and Nina she was working on and immediately dozed off in her chair. Iyar talked with Trevor and Erin about the refugee resettlement service where she volunteered - and then the lights flickered, just slightly, then again. Though they came back on, the effect was unsettling, especially when Erin and Trevor’s communicators both chimed with the fuzzy, static-heavy sound of Redbird’s voice. “<empora> <ncursio> <ospita>. <eav> <nterferenc>.”

January 20, 2017 Port Regal "It's beautiful," said Mark, peering at the image Nina had found. "I love the lacework on the veil - and you've always looked good in white." Perhaps white wasn't the traditional color under the circumstances - but when he'd mentioned that the other day Nina had not been terribly happy with him. "I'll take you over as soon as we're done talking to everyone." Sitting next to his fiancee on their living room couch, he tried to keep his stomach from lurching with excitement as he remembered the purpose of the planned conversation. He'd kept Nina's secret because he loved her, but it had made January one of the hardest months of his life. "It's fine enough," agreed Nina, tabbing over to the page for her personal notebook.. Looking at the dresses had been Mark's idea - having found a satisfactory one, she'd already moved to the next step. "After I wear it, I can donate it to the Women's Center - Malikah's getting married this summer and she can alter it as she sees fit." The dress would do for their civic service in Freedom City in a month. For the wedding to come in Socotra's Great Mosque, when she would be her father's...overthrower, she would need something much more elaborate than this. Mark gave no sign that he followed Nina's thoughts, instead kissing her on the cheek and rising to his feet. "Okay, it's 10:30...I should start the frittata so it'll be ready when they get here." Only an hour and a half left! Mark and Nina lived in a gated seaside development - just the place for two Freedom City residents who had wanted a house and Mark headed into the kitchen. "Everything will be okay," he said aloud, stepping around the bookcase and firing up the oven. "We'll have them over, we'll feed them, we'll tell them we're getting married in February because we're going to have a baby. It'll be a surprise - but everything will be great."

09/11/2016 12:35 PM Downtown Freedom City When a professional group of vault hunters shows up in your city, the local law enforcement take notice. Granted, it's usually fairly hard to actually track them down, once they go to ground - but you can generally assume a spectacular heist is in the offing. AEGIS was well familiar with this procedure; having long set up protocols in the event of notable criminals popping up on the radar at the Freedom City airport - and they'd released the names and faces to the FCPD and (surreptitiously) to more than a few of their known heroic contacts. That or 'conviniently' left the information on unsecured servers where any (hero-type) person might find them. It was an old game, and one the Midnights and Ravens of old had played very well. The group in particular this month was called the Self-Preservation Society; a band of British movie buffs who'd taken up the mask and black bag years ago. They'd started their careers with blag jobs working armored convoys in the UK, graduating to larger-scale heists across France and Germany once their rep had grown. Four men, each world-class drivers, who'd made their bones on some of the scariest (and fastest) roads on Earth. They'd never pulled a job in the good old U.S. of A., but records were made to be broken - and given piles of these world-class drivers had kept popping up arriving one way or another in Freedom over the last few weeks, then dropping off the radar - something was in the works. That something finally came up when every alarm system Midnight had started screaming red. Three heroes in question were on patrol in the City Centre when the alarms hit - and a quartet of Mini Coopers souped up to frightening levels tore out of the front lobby of the First National. They moved as one in eerie synchronicity through the streets, moving towards an unknown destination - leaving wreckage of hot dog stands, newspaper stalls, and leaping bystanders in their wake!

Gentlebeings, start your engines!

September 2016 Lincoln Dancia had spent a week away from the office, covering a story about the new generation of West African nuns who were taking over an isolated Franciscan nunnery down on the Maurice River in southwestern New Jersey. it had been a fascinating story and a chance to meet people she might never have met, but the nunnery's remote location had left her isolated from world events. No sooner had she arrived back at the Ledger that she had a stack of urgent messages - including one from a familiar UNISON agent asking her to arrange a meeting with Triakosia at a remote cliffside lookout spot near Lonely Point. "This is an urgent meeting. Please let me know as soon as you've arranged it - and when we can see her there."

December 2015 Voidrunner When the big barracuda-like ship didn't follow them, Aquaria croaked in noisy relief before settling down into her seat. As she did so, she realized just how much her relief was mixed by fear. Despite impossible odds and impossible distances, things had come through for Sea Devil and Singularity, for Aquaria and Jessie. It wouldn't be long now before they were back in the Solar System - a concept she only hazily understood but that she knew meant they were close to Earth, and close to a return to the home she and Jessie had been trying to get back to for weeks. Close to trouble. She was acutely aware, twitching in her seat, of all that had happened - of how her pride had sent them to the stars, of how her anger had gotten that Surfacer killed, and of how all the stars of space had seemed to be against them on their journey. She knew, too, that her life in Freedom City was not her own - she was a symbol of the fear and loathing that Surfacers had for her kind, and a criminal to boot. With all that she'd done, what would happen when she returned? Blackstone again? Perhaps Atlantean custody? Or maybe just exile - a banishment to the waters off Freedom's coast where she was an outcast among all who lived beneath the waves. Turning to her still night-catatonic friend, Aquaria took a long breath and released it as a deep, almost subsonic, bellow. Jessie would be home in the world of her birth, surrounded by her people, away from the world that Aquaria had thrust her into. That was what mattered. Through the blood of sacrifice, I gain power, she thought, closing her big goggle eyes. Through the blood of sacrifice, we are free. Up front, the dinky little Terran comet belt station had just hailed the Voidrunner.

Spring 2016 Greenbank Warehouse District The Gaia's Liberation Front meeting was going well - the activists inside were ready to move to direct action against the corporate oppressors of the planet. All was going well, Pierre thought as he stepped out into the alley to light a cigarette. Just as his match flared to life; a hatchet appeared at his throat. "Hey, jackass," Woodsman whispered in his ear, glad that for once he'd found a criminal shorter and slighter than he was. "You say a word and you're gonna be crapping that match out your ears!" Dammit, Riley thought, embarrassed, why is it so hard when I know people are watching!? "Yeah, you heard me. Now talk. Where'd you put the goddamned dynamite? Or do I have to give you a shave first?"

August 15, 2015 Midnight Manor Garage In black skinny jeans, a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and black leather shoes, Nina al-Darsah had certainly dressed the part for a meeting with Trevor Hunter. It was a little warm; but Freedom City's summers were nothing to Socotran heat. Messenger bag under one arm, she finished her walk up from the long 'guest' driveway and knocked on a garage door, banging her knuckles against the metal. With Mark away at work and Erin White mostly likely at her own security job, this was the best time to stage a meeting with Midnight when they wouldn't be interrupted. Assuming he wasn't with a client. She actually quite approved of Midnight's choice of a civilian vocation, unlike that of several of her fellow members of the Liberty League. Perhaps life as a high-end mechanic lacked the self-sacrifice of Mark's work, but there really was only one Mark. Building things showed cleverness, building things for others showed you were essential, building fine things for others showed you were indispensable. Of course, Father would say he was just a greasy-handed tradesman... She shifted the bag under her arm, the weight of it digging into her shoulder, and despite herself the images inside flashed in her mind, pushing her out of her speculations on Midnight's career. Photographs, hand-written letters that were obviously written under duress. CDs. CDs! Oh, Father. She thought despite herself, despite the pain and the fear she was holding back. I had to borrow Mark's laptop to see these. Did you think you were being au courant?

All right, Giz, are you sticking with Skill Mastery re: Stealth? And what's your current Gadget allocation?

Someone wanted an OOC

Two Miles From Lake Vostok Antarctica Friday, May 9, 2014 7:52 PM White. White as far as the eye could see. And cold that cut right through to the bone. Ever since he'd come into his powers, Cannonade hadn't exactly felt the weather in quite some time. But it said a lot that, even with his enhanced resilience, this was able to get right at his core. After only a few seconds on the ice, he firmly decided that Antarctica could go screw. He didn't know why he'd expected anything else. He should have known this would happen at some point - join a superteam, see everywhere from Hell to Honolulu. But while he'd usually gotten his more globetrotting assignments courtesy of AEGIS, it had been Edge who'd brought this one to the table. Apparently there was a UNISON research base near Vostok, dedicated to plumbing both the depths of the ancient lake and whatever things might be found in the snow. Cannonade hadn't gotten the full account, but a message had gotten out a few days back. There wasn't enough sensible content to lean one way or another, but the fact that something garbled and messy was coming out of the station could be considered a soft cause for alarm. Which would also explain their guest. Joe was used to the rest of the League, but apparently, the Indian woman had been seconded to Edge's assignment. She was a psychic, apparently, something that left him very conscious about what he was thinking. Her job was to check up on the mental health of the scientists. A place like this could do things to a man... and apparently, there had been rumors of whole expeditions who'd gone around the bend down here. There was a chance it wasn't all isolation... Joe just adjusted his jacket, and kept his eyes on the base. Soon enough, the security team would be out to wave them in. He just had to focus on that...

A DC 25 Notice check will reveal that's not Nightmare Moon at all, but a false one! (It's not an illusion, though...)

June 1, 2014 Urgent phone messages were nothing new for Midnight Manor, even those that arrived at an hour of the day where no decent person would be awake. Was there crime afoot in the darkest corners of the city? Or more commonly, a cosmic threat like those that the newest holder of the Midnight legacy and his partner had so often battled? Not today. For once, the late night phone call had been for Erin. "Ms. White? This is Thomas Cleary, I'm the night supervisor here at Project Freedom. I'm calling you because Jessie White has had an incident with another inmate. We've placed her in medical isolation for now - but she's not communicating. we're hoping you may be able to help us figure out what happened."

OOC thread

GM Friday, February 10th 10:52 PM Riverside was, as usual, bustling, especially along 4th Avenue. The place where City Center met Riverside, it was where the industrial forests of downtown began to give way to the townhouses and nightclubs of the bohemian district. If you had a tendency to buy what they said in Lonely Planet, it was where the business suit was traded for evening wear. The streets were thronged tonight - the weekend had begun hours ago, the work week was well and truly dead, and many were hitting the town to celebrate. Two individuals, however, were most definitely not there with pleasure in mind. Arrowhawk and Midnight were patrolling the neighborhood, moving through on their respective routes. As others moved through the main streets and sidewalks, they kept to the back alleys, side roads, and rooftops. They had passed through the neighborhood on the same night on many occasions, their patrol routes often keeping one from noticing the other. Who knew if they would meet tonight...

Erin and Trevor were having lunch together the Monday after moving their relationship to the next level when Erin's cell phone (which she was luckily carrying) rang. It was Mark on the other end, Mark who neither Trevor nor Erin had seen that morning. "Oh hi Erin," said Mark, his voice sounding oddly warbly, and a little thick. "Um, how are things going? Is everything okay over there?" On his end of things, Mark was sitting in his room, staring at the wall and one of the many, many, many pictures of Young Freedom there. "Things aren't very good here. Could you guys come over?"