ic Ink

[RocketLord]

GM

 

December 12th, 3 PM

Bedlam City, all across town

 

It hadn't happened all at once, but slowly, unrest had begun to spread in Bedlam City. It was small things at first. At first, any paper or print with the initials W.E.B. had been changed to the simple I.G. instead. Random menus at restaurants or fast food places would show different prices than usual. The grades on all papers at Walgrove Prep had been replaced by what appeared to be random fractions. The students revolved, the teachers apologized, but they knew little of what was going on. If it had just been just papers graded by one teacher, it would have made sense, but it was all of them. 

 

The first big issue happened on December 10th. The lottery numbers were drawn, and exactly 100 self-proclaimed winners showed up. On closer inspection, all of their tickets had the exact same number. They started a small riot. 

 

On December 11th, the workers at Snacktastic all went on strike. By what was announced as a printer error, all paychecks had been made out to the CEO of the company. All attempts to rectify the mistake seemed to produce the same results. 

 

The already threadbare city government ground to a complete halt on December 12th, in the early hours of the morning. All papers, all their archives, had been rendered entirely blank. And all animals at Stone Ridge Animal Shelter had the name tags on their cages switched around. Not much in the long run, but one inattentive volounteer was bitten as a result. Similar reports flowed through the city. Anything written could suddenly change, seemingly at random.

 

The would-be heroes and super human element of Bedlam City did not go unaffected.

 

Ronin found the labels on his grandmother's medicine changed. They made little sense anymore.

 

Mister Strix had found all books he read in libraries to be altered, to greater or less degrees. Anything from a different text all together, such as a newspaper showing part of Harry Potter, with several expletives insert, to being complete nonsense or being blank. 

 

Lady Horus found that everywhere she went to distribute toys to needy children, the address was instead for the rich and powerful. Clearly, it was those not in need.

 

And Doctor Thorne found Thorne Investigations rebranded as I.G. Investigations. Any notes she had in the office, any books, anything with written words, had the text replaced with the repeated phrase: "I AM YOUR GOD."

 

Would the heroes come together to stop the chaos, follow their own paths, or simply let it be?

[Supercape]

Ronin

 

God-damn this...

 

Curtis drove up Nancy street and onto the corner shop pharmacist. It was boarded up and had metal grills on, like always. Junkies...always making life hell...

 

He was more grim than normal. Yoshie, his grandmother, had diabetes, and the medication she had got was a mess. Curtis was no doctor (other than his basic military training), but he could see the printed script was garbage. Who knew what had happened? He didn't want to give her the wrong medication. Yoshie was a tough old bird, but she was eighty eight, and tough as she was, he did not fancy poisoning her. 

 

He pulled up outside the pharmacist and climbed out, taking a few deep breaths. No point taking it out on the pharmacist - they did a tough job round here, and didn't deserve anything but respect.

 

There was, however, a line of people outside, all complaining to the strung out pharmacist that the scripts were all just as mangled as Yoshies!

 

"Hey man, what the hell is going on?" he asked the person at the back end of the queue...

[Tiffany Korta]

Doctor Thorne
Part of the skill as a magic wielder of any stripe was the ability to spot potential patterns, not that it was hard seeing how obvious thing bloody were. And two sets of eye, they tested thing quite thoroughly in the early days quickly ruled out some form of Aphasia. And a quick search of the internet and local news showed that this was something apparently tied to Bedlam.

“I really hope this is isn’t some sort of Glossalinga, a glossograptós if you will!” Rosa mused to herself, there was no doubt that right now this was a magical problem needing all her skills and knowledge.

Rather than anything complicate or magical she started with the basics, a large map of Bedlam and a pile of push pins. The first thing was to see if there was a pattern in all this madness.
 

[Amelia]

It had taken Guy Giordano two nights of sifting through the rare books in the Hardwick Collection of the Endler Library to find the one containing the two-hundred year-old French translation of the three-hundred and fifty year-old Romanian treatise on their stories about the Moldavian striga, the last link in a chain of bibliographies he'd been following for over a week. When the French shifted to English and the subject matter abruptly changed from ancient Eastern European mythology to a contemporary children's book, he was confused, but also annoyed.

 

Guy put the book down and opened another, and found a similar chunk of out-of-place text. He opened the door from the rare books section and shouted into the hallway at one of the off-duty cops moonlighting as library security whom he'd previously hypnotized. "Hey, you!" The guard stopped walking, but kept staring straight ahead. "You can remember that I exist now, but it's OK, because I'm supposed to be here." The guard blinked, then turned toward Guy. "What can I do for you?" Guy motioned for him to come over, then thrust the book in his face. "Read this page out loud." The guard's words matched the text Guy had just read. Guy let him drone on for a few seconds, then snapped the book shut. "That's enough, thank you. Now go back to forgetting I exist." The guard blinked again, then turned and leisurely strolled down the hall, whistling to himself.

 

Guy muttered to himself. "Multiple instances, so it's not the book. Multiple subjects, so it's not just me. This reeks of paranormal activity. At the moment, I only know one expert in the paranormal who lives in Bedlam City, but she's good enough that she practically 'diagnosed' me on sight. Fortunately for me, Doctor Thorne's listed in the phone book. Unfortunately for me, I can't call her on the phone, so I'll have to drop in unannounced, and uninvited. Fortunately, near as I can tell, 'uninvited' isn't a problem for my kind after all. Just have to stop by the house first for a change of clothes." Aside from the black suit he was wearing, the suit he'd been buried in six years ago, he only owned one other piece of clothing: The costume of the urban legend he was building, "Mister Strix."

 

Edited December 3, 2018 by Grumblefloof

[Avenger Assembled]

Lady Horus hit the ground hard enough to crack it, her three-point landing somewhat marred by the hands clapped to either side of her head. I'm gonna die, she thought distinctly. There was no way she was making it back to Freedom City or Los Angeles in time, and there was no way a Bedlam hospital would have the know-how to treat a strange metahuman. I'm having a stroke and I'm gonna die here in this alley in the middle of this goddamned city - 

 

Thief, stop-. 

 

She pulled at the helm, cursing, but couldn't quite manage to dislodge it. After all these years I'm gonna die in this stupid alley, and I want to -

 

CLOCK QUEEN

 

Wait, no, I need to go back and try and find Esperanza - she looked up at the sky, the Bedlam winter cold against her skin. Make something - 

 

ANNA! 

 

Anna slumped against the alley wall and decided she was going to die talking to a god's ghost, sure, why the hell not? If you're gonna tell me to get right with Ra, honey - 

 

You are not having a stroke - some foul spell has set words against themselves in this city!

 

Taking divine reassurance for what it was, Anna had a few more words with Nepthys, then took off, leaving a rocketing trail of solar energy behind her - she only knew one magic specialist in Bedlam and she knew this was an emergency. She took a moment to call Wadjet first, though; a little glad to find that Esperanza was as annoyed as she was. By the time the goddess landed in the alley behind Dr. Thorne's office, she knew her sidekick was on her way. 

 

 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Ronin

And it just so happened that the man that Curtis spoke at the end of the queue had quite a crazed expression in his eyes. His once jet black, now greying hair was long and wild. His eyes flickered around, from side to side. His white shirt seemed like it might have been nice once, but now it was covered in stains and tears. Hopefully mostly from food. He held a note in his hands. The moment Curtis spoke to him, he held it up, practically right in Curtis' face.

"Looook at this! Look at it!" He waved it around a bit, making it a bit difficult to see. "This was my medication list! I'd written it down to remember! And looook!" From what Curtis could see with the swinging and swaying, it appeared to be the ingredients for baking a cake. "A cake won't help me!" 

The pharmacy was noisy, increasingly so since Curtis had entered. Everyone was yelling, everyone was complaining. It might just be a matter of time before things escalated.

 

Doctor Thorne, Mister Strix, Lady Horus

As it just so happened, Mister Strix and Lady Horus arrived at almost exactly the same time.

The map that Doctor Thorne seemed to have the names switched all around. Just another symptom of the madness that had spread over the city. There were incidents all over the city. Everywhere seemed to have reports of words being changed in some way. A major hotspot seemed to be Snacktastic. Another was the offices used by the city's government, where everything had turned blank. The lottery office was a big one, too. People were still walking around outside with signs, though their meanings had been twisted and turned as well.

[Supercape]

Ronin

 

"Calm down" replied Curtis, bluntly, to the vexed man in front of him. 

 

"Everybody, Calm down!" he said, loudly, to the queue. He had been in tense situations before, over in Iraq. This can get out of hand, and out of hand quickly...

 

Still, nobody calmed down by being told to calm down. Unless they really felt they needed to calm down. 

 

"Anybody here don't calm down, anybody here starts swingin', Ill damn well put them down. I ain't gonna see a Riot on Nancy Street" he said, firm. He had respect round here, and most folks new that if Ronin / Curtis wanted to put someone down, they were going down. 

 

"I'm gonna find out what the Shuck happened" he added. Although quite how he would do that, well, that was another question. 

 

He marched up to the front of the queue to speak to the pharmacist. 

 

"Hey man, what the hell happened? Did your printer swallow a bottle of crazy pills?"

[Tiffany Korta]

Dr Thorne

It’d taken a little more time than normal, double checking her work to make sure the effect wasn’t skewing her results, but eventually Rosa had managed to get the desired effect. Standing back she examined the board musing out loud at another potential problem.

 

 

“So it looks like we have several potential sources of this affliction, but how are we going to be able to check all these sites. We don’t have the resources to visit all these sites so rapidly, and i doubt we’ll get paid for this one.”

 

Concentrating on the problem at hand she’d missed the subtle signs that her magical sense had been trying to tell her about other about to arrive at the building.

[Avenger Assembled]

Down in the alley, Lady Horus didn't even bother removing her helmet - instead simply barging in through Dr. Thorne's backdoor and forward into the office where the dual-bodied detective was hard at work. "Zounds!" she boomed with her arrival, a flash of brilliant solar energy briefly shining in the office as she made an appearance. "This town is made mad, crude asses! What light can there be among heads so stuffed full of darkness?" At least the language...whatever it was...hadn't interfered with the helm's ability to translate her speech into the weird faux-Shakespearean English the Egyptian pantheon spoke in. "Thorne, what causes this and how might we smite it?" 

[Amelia]

Clinging to a corner where the ceiling met the walls above and behind Doctor Throne, Mister Strix was about to open his mouth to speak when Cleopatra stormed into the office. At first, he froze, too startled to think. Then he tensed up, preparing to lunge at the intruder. He relaxed a little when it quickly became clear that her intentions weren't hostile, that she wasn't even a stranger to the good doctor. Still, he decided to leave the psychic screen in place for a while longer. It can't hurt to see what they have to say when they think no one else is listening.

 

Quote

"This town is made mad, crude asses! What light can there be among heads so stuffed full of darkness? Thorne, what causes this and how might we smite it?"

 

So whatever this is, it's not just me, and it's not just the library, either.

 

As she spoke, it dawned on Mister Strix whom he was looking at. Right. I read about you. The Informer calls you "a menace." The City Paper calls you "Bedlam's own Captain Thunder." And apparently Doctor Thorne calls you "a friend." High praise all around...

 

Edited December 5, 2018 by Grumblefloof

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Ronin

The man stepped aside, not wanting to get on Curtis' bad side. And everyone else seemed to follow suit as he spoke. A few looked at him, before deciding that they would rather not get into a fight with someone like Curtis. This was Nancy Street. They had heard about Ronin. Nobody wanted to start trouble around him. 

The pharmacist, a little old woman with thick round glasses, looked up at him. She sighed in relief. "Ye-yes. I think so." This was no modern pharmacy. No big, fancy computers. Everything done by hand, except for the printing. To demonstrate, she pulled a piece of medication fresh of the printer and showed it to Curtis. All it showed was an excerpt from Winnie the Pooh. "It's all like this. Just completely random! Look, I've even tried writing it with a pen!" She continued to show him, writing down the same information. It all looked fine, until seconds after she finished writing on the full page. The ink on the page seemed to flow together for a brief second, then it was suddenly just two words, in the center of the page. "Ha ha." The pharmacist wringed her hands. She was obviously stressed. "I don't know what's happening! I just want to get these people their medicine!"

 

Doctor Thorne, Mister Strix, Lady Horus

As the Lady Horus made her appearance, the map began to change. It was slow and subtle, but the streets moved around, shifting into other positions. The push pins remained in place, but the streets shifted around them. Hopefully, Doctor Thorne would be able to remember where her pins had been.

[Supercape]

Ronin

 

Curtis thought he was seeing things for a moment. Did that really happen?

 

He had seen plenty, but this was something new. 

 

"Sheesh...thats some spooky $£"%" he whistled. "What the hell's going on?"

 

First things first. No rioting. 

 

"Hey guys!" he called out to the queue. "This ain't nobodies fault. Shouting and fighting at going get anybodies medication quicker. Its going to take a helluva day to get this sorted, and it's going to fry everyones nerves waiting. But we gotta pull this together, like Nancy street does, ok?" he said, firmly. 

 

He turned back to the pharmacist. "That's right, yeah? We can sort this somehow? Like, can't stop giving out medications people need. Even if they have to remember how they take it, still gotta give it to them somehow. At least, till this gets sorted..."

 

And how am I going to do that?

 

He turned back to the queue. "I'll look into this guys, don't worry. Just got find somebody who knows voodoo and spooky stuff, cause that's what this looks like to me. So if anybody knows anyone who can help....?" he asked the people. 

[Tiffany Korta]

Doctor Thorne

It was unusual that Rosa noticed anything when she was focused on solving a problem, maybe it took a godlin and a vampire to even slightly draw her attention.

 

“There’s a flask of blood, just O I’m afraid, and a bottle of wine in the fridge. I use both for business purposes, all above board obviously.”

 

She vaguely waved at the small fridge in the room, still really focused on the map.

“The effect seems to be focused on Bedlam, but focused on several nodes of activity...”, she watched the pin’s moved with a mix of irritation and fascination “Do either of you by any chance had a connection to these locations? As one of you seems to have some influence on my map!”

[Amelia]

Quote

“There’s a flask of blood, just O I’m afraid, and a bottle of wine in the fridge. I use both for business purposes, all above board obviously.”

 

Blood

 

Mister Strix closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head.

 

Wait, focus...There's blood...Not the first time a strong-willed mortal saw through my tricks, but...She said BLOOD

 

He gritted his teeth.

 

...But how long did she know I was here?

 

The man in white dropped down to the ground. His boots didn't make a sound when they hit the floor. Thorne could see a white blur out of the corner of her eye as he raced to the refrigerator and removed the Pyrex bottle.

 

DRINK

 

He bit down on his own tongue. The pain helped him focus. He didn't open the bottle, but he gripped it tightly.

 

"Thank you." His spoken words ripped his psychic veil away from him, revealing his presence to Lady Horus. He glanced back at the fridge. "'O' is actually one of the better tasting...nevermind. I appreciate the gesture. But I...I wouldn't drink that wine, if I were you. In fact, you should probably just throw out everything in there. Sorry about that. Sorry about the houseplants, too. I wouldn't...I wouldn't come here, if it weren't important. But I see you're already on top of it."

 

Quote

“The effect seems to be focused on Bedlam, but focused on several nodes of activity...Do either of you by any chance had a connection to these locations? As one of you seems to have some influence on my map!”

 

"No connection I'm aware of. I noticed it downtown, near the Endler Library. But it's possible my presence is mucking up your divinations, like it mucks up everything else, independent of this...whatever it is."

 

[Avenger Assembled]

"Nay, tis but me this day. Nightingale lady is away on a matter of her own kind." Lady Horus studied the map, frowning. "I can cover all these points before Ra sleeps, but I am no detectioner." Sheesh that was not even real Old English! Anna thought, a thought that was hastily interrupted by Mr. Strix's sudden appearance by the refrigerator. She said a word that her helm helpfully translated for her as an Egyptian oath about incest, light flashing in her hands and her cheeks flushing as she declared, "Lo, is this entire dung-brained city overrun with the hungry dead!?" She looked around the office, following Strix's comments, and took in the situation fast. This was a friend of Thorne's and Thorne had always had good judgement in her eyes, and she certainly wasn't in any position to judge people taking in vampires and the like - not for any reasons. "...not that I judge the heroic dead." Which was actually a lie, given the number of dead heroes she despised, but that was a discussion for another time. "I was stricken in the air over the park, and it doth reach as far as Belcher...be there a center to this?"

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Ronin

Curtis' reputation did the trick, at least for now. The people in the line calmed down, even if they were still complaining to each other, they were no longer at riot volumes. The pharmacist agreed with him. She wanted nothing more than to get everything sorted out, the quicker the better. Get people their medicine, get them safe, maybe even get time for a nice cup of tea. 

"Won't be easy, mister." The pharmacist voiced their opinion. "Nothing we write sticks, after all. Not everyone here remember too well, but we'll try getting in some family members to help."

So peace and quiet for now, at least. They could only hope it would stay like that. A young teen spoke up when Curtis asked about spooky stuff. "Yo, that sounds like the kinda $#!& Doctor Thorne's usually dealin' with, man." He seemed awfully proud of himself for making the suggestion. "She runs that Black Rose detective place."

 

Doctor Thorne, Mister Strix, Lady Horus
As it so happened, the map continued to change. The streets began to twist, to turn, until they stopped resembling Bedlam at all. It started looking. It was all twisted into a shape that vaguely resembled an ink blot, but still made out of the individual streets, with the names still visible around it. Random letters from the street names began to move down, sliding under the ink blot, spelling out the words: "YOU WILL TRY. YOU WILL FAIL." The heroes would have to make a choice of where they would go. Snacktastic, the city government, the lottery office, or somewhere else entirely.

[Supercape]

Ronin

 

And so...

 

Ronin had walked back to the Crane residence, having memorised what to give Yoshie. Should tide her over till this mess got tidied up. 

 

Goddamn it, just when you think you have seen it all, Bedlam throws crazy at you...

 

He gave Yoshie a kiss on the forehead, and she in turn told him he was a good boy and a bad boy in the same breath, as was her stern and loving way. He opened up the trap door to the Well, his secret hideout below the home, and descended. 

 

A few internet searches and he had the address. This, he thought, might mean trouble. Hell, it was usually trouble in Bedlam, and twice usually in Nancy street. He strapped on his protective vest, and with a cool flick of cloth his trenchcoat was on. Finally, with an elegant and even cooler spin, he picked up the Street Special (his customised gun) and slotted it into his trenchcoat. 

 

A few minutes later, he was driving his pick up throught the streets of Bedlam, pondering (without conclusion) just what in the hell could cause ink to flow and form like that. 

 

A few minutes more, and he pulled up outside the Black Rose detective place. 

 

Well, lets see what this is...

 

Curtis was bold, but this was outside his comfort zone. Still, he kept frosty as he entered the building. 

 

"Hello, hello? Anyone here?"

 

 

[Amelia]

Quote

YOU WILL TRY.
YOU WILL FAIL.

 

The man in white reached out and touched the text with his index finger. "Is that a direct message to us? Is this some sort of automatic reaction built in to this curse?" He looked up and around. "Or are we being watched?"

 

He stepped back, crossed his arms, and absent-mindedly stroked his sharp chin while his black eyes squinted at the map. "The city government offices seem like the most 'important' site that's been affected so far. But that almost makes it too obvious. And with City Hall still closed, they're spread out all over town. We could spend weeks tracking down every rented office that each individual department and commission's working out of."

 

After a moment of silent contemplation, he turned to face the others. "With the strike, the Hardwick Candy factory will have the least amount of human activity and the most lax security of any of these sites. If it's the source, then whoever did this might have even specifically engineered the strike to avoid scrutiny." Whoever the man in white was, despite having only operated in Bedlam for the last few months, his reference to the factory's original owners betrayed an intimate familiarity with the city's history. The candy company hadn't borne Lucius Hardwick's name since the 1990s. "There's 'collateral damage' to consider. If I show up there, then they can probably say 'Goodbye' to most of the ingredients they currently have in stock, and I don't have any way of reimbursing them. That kind of loss could hit the workers' livelihoods even harder than the strike." He allowed himself a smirk. "On the other hand, safety and sanitation's so bad over there, overhauling their inventory could be considered a public health measure."

 

[Avenger Assembled]

"...if thou speaks so plainly of violating ma'at, thou should be ready to pay the penalty for it," said Lady Horus frostily, Anna thinking of her father going on strike and the families eating thin afterwards. "With the speed of Shu, the offices of the petty scribes and clerics can be mine in a day, or less," she said, her words no brag but bold promise. Of course, that didn't solve the problem of who was going to go to the factory, did it? "I-ah, Ronin! Fairly met!" called the goddess, waving her ankh at that worthy's approach. "We plot the destruction of our foes and victory for our tongues." She pointed at the map, considering matters carefully, and said, "If Ronin and Dr. Thorne take the factory, and I and, ah, this fellow take the scribes, we can meet where trouble be found. My allies may aid us as necessary but I think this best dealt with among each other first." 

[Tiffany Korta]

Doctor Thorne

She examined the message for a little while, allowing the other to speculate for a few moments. She didn’t even register the arrival of someone new so deep in thought she was, though luckily Liam was eventually able to draw him to there attention.

 

“It seems that we’re being opposed by a sentient force, hopefully, it’s not the principle of writing itself, the Akasha gives me a headache! Normally I’d support splitting up but we have the problem of communicating over the distance, plus if it’s hiding we’ll need someone with extensive occult knowledge. And being modest I’m probably the most knowledgeable person in the city if not the entire state.” actually it was probably the whole west coast but she didn’t want to sound too boastful

“Hello there I’m Doctor Thorne, I’m sure you’ll me Liam latter it’s complicated. Unless you have other business, in which case I’m afraid we’re closed, I’m happy to have you aboard.” she explained to Ronin

[Supercape]

Ronin....

 

"Lady H" said Ronin, both surprised and pleased to see the good woman there. The cold thin tall man....sheesh, he needs to get out in the sunlight more...he didn't recognised. Doctor Thorne?

 

She looks crazy. Kinda sexy-crazy. But I guess that's what I need...ah...I mean need for the investigation....of course....he said to himself. 

 

"My business is Ink. Like, crazy ink" he said. "But I guess you knew that already, the way you are talkin'"

 

He cracked his fingers, eyeing up the threesome. 

 

"So if thats the business you are in, then I'm happy to lend a hand. In fact, I insist on it...folks in Nancy street are going to riot soon, and I'm guessin its not Just Nancy Street that's a bubbling pool of cooking oil, either...."

 

[Amelia]

Even though DRINK I'm dealing with probably BLOOD the two foremost occult authorities in the city, maybe IN MY HAND IT'S RIGHT THERE IN MY HAND if I can reach back into my scientific training and phrase things as...rationally as possible, they won't have to stop and think about it long enough to consider the horrible implications.

 

"The candy factory is a risk, not a certainty. So far, I've observed the...'entropic aura' affect fresh food, and living plants and cultures. Fruits and vegetables, bread, milk, cheese, wine, those sorts of things. But crates of processed sugar and food coloring, packed with preservatives...that might be immune to the effect."

 

The man in white glanced back and forth at the back door where Lady Horus had made an entrance worthy of the stage, and the Pyrex bottle he clutched in his hand and had tried to keep hidden behind the folds of his cape. "Excuse me for a moment..." he muttered before darting outside, moving fast enough to leave a white streak across the eyes of his observers. There was an audible WHOOSH from the displacement of air, but the pounding of his boots across the floor didn't make any noise at all.

 

Once outside, he broke the top of the bottle off, lacking the patience even to unscrew the cap. His lips clamped down around the broken lid, but he didn't notice the shards carving gashes into the inside of his mouth as he guzzled down the blood. His tongue, now elongated to three times its normal length, was too busy frantically licking the inside of the bottle dry, scooping up even the tiniest drops of blood. His whole body shuddered, and he let loose a noise like a purr that gradually turned into a growl, both from the mouth of a hungry tiger. The others could hear it echo through the wall. As soon as he pulled the broken bottle from his lips, the cuts inside his mouth healed, the flesh knitting itself back together in a second. He fell to his knees for a few moments as the euphoria faded. He looked down at the two pieces of the bottle in his hands, growled again, and hurled them against the outer wall, with enough force to shatter the break-resistant glass. He closed his eyes tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. Monster...you're a disgusting monster...

 

Edited December 11, 2018 by Grumblefloof

[Avenger Assembled]

"The order of where we go and how does not matter," opined Lady Horus impatiently. "What matters is that we go, and quickly. There are few things more terrifying than words giving way before one's eyes. As if one's mind has crumbled away to-to the dry dust of the ages." She tapped the map. "Perhaps all of thou may take the factory and I may take the government, then join thee there - perhaps with help." Meanwhile, Anna was frowning. Hang on, is he one of those Terminus freak-a-deaks? She knew that the liberal do-gooders out in Freedom City liked to take people with Terminus powers for granted these days but she'd learned that most people with powers made of evil probably were at least a little bad on the inside. (Except her daughter-in-law, who was one of the good ones.) She was about to offer more advice when of all things, her cellphone beeped. She took it out from a cunningly concealed linen pocket, frowned, and began typing away at it with both hands - before suddenly vanishing out the back door after Mr. Strix.

 

"Mierda," opined a voice from above Mr. Strix in the alley. Looking up, there was an armored figure standing a few levels up on the fire escape, a small rifle cradled in her arms. It wasn't pointed at Mr. Strix, but it wasn't holstered, either. "Is everything a sex thing to you people?" Her cellphone buzzed once, and then again, but Wadjet was too focused to answer it. 

 

Then the door flew open again, and Lady Horus shouted up at her. "Wadjet! Girl, thou wert supposed to guard the stronghold!" 
 

"Still got me on Life360, huh?" she asked, sliding down a line from the fire escape to ground level, landing so Lady Horus was between her and the vampire. "Not gonna sit there while the city goes loco.  Who's your friend?" 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

As assemblage of heroes made their plans, and were joined by Wadjet. Whatever Mister Strix might be trying to conceal from the others, whatever their differences in approach were, they would have to make their choice, because Ronin had been right. Nancy Street might have calmed down, but riots were starting elsewhere.

 

Fire began to rise from an overturned car near Snacktastic. The striking workers were beginning to riot. It would only be a matter of time before they clashed with Snacktastic's security. Blood would soon flow. Similar scenes took place at the lottery offices. And at one of the government offices, one that dealt with taxes in specific, a man was standing at the edge of a window, ready to jump. Everything was ruined, his life was over. What else could he do?

[Avenger Assembled]

Wadjet had obviously wanted to slip away from the group upon their arrival at Snacktastic, especially with the nearby presence of police. "Cops shoot girls with guns!" she said as she took shelter behind a parked car before rioters or police alike could spot them. "You want me to shoot 'em?" she asked her compatriots, not specifying who. She was already loading her rifle, which on closer inspection was clearly a paintball gun and checking the distance between her hiding place and the alley. 

 

- 

 

Lady Horus flew up to the window where the obvious suicide was waiting and thought fast. "Lo! Fear not, mortal!" she called as her team made their way into the government office through the other door. She got close enough to make sure the guy couldn't jump for it. "The Avenging Sun is here to save you!" Wish I'd brought Wadjet, she thought irritably. She'd know to shoot the guy so he falls backwards.