ic Mile in My Shoes [IC]

[April]

Eve caught herself giving a little hum of approval and appreciation when Indira reappeared but covered it up with a quiet laugh and a dismissive gesture at the taller girl's apology. "Don't worry about it," the petite gymnast replied, "you have more than a few inches on me so I can't really say this is unexpected. I'll just have to go shopping again later, not a big deal."

"It's a bit tight but it looks good on you," Eve continued. "It should certainly suffice for the time we need to have Corbin and Sharl locate the Bauble and get you and Kimber fed."

[Gizmo]

"Yes!" Kimber whooped, pausing only to gingerly tuck away the new origami sculptures before grabbing Indira's arm and leading the way toward the Bay, cutting southeast through the city back the way they'd come from Bayview and the Academy. Even with the limits of a physical form, the Canadian teen was a fount of exuberant energy, setting a brisk pace with her bounding steps. It had always been a little hard to tell when she was a translucent apparition but it was easy infer now that she must have been an active sort in life, if not as impressively athletic as her roommate or Eve. Before long, the hopefully inconspicuous group had made it to a promising looking diner on the far edge of the City Center.

Beneath the river's surface, on the other hand, Corbin and Sharl were making slower progress. The borrowed ring let Citizen move much more quickly than usual but the temporary ghost was limited to considerably slower speeds. Even with their respectively enhanced vision, the river water was hardly pristine and searching through the dim mire was slow going, even as Wraith's instructions pointed the way downstream, further and further towards the waterfront.

[Fox]

Indira couldn't help but smile; her roommate's cheer was infectious, and - as a small but important mercy - the more time she spent in her new human body the easier it was to ignore the awful, moving, pulsing meatiness of it. If nothing else, it was novel - she felt half-blind and her sense of smell seemed less sharp somehow, but actually being human after so long was fairly interesting.

And sharp or not, the moment her nose picked up the smells of the diner her whole body perked up, the scents setting off goodness knows what human chain reactions in what she had to assume was her digestive system. She was...hungry? "I...do not know what I want to eat," she admitted, glancing at the others after drifting off for a second to re-direct their searching teammates. "What is good?"

[Electra]

Koshiro slid into the nearest booth and picked up a menu, but found he had no taste for any of the food mentioned on it. Indira never ate food, so apparently he didn't need to either. He waited until the others got settled in as well, then passed Indira the menu. "Try the breakfast sampler," he suggested. "It's got all kinds of different stuff, so you can see what you like." He picked up his fork and looked at it for a second, turning it over in his fingers while the others perused the menus. He put the tines in his mouth, as though taking a bite of imaginary food, then pushed the rest of the fork into his mouth and swallowed. It took a moment for him to realize what he'd done, then he simply looked nonplussed.

[April]

"Koshiro's suggestion is a good one," Eve replied inclining her head in his direction, politely refusing to comment on the paper artist's consumption of the fork, and his befuddled expression at having done so, to spare him any embarrassment he might feel from the action. The young heroes were in unfamiliar territory, though Eve realized she got off rather light where the others had not.

"I prefer a Belgian waffle myself," she added. "The flavor, the texture, the variety of toppings; you can't go wrong there."

[Avenger Assembled]

Underwater, Citizen slid along as he and Cobalt Templar continued their search for the lost Bauble. he thought, and it wasn't about their search. Citizen really hated magic. <...i hope this isn permanent.>

[Gizmo]

When the waitress finally came by, her purposefully anachronistic pink apron playing interestingly off of her sleeve tattoos, Kimber made good on her stated intentions by order pancakes, gesturing emphatically to convey the necessary height and diameter. The breakfast sampler - served throughout the day despite its name - and the waffles were jotted down as well and though Koshiro passed himself, the waitress nevertheless brought him a new fork when she noticed his was missing from his place setting.

When the food arrived, the temporarily corporeal teen doused the stack of pancakes roughly the size of her head in syrup and proceeded to shovel a forkful into her mouth, massive enough to seem impossible now that she was constrained by bones and musculature again. "Sho'g'd!" she praised in a muffled but cheerful voice, waving one hand gleefully as she retrieved a glass of orange juice with the other.

[Fox]

The sampler had been a wise suggestion; Indira might not have known what she wanted to eat, but her body was pretty sure it all smelled delicious.

Still, her first try was cautious: emulating her friend and what she'd seen of other people eating, she carefully poured syrup onto her french toast, cut off a piece, and stuck it in her mouth.

And then she choked a bit before remembering that she now had a food tube and a breathing tube, and they couldn't both function at the same time. Once that was resolved, though, that first bite of french toast was quickly followed by another, and then a fork-full of eggs, and then a bite of bacon (the flesh of an animal! Not one that she had killed herself, but still....), and then some hash browns, and then some more bacon, and some french toast....

And then she had to stop for a moment, looking at the others with wide-eyed appreciation. "....this is wonderful. Is it like this all the time for you?"

She didn't really wait for a reply before taking a drink of water (simple but refreshing!) and diving back into her rapidly diminishing meal.

[Electra]

"Not so fast!" Koshiro warned Indira hastily. "You'll get sick and puke it back up if you keep going like that. Wait for a minute and let your stomach figure itself out." He was still a little skeeved out over eating the fork, and a little more skeeved out that part of him was thinking about going for the rest of the place setting, but at least he probably wouldn't make himself sick on silverware. "Just, you know, smell it and look at it. Food's sort of like art, you gotta appreciate it with different senses to get the whole experience." He twirled his spoon between his fingers, pleased to be getting some sort of dexterity back.

[April]

"Well said, Koshiro," Eve said, nodding in his direction. "Besides which," she continued between bites. "You don't want to create a scene. You're both acting as if neither of you has ate in quite a while, and though this may be the case for one of you neither of you appear to be malnourished, so it might get some people wondering."

"So just relax, take your time to savor the meal," Eve said with a smile. The Claremont senior took some delight in watching Kimber and Indira enjoy themselves, though she regretted it took a disaster to provoke this social excursion. Let's hope this isn't the last time, the white-haired acrobat thought.

[Gizmo]

Meanwhile, Indira's telepathic trail had led Corbin all the way to the docks of Freedom City, the wisp of shared intuition strong despite the occasional taste of bacon leaking through the inexperienced ex-Kinigosi's link. With Sharl following behind him, the unusually dead upperclassman brought them up out of the river and into the middle of a chaotic battlefield.

"What the hell did you do to my speed?!" a woman in a purple and grey jumpsuit standing nearby the river's edge screamed as with a gesture she caused a geyser of water as thick around as a tree trunk to rise just next to Citizen and slam like a living thing into a grey-skinned figure in ostentatious gold and crimson armor.

Her target weathered the attack with obviously super human durability before lashing out with an arm that stretched like taffy and cracked the concrete in a near miss. "Foolish flesh-thing! Know you not that you face Argo, the Ultimate Android?!"

"You @#$%, that's my power!" another woman shouted, a redhead with impressively huge hair and a green outfit with dark hemlines. As she pointed at Argo in accusation, a bolt of lightning sprang forth a leapt to the android, who gave an indignant roar. "..w-what the @$#% was that?!"

Next to her, a bald man who's lack of shirt showed off his large if not terribly original tribal tattoos made a face of unintelligent anger. "Don' worry, LuAnn, I'll smash him but good!" As he began to charge forward, the heavily muscled fighter blurred into a streak of motion too fast to follow, throwing dozens of punches at Argo in a split second. Moving just as quickly, the android's hands blocked each blow before backhanding his assailant hard enough to knock him across the dock. He got to his feet, dazed and confused. "Hey, Get-Away, me and him was both movin' fast like you! What gives?"

"I think we may be in something of a pickle, my friends," a fifth figure admitted, a masked man with a blonde ponytail who was rapping his knuckles against the doorframe of a nearby warehouse entrance to no effect. Tucked under his other arm, however, Cobalt Templar and Citizen recognized the Quantum Bauble!

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen turned a paler shade of blue fire as he took shelter in the water again. He'd briefly contemplated trying to make a rush for the Bauble, but with memories of his fight with Fathom uppermost in his mind, he knew he couldn't make mistakes like that again. Especially not against someone like Argo, operating without his usual emulator! "I'm faster than you in the water right now," he told Corbin, "I'll fly to that restaurant and bring the team back. You stay here, try to stay hidden, and make sure they don't go anywhere. Try and grab the Bauble if one of them drops it," he whispered to Cobalt Templar, a moment before bolting back under the water and 'flying' as fast as he could towards the rest of the team!

[KnightDisciple]

Corbin sank down to the point he was just under the water as well. He didn't like the odds, even without Argo there. With Argo in the mix, it was even worse!

Then Sharl blurted out a plan and was racing off before Corbin could speak.

"...Blast it, Sharl. You don't need to run off."

He sighed. Sharl seemed to be letting his power get to his head a bit. Which was worrisome, considering the nature of the Blue Ring. Best to get things done quickly, then, and get Sharl back to his normal self. Sighing, he closed his eyes and opened the link he had with Indira a bit more.

--Indira. We've got a problem. Someone else got the Bauble. Larceny, Inc. They got mixed up, too. Worse, Argo the Ultimate Android is here. Everyone needs to get ready for a fight, ASAP. Sharl charged off instead of just letting me send you a message. Someone will need to intercept him; everyone else should probably head here directly. I'm going to observe and report. If one of them ditches the Bauble, I'm going to make a break for it.--

[Fox]

Indira blinked, quickly swallowing the bit of bacon she'd been chewing; she'd at least tried to take her fellow humans' advice on eating slowly, though it had been...difficult. "Corbin and Sharl are in trouble," she quietly informed the group, gazing with great sadness at the food she was going to have to leave behind. What little was left of it, anyway. "Someone else got the bauble - I believe Corbin said 'Larceny, Inc.' and 'Argo', and he seemed very concerned by Argo. I think we will need to head to them before something very bad happens."

She took a final defiant bite of hash browns before getting up. "I am very curious - what makes Argo the 'Ultimate' Android?"

[April]

"No idea, but I guess we'll find out," Eve said after finishing up the last of her waffles. Gaining the attention of their server, Eve paid for the meal (plus generous tip) while her team members hastily left to assist Sharl and Corbin, but it was a simple matter to catch up.

"I'm going to intercept Sharl," the white-haired paragon said when she caught up to the others. "You should find Indira a place to suit up and we'll meet you there. Then we'll find out how 'ultimate' an Ultimate Android is. Keep us linked, Indira, communication wins battles."

[Gizmo]

Improbably, Kimber had actually managed to finish the stack of pancakes that had been placed before her before they were interrupted, although she did have to nod in answer to Eve's instructions as she chewed vigourously. Shouting muffled praise to the diner staff around a mouthful of food as they ran out the door, she was soon grabbing Indira by the arm and dragging her into a nearby alleyway before producing one of the origami pieces Koshiro had prepared for her from a hoodie pocket and enlarging it with a little concentration to produce another pair of walls and a ceiling around them.

Turning her back to give her roommate privacy, the temporarily corporeal girl hesitated a beat before turning back about. "Since I probably won't get a chance to do this later," she explained hurriedly before wrapping the taller teen in a tight bear hug. "I think I was probably a big hugger when I was alive-- the first time, I mean," she admitted without letting go, "and I just wanted to say... thanks for being my best friend. Really truly."

With a muted sniff, Kimber released her grip and spun back toward the paper wall, rubbing the sleeve of her borrowed hoodie across her face. "Now hurry up! We gotta get this fixed before Koshiro melts again or Sharl breaks Corbin's ring!"

[Gizmo]

With an enraged shout that carried a subtly artificial edge, Argo smashed massively enlarged fists into the dock. "Unacceptable! Surrender the zero point generator, puny meatsack!" the Ultimate Android roared at Trap Door as he stretched his neck a full meter above his shoulders to survey the battlefield.

"Who you callin' puny, stupid!" Smash retorted, zipping forward with speed he was obviously unaccustomed to and unsuccessfully attempting to tackle one of the grey artificial being's arms. Meanwhile, Grab had managed to levitate herself into the air, maintaining her aerial balance long enough to fire off a few more inaccurate lightning bolts from her hands, a dangerous grin beginning to spread across her face.

"Zero point--? I told you that thing didn't look like a 'giant sapphire'!" Get-Away accused as she ducked behind a nearby shipping crate for cover.

In his haste to make it to the doorway under which he stood, Trap Door had evidently failed to take such things into consideration, leaving his quite exposed. "Perhaps that discussion can wait for a later time, my midnight flower!" he called back, diving out of the way just before an errant blast of electricity scorched the warehouse wall. In doing so, he lost his grip on the Quantum Bauble, sending it spinning end over end overhead as the concealed Cobalt Templar watched!

[KnightDisciple]

Corbin watched carefully from the water, trying to remain as unnoticeable as possible. His eyes and ears just poked up, and the rest of him was hidden. He raised an eyebrow at the scene, starting to put together the fact that Argo's "locked-in" powers had apparently been jumbled around. Then the started really brawling, yelling about what they thought the Bauble was.

Then Trap Door lost his grip and the Bauble went flying! Cobalt Templar's eyes widened, and he rose up out of the ground, shifting into invisibility, reaching out with what telekinesis this form had to try and grab the Bauble. At the same time, he sent a mental shout over the telepathic link to the team.

--They're fighting, and they just dropped the Bauble! I'm going for it!--

[Fox]

Indira paused a moment before carefully reaching out a hand and ruffling Kimber's hair. She didn't really have anything to say that didn't feel condescending or insufficient, though, so she finished changing in silence.

Corbin's thought came just as she was done and in the ex-alien's minor melancholy she almost tried to drop to all fours and rearrange her legs into something faster; her teammates got the start of a quiet Kinigosi curse before she cut the thought off. "We should hurry," she said, tucking Eve's strained, rolled-up clothing under one arm. "Do you think you can fly us to them?"

[Avenger Assembled]

When he saw Sage coming for him, wearing a costume that looked a little too familiar for his tastes, the flaming Tronik teen didn't hesitate. "Cobalt Templar's dealing with the bad guys!" he called, though his voice said he already knew Sage was on that. "I'm with you," he added, whipping around to join her in the air. "Can the others make it?" he asked her worriedly, his voice practically on fire. They were dependent on Kimber being able to make Koshiro's airplanes to all get over in time, no easy task even for the master of origami himself, much less the former Ghost Girl.

[April]

"They'll make it," Sage confirmed when Citizen pulled up along side. "Would be faster if I taught Wraith how to fly," the white haired paragon continued, self-reproach evident in her tone. That stupid of me, Eve thought to herself. We knew this wasn't over, I should have planned better.

They were rapidly approaching the site of battle, Sage noted. She didn't have much to say as far as minute instructions were concerned, not that she truly expected Sharl to listen anyway, for while Eve was one of the senior members of the team she cast herself in the role of caretaker rather than any sort of leader. So she opted for something simple, something that appealed to Citizen's sense of duty and responsibility.

"We're going to have to hold until the others can arrive, but I want your main priority to be Cobalt Templar and the bauble. From personal experience, his powers are equally suited to defense as they are offense, and goodness knows we don't need that damned thing jostled any more than it already has been."

[Gizmo]

"I think I'd better!" Kimber told Indira cheerfully, tucking her chestnut hair into her hood before producing the paper airplane from earlier and blowing on it as Koshiro had instructed her until it was suitably larger to carry the three of them including the currently Kinigosi youth's deceptive weight. "Ladies and gentlebeings, this is your Captain speaking. Please keep all fleshy meat limbs and metallic tentacles inside the magic paper at all times and make sure to observe the exits," she chirped as her friends boarded and an application of will sent them accelerating up into the air and over rooftops in the direction of their teammates. "In the event of an emergency," she shouted over her shoulder and the roar of the wind, "hopefully you've figured out that telekinesis thing, Indira! Whee-hee-hee!"

[Gizmo]

Corbin's telekinesis snatched the Bauble out of the air with ease, filling in for his currently incorporeal hands with an uncomfortable lack of sensation. With a look and a thought, the troublesome artifact has changed its trajectory and was heading for the invisible teen's position. Unfortunately, that brought both him and the Bauble between the purple-suited Get-Away and the still shouting Argo. The dark haired woman gestured emphatically and somewhat rudely with her hands and in response millions of water droplets flew from the nearby river to blind the android with pelting liquid and reflected light. Crobin just barely managed to slide himself out of the way, floating through the dock like it was empty air, while Argo pinwheeled his elongated arms with superhuman speed, shrugging off the dazzling attack.

The Bauble itself reacted violently, flaring up with another wash of blinding light. For better or worse, Cobalt Templar was still very much incorporeal, invisible and dead but the villains were obviously feeling the effects. Argo's robotic skin was now a brilliant gold contrasting with dark, iron hued armor and an inky black cloak. Even that was a subtle change compared to Get-Away's new purple bikini and coral jewelry, Grab's billowing green cape and lightning bolt shaped belt buckle or the skintight tracksuit stretched over Smash's hulking physique. Finally, Trap Door had gained a red, white and blue ensemble with flared pants and a sizable cut out-in the chest. "Well," he commented in the beat of silence before the fight resumed, hefting a staff that now resembled a flagpole, "that really is quite liberating."

[Gizmo]

"I'm kinda freakin' out here, boss!" Smash shouted, looking at his new fingerless gloves with a furrowed brow that suggested his analytical skills had been pushed well past their boundaries.

With an acrobatic bound that lacked the usual downward ark of gravity, Trap Door launched himself into the air with much aplomb. "No time for that, my defollicled friend! Keep the robot busy while I secure the gemstone!"

A dumb grin replaced the look of confusion on Smash's face as he refocused on Argo. "That I get. Maybe I can't hit you so hard right now," he told the android as he rocketed forward faster than the eye could follow, "but I can hit you a lot more, real fast!" Transferring his momentum into his attack, the tattooed villain fired a hail of blows at his target.

"No, stupid fleshy one, you can't," the Ultimate Android rebutted, casually deflecting the blows with one of his own superhumanly quick hands. The opposite arm stretched several meters backward, its fist enlarging to the side of a dumpster before snapping back and catching Smash in a brutal uppercut. The temporarily less durable muscle man went flying across the dock, breaking a crate with his impact and remaining there in a quietly groaning heap.

Meanwhile, Trap Door had made his way to the Bauble and grabbed it with his free hand, tugging with the enhanced strength of Lady Liberty. "Oh, no you don't," he admonished the artifact. "No flying away on your Uncle James!"

[April]

Wasting no time Sage made a beeline at top speed for the bauble, or more accurately the villain making a grab for it. Faster than Trap Door could track the petite black clad paragon dove through the space occupied by the ghostly Cobalt Templar, abruptly changed direction and twisted away from Trap Door, a devastating backhand catching the thief across the head.

In the same fluid motion, not noticing that Trap Door was no longer awake and aware, Eve grabbed a whole of his red, white and blue jumpsuit, hurling him at Argo. The throw went wide, but on the upside at least the assembled villains would be focusing on her and not the source of all Young Freedom's (and assorted villain's) power troubles. I hope, Sage thought.