Aulter (IC)

[Ramsus]

It's a rainy evening like many others in Crane Mills Oregon. The rain seeps slowly through the leaks in the roof of the Crane Community Center, the recently adopted secret base of the newly formed Circlereed Saints. A group of parahumans formed in the recent wake of their failure to stop the destruction of a bridge as solo vigilantes. Now working together, they hope to do better.

But this night they went their separate ways on patrol and in various ways have been reminded of the reason the group formed.

Adroit, currently armed with the skills of a handyman, a cyclist, and an overly familiar (american) football jock has accomplished little aside from winding up cold, soaking wet, and sore in the legs from riding a bicycle around the city.

Archtree has grown frustrated of finding nothing more to do than tie up a single mugger in the alleyways of Uptown.

Cottontail, out on a supply run for his animals, is feeling like he's not really doing what he should be while the others are out really doing the whole vigilante thing while he shops.

Seraphim left the Eastern Orthodox Church in the part of the city nearest Circlereed Bay College, the college all but one of their members go to, not long ago and on her way to the base wonders if the others are accomplishing more with their time since they're devoting more of it to crime fighting, to doing good.

The Mountain Ranger has found nothing more to do since he finished his martial arts training than scare off some bullies. Nice yes, but not really the way he was intending to keep the streets safe.

Cell, with his unique circumstances, feels he's probably seen a number of things that could have been suspicious activity but could have been perfectly normal as well. He's just well accustomed enough to this city, or people in general to have a handle on everything he feels the others probably do. It doesn't help his frustration any that he's out here unarmed and possibly would have to avoid a serious enough situation even if he identified one.

The empty base awaits their return.

Since I'm not sure who is and isn't going to be available in the next few days, I just settled on having you guys all start out alone. Whoever posts first is the first person to arrive at the base. Anyone who hasn't posted just isn't there yet.

Link to the Aulter (OOC) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?489468-Aulter-%28OOC%29&p=20824468).

[Hazuki]

Lavender

Archtree steps back from the mugger she's tucked in tightly with her weaponized tree-sap and regards him with...a completely impartial expression. Full-face masks unfortunately do little to aid in the field of emoting. As her upper set of limbs wipe off the excess sap on the wall, she picks up the duffel bag containing the mugger's earnings of the night (Mostly the wallets of the excessively wealthy Uptown denizens) and places it on top of the dumpster.

"And don't do it again!" She warns the mugger, as she dials the hotline for the local police on her disposable heroing cellphone. Unfortunately, his being gagged doesn't lend itself to friendly banter, so she leaves him to ponder her words. The time being what it is, it was probably time to head back to base and recuperate anyway. The next thing the mugger sees is her skittering up the side of the building and onto the rooftop.

It's a relatively short trip back the Crane Community Center, made shorter by the view offered from the rooftops of Uptown...as well her recent practice with traversing from rooftop to rooftop. The city seems somehow itself when doused with rain, and while many would find it miserable, there's nothing Lavender likes more than an atmosphere. Well, maybe not nothing; there are some fiiiine ladies in Crane Mills.

When she sneaks into the base through one of the rear doors, she does the regular security check-ups. Looking into rooms, checking the doors, familiar stuff. Seems like she's the first one back, nobody's broken in, and she's free to work out some of the aches and pains of a night of successful, if dull, heroing. She pours three bowls-worth of chilli into the crockpot, secures a big bottle of full-fat Coca Cola, some glazed donuts, and shoves her mask and cape into the gym bag she normally keeps it in. She also pulls down the top half of her jumpsuit so it hangs around her waist, letting her stretch out a little more in the sports bra beneath.

Then she settles in on the old couch they managed to haul in (Mostly her work; being the biggest and strongest in the group means certain responsibilities), puts in a DVD from one of those cheap collections of movies nobody really likes, and starts chowing down.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta walks through the light rain, her church white headscarf still wound about her head, contemplating on the activities of herself and her teammates. She is still not comfortable with the powers they display. But with the good they could achieve... Ah, if only her old tutor was here. She would surely know the answer.

Now was not to the time to ponder such things. The solution would surely arrive in time. Best to focus on the present. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. She carefully steps over a puddle, being careful not to drag her long skirt through it. It wouldn't do to get it muddy. Hmm. The others all seem so comfortable wielding their aberrations. Are they merely projecting a facade? Or are they blind to the issue entirely? Except perhaps for Lavender, who seems oddly unnerved by her own spiderli-

Nicoleta silently curses. She had just decided to stop dwelling on the issue, and there she went, thinking about it again. But it was hard not to. Even during prayer, she found her mind wandering... it was an issue that would need to be rectified. Distraction during the most sacred of times was unacceptable. Nicoleta had always prided herself on her ability to focus. She couldn't afford to lose that skill now. Ah! There's the community centre now. She hadn't realised she'd gotten so close already. Once again, distraction. Nicoleta makes a mental note to speak to her priest about it. She could not allow the seed of her faith to be choked out by thorns.

Nicoleta approaches the back door of the community centre, quickly looking around to make sure no-one is watching. She lets herself in and glances about as she walks through the somewhat dilapidated area. Some redecorating would be in order. She steps into what passes for a 'living room' in their base, and sees Lavender, sprawled across the couch. "Ah. Hello, Lavender." Nicoleta eyes the donuts and chilli with the slightest hint of reproach. "You... have not been here all day, have you?"

[NeoNinevite]

The Mountain Ranger slowly walked through the rain, he was moments away from the base now, but feeling worse than ever. He'd always hated the rain, but recently it served as a tantalising glimpse of how useful his powers could be, but since heating or cooling the rain wouldn't help him stay warm, it frustrated him to no end.

As he entered the community centre by a back entrance, he strung his bow and headed straight for his makeshift archery range without saying a word, loosing an arrow at each of the three targets. Only one bullseye; he was off his game. In sheer anger, he almost fired another one, but remembered to take a deep breath first, calmly releasing the arrow. Bullseye. And a red. Good enough.

He plucked out the arrows from the targets, put them back in his quiver, and headed over to the well to draw up some water. Still silent, he picked up the full bucket and sat next to the others, plunging the remnants of the ice arrows in his quiver (they'd mostly melted by then) into the water, melting them completely as he heated up the water to warm his hands. It was only then that he spoke.

"Today didn't go well. All I did was chase off a few thugs, but I can't help but feel my talents are wasted just doing this. I only fired off two arrows tonight, and I was so jumpy I nearly shot a beggar. Which reminds me, I need to add some change to the utility belt. I feel like we should be making more of a difference. Tell me one of you at least got someone arrested."

[Hazuki]

Lanver perks up a little when she hears footsteps in the base, then smiles widely when she sees that Nicoleta is the first person back. '"Sup, Nicoleta?" She's been doing her best to try to make sure the girl feels welcome in the group; when somebody's that uncomfortable in their own skin, they need a friendly face. The girl's question makes her giggle and she shakes her head, gesturing to the costume that still clings to her lower half. "Nah, I just got back - I need the junk food to keep all of this," She lifts herself off of the couch with the branches emerging from her back, then retracts them. "Going."

It's while she's explaining this that Jack gets back and plops beside her on the couch. "Heya! I sure did; caught a mugger in Uptown." She lifts up the box of donuts and offers it to each of the heroes that have joined her. "Hungry?" There are half of them left, all neatly-lined up. Lavender may need to eat more, but she's never been slovenly.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta eyes the donuts for a moment, then shakes her head slightly. "Thank you, Lavender, but I must decline." It just wouldn't be proper. But... she is hungry... maybe when no-one's looking.
She turns to Jack. "I understand your frustration, but we should exercise patience. Greater deeds will surely come in time. "Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand." She frowns. "Come to think of it, the part involving Zerubabbel's hand probably doesn't make sense, given that you lack the context with which to properly frame it. But I think that you perhaps understand what I am trying to say." And small deeds don't require the use of our aberrations, she almost says, but holds her tongue.

[Bobbybobby99]

Jamie (or Cottontail, when he was wearing a costume) half-stumbled through the damp landscape, carrying several reusable shopping bags filled with pet supplies. The hay was perfectly light, the pellets less so, and the heat lamp that he had to replace positively agonizing. He had encountered more than one puddle, tripped more than one time, and would be very unsurprised if the rain decided to wait until he had gone inside to ease up a bit.

On the walk, he had the wonderful feeling of inadequacy that he was so very familiar with, with the exception that it was of personal origination. The others had no doubt done something spectacular, something that would actually change the world for the better, and he had spent the past hour or so browsing the shelves of PetCo. The half-hour before that had been comprised of sending citations about the living conditions at PetSmart, but he actually felt pretty good about that. The dullard that had tried to feed a Boa Constrictor crickets deserved the full force of the US government.

After struggling to the community center and fiddling with the side door so he didn't have to set down part of his shopping results and make two trips in the dreary weather, he entered in the blessed indoors. Swaying with the load of the shopping bags, he gingerly set them down with the animals, and spent the next few moments filling water-bottles, giving the rabbits the appropriate allocation of hay, filling pellet bowls, cleaning a few stray poops, and screwing on the new heat lamp for the Bearded Dragons, that immediately began basking under it. It was all done in near silence, and maximum efficiency; the precise movements he did would astound someone that knew of his general clumsiness.

That done, he entered into the main room, as soon as Nicoletta finished her small soliloquy, and plopped down on the couch, chirping "Hi there, everybody.". He had, unwittingly, been followed by one of the rabbits, who was limping slightly; with a small flourish, Jamie lifted the rabbit into his lap. It was, on closer inspected, Rosalind, judging by her larger size and golden coloration. Judging that she had no doubt engaged in some foolish act of daring do, he began gently petting her behind the ears, and, within a few seconds, there were two Rosalinds, who both hopped back onto the floor and back to the animal room, their limps alleviating already.

Noticing the presentation of the donuts, he helped himself to one of them, and began speaking in his signature soft, high tone, "I, for obvious reasons, haven't managed much heroism today; my hay supplies were running low, and I admit to having gotten into a bit of a situation with PetSmart. I agree with you, Nicoleta, on the whole 'small to big' thing, though it would certainly be nice if we could hasten our trip to the later state."

[DataDancer]

Sven sat crouched under the canopy of a small tree which had survived the encroaching urbanization devouring much of the natural spaces in Crane Mills. The protection it offered from the rain falling was minimal, it wasn't protection from the downpour he was seeking, but the shelter of shadow.

He had been watching the parked van for almost a quarter of an hour, he wasn't one-hundred percent sure but he thought it might be a surveillance vehicle. He would have to wait to see from who. It could be someone from the CMPD or it just might be some MAGICS agents or some other Feds.

Just then a man a woman made their way down the sidewalk, the woman was laughing and leaning in close to the man who was holding his jacket above his and her head as the rain fell. Sven rose from his crouched position leaning forward slightly to get a better view at the unfolding events.

There was a beep then the lights on the van flashed, the woman rushed forward and quickly opened the door to the passenger side and jumped in. Her companion ran around the front of the vehicle and jumped into the driver's seat, a moment later the van started, the wipers began furiously swatting at the falling drops as they pulled away from the curb.

Sven leaned back against the tree. Nothing. Oh well. It might have been something, but it seems that this time it was nothing. Better safe than sorry right? He looked up and down the street. The rain had washed away most of the people much like the refuse now speeding down the gutters and into the sewers. It was unlikely, he thought, that there would be much in the way of crime tonight. At least outside. No doubt there were many an insidious mind stowed safely behind closed doors, plotting and planning.

Seeing no one about, he quickly jogged down the Main Street, keeping close to the sides and skimming the nimbus of rainbow strewn light cast by the rain streaked street lamps. He cut through a side street and down an alley, looping back towards the community centre.

It took him almost twenty minutes at a brisk pace to make it back to the centre. As he neared the building he slowed his pace, he made a quick circuit to the back, retrieved his key from its secreted place and entered. The sound of a movie playing greeted him as soon as he entered. He stripped off his mask shaking it off as he entered.

"Jack?" he says as he enters the centre.

Entering the common area he spots Lavender and Nicoleta first.

"Uh. Hey."

Sven's eyes darted back and forth quickly between Nicoleta and Lavender.

"Where's Jack? Uh, hey Jamie."

"Um. Yeah, ok listen I'm, uh, ganna go change." he said thrusting a thumb over his shoulder towards a disused room.

What is she doing dressed, or undressed like that? he thought, quickly lowering his gaze from Lavender.

Sven quickly makes his way back to a small office he has set up as his room. Stripping off the rest of his costume he tosses the ball of black lycra onto the mattress and changes into a pair of cargo pants and a black tee shirt, he grabs a towel and begins drying off his hair and face, and letting the towel hang from the back of his neck, he returns to the common room. Taking a seat on a wooden stool a good distance from the television, so as not to distort the image.

"So. Um. Not really much going on tonight with all this rain. Thought I saw some Feds but it turned out to be nothing."

He points up towards the ceiling, pointing at the condensing water seeping through the roof.

"We're ganna want to get that fixed. I'll look into it tomorrow. What about you guys?" He asks leaning down to stroke one of the rabbits as it hops by. His eyes continue darting around the room, still trying to avoid staring at Lavender.

He looks around the room once more craning his next from side to side.

"Wait. Where's Liz?"

[Hazuki]

Lavender smiles as she watches the rabbit hope in in Jaime's wake. "'Sup?" She greets him (The boy, not the rabbit) and extends the donut box when he reaches out for one. She agrees that doing the small work is good in itself, even though they could be doing more - it gives them time to learn more about their powers, and their teamwork, before they tackle anything big.

When Sven wanders in, she offers the man a smile and a wave. A little like Nicoleta, he always seems to be on edge, or like there's something bothering him. But, he's not done anything wrong - it's not against the law to blink a lot.

"I think Liz is still biking. If she's not back in a few hours, I'll go look for her." She assures the man. "Until then, we can enjoy the cinematic masterpiece that is Raving Redhead Desperadoes." She beams.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta glances at the screen, where Raving Redhead Desperadoes is playing. True to the title, a group of hard-ridin', scantily-dressed, redheaded gunslingers gallop across the wild expanses of the Old West, waving guns that look they were bought from a dollar store and screaming their overly-made-up heads off. Not exactly high culture, but there is a certain... charm to the minte creață of such a film.
Nicoleta just wishes they'd put some more clothes on. She's certain they never had tops that small in the 19th century. Or skirts so short, for that matter. And the camera seems so focussed on...
Nicoleta quickly looks away, focussing on... Sven. Yes, he'll do. Look at Sven. Hmm. He seems a bit distracted. "Sven? Is everything alright? You seem nervous."

[NeoNinevite]

Jack grabs a donut and is already munching down on it as Nicoleta begins speaking. His reply is much calmer than his earlier comments, "Yeah, I suppose patience is a virtue, but I feel like patience can only get you so far. Though I guess since we're waiting to become big successes, we might as well spend the meantime training."

He greets Jamie and Sven as they arrive, before getting up and taking the bucket of water with him. He brings it to a place where he can still hold a conversation with the others, and see the TV, before speaking again. "Anybody fancy sparing?" He plunges his hand into the bucket and draws out a staff and sword made of ice, "Staves, swords, or fists?"

[NineOfSpades]

Her patrol having produced nothing of note, Liz pulled up to her home-away-from home. Well, that wasn't entirely accurate. Her real home was a 8 and a half hour flight away (Depending on how many layovers she had to take to get the cheapest air-fare), and the school dorms were her home-away-from-home. Which would make the old community center her...Home-away-from-home-away-from-home, or Home3-Away2, if using algebraic notation. That thought in turn reminded her that she needed to study for the test she had in Calculus Applications at the end of the week. But studying would have to come later, right now she needed to get inside and get herself dried and warm.

It was a little disappointing that she hadn't found any crime to stop. Hopefully that meant there was no crime going on, and everyone was just hold up inside and waiting for better weather, and not that there had been criminals who'd managed to evade her semi-well-trained-eyes. Moderatly well trained, if we're being gracious. Quasi-Well-trained-if-she-has-her-glasses-on. Internally, she wished she hadn't gotten her hair-samples mixed up. Just yesterday she'd been riding high and enjoying some sweet martial arts moves, only to discard them by accident when she was trying to snag a hair off an engineering student, not realizing it had come from someone on the football team. But, you make do with what you got.

"Hey, everyone" Liz smiled, walking through the door, taking off her totally-not-inspired-by-the-ninja-turtles-masks mask. Suddenly feeling very awakward having drawn attention to herself, Liz froze up, feeling self concious about what she was doing with her hands. Trying not to panic, she extended an arm so she could casually lean against the wall, totally misjudged the distance, and ended up flat on the ground, letting out a very undignified "Ooof!".

[Hazuki]

"Nah. They don't teach you to handle a staff at wrasslin' school." Lavender replies to Jack, suppressing a giggle at the fact that he's carrying a bucket around with him. It's just a weird thing to do, even if it is totally necessary for your power. And, really, it reminds her of magicians pulling lampshades out of their top hats.

When Liz walks in, she's just about to greet the girl when she manages to stumble onto the floor. She laughs a little, putting the box of donuts to the side so that she can lean over the edge of the old couch. "You okay?" She asks, half-considering getting up to help her. Then deciding that'd probably be patronizing? They are meant to be dealing with muggers and other nefarious criminals; Liz can easily handle gravity...

[Bobbybobby99]

Jamie was startled at Liz, AKA Adroit, being... quite the opposite of Adroit, really. He moved to help her up for a moment, before noting the melted glaze on his hands, and deciding that helping her up in that fashion would likely be unappreciated. Thinking quickly, he gave a sharp whistle, at which a small horde of snuffling rabbits flooded the room, led by a howling, tiny Dachshund; Maria. They patiently halted right in front of him, and, with a gesture of his right hand and another whistle, charged once more; directly at Liz.

Since he had given the 'aid' whistle combined with the 'lead' gesture, Maria knew precisely what to do, and began gently aiding the fallen girl to her feet, the rabbits following in that regard. While Jamie only had any sort of supernatural affinity for the animals he duplicated while they were duplicated, he could still use the time for unusually effective training through repetition. The rabbits, unfortunately, weren't quite bright enough to be taught anything complex, but training them to imitate Maria was quite doable.

While the rabbits were probably overkill for there assigned task, their bright and fuzzy nature was always good for morale, and it seemed like the clumsy girl might need it.

Satisfied that he had done his second good deed of the day, right after crucifying a local pet shop, he reached out for a second donut.

[DataDancer]

Sven was about to open his mouth in reply to Nicoletta's question when Jack asked about sparing followed by Liz's entrance, fumble and cuddle rescue by Jamie's fluffy horde.

"Uh, hey Liz! Um, you're ok? We were just going to head out looking for you, me an Lavender. You need something?" he slid off the stool and took a few steps in Liz's direction without transversing the moving carpet of floppy ears and cotton tails.

"I think Jack and I are ganna get some quick CQC drills in, if you wanna join?"

He made his way towards where Jack was passing near the television as he did so, the image distorted, trailing black,and purple marks as the picture collapsed in on itself and extended laterally before snapping back into place as he passed.

"Can you make that a half staff?" he asked Jack, taking the towel from around his neck and wrapping it around his hand in anticipation of the cold impromptu weapon.

[NineOfSpades]

Liz groaned slightly, feeling her face flush red with embaressment. Superpowers had done very little to aliviate her natural clutz-factor, and she didn't exactly feel like she was contributing as much to this team as she'd hoped. Certainly she wasn't doing much to make a good impression. They probably figured she was more a burden than an asset at this point anyway, other than being able to fix up the base and sew costumes that is.

The arrival of bunny support squad did help to break the self-doubt spiral that her psyche was getting twisted up in. Face-planting wouldn't be nearly so bad an experience if it came with moral support animals to help provide instant snugly relief. "Yeah, I'm fine" Liz said, sitting up and giving a dismissive little laugh to try and shake off the whole incident. She gave the bunnies a pleasent scratch along their backs, trying to make sure she didn't miss any of the multiplying rabbits as she did.


"Oh, combat practice, I,..uh" Liz hesitated, knowing that she probably needed to improve her skills there, but also not wanting to screw up again in front of her teammates. "I think I'll pass on this one...you guys are waaaay out of my league. I was actually planning on taking a crack at cleaning up some of the wiring today so we stop tripping the fuse box"

[Hazuki]

Lavender watches the horde of bunnies with a twinkle in her eyes. It's too silly to not be funny.

"I can help you with some basics, fitness and all that." Lavender offers, from her position at the edge of the couch. She wordlessly holds the box of donuts out to Liz. "I can't promise you'll be a badass by the end of the week, but hey, I work with greenhorns all the time and my job is half making sure the people I'm working with don't get hurt." She holds out the box to let Jaime take his second donut, then looks at her hand, and just puts the box on the nearby table so she doesn't have to be the donut-keeper.

[NineOfSpades]

Liz accepted the doughnut, having worked up a not-inconsiderable apatite while pedaling her way around the city. Some chocolate & sprinkles were in order! Pausing to enjoy the first few bites Liz continued once her mouth wasn't full (Mind your manners!) "That'd be really great, actually. I've been on my own fitness program for a few months, but I'm not really seeing much in the way of results yet" eyeing the doughnut in her hand, Liz gave a shrug "I guess snacks like these aren't really helping"

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta eyes the rapidly disappearing confectionery and feels a slight twinge of regret. "I'm afraid I cannot join you. Physical exertion tends to make me... unravel." She cringes slightly as she says the word. She quickly recomposes herself, and her voice takes on a hint of scolding. "Now then. If you're going to fight, you had better be careful. It wouldn't do for any of you to get injured. In fact, I should probably watch to make sure you're not being too rough with each other." She glances at Lavender sternly. "You especially, Lavender. I don't want to see bruises on Elizabeth. And no edged weapons, Jack." Training their powers... they should be working to get rid of them, not facilitating them.

[Hazuki]

Lavender smiles. Finally, she gets to be the teacher! "Yeah, but nobody's gonna yell at you for a donut." She assures the girl, as she pulls a bowl of chilli into one hand and spoons a mouthful of it into her own mouth. She does still need to finish it off, even if there is company. Conveniently, she has to swallow just as Nicoleta gives her a warning. "Don't worry, Nicoleta! I could give you my finishing move right here, and you'd be right as rain." She demonstratively flexes the muscles of one arm. "Ooh! You should come see me perform some day!"

[NeoNinevite]

"Half staffs it is then." Jack drops the staff and sword in his hand back into the bucket and draws out half staffs for both of them, and hands Sven his. "And Nicoleta, don't worry, my weapons are never edged unless I need them to be." He stares down at his weaponry, melting away and refreezing any rough edges as he backs up and begins to circle Sven.

Suddenly he lunges towards him, weaving around him and striking from all sides. He tries to goad Sven into making a mistake through taunts("Come on, my aunt could do better than that!") and sheer flamboyance, making it look like there are various openings in his defence that aren't really there. The moment Sven slips up, Jack will tag him and mutter a few bits of advice, assuming, of course, that Sven slips up. If he manages to hold up for a long time, Jack will slowly begin to take a more defensive stance, but always looking for good openings.

[DataDancer]

One of the first things he learned early in his first year out was to recognize a predator. If you could tell the difference between a man or animal that was a hunter and one that was docile you could avoid a lot of trouble. Jack was defiantly the former.

Had he not already known him, he would have never faced him like this. Yet Sven also knew he was professional, had excellent skill honed over years of practice and mastery that not only made him an efficient and dangerous opponent but an excellent sparing partner who had the control and precision necessary to see make sure a blow was enough to teach, to hone your skill, keep you on your toes, but not enough to really cause any lasting damage.

It had been more than a year since Sven had trained. He was slow, sloppy. But the body had a way of remembering things. He had unknown hours of training drilled in to him. Among the many armed techniques taught to him were the use of billy clubs, collapsable clubs and stun batons.

This short stave was little different, although his training hadn't been like this, Jack fought much differently than his instructors had. They had focused on fast brutal takedowns, something neither Jack nor Sven could put to use here.

Even before Jack's first blow, Sven knew the outcome. However it wasn't always the destination, but the journey. Sven would let his body learn to adapt to this new type of fighting, would try to watch how Jack moved his feet, where he shifted, where his weight fell and when he withdrew and when he struck.

Every blow, every block every strike was a lesson and future weapon in his armory against their possible and future enemies. This, like most experiences was a lesson, it was important he made the most of it now, when the price was free. Rather sweat, and bruises now, among friends than blood on the battlefield.

[Ramsus]

After training for a while, Lavender turns on the scanner. The group isn't familiar with a lot of the specific terms and codes, but after about an hour you pick up enough various chatter that you're aware that recently there have been a larger amount of robberies in Uptown and the Hills than is usual as well as some new gang or gangs in the city getting into conflicts with pretty much all of the other ones throughout the entire city. You don't pick up on anything that sounds particularly serious, at least not from the tones of voices, but again... you don't know what the codes mean so they could be pretty much anything.

[Hazuki]

"That's weird." Lavender says, as she adjusts the waist of her pants after having changed out of her heroing outfit completely. "I was in Uptown most of the night, and I only saw one guy! I guess I need to keep a better eye out next time." The muscular woman does a thinking gesture, then turns to her allies-in-crimefighting with a smile. "Hey, what do y'all say to a little bit of hands-on heroing soon? Get our hands on some thugs from that gang, or hit up the stores that were smashed up?"

[DataDancer]

Sven, wipes his brow, and the red patches of skin where the icy staff had hit. He comes back into the common room, once again hanging the towel around his neck.

"Sounds like a plan, but I think we should really work in pairs in the future. You know Liz I have a bike too, if you want to patrol together next time. I think it's safer if we work together."

[Bobbybobby99]

Jamie, over the course of the hour, had ended up duplicating most of the bunnies, upon their not so subtle requests and nudges. As a rule, they seemed to like the process; it likely had something to do with the regeneration, but who knew. The even larger number of bunnies was now reclining on the floor and the sofa, munching on fresh hay, since they didn't particularly want to go back to their room just yet.

"Working in pairs sounds good to me," Jamie chimed, continuing "I'm not exactly the best when the enemy get's up close, though I've tried to avoid that so far. I sting like a butterfly and float like a bee, after all."

[NeoNinevite]

The sparring helped Jack a lot, it helped him get out any built up frustration, while maybe also helping Sven to become a better fighter. Sven wasn't bad though, he'd held his own fairly well, and Jack respected that. He just needed to land a few more hits. Jack took the time after the sparring match to relax a bit, plunging the weapons back into the bucket.

However, the moment Lavender suggested going on patrol, he was sorting out his gear. He refilled his utility belt with water, strapping two filled bottles to the sides. He fashioned 6 ice arrows and added them to 6 of his normal ones, placing them in the quiver.

"Patrolling in pairs sounds good, though if we can get a specific location from the scanner, we could go as the whole team. Regardless, I think we need to create some kind of dictionary for this thing, I honestly don't understand half the stuff they are saying at the moment."

[Ramsus]

From what you heard, there are certainly addresses aplenty, but you have no idea what they're about and the chatter talking about the thefts and gang activity isn't connected in any way you're aware of to them.

[Hazuki]

"Why don't we head out together, Jamie?" Lavender offers the waifish boy. "I can keep the bad guys away while you do the voodoo that you do." At Jack's suggestion, she tilts her head in concentration. "I bet Liz can grab some hair form a cop and write us a guide. Or I can give Max, he's my bro, a call - I bet he knows some security guys and you just know some of those guys are ex-cops."

[Hazuki]

Lavender decides to pull out her phone (Her personal one, not the one she uses for crimefighting) and check the news while her companions in crimefighting ponder their choices.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta nods. "Travelling in pairs seems a good idea. Though perhaps we should stay within a certain area, so that we might come to eachother's aid if necessary." She indicates Sven. "Sven? Might we form a duo and proceed?" Someone needs to keep an eye on him. He's hardly a bad person, but Nicoleta worries for the way he handles his life and objectives. A little self-control would do him a world of good.

[Bobbybobby99]

"Oh, thanks Lavander. I would appreciate it," Jamie said lightly. He gave a few hand gestures at the mass of bunnies, and the few that he hadn't yet duplicated hopped into his waiting hands, where he petted them until the newly formed duo hopped away as a pair. He gestured again, and the horde of bunnies went back to the animal room, before returning with the squirrels, who he duplicated in turn.

[Ramsus]

Lavender's news feed gives her articles on the following topics:
*An article on the increase in burglaries in homes and businesses in Uptown and the Hills that mentions a few places and people by name, notably a licensed aulter trader in the Hills.
*An article on the gang activity increase that features a few quotes from the chief of police basically saying something to the tune of "this is why you should be giving us more money" and noticeably not mentioning which gangs are involved. The article itself names a few gangs, but doesn't paint a clear picture of who is clashing with who.
*There's a sale this weekend on electronics because of a merger of big company X and slightly less big company Y which was a parent company of a chain of stores in Uptown.
*A jeweler's in Uptown is now open again after a robbery two weeks ago.
*Stocks.
*More stocks?
*Big bar brawl two nights ago over in the Docks area.
*An arsonist responsible for some house fires in the Upper Valley was caught yesterday.
*A small article talking about the local parahumans with some low quality pictures and links to more dedicated blogs. The pictures in the article include your group and the criminal from the bridge incident, three really blurry pictures of Archtree, one sort of nice picture of Cottontail, two blurry pictures of the Mountain Ranger, a really weird picture that just shows two people in silhouette in the background of a bunch of blobs and lines of various bright colors. None of them have names.
*A rather bland piece from a major news corporation using Hammer VI's visiting her mother's (Hammer V) grave as an excuse to bring up Hammer V's death at the hand of Blackwood and using that as an excuse to link to other pieces and videos of that battle and of Hammer V's MAGICS team at the time which happens to mostly comprise of the same members as the team Hammer VI is on. It also uses this as yet another almost tired excuse to question the ethics of letting a ten year old be fighting crime. More links to various articles of MAGICS members, Blackwood, and Thread Bearon.
(Just sort of assumed with this one that you'd want major world news stuff on "important" Parahuman related things.)
*Brelliam's Bubble is currently (as of five minutes ago) moving north from northwestern Nevada. (You actually have no choice about having this in your feed as it's a legal requirement for the app.)

Hazuki, if you want to click on the links or declare Lavender has paid attention to MAGICS and big parahuman battles, just tell me which you look into of Hammer VI, her MAGICS team, Blackwood, and/or Thread Bearon.

Edit: Aside from the clicking thing I suppose that goes for the rest of you as well.

[Hazuki]

Lavender browses her phone for a few moments, looking at the news headlines and clicking through a few more articles on gangs before checking her emails and putting it down. Noticing her allies haven't got much done, she gets to her feet and turns to face them with a smile.

"Alright, I got this! Tomorrow morning, me and Jamie will hit the streets where the gangs hang out. Take some of the rats and the pigeons with us, and collect some gangsigns or some such. If we think they might be somewhere, we can send one of the little guys to scout it. If we find somewhere that might be home to the gangs, we can set one up to watch over 'em, and I can probably scout later on with some animal distraction. And, this'll sound mean, you'll be bait for any thugs that are taking their morning stroll. I'll be around the rooftops and such, so when they strike, I strike back, and we try to get a little information off them."

"Now, I need to point out that we'll be working at different parts of the day, so we call each other if we need help all of a sudden, and it'll help keep people off our trail."

"Around noon, Liz and Jack can go scope out some of the stores that have been robbed. As soon as one of you can grab some hair from the clerk, you should be good enough at convincing them you're a concerned new business owner or something, which should help you get on their good side and gather information on what happened. Jack, you'd mostly be the muscle in case trouble shows up, but hey - better safe than sorry. And you might be able to get some scouting about the stores if Liz can keep them distracted."

"Nicoleta and Sven, I think your best bet is going to be looking into some of the parahuman hunters, because there are two figures that we don't know what they are that were snapped recently. Nicoleta, you're nice and you have a good excuse to be seen visiting people's houses, 'cause of your religion and medicine stuff. If you can lead some people into talking about parahumans, some of the people we know are blogging about them, you can get some information. And Sven, you can lock down their wifi if things go awry, or help fight if things get violent."

She pauses, and taps her finger on her lips. "I mean, I'm not a mastermind, but those plans work, right?" She smiles confidently.

[DataDancer]

Sven gave everyone a once over. His eyes flicked quickly between Nicoletta, Lavender and Liz before moving back towards Lavender, then Jack.

"Um,,yeah sure I guess. I mean, I guesse that could work. You know though both Liz and I have bikes, it might be easier for us to stick together if we're going to patrol by bike."

Sven looked back towards the floor a moment then to Nicoletta, "But if, you know, this is what we want to do I guess it's not a problem. You have the addresses of the places we want to check out? If you want info on groups keeping tabs on Parahumans and monsters I know a few people from AA who might be able to help us out in that department."

[NeoNinevite]

"Sounds like a plan. The only problem I can see would be grabbing a clerk's hair, but I'm sure we can figure something out. Besides, worst case scenario I just google what we need to know. Or if everything really does go bottoms up, I whip out a water bottle and take down anyone who gets in our way." Jack says as he continues to pack up his gear.

[Bobbybobby99]

Jamie paused for a moment, before cheerfully saying "I'd be okay with that, and it shouldn't be any trouble to pick up a few extra pigeons and rats than we have here, if need be; peer pressure works on animals too, you know. I admit that being bat isn't exactly my idea of a fun time, but people that look smaller and more vulnerable than rather rare, so I have no real objections. As far as scouting goes, I can't do any sort of telepathy or anything, but I've worked out some signals, so we should be fine. If I end up hurt, though, you're cleaning the pellets. "

[NineOfSpades]

"In my experience, you can usually find hair on the floor if you keep an eye out. Something like 90% of dust is just dead skin and hair, after all" Liz commented. She internally cringed at having known that little factoid. Even if it was a crucial part of getting her powers to work, developing an internal catalog of ways to steal other peoples hair still made her feel like some sort of deviant. She did her best to suppress these thoughts, usually by focusing on the positive benefits of her admittedly creepy behavior. "And hey, maybe we'll get lucky and grab a police officer's hair. I wrote down as much as I could from the scanner, so getting it decoded would be good...that, and writing down a cheat-sheet of code phrases so that we can decipher the messages after I reset that skill slot." Overall, her mood was cheerful, since this mission seemed entirly within their skill set and unlikely to result in further very-public disasters like with the bridge. Go team!

[Ramsus]

After the other take their leave, Lavender and Jamie find somewhere in the base to sleep. Their alarms wake them around 5 am, an hour that one normally tries their best to pretend doesn't exist but there's just no way for them to get anywhere, do anything, and get over to the college for their classes later in the day without getting up this early. The question then becomes.... how much, if any coffee do they need to wake up. The followup question is where they're actually going and if they'll be going in costume.

I'd also like for the other two pairs of you to decide when/where/how you're going to meet up for your plans later in the day.

Also don't feel like the opportunity to ask about other places/NPCs that have been mentioned has passed by. If you guys want more worldbuilding stuff, feel free to ask whenever.

[Hazuki]

Lavender makes sure to text her parents that she'll be crashing with some friends after a late night movie marathon, so they won't worry, and weaves herself a hammock out of tree-sap to spend the night in. At the least, she's gobbled down enough calories to make sure she won't be soporific come morning. And when it does come, she makes sure to clean herself with the traditional method of those participating in the oldest profession - wet wipes and deodorant. She always carries those around in her gym bag, just in case there's an emergency that needs Archtree's aid.

Fortunately for Lavender, she stays in optimal shape, so the morning isn't quite so dreadful as it could be. She makes sure to prepare a normal breakfast for herself, and for Jamie if he isn't up yet, and starts getting dressed into her heroing outfit for the day ahead. Her plan works best if Lavender isn't seen wandering around the docks for no reason.

When the waifish boy does wake up, Lavender's at least had some thoughts about where to go. "I didn't find a whole lot of info about where the guys hang out, but the docks are a good bet. Criminals always hang out at the docks."

[Professor Gnoll]

Sven gave everyone a once over. His eyes flicked quickly between Nicoletta, Lavender and Liz before moving back towards Lavender, then Jack.

"Um,,yeah sure I guess. I mean, I guesse that could work. You know though both Liz and I have bikes, it might be easier for us to stick together if we're going to patrol by bike."

Sven looked back towards the floor a moment then to Nicoletta, "But if, you know, this is what we want to do I guess it's not a problem. You have the addresses of the places we want to check out? If you want info on groups keeping tabs on Parahumans and monsters I know a few people from AA who might be able to help us out in that department."
Nicoleta nods. Yes, investigating people who might be keeping track of other aberrant is a good idea- the more she knows about, the better she can keep some semblance of control over these unnatural activities. "I'm afraid that I couldn't say where, exactly, would be the best place to begin asking. Perhaps if you contact some of your... friends, we might gain some idea of a starting point. Having done so, we might expand from there. I am curious as to the identity of these blurred figures. I would very much like to know who they are. More aberr- parahumans, especially parahumans that we do not know about, cannot be a good thing. It is too late to go from door to door now, but perhaps if you enquire tonight, we might begin tomorrow." Of course, this plan requires contact with Sven's friends, who seem to not just like, but be obsessed with aberrant. Bizarre, and disturbing. And the existence of even more aberrations, outside of her sphere of influence, is even more disquieting. How many could be out there? And how dangerous are they? "If we've nothing more to do before the moon rises, I think I shall retire." Nicoleta still has her evening prayer to attend to, after all.

[Hazuki]

While waiting for Jamie to wake up for an exciting morning of being bait for people with knives and violent temperaments, Lavender decides to go through some of her required reading for Acting. With one hand, at least - the other decided to browse her emails for anybody that wants her attention. Maybe even Maralise Santos...

[Ramsus]

Lavender has an email from her mother basically just asking her how she is and subtly nagging her about that one thing she does every so often.

While looking around on her phone to see what movies are in theaters, the following catch her eye:

The Uncreditables: A comedic movie about a group of broke teenage parahumans with incredibly sub-standard powers and incredibly high credit card debt and their goal to try and purchase a house for their pregnant member so they can raise the kid in as normal environment as possible. Comedy ensues.

That's What She Said Too!: A sequel to a rom-com combined with a stoner comedy.

C'était Une Nuit Sombre Et Orageuse: A supernatural noir drama set in the suburbs of france pretending it was ported over from France but was actually made in Canada.

Burger Fighters: The Battle for Meatopia: One of several movies related to a rather surreal kids tv show. Premium tickets come with a special burger meal whose proceeds go to a charity.

[Hazuki]

Lavender sits back in her seat and can't help but think of how similar the Uncreditables sounds to their situation. Not in every way, because they'd managed to liberate a community center, and nobody's pregnant...as far as she knows. Unless there was some way for a lady to get her pregnant, or for a man to get pregnant, nobody seems likely to have a baby. Although that does sound a lot like a power some unfortunate person might have.

"Hmm..." She muses to herself, and decides to Google whether anybody has pregnancy powers. Or whether there's any theory on how somebody might get them.

[Ramsus]

There are results, none of the credible, nothing of the sort the forum rules on certain forums would allow one to describe in detail.

The least offensive or out there discussions that are even closely related (and not like 10-15 pages of google links in) are ones discussing parahuman bloodlines and how common it is for someone to inherit powers from a parent. As far as you can tell the research shows that it's really rare but it does happen, but only from mother to child with no provable instances of father to child. There are also discussions on aulterations that grant powers or cause parahumanism only to people of a certain bloodline or other kind of connection or similarity. This then links to Hammer V and Hammer VI as an almost certain example of this later kind of bloodline inheritance, rather than the former as previous Hammer's have been male and the aulteration object being the same actual object as far as anyone knows.

[Hazuki]

Lavender pauses in her research of powers and children to take a particular look at the Hammers. Why are these people using the same name, like British Royalty, no less? She's pretty sure she'd have heard if the Queen decided to name her family after something you'd find in a toolkit.

[Ramsus]

The Hammer's, their legal surname, appear to get their name and powers from a aulteration in the form of a larger hammer or maul entirely made of metal that appears to be in some kind of celtic knot-like pattern. It is known to grant them greatly increased strength and regenerative abilities and the Hammer's can throw the hammer (also called Hammer or The Hammer) and have it return to them. The first known Hammer (just called Hammer) was a pirate in the 1660's and onward. Accurate records of the family are hard to come by and somewhat conflicting until Hammer IV, but it is clear they were all criminals of one sort or another.

Hammer IV was no different than his fore-bearers and is known to have participated in bank robberies and mercenary work. When he died in WW2 fighting alongside the Allied forces, the hammer was lost for a time. Joshua Hammer (Hammer IV's son) eventually found it in a private British collection many years later. Not long after, his daughter Beatrice Hammer took up the hammer and became Hammer V, but unlike her predecessors chose to become a hero and one of the first members of MAGICS.

Hammer V had a very successful career as one of the strongest heroic parahumans prior to the catalyst event, but her time was cut short in a battle in New York City on June 3 2015. Her current team (consisting of All-Star, Armament, Paragon, & Threadbare) was in battle with Thread Bearon and his Needlepoints when Blackwood joined it, claiming to be "evening the odds". In so doing he fatally wounded Hammer V.

After her death, it was learned by the public that Hammer V had been training her daughter, Alice Hammer, and there had been a legal arrangement for Alice to take her place in MAGICS when she retired or upon her death. There were several ethical protests when this actually occurred and Alice Hammer announced herself as Hammer VI. The protests have somewhat quieted over the following year after Hammer VI had an interview (the only one so far) where she made it clear that she would be out fighting crime as Hammer VI even if no such legal arrangement existed and she didn't have a place in MAGICS.

Hammer VI, despite only being 10 years old, has shown herself to be quite skilled in combat and the other members of her team (currently consisting of the same members as her late mother's last team) seem more or less accepting of having her by their side.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta wakes up. For a moment, she panics- tight steel walls, encasement, her body where is she- then remembers. There's always a moment, a moment before her mind is clear enough to recall. Her body is awash, melted and split, and slowly, painfully, she begins to draw her flesh back into its natural order, marshalling cells into shape. First, the torso, skin wrapping around ribs, heart slightly to the left. Place the lungs, spread the veins through. Luckily, her body seems to have a certain 'memory' of how it's supposed to be, or Nicoleta's medical knowledge would hardly be enough to rebuild an entire human.

Next comes the legs. Focus. Focus. As the bones slide into place, clicking and clacking in the darkness, she feels her shoulder collapse. Focus! Keep the whole of the body in your thoughts! She brings the flowing skin of her shoulder back up, binds it to the socket of her arm, and begins to build her arms.

The process is slow, and never easy, but Nicoleta cannot help but marvel at the exquisite construction of the body. How anyone could doubt the presence of God within the subtleties of its design is beyond her.
Her limbs are complete. It seems stable, for now. Next comes the hardest part- the head and the face.
Slow, slowly now, she supports the delicate softness of her brain with hard bone, filling out the structure of her skull, allowing the muscles- so delicately interconnected- to grasp the frame and form the face that might smile and laugh and frown and speak. She pulls tendons taught, flushes red blood through eagerly waiting veins, binds the dead cells of her hair to her scalp, and pulls skin over the raw muscles that wind taut upon her face. She won't know if she's gotten it right until she can get to a mirror, but it will have to do for now. And finally, she fills the hollow sockets that gape in her skull with the quivering jelly of her eyes, and feels the lenses slide into place, and opens her eyes. She is here now, fully formed.

In the dark, she gropes for her key, safe within its pouch. She used to go to sleep holding it in her hand, until she woke up one day to find it rattling around in her ribcage. After that, she made a pouch for it. There it is, small and metallic, and she slots it into the lock. Nicoleta hefts the heavy metal lid open, and gazes into the small light of her room. She's already moved a few things into it, to facilitate prayer, mostly, but also to handle the unique needs of her... condition. The most obvious of these is the long, steel box that she must sleep in. Her body is not stable while she sleeps, and has an unfortunate tendency to wander if not restrained.

Nicoleta frowns. Enough feeling sorry for herself. She doesn't have time for that. She quickly dresses, a long, modest skirt, a blouse, swiftly completes her morning prayers, and heads out into the main space. Ah, there's Lavender. She must be researching. "Hello, Lavender. Did you sleep well?"

[Hazuki]

Lavender puts down her phone as she hears Nicoleta walk into the room, then offers her an easy smile. "Hey, Nicoleta." She pulls herself into a less lazy position and runs a hand through her hair to get a better look at her comrade-in-arms. "Sure did! I think I'm getting used to sleeping in a hammock now. Can I fix you something to eat, before we go hunting for bad guys?"

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta shakes her head. "I'm afraid I haven't much of an appetite." Examining your own insides does that. Nicoleta's barely eaten breakfasts for months. "I am ready to depart, if you are. I shall eat later." She notes that Lavender is wearing her hero-ing outfit, and reconsiders. "Hmm. Actually, I had best locate my mask. Though I would prefer if we could keep the use of our powers to a minimum."

[Hazuki]

"Sure am; just need to pull my mask up and I'm good to go." Lavender demonstratively tugs on the hood-like part of her outfit that can be pulled up to cover her face. At the mention of restricting use of their powers, she scratches her head. "Uh, well, my plan was to stalk along the rooftops and sneak around, while you're...bait." She grins in an attempt to make the word seem less cruel. "I can kind of do that without, but it's a lot easier with my branches."

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta sighs inwardly. Right. They can't exactly act as superheroes without using their aberrations. "...As bait? I see. And what would that entail, exactly? She's not averse to the idea. After all, she can see how a person such as herself might make for a tempting target. And to strike down someone who might seek to exploit that perceived weakness could certainly be... satisfying. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ "Am I to present a tempting target for the predators of the streets?"

[Hazuki]

"Hopefully! Plan is to scour the docks for gang signs, anywhere there's been fighting, to see if we can get any leads on where all this activity is, who the players are, and who owns what territory." Lavender explains, as confident as can be. "And since gangs are all about mugging and things like that, we can hope one will target you - then bam, pow, we've got ourselves some informants!"

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta nods. "Very well. I will bring my... costume, just in case." She quickly locates it from her neatly ordered room, folding the cloak and stashing the mask in a scholarly satchel, which also contains her multitudes of notes and a first-aid kit. She pulls on a grey coat, and one of her more ornate crucifix necklaces, ensuring that it hangs out of her clothing to present a more tempting target. "Let us off, then." Nicoleta heads for the door.

[Hazuki]

Lavender pulls on her mask and gives Nicoleta a thumbs up. She switches her phone out to her gym bag, then takes out her crimefighting phone in case she needs to contact the others, or the police. She slips out of the back door and waits for Nicoleta to start heading towards the docks before stalking her through alleys and rooftops.

[Professor Gnoll]

As Lavender leaves, Nicoleta eyes the last remaining doughnut, sitting in the cardboard, glaze glistening. It looks so sweet... so tempting...
No. It is a weekday. What's more, it's probably stale, after being left out all night! And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil... She absolutely shouldn't. Nothing good ever came covered in bright pink glaze. Absolutely not!

Nicoleta heads towards the docks, brushing pink crumbs from her coat. She really should try to eat more slowly. Pausing for a moment, she quickly glances around, searching for Lavender, but can't see her. Good. There's still a few puddles from last night's rain, and Nicoleta steps over them carefully, being sure to avoid muddying her shoes.

[Ramsus]

Rather quickly Nicoleta remembers they have a time limit and she can't walk all the way to the docks and back over to the college in time (in fact that would probably take up the whole day). So she gets on a bus. Archtree doesn't have any trouble keeping up while in Midtown, but eventually she reaches the edge of where she can find reliably tall buildings to swing from. At this point she realizes she'd exhaust herself if she just tried to run and jump from rooftop to rooftop the whole way and she'd still wind up pretty far behind. So she opts to land atop the bus while it's at a stop before it parts Midtown. Nicoleta notices the noise and a few others do too, but then shrug it off while everyone else plays around with their smartphones, reads a book, or yammer incoherently at strangers who maintain the typical but not alarming levels of discomfort.

They get off the bus a good ways into the Docks area, far enough that they're past the guaranteed nice areas. All they have to do now is keep generally to the west side and to decide if they're going to look around residential or business areas or around the actual docks themselves and if they're going to spend a lot of time looking for subtler stuff or just move around quickly hoping to find something a bit more obvious.

[Ramsus]

It doesn't take too long to get to the nearest commercial dock and well before the pair reaches it they find plentiful amounts of graffiti in all manner of variety. The pair notice that the occasional man looks a bit too long at Nicoleta, though nothing occurs, perhaps because it was daylight and she hadn't found any conveniently plausible alleyways to walk down. Once at the dock they do spot a group of eight men just sitting around drinking beer and it looks like they've been doing so for a while. While it might be a bit suspicious that they're doing nothing at all, they're doing nothing which isn't terribly much to work with.

Do you want to do something specific or keep searching this general area? You haven't fully explored it yet. You could try and get into the not public parts of the dock or just look around the rest of the nearby residential/business streets nearby.

[Ramsus]

The pair doesn't find anything in the nearby areas..... except right as they're about to leave the area and would have to consider if they feel like risking being late for classes to search a bit more. They're walking through a few streets that might count as residential but mostly count as a place to avoid. A third of the buildings they see are boarded up or obviously lacking in maintenance (though the roads have been maintained).

Nicoleta is walking down the north end of the street to the south and she comes across a tiny park-like thing in the midst of a U shape of what look to be apartments. The park has seen better days, half the grass is dead and the other half is plentiful with weeds. One of the three trees has no leaves. As she walks up to it she sees a shirtless white male in his twenties sitting on a bench who also sees her and gives her a smile that is less likely to cause her to think the man is friendly than make her feel rather uncomfortable. Past him in the part she sees another man sitting at another bench closer to the apartments and two other men standing around in the relative shade beneath one of the trees. She's pretty sure the one facing away from her has a pistol tucked into his jeans.

There are a couple people passing by on the other side of the street going north and one rather ragged looking man who looks like they might have just left the park walking south towards where the street has a three way intersection.

Nicoleta is too focused on the man looking at her who gets up and looks at her as if he's expecting her to say or do something.

Archtree sees all the same stuff and also notices a large group of people (about a dozen she thinks at a glance) around the intersection at the south end of the street, but due to her vantage point and distance doesn't notice the possibly-gun. Nobody seems to have noticed her yet.

The apartments in the U shape are all three stories, on the other side of the street the buildings vary between two and three stories and look like they might be either houses, apartments, or offices. Half of them don't look like they've been occupied (at least legally) in a while. There is a telephone pole halfway down the street on that side.

I'll leave it up to Hazuki if Archtree is on top of the northernmost apartment on the side of the street with the park of is on the other side of the street maybe one building closer due to not wanting to be on a two story building.

[Hazuki]

Archtree scoots closer to the edge of the u-shaped building and peers over the scene before her. The dozen or so people nearby are definitely a concern - very few people move about in packs of a dozen - but being bunched up means that they're a more easily handled threat. Unless they've got shields or spears or something, anyway.

Rather than leaping into action right away, she perches in stealth and prepares to leap in for some butt-kicking, life-saving action. One of her branches prepares a sticky orb of webbing that it drops in her right hand, ready for whatever purpose it might serve.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta considers the scene, frowning slightly. Well, they do seem a little shifty, but they're not doing anything overtly wrong. At any rate, it would pay to approach them with a level of caution, especially if that really is a gun tucked into his shorts. Nicoleta can remember the sensation of having a metal object jammed inside her organs, owing to the key debacle some time back, and has no desire to repeat the experience. Attempting to appear casual, she walks in the direction of the loiterers, though not directly at them, avoiding making eye contact or staring overlong. Hopefully, Lavender has managed to keep up.

[Ramsus]

The guy in front of Nicoleta stands in front of her and puts a hand up in a stop gesture as she attempts to get farther into the park and says, "Hey there. Maybe nobody told you, but if you've got business here you do it with the guy out front, like me or my friend over at the other bench. No need to bother my pals in the shade, I can handle anything ya need right?"

Archtree notes that the group of individuals, fourteen of the to be precise, are moving in their direction. As they do so, she notices that they're a rather odd looking group. They appear to be of all ages, styles, and ethnicity. They are all carrying things they're trying to conceal in their hands under jackets or in their pants. It takes a bit of concentration but she's pretty sure she can spot a couple metal pipes, and at least one baton and taser. Nicoleta still has not noticed them yet.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta smiles pleasantly. "Oh, I see. My mistake. Might I ask what sort of business one might find here?" She has little idea how to deal with criminals, having rarely interacted with their sort before, and finds herself uncertain of what the best course of action would be. Lavender would just be so much better at this, she's sure. She'll just have to push forward, and hope for the best. If it comes to it, her aberration should save her from serious harm, though that would, of course, require using it.
If Lavender is watching, Nicoleta hopes she's ready to swing into action at a moment's notice.

[Hazuki]

Archtree frowns at the gaggle of goons carrying suspicious objects, and at the sight of Nicoleta being approached by one of the individuals in the park below. But, she has enough trust in her throwing arm to be able to hit either group, should something start to go down. She shifts over so that she's within easy leaping distance of either group, and steadily increases the size of her ball of webbing.

[Ramsus]

The man raises an incredulous eyebrow and replies, "If you have to ask, you don't have any business here. You should probably go." After a moment's thought he adds, "If you're lost or something, there's a gas station a block over that way." and points in the direction Nicoleta came from (and indeed she did see the gas station).

The group of.... goons, well "goons" seem wrong. They'd look like perfectly normal, if mismatched, people in a smaller group and without weapons. Regardless of what Archtree is mentally labeling them, they keep moving closer. They're not terribly far away now, close enough that Nicoleta finally notices them walking in the street, cutting off any path that way. The men in the park haven't noticed them yet, though it's surely only a matter of moments.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta nods. "Of course. Thank you." She silently curses. Asking them what crimes they were committing? Why can't she ever get this sort of thing right?
Oh well. She'll just have to try harder next time. Maybe ask someone else how it's done. She turns, noticing the approaching group. Are they with the rest of the park loiterers? She steps forward, then hesitates. They're blocking the road, and are those weapons that they're carrying? She quickly scans the rooftops, looking for Lavender. This approaching group seems awfully threatening, and she doesn't fancy trying to calm them down on her own.

She then looks around for a place she could hide in for a moment, to don her disguise if need be.

[Ramsus]

Nicoleta spots Archtree on a different roof than she was expecting, a bit closer to the large group of people. As for hiding spots, she thinks she could enter one of the abandoned buildings (actually the one Archtree is on top of) and there's a narrow alleyway with a wooden fence between two buildings a bit to the north she could duck into.

The group approaches and is about in shouting distance now and that's about when the guys in the park notice them. Said guys' behavior shifts from laying about to territorial and they slowly make their way to the end of the park closest to the group of people.

[Hazuki]

Archtree's understanding of the situation changes just slightly as she sports the park layabouts moving towards the dozen people at the other side of the park. Gang warfare seems the most likely thing. She looks down to make sure that Nicoleta isn't standing right in the middle of them, then shifts to make sure she's near the two groups for when, if it does, stuff starts to go down. They can swoop in and stop both these groups from causing a mess. And her ball of webbing is probably big enough to stop a good bunch of them, as long as they stick close together.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta turns and quickly moves into the alleyway, getting out of the way of the approaching group to make sure she doesn't end up caught in the crossfire. She walks hurriedly down the alleyway, and as soon as no-one can see her, she removes her coat, loosens her clothing for freer movement, and takes her neatly folded robe out of her bag, replacing it with her coat. She unfurls the robe and pulls it over herself, covering her completely. It's long, a dark navy blue, and unadorned, flowing loosely around her limbs. Once covered, she fixes her pale white mask over her face and secures the hood. Beneath it, she takes a deep breath.
This is a terrible idea.
Stepping back towards the park, she can feel her skin begin to tremble around her muscles, slipping and flowing. Refocusing, she marshals it back into shape. With any luck, she won't have to unravel at all. She moves as close back to the park as she can while remaining relatively obscured.

[Ramsus]

The large group moves closer, still not close enough to start brawling, and stops. One of their member, a middleaged man in a sweater-vest shouts out, "You thugs have fouled our city long enough! We want you gone!"

One of the "thugs" replies, "Oh yeah? You sure about that!?" takes a few steps closer as he pulls a pistol out of his pants and points it (not sideways) at the sweater-vest guy's chest. The other three thugs take a couple steps forward as well, though a careful observer (Archtree) might notice they are still a few steps behind the one with the gun.

The mob, rather than back off, hold their ground and very slowly start to draw their weapons.

This is about when Seraphim exits the alley.

[Hazuki]

Somebody pointing a gun at a man whose only crime is that of fashion? Well, that's a surefire way of knowing who the bad guy is - or at least, good enough for Archtree to want to put a stop to it. She switches her glob of webbing to one of the her webbing branches, then attaches it to the edge of the rooftop and takes a small run up before leaping off, towards the gun-wielding man. It's not the most efficient kind of swinging, but it's the best she can manage.

Archtree soars through the air towards him, the webbing steadily extending as she goes and helping slow her momentum to a speed that won't instantly kill the gun-wielder. Just as she's about to reach him, she contorts her body such that her legs wrap around his shoulder and neck, her hands grab his gun-wielding arm, and her venom-tipped branches stab into each of his arms, preventing any kind of attempts to recover. As her takedown, well, takes him down, she makes sure to keep his arm pointed at the ground and that the gun doesn't experience any sudden excitement.

I rolled a 1 in the OOC for this.

If you're having trouble visualizing Archtree's takedown, here's a link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk6Hh6LtGV8) to basically the same thing.

[Professor Gnoll]

That was an impressive manoeuvre from Archtree. Seraphim makes a mental note to compliment her on it later. The first threat has been effectively stopped in its tracks, but it seems as if a fight could still break out at any moment.

Seraphim steps out of the alleyway, lightly gliding towards the scene of aggression. She swiftly places herself between the two belligerent groups, hopefully barring them from attacking without first moving through her.

If she can stop a fight from breaking out at all, it will minimise potential casualties... and the risk of having to unravel. She stands as still as possible, motionless and serene. If nothing else, that should throw them off, and perhaps make them too nervous to start a fight, especially with the intimidating physicality of Archtree backing her up. She hopes.

[Ramsus]

Seraphim has no such luck. She arrives amidst both sides at the same moment the "mob" charge the thugs and one tries to clumsily kick Archtree in the head. One thug stands his ground and throws a punch while being attacked by a metal pipe and a taser while the other one backs off a few steps and shouts something in a language that sounds like it might be Russian, his head turned in the direction of one of the close by apartments next to the little park.

[Hazuki]

Archtree picks up the dropped gun in one hand, to make sure none of the apparently-bloodthirsty civilians get any smart ideas, then whips her sticky webbing at the fleeing maybe-Russian's legs. Even if she misses, she's likely to hit one of the violent madpeople surrounding them. She has to hope they have enough smarts not to kill these men, or she'll have to wrangle the lot of them.

[roll0]

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim considers the scene. It seems that these civilians have aims of justice in mind. Is it her place to stop them? After all, she is doing the very same thing... But on the other hand, they seem unrestrained, and armed with potentially lethal enemy. Best to try and calm down the situation, and then sort the wrongdoers from the innocents afterwards. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all.

But she won't stand a choice on her own. If she wants to save lives here, she has no choice but to unravel. Seraphim pauses, unwilling for a moment. Then will you delight in right sacrifices. Is it right to commit a sin to save lives? There is no time to consider the issue. Lives could be at stake.

Seraphim takes a deep breath, and dashes towards the taser-wielding man. As she does so, the flesh of her arms dissolves, melting into flowing liquid that churns and ripples. The rapidly unravelling skin is shot through with still-pulsing veins and taut, glistening tendons that stretch and wind, granting purchase and structure to the flailing globs of flesh. The twin writhing tentacles hungrily spiral through the air, wrapping around the taser-wielding man's neck and arm, holding him back. Seraphim prepares to leverage her bone structures and exert force over him.

[Ramsus]

The whipped webbing barely misses the intended target and the man right behind the thug also manages to leap out of the way, but the wagon behind him gets tripped by it and falls onto more of it on their side, not quite getting tangled up in it, but likely will have a hard time getting free.

The man with the taser, in his panic at the monstrous form suddenly grabbing him, manages to shock one of the tentacles grabbing at him. This causes Seraphim to briefly convulse and lose a lot of control over her form while she falls to her knees. This, for the moment, allows the man to escape her grasp while everyone else hurriedly backs away.

A teenage looking girl at the back shouts at the pair, "Hey! What are you doing!? We're on the same side!"

Apparently that call out in russian was heard, as Archtree sees a screen door quickly kicked open as someone starts to come out of one of the nearby apartments (the one the thug who called out was looking at when he shouted) and she and Seraphim both hear what sounds like a shotgun being pumped.

[Hazuki]

Lavender charges towards the shotgun guy.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta's arm dissolves back away into shifting, liquid flesh, tendons writhing uselessly against the air. Focus. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. She pulls it back into shape, coiling it into her sleeve. She can feel her muscles shiver beneath her skin. They want to unravel, to be free of the restrictions of solid form. She does not let them, barring them with her mind, forcing them to remain as they are.

They are backing away from her. They fear her. They should. Everyone should fear a form as monstrous as hers. She stands, facing the crowd. If their fear grows greater than their anger, they will be still.

[Ramsus]

The crowd does not react quite how Seraphim expects. While they certain do make an effort to get their distance from her almost all of them do this by going past or around her, still in pursuit of the thugs. At this point three of them are exchanging blows with the one who hadn't ran and the thug Archtree tried to trip is in the midst of blocking a swipe from a baton from the man who didn't get tripped who was chasing after him. The rest are moving closer either trying to get around one of the two thugs or perhaps going towards the one with the shotgun. They're still behind Archtree and aren't particularly organized, so it's hard to tell. The only one of the mob not doing so was the girl who shouted at the pair and this is because she has to go well around Seraphim to keep out of her reach.

Archtree for her part gets pretty close to the thug with the shotgun before he shoots her with it. She manages to dodge a bit out of the way, but the slugs still hit her in the side. If it weren't for her silk armored suit there's a good chance she would be missing a good bit of flesh and maybe a kidney. Even though the bullets don't penetrate, they still hit with enough force to knock her to the ground and inflict so much pain that she's struggling to breath.

After firing and seeing his shot connect, the man with the shotgun moves out of the doorway allowing for another thug (this one wielding a knife) to step out of the apartment. This does cause the shotgun wielding thug to delay pumping the shotgun to load the next slugs for a moment.

[Hazuki]

Lavender tries to stand up without getting shot or stabbed.

[Professor Gnoll]

Beneath the mask of Seraphim, Nicoleta's face is taut with concentration. She steps towards the man with the shotgun, and once again throws out a tendril of twisting flesh, twisting it around his arm. Once she's secured a hold, she filters the partially liquidated bone of her arm through the skin, extruding it out of the skin in tiny needlepoints- tiny little 'teeth', pricking into his skin. She tries to keep them short enough to prevent permanent damage, but if her control isn't so precise, she's not going to feel too much pity for him after he shot at Archtree.

If the pain of the toothgrapple is enough to make him let go of the shotgun, she'll attempt to pull it away from him and bring it back to her. Otherwise, she'll just squeeze hard enough to stop him from firing it again.

[Ramsus]

Seraphim, still being a good distance away, finds she has to run forwards as she outstretches her tendril so that she can reach past Archtree and over to the shotgun wielding thug. As the tendrils get close, the man fires upon them, spraying some of the thick liquid all over... which doesn't stop the tendril from grabbing onto him. Though the hold is a bit weaker, the thug doesn't seem any less upset about it.

Archtree struggles for a moment, but does manage to get herself on her feet. Fortunately for her the members of the mob who run over to confront the thugs ahead of her at least give her enough room that they don't risk running into her.

The thug that had been fighting with three people has been subdued and the one who ran is grappling on the ground while another member of the mob is standing over the two men waiting for an opportunity to strike with a metal pipe.

The rest are heading past Archtree to the thug with the knife and the thug with the shotgun... though as two more (unarmed) thugs come out of the apartment, the members of the mob who were moving in the shotgun wielding thug's direction change course for these new ones, not wanting to get in the middle of whatever Seraphim is doing.

[Hazuki]

"Stupid impulse," Archtree huffs, as she surveys the scene around her. "Bullets don't even make you fall down." She says, favoring her other side and then looking to the shotgun and knife guy that they've been left with. She switches the pistol she nabbed to her injured side, then runs towards the nearest tree - using her branches for stability and momentum, rather than her arms. At the last moment, she jumps and rebounds off of it to dropkick the knife-wielding guy.

[roll0]

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim's arm shudders with the impact of the pellets, melting and flowing. They're probably embedded in her, now. She'll have to try and get rid of them later.

Seraphim pulls her second flesh tendril forward, wrapping it around the barrel of the shotgun and attempting to wrench it away from the man while digging in the spines of her first into his hand. At the same time, she shifts the mass of her legs downwards, pulling flesh and bone down into her lower legs to form a more stable centre of gravity. The bones of her legs contort and twitch, eager to spiral further out of order. Keeping them steady, she pulls as hard as possible while remaining stable.

[Ramsus]

The thug with the shotgun somehow manages to load another shot and blow away the second incoming tendril before it reaches him. That one hurt a lot more as the whole limb was taken and it sure left a big mess. He grimaces at the pain of the spines, but they clearly aren't debilitating him. When Seraphim begins trying to pull him in, he digs his heels in and is only being pulled in by inches rather than feet, leaving him still fairly far away from Seraphim.

Archtree, her side hurting as she ran, successfully completes her maneuver up to the point where she flies through the air. The kickoff from the tree only being accomplished thanks to her more than human strength and agility and thus the action completing before her body could stop her. As such, as she flies through the air she nearly passes out from the pain and the maneuver goes from being a dropkick to a rather sloppy body tackle. On the one hand, she did knock the thug to the ground and is more or less pinning him under her. On the other hand, she's not sure she could stand up right now. On the other other hand the knife in his hand slides over right in front of one of the two other thugs and he has time to pick it up before the mob closes on him and the other one.

And the mob closing in on them is exactly what happens, though two people did have to throw themselves to the ground to avoid getting hit by a flying Archtree. The thug that now has the knife slashes a woman attacking him with a taser across the arm and the other one kicks a man's legs out from under him while shielding his head from blows from batons with his arms.

[Hazuki]

"You okay, buddy?" Archtree asks the thug she's pinned under her rather impressive bodyweight, shifting into a position that will at least let her use her branches effectively. Too hurt to move very far, but...well, it's his buddy's fault for bringing a shotgun. The woman getting a knife in her arm will need to get to the hospital, but as long as the other gun can be taken care of, she should be fine.

And Seraphim's struggling. So, Lavender decides to weave a glob of webbing in her hand and lob it at the eyes of the shotgun-wielding thug, using her other branches to steady herself.

[roll0]

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim closes her eyes. She can feel herself slipping away, feel her cells unravelling. No. She needs to reign them in. Needs to keep herself whole.
tatălnostrucareeștiîncerurisfințească-senumeletăuvieîmpărățiatafievoiataprecumîncerașași pepământ....
Control. Control. She tightens her grip on the arm, and tightens her grip on herself. She is whole, one body, one soul, constant and stable.
Enough of this. Enough. Everyone needs to stop. To hell with not causing permanent damage. Nicoleta funnels the remainder of the bone of her arm down the tendril, and punches sharp shards of bone into the man's arm, seeking to force him to let go.
slice his tendons carve his flesh make him stop
The side of her body wavers and ripples, her detached arm flailing helplessly.
let go let go let go LET GO

[Ramsus]

The thug underneath Archtree responds with something between a grunt and a growl and tries to buck her off. If she wasn't as strong as she is, he might have even succeeded. And he still might if she doesn't get a better grip on him on concentrate on him. As is, she manages to hit her target... though in a moment it fails to mean much as....

Seraphim cuts open the thug's arm, now blind he begins to scream in pain and terror as he drops the shotgun and does his best to curl into a ball and clutch his arm, trying in vain to stop the blood from gushing out. He's having some trouble with this as it's a lot of blood.

Four people in the mob are holding down one of the remaining thugs, they're having a bit of trouble since he looks to be fairly strong and knows how to fight while they... well they just seem like normal people aside from the weapons and the violence on display here. Each is holding onto one of the man's limbs as he thrashes about, trying to get just one free.

There are six people surrounding the thug with the knife, but every time someone gets close he slashes at them. A teenage boy is holding his right hand where he seems to have gotten nicked by the blade.

Two of the remaining four members of the mob are circling around Seraphim to try and help with the first thug. The other two are standing around looking as if they don't know where to go and one, the teenage girl that spoke to the pair before asks the older man next to her, "We're killing them now?" somewhat confused.

[Hazuki]

"No killing!" Archtree yells in response to the girl's question, as she jams her numbing venom into the pinned guy's biceps.

[roll0]

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim frowns. Her tendrils retract, soaked in the man's blood. Wait. No, that's not right. She isn't here to- Why did she do that? She looks up at the screaming man, and blinks several times. "That can probably be fixed," she murmurs.
She needs to reform herself, before she loses any more control. She drops the arm on the ground without even noticing, pulling in tendons and reattaching muscle to bone. She's almost completely forgotten about the chaos surrounding her. Her body is compl- no it's not. Huge chunks of flesh are missing from her arm, where the man fired his weapon at her. Strands of muscle reach out at the air, twitching and pulsing. You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' Arm for an arm.
She scans the ground for any pieces of her own body to reattach.

[Ramsus]

Seraphim finds globs and bits splattered all over the place, but manages to get back most of it. There are some little bits she'll probably never find and there's just too much stuff on the ground she wouldn't want to be inside of her later to gather up all the fluid she might be able to off the ground. For now the pain has subsided, but she's sure it'll be there when she goes back to her human form. Although where in her body it will be is anyone's guess.

Archtree has no problem keeping the man pinned and numbing him with her venom, but it's not really going to paralyze him instantly so she's probably stuck there holding him down for a bit longer unless she resorts to other methods.

While the pair has been tending to themselves, all but one of the thugs has been subdued. The one with the knife, who stabs a man in the side as the man came at him with a taser. The man quickly retreated and let himself fall to the ground, clutching the wound and the two that had been standing around not sure what to do rush over to try and help.

The web-blind screaming man is still.... doing pretty much the same as a growing pool of blood forms around him.

[Hazuki]

"Back away from him, and call an ambulance!" Archtree yells to the civilians who keep getting stabbed, as she grabs the shotgun lying on the ground and adjusts her position on the arm-numbed man so that she'll be able to stand and move in a few moments.

[roll0]

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim gives the slightest of sighs, realising she's probably lost a few chunks of her body she'll never get back. Inconvenient. She turns to the knife-wielding thug, and calmly walks towards him. One more time. He wishes to fight with a blade? Then let him pit his sorry excuse for a knife against a real sword.

Nicoleta, with supreme effort, pulls away the bones of her left arm, pulling the shards through her body and into her right arm. Her hand splits open, and from it pushes the long, ragged shard of bone, wrapped in writhing tendons and swirled about with her own blood. It briefly pulses in liquid form, then solidifies into shape- a blade of flesh and bone, complete with crossguard. The loose skin of her now-boneless left arm flaps uselessly within her robe.

She walks towards the knife-wielding man, brushing past any in her path. She raises the sword, and levels it at the thug, and speaks. Her voice is barely above a murmur. "If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword."

[Ramsus]

Everyone stops, thug included, and looks at the pair. But nobody moves aside from looking to each other briefly as if to confirm they're not moving and giving room for Seraphim to approach. The older man who was talking to the teenage girl does take out a cell phone and makes a call. The thug for his part looks at Seraphim and says, "Huh?" clearly confused by her words. He does not drop his knife. Of course he's still surrounded by people with weapons in hand too.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta strides forward, her pace unchanging, her blade a long shimmer of white and red. She keeps the sword levelled at the thug's throat, only stopping once she is within striking distance.
She stares at the thug, perfectly still, daring him to make the first move.

[Hazuki]

"If anybody knows first aid, get over here." Archtree tells the civilians that are still uninjured, as she starts weaving some webbing to help stop the excessive bleeding all over the park. If anybody comes, she'll give them some and tell them to help stop the bleeding on whoever's hurting worst. Even if they're a right rotter.

[Ramsus]

The people in the mob, hesitantly at first, do as Archtree instructs... kind of. Six of them remain around the remaining standing thug and the others very pointedly don't go anywhere near the thug that's now very quietly lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood.

The thug with the knife for his part keeps his knife up, but not pointed particularly in Seraphims direction and after a second seems to snap and shouts, "Look I give up! I'll join your crew or do whatever it is you maniacs are after! Christ! Just don't freaking kill me!" One of the women surrounding him looks like she's about to reply, but hesitates and looks over to Seraphim.

[Hazuki]

Archtree looks down at the thug beneath her and decides that he's probably not going to cause much of a fuss any more, especially not if she's only moving to top his buddy from bleeding. She sticks her two guns to the ground with webbing, then shuffles over to the bleeding-out man and attempts to use some to staunch his bleeding. She's not much of a medic herself, but she's taken a few bad bumps in the ring (Or around the ring, whether it's a steel ringpost or a chair) and seen how the medics clean up wounds. Well, medic. Jerry, who failed to get his doctorate, and is now a nurse for the local school.

[roll0]

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim nods and gestures for the thug to drop his weapon. She's not going to turn her back on an armed threat.

[Ramsus]

The thug looks pretty unsure about dropping the knife and looks around for a bit before finally coming to some kind of decision and tossing it at Seraphim's feet. The six members of the mob look like they're about to move then pause standing there just waiting to see what Seraphim is going to do. One of them is quite clearly looking at the knife.

Archtree gets her hands and arms (and probably her feet) absolutely covered in blood as she bandages the arm. The man's eyes seem unfocused and his breathing is very shallow. He sure isn't looking too good. It sure seems like a lot of blood on the ground now that she's right there standing in it.

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim nods. Her sword melts away, reforming itself back into recognisable limbs. The familiar itch of solid shape resumes as she returns to fully human form.
She reaches down and picks up the knife. Holding it cautiously by the blade, she offers it to the one who was staring at the knife, then points to the thug. "Do with him as you please."
If/once the knife is taken, she turns and walks towards Archtree. It seems that their duty is done, for now.

[Hazuki]

Archtree gets to her feet and reserves a comment on Seraphim's last words. She really, really doubts that trusting an enraged and frightened mob with a knife and an unarmed target is going to turn out well. But confronting her about it would only make the situation more chaotic, so she'll have to trust the people not to start stabbing and talk with Seraphim later. For the moment, she points at the heavily-bleeding man and meets Seraphim's eyes. She hopes that the "Fix this" implications work.

[Ramsus]

The mob crowds in around the thug and ignore his cries for help or to stop as they grab hold of him and the woman with the knife proceeds to slash him across the arm, the hand, and finally stab him in the side as one of the men says something to him that Seraphim doesn't overhear since she's walked away. The crowd parts and the man runs/hobbles off holding his side as his shirt grows more and more red.

About the time Seraphim gets over to Archtree, a car and a van pull up, the car honks it's horn once, and the mob rush over to get into them. Two of the men are a bit behind the others as they tried to get the guns out of the webbing before realizing they weren't going to any time soon. Another man kicked the thug Archtree had pinned down in the side as he rushes past.

Seraphim sees the same things about the thug's condition the Archtree did.

More info with a roll of course.

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim quickly assesses the wound. She sees little reason to treat a wound that she herself caused, but Archtree seems adamant about it.
[roll0]
Seraphim frowns. She's having trouble with her assessment. It's difficult to focus under these conditions. At any rate, it might be better to depart, shed her costume and return as Nicoleta.

[Ramsus]

It's actually pretty easy for Seraphim to tell this man is on the verge of bleeding to death and needs to go to a hospital immediately. What she's mostly unsure about is if it's in fact already too late.

[Hazuki]

Seeing that people are running away from the scene of the crime (On both parts), Archtree pulls out her phone and starts recording as many faces, and license plates, as she can. She clambers up a tree to make sure nobody tries to stop her.

[Ramsus]

Nobody makes any move to stop her (it doesn't seem like anyone even notices or so much as looks her way until in the cars), but she's mostly getting the backs of people's heads from this angle. As the cars drive away she does manage to get decent shots of the license plates..... which turn out to be taped over in duct tape.

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim sighs slightly and calls out to Archtree. "I can't help him. Call an ambulance."
That is only partly true. She might, with considerable effort, be able to stabilise him. She does have a first-aid kit with her, after all. But he hardly seems worth the effort. Let the professionals handle him, and if he is deemed worthy of survival, let him live.

[Hazuki]

Archtree dials for an ambulance, as well as the police, to whom she sends the video, along with an accurate summary of what happened, starting from the mob approaching up until her and Seraphim's decision to leave.

"Let's go." Archtree agrees, then takes to stealthing back to base.

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim nods, and follows her.

[Ramsus]

At the current time and distance, the pair might be cutting it close to making it to classes on time. They can go back the way they came, stop by the base, and go to class but there's a definite chance of being late. The other option would be to take a ferry, but this would mean they'd have to go out of the way to get to Midtown and their base instead of just going straight to the college.

Also, it would be good to know when/if they change out of their costumes.

Also, Lavender's side really hurts. Not so much she can't walk or anything, but even walking hurts. So does not moving though. So yeah, it hurts. A good deal.

[Ramsus]

By the time the pair get back to the base, going the long way around, they're pretty sure they're going to be late or entirely miss their first class of the day. Nobody else is there at the moment, which is reasonable since they'd be in class, asleep, or otherwise preoccupied.

[Professor Gnoll]

Seraphim heads into the base, quickly shedding her robe and mask. Nicoleta neatly folds it and places it somwhere it won't get too dirty, putting her mask on top of it. "We had best get to class as soon as possible. But I think I should have a look at you first. Were you injured? I thought I saw you take a shot to your side." Her face is filled with obvious concern, and she produces her first-aid kit from her bag. "Here, why don't you show me? I'll see what I can do."

[Hazuki]

When Archtree gets back to base, she pulls off her mask first and starts stuffing most of her costume into the handy gym bag she keeps for all occasions. When Nicoleta addresses Lavender, she's in her sports bra and a pair of pants, which makes the wound on her side that much clearer. There are small cracks across her skin, revealing its bark-like nature, from where she was shot.

"Yeah, go ahead." Lavender replies, perching herself on the table that the donuts were left on so that Nicoleta can take a look at the wound. "Why did you give them the knife?" She asks, with an almost pleading tone.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta leans over, examining the area of the wound. She's never seen this sort of bark-like cracking before, but of course it's simply an effect of Lavender's aberrations. To survive a shotgun blast to the side, and be up and walking with barely a complaint is truly impressive.
After Lavender's question, she is silent for a few moments. "They were carrying out justice. It was not our place to deny them that." In truth, she can hardly remember why. It seemed like the right choice at the time. Was he not a perpetrator?

[Hazuki]

Lavender goes quiet for a few moments, considering Nicoleta's words, then shakes her head. "They were afraid, and angry, and they weren't making good choices. If we hadn't been there, at least two more would be dead." She doesn't think she needs to point out the wound that Nicoleta's examining as proof. "I don't know that we should encourage people like that...""

[Ramsus]

What blood Nicoleta finds isn't Lavender's and the cracks are all over the left side of her torso and her stomach and there's deep purple bruising underneath the part where the bullets hit. To find out more involves Nicoleta poking and prodding Lavender a bit, which hurts, but reveals that there isn't any serious internal damage. But the damage is enough that it would be best if she just rested in bed for a day or two. Barring that she should avoid any strenuous activity.... like leaping around rooftops, jumping off trees, and fighting. She also notes that the barky toughness probably isn't nearly tough enough to stop the bullets from penetrating and a good deal of that had to be from the silk suit Archtree wears.

As for herself, Nicoleta slowly feels a dull pain in her neck (both outside and inside and so she has a sore throat) and her chest. Nothing that won't feel better in a few days.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta finishes her examination, sighing slightly at the damage. "Are we any different to them? They deserved the chance to do what they thought was right." Heading to the fridge, she produces an ice-pack, placing it against the bruising. "The blood isn't yours, which is good, obviously. It's only bruising- impressive, considering what caused the damage. But you should keep this ice on it for as long as possible, and try to avoid too much physical activity. I'd personally prefer to see you stay in bed for a few days, but I doubt you will, so just try not to get into any more fights." But somehow, Nicoleta doubts that she'll even be able to follow those less-than-taxing guidelines. "Besides. He wasn't an innocent, and they weren't planning on killing him. I'm surprised you mind this much. You've already injured more of his kind." Nicoleta wishes things could just be more simple.

[Hazuki]

"I think we are different..." Lavender replies, wincing slightly as the ice is pushed against her wounds. "Besides, what if one of those mobs comes to us one day? People have more than enough reasons to be scared of us already, and if we're not careful..." She takes in a deep breath as the cold washes over her muscular form. "Don't know what I'll do with myself, if I can't work out or anything, but alright." She smiles.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta doesn't reply to the part about the civilians. All she can think is that if those mobs come for them, they'll probably deserve it. Better not to say that. "Hmm. Perhaps you could read a book?" She smiles slightly. "Lord knows you could stand to. Besides, you've done enough exercise for several lifetimes at this point. You have an... impressive physique already." Suddenly conscious of the fact that she's had her hands resting on Lavender's torso longer than is socially or medically appropriate, Nicoleta stands, and changes the topic. "By the way, I wanted to compliment you on your aerial manoeuvres. That flying... attack... was truly impressive." She clears her throat slightly. "Though you should be careful. If you had fallen, you might have broken your neck. I can't fix that."

[Hazuki]

Lavender notices Nicoleta's awkward departure, but doesn't really know what it's all about. So she weaves a bit of webbing behind her back and attaches the icepack to her torso with it. She beams at the words that follow. "That's sweet of you! But I have learned how to do those properly. The only difference between out there and in the ring is how far I have to go, and that's not a problem when you're mighty." She flexes her arm, because that won't hurt her abs, and winks. "But hey! If you liked it, you should come to one of Wyrmfist Wrestling's shows! There are all kinds of high-flyers there that put me to shame."

[Sønderjye]

At the Circlereed Bay College, 9:24

A pair of blue-green eyes surrounded by black-framed glasses is reflected in the window as Mads takes a moment to look out the window. 'I wonder how the others are doing' his thoughts going to the patrolling that Nicoleta and Lavender had taken upon themselves to do this morning. His eyes gazed back to the blackboard and he noticed that Professor Hook still was busy explaining the content of page 159 in their textbook, which Mads already had read.
The document on the notebook contains a brainstorm for further experiments he needs to conduct further. Yesterday he discovered that he could move his portals and that opened a whole host of new possibilities. The notebook also had a few tabs open where Mads had tried to search for if anyone had seen Archtree and Seraphim in action this morning.
Is there anything on the web about what happened in the IC?

[Ramsus]

No news on that at the moment. But it was somewhat recent.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta smiles. "Yes. Yes, I think I would enjoy that very much." Moving tback to her bag, she begins to pack for her classes. "You will have to tell me about the next- tournament?" Her brow furrows slightly as she searches for the word. "I do not know the word. Lupte libere întrecerile. Ah, competition." She nods, happy with that choice. "Yes, please tell me about the next competition. Especially if you will be in it."

[Ramsus]

Afterwards Nicoleta heads off to class, not missing more than just the one. Lavender.... either sleeps or watches TV or both in one order or the other. Either way she's awake when Liz and Mads arrive after their last classes at 2pm end.

As with the game start, whichever of the two who posts first is the first one to arrive. Or you're both free to say you'd rather have done something else for about two hours so that the whole group arrives around the same time. But if either of you wants to establish doing stuff for two hours at the base or wanted a scene with Lavender (or with each other), go ahead.

[Sønderjye]

Mads had come early. The advantage of this place was that he knew that he wouldn't be disturbed and he had wanted to test this all day long.
He creates a pair of portals close to the ground , roughly his shoulderwidth apart, both half a foot in size. He then steps up on the portals one foot on each and orders the portal to fly 3 feet straight ahead. He'll play around with the idea for a while.
Mads got the idea that he might be able to fly by stepping on on his portals. Admitedly at a slow walking speed but still.

[Hazuki]

Lavender gets on phone and dials everyone for a group call, to invite them to the base, or the living room, so they can talk about what happened, or just relax after a day of schoolwork-slash-getting shot at.

[Sønderjye]

Mads arrived early to the base. The advantage of this place was that he knew that he wouldn't be disturbed and he had wanted to test this all day long.
He tries a few things with various success before adressing Lavender and suggesting that they play around with ideas as for how to combine their powers while they wait for the others to appear.

[NeoNinevite]

At around 4, Jack catches the bus back to the base. On the way, he rewrites his notes while they're still fresh in his memory. He gets that done fairly quickly, and spends the rest of the journey drawing up ideas for new equipment; a redesigned utility belt, a new throwing weapon that could be crafted from ice, even a new costume design. But in the end, he scraps all of them as unfeasible.

By the time he gets off the bus, he's itching to start shooting something, and picks up the reserve bow that he keeps at the base (he keeps his competition bow at his normal accommodation). He finds a spot where he can converse with the others, while also taking practice shots on the makeshift archery range.

"So, how did the information gathering go? Have we figured out what's going on with the gang troubles?"

[Hazuki]

"It went a little something like...that!" Lavender answered, as she pointed at the currently-playing movie in their living room. In Carmageddon: No Spoilers, a monster-truck was being flattened by a monster-tank to the distress of the beef-chested protagonist and his strap-clad beau. "A mob of people showed up, they confronted the gangsters, then the gangster pulled a gun...and then things got worse. I got a slug in the belly, one of the gangsters bled half to death, and the mob tried to kill a few of them before making their getaway." She shakes her head. "Nicoleta's given me orders of bedrest, and we managed to stop anybody but me and Nicoleta from getting shot. So, not the worst day! But not the best, either."

[Sønderjye]

Mads has just created a round portal (A1) about 2 feet in diameter over a small stone block as Jack enters. "Hello Jack" he says looking up, before he lowers portal A1 down over the wooden block such that the block comes out of the corresponding portal B1. "Could you lend a hand?" he asks as he lowers portal B1 to a level where he can step up on the block. He intends to move portal B1 around the room, essentially flying at a slow walking speed.


He listens carefully to Lavender's, his eyes widen as he hears that his partners had killed a man. He digest the information and with a calm voice asks "So how did you know that they were gangsters?"

[Hazuki]

"We don't know for sure." Lavender shrugs. "But if you're pointing guns at people's hearts and going around shooting people with a shotgun, you're not a good guy. We tried to calm the mob down, too, but there were too many of them. Best we could do was call an ambulance and send what we could to the police."

[NineOfSpades]

Liz trod up the stairs with a lumbering gait, her back aching under the weight of the many textbooks that she had to carry along with her. "Stupid publishing monopoly" She grumbled as she entered the room, not really speaking to anyone. "Making me spend all that money for books we are barely going to use this semester.". Dropping her bookbag down, it landed with a booming thud as she collapsed into a chair, groaning. She sat there a good fifteen seconds before suddenly jumping up, her brain registering the bits of coversation that she'd heard as she made her enterance. "YOU GOT SHOT!?!" she exclaimed, half-leaping, half tripping over her chair as she rushed over to Lavender "ohmygosh, ohmygosh...we should get you to the hospital! Wait, no, can't do that. A back ally doctor?! We'll bribe them for their silence! Except we're broke. Shoot." another few seconds of lag, a brain tired from a long day of classes and not yet back up to full speed tried to put the pieces together "Wait...remind me...scale of one to ten, how bullet proof are you?"

[Hazuki]

Lavender prepares to roll off of the couch as soon as she sees Liz hurtling towards her, before remembering two things - she got shot, and Liz is soft as a creampuff. "Seven out of ten?" She guesses, shifting into a less-lounging position so the girl can get a better look at the cracks in her bark-like skin. "Nicoleta says it's going to heal in a weak or so, and until then, it's lying around and TV for me." She shakes her head. "Cruel world, isn't it?" She grins.

[Thematthew]

Jenny comes rolling into the base wearing her civilian gear, "Not these action movies again... Don't you ever get tired of them?"
Then, after having come into view of Lavender she adds, "Oh, I guess I should let you enjoy it, given your condition..."

She then sits down in a chair, "What's the plan then?"

[Hazuki]

Lavender gives a thumbs-up to Jenny after being allowed to keep her Oscar-worthy films playing.

"Keep up our normal patrols, and try to restrict information gathering to places where we won't get shot." Lavender suggests. "If anything goes horribly horribly wrong, at least we'll only have me out for the week, right?"

[Sønderjye]

Mads is still in shock that his comrades had killed someone. He tries to give Lavender the benefit of doubt that he is having troubles accepting it. "Would you mind telling the entire story?" he asks voice still unusually neutral.

[Hazuki]

Lavender explains the whole story, including the bit about how they never implied they killed anybody.

[Sønderjye]

"So some guys were sitting in a part, have some secret going on, politely gives you directions to a gas station where you could get help if you needed it, some other group walks up to them and calls them a criminal, both groups have weapons, after one of the unarmed "bad guys" are being attacked by a taser and a metal pipe he calls for help, someone comes out with a shotgun, thinks that you guys are the ones attacking his friend, shoots you and then Nicoleta butcher him?" Mads repeats, a creeping cold sneaking into his voice as he making sure that he didn't misunderstand anything.

I just wanted to take a moment to say that even if Mads currently is very angry as Lavender, that does not reflect my view. I have no problem with you Hazuki or your character. Just enjoying playing mine.

[Hazuki]

"We don't know what any of them were thinking at the time." Lavender shrugs. "But that's the jist of it."

[Sønderjye]

"I wonder what happened to him" Mads mumbles, as he concerned flies over to his laptop and tries to figure out if he can find any news on the guy that was wounded. He also is unable to ressist the temptation of checking if there have been any news on what the duo did earlier that day.

[Hazuki]

Lavender watches Mads cross the room to google on his laptop and settles back onto the couch.

[Ramsus]

Mads finds a small article on the website of a local newspaper. It mentions that the police got a call from someone claiming to be Archtree of the Circlereed Saints describing the incident that happened in the Docks that supposedly involved a mob of people and members of a local gang, the Six's, which resulted in the death of one man, who died of blood loss, and two others in critical condition, one from a serious knife wound and the other from serious internal bleeding likely caused by repeated blows, and likely involved more than the two men the police found at the scene and the one who was dropped off at the nearest hospital. The article wonders if this is the beginnings of a full blown gang war that seemed likely given the increase in gang activity of late. The author notes that they will update the article with more information as they get it. The police have not yet released the names of the three men. There is an update from about fifteen minutes ago that the man who was in critical condition from the knife wound has also died.

[Sønderjye]

Mads eyes darts down the article and finishes it in less than a second. He completely forgets how extraordinarily wonderful this new ability of his is as his mind is in a place of death and anger. He sits there, with hi laptop on his laps and a flowing stepping block by his side, just starting at the screen.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta steps into the room, smiling lightly. "Hello, everyone. I hope we are all well?" She turns to Lavender. "I hope you are feeling better." She puts down her bookbag, filled with her medical textbooks.

[Sønderjye]

The air shimmers in front of Nicoleta and a distance smell of old dusty tomes hits her, as Mads, not trusting his voice, conjures a portal in front of his computer and it's correspondent portal in front of Nicoleta, allowing her to read the article on his laptop.

[Hazuki]

"I'm feeling great!" Lavender smiles when Nicoleta enters, then blinks when Mads suddenly summons a portal."I can't use my powers for a few days and you're showing off. So not cool." She comments good-humoredly from her position on the couch.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta considers the article for a moment. "Is there a reason you are showing me this?" Her eyes flicker over the text, quickly absorbing the information. Her face is still.

Then she looks up at Mads, and smiles. "So they were members of a gang. I was worried we might have attacked the wrong people."

[Sønderjye]

Mads pays no attention to Lavender's funny comment as he is doing his best to control his anger. However Nicoleta's uncaring attitute shatters his self-control: "You were worried that you have killed the wrong people? Do you intent on killing everyone who you on your whimp consider a bad person?", he asks in a cold voice that is slightly distorted from appearing from both the portal in front of Nicoleta, from the other portal and from Mads himself. He meets her eyes, he isn't smiling.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta meets his gaze coolly. Her smile disappears, but she remain composed. "You can blame me for the actions of the vigilante group, if you like. They wielded the knife, not me. As for the other one, I did exactly what was needed. Do I need to remind you that he shot Lavender? Would you have me stand idly by while he executed those we came here to protect?" She is silent for a moment. "I did not go there with the intention to kill. But I will not apologise for the death of a man such as that. He brought it on himself, and I acted only as necessary. De nevoie n-ai ce face." She does not flinch from his anger.

[NineOfSpades]

Hearing Lavender complain about being bedridden gave Liz an idea. Was it a good idea? Well, perhaps instead of the word 'good', the word 'experimental' would be more appropriate. Taking out her sketchbook and a pencile, Liz went to work. "Admittedly, never tried anything like this before" She commented as her sketch began to take shape. "But I'm going to try to make something to speed up your healing process, get you back on your feet. Fingers crossed"

[Hazuki]

"Are you going to kiss it better?" Lavender playfully asks her sketch-happy comrade.

[Sønderjye]

A small voice in the back of Mads head tells him that anger and harsh words won't move the religious fanatic and only force her further into defence. Mads anger however is too strong for that voice to gain ground: "Don't say stubid things like that. Of course I wouldn't want you to just stand and watch. But did you have to butcher his arm? Why didn't you just knock him out? Why in earth didn't you just his him with a blunt weapon? Even strangling him would have been better, the brain can handle 5 minutes without new oxygen and people pass out in less than 1 minute."

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta's voice remains calm, but the flesh around her face seems to be shifting slightly. "Don't lecture me on the function of the human body. I know it better than you ever could." She is silent for a second. "I don't think there's any point continuing this debate if you can't stay civil. I already have someone to guide my morality. I don't need you judging the ways that I protect people." She turns to Liz. "If you're making something to heal her, might I offer my assistance?

[Sønderjye]

"So you are an expert in biology? That makes it even worse!" Mads voice have risen a notch, both in volume and in pitch. "You deliberally sliced open a man's arm and fully aware left him lying in the dirt to bleed to death! And you don't see any point in talking about how you slaughtered a man in a way that we wouldn't even do to an animal!"

[NineOfSpades]

Liz, at this point, had stopped drawing completely, and was watching in rapt silence as Mads and Nicoleta argued, still holding her hand to the paper despite the fact the pencil had falled from her grip moments after her attention started to laps. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but as things escalated, it sort of became impossible not to. Having missed the first half of the argument, she lost out on some of the context, but the bullet points were there. Namely, not all of the thugs who attacked while Nic and Lavi were on patrol had made it, a fact which Mads was pretty upset over, while Nicoleta insisted that her actions were unfortunate, but justified.

Liz really didn't know how to react In her mind, Hero's didn't kill people, ever. That was sacrosanct. But then, ideals were a lot easier to hold as absolutes when you didn't have to deal with the nitty gritty of real life. The fight, from the sounds of things, had been chaotic. Heck, Lavender took a gunshot to the chest. So...didn't that mean it was forgivable that Nic had left before making sure everyone injured was at least stable? It'd be a lot easier if Liz could just accept that, but it sat in her gut like a brick of lead, making her feel sick. Dress it up in excuses if you wanted to, didn't change the fact that some poor family was going to be getting the news that they'd just lost one of their loved ones. Thug or not, that was an awful thing to have to deal with. Even though she'd been in the middle of class, miles away at the time, she still felt the responsibility weighing down on her. Add that to the list of things that couldn't be rationalized away. And there was Nic, staring at her....wait

How long had Nic been standing there? Liz had totally zoned out. Could have been for a half a second, or for ten minutes. No idea. And she was just sitting there, mouth slightly agape, looking up at Nic with big, very confused eyes. She really wanted to say something, but her tongue felt like it was eight sizes to big for her mouth and trying to talk just made her feel like she was starting to choke. She had to look away, to try and ignore it all. This was to big, to much for her to process, and like a 5 year old hiding under a blanket, she hoped it would all just go away.

"Um...I-uh..." Liz mumbled, finding her vocabulary reduced to monosyllables "...I got it..." She managed to eek out, looking down at her drawing and trying to continue working, focusing her energy on something positive as best she could and blotting out the rest.

[Hazuki]

The unattended Lavender continues watching Carmageddon 2.

[Thematthew]

Jenny looks around between the obviously terrified Liz, the nonchalantly dangerous Nicoleta, and the enraged Mads before finally settling on the zoned out Lavender. "Are you okay and just ignoring the argument going on here, or do we need to take a moment to calm down and give you some medical treatment?" Then she stops to think for a moment and looks back at Nicoleta, "maybe you should back off a little bit, I think you're scaring Liz. What with the 'killed a guy and then later confirmed he was a bad guy' thing, I can understand her being so."

[Hazuki]

"I'm good." Lavender looks over at Jenny and smiles. "Wouldn't say no to another check-up from my friendly neighborhood medical student, though. Can't be too careful when a bullet's involved!"

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta smiles. "Of course. I think that we should all calm down a little. I'm sorry if I aggravated you, Mads. Perhaps we could try this discussion another time, when we're all feeling a little more relaxed?" She glances over at Lavender. "Liz said that she can handle it. And I trust her. Make sure not to poke around too roughly. It wouldn't do to make it any worse." Nicoleta picks up her bag and walks off to her makeshift room. "I think I shall pray, now. Have fun watching your movie."

[Sønderjye]

Mads eyes darted from Nicoleta to Liz and instantly felt a sharp sting of guilt which managed to wash away some of his anger. He nods in acknowledgement to Nicelota.

He is mindful enough to tip over the portal with the stepping block to let if fall out, ensuring that it is all the way out before closing the portal. He dismisses the last portal before retreating to the room above through another portal, knowing the exact measurements of the rooms in the building from previous measurements.

Mads took a deep breath and concentrated. He had a firm belief that anger only was energy and what he needed to do was to get that energy out of his system. His allowed his thoughts to briefly thinking on the two dead people and felt his anger flare up again as he drew on his power and created a pair of round portals, about 2 feet in diameter. And another. And another. He'll continue increasing the number of portals until he is unable to keep more active big portals and then hold it as long as he can. When he feels his power and concentration slipping he'll remind himself of why he was angry and try to picture the two dead people. Why did people have to die?!

[NineOfSpades]

Feeling a little twinge of indignation at having been used as a prop to bring the argument to an end, Liz still tried to push the matter out of her mind for now. The larger moral questions about the day's events still were unanswered, but it looked like the back-and-forth between her teammates had at least been settled for the time being. It wasn't satisfying, but Liz wasn't exactly feeling like anything she could say would change that.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say I can 'handle it', if I'm being honest" Liz said, the mechanical pencil in hand tracing out some of the last few detailing lines on her sketch. "I've done plenty of drawings for combat or to help with chores, but medical treatment is untested territory." Reaching back into her satchel, she withdrew a drafting pencil that she preferred to use for shading. The level of detail probably was excessive, but she was stalling completion to try and make sure that her creation had the best chance of working.

The sketch itself was coming together nicely. Liz had gone with a stylized depiction of a trio of tiny pixie dressed like nurses from the 1950s. The first had long goldenrod hair that stretched nearly down to her knees, and carried a syringe large enough that the fairy was struggling a little to hold it. The second had slightly more oriental features, her hair tied back into a Chinese bun, and carried a thermometer. The last fairy had a tangle of red-hair that hung in curls. At her waist hung a scalpel, carried like a sheathed sword. The three pixies were depicted fluttering through the air, carried on their dragonfly like wings, which were the target of Liz's current efforts as she fine-tuned the shading, trying to ensure the image conveyed the right level of transparency.

It took another few minutes before Liz was satisfied that her work was complete. Setting down her tools, Liz held up the sketchbook, pointing the drawing towards Lavender. "Alright then...fingers crossed" With that less-than-totally-confident exclimation, Liz concentrated. The page glowed softly as her power went to work. "Here they come"

[Ramsus]

The three pixies peel off the paper, appearing more or less how Lis expected them to look in three dimensions. Their wings seem to go from opaque to entirely invisible as they flap, giving the typical appearance of transparency. The syringe seems to be empty at first glance, but on closer inspection seems to have very tiny bits of something like glitter floating around inside.

The trio are only still for a moment before they start fluttering around the room and chattering to each other in some very high pitched and completely incomprehensible language. The one with the scalpel occasionally stops midair to make warrior poses. The one with the thermometer slides the scale on the thermometer up and down, changing the temperature in the room rapidly between a winter chill and a summer heatwave.

[Hazuki]

"I hope that's an oral thermometer." Lavender quips, as she watches the pixies flit to and fro.

[Ramsus]

The pixie with the thermometer stops and stares as Lavender..... apparently scandalized? Clutching the thermometer to her chest protectively. The other two find this hysterical and their chittering laughs send them tumbling through the air.

[NineOfSpades]

Well, her drawing hadn’t tried to kill anyone, so that’s already a big plus. Not that Liz was super worried about that particular possibility. Maybe only a little bit worried. Mildly anxious at most. Though she’d certainly gotten better at it, and forgiving the pun, her power really was more of an art than a science, and she never really had 100% certainty what would come of it. Not to say that things had gone entirely according to plan either, given that one of the fairies was producing massive temperature swings in the room. Liz figured she had better put a stop to that before everyone ended up with a bad case of freezer burn.

Waving to get the faries attention, Liz spoke to them, trying to sound authoratitive. “Alright girls, settle down please. We’ve got a patient that needs treating.” She pointed to Lavender. “She’s a friend of mine, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d help fix her wound.” Looking back to the pixies, Liz smiled. "So, whaddya say? Mind helping out?"

[Ramsus]

The pixies stop and face Liz. They look a bit puzzled for a moment before each of them holds up their tool, seeming to each asking if she wants them in particular to do the task.

[NineOfSpades]

For her part, Liz was just as puzzled, since she thought she’d been pretty clear. But she resolved to try explaining what she was asking for a second time. “If there is anything the three of you can do to help heal Lavender’s gunshot wound, please do so, even if you can’t fix it entirely”

[Ramsus]

The three pixies look at Liz then at each other and start chattering for a bit. The one with the scalpel then goes about examining Lavender, pretty much undoing any work Nicoleta had done bandaging her up in the process. They find the cracked and bruised skin, but no wound. There is some more chattering and confused seeming body language. The one with the thermometer points it at Lavender and tries to find what temperature Lavender finds the most comfortable based on her reactions (which probably winds up with something mildly uncomfortable when the pixie decides Lavender "likes" something based on her just not being visibly upset about it). The one with the syringe chatters to the others and eventually shrugs and jabs Lavender with the needle around where she got shot. This hurts quite a bit as the pixie has to make an effort to punch through Lavender's toughened exterior and she's jabbing it right in the bruised area.

Lavender feels not a liquid, but some kind of gas flow into her from the syringe. Moments later she feels very good. Not better, her wounds still hurt. But that hurt belongs to the small tree wearing her costume that she recognizes as the other Lavender that's growing up around the TV. The movie seems way more amazing. It may be the best movie she's ever seen. The explosions are so colorful and clearly well directed and their shapes are just the best. The room seems to be filled with shimmers of rainbow and the others all look pretty odd. Nicoleta appears to be in her Seraphim form with blood dripping down from her hands and the corners of her mouth(s). Mads' face is apparently a book locked up in chains. Liz looks like her clothes are just painted on. Jack.... isn't in the room apparently. Jennifer is very sparkly and has cartoonish wavy lines that flow off of her as she moves. The floor of the room is covered in green grass and the room is filled with sunlight. The walls and ceiling have rings of mushrooms on them here and there.

Nobody else sees any of this. They just see a now unbandaged Lavender, eyes dilated, looking around the room with amazement with a bit of drool dripping out of the corner of her mouth. She looks like maybe she's trying to move and has forgotten how her limbs work. Her tree limbs seem to each be trying to perform some different task or maybe are just flailing randomly in the air.

The pixies look at Lavender and look to Liz and await a verdict. Will it be praise or punishment? Their eyes seem to tell you the answer is the most important thing in their lives.

[Hazuki]

Lavender watches with a slight smirk as the pixies go about removing her bandaging, and at their apparent confusion about where she'd got shot. The rapidly-shifting heat makes her just a little more uncomfortable, but she pushes through it - uncomfortable positions are the name of the game. And cold showers sometimes a necessity, considering some of the wrestlers she's worked with...

The jab into her bruised skin makes her laugh and clench one fist at her side, trying to push past the pain. Some people use numbers to distract themselves, but she's learned to remember her favorite visuals instead. Stills from films like The Disco Ronin, Octorricane 3, and Invasion of the Panzer Prostitutes from Bajora 9. And then her vision has shifted to everyone else in the room, her pain has slipped away, and she lets out a brief hum.

"Ohhhh... She groans, trying to shake some hair out of her eyes. She stares hard at Liz for a few moments, then mimics holding a large pair of breasts."Wh...?"

[Sønderjye]

After making two portal as big as he can possibly do and holding them until he felt his anger slip away, Mads colapses on the dusty wooden floor. He breathes heavily for a few moments while thinking about the previous situation. He is disappointed that he had allowed his emotions to cloud his judgement, obviously anger wouldn't work on people who were trying their damptest to convince themselves that they never were wrong and even more so if their logic was flawed by some variant of Divine Command.

His mind works quickly and after deciding on a strategy he first he makes a eye-sized portal(A) in front of him and a similar one(B) near the ceiling in the room below, allowing him to see and hear what happened downstairs. Picking a clear spot he makes a new pair of portals.

"Liz.." Mads voice sounds yet again calm but when his face appears through the portal he has a worried look, "I don't have a good understanding of your power, but what happens when you dissmiss your creations? Does any of it stay behind or does, say slime from a snail disappear with the snail?"

As he fully emerges his eyes dart from Liz to Lavender's outstretched hands. They rest there for a moment but unsure what to react, they trace up to Lavenders face and then back to Liz.

[NineOfSpades]

Liz watched her little minions go to work. If one were to chart her reaction to the following events, it would probably go something like this. Anxiously optimistic, mild concern, wincing, back up to optimistic, looming dread, confirmed suspicions, frantic concern. Frantic concern was a strong contender, looking like it was going to hold on to the title of ‘emotion currently overwhelming Liz’ for a good long reign, but like an underdog after a cheesy training montage, embarrassment came out of nowhere and rose to the top of the ranks, Liz turning red as a tomato as Lavender made groping motions towards her. Liz covered her chest, forgetting she was wearing a baggie hoody that already covered everything.

And there were the pixies, looking on like children awaiting word on whether their coloring was good enough to hang on the fridge. Except in this case said coloring book was a 6 foot +, nearly 200 lb super strong crime fighter, and the fridge was filled with peyote on its way to Burning Man. The metaphor was a bit blundered, admittedly.

“Oh, Um…G-Good job, I..uh” Liz said, trying to force a smile through her ongoing freak-out. The praise was unwarranted, but she had two very good reasons for trying to be a supportive…parent?... The first being that it really wasn’t the pixies fault, they were just trying to do as Liz created them to. The second was that she really didn’t want to see what would happen if the fairies decided to rebel. "You..er... all did wonderfully" she said, smiling again. Thats right, Liz...lie. LIE TO YOUR CHILDREN!

Figuring it was probably a safer move, Liz was about to dismiss the trio, but hesitated, remembering what Mads had asked. "That's a really great question to which I have no idea what the answer is" The drug, whatever it was, had been a byproduct of her power. It was now floating around inside Lavender’s body, doing who knows what. Would dismissing the pixies cause the drug to disappear to? What sort of effect would that have on Lavender? Liz already suspected these were not the sorts of questions which a quick Google search could answer.

“So, I’m just going to bandage Lavender back up now…since you three did such a good job, wouldn’t want to leave her wound open or anything.”

Liz didn’t move.

“Yup, any second now...going to just stroll right over there and help my good friend Lavender…”

The absence of movement from Liz continued.

“Now that the mental preparation phase is finished, the Helping-Bandage-Lavender Phase can begin”

The lack of movement finally gave way as Liz moved over to Lavender, cautiously, to try and make sure her friend wasn’t about to, you know…overdoes and die or anything. Oh, and avoid things getting to touchy-feely-molesty in the process.

[Hazuki]

Lavender blinks a few times as she watches Liz's reaction to her mimicking. Then she looks at her hands, realizes that they were the wrong way around for mimicking a large bust, and lets them flop back to her sides instead. They feel more like they're floating with anything, but that's somewhere normal. But why wasn't she wearing any clothes? It might be hot, but was she hot? She, herself, not Liz.

She decides to avert her gaze to one of the other things in the room. Mads is a book in a circle, and she lets out a long sigh. "Powers...just talk..." She mumbles in the general direction of his portal, then shifts when Liz moves to do up her bandages. "Clothes?" She asks, pointedly avoiding looking at Liz's chest. Her eyes instead rest on the blood-splattered Nicoleta. Did she eat the pixies too?

[Sønderjye]

Mads had a brief moment of fear on his face hearing Liz uncertainty. His mind races through various options but there were too many unknowns.

"Can you have two creations going at the same time and dismiss them one at a time?" He asks Liz, his voice quick, then adds. "Also how long can you keep the faries up and is there anything we can do to extend that time?"

He then turns to the drugged Lavender, hessitates a little but decides to ask her anyway "Lavender" he says waving his hand in front of her face making sure that he had the drugged patient's attention. "Can you regenerate? Do you have super-regeneration?"

[Ramsus]

The pixies give a little "hurrah!" at the praise. In english. Then they go about back to flittering around the room doing nonsensical things. Lavender sees the pixies' actions as collecting drops from the rainbows or dusting off the sunlight or adjusting the mushroom circles and using the rainbow drops to add some more green to the grass.

[Hazuki]

Lavender stares at the book trying to get her attention and grabs a nearby pillow in an attempt to smother the annoying thing. Without actually leaving her lounging position.

[NineOfSpades]

"Y-Yeah, I can probably...No, I can definatly do that" Liz said, answering the first question while keeping an eye on Lavender, dodging the pillow as she tried to reapply the bandages before her friend opened up her injuries. "They usually just stay around till I dismiss them, or till I fall asleep. I've never made one that lasted long enough to fade away on its own before, so I don't know for sure." Liz could sense that Mads had something in mind, but wasn't sure what it could be.

[Sønderjye]

Mads stumbles a few step back after being hit by a pillow and briefly he looks hurt but then his face calms as he reminds himself that Lavender is drugged.

"Great!" His tension visibly lessens after hearing Liz's answers. "Can you make something that can create water? Like having a lot of spit, can produce water from it's hands or something? Preferably not with a too high preassure. It should be able to fill a waterbottle" he responds as he decisively creates a pair of portals to get the waterbottle on his backpack. He then finds a sink and empties it and then waits for Liz.

[Hazuki]

"By gawd, she's broken in half..." Lavender remarks, now fixated on the wounds that Liz is attempting to patch up. "That girl has a family..." Her snicker turns into a full-blown laugh that settles into scattered giggles. "Liz...Liz...this...this owie?" She blinks. "It's a shoot..." And starts giggling again.

[NineOfSpades]

Liz nodded, getting to work, even though she wasn't sure where Mads was going with this plan. She began sketching a new design. Unlike the fairies, this one was quick and technical. Nothing elaborate or extraneous, and certainly nothing alive. Last thing she wanted was another of her creations running around. She began with a large cylinder, adding rivets to give it support. The side of the container was labled "Purified Water, 55 gallons". Out of the top came a small rubber hose which snaked down to an attached hand-crank pump with a faucet attached. She worked as quickly as she could, trying to make sure all the moving parts were where they needed to be and trusting that her power would cover any gaps in her engineering knowledge with the artistic intent she was trying to get across. "Hope this works" She said, the page beginning to glow as her new creation was conjured up.

[Ramsus]

The object comes out as intended, though pure white since Liz didn't give it any color.

[Sønderjye]

"55 gallons was probably a bit over the top" Mads says smiling, trying to conseal his awe for Liz' creation, unable to wonder what limitations that she has. Creating anything from the mind was crazy. What would happen if she created a small black hole? A nuclear reaction? Biologically engeneered virusses? He was happy that she was on his team.

He shakes his head and starts the experiment. "Could really have used a mask" he mutters to himself before folding a scarf so it covered most of his face, not wanting to absorb any moisture. He takes a deep breath intending to hold his breath and squeezes his eyes before attempting to fill up the water bottle with the water from Liz' container.

He takes his time doing this, doing his best to avoid spilling and making regular breaks.

Once the bottle is filled Mads puts on the cap, places the now filled waterbottle a safe distant away from his comrades and then looks at Liz. "Now look in that direction" he says pointing away from the waterbottle "And dismiss the container"

[NineOfSpades]

"Sorry, but in my defense, you didn't give me a lot to work on..." Liz answered, the slight bit of annoyance she felt leaking into her voice. Mad had confidence which suggested there was some plan here, but Liz didn't like just being ordered around without being given any sort of idea as to where things were going. She kept those thoughts to herself though, not wanting to get into an argument and delaying a fix for Lavender. Seeing the caution Mads was applying to handling the water, she did interject with "Its just water, its not dangerous..." Seeing the faries, and how the healing had gone a tad arry, Liz thought better of her criticisms "Never mind, better safe than sorry"

Liz finally figured out what was happening after Mads ditched the water bottle in the other room. An experiment! If the water could be safely dismissed, even inside a container and out of Liz's view, then she could just dismiss the fairies without risking harm to Lavender, and take the drugs in her friends system out with them. Following the instructions, Liz turned away from the barrel and the water bottle, pressed her eyelids shut, and mentally willed them both back to non-existence, making sure to hold off on doing the same with the faeries until the hypothesis yielded results.

[Ramsus]

The water container/hose thing vanishes. The water remains in the bottle.

[Sønderjye]

Mads shoulder's goes tense as he hears the annoyance in Liz' voice but he forces himself to postpone that and force on the issue at hand.

----

"Eurika!" Mads shouts, his voice filled with relief as the water stays in the bottle. He graps it with one hand to walk back to Liz and Lavender, his other hand drying off his forehead. He hadn't realized that he had started sweating.

His had a big smile plastered in his face as he returns with the filled water bottle. "Sorry, I maybe was overcautious. I am majoring in Autler have had read some pretty grim stories of powers gone wrong. I had a consern but fortunately my hypothesis was disproved." He says, not mentioning the specifics of his hypothesis out of a want to not scare Liz further.

His voice then goes down in volume as his head reminds him of his previous note. "Sorry that I annoyed you earlier. I don't really know why but I'd like to understand?" There is a trace of hope at the end.

[Hazuki]

Lavender looks at her immediate surroundings, nobody paying attention to her, and all of the pretty things that are just in reach, and decides to do something about it. She pulls herself to her feet, bracing herself against the couch with her branches, and attempts to follow one of the pixies around the room.

[NineOfSpades]

“It’s nothing” Liz said, dismissing the matter. “I just didn’t know where your idea was going, and felt out of the loop.” Liz saw Lavender getting up, and tried to gently persuade her friend to not do that, being mindful of the branches, and doubly mindful of Lavender’s super-strength.

[Sønderjye]

Mads' eyes stays on Liz for a little while he internally debates whether he should trust the casual attitude and eventually decides not to act on his suspecion. "I'll try to explain better next time" he thinks and then adds "Unless time is vital anyway."

His eyes follows Lavender for a little. "So I was wondering. If you think of the pixie drug as a poison, which most drugs could be considered in some way, do you think that you can create something with an antidote?"

[Hazuki]

Lavender comes to a halt when she notices Liz trying to stop her from following the Pixies around the wondrous garden they now find themselves in. "Pixies!" She informs the body-painted girl, pointing after one of the creatures.

[Thematthew]

Jenny sighs as the chaos continues unabated, "In case anyone wants to come along, I was going to go do some scouting around. If not, I'll call if I find something I can't handle."

She then grabs her jacket and starts heading for the door.

[Sønderjye]

Mads looks conserned at Lavender but doesn't really know what he can do to help her. He hopes that the pixie toxin is out of her system fast. It would also be nice if it could heal her he muses with a slight smile

His attention darts to Jenny. He doesn't like that she is leaving a teamate like the state Lavender is in but doesn't feel that he have any authority to tell Jenny to do otherwise. Instead he goes through his mind for ways he can help out. "Can you communicate other things that just your voice? Like sending your position to my gps or sending a video feed of whatever you are seeing?"

He intends to spend the evening at the base, partly to keep and eye on Lavender, partly because he wanted to look up some stuff and make some calculations. He looks into various distances to major buildings in the city and makes some calculations to store the distance to those in case he needed to use it for later. He checks his calculations by making eye-sized portals to see how close his guess was and then makes corrections.

In an attempt to find some way to weaponize his portals, he searches for the deepest spot in the ocean. His mind going along those lines, he is unable to resist the temptation of also looking into which is the nearest place with lava and also what the exact distance is to the earth molten core. He doesn't intend to ever use any of those. It falls along the same category of a previous idea of making a portal in space to suck bad guys out there, which was too dangerous to test. Except that if he removed some of the earth's core it would have much far-reaching consequences.

[Sønderjye]

After a few minutes Mads looks up from his computer to see what Lavender is doing. His thoughts goes from his drugged teamate to his previously discarded idea about bringing Lavender to the hospital to whether it would be feasible to kidnap one of the personel to...

A loud *Clash* comes from Mads direction as his palm forcibly connects to his forehead.
Mads hand makes a loud noice as it forcibly connects to his forehead.

He immediately starts searching out Nicoleta, the medical student


He creates a torso-sized portal outside of the door to where he expects Nicoleta to be praying, knock three times in rapid succession, and call out: "Nicoleta? We.. Ehm.. Sorry to disturb but.. Liz sorta drugged Lavender. Can you spare the time to look at her?"


Mads methodically goes through every room in the building, creating eye sized portals to scout the rooms for Nicoleta until he finds her.
He makes sure to keep tabs on Lavender meanwhile.

When he finds her he creates a torso-sized portal outside of the door to where he expects Nicoleta to be praying, knock three times in rapid succession, and call out: "Nicoleta? We.. Ehm.. Sorry to disturb but Liz sorta drugged Lavender. Could you spare the time to look at her?"

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta places the book down. That was a... less-than-fruitful session of prayer. She had hoped to find some answers, but none seemed to appear. She lets out a sigh. This problem is one she will have to solve herself. As Mads knocks on the door, she blinks and stands up. She steps over to the door and opens it. "I... yes, I could look at her. I haven't actually completed my pharmacology course, though." She heads to the main room, coming to a complete halt as she sees the scene of chaos before her. She can't help but smile a little at the sight of a delirious Lavender charging around the room, attempting to capture pixies."I leave you alone for ten minutes..."

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta turns to Mads. "I have made my diagnosis. Lavender is enraptured by the Sânziană, and will probably stay enraptured for some time." She shrugs slightly, and a trace of dry irony enters her voice. "I prescribe a long white dress and a flower crown, seeing as Lavender is so clearly the most beautiful maiden in the village. Then, she must dance the night away with her beloved." She laughs a little awkwardly. "Uh, past that, I am not sure. I think we should wait, and it will wear off. I think. Sânziană are not my area of expertise."

[Sønderjye]

Mads makes a gesture with his arms as if he's dropping something, having half a smile on his face: "She was like that when I get here."

While Nicoleta examines Lavender, Mads returns to his laptop and continues his research.

Hearing her conclusion he looks up from the screen. His conserned face gradually turns into confusion and for a brief moment a big smile before it finally ends in a relaxed expression with the corners of his mouth turning slightly upwards. "Would it help you in figuring out what the pixies did if you had a sample? If you can catch it, that is", he says pointing at the pixie with the syringe: "While there is a chance that this might be a totally new drug that Liz just made up, it could also be a replica of something that already exists."

[Ramsus]

At the word "catch" the pixies fly up towards the ceiling and form a sort of defensive formation, the one with the scalpel in front with the scalpel held forward and it's feet planted firmly.... in the air.

[Ramsus]

After about an hour, the pixie dust runs it's course and leaves Lavender tired enough that she almost immediately falls asleep. Nicoleta watches over her for the rest of the evening. Mads studies. Liz heads off to a junkyard and practices*.

Jenny just roams around, mostly Midtown and Uptown. She doesn't discover anything that needs immediate action. Though she does spot a police car and it's accompanying policemen talking with people who are presumably the owners of a home in Uptown and she does spot that the house has a broken window as she slows down to get a better look. She also later hears sirens elsewhere, but doesn't actually find out which direction they came from thanks to the sound bouncing around a bit.

The next day, presumably, everyone except Lavender attends their classes. Lavender mostly sleeps and rests. Maybe does a bit of studying or maybe slacks off.

*Nine did you want to do anything in particular for this?

Whoever wants to establish a scene any time before people arrive at the base or just wants to go straight to that, go ahead.

[Hazuki]

Going beyond all expectations, Lavender spends her recovery time by sleeping, struggling to stop herself from doing anything physical, and doing some studying for when she can get back to acting classes. She can't help but think that being a hero would be much easier in Denmark or Germany, or anywhere that doesn't have quite the same level of getting-shot-ness. She'd be enjoying a scone, perhaps laced with drugs, and she'd befriend a prostitute, which would lead to all kinds of whacky hijinks as their try to hide their secret identities from one another.

At least, since she's not doing heroing, she doesn't have to stuff her face with junk food. It's always felt a little strange (Alongside the extra set of limbs) to do that, considering her previous diet. But, as heroing side-effects go, being able to stay gorgeous is probably one of the least bothersome ones out there. Compared to Nicoleta and her lead-lined coffin, Liz and her uncontrollable drawings, and Mads and that weird book smell.

Lavender hums to herself as she turns down the background music (Something by Beethoven, naturally), and pulls up the internet. After a few moments of contemplation, she decides to Google self-defense tactics to avoid getting shot.

[Ramsus]

Lavender finds a variety of tips that mainly involve concepts like moving (especially not in straight lines), cover, concealment, and not putting yourself in danger. That last one comes up a lot.

[Hazuki]

Lavender mulls on the advice given from the almighty internet and decides that, well, avoiding danger isn't really an option. So cover and concealment would have to do. Do vertical lines count as lines? Regardless, she starts to wonder whether there's anything she could do to toughen her outfit up. Soften more of the blow with that wonderfully protective tree sap. But she's no military engineer, or seamstress, so she decides that perhaps a fuller cloak would help. It wouldn't affect the design, much, but a second layer of protection...something to consider, at least.

Once that's done, she's still stuck with the unsolvable problem of being bored. So she pulls up the internet again and decides to search for any news in superhero media. Movies, manga, commercials...

[Ramsus]

There's an article about the New York MAGICS team defeating some parahuman villains with ex-military backup that had robbed a bank and had a building full of hostages with the building rigged with explosives. There's the typical links to pages about the New York MAGICS team members.

Lavender also finds a link to a popular webcomic named PLEASE that involves pictures of various MAGICS members and the villains they've fought with very silly things in the word bubbles. Often this will include quotes (usually cropped and or taken out of context) or plays on what they've been known to say or how they act or such.

And she finds a commercial of a parahuman that has very colorful avian features including six wings (two large ones and four smaller ones above and below) doing a lot of movement and there's a lot of colored water that has a lot of subtle images in it that appear for only seconds and stuff like that. It's oddly surreal and part of some kind of mystery campaign. Leading guesses is it's either for shoes, a sports drink or soda (because "it's always drinks guys!"), or a movie. There's lots of other guesses too and the comments are filled with people guessing what the various images mean and how to puzzle out when, what, and where the next part of this campaign will be.

Whoops, forgot to reply to this earlier. Sorry.

[Sønderjye]

At Circlereed College 8:38

"And the Green Mist is currently" Mads head darts up from his laptop to pay attention to the professor. "located here." the professor continues putting a finger on the world map on the big screen. Disappointed Mads sighs and goes back to the book on human anatomy on his laptop. For a moment he had briefly allowed himself to hope that a teacher in Autler-related courses would say something not in the books that wasn't useless trivia or their own far-fetched theories.
Not that the books are of much more use since Autler acts so randomly that no theories can really be tested. Mads grins his teeth. Centuries of research and the field of Autler have been pretty much stagnant compared to any of the other scientific disciplines.

Recently he have started to reconsider his major but at least for now he isn't quite willing to give up his dream.

Later that day Mads finishes up his book, makes a search for recognized scientists studying subjects within biology and finds a book by one of those as the next one. He'll spent the rest of the school day reading that and if he finishes he'll start another.

If I have misunderstood something about how much people know about Autler or am otherwise making incorrect assumptions please let me know.

[NineOfSpades]

Liz was deep in her homework, though her pencil hadn't touched the paper in well over an hour. She'd finished her assignments, having been blessed with a lighter workload today. This was just studying, keeping ahead on her work so that she didn't end up swamped. Her work was interrupted by the nagging desire to get out and move. It started small, like a bit of fuzz that was stuck under her fingernail. Not painful, or irritating, but persistent and impossible to ignore.

Another fifteen minutes passed before she closed her books and shuffled her papers back into their proper binders. Pulling out her phone, an archaic gadget that still hailed from the time before touchscreens and bluetooth, and texted Lavender, figuring her friend was probably getting antsy having to stay indoors.

Hey L, how you holding up? Was planning to hit the gym in a bit. Know your still on bedrest, but if your up to it, would appreciate a coach.

She hestitated a moment before hitting send, but steeled herself and hit the button, knowing there were likely to be a great many aches and pains in her near future. But that was the price to pay if she ever wanted to be able to chase down bad-guys (or wear a sleek spandex outfit).

[Hazuki]

If somebody's attempting a viral marketing campaign, Lavender has no doubt that the internet will start digging into months-old copyright records and domain hosts and get it all figured out and dull before long. It's as she's thinking about this that Liz's text pops up and reminds her of the workout equipment resting tantalizingly just beyond her reach.

Can't get out of...couch yet. I've got some stuff here you could use? But I'd be up for helping! X

She replies, and immediately thinks that Liz could probably draw her own gym equipment and save the gym funds.

[NineOfSpades]

Kk. I’ll get changed n b over soon.

Sending the followup, Liz went to her dresser, changing out of her Baggy-T and jeans, and into something better suited for working up a sweat. Two sports bras for support, a tangtop, some running shorts. The only good running shoes she had were already recruited as part of her costume, so those were a no-go, but her normal sneakers would hopefully be enough. Add a dash of deodorant, and a bottle of icewater, and she was set and ready. Well…maybe not completely ready, since the person wearing the clothing was still pretty unfit, but at least she sort of looked the part. Out of habit, as she was walking out the door, she grabbed her satchel. Never knew when she might need to sketch something up, and it was good to be prepared.

Liz powerwalked her way over to meet up with Lavender, doing some basic stretching exercises that she mostly remembered from middleschool gym class (And trying not to remember the dreaded dodgeball incident that left a permement scar on her entire 7th grade experience.) Upon arriving, Liz knocked twice before letting herself in, so that Lavender wouldn’t need to get up. “Hey Lav, glad to see boredom hasn’t killed you yet. Thanks for doing this for me, I’m total garbage at this sort of thing and really appricate having someone to point me in the right direction”

[Hazuki]

Lavender goes back to browsing the internet for any traces of obscure movies neither her or her parents have heard of yet. Unlikely, but they make for fantastic gifts if they can be found. When she hears Liz knock at the door, she shifts into a slightly more upright position and smiles at the dressed-up Liz when she walks into the room.

"No problem! You look like you've been warming up already, but it's a good idea to know how we pros do it." Lavender says, flexing her arm. "Before we start! Do you think you could draw some gym equipment? It'll save you a few hundred bucks, and it might be less intimidating if you don't want to feel like everyone's watching you flood your gear with sweat."

[NineOfSpades]

Liz gave a playful bow to Lavender “I humbly await the pro’s wisdom” She teased lightly, slinging aside her bag. A bag she immediately had to then go fetch, after hearing Lavenders request for some equipment. Getting out her sketchpad and penciles, she looked to Lavender “Sure, yeah. What do you think we need?”

[Hazuki]

Lavender describes some basic gymp equipment for Liz, because they won't need terribly much just at the beginning. She brings up a few pictures of the equipment on her phone, so her friend has something to work off of.

As she's drawing, the wrestler hums to herself before asking "Would I be able to move around if you drew me a mech-suit?"

[NineOfSpades]

Liz began drawing, using the reference sketches that Lavender had, along with her friends own advise on how it should work. Technical drawings weren't really Liz's style. That wasn't a reflection of her atristic sensibilities or opinion on the engineering fields. If anything, she admired the level of detail and focus that such precise work required. It was more just due to the fact that blueprints were time consuming, and her drawing speed was already a big enough bottle-neck on her abilities. Lavender's question didn't get an immediate response, Liz gave it some thought before responding. "Not sure, it'd be tricky...I could probably design a brace that would keep the strain away from your injury so that you could move around a little more. That'd be one thing. But a full sized Bubblegum Crisis Hardsuit" Liz held her hand flat and gave it an uncertain wiggle "Eh...maybe? I mean, it'd need to be tough enough to deal with your strength, and that much horsepower, You might end up hurt more" Liz went quiet. She felt bad about drugging Lavender, and though her friend seemed eager to get back on the magical-artwork horse and try again for a quick fix, Liz didn't have that kind of confidence in her own abilities.

[Hazuki]

Lavender listens to Liz's concerns with a thoughtful expression on her face, eyes flicking between the drawings and the girl's face. "That's fine. But can't you control what the things you make are meant to do? Or are they just the things that are drawn interpreting themselves? Could you draw a sword enchanted to heal people that it stabs?"

[NineOfSpades]

Liz gave a non-committal shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine. I imagined those pixies would just have a magic-healing potion that’d fix you up in no time…whatever we’re dealing with, it’s not an exact science” The sword of healing was actually a funny enough idea that Liz broke off from her work on the exercise gear to quickly sketch a six-inch sword with the word ‘Healing Shiv’ on it. It was rough work, taking only a handful of seconds. She popped it into being and tossed it to Lavender. “You can try your luck with that one”

[Hazuki]

Lavender catches the sword with the sticky end of one of her branches, more comfortable with using it when it won't make Nicoleta uncomfortable. Also, wanting to avoid stabbing her hand when the magic sword of healing is untested. "What won't I miss..." She considers for a few moments, doing a few faux-fencing movements with the tiny implement. Then, she takes the shiv to a lock of her hair that has a few split ends.

[Ramsus]

The very thin, very delicate looking sword shatters against the hair in a shower of white dust, small dusty white pills, and shards of pills.

[Sønderjye]

A portal claws it's way into reality and the lovely smell of dusty tome tickles the senses of those present. Mads, in civilian clothing, steps through. He tilts his head ever so slightly while looking at Lavender pointing the less-than-realistic "sword" towards her head: "What are you guys doing?"

[Hazuki]

"Will you please stop using your powers for everything, Mads?" Lavender asks, as she discards her new handful of pills on the table. "You're like those people who get the latest tech and go around waggling it in everyone's faces. Hey guys, check out my Google Glass, it's totally cool and it can do 3d and I look great and not at all like a complete arse."

[Sønderjye]

Mads looks baffled hearing the outburst, initially decides to brush Lavender's words aside as an angry outburst but eventually decides to consider her.

"No, I won't" he responds calmly. "For one reason I just saved a few bucks from not taking the bus to get here. For another I saved time which I otherwise would have wasted by getting here. And even if none of those were the case I need to practice my precision and I can't do that without using my power. Where is this comming from?" he studies her face trying to figure out whether it's just frustration from being temporarily disabled or if there's something more.

[Hazuki]

"You can do that by teleporting into your own room. And it's coming from you using it for everything, for no reason! You use it to talk to us when you could just walk into the next room! You used it to show Nicoleta something when she was in the same room!" Lavender replies, as she folds her arms over her chest. "It's obnoxious. It disregards privacy - we can't not answer your stupid face appearing, like with a phone. And it makes the room smell like mildew."

[Sønderjye]

"Ehm." Mads still looks bewildered: "Are you saying that I have intruded your privacy by making a portal to the main room or that me practicing and being efficient with my time is obnoxious to you?" He scratches his head: "I'm not really sure what to do about that. I care some about your mental state but not enough to neglect my training. Contrary to the lot of your my power doesn't work intuitively and I have nowhere close to a level of control that I think that I can say block an attack that's comming our way."

[Hazuki]

"Being efficient in the form of about an hour's worth of time over the course of your whole life. That kind of efficiency doesn't matter! And you can train wherever you like - instead, you do it without any regard for other people. I don't do all my gym work in the main room, because it's loud, sweaty, distracting, and, oh yeah, obnoxious. For the same reason I don't get everywhere by crawling on the walls, or use my sap to grab everything. Asking you to not use portals for everything you possibly can isn't forcing you to neglect your training, or imposing on your freedom, or whatever other stupid thing you're going to accuse me of just because you're not willing to make a minor concession when it comes to using your powers around other people!"

"Because, you know how much more difficult it is to teleport to your room than in here? None more difficult. To walk into another room, rather than making a portal? None more difficult - Hell, even less difficult, if it's so strenuous that you need to spend every waking second practicing!"

[Sønderjye]

"The only legitemate inconvinience I'm hearing from you is that you don't like the smell." Mads responds " And you should. You should be crawling everywhere and using your sap to fetch things. But it's still not comparable, as I said your power works on intuitively." He looks at Liz: "Back me up here?"

[Hazuki]

"Oh, I see. Rather than admit your actions may have consequences that you didn't foresee, you're going to appeal to somebody else to help you justify your laziness. Thus, sidestepping the issue with the blithe disregard of a bloody pansy!" Lavender rolls her eyes. "You don't get to decide what does and doesn't annoy me. And the only legitimate reason you have to not constantly annoy me is...no reason. At all. You keep mentioning 'practice', and acting like you're the only person who has difficulty harnessing their powers, but you're not. Everyone does. And you're the only one using it as an excuse for being a jerk."

[NineOfSpades]

Liz tried to keep her head down. She tried to block it out. She reassured herself that it was just a little spat that'd be over in a flash. But it didn't. The fight from the previous evening was still fresh, and the toxicity wasn't going away it seemed. She had to stop working, despite the equiptment being nearly finished, for fear that the emotional anxiety she was feeling would bleed into her work. Visions of a rogue and malevolent Total-Gym (tm) loomed in her mind, stalking the school campus at night, attacking any unfortunate soul it came across in a savage onslaught of high-cardio workouts. And once it was there, there wasn't much she could do to be rid of the image.

Mads looked to her for imput, and Liz wasn't sure what to do. She didn't like being put on the spot, and really didn't like getting thrust in the middle of a conflict like this. "I'm not...er...." she stammered, her mouth somehow forgetting the correct way to make words, while her tongue seemed to be trying to flee further down her throat rather than get involved. Maybe it wanted to hide out in her stomach, along with all the butterflies that had recently moved in. She tried to imagine herself in her costume, which was about the only time she felt a great sense of confidence. It helped a little. "I'm not taking sides here. I think both of you need to take a step back and remember we're on the same team." Well, that didn't last long. The butterflies in her belly were getting more rambunctious. "I...I think that everyones just on edge because of last night, and what happened with that street gang. But if we're infighting like this, the whole group is just going to fall appart." Home stretch here, don't pass out for another ten seconds and you'll be golden. "Both of you should either shake hands and apologies for being stupid or....or..." Nope, out of gas. Thanks for playing. Check the leaderboard to see how you scored on this weeks round of 'not being a total wreck in social situations: home edition'. Liz sat back down, staring at her lap, and mumbled a few non-words before hoping that everything would somehow be fixed now, but deeply suspecting that would not be the case.

[Sønderjye]

Seeing Liz Mads feels a sting of guilt. He hadn't realized that she was that fragile. Noted for later. He is silent for a long drawn out moment while considering his options.

"I don't respect your reasons and I'm not appreciative of your hostility when I'm trying to understand you but Liz is right, we could do with less tension." He says to Lavender in a neutral tone. "For your sake I will limit the use of my power on the lowest floor and barring special circumstances I will make portals outside of doors rather than inside rooms."

"When I'm picking up when she gets off school I'll also give her an apology. I acknowledge that I was reacting emotionally yesterday and that I hadn't communicated my expectations. When she arrives I'd like to have a talk with all of us as to how we want to do things." He turns to look at Liz :"If possible, could you make something that casts harmless balls after me? I'd like to practise redirecting projectiles. The idea is the same as that machine that shoots a ball after those guys who swings a baseball bat at them."

[Hazuki]

"And I don't respect that you're not willing to do something for a teammate without debating about it first." Lavender leans back in her seat, runs a hand through her hair, and rests her eyes on the television. About as dramatic a conversational exit one can get while stuck to a couch.

[Sønderjye]

Mads clutches his fist while supressing a snarky comeback. That thankless bastard! You litterally attack me the second I enter our "safehouse" and even as look past that an compromise you have the guts to be a jerk. Mads thinks. He holds his eyes fixed on the floor as he with a concious effort relaxes his shoulders and takes a deep breath.

When he raises his gaze he looks at Liz and sends her a small smile. He couldn't really blame her for not taking sides.

[Sønderjye]

A little before 4 am Mads sends Nicoleta a text letting her know to go to the roof when she's off. He'll monitor the roof for some time through an eye-sized portal and assuming Nicoleta shows up he'll make a portal for her just outside the door to the roof, so rather than opening to the roof she'll open to the second floor in their base.

"Hey there." Mads greets her with a smile. "How was your day?" he asks. He doesn't really like small talk like that but he is having trouble formulating his apology and wants to buy himself some time.

[Professor Gnoll]

A trying day already. Nicoleta is finding it increasingly difficult to focus on her studies- she can't stop thinking about the fight, and the argument. Her skin seems to itch constantly, and it feels like her body will slip away from her if she loses concentration for a moment.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Of course. This is a momentary lapse, and nothing more. All will be well, given time. She hopes.

Oh, yes. Mads is picking her up. With his bizaare portals. Nicoleta can't quite bring herself to trust the things. They're not natural. Mads himself seems unnatural, too prone to experimentation, erratic and far too loving of his powers. But if they're going to be able to work together, she'll need to learn to accept him and his portals, she supposes. Ah, there he is now. Nicoleta places a smile on her face with the practised ease of someone used to manipulating their body, and responds to him. "Good. Very good. And you?"

[Sønderjye]

"Good" Mads responds without thinking. "Well actually most of classes are a bit boring. I have a suspicion that many of the other students doesn't read up on the material before class and that the professors target this group when they prepare the lectures. At least I learned a bunch of biology" he says with a smile.

He closes the door behind Nicoleta and dismisses the portal before starting to walk towards the stairs. "I think that we should have a group meeting and talk about what we want with this and share our expectations as to who we want to be as a group. Clearly those aren't aligned." He says to Nicoleta with a serious face. "On that note I want to apologize for yesterday. I have strong feelings against killing people but I never asked for your version of what happened and I never voiced those feelings. Furthermore I attacked you as soon as you entered and that's not the sort of place that I want our base to be. I'd like it if we felt safe or at least somewhat comfortable here."

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta steps warily through the portal. It's far from natural to cross such large spaces in so short a time. Convenient, yes, but so are many shameful things. She sighs inwardly. Perhaps there is such a thing as being too careful. Mads is far from a bad person.

She nods as he apologises. The courteous thing to do here would be to apologise for her own behaviour, but she really doesn't feel like it. Nor does she feel that she truly has anything to apologise for. "Mmm. Apology accepted. I think that we had all had a bit of a trying day." Of course, for some, a trying day meant complaining about the way in which justice was meted out while doing nothing to help, but it seems less than polite to mention that part.

Well, at least she will get to see Lavender. That usually serves to cheer her up. Her positive attitude is infectious, it seems to Nicoleta, and even the awkwardness of a 'team meeting' surely could not dampen it.

[Thematthew]

Jenny rides up to the base, then casually strolls in while calling out "Hey, is anybody here? I'm bored!"

[Hazuki]

Lavender, who can't be anywhere but the base, hears Jenny riding up and walking through. She waits for the girl to walk into the living room, where a remake of DeathOps: Novio De La Muerte is playing, then twists her head on the arm of the couch to look at her. "Sure, let's hit the clubs. You're gonna have to give me a piggyback the whole time, though." Says the 6+ foot musclebound pro(-ish) wrestler, but at least she's smiling.

[Thematthew]

"You're just asking that so I can hurt myself and join you in our impromptu infirmary... So how's downtime for our injured amazonian? You start getting sick of these movies, or are you still resisting developing taste?" Jenny responds, with a bit of a smile.

[Hazuki]

"That depends, you gonna give me a taste?" Lavender asks, with a comic waggling her eyebrows. Then laughs and buries her head in her pillow. "Oh that was terrible."

[Thematthew]

"To call that joke terrible would be an insult to terrible jokes. Are you sure your funny bone didn't get broken when you got shot?" Jenny quips.

[Hazuki]

Lavender puts on an exaggerated pout. "All I have left is my looks, superpowers, and a loving family. Oh, how I suffer!" She clutches at her heart.

[Sønderjye]

"Hey Jenny" Mads greets as he enters the room through the door leading down the hallway. "Everyone's here", he notes as he walks over to the group and noticing the lack of conversation he decides that this is a good time to start what he came down for. He picks a chair : "Great. I'd like to call for a team meeting".

"Clearly we had different expectations going into this and I'd like to hear what people's ideas are and possible reach a compromise. To start off I think that our first priority is to come out alive and that unless we feel that those are at great risk we shouldn't use lethal force. This is partially due to personal reasons, partially because I think that we in the long run could benefit from being popular with the public and partially because I'm conserned that groups will default to using lethal force against us if we get a reputation of killing our enemies. What are your thoughts?"

[Hazuki]

"Nonlethal is good." Lavender, the hostage of the team meeting, agrees. But doesn't have much more to offer than that.

[Professor Gnoll]

So, Mads is still insisting on taking her to task for the incident yesterday. "No. I refuse to make any such promises. You may use your aber- your powers how you wish, and I will wield my weapons in the way that I see fit." She's truly had enough of this. As if their aberrations are anything but monstrous, that they can pretend to still be fully human.

[Hazuki]

Lavender shifts slightly in her seat (And with a wince), and folds her arms over her chest. "Nicoleta...I get that you think this whole thing sucks. And I don't think I can really help with that. even though I'd like to. But if our powers are a curse or something, shouldn't we be the only ones who it hurts?" She scratches her head. "It's 'You've got a life sentence in prison', not 'You've got a life sentence in prison, along with a few years for whoever's name you pick out of this hat'. That wouldn't be fair."

"I guess us having them is unfair, too, but...if you go around making things unfair for other people, because you're being treated unfairly, then they're going to make things unfair for other people, and it goes on and on until the whole world's gone to crap." She pauses. "So, I mean, if we at least try to be fair, then the world's a bit better. And if we keep doing that, maybe, eventually, nobody will have to feel like you feel right now." She smiles, although not at her most confidently. "Y'know?"

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta says nothing for a moment, taking in what Lavender said. "I... suppose that you are right." But she sounds unconvinced. The words Lavender is saying make sense, but don't seem to quite grasp the situation at hand. It's easy for her to pretend that everything's alright, and they can all be happy and make the world happy and dance around in frilly skirts singing songs and watching terrible movies. But it's Nicoleta who'll be going home to sleep in an iron box.

[Hazuki]

Lavender notices the slight hesitation in Nicoleta's voice, but still smiles that she seems to be accepting things. If only a little. "Alright. And you should know that I've got a hug with your name on it." She offers, as her smile steadies.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta almost seems to start a little at the offer. "Oh. Uh, yes. Thank you." She somewhat awkwardly steps forward, gingerly spreading her arms a little.

[Hazuki]

Lavender gradually pulls herself off of her couch-based infirmary and wraps Nicoleta in a big ol' hug that may leave her weak in the knees. Literally, because Lavender huge and needs something to support her weight.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta's arms half-close around Lavender, not quite touching her. She awkwardly stands in the embrace, not sure what to say or do, as Lavender's weight presses down on her. She attempts a lopsided grin and pulls away after a few seconds, her cheeks a little flushed. "Thank you." She coughs a little. "Uh, how are, your... wounds? That is, your injuries? Are they better?"

[Hazuki]

"A little." Lavender releases Nicoleta with a smile and slumps back towards the couch. "You know that scene in Alien, where the guy's on the table and the alien bursts through his chest? It's like that. Except nothing like that, 'cause I'm still alive, but if it helps...yeah." She chuckles and immediately regrets that decision.

[Professor Gnoll]

Nicoleta frowns. "I do not know that scene. Is that bad? It sounds bad. Does your chest hurt that much? I might be able to find some painkillers."

[Hazuki]

"I'd appreciate that." Lavender replies, as she props her feet up beside her. "Do you think they'd work? Considering..."

[Professor Gnoll]

"I'm not certain. Are you immune to your own numbing venom? If so, we'd have to find a drug that worked off a different mechanism." Nicoleta frowns as she considers the issue. "If it's anything like spi- like the venom of the păianjen, it'll be a peptide, that inteferes with the nerve pathways to the brain." Nicoleta moves over to her bag and takes out the first aid kit. "There's a little acetaminophen- that is, Tylenol in here. If it doesn't work, we can try something else." She produces a small white-and-orange bottle, and hands it to Lavender. "You should pay attention, Mads. You are interested in the scientific workings of our little mutations, yes?"

[Hazuki]

"How much should I take?" Lavender asks, examining the bottle.

[Sønderjye]

Mads was first annoyed over the stubornness then suprised over the lack of stubornness then embarrised by being an observer to the intimate moment of the two. He took his eyes off the couple and looked at the other two Saints, hoping that they would voice their oppinion.


When adressed Mads again looks up again: "I'm interested in our mutations and how they work yeah", he feels inclined to correct her use of scientific but decides that with the friendly gesture this isn't the time.