Masks By JNAP [IC]

[Zero Prime]

Quentin nodded to his teammates, "If that's what you want to do, I'd rather figure out who he is, before taking his story at face value." He turned to drift upwards, heading towards Halcyon City's downtown core, "Ping my phone if you run into trouble. I've still got your back."

[JNAProductions]

Quentin makes his departure, heading for the Paragon HQ. He shoots a text message on the way, letting them know he has a few questions that he'd appreciate them answering.

Claire and River, using their own personal abilities, set off after Dento. Finding him isn't too hard-he's not gone far. Right now, he's just sitting on a fire hydrant, staring at a lighter in his hand. Those with enhanced hearing can listen in. "She wouldn't want you smoking. Goddammit."

Adam and Blake, knowing their skills aren't in high demand at the moment, head to an arcade-the Quarter Coliseum. Its owner, Ashley Maguire, is known for deviating significantly from her father's pious nature-to the point where she hacks and hardmods every arcade machine she gets to crank up the difficulty.

---

Quentin
He arrives at a mid-point in the tower, and is greeted by Dr. Meiron-Park. "Afternoon, Quentin. Did you get my email?" she asks. "Your dampener has been having some fluctuations-I think it just needs some tuning, that's all."

Quentin nods, and heads with her to the dampening chamber-the safest spot in the city to take off his personal controller. As he walks with her, he mentions that he's looking for information on Dento. "Dento, you say?" the doctor asks. "I haven't worked with him in a while. Never liked his smoking habit-but at least he was polite enough to not do it indoors. Always had that Elain lady with him-she was... Odd. Sweet, but strange. Why do you ask?"

---

Claire and River
Dento manages to resist the urge to smoke. He pops the lighter back in his pocket, and the cigarette back into his mouth, unlit. He spends the next half an hour wandering, seemingly aimlessly, on his phone. The occasional peeks you manage of his screen show texts, emails, and a whole lot of research. He's trawling through information, looking for Elain. Until, after you're almost ready to conclude there's not much to gain, he gets a call.

"Dento," he answers simply, putting an earbud in one ear. "Yeah. Yeah. You sure?" he replies, the other side impossible to hear even with your enhanced senses. "Alright. I'll be there in an hour-maybe less. Text me the address."

One of you scrambles like hell to find a perch you can see the address from, and arrive just in time. You get it, and put it into your phone. It's a Halcyon City Penitentiary-but it's only about twenty minutes away, at a good jog, let alone if Dento has a car.

---

Adam and Blake
The Quarter Coliseum is as it always is. Surprisingly packed, given how arcades have fallen out of favor, full of people trying to prove themselves against old school, extra hard games.

You wave to Ashley, who's behind the counter, and she waves back. She doesn't know you personally, but she's friendly. And then you wait in line for a few minutes, before getting to play Starcade Adventures!

And promptly getting your tuckuses handed to you. You're a tad rusty-Blake failing out at level two, and Adam making it almost to four before the boss wrecks him. You grimace at each other-you ain't gonna take this. You head over to the counter, where Ashley says "What's up?"

You let her know you want to work together-coop Starcade. You know she can do it. She laughs a little, but sees the determination in your eyes. "Alright, let me get the soldering iron. Give me five minutes."

Five minutes later, it's time for take two.

You crush it. You don't set a new high score, and you almost die a few times, but a few clutch saves from your partner let you beat the whole damn game. A small crowd assembles by the time you're done, and there's some hollering and cheering when you see the end credits.

[Quagmire]

Spoiler: River

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DANGER 0
FREAK 0
SAVIOR 0
SUPERIOR 0
MUNDANE +3
Conditions: none

River hangs precariously off the edge of a rooftop, hanging on with one hand to get the best vantage point and jumping up when she sees Dento looking in her direction. After describing what she sees to Claire, she discusses their next step. "So he's clearly working with someone, though we don't know who or where. I say we follow him, so we can see where he goes and find out who he's meeting at the prison. We'll stay near him now though though, I think he's gonna head somewhere else first." She gets ready to move in case Dento does, but stays watching for now.

[JNAProductions]

Dento keeps walking, muttering under his breath. "Goddamnit. It had to be Grop. It had to be Grop." His muttering grows quieter, stopping altogether by the time he reaches the Shady Cicada, a run-down dive bar. He walks in, nodding to the bouncer, a thickly-built woman with a pair of batons at her belt.

Inside, you can see him ordering a drink, which quickly gets filled in a dirty mug.

[Captain Jak]

Arsenal
Conditions:
Potential: 0/5
Doom Track: 0/5

Spoiler: Labels

Show

• Danger: +2
• Freak: +1
• Savior: +1
• Superior: -1
• Mundane: 0

Spoiler: Moves & Doomsigns

Show

• Bolstered Mark your doom track to use an Adult Move one time.

Blake whoops and hollers as they beat the game, smacking his larger teammate in the arm several times in his enthusiasm.

"That was awesome, fam!" he exclaims, his eyes dancing. "You were amazing, your reflexes are so much better than mine!" He’s clearly leaving the lion’s share of the victory at Adam’s feet.

"What...happened...sucks and all, believe me, I know," he goes on, lowering his voice a touch. "But you’re who you wanna be, right? You can do such great things," he told his teammate with frank admiration, wanting to help ease a bit of the somewhat constant stress of being the meld of man and machine that had been forced upon him.

Spoiler: OOC

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Comfort or Support Adam: (2d6)[9]

[Volthawk]

Adam grins as the final credits of the game roll, drinking it in rather than celebrating as loudly as his teammate. "Yeah, I'm good, but you did good too. Had to beat it co-op for a reason."

Blake bringing up the past catches Adam off-guard a little. "Oh, uh..." He shrugs. "Well, yeah. That's how I see it. People like us, we're different, sure, we've had **** happen to us, but we can do something about what happens next, what we do with what we've got. Future's ours to choose, right?"

[Zero Prime]

He arrives at a mid-point in the tower, and is greeted by Dr. Meiron-Park. "Afternoon, Quentin. Did you get my email?" she asks. "Your dampener has been having some fluctuations-I think it just needs some tuning, that's all."

Quentin nods, and heads with her to the dampening chamber-the safest spot in the city to take off his personal controller. As he walks with her, he mentions that he's looking for information on Dento. "Dento, you say?" the doctor asks. "I haven't worked with him in a while. Never liked his smoking habit-but at least he was polite enough to not do it indoors. Always had that Elain lady with him-she was... Odd. Sweet, but strange. Why do you ask?"

Quentin hit the inter-comm so he could talk to Dr. Park, "He just asked for help, apparently his partner's been missing a few days. He looked sketch, armed and armored, so I wasn't sure what to make of him." Then Quentin shrugged, "Told us he'd gone to AEGIS and the Paragons, but both groups declined to help him. So he tracked down my friends and I, asked for help, but he smells like trouble."

[JNAProductions]

"If he came to us, he didn't talk to me. But then again, that shouldn't be a surprise-that's not my area of expertise," the doctor replies as she tinkers with the dampening device. "So how's school going, Quentin? Have you made any not-so-super powered friends?" she asks.

[JNAProductions]

Quentin
Quentin chats with the doctor for a bit while she fixes his dampener. Once that's done, he heads for the administrative area, where they might've heard Dento's request.

He talks to a few people, and learns that while Dento called several times and visited once, his requests were rejected automatically as he's not in the system, and he wasn't even allowed entry when he visited.

Before you get yourself a chance to really dig, though, your phone blows up with messages at the same time an alarm comes through the intercom. "Code Yellow, Code Yellow! Super-Powered Attack!" Your phone shows the address-Halcyon City Penitentiary. ​

---

Claire and River
Dento stays in the bar for a while, nursing his drink and not really actually consuming it. When there's about a half hour to go, he stands up and heads for the penitentiary. You continue to stalk him, and as you all approach the Penitentiary, you see smoke curling up. Dento swears, and picks up the pace, sprinting towards the building. You could easily overtake him, if you so choose-he's clearly not got super powers for running.

---

Adam And Blake
You spend a little more time at the Coliseum, playing some easier games and having a fun time. Pretty soon, though, you've hit your limit-you could go overbudget, but you already beat Starcade, so you're happy to head out.

Outside, you pass by one of those stores that has all the TVs out front in the window, and see a breaking news report. "Halcyon City Penitentiary is experiencing some kind of powered attack-details are still hazy, but we have a helicopter on the scene."

[Captain Jak]

Arsenal
Conditions:
Potential: 0/5
Doom Track: 0/5

Spoiler: Labels

Show

• Danger: +2
• Freak: +1
• Savior: +1
• Superior: -1
• Mundane: 0

Spoiler: Moves & Doomsigns

Show

• Bolstered Mark your doom track to use an Adult Move one time.

Grabbing Adam’s arm, Blake rather unnecessarily points at the TV screens in his excitement.
"Whoah man, check that out! I gotta tell the others," he realises, releasing Adam’s arm and hauling out his phone. Thumbs flying, he sends a message to their group chat to get to the peneten— the penaten— the jail, and fast, it was under attack!

"C’mon, we gotta go change," the younger boy urges, glancing around furtively to try to find a place that he and Adam both could armour up. And once in heroic identities, they could hoof it at high speed over there to put a stop to a breakout by some nefarious criminals!

[Volthawk]

Adam grins as he sees the announcement on the TV. Well, they had just run out of things to do, so the timing there was perfect. "Yeah. Let's go."

[Quagmire]

Spoiler: River

Show

DANGER 0
FREAK 0
SAVIOR 0
SUPERIOR 0
MUNDANE +3
Conditions: none

River turns to Claire. “So this guy has a meeting at the prison, and at around the time it’s supposed to happen something happens. You get where I’m going with this, there’s probably a connection.” Inwardly River is relieved, watching a guy wander around and drink at a bar for an hour was boring, stakeouts always were. Meanwhile whatever’s happening with the smoke is exciting, a chance for some thrilling heroics. “So what do we do now? We could keep following him, see what he does when he gets there. Or we could stop him before he gets there and ask what exactly he’s planning. Or just ignore him and rush to the prison to see what’s going on.” She waits for Claire’s reply, but she’s all antsy and ready to start running. Either to catch up with Dento, or to keep following him towards the penitentiary.

[Captain Jak]

Arsenal
Conditions:
Potential: 0/5
Doom Track: 0/5

Spoiler: Labels

Show

• Danger: +2
• Freak: +1
• Savior: +1
• Superior: -1
• Mundane: 0

Spoiler: Moves & Doomsigns

Show

• Bolstered Mark your doom track to use an Adult Move one time.

Heading down the alleyway halfway down the block with Adam, Blake ducks into the back alcove of one of the businesses in the building after taking a quick look for any security cameras. Shielded well enough from view from the street, he nods to the older boy – time for them to suit up!

Intertwining his arms before himself, he grips each forearm with the opposite hand, pressing his wrists together – and bringing the implanted triggers into alignment with one another. A flare of azure energy rises up over him, carrying him off the ground as the energy armour of the Arsenal forms about him.

Now standing close to eight feet tall, with long, solid legs and a pair of massive, huge-fisted arms sprouting from the broad shoulders, one can make out the general shape of Blake within that construct, well enough to determine that the second, smaller pair of arms that emerge from mid-ribcage contain his actual arms.

"Let’s get moving!" he booms, reaching out one of the massive arms towards his teammate. Time to engage in a highly conspicuous trip across town – that is, of course, the most fun kind.

[Captain Jak]

Arsenal
Conditions:
Potential: 0/5
Doom Track: 0/5

Spoiler: Labels

Show

• Danger: +2
• Freak: +1
• Savior: +1
• Superior: -1
• Mundane: 0

Spoiler: Moves & Doomsigns

Show

• Bolstered Mark your doom track to use an Adult Move one time.

Once Adam had made his own transformation into Steel Hammer, Arsenal got the show on the road. Pounding out of the alleyway on long strides, he merged right into traffic and thundered down the street at forty miles an hour, taking care not to stomp on any cars. A small part of him hoped that the sight of him running along, his teammate scooped up to sit in the crook of one of his huge arms like a package, wouldn’t cause anyone to have an accident, but mostly he was just having far too good a time to worry about it much.

Traffic began to bunch up ahead of them at a red light, but rather than slow his pace Arsenal grinned, deep inside his energy shell.

"Hang on!" he instructed, and over the next two steps azure energies had coalesced at his back into the form of a jumpjet pack. Launching himself upward only a few feet behind the bumper of the car slowing ahead of them with a powerful leap, the jets kicked in and hurled them higher and further, clearing the overpass with its own traffic to come crashing down on the far side in the clear lane.

With a whoop of enthusiasm, Arsenal continued his charge to bring them to face the Forces of Villainy...or at least, jailbreak.

[Seandiggersby]

Claire pauses and thinks for a moment on what the best course of action would be. ”I say we keep following him to see if he does anything suspicious. If not then we can trust him” she replies, she really hopes this guy doesn’t end up being evil now that she advocated so strongly for helping him out.