[Masks IC] Resurrection Roundabout: Drawing Individuals

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 4

The worst thing about opening yourself up and being vulnerable for once is that people will hurt you. The fall hurts worse when you have convinced yourself that you will be caught at the bottom.

Stand up. Do something melodramatic. Play to the crowd. Make the Ferraphim shippers cheer and the Sarrant shippers hopefully wonder, well, what if...?

Sara doesn’t do that. The hardlight lily breaks into fragments which subdivide and subdivide again, slivers of slivers. Ground into so much dust.

She {scrubbed} trusted you, Euna. She let you sleep with her. She opened up. She did the thing. She took the leap. Don’t you understand the risk she took? How even now the stream numbers are in flux?

Her chest is tight, so tight it feels like she’s going to pop and scatter bits of @SARAHPHIM intestine everywhere. Her eyes are throbbing. This isn’t fair. This isn’t fair! She’s supposed to say yes! She’s not supposed to leave you to twist in the wind not after you trusted her not after you gambled everything on her she won’t even look when you fall she won’t stay in touch when the money runs out she doesn’t care about you she doesn’t care about you she doesn’t care about you

“Stream {scrubbed} over,” she snarls like a tiger with her paw caught in iron teeth, and with a wave of her hand obliterates the camera drones.

Which feels great in the moment but mostly makes her feel stupid and out of control while she sits in the facility parking garage and waits for her ride to show up. She’s going to get in, snap at the driver when they ask her how she’s doing, rate them one star on the app, and dig her nails into her arms while refusing to cry the whole ride home.

The news reflects her faces back at her from billboards and kiosks at every light. The pirate, the belly dancer, the{scrubbed} cartoon character, and also there’s an actual tiger? And whoever that one in the back unable to be seen over the others is.

Her agent’s blowing up her line. She switches it off and digs her nails in deeper.

This is why we don’t ever give into temptation, @SARAHPHIM. Always be the object of desire, never resolve it. Keep them watching. Keep them watching.

She gets back to her apartment and locks the door behind her and strips out of everything and leaves the suit lying on the floor with the panels flickering on low power and crawls into bed and pulls the blankets over her and doesn’t come back out and nobody can see her cry so really it might as well have never happened. You’re only real when you’re seen.

[Eldest]

Ferra!

You got ratings, hon.

When you step outside it's to cameras. It's to reporters. It's to sponsors. You're the hottest new thing on the block and everybody wants a piece. You see stars from camera flashes. Is it true that @Sarahphim's star power has finally rubbed off on a sidekick? Is this the spinoff series the world has been waiting for?

You've seen the view from the top a few times now. It's time to soar those heights again.

Ferra hasn't really been in the spotlight solo before. She's been in the highlight reel, she's done neat things with each of her teammates, she's boosted them up and helped them out. This is the first time that she's done it on her own. She ignores the cameras. Don't care, they're not important, part of the background. Not people, not on the scale of what she's dealing with.

What she is dealing with, mind you, is clothes shopping, scaled up to 11. An open air market, various fashion designers striving to stand out and be recognized, making one of a kind outfits and accents on the fly. Normally not a big scene, but she was there, and so it was the social event of the moment. She's had more people try to get her to wear their clothes in the last hour than... anything else she can think of that's happened to her, that metaphor had more promise when she started out.

Honestly, as good as this feels, she's not sure how she feels about her feelings about it. It's obvious, after she had a bit of space between her and the most recent revival, what happened. Comstar² hacked her core, imprinted some of her onto Ferra. She still remembers her vivid repulsion at how Comstar² acts. She's, well, quietly furious that it worked. She wants to figure out how she feels about it. She wants to be better than what Comstar² turned into. And she certainly doesn't want to reboot again, if she can help it. She could go to the Gears Foundation, or Viktor, or Aegis, and she's sure they'd know exactly how to undo the specifics of what Comstar² did. The thing is, she doesn't want that. She needs to prove to herself she can, in fact, do this on her own. If that's from Comstar²'s meddling, or her own personality, but she wants to do this herself.

To facilitate these and other ruminations, she's dressed in the avant garde fashion equivalent of resting b**** face crossed with the murder strut. Blue sparks fizzle in and out of existence (she'd switched the hexcode coloring for her eyes scant minutes after making the connection) dancing off her fingertips, her dress cuts away in jagged swathes that accent and reveal her own spikes and edges. The designer had insisted on a tiara, bone white with a blue halo of fire above it. It was growing on her.

[PhoeKun]

EUNA'S FITNESS CORNER

Errant's normal workout room is empty. No weights, no equipment, no yoga mat, not a shred of decoration. Bare, white tiled floors. Bare, white-painted walls. Harsh lighting shines down on nothing but an empty folding chair.

No Euna, either.

The camera stays stubbornly put. Time passes. More time passes.

Off screen, a man coughs.

Time passes.

The sound of a door sliding shut.

Fade to black.

WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THIS SEGMENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

...

Hey Errant fans (shouts to you for having better taste than most!), here's a special treat just for you! For the first time ever, get to know more about your favorite Agent by looking at all the juicy details in her official AEGIS Stat Card*:

*Explanations for what letter grades mean and how they are determined can be found on the Corporate Council's FAQ page

STRENGTH: B AGILITY: S+
ENDURANCE: A SPEED: S
ARMOR: B- INTELLIGENCE: C

All-time Corporate Champion Fight Record (Official bouts only): 13 wins, 6 losses

Height: 170 cm (5 feet, 7 inches)
Weight: 37 kg (81.5 pounds)
Eye/Hair Color (natural): Brown/Black
Favorite Color: Silver
Favorite Food: Lobster
Favorite TV Show: Princess Champions of Hyperborea
Favorite Film: Burn, My Sword
Favorite Song: Maze of Memories ("No no no don't print that! Don't tell them that I'll never hear the end of it!")

***

Need a hand? Take Agent Errant's! AEGIS is proud to announce a civilian-grade line of cyberlimbs modeled after Ms. Kim's now-famous matte black design. Don't let your accidents or defects keep you from looking like a hero!* Ask your doctor for pricing options. Cyber tattoo customization options available.

*Specifications conform to accepted civilian standards. AEGIS takes no responsibility for injuries occurred during attempted vigilante acts

[Raz_Fox]

[Papers scattered on a $9k coffee table, scribbled in a careless hand. Half-empty wine bottles are scattered around, as is a deactivated mobile device.]

BECOME SUPERVILLAIN?
no people would think I copied Comstar
{scrubbed} Comstar

Go to alternate dimension?
restart whole life, replace other @SARAHPHIM
no all their worlds suck
plus somebody blew up dimensional portal, {scrubbed}

New call sign? SPELL CORRECTLY THIS TIME
but risk burning perfectly good brand?
@LUCYFER?
@ARCHANGEL?
@SARADIPENTY? @SARANDIP— ****
@NOVASTORM?
wait no that one’s already in use {scrubbed} youuuuuuu novastorm

apologize?
WHAT AND LET HER ROAST ME AGAIN??????
{scrubbed} THAAAAAAT

(I’m so sorry Eu— Erran— Agent—)

BECOME RECLUSE
no good rent money run out

BECOME DISFLIX STAR?
too much scandal
also would be terrible princess

***

[A woman half in shadow, her bare shoulder and arm central focus; the bright blue bottle of wine held between her fingers is almost an afterthought. The ornate logo is situated over her hidden hips, suggesting a “tramp stamp.”]

SAPPHIRE: SMOOTH AS THE NIGHT

***

[A full-page poster. The logo at the bottom is teal and pink and glittery: Princess-Champions of Hyperborea!

Front and center is the emerald-eyed beauty Alina Cascade, looking both pitiably small and yet determined, holding hands with her catgirl girlfriend Rita von Catabas.

To her left looms the black-scaled dragon, Princess Adila. Her Watchwoman’s emblem hangs on her chest, yet hangs half in shadow.

To her right stands the renegade Rider princess, Kazelia Swiftlance, in front of her loyal crystal-winged pegasus, Shiva. She’s holding her new fire lance, which she got at the start of Season 2.

Behind them all, facing left, is High Queen Ourania, her polychromatic hair blown dramatically by the wind. Holding her wrist, looming behind her, is her unwanted suitor: King Oberon of the Riders, with stars falling in the void of his eyes.

And over them all looms this season’s new antagonist, many arms reaching over everyone, a snake-entwined staff in one hand, and green-magenta spirals standing out strong in the shadow of her face.]

THE RETURN OF QUEEN EUPHERIA
DO NOT MISS THIS EPISODE!
SPOILERS WILL BE SENT TO YOUR DMS WITHIN ONE HOUR!

[Balmas]

The footage from the camera is shaky, as if taken by a body cam. "As you know," Brainstorm's voice says from off screen, "I'm a great believer in open source material. Paywalls and required purchases limit the ability of all people to contribute to the scientific endeavor, even if realistically speaking, the hyper-corporate life we find ourselves in means that most of the Leonardos and Michaelangelos of the world will probably find themselves bagging groceries and do-you-want-fries-with-thating for their entire lives, unaware of the potential that is squandered by a focus on profit first, last, and only. Chalk it up as one more reason to disassemble the megacorp structure.

"But I digress."

On screen, Brainstorm flashes a wireframe 3d model. "Here, we have the latest cyberlimb offering from AEGIS. You'll note that here, and here, the limb has been tampered with to limit its potential, so that people don't get hurt performing vigilante acts. Today, with only the tools you have at home, I plan to show you how to make cyberlimbs of your own that will just as easily match and surpass these specs."

He pauses, as if caught in a thought.

"With that said, you still won't be a superhero, and I can't in good conscience advise you to become vigilantes on your own. But, hypothetically speaking, if you're running on your own hardware and the anti-capitalist revolution were to come? It's probably better to be running on your own hardware and software than to suddenly find that AEGIS has decided you're better off helpless. So, what you'll need is..."

[Eldest]

Note From The Editor: And now, for something completely different.

It's a fold out poster, double sided. The first side has Ferra in her room, curled up on her beaten up couch, a rescued cat sleeping on the beanbag. She's got two sweaters done, fully knitted, and a third is being worked on right now, as the holo-window projects a cheerful city skyline. She's still spiky and blue, but it feels... calmer, perhaps, than she's appeared otherwise.

The other side has the four of them, laughing, each in a sweater. Brainstorm's is a vivid blue, with a BSOD terminal screen patterned onto it. Sara's is stylized stained glass wings, six of them, around a ring of eyes, on a red background. Euna's has painstakingly stitched medals, trophies, badges, and ribbons, a brocade of accolades on a right yellow-gold yarn. Ferra's, meanwhile, is green, with a cheerful smiley face.

Each of the sweaters is, naturally, hideous.

[Thanqol]

@Sarahphim!

As the name suggests, Locker has never been one to let a security system get in his way. He evidently isn't deterred much by do not disturb signs or 'leave me alone!'s shouted from the couch either. At least he had the good grace to bring a plastic shopping bag filled with cheap beer with him.

You've known Locker since... well, forever. When you were first getting scouted the network assigned him to you as a partner/rival - the usual thing of throwing two untested young superheroes together to see if anything came of it. Locker was always sharp as knives, incredible at pattern analysis and his augmented nervous system gave him unbelievable reflexes and agility. For a while he pushed you to the limit and you were worried that they were going to can you and make the show about him. Your gimmick about leaving a gap in your patterns got started because of him - as far as you know, he's the only person on the planet who can figure out one of your patterns in real time. The first few times you weren't even leaving gaps intentionally but he still found the holes.

But as time went on he started falling off while you increasingly came into your own. He was increasingly sidelined towards the end of season two, and in season three he transitioned from 'sidekick' to 'training partner' and finally to 'washout'. Your career took flight, his faded away, and eventually he was just a voice in the chat. Nothing dramatic, no big fight, no bitterness. Just you made it, and he didn't. You've never really talked about it - you've been busy.

He looks like a washout. Nondescript black turtleneck, black jeans, black lipstick, scruffy black hair, sleepless black hollows under his eyes. The kind of scraggle beard that happens when you have absolutely no ability to grow a beard whatsoever. "Congrats," he said, pulling a can off the ring and offering it to you. "You did it."

*

Errant!

"We believe that the devil is responsible," said Commander Warren with a straight face.

I mean, that tracks with all the pentagrams and inverted crosses burned into the walls, and the fact that the floor is a molten pit of lava, and the rescue drones that are delicately trying to cut through the chains that are holding multiple ball-gagged staff members upside-down over said lava pit. If you were given an assignment to draw a picture of Hell and instead spent four weeks watching cartoons and then rushed the picture out at the last minute based on all the clichés you could think of then that'd have the same sort of energy as what you're seeing here. You're sitting in the adjoining lobby, totally unscathed professional clean white tiles. Princess-Champions Of Hyperborea posters line the walls.

An extremely unstable looking bridge crosses the abyss to the centre of the room, where a large, rippling portal hangs in the air.

"Perseus believes that Lucifer Morningstar broke his shackles and arose from the depths of Hell to bring about a final wicked judgement to this corrupt world during the same incident that brought through the multiple @Sarahphim parallels," the commander continued in the same flat tone. "After bringing about a reign of unholy anarchy through District Sat-12, he abruptly altered course, came here, broke into our media studios, tore open a portal to the dimension of a children's cartoon, and went through. As was foretold in the Book of Vance. As the agent on duty with the highest familiarity to the media property in question you have been selected to enter the portal, navigate a colourful landscape inhabited by all your favourite characters, and send the devil back to hell and/or AEGIS' Supernatural Containment Jail."

No matter how deeply you look into his eyes you can't see the slightest hint that he is in any way joking.

*

Brainstorm!

You are at the NeoWorld Fair Technology Conference!

It is a cutting edge showcase of all the latest technology. The Megas all have their wings with their latest glossy branded marvels, but half the conference is turned over to the Minnow Hall - a place where lots of tiny little companies who have managed to think up a good idea or novel innovation show their stuff off in the hopes that they get bought out by a Mega. The technology itself may then sit on the shelf for a decade, but that's science for you. The buzz in on the floor is about the new superpowered security force, a mercenary company called the Spiral Corps. Faceless black visors on teal and white power armour, they look and dress identically but advertise a wild variety of superpowers - tech based and otherwise.

There are showbags. You have a lot of showbags. Tell me about the showbags.

You're here for two reasons.

One is because it's your best chance to get a look at Disflix. That's where you lost track of Prometheus, and the Enchanted Kingdom itself is a fortified mega-plex - their staff and exhibition here is the closest point of vulnerability in the Mouse's empire.

The second is because Perseus also chose to make this place a priority. You're not sure what that means. But it's devoted a lot of processing time to this event specifically as one of its first acts.

*

Ferra!

Your life has recently been an endless amount of stuff happening to you. You've been chased, reincarnated, upgraded, made a star, visited alternate dimensions, seen life from the perspective of martian missile networks and from the nature of infinity itself. You've been buffeted all about like a leaf on a breeze without making decisions of your own.

You're a star! You've got all the power and perspective you need!

You've finished knitting your sweater. You're low on milk for the cat. The only thing you've got on your schedule today is to walk down to the grocery store and surely nothing bad will happen while you're doing that - so tell me about your morning habits, your apartment and schedule, and what you're planning to do with the rest of the afternoon.

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 4

Sara looks like burning garbage. There are dark bags under her eyes, she’s wearing an oversized black hoodie and eye-searingly neon leggings, and she... oh, no. Sara. Sweetie.

She cut her own hair.

In her defense, it needed to be done after her dimensional double shot a hardlight pulse through her hair. But it looks like a hack job done without a mirror with the scissors on the floor.

Also she is all blanket. She blinks in affronted contempt at her visitor, much like an owl that has just had a flashlight shined in its eyes.
{scrubbed}. It’s too early for this.” It is 11:25 AM. She pulls the blankets over her head. A beat, and then a hand darts out and grabs the can of beer. Another beat, as Sara tries to figure out how to drink the beer without spilling it or coming out of the blankets, concludes it can’t be done, and emerges once more from her lair of fuzzy, warm solitude.

“Go ahead and gloat. I don’t care,” Sara says, caring immensely. Like a woman on the edge of a cliff daring you to try and push her because she has abs of steel and won’t budge an inch. “Blah blah, finally ruined the channel, time to make an apology video to try and stop subscriber bleed.” She stares off into the distance. “What if,” she rasps, like someone trying to figure out how to use a broken shovel to dig her way out, like someone dangling by a thread over a black hole with no bottom, “Comstar mind controlled me to do it because she thought it would be a movie homage. Yeah. That could work.”

Ignore the fact that Comstar is in triple security techopath jail and it’s the perfect cover. Airtight. Foolproof.

She raises the can to her lips. It is not open. She gives it a look of utter betrayal.

[PhoeKun]

"Erm... Sir?"

Even scrutinizing the Commander's face as hard as she can for signs of a joke and coming up empty, and even after another glance over at the lava pits that used to be part of an animation office, Errant can't help but want to crack a smile and ask to see the new holo projector. She doesn't dare, though. Not when he's in a mood like this. She swallows, and tugs on her pant legs with her freshly rebuilt fingers while she sits there and wait for any sort of clarification. She frowns.

Her eyes slide across the many posters advertising the new season of PCoH, across the frankly suicidal looking bridge, and straight to the portal sitting there. You know, something they never think to teach you in school is that inter-dimensional portals are really, really disappointing to look at. You'd think they'd be like windows, right? You could just cast your eyes across the room and bam! Staring right through the shimmery veil at the floating glass towers of Askaia or the vast spice dunes of Jedad or something. You'd think that. But actually the rippling energies are so turbulent it's just a mess of color. That'd be pretty in its own way but it just makes her think of Neo Chaos Spire which makes her think of certain restaurants in Neo Chaos Spire which makes her think of certain teammates and that night and that word and god damn it now she's clenching her teeth.

Get it together, Soldier! Snap to before they take you off mission! She stands up and snaps smoothly to attention.

"Give me the details, Sir. We need to go over logistics, Sir. This is a solo mission, Sir? What's my support structure going to be? Will I need to procure supplies on-site? What's our extraction strategy, Sir? Do we..." she hesitates, "Have tracking capability? This is... um, I'm not sure how to say this, Sir, but if this is 1:1 then that's an entire world, Sir. Like, with continents and oceans and..."

She hesitates, closes her eyes. Salutes.

"Count on me, Sir."

Don't bounce up and down don't pump your fist don't squeak don't ruin this, Euna. This is a mission. Not a reward. A mission, ok? They just told you to go punch Satan. Because you watch the most cartoons of anyone on staff. Her salute is, it must be said, more rigid than is strictly required by AEGIS guidebook standards.

[Balmas]

Brainstorm!

You are at the NeoWorld Fair Technology Conference!

It is a cutting edge showcase of all the latest technology. The Megas all have their wings with their latest glossy branded marvels, but half the conference is turned over to the Minnow Hall - a place where lots of tiny little companies who have managed to think up a good idea or novel innovation show their stuff off in the hopes that they get bought out by a Mega. The technology itself may then sit on the shelf for a decade, but that's science for you. The buzz in on the floor is about the new superpowered security force, a mercenary company called the Spiral Corps. Faceless black visors on teal and white power armour, they look and dress identically but advertise a wild variety of superpowers - tech based and otherwise.

There are showbags. You have a lot of showbags. Tell me about the showbags.

You're here for two reasons.

One is because it's your best chance to get a look at Disflix. That's where you lost track of Prometheus, and the Enchanted Kingdom itself is a fortified mega-plex - their staff and exhibition here is the closest point of vulnerability in the Mouse's empire.

The second is because Perseus also chose to make this place a priority. You're not sure what that means. But it's devoted a lot of processing time to this event specifically as one of its first acts.

No, dear friend, there are three reasons Brainstorm is here. And the third reason is the showbags. Rather, it's what the showbags can hold. Brainstorm has a cunning plan, you see. He's studied the floor plan in exacting detail, and plotted the optimum route through the showroom, accounting for every stall of knick-knacks, every table of engaging doodads, a fecundity of science and entertainment, prioritized by personal interest and which minicorps are here for a second time. Any second now, the protesting nylon seams of the showbags will burst, but he calculates he has another two stalls' worth of samples before he needs to run back to his little rented storage locker and squirrel away his hard-earned loot.

The star of the show is definitely a small startup called Techtopia. Their product lineup is limited, but impressive, and styled after campy old superhero comics from before the Rx crisis. A raygun hides a combination grappling-hook/harpoon gun that advertises its ability to shoot through an elephant, and then haul that elephant up fifteen stories if need be. Swirly-eyed goggles promise that anyone meeting direct eye-contact will fall into a highly-suggestible trance state for a length of time, and the number of people who immediately sign over personal information after that booth is both impressive and worrisome. He can already see a list of marketing gophers swarming the booth and asking about how it might be incorporated into, say, the adbreaks--no, the theme song--no, the entire show of a primetime network.

As he's mingling and collecting, though, he's got two objectives, two things to monitor. The first is to examine the openings in Disflix's security from the corner of his eyes. There's got to be a pattern to their patrols, something he can exploit to sneak in when nobody's looking.

The other is for any sign of those power-armored Spiral Corps troopers. If he can find one of them, he can probably knock them out and just stroll right into a secured area where there's going to be computers to hack.

[Assess the situation, 13. What could I use here to get into Disflix's security center unimpeded? What here is most vulnerable to me?]

[Thanqol]

“Go ahead and gloat. I don’t care,” Sara says, caring immensely. Like a woman on the edge of a cliff daring you to try and push her because she has abs of steel and won’t budge an inch. “Blah blah, finally ruined the channel, time to make an apology video to try and stop subscriber bleed.” She stares off into the distance. “What if,” she rasps, like someone trying to figure out how to use a broken shovel to dig her way out, like someone dangling by a thread over a black hole with no bottom, “Comstar mind controlled me to do it because she thought it would be a movie homage. Yeah. That could work.”

Ignore the fact that Comstar is in triple security techopath jail and it’s the perfect cover. Airtight. Foolproof.

She raises the can to her lips. It is not open. She gives it a look of utter betrayal.

"Dude," said Locker. "Just laser it open."

He casually sweeps everything off the coffee table with one foot and tosses the pack onto it. Oh jeez, he got the generic brand. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

"Why are you stressing about the show?" he said, using the ring pull on a can like a caveman. "You just franchised, idiot. Literally anyone is talking about is the @Sarahphims - and you were the one who kicked all their asses simultaneously. You're so big the press is banging on my door to see if I've got any insight on divergence points. I said congrats because I meant it - you made it. You're an icon. You're the star."

He gave a tired smile. "I meant what I said. Congratulations."

Get it together, Soldier! Snap to before they take you off mission! She stands up and snaps smoothly to attention.

"Give me the details, Sir. We need to go over logistics, Sir. This is a solo mission, Sir? What's my support structure going to be? Will I need to procure supplies on-site? What's our extraction strategy, Sir? Do we..." she hesitates, "Have tracking capability? This is... um, I'm not sure how to say this, Sir, but if this is 1:1 then that's an entire world, Sir. Like, with continents and oceans and..."

She hesitates, closes her eyes. Salutes.

"Count on me, Sir."

Don't bounce up and down don't pump your fist don't squeak don't ruin this, Euna. This is a mission. Not a reward. A mission, ok? They just told you to go punch Satan. Because you watch the most cartoons of anyone on staff. Her salute is, it must be said, more rigid than is strictly required by AEGIS guidebook standards.

"Your support is going to be minimal on this one. Last thing we want to do is introduce the tinker princess to the concept of assault firearms," said Commander Warren. "You're cleared to arm up locally and recruit the locals to assist you, but neuralize them afterwards to be on the safe side." He puts a sleek black Men-in-Black style short-term memory alteration device on the table and slides it across to you. "Tracking..." he turns and looks at the enormous lava pit in the midst of the lobby, "... shouldn't be a problem. But just in case we've also got one of these for you."

He puts a weird... high tech bridle thing on the table next to the neuralizer. "This is a set of semiadaptive nano barding, uplinked to an animal mindcaster with a Perseus AI fragment in it. Put it on some local fauna and it will transform it into a flight-capable combat assistance beast. It'll also get you used to working alongside Perseus."

As he's mingling and collecting, though, he's got two objectives, two things to monitor. The first is to examine the openings in Disflix's security from the corner of his eyes. There's got to be a pattern to their patrols, something he can exploit to sneak in when nobody's looking.

The other is for any sign of those power-armored Spiral Corps troopers. If he can find one of them, he can probably knock them out and just stroll right into a secured area where there's going to be computers to hack.

[Assess the situation, 13. What could I use here to get into Disflix's security center unimpeded? What here is most vulnerable to me?]

The security centre itself is on unbelievably tight lockdown. Spiral Corps guys are swarming all over it - multispectral visors, biometric scanners, even this piece of nasty new tech called a Dazer - basically it's time tech that caps the speed of anything moving through it - send a bullet into it and while it'll keep its full force it'll progress at the speed of a casual walk, which is also the speed anyone walking through is capped at. Gives them tonne of reaction time to anything coming their way. They're on huge alert because they're well aware that the traditional way to demonstrate you've got some truly excellent tech on hand is to break into the security centre itself.

But there's a catch. Spiral Corps troopers have armour calibrated to the Dazer's frequency; they can move through it unimpeded. And while their processes are optimized for countering any sort of weird visionary near-future tech they're honestly not really prepared for someone just straight up bluffing their way in in the traditional way. Crack some guys over the head and take a suit and you've got pretty good odds of doing just that.

You don't come to this conclusion entirely on your own, though. You come to this conclusion because someone else is running the exact same operation you are! You notice a pair of Spiral Troopers alter course conveniently, heading for exactly the sort of secluded area in a signal shadow from a nearby electronic warfare exhibition that would make it perfect for you to go and take them out. And you see a handsome, slightly scruffy blonde guy with a ponytail detach from a wall and start stalking after them with an operator's confidence. Get in on that guy's operation and this is going to be much easier.

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 4

Sara gives him a flat, exhausted glare. A “dude of course I knew I should laser it open, duh, of course, I’m not an idiot, don’t judge me” glare. She then punches a hole right through the can with an indigo bolt.

“{scrubbed}!” There is a moment of mutual flailing for absorbent material. Cheap beer spills everywhere.

Okay, so. It’s five minutes later, and the ruined can is sitting on a towel. Sara is sitting on the couch, smelling like dollar store hooch. And she’s actually letting her brain work through the implications of what Locker has just told her. She’s franchised. She’s franchised.

“So that’s it,” she says, her voice shaky. “I made it.” Hey, Mami, look! I made it! Top of the world, but my stomach won’t stop clenching up! “No more worrying that everyone’s going to drop me the second a better hero shows up, or the shipping...”

That’s right. The ship wars are over. She doesn’t have to lean on that crutch to keep viewers around now that she’s big. And if she’d waited just a little longer... if Euna hadn’t kissed her after saving her from dying on the moon... if she’d stayed with Euna...

If she’d been brave enough to be with Euna she never would have lost her in the first place.

Her face scrunches up in a very unphotogenic way, and she starts bawling at how stupid and unfair it all is. And there’s beer on her leggings and her hair’s a disaster and if she’d been better Euna wouldn’t have given up on her.

That’s the worst bit. She’d almost convinced herself that the mistake had been giving in. But no. The mistake was not staying with her. And there was no way in the world she could spin that to actually be Euna’s fault.

[PhoeKun]

Errant glances down at the neuralizer without comment. An awkward silence follows; she takes the bridle with even less comment. Her right eyebrow threatens to arch itself right off of her face, but she violently forces it back down with a rather ungraceful twitch of her face. She slings the bridle over her shoulder and smooths her hair out with her other hand in lieu of actually filling in any of this weird and oppressive blank space with commentary.

Nope. Not gonna do it. Not gonna say a word. When this turns out to be a hoax AEGIS fell for or a bug in Perseus' new systems or some incredibly elaborate prank by their many many enemies, or whatever disappointing dumb thing is on the table here then at least it won't have blown up in her face, specifically. She's just gonna follow orders, maintain the thin veneer of professionalism left to her by the situation, and sort the rest out later.

"Understood, Sir. Then, if you've no objections, I'm beginning the mission, Sir."

There's a jolt in her stomach as she turns to leave. This is a dream assignment, unreasonable expectations aside. So what the hell, Euna? Does she really... not believe this? Does she really not believe in this? Her foot touches the rickety bridge and her face looks suddenly downcast as she watches it sway under even her modest weight. She swallows, and turns to look over her shoulder.

"...This is now my official request as acting Agent on the mission for additional AEGIS support in the form of reinforcement of this bridge. Commencing full operations now."

What it comes down to, in the end, is whether or not her heart is open to trusting in anything. She takes a long, slow breath. She makes a choice, and jumps straight through the portal without touching the bridge.

[Balmas]

You don't come to this conclusion entirely on your own, though. You come to this conclusion because someone else is running the exact same operation you are! You notice a pair of Spiral Troopers alter course conveniently, heading for exactly the sort of secluded area in a signal shadow from a nearby electronic warfare exhibition that would make it perfect for you to go and take them out. And you see a handsome, slightly scruffy blonde guy with a ponytail detach from a wall and start stalking after them with an operator's confidence. Get in on that guy's operation and this is going to be much easier.

He has to act fast.

"Greg!" he calls, and rushes over to the man before he can react. "Greg! Greg Blunderberg! Oh gosh, it's been ages since I've seen you! When was the last time we met up?"

Spontaneous, that's the key. Fast paced, patter, don't let him open his mouth and say something stupid like, "Who the hell are you?"

"Aw man, it's been years. Last time was... Oh goodness, I think it must have been Hyperborea-con three years back! You remember what was going on in that season, right? Kazelia, sneaking into the Rider stronghold with Sparkle and Gun?"

It's a gamble, but Princess-Champions of Hyperborea is a widely-enough known series that even Brainstorm has watched it. Hopefully this guy has too, and gets the reference to exactly how they got in--by skull-bashing some mooks, and stealing their clothes.

He grins, and wiggles an eyebrow, darting his gaze to the guards. Come on, even he's not so oblivious he'd miss this.

[Eldest]

@Sarahphim!Ferra!

Your life has recently been an endless amount of stuff happening to you. You've been chased, reincarnated, upgraded, made a star, visited alternate dimensions, seen life from the perspective of martian missile networks and from the nature of infinity itself. You've been buffeted all about like a leaf on a breeze without making decisions of your own.

You're a star! You've got all the power and perspective you need!

You've finished knitting your sweater. You're low on milk for the cat. The only thing you've got on your schedule today is to walk down to the grocery store and surely nothing bad will happen while you're doing that - so tell me about your morning habits, your apartment and schedule, and what you're planning to do with the rest of the afternoon.

Ferra's normal morning checklist is fairly simple. Normal diagnostics, basically a self checkup. Spend two hours browsing the internet researching different cultures. Her apartment is fairly sparse, given that she doesn't exactly have any of the normal human needs. She's requested a bathroom, for if she has somebody more biological hanging out and, secretly, so she can try a bubble bath. It's scheduled for sometime next week. The rest is pretty plain: she's got various fabrics and stuff strewn about, the sweaters safety hung up far above where Charles the kitten can reach. She's got a standing wardrobe arranged with clothes. Beanbag and sofa, both taken from break rooms around the Gears Foundation. She's going to try getting a bed and see about sleeping after the bathroom.

Her afternoon plans... aren't. She's tried reaching out to Brainstorm, Errant, and Sara: all of them have cryptic messages or Sara's just not answering. Junebird is working today. She's been reluctant to talk to Professor Gears after meeting Halfwoman for the first time. So she's going to go on a walk through the Archives, here.

[Thanqol]

Her face scrunches up in a very unphotogenic way, and she starts bawling at how stupid and unfair it all is. And there’s beer on her leggings and her hair’s a disaster and if she’d been better Euna wouldn’t have given up on her.

That’s the worst bit. She’d almost convinced herself that the mistake had been giving in. But no. The mistake was not staying with her. And there was no way in the world she could spin that to actually be Euna’s fault.

It's a terrible thing, sadness. It wants to be heard. It wants to be known. It finds a way to twist out these horribly unique little sounds from your throat just to make sure everyone knows how much it hurts. Then comes the crushing weight of the fact that no one will ever really know...

Locker doesn't say anything. He just brings tissues and sits next to you. For a long time that's all he does - but he's always been a fidgety guy, and eventually he's on his feet and almost immediately winds up in the kitchen.

This could be the first time a human being has ever used that kitchen to cook. It's a fully automated system that can replicate the work of master chefs from around the globe, but now those semi-vestigial knobs and handles are being used for their original purpose. Simple, reassuring sounds start to clatter out as he sets about his work, followed by earthy, invigorating smells. And, treasonously, it starts to draw you out. I doubt you've eaten much in the last few days, Sara, and it's remarkable how hard it can be to remain still while your stomach is in open revolt.

There's a jolt in her stomach as she turns to leave. This is a dream assignment, unreasonable expectations aside. So what the hell, Euna? Does she really... not believe this? Does she really not believe in this? Her foot touches the rickety bridge and her face looks suddenly downcast as she watches it sway under even her modest weight. She swallows, and turns to look over her shoulder.

"...This is now my official request as acting Agent on the mission for additional AEGIS support in the form of reinforcement of this bridge. Commencing full operations now."

What it comes down to, in the end, is whether or not her heart is open to trusting in anything. She takes a long, slow breath. She makes a choice, and jumps straight through the portal without touching the bridge.

"How did this happen?" said Princess Kazelia, the blue skinned Rider princess. "We're smarter than this."

Three magical princesses took a moment to struggle ineffectively against their bindings because the alternative was to disagree with Princess Kazelia's statement. One of those princesses was a black dragon about the size of a horse and so was bound with heavier metal chains rather than the more traditional (overtly) elaborate rope-trussing, but even that clanking wasn't enough to entirely drown out the cute and ineffective squeaking.

+How did you get caught, Kazelia?+ thought Princess Adila, the dragon in question. As a telepath she was able to think-speak through the muzzle that was very firmly keeping her from breathing fire. As a really bad telepath she wasn't able to stop her sense of embarrassment and desire to redirect the conversation from seeping through the link.

"I got a magical message from you saying that you needed me to create a distraction," thought Kazelia. "From my studies of Hyperborean culture the most traditional way to do that is to very publicly get captured. I... wanted to fit in."

+It goes without saying I didn't send that message,+ thought Princess Adila.

"So how did you get captured?" Kazelia asked.

+Um...+ the psychic embarrassment intensified. +Stheno was there. And... well, she beat me, okay? I'm not invincible.+ Despite this sounding like a reasonable sounding explanation, Adila was a terrible liar. Not only was it plain when she was lying her ill-disciplined telepathy went on to let the truth soak out anyway.

"And that was all?" Princess Kazelia asked archly.

+It's not often I get beaten, okay!+ thought Adila. +So I thought I could get captured just this once to see what it feels like!+ belatedly, she added to the thought +and besides, I figured it would create a distraction.+

"Isn't anybody going to ask how I got captured?" Princess Alina, the beautiful lavender-haired Illuminan asked.

"No," said Princess Kazelia.

+No,+ thought Princess Adila.

"H-hey!" said Princess Alina, flushing a bright pink. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I made my plan around the assumption that you'd already be captured, and we'd be able to escape together," said Princess Kazelia.

+You do have the most experience with it,+ thought Princess Adila.

"That's not fair. I didn't get captured once in Jedad," Princess Alina huffed.

+Speaking of Jedad, I think I forgot about your community -+

"Anyway!" Princess Alina went on hurriedly. "I figured that this would be an easy capture because Princess Kaja was here, but it turned out it was just Princess Ninan," she put a lot of grumpiness into that name. "So I don't have a way out."

"Wait, did we just lose?" said Princess Kazelia. "Did we just lose and doom Hyperborea because we all let ourselves be captured for extremely sketchy reasons?"

There was silence for a moment. And a little squirming.

+I think we should create a roster,+ thought Princess Adila.

"That's your answer to everything!" said Princess Alina.

+You just hate sharing!+ Adila snapped back.

"We can discuss this later!" Kazelia said. "Look, we just need to hold out until Princess Rita comes to rescue us!"

"Um, she got kidnapped by Princess Kyouko," Alina said.

"What about Princess Dandy? Princess Hornet?"

+Kyouko again,+ thought Adila. +The ransom note said that she was planning something really special.+

"Damn it, fox!" Kazelia struggled in an ineffective attempt to shake her fist.

"We told you not to trust her," said Princess Alina.

+Have you ever heard the parable of the scorpion and the frog?+ thought Princess Adila.

"So that's it? We're doomed?" said Princess Kazelia. "Is there nobody in Hyperborea left to save us now?"

Well, Agent Errant? Is there?

It's a gamble, but Princess-Champions of Hyperborea is a widely-enough known series that even Brainstorm has watched it. Hopefully this guy has too, and gets the reference to exactly how they got in--by skull-bashing some mooks, and stealing their clothes.

He grins, and wiggles an eyebrow, darting his gaze to the guards. Come on, even he's not so oblivious he'd miss this.

There's a complicated expression going on with this guy. Eyes wide, slightly stuttering, glancing all about looking to see if anyone else is watching him, frantically checking his Comlog. This guy recognizes you. "I mean - haha -" he said, picking out sunglasses from his shirt pocket and putting them on to conceal his eyes. "- for sure, man. Right there with you all the way."

Up closer, this guy's aesthetic is somewhere around Australian surfer - loud shirt, tanned skin, beach angel looks, buff musculature. None of that in any way means he's actually ever seen a beach, of course, but it's a look you pick if you want to play life pretty casual. You have no idea who he is. He is wearing a backpack, though, and that's definitely worth noting - anyone wearing a backpack while conducting an op has some serious tech in play and the wherewithal to get it past security.

He's specifically holding himself back from saying more, though, and lets you take the lead. The goons are heading into a network of wires and power cables, signal density thick enough to scramble their transmissions for a few key moments while also leaving them out of sight. It's your play.

Ferra's normal morning checklist is fairly simple. Normal diagnostics, basically a self checkup. Spend two hours browsing the internet researching different cultures. Her apartment is fairly sparse, given that she doesn't exactly have any of the normal human needs. She's requested a bathroom, for if she has somebody more biological hanging out and, secretly, so she can try a bubble bath. It's scheduled for sometime next week. The rest is pretty plain: she's got various fabrics and stuff strewn about, the sweaters safety hung up far above where Charles the kitten can reach. She's got a standing wardrobe arranged with clothes. Beanbag and sofa, both taken from break rooms around the Gears Foundation. She's going to try getting a bed and see about sleeping after the bathroom.

Her afternoon plans... aren't. She's tried reaching out to Brainstorm, Errant, and Sara: all of them have cryptic messages or Sara's just not answering. Junebird is working today. She's been reluctant to talk to Professor Gears after meeting Halfwoman for the first time. So she's going to go on a walk through the Archives, here.

The Gears Archives! Rows and rows of gadgets and inventions, crates full of notebooks and diagrams, all heaped up in an unsorted mess. Dr. Gears wasn't an organized person at the best of times and then this room was host to a literal martian invasion. There are still scraps of Doctor Sylvanius' combat remotes scattered in amidst the files - and in the centre of it all, your stasis pod. The egg is lit up with a cool white light.

It's been a long time since you've been here, and a long time since that first fight. Memories flash behind your eyelids - coming out into the light to meet the team for the first time. Instantly plunged into a whirlwind of battle but knowing instinctively that these people had your back...

What does that moment mean to you? And what questions did it leave you with?

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 4

Is it not said, hunger has a way with you? It has been said. On Broadway, even.

So after a lot of sniffling into tissues and wiping her red, aching eyes, our beer-stained princess of laser bolts wraps her blanket around her like a cloak and shuffles into the kitchen, holding another beer between her cold fingers.

Locker is doubtless making something better than instant noodles, cold pizza, and/or Mister Donut (~get a good donut at Mister Donut~). Her stomach cramps just thinking about eating food that hasn’t been processed twice.

“Hey, Locker.” She doesn’t look at him. Just sits on an elegant countertop chair for the second time in her whole life. “Am... am I a bitch?”

Which, the answer is yes, right? That’s her branding! She’s the Bad Girl who can’t be beat. She took down Turbo Knight, she blazed through all of her wimpy dimensional doubles, she is lean and mean and obscene. She’s #3 on Clickpit’s “8 Superheroines We Want To Step On Us.”

...but is she, you know. Actually a bitch? It’s crude and misogynistic and “bastard” doesn’t have the same connotations but... well, you get what she’s really asking, right? If she’s really mean, and cold, and good at driving everyone else away?

[PhoeKun]

Errant's skepticism survives for all of three seconds after she reaches the other end of the portal. She comes diving out of it, tucks into a perfect shoulder roll and springs lightly onto her feet (which slide across the ground for a foot or so before her momentum finally comes to a stop), and is automatically looking about for either signs of brimstone to follow or for an animal of some kind to fit this harness to (don't think about how creepy this thing is don't think about it don't think about it I said don't--) when she hears the voices carrying over to her from just a little ways away.

Her heart jumps into her throat and she has to clap a hand over her mouth to keep from squeaking. She knows every single one of these voices! How could she not? She's been glued to the screen watching every single one of their adventures since the moment she saw the first trailer. She's seen every movie, every episode, every strangely canon web-only special, she hears these voices in her sleep when she's dreaming and in the most stressful points of her life when she's desperate for any sort of anchor to help her be a better her. That whip sharp voice that always sounds like it's on the verge of a song definitely, definitely belongs to Kazelia! And that... oh woah, this is weird. In the series they handle Adila's voice with an echo filter and the occasional splash of imagery to convey her meaning, but the reality of it is so much weirder than that. She can 'hear' the voice, and it 'sounds' exactly correct, but she can also feel all these pulses of emotion inside of her head that don't belong to her, as well as the sense that none of this is directed at all, just thoughts carrying through the air in waves as easily as the sounds of other voices. This is the coolest thing Errant's ever experienced! Then she hears the indignant, chiming squeak of Alina Cascade, and...

It surprises her, really. It's probably just the adrenaline, but her eyes start watering and she has to hastily wipe them dry again so she can sneak up and see the truth with her own eyes. And sure are enough, there are her heroes, in exactly the kind of pinch she'd put them in if she were writing a-- ahem! Nevermind. Her heart does a wild leap. She's got permission to 'recruit the locals', right? Ok then! Ok, ok, ok! You get one chance at this, Euna Kim, so don't mess it up!

She jumps straight into the scene, dropping into a perfect three-point landing in front of the trio of princesses exactly one comedic beat after 'is there nobody left to save us now?'. She milks the entrance a little, standing up much slower and more dramatically than she'd ever do on a normal mission. A curious breeze gusts past them to ruffle her hair just so and then mysteriously dies out when she reaches up to smooth it back out (only to find it had all settled perfectly back into place on its own). This is the most amazing, perfect moment of her entire life.

"Oh," she squeaks, immediately ruining it, "My. Gosh! You, uh, probably get this a lot but I'm, uh, I'm... wow. Wow! I'm sorry, I just have to say it, I am your biggest fan. And I just... oh, sorry, right yes."

Euna sweeps into a low bow with a flourish of each of her hands in a desperate attempt to reclaim some of her cool cred.

"Princesses Kazelia, Adila, and Alina, my name is Euna Kim. I'm on a mission to, uh, arrest a dangerous magical entity who may have snuck into your world, but in the meantime it would be my honor to rescue you."

[Balmas]

There's a complicated expression going on with this guy. Eyes wide, slightly stuttering, glancing all about looking to see if anyone else is watching him, frantically checking his Comlog. This guy recognizes you. "I mean - haha -" he said, picking out sunglasses from his shirt pocket and putting them on to conceal his eyes. "- for sure, man. Right there with you all the way."

Up closer, this guy's aesthetic is somewhere around Australian surfer - loud shirt, tanned skin, beach angel looks, buff musculature. None of that in any way means he's actually ever seen a beach, of course, but it's a look you pick if you want to play life pretty casual. You have no idea who he is. He is wearing a backpack, though, and that's definitely worth noting - anyone wearing a backpack while conducting an op has some serious tech in play and the wherewithal to get it past security.

He's specifically holding himself back from saying more, though, and lets you take the lead. The goons are heading into a network of wires and power cables, signal density thick enough to scramble their transmissions for a few key moments while also leaving them out of sight. It's your play.

Okay, now that? See that? That's what is known in the business as annoying as all get out. The fact that he knows him could be as simple as for once, meeting a member of his fan club who does not, just to name an example, have a bootleg photoshopped nude calendar of him. (Note to self. If he's going to build a brand, is it worth considering making a licensed version of that?)

But, no. If he were a fan, he'd want, you know, autographs, selfies, all that jazz. The fact that this man knows him and doesn't want him to know? This is what is known as an unplanned variable.

This is especially true when power armor is on the line. He's no Errant; if she were here, it'd be a simple matter of having her bash them on the head before they could react. Not that she'd do it, probably, unless they were actively attacking them or she had orders to do so, but that's not the point.

Still, there's a simple way to deal with people with power armor. No matter how tightly fitted the armor, how well put-together, there's going to be chinks: joints, vents, mesh, and so on. And where there's an opening, there's an entrance for a swarm of sentient nanobots.

Here's the plan:
-Zergrush nanites through any available gaps
-Prevent the soldiers from screaming by shoving nanites down throats, nostrils, and ordering them to push outwards. Ten seconds of internal strangulation should do it to induce unconsciousness
-Prevent soldiers from reaching for radios / alarms by forming protective cap over buttons (?)
-Withdraw nanites in time to prevent death (IMPORTANT)
-Profit?

[Unleash Your Powers: 9. So close. Probably gonna mark Guilty, based on the potential results.]

[Thanqol]

“Hey, Locker.” She doesn’t look at him. Just sits on an elegant countertop chair for the second time in her whole life. “Am... am I a bitch?”

"You know what your superpower is, Sara?" said Locker, eyes on three different timers he's got going. He's moving to some pattern only he knows; move now, chop this, stir that. "It's that you instantly become the most important person in the life of anyone you meet. I mean, you know that, but I don't think you get it. You get into people's heads without even trying. I mean, like, you're surrounded by wusses, right? Most of those people aren't nearly as disastrous when you're not around short-circuiting every instinct in their body."

He produces a small wheel of baked camembert cheese, seasoned with chili and garlic, along with a small bowl of breadsticks to dip in it. It's just a snack before he's done with the main meal but it's rich and salty and enough take the edge off.

"I fought Dominus twice and she put me in the dumpster every time without breaking a sweat," he said. "I mean, she's kind of a joke in the chat, but she's a legitimately scary person when her head is in the game. I'd actually give her decent odds against the dracula, maybe 30%, 50% if she went in with a proper plan to take him down specifically." Unspoken: Locker totally made you in that sequence, even through the disguise, but kept quiet about it. "But just 'cause you're important to them doesn't mean it goes the other way? You don't owe them things you don't feel."

She jumps straight into the scene, dropping into a perfect three-point landing in front of the trio of princesses exactly one comedic beat after 'is there nobody left to save us now?'. She milks the entrance a little, standing up much slower and more dramatically than she'd ever do on a normal mission. A curious breeze gusts past them to ruffle her hair just so and then mysteriously dies out when she reaches up to smooth it back out (only to find it had all settled perfectly back into place on its own). This is the most amazing, perfect moment of her entire life.

"Oh," she squeaks, immediately ruining it, "My. Gosh! You, uh, probably get this a lot but I'm, uh, I'm... wow. Wow! I'm sorry, I just have to say it, I am your biggest fan. And I just... oh, sorry, right yes."

Euna sweeps into a low bow with a flourish of each of her hands in a desperate attempt to reclaim some of her cool cred.

"Princesses Kazelia, Adila, and Alina, my name is Euna Kim. I'm on a mission to, uh, arrest a dangerous magical entity who may have snuck into your world, but in the meantime it would be my honor to rescue you."

Princess Asteria Spite!

You are sleeping the sleep of the smug.

Today has been a good day. It got off to a fantastic start when you captured all three troublesome Princesses all at once and with hardly any help, but you know what made it perfect? The sheep. In all your travels you have never found creatures so soft and fuzzy. Moreover, with your brilliant tactical skills it was a trivial matter to surround their encampment, defeat their warriors, and enslave their docile citizens. You lead them back to your camp in chains and outfitted your own tent with a bed made of ten sheep standing in a square formation with a couple of sheets thrown over them. It is the best rest you have ever had. You don't even mind having to wake up now and then to whip a sheep that is baa'ing too loudly. You are the best princess.

And then - turbulence! Ruckus! The sound of nonsanctioned magical portals! You burst out of your tent in your nightgown and then whip your armouring slave for her poor reaction times. Who dares!? Another crack of the whip summons your chariot, pulled by six chained sheep - they are not swift enough for military duty but what better to represent the luxury deserved by the almighty general-princess? Well... perhaps the dragon might be a good substitute...

No hesitation! Charge! You will not allow your victory to be snatched away now that it is already in your grasp!

Errant!

A sudden blast of icy wind sends the whole tent falling over, suddenly revealing you in the centre of Princess Spite's encampment. Oh, and here comes Princess Spite right now, in a chariot drawn by shackled sheep, wearing her nightgown while a put-upon Illuminan slave frantically tries to buckle her armour into place. Even so her expression is Augustine and her midnight black eyes are as cold as the void. And she is not alone! She is surrounded by Kazelia's riders, the most elite and deadly warriors of a society that still believes bows and arrows are a top-tier military technology.

"Bring her down," declares Princess Spite, extending a finger to point directly at your heart.

(You are from a society that labours under no such delusions. You are essentially up against twenty to thirty unarmed civilians. Still, make a Directly Engage roll.)

Okay, now that? See that? That's what is known in the business as annoying as all get out. The fact that he knows him could be as simple as for once, meeting a member of his fan club who does not, just to name an example, have a bootleg photoshopped nude calendar of him. (Note to self. If he's going to build a brand, is it worth considering making a licensed version of that?)

But, no. If he were a fan, he'd want, you know, autographs, selfies, all that jazz. The fact that this man knows him and doesn't want him to know? This is what is known as an unplanned variable.

This is especially true when power armor is on the line. He's no Errant; if she were here, it'd be a simple matter of having her bash them on the head before they could react. Not that she'd do it, probably, unless they were actively attacking them or she had orders to do so, but that's not the point.

Still, there's a simple way to deal with people with power armor. No matter how tightly fitted the armor, how well put-together, there's going to be chinks: joints, vents, mesh, and so on. And where there's an opening, there's an entrance for a swarm of sentient nanobots.

Here's the plan:
-Zergrush nanites through any available gaps
-Prevent the soldiers from screaming by shoving nanites down throats, nostrils, and ordering them to push outwards. Ten seconds of internal strangulation should do it to induce unconsciousness
-Prevent soldiers from reaching for radios / alarms by forming protective cap over buttons (?)
-Withdraw nanites in time to prevent death (IMPORTANT)
-Profit?

[Unleash Your Powers: 9. So close. Probably gonna mark Guilty, based on the potential results.]

It's a rough way to knock someone out. Watching people clutch their throats is spooky - if effective. 'Greg' winces and looks away while you're doing it. Makes you feel a little guilty. You do notice that while one of them tries to pull off his helmet he straight can't do it before he runs out of breath.

But he moves quickly once the guys are down. Immediately he produces a hand laser, cracks the covering to the data intake port, and pulls cables out from his backpack to plug into both suits of armour. After twenty seconds of sitting very still all the armour seals decouple all at once - and a thick orange gas leaks from every single joint and gap. It looks nasty.

It's... not what you thought underneath. One of the goons is a lady with a face like the bulldog that caught the car, and the musculature to subsequently bench press said car over her head. She's covered head to toe in prison tattoos. Sure, makes sense, that's not an unusual look for a mercenary - but the other guy looks like some sort of poindexter - clean shaven, thin and bony, the soft hands of an office worker. He couldn't look less suited to wearing a set of power armour.

And then there's the ventilators. You noticed these were weird when your nanobots had to punch through them - it wasn't just that they were environmentally sealed, which would be unusual but not weird. It's that they were already pumping that orange gas directly into the users' faces.

"The hell is that?" said 'Greg', backing up away from the smoke.

[PhoeKun]

"Oh holy {scrubbed}, right out the gate! This is amazing!" Errant is actually bouncing right now. She claps her hands together with a dull clunk, "Ok ladies, just sit tight for ooooone minute."

Her smile is the kind of giddy, joyful thing that could make a puppy blush, and she spins on the balls of her feet to face her first Hyperborean challenge. And it's a classic, too! Everybody knows Asteria Spite is basically a free fight if you can get her one-on-one, but she's always got a bunch of lackeys under her command who are surprisingly willing to take the metaphorical bullet for her, all things considered, and that turns every one of her appearances into a brilliant one-on-many battle scene. It so happens, those are her specialty! She's written letters to production about it and everything! And then when those didn't get answers and she remembered she lives in the same building as Production, she walked there herself on an off hour to make sure they'd seen it. They... you know, had, then they asked her to leave and please let them do their jobs, and anyway here she is now! Isn't this neat??

Errant coolly observes her opponents with their bows drawn taut and blades keening in the cold night air, adding their number up in her head. Way fewer than the ninjas from her Pop Quiz; she's got this free. She cracks her neck, takes a deep breath, and clicks off her limiters.

Time to have fun.

The first poor girl, an archer, probably doesn't even see her coming. Errant is making a 'one second' gesture at Alina one moment, and the next she's got her fist colliding with that cold, azure jaw. Wow, watch her fly! Errant pauses to admire her handiwork for a second and in that moment gets set upon by two sword fighters. She slides smoothly under their whistling blades and pops up off the ground between them, nailing them each in the chest with a full split-kick. She grabs one of their swords as they fall and throws it at an arrow that's arcing toward her, then leaps a good ten feet in the air and lands on the offending Rider with a pixel perfect dive kick. She backflips into another opponent, turns, and delivers a driving punch to the solar plexus of a third.

Someone gives up on the idea of weapons combat, maybe thinking Errant's using some kind of blade magic or something, and just tries a good old fashioned dive tackle. She grabs this poor soul by the leg just under the knee and swings her like an olympic hammer, releasing her into a pile of five of her friends. Ok, that was a lot all at once. We're up to... uh, 14 now? Good start! She's everywhere, seemingly all at once, smashing her elbow through a sword like it was made of glass (the fragile kind, not the super magical Illuminan stuff) and knife-handing Riders in the back of the neck so they drop unconscious immediately and dropping a hammerfist on another that buckles their legs like springs.

She can hear the whistling sound of an arrow flying straight at her back. She spins, lightning quick, twists her body just enough to avoid it, and then snatches the thing right out of the air. I mean, come on. It's an arrow. You can watch them fly through the air in real time without any of her ocular tech. She shoots a look across the battlefield like, 'Come on. Really?' And that's when a funny feeling comes over her like she just made a mistake. The shaft of the arrow melts into shadows in her hand, which seem instantly to grow all the way up her arm like writhing chains and bind her from neck to toe faster than she can blink. There's a spark of recognition, and she laughs.

"Oh my god, I forgot they did that! Is this really what it feels like? Hahaha, oh man!"

The shadow-bindings finish their work and gag her like a proper princess, and as she falls backwards onto the ground the only mote of sadness that spoils her fun is the realization that she's not going to get to look quite as super cool in front of her heroes as she'd planned on. But this? Being tied up? With nobody hijacking her limbs and shutting down all of their functions? Wild. Give her a minute, and she'll break out and finish the job somewhere in the middle of the big gloat speech. But give her the minute, ok? She's having fun.

[Directly Engage: 8. Errant chooses to Impress, Surprise, or Frighten her foes]

[Eldest]

The Gears Archives! Rows and rows of gadgets and inventions, crates full of notebooks and diagrams, all heaped up in an unsorted mess. Dr. Gears wasn't an organized person at the best of times and then this room was host to a literal martian invasion. There are still scraps of Doctor Sylvanius' combat remotes scattered in amidst the files - and in the centre of it all, your stasis pod. The egg is lit up with a cool white light.

It's been a long time since you've been here, and a long time since that first fight. Memories flash behind your eyelids - coming out into the light to meet the team for the first time. Instantly plunged into a whirlwind of battle but knowing instinctively that these people had your back...

What does that moment mean to you? And what questions did it leave you with?

It's the start of her life. Like, you know, most people she's talked to have "this is the earliest memory I can remember" and it's usually something cute or occasionally terrible, because they're kids. Her first memory is staring up at Sara and Viktor during a Martian invasion. She, on a whim, comes back up to the egg, lost in thought. She has lots of feelings about it, all tied up tight in a bow. She's angry, she's elated, she knows she did good, she's confused... She nods hi to a younger sister of hers (the roomba cleaning the floor). She looks up at it. What does that mean for her as a person? That, and Dr. Gear's comment about how she wasn't meant to wake up unless somebody was about to figure out how to turn people into Rx. Which implies, if nobody figured that out... she'd never wake up.

She was shaping up to question a lot of Dr. Gear's decisions lately.

She absently sits next to the pod, eyes closed, and looks Adjacent. Just a touch, a fraction of a different reality. What's there? Is it someplace important? Is it nowhere?

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 4

“You are so full of {scrubbed},” Sara says to the person handling her food, and not for the first time, either. She used to get in big fights at MCD. There is probably still security footage floating around of her climbing over the counter that one time.

“That’s not what I asked you and you know it, dude. Yeah, yeah, I’m the center of attention. I work real hard at that. The question is whether I am a bad person.”

That hangs in the air for a really uncomfortable minute. Sara cracks open her can like a barbarian and chugs it while staring at the sleek, ominous refrigerator.

“Whether I chew people up and spit them out.”

Just like—

Don’t even think that. Don’t even. Don’t.

Her hardlight generator whirrs for a moment, white noise. The noise of her whole life, bound up tight in a knot.

Her whole life.

That’s the thing about Pepper, you know. You have to grind it. And she didn’t fully comprehend the enormity of what she was doing at the time. How the furnace churned up her offering like a bronze bull in the flames. How she ripped out of every universe imaginable...

Some secrets you can never share. Ever. Some secrets would make everyone walk away from you if they knew. And some secrets are the reason you are such a bad person, Sara Jimenez.

“...so cut the crap and give me an actual answer.”

[Balmas]

It's a rough way to knock someone out. Watching people clutch their throats is spooky - if effective. 'Greg' winces and looks away while you're doing it. Makes you feel a little guilty. You do notice that while one of them tries to pull off his helmet he straight can't do it before he runs out of breath.

But he moves quickly once the guys are down. Immediately he produces a hand laser, cracks the covering to the data intake port, and pulls cables out from his backpack to plug into both suits of armour. After twenty seconds of sitting very still all the armour seals decouple all at once - and a thick orange gas leaks from every single joint and gap. It looks nasty.

It's... not what you thought underneath. One of the goons is a lady with a face like the bulldog that caught the car, and the musculature to subsequently bench press said car over her head. She's covered head to toe in prison tattoos. Sure, makes sense, that's not an unusual look for a mercenary - but the other guy looks like some sort of poindexter - clean shaven, thin and bony, the soft hands of an office worker. He couldn't look less suited to wearing a set of power armour.

And then there's the ventilators. You noticed these were weird when your nanobots had to punch through them - it wasn't just that they were environmentally sealed, which would be unusual but not weird. It's that they were already pumping that orange gas directly into the users' faces.

"The hell is that?" said 'Greg', backing up away from the smoke.

Brainstorm shudders, and does his level best not to ruin the past five minutes by retching onto the newly-earned power armor.

"At a guess, I'd say it's probably some kind of combat-enhancing psych-you-up juice," he quavers. "Bulldog here is the control, and the skinny nerd is the experimental group. The question is, can you turn them off?"

[Thanqol]

Some secrets you can never share. Ever. Some secrets would make everyone walk away from you if they knew. And some secrets are the reason you are such a bad person, Sara Jimenez.

“...so cut the crap and give me an actual answer.”

"Here's what I think," said Locker, tapping his fingers quietly. "I think you're feeling guilty about something and want me to give you permission to hate yourself. If I tell you that you're a good person without knowing what it is that's eating you it'll glance right off."

He cracks a beer himself. Downs it. Slides another one across to you. It's just like fighting him, he's always where you don't want him to be.

"Maybe I'm just projecting," he said. "I mean, nothing hurt me worse than people telling me I was a good person when I knew they were wrong. Not only did it not help, it made me respect them less because they were either too stupid to see the truth or too weak to judge me harshly. If I wasn't a bad person before, I definitely became one after a while of asking that question. Anyway. You like Ethiopian, right?"

"Oh my god, I forgot they did that! Is this really what it feels like? Hahaha, oh man!"

The shadow-bindings finish their work and gag her like a proper princess, and as she falls backwards onto the ground the only mote of sadness that spoils her fun is the realization that she's not going to get to look quite as super cool in front of her heroes as she'd planned on. But this? Being tied up? With nobody hijacking her limbs and shutting down all of their functions? Wild. Give her a minute, and she'll break out and finish the job somewhere in the middle of the big gloat speech. But give her the minute, ok? She's having fun.

[Directly Engage: 8. Errant chooses to Impress, Surprise, or Frighten her foes]

"How DARE!?" said Princess Spite, shaking in her nightgown. She'd long ago figured out that the best way to deal with fear was to convert it into anger and then channel the anger into whipping. And she had a lot of fear right now. Almost all of her soldiers had been wiped out like they were nothing!? Was this a betrayal? Had Ninan put them up to this, to lose in front of this strange princess to make her look bad!?!? Well it hadn't worked! Another day, another betrayal, and another triumph for Princess Asteria Spite! Crack! Crack!

Her hands are shaking. Her aim is off. While she gets one or two good whip hits in a lot of blows are falling on cybernetics. It could definitely be worse!

"Who sent you!? What did they pay you!? How dare you!?!" Princess Spite was so off her game she was demanding answers of a gagged prisoner. But in the background, Princess Alina had started to move.

It was some Houdini moves that Princess Alina was doing; some mind-bending displays of flexibility and grace. She kicked off her shoes and gracefully bent over backwards to untie the knots on her wrists with her toes. Sometimes in Princess Champions Alina gets tied up and mysteriously gets out of it in between scenes but you get to see the full practiced experience of a career escape artist at work. Princess Spite doesn't notice, as tilted as she is by your continued defiance in refusing to answer her questions. Alina gets to her feet, brushes herself down, puts her shoes back on, and with perfectly graceful timing lasers Princess Spite through a wall.

The remaining two Riders weigh up their odds, then break and run.

"Thank you," said Princess Alina, kneeling down to gracefully remove the ball gag. "My hero."

Brainstorm shudders, and does his level best not to ruin the past five minutes by retching onto the newly-earned power armor.

"At a guess, I'd say it's probably some kind of combat-enhancing psych-you-up juice," he quavers. "Bulldog here is the control, and the skinny nerd is the experimental group. The question is, can you turn them off?"

"Yeah, I don't know," the guy said. "These guys were breathing it while doing a security patrol. You don't dose people up on metachemistry when they're watching crowds full of phone cameras - and they didn't flip out and charge us when you were strangling them..."

He looked at the kit uncertainly. "The dispenser is hooked up to all sorts of tracking sensors too. I can suppress it, but if the armour gets reset it'll start pumping again. Best I can manage on this sort of timetable."

It's the start of her life. Like, you know, most people she's talked to have "this is the earliest memory I can remember" and it's usually something cute or occasionally terrible, because they're kids. Her first memory is staring up at Sara and Viktor during a Martian invasion. She, on a whim, comes back up to the egg, lost in thought. She has lots of feelings about it, all tied up tight in a bow. She's angry, she's elated, she knows she did good, she's confused... She nods hi to a younger sister of hers (the roomba cleaning the floor). She looks up at it. What does that mean for her as a person? That, and Dr. Gear's comment about how she wasn't meant to wake up unless somebody was about to figure out how to turn people into Rx. Which implies, if nobody figured that out... she'd never wake up.

She was shaping up to question a lot of Dr. Gear's decisions lately.

She absently sits next to the pod, eyes closed, and looks Adjacent. Just a touch, a fraction of a different reality. What's there? Is it someplace important? Is it nowhere?

There's a lot of Adjacent here.

There are a lot of trails that end here. A lot of shrines. A lot of graves. A lot of names. A lot of family photographs. Simple memorials left on dusty shelves in some, outright tomb pyramids in others. A place of mourning. Centred around the egg - the coffin. The tomb.

A lot of words are on that tomb. A lot of names. Short inscriptions or long, memorials to boys, girls, squidcreatures, other. Religious, pagan, a splash of rum poured out on a ship's wooden floor. A face that looks familiar but isn't quite.

Your grave. The grave for all the Ferras that went into you. Built for you by a mourning father. Layered on top of each other, one after another. The one in this reality is no less mournful for all it's clean lines.

[PhoeKun]

She's never been touched like this before. Other people's hands always feel soft to Euna, but this is... this is...

Her fingers are like touching warm cream. Her brain can't even process it. She's so smooth and so soft and her touch is so gentle and and and and, a magical princess is touching her cheek and somehow it's even nicer than she would have ever imagined it could be. Electricity. She gasps through her gag, and when that gets pulled down, when Alina's thumb brushes against her lips... she combusts. She can't hold the tiny moan in her throat, and when that sneaks out all the blood rushes to her head all at once and she doesn't dare move or even breath for fear of what she might do.

Not moving means she's lost in those eyes. She didn't think those would be real. She didn't think they could be real. Even in the world of fashion gene therapy and vanity Rx treatments, people's eyes stay eyes, and when they replace them there's a bunch of signs you can look for that invariably make them look mechanical. Alina's eyes are deep and soulful, and shimmer playfully with magical green light. Euna can see herself reflected in them. Because they're made of crystal. She can remember the first time she saw that episode: when Alina had a curse on her heart that turned her entire body to living crystal, and only the power of true love had been enough to save her. Euna had spent an entire afternoon after that clutching her plain and not especially comforting pillow to her chest while she sobbed uncontrollably. And now here she was, looking into that beautiful magical scar and all she could manage was to not burst into tears all over again at the sight.

"I..."

She's staring. It's rude. She quickly jerks her head away, and busies herself wrenching free from her bindings. She hops smoothly back to her feet in a feeble attempt to recover her composure, and stares at a patch of ground just to the left of those soft leather shoes that would never in a million years fit on her own feet.

"...Don't mention it. Didn't do anything. I meant to take them all out for you. S-sorry."

[Eldest]

There's a lot of Adjacent here.

There are a lot of trails that end here. A lot of shrines. A lot of graves. A lot of names. A lot of family photographs. Simple memorials left on dusty shelves in some, outright tomb pyramids in others. A place of mourning. Centred around the egg - the coffin. The tomb.

A lot of words are on that tomb. A lot of names. Short inscriptions or long, memorials to boys, girls, squidcreatures, other. Religious, pagan, a splash of rum poured out on a ship's wooden floor. A face that looks familiar but isn't quite.

Your grave. The grave for all the Ferras that went into you. Built for you by a mourning father. Layered on top of each other, one after another. The one in this reality is no less mournful for all it's clean lines.

She's confused, at first. She reaches out to the egg, touches it, feeling the curves. Looking at the other, Adjacent grave markers. Each one was a part of her story, the end of her original story, just as this was the start of her new life. It takes a moment to sink in. How often do you see your own grave, after all? But it's more... tiring, than infuriating. She's died before. Several times. This is the same thing, en masse. At somebody else's hand, yes (and she shies away from the thought of just whose for the moment), but it's a scaling up of something that she's already working to adjust to. On a whim, she swipes the roomba-bot, walking through realities, touching, feeling, looking, not entirely sure what she's looking for. She finally stops at a plain monolith of basalt, carved with a simple dedication. She's dead here. She's explaining this all to the roomba, she notices. She's not sure when she started.

"I'm dead here." She repeats. Still trying, she supposes, to absorb that. Maybe the roomba gets it. Probably not, but one can hope. "I died here, and there, and Everywhere." She gives the roomba a quick hug. This is not what you'd expect from emotional support... anything, but it's working for her.

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 4

“Incredible job, master detective,” Sara says, 100% full of spite over being read. Crack goes the can. “Wow, what are you going to deduce next? Could it have anything to do with my {scrubbed} life being ended by Euna {scrubbed} Kim? Maybe I tripped over the finish line, {scrubbed}, you’ll notice she still shot me in the kneecaps right before I got there!”

Whoop, she’s up and off the barstool now. Someone better drop a thunderstorm warning. She’s got a channel. And a target who’s making some delicious Ethiopian.

“So what did I do to deserve that? To try to be genuine for {scrubbed} once and get double tapped? You’re the smart one, always see the openings, so why don’t you let me know what I did wrong? Go ahead! Hit me with your best shot! Get it right and I’ll— I’ll— I’ll sponsor you.”

She knows it’s stupid, and the flush on her cheeks says as much. But it’s the only leverage that came to mind, because who wouldn’t want to be where she is?

Who indeed. Melting down with a generic brand beer in her hand, in a Depression Hoodie, yelling at the one person who cares enough about her to actually make sure she doesn’t starve to death like an idiot. Truly, the height of achievement. She teeters, very self-conscious of how much of an idiot she is.

She looks away with a glower, daring him to make something of it. Go on. Hit her while she’s made of glass.

[Balmas]

"Yeah, I don't know," the guy said. "These guys were breathing it while doing a security patrol. You don't dose people up on metachemistry when they're watching crowds full of phone cameras - and they didn't flip out and charge us when you were strangling them..."

He looked at the kit uncertainly. "The dispenser is hooked up to all sorts of tracking sensors too. I can suppress it, but if the armour gets reset it'll start pumping again. Best I can manage on this sort of timetable."

"Do that," he decides. "We need to get into these suits and these bodies squirreled away before the security center notices that these goons should have come out of the alley by now."

And he'll just have to think of some way to not think about orange mists doing unknown things to his chemistry. Or of the way the poindexter clutched at his--not thinking.

He's wordless for the few minutes it takes to get feet in boots and hands in glove. "And while you're programming that helmet, you can feel free to tell me exactly how it is you know me."

[Thanqol]

POTENTIAL 4

“Incredible job, master detective,” Sara says, 100% full of spite over being read. Crack goes the can. “Wow, what are you going to deduce next? Could it have anything to do with my {scrubbed} life being ended by Euna {scrubbed} Kim? Maybe I tripped over the finish line, {scrubbed}, you’ll notice she still shot me in the kneecaps right before I got there!”

Whoop, she’s up and off the barstool now. Someone better drop a thunderstorm warning. She’s got a channel. And a target who’s making some delicious Ethiopian.

“So what did I do to deserve that? To try to be genuine for {scrubbed} once and get double tapped? You’re the smart one, always see the openings, so why don’t you let me know what I did wrong? Go ahead! Hit me with your best shot! Get it right and I’ll— I’ll— I’ll sponsor you.”

She knows it’s stupid, and the flush on her cheeks says as much. But it’s the only leverage that came to mind, because who wouldn’t want to be where she is?

Who indeed. Melting down with a generic brand beer in her hand, in a Depression Hoodie, yelling at the one person who cares enough about her to actually make sure she doesn’t starve to death like an idiot. Truly, the height of achievement. She teeters, very self-conscious of how much of an idiot she is.

She looks away with a glower, daring him to make something of it. Go on. Hit her while she’s made of glass.

"Dang," said Locker. "She sounds like a total bitch. From the way you're telling that story."

A timer goes. He hits a flurry of activity, taking things from the oven, putting things into a pot, spice grinders and ingredients coming together all in one beautifully symphonic moment. Rice, curry, potatoes, synthbeef, all comes together in a deep and earthy brown-orange mixture. Spiced, but not hot - something that tastes like the red deserts, food for stability, food that fills you and leaves you grounded. Food from the cradle of life.

He puts it in front of you. Stares at you. Very intently and deliberately disregarding everything else you've said until you've finished eating.

"I..."

She's staring. It's rude. She quickly jerks her head away, and busies herself wrenching free from her bindings. She hops smoothly back to her feet in a feeble attempt to recover her composure, and stares at a patch of ground just to the left of those soft leather shoes that would never in a million years fit on her own feet.

"...Don't mention it. Didn't do anything. I meant to take them all out for you. S-sorry."

Princess Alina takes you by the chin, raises your head, stares directly into your eyes with that beautiful crystalline gaze. "My name is Princess Alina of Illumina," she says softly. "What should I call you, noble princess?"

"Do that," he decides. "We need to get into these suits and these bodies squirreled away before the security center notices that these goons should have come out of the alley by now."

And he'll just have to think of some way to not think about orange mists doing unknown things to his chemistry. Or of the way the poindexter clutched at his--not thinking.

He's wordless for the few minutes it takes to get feet in boots and hands in glove. "And while you're programming that helmet, you can feel free to tell me exactly how it is you know me."

While this stuff is power armour, it's cheap-ass power armour. You can't run your natural walking cadence through it; you've got to move according to the suit's rhythm. It makes walking feel fake and artificial, like you're parade marching with every step. No cool features, no flight or missile pods or anything. It's the unfiltered room temperature water of power armour.

Except!

It comes crammed with (equally cheap-ass) cryobalancing tech and thermal vent/regulators around the hands. Like, if you were going to design a suit of cheap-ass power armour for a guy who could natively shoot ice beams from his hands, that'd be the bare minimum you could do to pull that off. The merc wearing it must have had an outright superpower - and you'd think someone with a for-real mutation based superpower would get a little better than the bargain bin of armour customization? Why cheap out here of all places?

"I, uh," 'Greg' froze up for a second. "You hang out with @Saraphim, right? Brainstorm, right? Yeah. I, you know, watch the stream sometimes. Cool stuff."

[You may want to Pierce the Mask here]

She's confused, at first. She reaches out to the egg, touches it, feeling the curves. Looking at the other, Adjacent grave markers. Each one was a part of her story, the end of her original story, just as this was the start of her new life. It takes a moment to sink in. How often do you see your own grave, after all? But it's more... tiring, than infuriating. She's died before. Several times. This is the same thing, en masse. At somebody else's hand, yes (and she shies away from the thought of just whose for the moment), but it's a scaling up of something that she's already working to adjust to. On a whim, she swipes the roomba-bot, walking through realities, touching, feeling, looking, not entirely sure what she's looking for. She finally stops at a plain monolith of basalt, carved with a simple dedication. She's dead here. She's explaining this all to the roomba, she notices. She's not sure when she started.

"I'm dead here." She repeats. Still trying, she supposes, to absorb that. Maybe the roomba gets it. Probably not, but one can hope. "I died here, and there, and Everywhere." She gives the roomba a quick hug. This is not what you'd expect from emotional support... anything, but it's working for her.

The roomba comfortingly polishes your arm.

It's only a matter of time before you find a memorial that includes an obituary.

Today we mourn the loss of Idra Gears, loving daughter taken too soon. Her long struggle with Rx poisoning came to a quiet end on 2/4/2130, surrounded by her family and friends. Her parents and sister hope that she will be the last claimed by this terrible disease.

Rx poisoning was a global epidemic following the explosion of the particle accelerator a hundred years ago. While some people developed superpowers from exposure to pure Rx in the atmosphere, some people just got sick. The atmospheric scrubbers were not just devices to reduce the rate of uncontrolled superpowers (or, cynically, to harvest Rx for its own use) - they were part of a vast public health initiative that Doctor Gears spent a great deal of his life working on.

It's strange to find this answer so quietly, with such an absence of drama. You, Ferra, were created from someone already dying. Your body was already laced through with concentrations of Rx before it was condensed into one of the world's most stable Rx pieces. That's all there is to it.

(And, thinking, it suddenly makes sense why the human harvesting Rx apocalypse hasn't fully manifested despite Comstar's revelations - no doubt corporations have tried but without the combination of factors it likely wouldn't produce pepper nearly high quality enough to justify the cost. The only person who knows that secret is still Comstar.)