Masks: the Ties that Bind (Issue 1: Bound by Fate)

[truemane]

Dawn breaks across Halcyon City.

The light glitters on Tradeport Bay, creeps along both the gleam and seam of the marinas and warehouses of the docks. Rising up Farpath Hill, the light touches both the slums of Roundtree and the mirrored glass edifices of Trader's Round.

Up and up and out and out the light drifts into every corner and shadow of the mighty metropolis, sounds of voice and car and machine rising up to the air to meet it.

And then, within the infinite clamour, comes the hue and cry of citizens in distress.

Land along the edge of the scenic Timberlane Valley, next to one of the city's major highways, is undergoing massive development, with residential and commercial complexes being built simultaneously. It is a high-profile pilot project, the first public use of an advanced Spatial Distortion Field Generator, invented and developed by the Arrowswift Corporation.

The media was filled with stories about the funding, design, zoning, implementation of the project and it is being built under a tight budget and on an aggressive timeline.

Within an hour after dawn the five-block area is teeming with workers, all toiling and working, with the nearby highway filling up with rush-hour traffic.

However, this morning, instead of the sounds of construction, there are cries of distress and the sounds of groaning, twisting, metal and the crash of large objects falling to concrete ground.

All around the complex can be seen forms wearing gleaming armour and purple capes, riding swift flying disks. They are throwing small objects at the skeletal construction, which land with bright blue explosions of energy.

Workers flee and run, but are being corralled by the figures and their weapons. Some of them, too near the blue explosions, stop frozen in place.
From a distance, all of the figures seem the same. Upon closer inspection, most (if not all) of them flickering and wavering as they move, as though behind a heat haze, or on a channel with poor reception.

Dawn in Halcyon City.

Time to go to work.

Spoiler

Show

Welcome to Masks: the Ties that Bind! Thank you all for your patience. Now that we're in motion, my hope is that things will move forward a little faster.

The assumption here is that you've all been operating as a group for 'some time.' So this should be maybe your second or third 'outing' as a group. Alternately, it could be your first.

In your post, give us your Hero Shot: physical description, costume, visible effects of powers, method of transportation, reason for responding to the cry.

Someone should decide (IC or OC) how you heard about this situation and how you got here (even if that means you arrive long enough after it starts to have heard about it on the news or police bands). I have no real investment in the answer, so I'm fine with whatever you all come up with.

If you have any questions, you know where to find me!

[Thanqol]

It was standing policy in Memorial Mall that Solar Girl pays for nothing.

The most immediate and practical reason for this is that no amount of corporate reprimands could ever stop staff members from giving her free things. A single glance can reduce a forty year old grizzled retail veteran to slack-jawed awe. The idea of asking such an angelic figure for something as crass as money strikes most people as some sort of sacrilegious.

The secondary reason is because it's not clear that she understands the concept of money. People just give her things and it's not clear if she realizes that other people aren't afforded the same treatment. It's always been like this for her. Sometimes when her coffee is a little too bitter hummingbirds land on her fingers holding little sugar packets in their beaks. There's a famous video of her going to step in a puddle of mucky water, but the water gets out of her way. Her entire life seems to operate on Disney Princess Physics so you'd almost need to explain the concept of scarcity to her from first principles to get her to understand the idea of payment.

(The final reason is because whenever she wears something there are a rush of people who come in immediately after her to buy every last available copy of that exact same thing so it kinda pays for itself.)

We find her on the balcony of a high-class café, idly plucking the petals from a vased rose that had been plastic before she arrived but was now as real and alive as anything. She was taking a sip of tea, gently warming it to the right temperature with the help of her golden sun-ball, when the first explosion went off in the distance. She tilts her head a little, listening to make sure she didn't imagine it. Then she gives a dainty sigh, places her cup down in place, and checks to make sure everything is in place: New silk scarf, autumn red-orange, with matching earthy brown jacket and black jeans and brilliant scarlet fingernails. She wears delicate leather handbag that she hangs cross-shoulder, one compartment filled with dog treats, another with a variety of sugary snacks. And, everywhere about her, is golden cascading light and strange violet cloud shapes. Her physical features are fascinating questions, not easy facts.

She stretches languidly and jumps the balcony fence. The clouds swirl around her and cushion her descent. She lands smoothly and starts walking toward the chaos, picking out her phone with one hand and dialling into the team channel. "Hi everyone! Good news - there are explosions! Meet me at the," she squints, "you know, like, the weird new tower that looks kind of like a totem pole? Oh, and bring sweets. I'm running low."

[Going into battle as a team:
Add two to the pool base
Solar Girl has influence over everyone and thinks she's the leader, so add another one. Unless someone has a different purpose, mistrusts Solar Girl, or feels particularly off balance - up to you! - that'd put us at 4 total.]

[Ramsus]

The scene cuts over to the interior of a modest, and not particularly well looked after, single story home. Particularly a bedroom which tells an odd story. The smallish bedroom is mostly consumed with cheap furniture. The walls, once some kind of white, are now stained gray by smoke. In one ceiling corner there is a web with an orb weaver spider. The web has been there so long it inherited it and the name the other occupant of the room has given those that live there, Taylor. The door-less closet that takes up nearly an entire side of the room is an array of mostly blacks, half filled with cheap clothes sitting right next to the other half filled with garments that are each more expensive than all the other clothes in the house combined.

On a cheap bed-frame lays a luxury mattress covered in exquisitely soft and smooth blankets, sheets, and pillows all in black. The sheets cover the tantalizing form of a young woman. A single pale arm sticks out of the sheets and black hair covers a face.
A moment later the arm slaps upward at the air as the girl jolts awake from hearing an all too jubilant voice in her ear. Extending out from the arm is a small blast of smoke that gently collides with the ceiling, flowing outwards and dissipating like foamy waves onto a beach at midnight.

Renae groans, not caring or perhaps even preferring its being sent through the communicator, as she pushes herself slowly out of the bed and the sheets fall away from her. Exposing a body covered only under the chest by a thin black wrapping and boxer shorts with a flame pattern.
As she manages to get into a sitting position she puts together the words she heard and retorts, "Well I'm glad someone else on this team enjoys a good explosion, but what kind of self-respecting criminals are even awake at this time of day?" Clearly Renae is not a morning person.

She pulls off the boxer shorts and tosses them onto the bed while she puts on some underwear and grabs one of her nice gothic outfits from the closet and stuffs it into a bag. As she performs this action she briefly slides her hand over the strip of black around her torso and as she goes about her tasks it expands over her. It changes to a light gray as it covers her torso and then into black as it covers her limbs and neck and part detaches and slides up her face to form a domino mask. After this stage is complete, and she's now slung the bag over one shoulder, a black S appears on the chest. Finally a smokey ring appears around it, which then flows out in thin wisps in multiple directions and out to and into the black parts.

Her form slowly turns to smoke as she adds, "Whoever is getting Sunbeam donuts, get me coffee while you're at it." Clearly assuming nobody was expecting her to do the errands and that other people should do hers. If she was aware of it, even she probably couldn't tell you if she changed "sweets" to donuts because she was tired and had coffee on the mind and that's how it mentally translated for her or if she was intentionally manipulating the message for her own benefit. But she wasn't because even as she fully turns to smoke, her shadowy eyes being the last part to lose definition, and she flows through the slightly cracked open window on the wall directly against the bed, she is barely awake.

As she exits into the dark and overgrown path outside her window that leads into a narrowly twisting alley for no apparent good reason, she floods it with thick gray smoke so if there happen to be any onlookers they won't know where she came from. Then after moving to the rough "center" of the area she pulls the smoke back to her and unleashes it directly at the ground blasting her into the air like a kind of lazy rocket that twistingly makes it way to where the newly rebranded as a heroine known as Smoke thinks the whatever-the-heck-she-thinks-she-is Solar Girl tried to direct their team to.

[seatyger]

"Hi everyone! Good news - there are explosions!"

"Shoot!" came the curse from behind the shower curtain, followed by a flurry of activity. Moments later, a half-soapy form bounded out of the bathtub, only to slip on the edge and land on the tile floor with a resounding slap.

A faint female voice called, "Are you okay up there, chinksi?"

Lifting himself off the tile with a groan, Jamie Blackbear replied, "I'm fine, ina! Just slipped." And how, he thought as he quickly wicked away the lingering soap and water with a towel. Hopping into the closet as he donned his skivvies, he pulled out a compression bodysuit and his costume and dressed. Adding gloves, boots, mask, and helmet -- dad wouldn't let him ride without it -- Jamie sprinted out the door and cleared the stairs in a single practiced leap.

Breaking for the garage, he yelled to his mother, "Got a call, ina!" -- then skidded to a halt and backtracked to the kitchen. "Oh -- uh, do you have a twenty? Need donuts for everybody."

His mother smiled knowingly and gestured with her head, "There's one on the table." Jamie grabbed the bill, doffed his helmet to give his mom a kiss on the cheek, and was gone in an instant, the sounds of a motorcycle engine and garage door motor filtering in through the closed door.

A moment later, a middle-aged man departed the downstairs bathroom, folding his newspaper and entering the kitchen. Giving his wife a kiss on the cheek, he asked, "Was that Jamie?"

"He said he got a call."

Frowning, his father grunted his acknowledgement and walked over to the table. "Hey, have you seen the twenty I left here last night?..."

Spoiler: OOC

Show

chinksi is Lakota for "son," and ina is "mother". I'm probably not writing them in the proper case...

Fresh from his scheduled stop at Fred's Doughnuts, the young hero Tunweya raced along the Two-Two -- more formally known as State Route 22 -- toward Timberlane Valley on his highly-customized Indian (because, of course, it is) FTR 1200. The roar of its engine nothing more than a whispering whir as he weaved through the light early-morning traffic at a blazing 160, his heads-up display led him on the most-efficient course between the other commuters, who were largely unaware of his existence.

By the time Tunweya darted across an opening in traffic to the Timberlane project exit, the situation was clear, with the armored disc throwers wreaking havoc and herding the workers. He found a hidden spot to park the bike, and traded his helmet for his bow as he stepped out from the shadows.

His thigh-length tunic hugged his torso just enough to not be in the way of his athletics, it's largely-charcoal-black color broken by the sewn-in inverted chevron of "bone" armor over his chest and tan-colored shoulder pieces that blended into the broad stripe that ran down the outer half of his sleeves and gloves. His trousers and boots shared the same broad tan stripe on the outer third of the fabric. A high-tech quiver -- one of the many things for which he had to thank Firefly's genius -- gave him quick access to the variety of arrows he regularly used, which contrasted with the simplicity of the recurve bow he held in his left hand.

With a thought, his talisman camouflaged him against the background visuals and sounds, and he brought his phone up to his ear. "Okay, ladies, coffee and donuts are here. Where are you? And are you seeing this?"

[Eldest]

Zoom in on a row of brownstones. Keep zooming in, you're going for one of the second story flats, where a short, punky woman with close-cut purple hair stands, leaning on the railing and watering her herb planters.

KABOOM

"Hi everyone! Good news - there are explosions!"

Samantha ignores her, and the explosion, for a just a moment more as she finishes watering the basil, making a face as she does. It'd been a nice, calm weekend for a change, and she had enjoyed the change of pace. Caught up on her homework (she makes another face, tongue sticking out at her desk inside the apartment), did some exercise instead of getting it "on the job" for once, and she'd invited Ras'i over to binge watch something (they'd hash out what later) that evening.

And now there were explosions. Lovely.

She goes inside, doing a few stretches leading into a cartwheel across the living room to warm up, scooping up her discarded costume from the couch. A few moments later and she's dressed in it, a spiky leather jacket with a large, gray spade patch on the back, a true-white mask over her face, blank except for the harlequin star over her left eye, and a denim skirt over leggings (which is not her usual, but she threw her usual in the wash a half hour ago, so it'll have to do). And the Observatory, the closest thing to a superpower you could say she had. She tosses the small orb from side to side as she makes her way to the roof, pulling at stars on there, until there's a path starting to form in front of her, twinkling stars and white lines between them marking the constellation-shape. She steps off the roof and onto the lights without hesitation, picking it up to a jog as she heads straight for the disaster in progress at roof height.

[truemane]

Maybe a dozen figures zoom around the complex, flying on their shimmering disks, laughing maniacally, throwing those gleaming explosive orbs. They fly in and out of focus, each in the same metal armour and the same purple cape, each of them glitching in and out like static on a tv station.

Workers cry and scream as they are herded into two, three large groups in three nearly complete second and third floor rooms, leaving whatever tools and materials on the ground as they run.

"Dr. Calen!" calls one of the figures, "Dr. Red Calen! Come out come out wherever you are!"

When there is no answer, he lifts one arm and a beam of white-hot light sears from his gauntlet and tears through several support pillars holding up of the hostage-filled areas.

The building leans, iron groaning and squealing in protest. The hostages all scream and scramble toward the rear wall.

"Come now Dr. Calen! You wouldn't want your cowardice to kill these people would you?"

Another moment of silence.

"Very well."

He raises his hand once more...

[Thanqol]

Solar Girl is in the habit of walking directly into dangerous things.

Energy blasts, bullets, punches, obvious traps. She sees something glowing, pointing, or winding up and she gravitates directly into its path in the same way another girl might get out of the way through backflips. There's a brief rustle of wind and a flash of sunlight and she's suddenly there in the way of the energy blast, yawning and stretching and in no way braced for impact.

"Hey, could you -" was all she got out before it hit her.

[Defend: 5
POTENTIAL!]

[seatyger]

That's not good, Tunweya thinks to himself as he steps forward and reveals himself. An armor-piercing arrow nocked in his bow, the hero calls out and he sprints forward to get a clear shot, "Hey! Captain Redundant! Why don't you pick on somebody your own size!"

Well, that sounded stupid...

Tunweya draws and looses the arrow, aiming for the loudmouth's gauntlet. Maybe he can get the villain to take potshots away from the building -- namely Tunweya's way...

[Provoke "Captain Redundant" to turn his aim on Tunweya: (2d6+0)[8] ]

The shot flies true and strikes the gauntlet with a loud clang.

[Sahe]

Firefly
Potential: 0/0
Conditions: None
Influence on: Solar Girl, Smoke, Wild Card, Tunweya
Gadgets: 2

Laura "Firefly" Row - The teams very own pocket dimension

Laura's "corner" of the pocket dimension was a mess of cables, pizza cartons, empty noodle boxes and several cans of Solar Energy (a popular energy drink) and empty bags of various brands of chips. In one corner stood the looming figure of the Firefly suit, with several service hatches opened and hooked up to one massive beast of a computer. In front of which one could make out the silhouette of a girl sitting in a wheelchair staring intensely at the three screens in front of her that bathed the room in dim, cold light. Well...she was intensely staring at one the screens watching the most recent episode of Mecha Love, her favorite anime. The other, ignored screens, showed a progress bar with rapidly scrolling system messages and some work in progress fan fiction of Solar Girl.

When suddenly Solar Girls voice told her of explosions in the city she jerked up, suddenly pulled out of the fantasy world of Mecha pilots battling giant evil robots and Kaiju while dealing with relationship drama and back into the real world...that wasn't that different if she was being honest. Well, she wasn't having any real relationship drama (if only) and her Mecha-Suit was decidedly smaller (if more agile). Annoyed she pressed pause and glanced over to the progress bar of the update she was running on Firefly. Of course it just hit a 100% as she looked and with no error messages. She would've welcomed some excuse to have to rerun it and get that bit more time to finish the episode.

"- all done -", the synthesized voice of Riley informed her a bit redundantly.

"Yeah...great", Laura said without enthusiasm as she turned around, revealing her fully and showing that she was only wearing panties and an oversized (and slightly smelly shirt), thankfully nobody would notice that or her messy hair as long as she was in Firefly.

"- you do not sound very excited about this - it seems like the perfect opportunity to test the new upgrades -", Riley chirped as Laura rolled herself over to Firefly to disconnect the cables and close all hatches.

"I knooowww...but it was just getting to the episode climax and you know how much I love that anime...and don't you dare finish the episode without me...you're a blabbermouth and always spoiler me!" Laura groaned as she activated Firefly and the suit pulled her inside, connecting to her implanted connectors on her back that she thankfully was able to integrate a bit more gracefully than they were in The Matrix. As she fully integrated with the suit she could feel the strength return to her legs. Some might wonder why she wasn’t always wearing the Firefly suit if it let her walk again? Well...do you want to be an 8 foot tall combat machine everywhere you go?

The City

A few moments later, Firefly was soaring through the air towards the Spatial Distortion Field Generator that was being built and was now apparently under attack. Riley had pulled the specs for her at some point and Laura had to admit it was impressive technology working on similar principles that she used to create their little pocket dimension.

She opened her channel to the other team members, “I’m on my way...I just had to finish an update on Firefly and this better be worth it. I had to pause Mecha Love just as things were getting interesting between Hana and Yuna.”

Next she was connecting to her AI, “Riles...pull me everything you can get...you know the drill”

“- no problem -”, her artificial friend replied and soon after began flooding the Firefly HUD with tactical information (and the location of the nearest bakeries, which Laura quickly dismissed)

A few moments later, Firefly was hovering high above the site of attack, adding the sensor data and her own observations to form an analysis of the situation.

Rolling to Assess the Situation:
(2d6+2)[7]
Questions:
- what here is the biggest threat.

[Ramsus]

Smoke snakes her way around a nearby building, sees the chaos.... but more importantly sees her coffee in danger! She quickly jets over to it, leaving a jet-stream of smoke in her wake, and snatches it from Tunweya. "Thanks." she comments and then backs off a bit to give him space to dodge whatever retaliation is about to come his way.
Hovering there in the air she quickly gulps down the hot coffee. For someone else it might be painful, for her the heat just adds to its ability to wake her up. As she's there making herself not particularly useful she examines their foes. She tries to get a sense for the or even just be awake enough to recall anything she already knows about them.

---

Pierce the Mask: (2d6)[8]

Questions: What do you intend to do?
and bonus question from Wrong Side of the Tracks: What are you really planning?

[Eldest]

Wildcard lands with a roll inside one of the rooms with the hostages, a spiral shape of stars on her forearm as a shield, held up to block any incoming fire. She calls back the stars from the path she made to the Star Map, before snapping it in a loop, trying for a chute or tunnel to get people out. And trying, and trying again desperately as it fails to do more than sparkle. "Why's this damn thing so stubborn I'll never know." She mutters as she looks to the door, anxious.

Unleash my powers, full miss. Have fun with it.

[truemane]

Solar Girl streaks in front of the energy blast. The beam of white hot... something... hits her straight in the chest and there's an unearthly groaning sound that fills the air around her and she feels... tight... somehow, trapped in her own skin, in the air around her, in the actual fabric of space and time, and a ripple of power cascades out from her and crashes right into the weakened girders.

"What?" yells the villain, "Solar Girl? I should have thought you'd come to gawk at the humans. You're no hero. You're a heartless, inhuman alien with no care for anything! Just like your father!"

Just then Tunweya's arrow strikes him in the gauntlet and he looks around and sees the young Lakota warrior.

"Are all your little minions here?" He cackles, "Never mind! You are no match for the likes of Doctor Tempus!"

He waves his arm and half of his duplicates break off from threatening he other workers and swarm toward Tunweya.

Firefly sweeps the area with her sensors, her brilliant mind reading and parsing the cascading figures faster than anyone else could even read them. She sees, with some alarm, that in places where his small bomb-devices have exploded near the spatial distortion field created by the SDF-G, there are significant rents in space-time.

It wouldn't take very many more to create a much bigger problem than some injured workers.

(oddly enough, the space around where Solar Girl was just struck by the beam shows a similar phenomenon)

Smoke knows bad guys. She knows them all the way down to the tips of her toes. And the way this guy is calling out for this Dr. Calen person... that meant business. Personal business. He wants to humiliate this guy. Hurt him. Maybe even kill him.

And, based on the patterns of his duplicates, she was pretty sure he was going to destroy the entire complex if he couldn't find him.

Starting with the SDF-G.

Meanwhile, Wildcard lands on the weakened structure and tries to manufacture an escape route. But while she stands, trying, a duplicate sweeps by, cackling madly, and throws a small explosive device at her. It misses, but the explosion it causes is the final straw, and with the scream of bending metal and the crash of brick, the entire structure starts to slide inexorably toward the ground...

Spoiler

Show

Thanqol: Doctor Tempus is trying to shift your Savior down and your Freak up.

[Ramsus]

"Well, if he's going to destroy the building if he can't find this Dr. Calen, better just make it so he can't find the building either." Smoke thinks to herself.
"I'll try and line em up for ya." she says to Tunweya and gives him a wink, the motion clear enough through the domino mask.
Then she jets further into the air in the midst of the fray and begins pouring out smoke as she zigs and zags, the smoke quite rapidly filling the air around the building. While it's a bit of extra effort, it's also nothing she hasn't done before to try and push multiple beings with the smoke. So she tries to shove them around to get them a bit disoriented and nudge their path out of the smoke and closer to her allies that are prepared to fight them.

---

Directly Engage a Threat: (2d6+2)[10]

I'll take resist or avoid their blows and create an opportunity for your allies.

[Thanqol]

Solar Girl streaks in front of the energy blast. The beam of white hot... something... hits her straight in the chest and there's an unearthly groaning sound that fills the air around her and she feels... tight... somehow, trapped in her own skin, in the air around her, in the actual fabric of space and time, and a ripple of power cascades out from her and crashes right into the weakened girders.

"What?" yells the villain, "Solar Girl? I should have thought you'd come to gawk at the humans. You're no hero. You're a heartless, inhuman alien with no care for anything! Just like your father!"

She didn't understand this villainous fascination with moral arguments. The guy was literally blowing up a building but it was okay because he felt strongly about it? Was that meant to make her feel bad? Was that meant to stop her?

Solar Girl frowned. Would that stop a normal person? If it would then maybe humans really were different.

In a cascade of bright blue wind she streaked through the air. The clouds in the sky roiled and there was a great rush of air. In the next moment Solar Girl was back in front of Doctor Tempus, princess-carrying Wildcard safely in her arms.

"How many people have you rescued today, doctor?" she asked.

[Rejecting influence: 11. Doctor Tempus loses influence over Solar Girl and she marks potential by acting to prove him wrong.

Defending Wildcard: 12. I already have Influence over her so I get to shift her stats freely; I'll move Mundane up and Danger down from the shock of realizing how powerful Solar Girl is in comparison.]

[seatyger]

Just then Tunweya's arrow strikes him in the gauntlet and he looks around and sees the young Lakota warrior.

"Are all your little minions here?" He cackles, "Never mind! You are no match for the likes of Doctor Tempus!"

He waves his arm and half of his duplicates break off from threatening he other workers and swarm toward Tunweya.

"I'll try and line em up for ya." she says to Tunweya and gives him a wink, the motion clear enough through the domino mask.
Then she jets further into the air in the midst of the fray and begins pouring out smoke as she zigs and zags, the smoke quite rapidly filling the air around the building. While it's a bit of extra effort, it's also nothing she hasn't done before to try and push multiple beings with the smoke. So she tries to shove them around to get them a bit disoriented and nudge their path out of the smoke and closer to her allies that are prepared to fight them.

The scout's eyes grow wide as he gets his wish. In a flash, he's sprinting parallel to the incoming arsenal, pulling a pair of identical arrows from his quiver and setting an adjustment on each. Then, with the purposeful planting of his leading foot, he explodes into the air, twisting and squaring his shoulders toward the trailing pair of duplicates, and fires the arrows, one at each of his targets.

Whistling in their high arc, the arrows sound like a pair of screaming eagles and, just before they reach their targets, each conical point splits into quarters, revealing a high-tensile-strength net within...

Spoiler: Suck It, Domitian!

Show

I had to read up on the move before I decided to use it. Since he's facing an overpowering force (six-ish duplicates), I think this qualifies as "dramatically under fire."

So, in that vein, here's Tunweya's +Savior roll
(2d6+3)[6]

I'd like to spend 1 of our 4 team to improve Tunweya's roll to a 7. Pretty sure my post had enough justification for that.

So, that 6 is now a 7. Thanks, Smoke!

...and fall neatly over the pair, tangling them up. The nets won't keep them from flying on their little discs, but they won't be able to sling those little light bombs very well, that's for sure.

As he lands gracefully in the bed of a company pickup truck, Tunweya tenses up for the barrage to come. "Hopefully, I'll keep their attention for a while," he says over comms.

Spoiler: Directly Engage a Threat Option

Show

Going with Impress, Surprise, or Frighten the Opposition. Hopefully, they'll consider Tunweya a greater threat, to allow the heavier hitters to handle the tower damage and Doctor Tempus.

[Eldest]

Wildcard shuts her eyes against the flash of the explosion and loses her footing, slipping out the window she came in. She makes a grab for the sill, blind, but misses, and finds herself falling, falling, and then not. She coughs and blinks away the afterimages, smelling R'asi before she can see her. It wasn't the first time that she'd been carried around by her, but she'd forgotten how fast she was. She takes a moment, trying to get a better view of the situation from here, recovering, not caring that the villain was right there. The flashiest guy isn't the one doing all the work, it's the guy that's deep in concentration. Find him, you unravel the plan.

It'd help her concentrate if R'asi didn't smell so damn good.

Assess, 8: How can we best end this quickly?

[truemane]

The ring of netted duplicates emit a strangely synchronized growl of frustration. And a flicker-glitch passes through them all in a row. And a similar sound comes from the other half dozen still terrorizing the workers. They turn and streak toward Tunweya as well.

The ones near him struggle in vain to free their hands from the netting.

The duplicate facing Solar Girl and Wildcard stops at her challenging words. "It depends on what we're saving them from," he says in an ominous tone.

Wildcard sees a glitch pass through this one as well, as it does through all of them in turn due to Tunweya's trap.

But over by the SDF-G is another form. A Doctor Tempus that does not glitch. A Doctor Tempus investigating the machine. With some sort of control device on his wrist, light blinking in time with the glitches passing through the others.

And all the while. Firefly hovers around the periphery, running scans and keeping an eye for anyone that might need her assistance.

[Sahe]

Firefly
Potential: 0/0
Conditions: None
Influence on: Solar Girl, Smoke, Wild Card, Tunweya
Gadgets: 2

Hovering above the battlefield, Firefly is a bit overwhelmed. There were so many things going on...things that needed fixing, strange phenomena that required further analysis, civilians in trouble, teammates in trouble, Wildcard getting carried by Solar Girl reminding her briefly about that fan fiction she was writing and a dash of jealousy. I wish she'd hold me like that...if I pretend my jets fail it would be like in Mecha Love...NO! Focus!

She shook her head and opened a channel to her teammates again. "Ok, so Glitch Mob's explosive devices seem to have unusual interactions with the SDF-G. My scans aren't conclusive yet, but they seem to create localized space-time anomalies. Currently they aren't much of a danger, but if they continue to form they may cascade into a full on singularity event that..."

"- maybe you should try a simpler explanation -", Riley interrupted Laura, causing a short pause in her transmission.

"Right...ehm...bombs near the big techy generator bad...they destroy space time and if enough are created something really bad will happen...like a black hole or something...so try steer him away from that...I'll try and secure the building to prevent it from collapsing."

Next she turned her attention to the building and dove down from her elevated position, while Riley was feeding her a scan of the critical weak points that needed to be stabilized in order to secure the crumbling building, as well as an optimal flight path. Zipping around and through the structure, Firefly used her omni-tool to inject the failing supporting structures with her Nanite Fibers. A substance she herself had come up with that was highly malleable and capable of mimicing the properties of nearly any known (and possibly even unknown substance). These also had been the basis on which she had developed Smokes (totally rad) Smokeing Suit. This time however they created an elastic foam cement with high tensile strength that hopefully was strong enough to prevent the building from collapsing.

__________________
Unleash Powers to change the environment, expending one Gadget to roll with Superior:
(2d6+2)[12]

[Thanqol]

The duplicate facing Solar Girl and Wildcard stops at her challenging words. "It depends on what we're saving them from," he says in an ominous tone.

Solar Girl continued to hover in place, still holding Wildcard absently but firmly.

"Is that it?" said Solar Girl. "I am hanging out here waiting for you to announce your evil plan and all you can manage is cryptic mumbling? If you have a problem with me say it to my face or fight me like a man. You get one shot at this before you go to jail forever."

[Pierce the Mask: 6 - POTENTIAL]

[seatyger]

Jamie's eyes grow wide as multiple energy blasts zero in on his position; he leaps away at the last moment, but the explosion catches him and tosses him like a ragdoll several yards away, and he lands in a heap on the hard earth. As he slowly works his way back to his feet, Jamie growls at the pain that seems to radiate from every joint and muscle.

Idiot! Standing there like some comic book hero! You have stealth for a reason!

Though the anger and self-rebuke dulls the sting of the hit some, it also allows other things to seep into his thought process. What the hell are you doing here? Jamie could almost hear his father's voice in the question. You're no superhero. You're just a kid with a bow and a neat trick. You're way out of your league...

Jamie shakes his head and sighs; maybe his father is right. Maybe he isn't ready for the responsibility of the talisman, to be the defender of the tribe. He looks up, the enthusiasm gone from his eyes, and sees the remaining threat. He can't sit and wallow in self-pity; he still has a job to do. Tunweya still has a job to do, and teammates who are counting on him.

Activating his stealth, he begins to strafe the duplicates, popping into view after several steps to keep their attention, and throwing an explosive shot in their general direction before disappearing again. Rinse. Repeat.

After disappearing the second time, though, he doubles back, pops in early, and lets loose a barrage of explosive arrows. "I can play that game, too, dupes!"

Spoiler: Broken Record...Suck It, Domitian, again, but only because it's appropriate

Show

(2d6+3)[13]

Tunweya is going to Avoid Their Blows and Take Something From Them (take the Tempus' duplicates from him).

A slight grin begins to peek out from behind Tunweya's angry demeanor as the explosions causes the duplicates to wink out. Tempus' gauntlet sparks and smokes as the duplicate control nodes shorts out.

[Eldest]

Wildcard juggles her priorities. On one hand, she'd like to go engage the One True Villain down there, help out Jamie. On the other, hoo boy that was a long drop and she can't fly. She waits for a minute, waits, and then as the two drift closer to one of the buildings, she hops down, onto the roof, into a roll and bouncing in the alley between the building and it's neighbor. And then she's there, backing up Tunweya, a loose axe constellation at the ready.

[Ramsus]

It seemed like somehow Firefly had the whole "a building is going to collapse or explode or something" situation handled and Tunweya and Wildcard were handling the duplicates. And for some reason Solar Girl was standing around taunting the villain while she should be fighting. Well is she wasn't going to, Smoke would.

From within the cloud of smoke, Smoke sends a long tendril of smoke to wrap around Doctor Tempus and hardens it around him to try and tangle him up. Though she wonders what interaction their powers will have and if this will even work at all.

---

Directly Engage a Threat: (2d6+2)[12]
• resist or avoid their blows
• create an opportunity for your allies

[truemane]

Doctor Tempus, the real Doctor Tempus was, like so many before him, transfixed by Solar Girl. Whether her beauty, the blazing energy of her presence, or the particular moral imperative to convince her that he was right, he all but ignored the chaos erupting around him in order to speak to her.

"Dr. Calen stole my research. And look! Look what paltry use he put it to! Building condominiums for yuppies! It was meant to make the world a better place, maybe to save everyone, but now it's just a... tool... for the rich to get richer. For that, more than the theft, he has to pay!"

Meanwhile, Firefly cleverly manages to prop up the falling building. With her help, the girders stop their horrid squealing and the entire tilting structure stops sliding. The people inside scream out as it gives one final shudder and then stops.

"Great work, Laura," Riley says. "I think that ought to hold long enough to get those people to safety. You, uh, you do have a plan to get those people to safety?"

Wildcard lands next to Tunweya just as he is recovering from being nearly vaporized by the duplicates' blasts. And then, as he vanishes, her presence distracts them just enough that Tunweya is able to dance among them, striking and jabbing, until he finds the position to aim an arrow at the real Doctor Tempus.

It flies through the air, strikes his gauntlet and shatters the small blinking light. A burst of electrical static shoot down his arm and he cries out in pain. All of the duplicates pause, glitch, shimmer, squich in and out, and then are gone.

The Doctor raises his damaged gauntlet, the palm glowing white hot. He has a perfect shot at Tunweya...

And then Smoke surrounds him and tangles him.

From inside the smoke you can hear the Doctor scream out in rage and frustration.

"NO!" he cries, "THIS IS NOT OVER!"

And then a sound builds, a deep, deep humming sound so low and so deep that it pulls at the ears and turns the bowels watery. And at the same time there is a sensation of moving, even though everyone is still.

Solar Girl feels as though her insides are being pulled in seventeen different directions and as though she is being spun and spun and spun at supersonic speeds. She feels like crying flying puking yelling screaming tearing her own
skin off all at once.

And then, from inside the smoke, there is a rising blue light that grows brighter and more brilliant as the deep sound rises in power an volume.

And then it suddenly expands, holds, and contracts like an implosion.

Smoke's smoke vanishes, like water though a drain, leaving nothing behind.

But the SDF-G starts emitting a high, alarmed sound. They can all hear the word WARNING screamed out once in a high, robotic voice, and a tear in the face of reality opens up and a ribbon of blue light pours out in both directions, tearing through dirt and stone and asphalt. The SDF-G vanishes into the rift.

Several of the group have seen this before. This looks just like the ley line that gave Smoke and Fire (and Firefly) their powers. Solar Girl and Wildcard, both for different reasons, are very familiar with the phenomenon.

Tunweya has seen such a thing before, in a dream, just after he accepted the Talisman. Several ancestor spirits emerged from such a thing to impart wisdom and encouragement to him.

The rift ripples and undulated. The ribbon darkles and tincts. And starts growing longer. A few hundred feet and it would be at the highway. And into the parts of the building Firefly did not prop up.

Spoiler

Show

Solar Girl: mark a Condition
Tunweya: decide whether or not the dream was just a dream. If it was, shift Savior down and Mundane up and mark Potential. It was not just a dream, shift Mundane down and Freak up, tell us something the ancestor told you and take +1 ongoing to follow their advice.

[seatyger]

Tunweya has seen such a thing before, in a dream, just after he accepted the Talisman. Several ancestor spirits emerged from such a thing to impart wisdom and encouragement to him.

The rift ripples and undulated. The ribbon darkles and tincts. And starts growing longer. A few hundred feet and it would be at the highway. And into the parts of the building Firefly did not prop up.

Spoiler

Show

Tunweya: decide whether or not the dream was just a dream. If it was, shift Savior down and Mundane up and mark Potential. It was not just a dream, shift Mundane down and Freak up, tell us something the ancestor told you and take +1 ongoing to follow their advice.

Tunweya freezes, momentarily transfixed by the crackling ribbon before him. He used to think it was just a dream, but there's no way it can be a coincidence that the rift today is anything but the rift he saw months ago...

Five ancestors stepped out of the ribbon of blue lightning, each appearance a thunderclap, as Jamie stood on the sacred Lakota hills.

Blackbear -- the ancestor from whom the family got their surname, wearing the emblems of a tribal chieftain (family legacy)
Charles Blackbear -- Jamie's grandfather, wearing a raven headdress and black feathered "wings" (prophecy & insight)
James Blackbear -- Jamie's paternal great-uncle, wearing a fox-pelt headdress and all black hunting gear (cunning trickster)
Fang-of-Wolf -- an ancestor that predates Blackbear, wearing a wolf-pelt around his shoulders and holding Jamie's bow, whom Uncle Joseph said was the first to wear the talisman (hunter)
Albert Blackbear -- Jamie's paternal great-great-uncle, wearing a vulture headdress and sickly brown feathered "wings," whom Uncle Joseph said was a serial killer never brought to justice (death)

"You are the guardian of your tribe," Chief Blackbear said. "Use this gift for the protection of all."

"You are the bringer of death from the shadows," the Vulture, Albert, rasped. "Do not let them see you until you are ready to usher them to my beak."

"You have learned the secrets of your craft from your elders," the Raven, Charles, crowed. "Take this knowledge and use it wisely, and no enemy will touch you."

"You are the cunning trickster," the Fox, James, quipped. "Be creative and unapologetically mischievous against your foes. Outwit them, outfox them."

"You are the hunter, joined to your bow," the Wolf counseled. "Rely on it. Trust it. Trust your senses, and your skills."

"We are all a part of this talisman, as we have each held it before you," Chief Blackbear adds. "Vulture, Raven, Fox, and Wolf, they are each a part of you. But, it is your legacy, as a Blackbear, that ties it all together. You are the chief in this arrangement, and it is your will that will drive it. Be wise and worthy of its power."

With that, Fang-of-Wolf fired an arrow at the ribbon of lightning, and then became the arrow as it pierced the heart of the blue. Albert burned and transformed into black smoke that followed in the arrow's wake. Charles transformed into a falling star that streaked into the ribbon. James morphed into a tiny lightning bug that chased the star's tail. And Chief Blackbear transformed into the glorious, blazing sun that followed the rest in, enveloped the others, and lit off a brilliant explosion that collapsed the lightning in on itself, leaving only starlit night behind...

Snapping out of his reverie with a jolt, Tunweya calls to his teammates, "I've seen this before; don't ask me how! We need to collapse it from the inside, like an explosion! Firefly, if we all pour everything we got into the heart of that thing, will it close?"

[Thanqol]

Doctor Tempus, the real Doctor Tempus was, like so many before him, transfixed by Solar Girl. Whether her beauty, the blazing energy of her presence, or the particular moral imperative to convince her that he was right, he all but ignored the chaos erupting around him in order to speak to her.

"Dr. Calen stole my research. And look! Look what paltry use he put it to! Building condominiums for yuppies! It was meant to make the world a better place, maybe to save everyone, but now it's just a... tool... for the rich to get richer. For that, more than the theft, he has to pay!"

"So, who's to blame here?" said Solar Girl, still floating in place and ignoring the scene around her. "The building or Dr. Calen? If it's Dr. Calen why are you wasting your time punching a building?"

[Marking Angry]

This was what she found so deeply frustrating. For someone who was supposedly such a genius there was no plan here. This was just a tantrum, the kind of tantrum that threatened to kill innocent victims and waste a huge amount of time and money. Did he think that knocking down a building was going to, what, solve income inequality? Was it going to inconvenience anyone other than an insurance company? Was his commitment to making the world a better place such a weakly held belief that he'd give it up because someone built a damned condo?

Her fist clenched.

And then a sound builds, a deep, deep humming sound so low and so deep that it pulls at the ears and turns the bowels watery. And at the same time there is a sensation of moving, even though everyone is still.

Solar Girl feels as though her insides are being pulled in seventeen different directions and as though she is being spun and spun and spun at supersonic speeds. She feels like crying flying puking yelling screaming tearing her own skin off all at once.

And then, from inside the smoke, there is a rising blue light that grows brighter and more brilliant as the deep sound rises in power an volume.

And then it suddenly expands, holds, and contracts like an implosion.

[...]

The rift ripples and undulated. The ribbon darkles and tincts. And starts growing longer. A few hundred feet and it would be at the highway. And into the parts of the building Firefly did not prop up.

She brushed aside the pain. It was an easy thing to do. The feelings of immense speed and immense pressure are not foreign to her, they just serve to sharpen that growing edge of anger.

She floats into the air, sun-orb extending a sunbeam like a spotlight. She arcs it around, clearing through the smoke as she flies towards the rift, looking for Doctor Tempus. He was the problem here and he needed to be found and stopped before his insipid tantrum hurt anybody else.

[Assess the situation: 5. I'm drowning in all this POTENTIAL]

[Sahe]

Firefly
Potential: 0/0
Conditions: None
Influence on: Solar Girl, Smoke, Wild Card, Tunweya
Gadgets: 1

Firefly was quite happy that her Nanite Fibers worked perfectly to stabilize the failing building and the rest of the team had meanwhile taken care of Doctor Lame and his clones. A winning smile appeared on Laura's face (that nobody could see under her helmet). Another victory for Team...wait did we have a team name? "Hey...uhm guys, we should talk about a team name...", Laura began enthusiastically before trailing off as suddenly the IDF-G began emitting alarming signals that were flooding her HUD, before it collapsed into a rift out of which uncontrolled ribbons of light poured, apparently just tearing through the fabric of this reality.

"Fascinating", was all that came over Laura's lips as she studied the data recorded by her suit with the same glimmer in her eyes as your average five year old looked at a lit Christmas tree. She didn't even know how to interpret half of it as even her advanced mind wasn't capable to process and categorize all of this information, quite literally pouring out of the rift, much of which was completely new and incompatible with known science.

"- laura...focus! There are people in danger -", Riley said, making Laura aware that she wasn't analyzing the data of a nice and safe Particel Accelerator experiment but a live phenomena tearing through their reality. She noted Tunweya's question and gave the data from the rift a more focused reading, while answering.

"Honestly, I'm not quite sure...this is...like completely new science...so your guess is as good as mine. I'm not sure we can pour enough energy into it to stop it and...I dunno...it could make it worse..."
"- Laura...the civilians -", Riley interrupted her once more reminding her that there were still people in the ruined building
"Oh, there are still people in the building too..."

________________________
Assess the Situation...
(2d6+2)[10]
I want to know:
- How do we best end this quickly
- What here can be used to close the rift?

[Eldest]

Wildcard is cheered by watching the teamwork take-down of the idiot doctor (really, this isn't going to help the world at all, it's just petty revenge), but stops short as soon as she sees the blue light drawing in the smoke from Smoke. She knew that look, it's a very bad look, and she immedietly runs for one of the nearby buildings, veering to a concealed cache of tech Patriarch had stashed away behind a false wall. She notices too late the blinking red light, and knows the alarm system immediately: he tended to respond to his stuff being broken into quickly. Here's hoping that the team can fix the first (second? third? she loses count in these encounters) crisis before the next one shows.

[Ramsus]

At the sight of the raw ley-line Smoke is practically frozen in place. She remembers what happened last time she saw one of these. She gained her powers sure, but a lot of people could have died and ultimately it did result in the death of her love.
She's vaguely aware the others are doing things or talking, but none of it registers to her.
Then out of the corner of her eye she catches the light coming from Solar Girl. And she turns to look at her and a small part of her wonders if like her grandmother this happening is somehow her fault or if maybe she even wanted this to happen. A larger part of her wonders what's going on in the strange being's mind at all. But, unsurprisingly she just can't get a read on her through all that mind-fog inducing light and shimmer. No, figuring out is going to have to involve words or at least seeing more of her in action.

---

Pierce the Mask on Solar Girl.... got a whopping 3. Hurray, Potential!, I suppose. *shrug*

[truemane]

Hearing Tunweya's words, Firefly tries to parse the reams of information pouring in from outside. Most of it is very confusing, but a couple of things are pretty clear:

The rift is unstable, and a focused concussive blast could indeed cause it collapse on itself without spreading any further. The blast would have to be shaped, in a complex spiral pattern. Riley helpfully offers the exact housing required for the explosive, and it's a bizarre, complex, almost non-Newtonian shape.

It would also have to be delivered at an incredible speed. But it should work. And it should end this.

However, her readings also show her two other somethings:

First, that Doctor Tempus is still in the area, moving up and away. He's somehow made himself out of phase with this timeline. He's almost invisible. Probably intangible. And getting away.

Second, there are two flight-drones heading toward them at incredible speed. Her readings indicate they are about a mile away. Riley was only able to catch them at all because their signature is very, very familiar.

Wildcard stares helplessly as the alarm light blinks rapidly. The device starts to emit a scrambled sound, not unlike a 90's era modem. She knows that sound all too well. It's the homing beacon for Patriarch's attack drones.

However, she also notices that the device itself is what's called an 'Anchor Beacon' for a different kind of drone. The kind that's programmed to hang around and record things. And it only has a range of a few hundred yards.

Smoke stares at Solar Girl, trying to get a sense of what she was thinking, or feeling. Solar Girl always made her think of Fire, of what they had. Of what she lost. And the air was thrumming with the pulse of the rift just as it had that day when they gained their powers. The power of the memories stirred by the combination was almost overwhelming.

Solar Girl, meanwhile, flies about, trying to get a sense of the situation. All she knows is that the influence of the rift is making her feel like she doesn't belong in her own skin. Like she was going to either grow and grow until she dissipated or shrink and shrink until she vanished.

She remembers her father trying to take her on a trip to Pluto once, showing her how to twist space in just the right way to go (no, not to go, but to BE) anywhere she wanted. But of all the things he was, Solar was not a great teacher. Most of what he had to say boiled down to 'watch me' and 'why can't you get this.' But she wanted to succeed. Wanted to to go to Pluto. She She tried and tried and tried. And she remembered the way he'd looked at her. Like she was just some stupid human and not worth his time.

Spoiler

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Solar Girl: how did that story end? If she pleased her father, shift Saviour up and any other label down. If she didn't, shift Saviour down and any other label up.

Smoke: Tell us what she remembers and if they're good or bad memories (or at least if they make her feel good or bad). Take +1 forward if they're helpful, or spurn her to action. And then mark a Condition and Potential.

[Ramsus]

Looking at the ley-line and Solar Girl memories and feelings come flooding at her like waves, all choppy and broken up displacing each other.

The way it felt to be.... Torn apart? Burned? Dissolved? Unraveled? All of these words fit, but even altogether none of them convey anything but the most surface level of what it was like. And then... Re-solidified? Restitched? Reborn? Re-forged? Again, these words barely coming close to the truth of it. It was horrible and swift, yet wondrous and maddeningly long. And that feel afterwards like you got put together back from your old pieces exactly as you were, but some of the pieces were different. And some were more you than they had been before.
And that lingering feeling that she still feels even now, like you were forever separate from what you once were (something that sometimes feels like it is this shadow of what people should be but this shadow is all most people are for some unfathomable and incorrect reason) but are connected to something more. The world, yes certainly. A deep connection to at least a part, a vital part of what the world is. But even more, even deeper than that. Part of what all things are.
But whenever she examines that feeling, it's always like that essential part of everything is just such a tiny almost meaningless part. Like that part is to existence as what the shadow-people are to what she is now. And so she is frustratingly much more than they can hope to be, what they should have been, and yet so like them in her smallness.

Then just the feeling of warmth. That warmth of sitting by a fire. But not the uneven warmth that leaves some parts too cool and some too hot requiring frequent movement in the pointless struggle to be "just right" that lies beneath the surface of that supposedly idyllic situation. The perfect warmth Fire could be. She was. At least for her. Only for her.

That warmth gone. The cold longing of it. The hurt of that coldness. That want.

The lulling falseness of it that the girl she's looking upon now has about her. Unfathomably pleasing, reassuring, and infuriating.

Then a flash of moments. Memories lost in the background of the ones the burn brighter. So quick the age and image are a blur.
The two girls sitting on a roof.
The two girls hands held fast in the middle of the night at an abandoned park.
The two girls yelling at each other.
The two girls standing there literally atop of some lesser challengers and trying to figure out how some weird device works while the flames leap around them and the building trembles.
One girl seeing a place in passing and suppressing that feeling of being gutted by something that should have so little meaning as to be nothing.

And that awful memory she tries to keep buried every day. Of seeing both this girl before her and the thing that was once her other self. And for a moment feeling that the wrong one was the true one, when in truth neither were.

She blinks this flood away and some part of her knows that somehow she can do what needs to be done here. It could be dangerous for her. But it would be more dangerous for everyone (everything perhaps?) else if Solar Girl does that part. As in that way where she is so small, she is the right size for this and Solar Girl is much much too big.
And just maybe she will for a moment touch that part of the ley-line that is connected to that perfect warmth. Even if she needs to be seared to reach it.

Spoiler

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So I guess my answer is... the memories are both good and bad. Certainly helpful and spur her to action here. I'll mark Guilty.