High School Heroes IC

[SquirrelWizard]

David sat down slowly, halfway expecting the chair to fly out from underneath him. He listened in as the others talked for a bit.

"So... we're all in the same class," David said. He glanced over at River and added, "or we at least know people who are in the same class. And... we have... um... 'homework.'" Inwardly David screamed at how stupid it was calling super powers literally homework, but they'd need to settle on something to call it in public. "So far I've just been tracking your... hero movements when the villains show up. You know. Thinking that maybe that where you... I mean the heroes were coming from in the city might give some clues as to the origins... their origins."

He sighed as he felt like he was now being a massive stalker, "and I've been trying to figure out where these villains keep popping up from. They're more complicated and seem to just materialize into existence."

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Well obviously someone gave us the powers, right?" Lila...said more than asked (she thought the homework thing was a clever enough way to discuss it, but with the door closed she didn't feel like it was necessary to try to obscure their words). "Presumably whoever it is that makes the bad guys disappear and fixes all the stuff they did when we win. Why they don't just do that from the start when they have that level of reality-warping power I can't tell you, but there it is."

"It, um..." Nina started hesitantly, before kinda closing her mouth and staring down at the table.

"What? ... ...Nina, c'mon!"

"It, no, I just...I mean, I was thinking, it might be one of our teachers, or maybe the principal. Or something. I mean...I wouldn't have thought that, but...all of us being in the same class suggests a connection through the class. Um...teacher more likely, probably. Because, uh, if it were someone else just connected to the school, we'd have probably been spread among more classes." Nina didn't lift her gaze from the table the whole time she was talking.

[Ridai]

"So you... so you want us to investigate all teachers that have any connection to our class?" River asks, somewhat peeking out from under her hood (but still holding onto it). Potentially probing into Ms. Rouge's life on the off-chance of her having anything to do with this doesn't sit too well with her.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"I...maybe? I mean...to be fair, it's pretty obvious that whoever gave us these...assignments is...on our side and presumably has reasons for keeping it secret. So...investigating them may not necessarily be, um, necessary. But...if we do want to figure out who it is, our teachers would be a sensible place to start, maybe?"

Our teachers would be a good place to start investigating who gave us an "assignment". ...Quality spycraft, Nina.

[jamieth]

"That does make sense, of course..." Laura lowers herself into proper.. or, as she would say, conventional... way of using a seat, slightly disappointed by the lack of reaction... "But why teachers only? I mean, it might sound weird, but how about our other classmates? I mean, whoever does this, obviously has some abilities science can't really explain... so there's no reason it has to be an adult." Or even a human. But, well, investigating non-humans would be difficult, admittedly, so that can wait...

[Ridai]

"How do... how will you go about this?" River asks, though she is dreading the answer, already burying herself deeper in her hood again.

[SquirrelWizard]

David nodded along with the others glancing to each as the spoke. Lila he had known, at least from a distance, mainly through what he had observed of her crowd of friends. Nina he knew less of, though to judge by the way she seemed to have faded into Lila's shadow he didn't think she had many friends. River, well if you assume she was actually River, was a nerd. Apparently she liked anime if the hoodie was to go by, though he wasnt sure if she knew what that symbol entailed, an idle thought crept into his head: I really hope we dont end up like Guts is all I gotta say.

If someone gave them these powers, and they were in the same class, then it was probably someone they knew. "Even if it isnt a teacher, its gotta be someone we all know, and probably meet on a regular basis. Maybe start with our Home Room teacher?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

"That's a good point. There's not really any reason it couldn't be a student," Lila said. "Hey! What if it's the real River! That would be hilarious!"

At River's, or "River's"...let's say Yui's question, Nina kinda spread her hands out in a sort of shrugging gesture, her head shaking and a bit of worry in her eyes. "I mean, I dunno. I wasn't...really planning any specific course of investigation or anything! We're just talking! It's like...it makes sense that it would be somebody who knows us, so somebody at the school, but yeah the evidence fits a student just as well as a teacher, but it isn't even conclusive there! Maybe it's just someone who, like, saw us getting out of class and picked us randomly or something..."

"That'd be a pretty big coincidence," Lila said with a dismissive wave. "Okay so, investigating {the homeroom teacher}, sounds good. So I guess like...what, we'd need to maybe know they're doing next time we beat a bad guy, right? Like, if they do some weird magicky thing and then the bad guy vanishes, we know it's them, or something. But how do we watch them while we're beating the bad guy?"

[Ridai]

River fidgets, being able to think of some ideas, but... "I... I guess the options are either invasion of privacy with a camera, or having someone else stalk them? Yui isn't clairvoyant, so she's kind of out."

[jamieth]

"Or, you know, we can just rotate the duty... I mean, at least some villains, the three - four -" (it's confusing as to whether count Lila and Nina as two people, or as one superhero) "- anyway, pretty sure we can afford to leave one of to investigation duties. And if things get tough... Well, that's why we have a hero link for, no?"

[SquirrelWizard]

"We can also swap phone numbers so we can communicate without having to use the link." David said in reply to Laura's comment on the hero link. "Also, what would we be looking for when investigating the Teach? Weird tech? Glowing pillar of light with a floating face in it? Mechanical lions that can form into a giant mech?"

He softly sighed as he leaned back in his chair and scratched his head. He'd highly doubt that the person who granted them these powers would so openly leave evidence of their actions out. They'd need a solution but that would require time, Gizmo, and Bit, assuming that they could craft some solution. He grinned as he chuckled attempting to not totally quash the mood, adding, "So, how long do you think it will be before we get a knock-off cartoon done about us?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Sounds good. I'm at (212) 555-5452, Nina's (212) 555-6462."

"Um...I mean, I'm not...sure we should, like, send one person to keep watch or whatever. I mean...of course, it would be good to know if one of our teachers or something is responsible for giving us powers and all, but, um, it's still basically just satisfying our curiosity, you know? And protecting people when the supervillains attack is...a lot more important."

"Yeah but I mean Laura's right, the villains don't usually take all of us to fight, and we can always just call for backup if we need it."

"No, I know, it's just...I mean, that's probably true, but if there ends up being a situation where it's not true, then...someone could get hurt. I don't think the chance is high, but the cost of it going wrong outweighs the gain of satisfying our curiosity by like several orders of magnitude, and since this is so speculative, we can't...really make up the difference in odds. Even if it's only a hundred to one against a villain actually needing all of us there from the start to keep people safe, it would need to be like a million to one or more for our not being there allowing us to learn what we're trying to learn for the expected utility to balance out. And our odds are simply not that high."

"Uhh...yeah I don't know about any of that. But I think it'll probably be fine."

[Ridai]

River weakly raises a hand. "Not feeling good about skipping out on fights, either. Wouldn't... wouldn't that count as something that might lead to things not getting rolled back, if there's intent behind it all? Ignoring duties and such? And the last fight seemed pretty... intense, compared to the previous ones." River pauses, folding, unfolding, and folding her hands in her lap. "What about the origins of villains?"

Hearing the question about cartoons, River scratches her head. "Now I'm wondering if studios would try licensing likenesses."

[jamieth]

"Hm... yeah, you're probably right. We can't risk things not repairing themselves... But then... I don't know", Laura says, as she quickly taps the phone numbers she hears into her phone and makes a call to them so that others' phones picked her number up as well (because, frankly, she doesn't remember it by heart).
"And villains... do we have any evidence thay have an origin? Aren't they, just, you kow, pop up from nothing every now and then? I mean, sure, I understand how weird it sounds, but then... what about all this situation isn't?"
"Hm... come to think of it. How were we selected in the first place? Where did you find your, ahem, gadgets, and how did you know what to do with them?"

[Ridai]

"Was chased by a group of villains, fell, spilled things over the floor, and as I stuffed everything back into my bag, I guess it was in there for some reason and it accidentally slipped on and, well, out came Yui. Just knew what to do at that point." River shrugs, being unable to provide much of anything that would help with a lead.

[SquirrelWizard]

David noted Laura and Nina's phone number. "(404) 647-7464. I haven't changed it since I moved here."

He shook his head as he shrugged. "I found my device in my backpack one day. Everything I know about it was either what I figured out on my own, or what Bit helped me with. And her help can be... spotty at times. I'm not saying that we stop fighting the villians, but I dont know where they're coming from and it seems that us getting our devices and the villians appearing might be linked. For what reason? I dont know, but it might help to figure that out if possible."

[Ridai]

"If we were given by this by someone at school, why wouldn't that person contact us in some way? If the intent is to beat villains, wouldn't we have been much more able to do that with guidance, explanations, anything? Anything that would improve success chances?" That's the part that bothers her the most if they are going with the assumption that someone around them gave these items to them with intent, instead of this being some weird phenomenon beyond comprehension. If the person is available to talk, but doesn't, that reads as either being stupid, neglectful, doing some weird judgment thing, or doing this for their own amusement, none of which sounds very encouraging.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Oh so you guys have the trinket things too? I was kinda wondering. We just found ours on our dresser one day. Next time we made contact with each other we just kinda..."

"Fuuuuuusion!" Nina said quietly, blushing a bit pretty much immediately after.

"Yeah pretty much. I don't know why they wouldn't try to contact us though. Unless they're just being purposefully annoying."

"Well I mean...it could be kinda like, a game, maybe? Like one of the players gave us our tokens, and the other one is giving the villains their powers, and they just kinda...put us against each other to see who wins, or something?
I mean...I'm just speculating but it does feel kinda video-gamey in a way. With the bad guys disappearing when we beat them and everything going back to normal. Or mostly everything, anyway."

[Ridai]

River has the feeling she heard a cracking noise from somewhere, but it's probably just her imagination.

More presently, however, River... really doesn't know where to go with this conversation. So she just kind of... shrugs...