Virtue Is Its Own Reward

[Logan Darklighter]

Nice - only one nitpick. What's this about the Valentine's event being over when you start your story? I think according to the story, that it hadn't even begun yet. (Ckecks) Yeah, January 19 is the date we had set for this. Valentines Event hadn't even _started_ yet.
Other than that though, good job!-Logan
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"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
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[HDTrio]

Actually, we started this story nearer to Christmas, but due to our computer messing up, and deleting the semi-complete version several times, we never got the chance to post it...*Grumbles*...So, we made the introduction, and posted that...The CoH Event it speaks of is the Baby New Years one...Sorry for not explaining!...We hope to get the next version up soon.

[Render]

I am not--technically--under arrest, and this is not--technically--a cell. But the door is locked. I am monitored between interrogations and tests. They keep drawing blood and then mysteriously losing the samples. I think that might be my fault, somehow. I have certainly been here longer than the police can hold me without charging me with something. But I am not surprised that the usual rules have been set aside. There is chaos out there. I'd like to be part of it.
I tell myself to be patient. This isn't the Paragon PD. This is the LAPD and the FBI, and they don't have the first idea about how to work with superheroes because we don't exist. Didn't exist. I catch myself smirking in the mirror. My half-familiar reflection loses her smile. The truth is, I'm stalling. Waiting for them to decide what to do with me.
I walk over to the mirrored window and put my hands on it. So. Here it is. I'm... immortal, more or less. Young, fit, phenomenally dangerous. Also attractive and female. I turn my back on the mirror. It only feels awkward when I dwell on it. Other than the whole 'losing my mind' thing, I lucked out with Badb.
When I was younger, I used to play question games... what if you could live forever, but you had to give up the life you were living to do it? Your family, friends, home... your name. Your reflection. Everything.
The door opens. The man who walks in is physically the least intimidating looking person I've seen since I surrendered. The shuffling walk, the weak chin. The way his watery eyes don't linger too long on the places where my costume is tight. All a mask that hides his essential nature. But I can smell the blood on his hands.
"So, Miss... Bad B? Bad'b?" he stammers, sinking into his seat like a man a decade older.
"Badb," I correct him. "Like Maeve. Irish." I take the seat across the table from him.
He gives no sign he's anything other than a bureaucrat out of his depth. He shuffles his papers around. "Sorry. I've got a tin ear. Six years of Spanish as a kid, and I can't order a taco." He laughs nervously. "Anyway. My name is James Carlson, with the Department of Defense, but you can call me Jim. I see you were in a fight in San Pedro. With two others who'd been, ah, changed?"
He asks other questions I've answered before. I repeat myself. The game is to understand his true questions before he learns the answers. We go back and forth a while. Neither of us is getting anywhere. I get bored.
"I'd like to leave," I announce.
"You've caused enough trouble. Your little vigilante rampage has the gangs spoiling for a fight and their neighbors on the march. I don't want to hear about another demonstration turning violent."
"There was a riot? Over me?" I'm torn between dismay and a certain perverse thrill. I give in to the latter. "How sweet!"
"You think this is funny?" Finally, a reaction. But it seems off, somehow.
I shake my head. "No, it's not funny. But you're not a cop. You don't care what happens in South Central or Echo Park or Skid Row. You never have. So why are you really here?"
Carlson pulls several folders out of the middle of the stack, and slaps them down on the table in front of me. "We don't need a bunch of delusional misfits running around taking the law into their own hands. And quite frankly, we can handle the morons robbing banks in broad daylight without your help. It's just a matter of time. But you have these... abilites. You say you want to help. And I want you out of my hair."
"What hair?" But I start at the back and flip through their contents at random, until I find the maps. Afghanistan. Iraq. I am not a detective or a spy. Unless I spontaneously develop some kind of sixth sense I'm not going to be much use there. Fighting terrorists isn't the hard part, finding them is. North Korea, Iran. The temptation to start a war is frightningly strong, and I recoil like the folders are full of scorpions.
"I'm not interested in your political agenda," I tell him.
"Darfur."
That bears consideration. What's more heroic than stopping genocide in progress? Where would a goddess of battle and chaos be stronger than a country tearing itself apart? But I don't like being manipulated.
"You just want me out of the country. All of us. So you can keep things under control."
"Now you're being paranoid," he says.
"Am I?" I think about it. I have the advantage of knowing things Badb wouldn't have been aware of, while her aspects have only sharpened my thoughts along certain lines. Tactics, conflict... fear. The event that changed us is utterly inexplicable. No wonder he's scared. The accepted laws of physics weren't just yanked out from under him. Every time we use our powers, we're demonstrating that they're still broken. Anything is possible.
Carlson hasn't shown me all the folders yet. He still has cards to play. I want to see them.
"I'm getting bored with men with guns."
His fingers move to the next folder in the stack, and then pause. Mr. Carlson doesn't like me. The world has come unglued, and I'm being a smart-ass. His lip curls with distaste, and his fingers move to the folder on the bottom.
"You'd rather stay here?" he asks.
"You can't hold me."
He pushes the folder across the table at me.
Inside is a single, grainy photograph, likely taken through some sort of night-vision camera. It's me, me as I am now that is. Badb. Standing over my wife and daughter as they sleep. I don't even remember going back to the house.
My shadow falls over him as I rise, and I can see emerald fury reflected off his watery eyes. He pushes himself backward instinctvely, his face turning to chalk.
"If you touch them--"
Though he looks like he's on the verge of a heart attack, Carlson heaves himself to his feet to face me. "What? You'll kill me? I don't think so."
"You'll wish I had. You can't stop me," I remind him, "You can't even hurt me. My powers have a price. I'll forget them. I'll forget everything. But before I do, I'll destroy everything you care about."
"You won't," he sneers. "You want to be a hero."
My left hand is around his throat, dragging him over the table, right hand cocked back, ready to start breaking the bones of his face one my one. My eyes must be blazing now, his whole face is limned with green and shadows seem to be gathering palpably around me.
"And you're a villain."
"Hit me, then," he croaks. He's gasping, shaking, but those are purely physical, instinctive reactions. The result of my powers. His eyes are clear of panic.
The doors crash open, cops spilling into the room, shouting and pointing guns. I could fight my way out of here, but then what? I drop him onto the table and let the officers slam me back into my chair, and lay it on me. I don't fight them. Pain is transitory.
Carlson regains his breath and his diginity, and waves the cops off of me. "My twelve year old loves comic books. Lucky thing, he was playing World of Warcraft when it happened. He told me you'd pull something like that."
"And if I'd been playing a villain?"
"I'd be reading from a different script. We're not stupid, you know. The President was in a safe and secret location twenty minutes after this mess started, and we've been skeet shooting would-be super villains on the White House lawn ever since."
"You can't control this. Things are still changing. If you hurt them--"
Carlson looks at the tense cops in the room. "Did I say one word about hurting anyone? Did I?" He looks at me again. "Somewhere in your head is a normal person, who knows this isn't a four-color comic book melodrama. I don't like you, I don't like what's happened, and I'd just as soon wave my hands and make everything go back to normal, or failing that, ship the lot of you to Antarctica. But I can't." He pauses, rubbing his chest. "You maniacs are giving me an ulcer, but I'm not going to hurt your families. Okay?"
He's wrong about one thing. It wasn't my 'normal' self that had held me back. It was the cypher with her memories falling apart that I'd never thought important. The one who chewed bubble gum and cracked jokes while she fought robots. My inner idealist, maybe, and I never even gave her a name.
So I hadn't hit him. But I wasn't bluffing.
Maybe he hadn't been, either. Or maybe I was just losing my mind.
"Okay," I say.
"Great." He waves off the cops. Two of them stay by the door, just in case. "Now look. We have no idea why or how this happened, whether it will happen again, how long it might last. Okay? And clearly, some of you are, ah, disoriented by the situation. You want to join the military, we'll send you overseas. You want to go home and try to go back to your old life--" he taps the picture, "we will provide counselling, temporary identification, all that stuff. But you can't go running around beating the crap out of people because they look at you funny."
"But--"
"But nothing. You're not a cop. You're not in the army. Some nut shows up spoiling for a fight, sure, you can defend yourself. That's it."
"But--"
"However," he says, steamrolling on, "If you are so hell-bent on risking life and limb playing hero that you just can't help yourself--" he grimaces, like he's swallowing a particularly harrowing insect, "--it does happen that we have a situation on our hands."
He opens his last folder, and sets another photo down in front of me. It has that off-kilter 'Final Transmission' look to it.
Ghost Widow.

[Sweno]

Well after a much longer wait then I expected here is next section of my contrubution to the world
*****
I don't sleep anymore. It's just varying levels of consciousness, drifting for a few hours skimming news feeds is as close as I come now. I know that the integration of what used to be Terry and Clank is still running through various permutations in my subconsciousness.
Morality has become a transitory thing. I spent the better part of last night alternately disgusted at the corpses in the freezer chest in the basement, and afraid of what I might do if I turned myself in. Now it doesn't bother me. All three of them were fools drunk on their own power, attempting childish displays of force. They would have drawn more attention than I'm ready to deal with. I have no delusions of grandeur, I know my limitations. I can't stand any sort of prolonged confrontation in my current state. The best thing I have going for me right now is that I'm flying under the radar.
The three I have defeated where by far not the only ones looking to make trouble, and I haven't been the only one to thwart them. In the two weeks since the incident there has been a confrontation of some sort almost every night. Maybe because it's the silicon valley, or maybe this is happening all over and the news stations aren't reporting it on a national scale yet. Of the eight that I managed to reach in time, I ended up circling like a vulture for half. Either because both sides were clearly not technologically based or hoping that one side would fall before the police (with their own small but growing selection of supers) arrived.
-----
My first victory was against a fellow robotics mastermind. He was either foolish enough not to check for ambushes, or unable to detect the electronic noise I put out when cloaked. In the end it didn't matter the cause of his inattention, the result was the same. His robots were torn down and rebuilt as my own, and he was salvaged for any clues about how portal technology operated in this reality.
-----
The second victory (If I could really call it that) amounted to picking off the winner of another battle. I arrived after the conflict was already under way. A rather brightly colored kid with a big sword and a girl with familiar looking force fields was facing off a hulking mountain of mechanics in the form of a man. The sounds of battle masked any conversation that passed between them. It was a rather drawn out fight, and even though the pair of heros seemed to have the upper hand when I arrived, the balance slowly shifted as the fight wore on. The mechanical mountain seemed to glow with some inner power that just got brighter as the fight wore on, while the dynamic duo just got tired. It ended when sword-boy took a blow to the head that tossed him across the parking lot; he didn't get up. Bubble-girl yelled something and hit her oppenent with a blast that hurled him away from her fallen compatriot. Before he could close the distance again, she had knelt next sword-boy and they both had teleported away. I tailed the victor for a while until he settled down to repair himself. He must have felt some of electromagnetic noise I put out, because it took him what seemed like forever to find a 'safe' spot. As soon as his massive form seemed to wind down I hit him with both barrels of binding webbing. His last moments were spend struggling against he sticky material as my bots pumped him full of lasery death.
-----
My third victory was against a corruptor with a penchant for cold attacks and supers speed. She had apparently frozen her way into a armored van and stolen a valuable portion of the goods sorted within. Police cruisers make a poor match when pitted against someone who can do 80 mph on foot. It took me six city blocks and three teleports to get the positioning down. But seeing her closelined by a 2 ton stealthed bot was worth it, and it definitely got the fight off on the right foot. On the plus side that opeing move knocked her off her feet and disoriented her. On the down side she slid farther than I guessed and it put a nice big dent in the assault bot's arm (note to self: increase armoring on assault bot's arms, disabling the flame-thrower isn't worth any amount of amusement). Her slide took her outside the range of my entanglement webbing, and by the time I had closed the distance she was back up her feet. I fired the webbing anyway. I didn't expect it to hit her, or come anywhere close, but it kept her attention on me and not on two bots that were sneaking up behind her.
The webbing canister sailed past her shoulder as she circled to my left, doing a fairly good job of keeping me in the firing arc of my assault bot. While her maneuvering succeeded in limiting the fire of my big guns, she quickly found out they are not the only guns I have. The ground underneath my feet froze and foot long icicles started to bounce off my shields, and unhappy creaking noises started to emanate from the hulking form behind me. The freezing wind that was slowing reducing my assault bot to frozen scrap did have the nice side affect of hiding the whining charge of two blaster arrays being charged to overload. Both shots from my battle drones hit her square in the back. One of the battles drones lost the lower half of it's arm as it's array exploded, but it was worth it. Smoke was visibly rising from the gaping hole in her back; this time she didn't dodge the binding webbing. She did manage to remind me that down was not out thought as a series of frozen energy blasts dropped remaining drone like a bag of rocks. She smiled at me she worked at the webbing at her feet.
"It seems I've broken all your toys, now I'll just have to break you."
I smiled back at her at the frozen battle bot disappeared behind me with the ripping pop of a teleport. "Oh I don't think your going to do that." Engaging in witty banter during a battle rubbed my the wrong way. But it did keep her focused on me.
"Don't tell me your going to run away, that wouldn't b--" Her response was cut off as two tons of frozen war bot slammed into her traveling at roughly 120 mph. The bot didn't survive the gravity test, and neither did she.
I picked up the bag of loot she had dropped and placed a transport beacon in their combined wreckage. I'd sort the parts out in the warehouse.
-----
I was taking a break from the reconstruction of my battle bot (he wasn't up to what Mr Tock standards, but getting close) when I saw the news article. Or more accurately, I saw the photo in the news article. The photo showed a two women in costume standing over a shackled form. The woman in the foreground didn't ring any bells at first, but the woman behind her got my full attention. Nogi (or Lady Nogitsune to the doomed) standing around with Heroes? The thought refused to process for a few seconds. I mean sure, we had teamed with a few of the Legendary once or twice to stop common threats. But somehow I didn't think the poor bastard at their feet was a world destroying power. A sliver of hope wormed it way into my conscious thoughts: If Nogi could be accepted, then so could I.
As soon as I got the cackling under control I started prepping the warehouse for my extended absence. I had simply assumed that I would have to work from the shadows, with paranoid and short lived 'partnerships' with other villains while I gathered enough information to get back to Agatha. The idea that I could be a 'good guy' simply hadn't crossed my mind. I didn't care what other people did, only how to get back home, to Agatha. My time in the Isles had taught me that adopting the values of others could lead to knowledge and power. Becoming a 'hero' was a small price to pay if it meant being accepted by the group most likely to know about portal-tech.
*****
As alluded to above Clank patrol is headed to NJ. The reception a sociopathic war machine receives I leave up to you. How would you handle someone who just wants to go home, and doesn't mind taking over a small country if that is what it takes to develop the necessary tech?-Terry
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"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Foxboy]

{Bump'd to keep it where I can find it]
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

In a way, I lucked out.
I could have been playing Lincoln or Warlock Wolf, or even Nixon. Someone with a powerful, complex personality that bore no real resemblance to me. I could have been snuffed out like a candle while someone else walked the earth in my place.
....I could have been playing World of Warcraft instead, but that kind of luck just doesn't happen to me.
No, I got stuck with someone who was such a cardboard cutout that it doesn't take any effort at all to ignore his insane rants. That was the good luck.
The bad luck? Even though no one was playing his lieutenants at the time, they were defined as parts of him. His shadows.
My shadows, now, all three of them.
Controlling them is the tricky part.
Welcome to the Mirror Kingdom: population, me.
--Sam
"People say that I'm out of touch with reality. That I'm insane. Sometimes I forget things. Who I am. Where I am. Unimportant things. But I'm not insane. I am a tick."

[Foxboy]

Ashleigh Williams held court in the very seat of her domain, the Food Court of the Quail Hollow Mall. She and her friends were fairly typical high school girls, and she was the Queen of the popular girls clique at her own school. Everyone at the two tables, pushed together, did everything "exactly right." They all wore the right clothes; they all listened to the right music; they all watched the right shows on TV; they all wore their hair the same way with minor allowances made for personal genetic variances. That is, they caved to Ashleigh's whim and did what she thought was best.
The mall was buzzing with shoppers on this Sunday afternoon, and Ashleigh, along with Kayleigh, Leigh, Heather, Erica, and LaShona, were having fun making snide comments about the "lesser folk" walking by. That girl was too chunky to ever get a boy. This boy is cute, but his clothes are so Last Week. Is that a comic book in his hand? Ewww! Poseur geek! Look at that comb-over!
The giggles and laughter was infectious and all six girls were having a blast, when the ambient chatter of the food court suddenly stilled. She could see a group of boys tracking some new arrivals, and she felt her hackles rise.
Six women were walking by, apparently on their way to one of the anchor stores from the main parking lot. Each was beautiful to a standard even Ashleigh could appreciate, and be envious of, despite most wearing extremely unflattering clothes. Three Japanese women were near the front, one dressed in what could charitably be defined as Photographer Chic. No normal girl needed that many pockets on her vest! Another seemed to be wearing somewhat frumpy business casual with a fedora in teal. The last, who seemed strangely enough to be the "alpha" of the coterie, moved with an easy grace that made all of the clique jealous at once. Her carriage and posture made the platform boots and minidress made from a comic-geek T-shirt she wore seem like haute couture.
Now that Ashleigh thought about it, it seemed that most of the women were wearing outfits that would either be too baggy, or were easily modified from men's wear. Despite this, there was no hiding the redhead's curves under the baggy leather jacket and jeans, or the elegant planes of the platinum blonde's face. The final member of the troupe seemed the most normal, and Ashleigh wouldn't have even noticed her except the Alpha was smiling (Oh! So ELEGANT!) and speaking softly to her.
The clique began to stew in their own juices. With women like THAT in the mall, how could they possibly compete?

---

Shopping trip of doom: currently has Lady Nogitsune, Brightsky, Hexane, Lora'Lai, Kagetsuki Misao, and HLW in the mall. Nogi and Hexane's Ninja are present, just being GOOD at the ninja thing.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Sweno]

Because this is too cool to let it die.
And thanks to Foxboy for poking my muse
***********
Getting from CA to NJ used to be easily solved. $300, a few hours to kill in an airport, and you where on your way.
I wouldn't make it 3 feet past security these days. Ok, I could make it very far past security if I wanted, but causing an incident would ground the flights and be counterproductive.
Not having to worry about staying warm, eating, or breathing does open up a wide variety of options for travel. Having to keep 6 tons of protector bots relatively close greatly limited my options. Granted I could have just teleported to the other coast, but there were several problems with that plan. I didn't have the energy to pull 3 tons of protector bot from one coast to the other, let alone a 5 ton of battle bot. I might have managed one of the 1.5 ton drones, but being low on energy with only a drone for protection isn't I plan I like. Doing short hops might have been an option for a short while after the change, but by now I had no idea who was looking for people porting through their state. Travel by road and rail both had far too many chances to be discovered, and took longer than I liked.
In the end I spent the better part of a rainy day hiding out at SFO waiting for one of FedEx's DC-10s to head for Newark. It wasn't hard to get into the cargo compartment, stealth meant that the cargo handlers didn't see me, and the miserable weather meant that they weren't looking all that hard. Once the cargo area was sealed, I ported my two protector bots into what little free space was left and settled down for a long and hopefully boring flight.
I didn't like leaving my warehouse/workshop under the guard of three drones and one half repaired battle bot. But arriving armed to the teeth while on a supposedly diplomatic mission doesn't go over very well.
------
The flight to Newark was cold, boring, noisy, and (most importantly) free of complications. Teleporting myself and the bots to a nearby golf course (thanks to google maps) gave me a large enough area that I wasn't worried about hitting something on arrival. It was also deserted at night, allowing me to get my baring without worrying about being spotted.
Porting to Bob's house wasn't hard, and I didn't get spotted as I blipped my way across New Jersey. I still hadn't told anyone I was arriving, my paranoia insisting that I needed to get a better feel for the situation before I announced myself.
Of course this plan was shot to hell when I was spotted not 10 minutes after arriving in the back yard. It wasn't one my best moments. I wasn't stealthed. I was just trying to figure out how to approach the house, and those inside, when one of Nogi's ninja (I could never tell them apart) reminded me what stealth could really be like.
**************
I hate to stop there, but conversations are not my strong suit, and I don't feel comfortable writing others characters. End result is I've hit a bit of a brick wall.
I would be honored if those more talented than myself would take a swing at this from someone else's point of view.-Terry
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"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[His Lovely Wife]

Did I mention that Im not a shopper? How -I- got dragooned into this Ill never know. I believe it had something to do with my prior experiences shopping. Well flip. After an hour of wheedling, and a promise to Shayne that we wouldnt be going into shoe stores (long story, ask him) and a return promise from Shayne and Marcus that they would try not to peek, and if they did see anything they werent supposed to see they wouldnt repeat anything about it, I agreed and herded them all out to the car. Now the car only seats 5. I still had a valid drivers license, therefore I had a seat. I didnt think anyone would begrudge Nogi-Fox a seat. S/He has this .. Presence. Turns out LoraLai just went Nova and hung onto the antennae. Whatever, we all got there, thats what was important.
Before I let them get out of the car I explained the rules. Dont fondle the underwear. Dont rub anything on your face, especially not the underwear. In fact, dont touch anything without permission. This is not an anime. Excess goofiness will get you kicked out of the store. They all nodded as I glared. My parents used to say I had laser eyes. Apparently I havent lost the touch. Good. Ok, first stop underwear. You will let the saleslady measure and fit you for bras. I repeat, do NOT fondle anything.
We entered the mall at the food court. I always considered this a bonus in being able to find your car again. But thats just me. We need a map.
Nogi-Fox turned to speak to me, Do you believe we will need a quick exit?
No, Ive never been here. I want to see the map. We probably dont have half these stores in Canada. I want to see what they have. Nogi-Fox smiled.
First stop was, JCPenney. Id never shopped there so I couldnt attest to the quality of the clothing, but it was mid-ranged price, so we would be good. Nogi-Fox and Hexanes ninja had stopped by a gold exchange and made a trade earlier in the day so we had cash. I was nominally in charge of it, not sure why.
It was embarrassing. I almost asked Misonon to stealth me. All five of them stood there staring at the underwear. I wanted to hit them all upside the head. I cleared my throat instead, twice. Loudly. Finally they all blinked and looked at me. A sales lady finally came over.
Can I help you find anything?
Before anyone could say anything I said Yes, thank you. Having worn badly fitted bras in the past, Im pushing my friends to get fitted properly. Would you mind?
The woman smiled. Not at all. She directed us all to the change room. She wasnt dumb. People didnt get fitted for things without buying something. If she worked on commission, she was going to be getting a nice cheque in the near future. I grabbed a pen and paper from a nearby counter and wrote down everyones name and their size.
If I thought that before was embarrassing, this was worse. They giggled, they goofed off. My head hurt. Shayne gave me a psychic hug and pat on the shoulder. Misonon laughed. Marcus just looked embarrassed for me. Im leaving. I finally said and started to walk away. LoraLai came after me; Nogi-Fox right behind her and eventually order was restored with the goof offs looking slightly penitent. Slightly.
Once the bras were bought, I made sure everyone bought at least one natural/nude/beige coloured one god knows where Brightsky-Valles was going to wear the fluorescent ones, none of my business! Too Much Information! Everyone had bought underwear. I let them roam free in the store, with the promise they wouldnt go out without me, to find casual clothes. I suggested jeans and t-shirts, that style never seemed to fade. When they scattered I found a place to sit and went internal.
ARGHHHH! Internal screaming, especially when you have three captured listeners, was actually quite fun. Next time they volunteer me for something, someone say no for me. I mentally cried on Shaynes shoulder. The three of them bolstered my spirits to make it through to home time. For a moment I was glad I had been crossed over with them, just for the support they offered.
Cindy? HLW? Cindy? The sounds of my charges brought me back to the front of my head, for lack of a better term. They each had a pile of things, including shoes. How nice, my promise to Shayne fulfilled without even knowing it.
Right, to the cash.
THEY wanted to shop some more. I was starting to run on empty. We compromised. Id start walking to the food court, they would spread out in front of me, hitting whatever stores were on the way, and wed rendezvous at the Food Court. On the way there, I passed a drug store. A sudden wave of fear/shock/ inspiration hit me and I popped in and grabbed two boxes of maxipads. There were a bunch of neo-females running around Bobs house. Odd are if one started her cycles, the others wouldnt be far behind. On second thought, I grabbed two more. It always pays to be prepared. The cashier looked curious, but Im sure shed seen worse coming through her cash. I only smiled at her and said, Sorority. She nodded.
********
Someone else can add a fight scene in the food court to make it interesting.
-C-

[Foxboy]

This one had a sudden burst of inspiration while we had been acquiring "necessities." One does not live several centuries as a magical being without picking up a few tricks. I had chosen mostly inexpensive yet elegantly-styled cotton clothing before we had broken up, and I planned on acquiring silk thread from the fabric store that Shima had located. I would perform a simple ritual and have silk garments for much less expenditure of my meager legitimate funds. After all, this one could only sell so much gold before the authorities took undue notice.
My new civilian garb was relatively nondescript, except for the tomboyish Fox Racing ensemble I was wearing with my platform boots, which I had kept on in a fit of whimsy. My kunoichi had already put most of my purchases in the Dark's car, so I had little to worry about. The simple black bag that Cindy had insisted on was slung comfortably over my shoulder, holding the seven hundred twenty-one dollars and fourteen cents left over afterwards.
...
And again, it bothered me that this situation was not bothering me. Less than seventy-two hours ago I would have been mortified to have spent as much time as I had in the lingerie section of a store. Today, I had hardly batted an eye as the sales clerk took my measurements. The only discomfort I had felt through the fashion show that ensued had been the "henge itch" that hid my fox ears, which included a strong itch at the base of my spine that had been there since yesterday's battle.
Well, perhaps this one is understating things.
Despite appearing to be normal human ears, they were still as sensitive as they had been on full display during last night's battle. Likewise my sense of smell. Normal people do not realize how deaf and scent-blind they really are, otherwise we would have gone on a different tech tree for our automobiles. Burning unleaded gasoline is not pleasant, nor is the constant roar of what passes for music these days in constant war between the styles. It might be different if I could only hear one song at a time in public, but I kept hearing snatches of other songs as people walked by with their iPods or drove by with their radios blaring.
Nevertheless, I was following Kaeda/Misao due to a sort of morbid curiosity, and, I admit, it was fun watching her walk. While my summoned kunoichi were scouting for an Asian imports store, I accompanied the young kunoichi on her quest for the sartorial splendor a staid establishment like JC Penny would not provide.
As I waited for Misao to decide on our first store, I pulled a Clockwork gear from "stuff space" and remembered in time to put on the appearance of practicing legerdemain as it danced across the knuckles of my right hand under the influence of a minor spell. I was still getting used to my new repertoire of minor tricks that would have been the purview of emote commands and chatline indications in-game. They were MUCH more numerous than I'd thought.
Misao turned from the next store and gave me a grin that would have stomped on my hormones hard were I still male. As it was, this one was sorely tempted to "give in" to her advances to secure her loyalty...
'Did I just think that?' I thought to myself in shock. I schooled my expression quickly and followed the Stalker into the store she'd chosen.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Logan Darklighter]

Editorial comment here -

---

Turns out LoraLai just went Nova and hung onto the antennae. Whatever, we all got there, thats what was important.

---

Er... no. Those tentacles just aren't _that_ strong. At least not in my imagination. Besides, she can just keep pace with the car by following it at altitude. No need to hang on to the car itself. In human or in Nova form, she's flies plenty fast enough to keep up. (Not to mention that she doesn't have to stay _directly_ overhead. It's like someone following in a plane or copter. As long as the car itself is visible, there should be no problems. She can drop down when they park and land at the parking lot.
Plus... it's kind of a silly image, anyway.
-Logan
-----------------
"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
-----------------

[ECSNorway]

March, 2007:
I threw myself forward, tumbling and twisting down between the robot's legs, my sword flicking out to sever armored hydraulic lines and electrical cables. As the metallic monstrosity collapsed behind me, I leapt up to the catwalk and silently made my way deeper into the formerly-abandoned factory.
It had been a fairly simple run so far. DHS had pinpointed a lot of unusual electronics thefts in the area, and after some investigation had come to the obvious (and correct) conclusion. Then they hired an expert - me - to sneak into the factory, bring down the mad scientist type, and see if I could leave some useful salvage for the Army types.
The guy was crap, really, a fairly vanilla Robotics mastermind, no roleplay overlays that I could see so far - his 'bots were all the pixel-standard, and there was no sign of any real security systems around. (Not that I'd have had too much trouble getting past that, Misao's infiltration and stealth skills were none too shabby. And she was fully conversant with modern technological means.)
So there I was, looking out over the factory floor, watching the 'bots put together the assembly line. Damn, I thought, If he's actually worked out how to mass-produce the things... okay, he's got to go down.
Two hours later, I left the factory behind me, watching from the roof of a nearby building as the small explosions took out key components of the assembly line and its control computer. Sorry, guys, but this one's not a freebie. I hoisted the bound and unconscious wannabe over my shoulder and headed off to the local police station to drop him off, and decide which of my false ID's to have them send the reward to. Probably... mmm. Misato Katsuragi, Tatsuki Arisawa, Anastasia Romanova... why not... hah. Akane Kanisawa it is. A quick henge, and I knocked on the police station door...
January, 2007:
Ahhh, the joys of plentiful cash, a larcenous heart, and the figure to make wearing the cool clothes worth spending it... I mused, sauntering down the mall with Nogi and a few other friends. Time to expand the wardrobe, bask in the envy of the local chippies, and maybe, just maybe, convince Nogi that platform shoes were just SO not her.
I smiled, a bit wider, almost predatory, as I looked out over the mall. "So, then. Necessities first, then the fun?" The smiles I got in reply were dazzling. Shades of Ranma and Usagi "let's go terrorize an all-you-can-eat place"...
An hour later, I had four pairs of jeans, two weeks' worth of underwear, had learned my bra size, and was leafing through a stack of anime-themed t-shirts and picking out ones I liked... and Nogi still hadn't changed out of those damn boots. On the other hand, we had yet to visit a real shoe store, either - I'd just gotten sneakers, and the like, to go with the jeans. I wanted something special, and it was going to be expensive... but then, leather always is.
"Here we are," I was saying to Nogi as we found the shop I'd been hoping would be here. 'Goods and Bads' was the name, and the scent of it was rich with leather and cedar. Nogi's nose twitched at the first taste of the air inside, and I grinned. "Let Misao be your guide, Nogi-chan, we'll pick you something spectacular to wear."
Her eyes narrowed for a moment, and I smiled, confident, not quite a smirk. "Trust me," I said, grinning, and turned to head into the store.
"That is a remarkably dangerous thing to ask, my dear, especially for one in our profession." But her smile was as warm as mine, and the gleam in her eyes... oh, yes. She wanted to try it. Just as much as I did.
I lead her back into the store, and started picking out items. "With that russet coloring... forest green, I think, would work well for you, as would gold..." I found a rack of velvet skirts, nicely long, silk-lined, that were absolutely gorgeous.
"One must agree with your choice of color, Misao-chan," she said as she held it up to her, "But it requires something more elaborate in the way of a 'top'."
"Oh, I have something in mind, Nogi-chan, don't you worry yourself about that." Complete with plenty of places to hide a few useful weapons, I mused, as I looked over the rack of matching jackets, and picked out what I thought was her size. Now we just needed a blouse to go with it...
"Ahem." I turned back to her. "This is... somewhat small," she explained, and I had to agree - it was definitely tight across the shoulders, and in front, well... corsetry just isn't my style. Or hers, it seemed.
"I have to agree," I admitted, "Let me see..." I flipped through the rack, looking back and forth between her and the size tags on the jackets. "Why don't you pick out a blouse you'd like, and I'll find my own size in these? Then we can get some shoes to go with them."--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Logan Darklighter]

I woke up after a short nap on the couch in Bob and Peggy's living room, having arrived early in the morning and being admitted via the back door. After introductions were made, we talked the rest of the morning, while others made their way in.
Peggy had the good fortune to be essentially wearing her own face, though her body was toned and fit like a 20 year-old. Bob thought it was because the character Stilleto had been little more than a cipher that Peg had been experimenting with, so there wasn't enough "there" to change her as drastically as it might otherwise have. In fact, Peggy had slipped out of her costume, changed into regular clothes, and put her hair in something approximating her usual hairstyle. You'd hardly know there had been any change from the picture that graced the "Access Denied!" website, except for the blades that she couldn't seem to stop "popping" and looking at in odd moments.
She made a game attempt at being a hostess. But once we started talking, we couldn't really stop. As Cindy, Nogi, Hex and Alexis arrived, they joined in. We went on until late morning. The same questions kept coming up. 'Why did this happen?' 'How do you feel?' 'How did you experience the change?' 'What do we do now?'
Bob actually did more of the "host" duties, bless him. I had to admit to myself that it was kinda... fun. When I wasn't being gobsmacked by just how bizarre the whole situation was. Pretty much everyone else felt the same way, I think.
When the conversation lulled, I wasn't the only one who found themselves all of a sudden starting to doze off sitting up, or slowly falling over to doze on various couches and chairs. Peggy roused herself at that point to take charge again and roust us out and assign sleeping areas. I got one of the couches at my own insistence.
So, looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling as afternoon light filtered in, I lay there and let my mind wander. I'd idly wondered as many sci-fi/fantasy fen would, how I'd handle a change this drastic in odd moments in the past. What if... What if you became a cyborg, or a superhero. What if a radioactive spider bit you. What if you were a werewolf. What if you fell in a cursed spring in China? What if... Endless daydreams. I'd daydreamed of the possibilities and trials of many. Never once had I ever thought such thoughts would come in useful. But now...
I decided that I was still who I was. There was continuity of memory. How I expressed that would change. If later I would seem different to family and friends (aside from the obvious things) well... all people change. The "me" that I was at 10 years old was not the "me" at 20 or the "me" at 30. My personality and outlook _would_ change. Pretty drastically. And that was not necessarily a bad thing. "Adopt, adapt and improve."
And I felt approval from that part of me that was Lai. Kheldians had done this sort of thing many many times and Lai had gotten over this sort of existential angst before as part of fusions with other beings. S/he would help steady and center me. Reassurance. Acceptance.
(I'll try and edit this and add more later) I've already been working on it for 3 hours and need a break)-Logan
-----------------
"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
-----------------

[Foxboy]

Minor Timeline Bit: [For folks coming in late]
Friday, January 19, 2007, 10 pm EST: The Event
Saturday, January 20, 2007, During the day: Arrivals at the Casa del Schroeck.
"" "", Afternoon: The Darks' Snack Run, First GIFTer encountered in the story's chronology.
"" "", Approximately 6 pm EST: GIFTer fight starts
Sunday, January 21, 2007, Afternoon: Shopping Trip
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[ECSNorway]

Timeline Addendum:
January 23, 2007: My birthday.
Oh, my, there's definitely going to be Story there.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Morganite]

I hope there's room for one more in the shopping trip? '.'

---

In some ways, this whole thing was reminding me of going to a convention. I always left later than I planned, arrived later than I expected, and there was always something that I forgot. I had a camera with me, but left it in the bag; I thought people might take that the wrong way.
Not too long after I arrived at Bob's, I learned that all the gender-changed people were going to the mall to get clothes. I didn't really need any, but there didn't seem to be any reason to go against the current, so away I went.
Cindy was saying something as we got out of the car, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was mostly focused on trying to think of what I did need that could be found at a mall. Among the many things I'm not is fond of standing around doing nothing.
It took me a while before something occurred to me, so for a while I was pretty much following along on autopilot. Which is how I found myself in the lingerie department. I mentally shrugged. I'd worked in retail for years, not to mention been responsible for the family laundry plenty of times. Underwear that no one was actually wearing no longer fazed me.
I glanced around while I was waiting for something to happen, but gave up learning much as a lost cause. I hadn't been in enough of the stores in this chain to be able to intuit the layout the way I could in most stores.
It was around the time the sales lady came over that a little voice in my head started whispering to me. It was the same sort of feeling as when I was fixing my henshin wand earlier. It told me to step four feet to the left.
I stepped four feet to the left. From this new perspective, a hint of blue that I'd seen before resolved into...
Something that would fit me perfectly!
I picked it up, transferred it to my left hand where it wouldn't get in my way, turned around and went forwards four feet...
Well, anyway, after a little while, my left hand was informing me that volume would be maxed out long before weight. My eyes responded that I don't like yellow, so that wasn't a problem. It was at this point, however, that memory pointed out something important.
I'm not sleeping with anybody. I don't need any more underwear.
So I started putting everything back where I found it. That's always been a talent of mine, one honed by the many times I wanted to save some work for the librarians.
Well, okay, I kept the white set. And the black and pink one. ... Okay, *all* the black and pink ones. What can I say, I like certain color combinations.
But what I truly needed could not be found here, so I paid for my finds and headed back into the mall proper. Somewhere in here, there ought to be some craft stores.
I wonder if the Schroecks have a sewing machine?

---

(Edited to not contradict something in my previous post.)
-Morgan, brings the blas.
"naughty bad show with lots of panties."
-Carrie Savage describes Ikki Tousen.

[Morganite]

While thinking about this, I'm wondering when Clank Patrol is going to show up. From what Sweno's written, it sounds like it might be some time between the initial event and her deciding to come to NJ. And if it's very long, is everyone going to still be hanging around?
Things could become interesting if Alexis and CP meet, since Alexis has some related desires... she wants to get back in touch with Morgan & Antares. (Or "in touch", depending on how you look at it.) And based on story, she should have on her at least one piece of non-functioning dimension gate technology...
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)

[Bob Schroeck]

((Mmm. Looks like I'd better get my act together and write another part from our POV.
Oh, and yes, we have a sewing machine. Two, if you count the one out in the garage...
Ooh, hey, with the folks with superstrength, I can finally clean out the garage... ))

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

[Foxboy]

((Hm... Yes a minor detail for Clank's Timing... She may arrive during or after the "Two Weeks Notice" mini-arc I have stewing in my brain, allowing for what Clank's already written... I Think that Badb's Government interview comes in close to that as well
Figure... no earlier than the Wednesday after Event for Clank's Arrival?
And, Bob, we'd LOVE more story from our host's perspective!))
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Sweno]

hmm, could have sworn I posted this last night. oh well, trying again.
----
I was planning on 3-4 weeks from event to Clank's arrival. This is flexible, but given the events that have occurred so far i have a hard time with anything less than 2 weeks.
The decision to have Clank spotted by one of Nogi's Kunoichi* is for two reasons:
1) They are thematically sneaky, and would be around the house
2) they would not immediately assume hostilities upon finding Clank + 2 bots hiding in the shadows.
If someone else also fits those two criteria, I have no problems retconing my last post. Who discovers Clank that is not nearly as important as the fact that She is discovered.
I will try to come up with a more detailed psych profile for Clank at Gencon.
* I realize I should have run their use by Foxboy first. Sorry, If there are any objections they can be swapped out.-Terry
------
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Bob Schroeck]

---

And, Bob, we'd LOVE more story from our host's perspective!))

---

Oh, don't worry. It's just a matter of making sure I'm awake enough and have time enough.
I do have one little detail that's just perfect. Peggy has this... quirk... when it comes to gatherings. She makes crudites. Lots of crudites. More than anyone can eat. Red and green peppers, celery, carrots, cucumbers, broccoli. Plates and plates of them, with dips. (And we always have plates and plates left over, too.) Before any time we have people over for anything vaguely social she'll be in the kitchen whacking away at vegetable matter with the cooking knife. For like an hour or more.
Add that to the claws she now has...

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

[His Lovely Wife]

---

If someone else also fits those two criteria, I have no problems retconing my last post. Who discovers Clank that is not nearly as important as the fact that She is discovered.

---

Well, assuming we're all still "living" at Bob's house after the two weeks, Bolo (our dog) would be there as well. He may or may not see you, he'll smell you for sure, but if you move like a squirrel he's sure to notice :-) He does bark at the strange stuff in his world, so he'd bark at Clank and Bots. And if you stand still long enough, he might water you too. :-)
-Cindy

[Morganite]

... it'll remind me of the Kasumi-Wolverine scene in Girl Days? '.'
I guess what I'm wondering is are there events planned that will make staying together be a good idea for everyone? (Including those of us, ie mostly me, who are still capable of looking like the person on our drivers license.)
If so, then probably some people (like, say, the distinctly packrattish me), would probably want to just flat-out move to the area in order to have their stuff with them again. Moving in such a situation could probably lead to some interesting situations all on it's own... Unless someone was capable of teleporting the necessary distance easily, then it probably becomes quite boring again. '.'
-Morgan.
"That was my *food*. My food... DIL BRAND!!!"
-Lina Inverse

[Bob Schroeck]

Mm. I just had a thought. We've talked about the moment someone gets brave enough to try their VIP Pass... what about those who have a base teleporter?

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

[gamlain]

Just an experimental scrap, as it occured to me while reading these bits..toss it out if ya'll want.
I don't post here as often as I should, or play on virtue as often (Well, not at all in the last...oh, eight months or so...I only just escaped world of warcraft.)
But I do have a character there. 'Nova Rose' is a peculiar synthesis of Catlin Fairchild, Utena, various X-men and my own concepts for a cool Energy/Energy blaster whom I could go into for a long, long time...
So..a bit of her.

***********************************************
If I'd been playing my usual 'hero', this story would probably be different.
A lot more people would die, for one thing: But Kyriea (All seven and a half demonic feet of her) is on Justice server. And I was, that night, on Virtue.
When the change hit, a lot of people found that they had a bit of trouble controlling their abilities. Most of them, though, didn't do quite as badly as me. I think anyway.
I went from being a small, slight, thirty year old guy to being a slightly taller teenaged mutant girl, blinked, felt my feathery (bright neon pink) hair tickle my neck, shifted, feeling my entire anatomy be significantly different -
And then my body 'woke up', every cell feeling like it had suddenly started producing prodigious amounts of possibly thermonuclear fire.
Since this was actually more or less what they -had- done, and because I was staring in wonder at the crimson glove I was wearing and the perfect skin of my new hands rather than paying much attention to controlling it, and because I was suddenly aware of that energy, and indeed, all the free energy in my apartment, which I didn't understand, and which I pushed 'away' from myself as violently as possible - the recoil of my first energy blast tossed me backwards through the wall.
I didn't black out. This was no mercy; One - it was January, sleeting, and miserable, and two, I had a wonderfully view of the inside of my apartment, my computer, and my things, which were all various stages of smashed, blasted, or *on fire*.
Three, it hurt like hell. Concrete and brick walls aren't things you are supposed to go -through-. Four, people were running and screaming and pointing, mundane normal people and lots of them.
So I did what any teenaged mutant superhero does when faced with a screaming human mob: I ran like hell.
Or rather, I flew, streaking straight up as fast as I could - which was waaay too fast - without thinking about it.
When I did think of it, I was up about (I think) a mile. Rather than think about how I had just disintegrated *every piece of contact information I have*, and the agony of fear of not ever being able to talk to any of my friends again - I concentrated on inconsequential things.
Like realizing it was as cold as hell, but didn't really feel that way; Sleet whipped at me, but never quite touched the not-actually-leather pants and jacket of my favorite working battle costume.
Oh, and then the panic started to set in - blending the perfectly ordinary utter apeshit lunacy of a thirty year old guy who's just become his own fictional sexy walking thermonuclear bomb and the rational, channeled, controlled mortal terror of a mutant superhero from paragon city. That is - a hero who has to fear villains (Duh.) Normal people (Who quite often -still- have issues with Mutants, even in paragon), and occasionally other heroes (Because her father could do a good Magneto impression before he'd died.)
I had a nice long screaming, ranting, flaring, occasionally randomly exploding (Thankfully nothing but the sky) panic attack. The part of me that was Rosalyn Winter kept me from evaporating anything anyone else wanted to keep. The part of me who was alternating between 'Oh god I'm hot', 'I might blow up the city', and 'oh god, men are going to hit on me and It sounds like a nice idea' and 'oh gods dammit I just blew up my *house* and what am I going to -do-?' just gibbered uselessly.
Eventually I got tired of it, and told that part of me firmly to shut the hell up. I knew I was useless in stressful situations, but it really Irked Rose. He said 'Yes mam' and I tried to think of what to do. And started to get cold, which was bad.
I knew - Rose knew - that all of her powers were drawn from one of two sources - ambient energy which she absorbed, or the energy her cells generated, through some psionicly-fueled bit of biological fusion. Or possibly matter anhalation. Neither Rose nor I had ever been really clear on the explanation of how she does what she does.
There were limits to how much energy I could generate, though, and floating in the middle of a howling (or not so howling, it was actually sort of a miserable drizzle) sleet-storm was not a good time to be absorbing ambient energy.
Of course, hovering there introspecting about it and keeping myself from being frozen by the expedient of leaking energy wildly about wasn't helping things.
I squared my shoulders, dived for the ground and hoped, very feverently, that I would still be able to fly by the time I was within 'will not die if I fall' range of the ground.
***********************************************
..I need to stop there because I must sleep before work tomorrow, but this is fun so far.