Walpurgisnacht [IC/PG-16/Conditional Acceptance]

[radio414]

OOC

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 01
180 DAYS REMAIN

“This is an imaginary story… Aren’t they all?”
-Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (written by Alan Moore)

---

Do All Words Can Do

“Fuck!”

The events of the last few hours had taken their toll on Director Sekelsky. The reports of rioting were finally dying down, people were returning to their homes, and heroes were permitted to stand down, but that just meant it was time for the casualty numbers. Multiple people had been trampled in the initial panic, and several more were injured in what ensued afterward, including one of their own, a cape who went by the name of Spotlight. It was worth another few expletives. “Fucking goddamn piece of horseshit! Cass goes off the grid for who knows how long and then decides to pull this fucking stunt. Did they know? They must have known. Surely they realized what would happen next, right? So they just left everyone else to clean up their mess, huh?”

There were four other people in the room, and each of them was in costume, so Director Sekelsky mentally adopted the standard name protocols. Cape names when dressed as capes. Easy. At the opposite end of the sweatbox of a meeting room (how could it be this fucking hot in here in fucking November?) were Override, Ember, and Aeon. They were the main recipients of this briefing, chosen for a number of reasons but there was really one big one: availability. None of them had been at Hallowmas or taken the holiday standby shift (and who could blame them? It was Halloween. Even Director Sekelsky had hoped to spend the night with his husband and daughter until whatever this shit was), which meant they were actually around this morning. The fact they all had some sort of criminal record was concerning but not work scrapping and waiting for someone else.

Bard was there too, seated alone on the near end of the sweatbox next to the projection screen. His costume was positively ancient, and his mask one of those tacky theater masks that only covered half of his face, but he refused to change it, always citing more pressing issues of the time. The Director couldn’t fault him for that this time. He was taking this even harder than Director Sekelksy was; he had a pair of white-knuckled fists pushed as far into the table as he could manage, and he was shaking and muttering something under his breath. It was probably something to do with his Thinker powers, Director Sekelsky thought. It wasn't something he understood, but Bard had also been instrumental in G3’s response the last few hours and he’d been a wreck then too. As long as he was functional and managed to check in with one of G3’s counselors later, he’d be alright, right?

He sighed. Thinking things through like this helped get the anger out of his system. The only emotion that remained now was a quiet determination. From an egotistical point of view, it was his best feature. He didn’t have any superpowers, but he wasn’t powerless. “First thing’s first, where’s DEUS?”

“Helping with the riots,” Bard said. He eased up a little too now that the meeting had started. “He was spotted in Graceland a little before midnight so he actually wasn’t too far away when it started.”

“For once,” Director Sekelsky said.

“For once.”

“But that means don’t count on it happening again. Not that we should ever count on him.”

“Especially now that it’s daytime,” Bard said. “He’ll probably be too busy rescuing cats from trees or helping old women cross the street.”

“Or rescuing old women from trees,” the Director snarked. “So Plan A, then. Alright.” Bard handed him a trio of folders and he turned his attention to the three capes in the back. One for each of them.

“As you are no doubt aware, the Renegade Cape Cassandra predicted the end of the world at Hallowmas last night,” he said. “This is so obviously S-Class, it’s practically the definition of the term. Unfortunately, the actual words on the truces don’t agree here. They were written more for singular, concrete threats. A tornado, some supervillain who’s gotten too big for their britches, a bio-Tinker’s experiment run amok. Not something as nebulous and off in the distance as this. If we try to litigate this through the normal channels, that’s precious time lost we could have spent dealing with whatever the fuck this actually is, so we’re hoping to avoid that.”

He tossed the folders down the table, one at a time. Landing them neatly at the edge right in front of his target without anything spilling out was something that had taken countless briefings just like these to perfect, but it was worth it every time. “We do have some language in our favor, however. We just need the leaders of each of the three main gangs to agree with us, and sign a document saying as much. You three will be facilitating that.”

“In those folders are our profiles on the three gangs and the leaders,” Bard said, standing up as well. “Gibbons’ Caesar” -- he pronounced it “ˈsi zər” -- “The Zodiac’s Ophiuchus, and, of course, the Moray Clan’s three Fates. Most of it’s common knowledge, but make sure you’re up to date on it. It also has my best guesses as to how the negotiations are going to play out. Unfortunately, it is probably going to be a negotiation. Six months is a lot of time for Scarlet City’s underworld to play nice.”

“We’re going to have to play nice in return,” Director Sekelsky said. “We were the ones with the most cape activity last night. Again, the extenuating circumstances favor us, and obviously so, but they’ll be looking for any concession they can get. Also included in those folders is a copy of a temporary S-Class agreement. It won’t last until April, but it’s something we can use when the Peacekeepers get their act together, so as long as you don’t do anything stupid like make a legally binding agreement without our negotiators present -”

“Or start a fight,” Bard said.

“- or start a fight, we’re giving you a lot of leeway on this. We need those signatures, you understand? The meetings are already set up. Catty Key buzzed everyone earlier, so be sure to thank her when you get the chance. Your first meeting is with the Fates in Echo Park, the other places and times are in there as well.”

His eyes met Ember’s “Ember, you’re not going to that last one as per our existing agreement regarding Gibbons, report back here after The Zodiac meeting instead for a different assignment.”

The last moment lingered a bit longer than Director Sekelsky intended, which mattered in the face of all the time pressure, but was still recoverable. “You have a few minutes to finish your reading, ask any questions, you might have, and then get going. Leave through the back while the sixes don’t have the building completely surrounded yet.”

Hidden World

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos Lanthimos, the Moray Clan’s three Fates, arranged themselves in various positions about their lair’s (for lack of a better word) throne room searching for something that might fit the correct vibe. It was the new costumes that were the problem here. They’d just gotten three matching dresses from Rajawongse made out of Clotho’s fibers -- and they were the kind of dresses that came with pockets! -- but the room had been put together with their old aesthetic in mind. They’d started out so stereotypical, even getting one of those prop replica thrones from that one show, but the dresses were some kind of postmodern art. They had a flow to them that looked especially nice when they all stood together and the blotches of color started to blur. It was a total clash. The only pieces of fabric left from their old costumes were their blindfolds.

“Blindfolds” was another one of those words that was technically true but not really. They were a solid black, but The Fates could all see through them just fine. Part of the magic of Clotho’s string was that its properties could be whatever she wanted it to be. That was one of the reasons Rajawongse had been so inspired in the first place -- a practically infinite amount of new materials, right there at his fingertips, who wouldn’t? But phrasing it that way would also sell the Renegade clothier short. He was a master of his craft even without his power. Rajawongse had created dresses that were identical down to the tiniest stitch. With them, the only way to identify which Fate was which was their distinctive manner of speech.

“Maybe it’s the room that needs to change, not us,” Clotho said.

“Sure,” Lachesis said.

“But that doesn’t change the fact we need to figure out what we’re doing right now,” Atropos said. She was also identifiable by the butterfly knife she carried with her, a helpful outlet for not just her power, but idle hands in general. The swish-clack sound of its handles seemed to punctuate everything that particular Fate said, and frequently some of her sisters’.

They settled on one of their standard formations -- Lachesis lounging on the throne flanked on either by her two sisters -- just as three of their underlings entered the room. Vi, Sibyl, and Demiurge were their names. The Fates gave them some time to get situated and even offered them some fruit in case they hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. It was still early in the morning, after all. It also gave them an excuse to get everyone up to speed on the previous night's events, the prophecy, the riots, everything.

“The Stadium isn’t our territory, though it’s close enough that it might as well be,” Lachesis said.

“And we’re going to have to deal with the smashed windows that are in our territory. Some of our people are already on it.”

“It won’t be finished until later, though. Right now, G3 --”

“-- The Generic Good Guys --”

“-- The Group of Giant Goobers --”

“-- is going to be pushing us for some kind of temporary truce until they can get their act together, and we don’t have any reason not to accept.”

“But we also have reason to believe the Gibbons aren’t going to take the deal,” Lachesis said. “There are a couple of reasons for that. The first is that, like, it’s Gibbons. There’s no way Caesar” -- she pronounced it “ˈsi zər” -- “is going to let a land grab opportunity slip through his fingers, no matter how bad of an opportunity it is.”

“That’s what happens when most of your territory is crap,” Atropos said. Swish. Clack. “Even when you have the most of any gang in all of Skitty.”

“So it’s in character for him,” Clotho said. “But perhaps more damningly, he laid out his plans this morning while Worm still had one of his walls bugged, and later we hear some Gibbons capes are on the way to our territory. So we just- we know it’s going to happen. ”

“Sorry to bury the lede like that.”

“Our people cleaning up Nola Street already know this,” Clotho said. “There are some pretty hefty capes helping out there, both ours and otherwise, and DEUS is still in the area for at least a little bit longer.”

“We’ll fight too if we goddamn have to.” The swish-clack of Atropos’ knife was especially forceful that time.

“The point is, there’s a little time before anything goes down. There are still a few preparations to make, though. More thorough battle plans, making sure complementary powers are together, that sort of thing. Your job this morning is to keep Caesar distracted, and the way we’d like you to do it is to wreck some of his shit first.”

“The target is a warehouse eleven point five nine kilometers that way.” Lachesis pointed in a direction she knew to be Northeast. This was her showing off her Thinker power and she relished the opportunity. “Pretty close to The Shimmer without getting up and personal with it, about as far as possible away from what’s going to be happening here.”

“We think it’s a lab for a Tinker on Caesar’s payroll, which means it’ll have a skeleton crew of just that one Tinker and an assistant or two.”

“The point is to get them calling for help. We’re not killing them or anything. Just roughing them up a bit to get Caesar’s attention, you know?” Clotho winked. “Of course, if they do go running to the hills leaving a trove of Tinker tech behind, you might as well take any of the interesting shit, right?”

“At the same time,” Lachesis was quick to add, “if help does show up, that’s your cue to get out of there. Remember The Stanley Principle. You’re not invincible no matter how far ahead you might seem.”

The Fates finally went silent as the invocation of that nearly-sacred rule brought a little extra weight to the proceedings. Both Clotho and Atropos shifted uncomfortably where they stood, and Lachesis had to stop lounging and actually sit in her chair. “Oh, that was a lot, wasn’t it?” Clotho eventually said. “Sorry about that.”

“Anyway, the actual meat and potatoes planning of this mission, that’s up to you,” Atropos said.

“We’ve given you the place and the goal, kinda want to just see what you come up with,” Lachesis said. “Call it a test, you know? Show us what you can do.”

---

OOC

Spoiler

Spoiler

Director Sekelsky -- Bard -- The Fates
a proper NPC directory might take a bit but i'll do my best

Subtitles are album names by the band Fucked Up.

I didn't intend for this to be as long as it is, oops, but it turns out that's what happens when you're basically starting up two separate groups at once, especially when you want those groups to be part of a larger city. There's some overlap (wrong rp), obviously, so I would encourage you to read the other team's section to get a sense of what's ahead for you both. I'd break this OOC section into two parts as well, but you're both getting kind of the same instructions: Here is your task, you can ask questions about it, but there is an element of time pressure outside of that big "180 DAYS REMAIN" sign, so you best be ready to get a move on.

Other things you could possibly include in your post are: the act of getting to your respective meeting rooms, a meditation on the sudden appearance of a new, still undefined existential threat, and your character's preconceived impressions of the other two main characters in the room.

Feel free to reach out for the answers to your IC questions to put in your own posts. Of course, your characters know things that I probably wasn't able to exposit here, especially about things regarding Skitty itself, so if you have any questions like that, feel free to ask those as well.

Welcome to Scarlet City.

-r

 

Edited March 19 by radio414

[LordCowCow]

It was a stressful day for those working in the G3 building. A prediction like the one given recently would do that to most anyone. This stress was probably not helped by the Immortal Hero entering the building and singing "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" loudly through the halls on her way to the meeting room.

She was in her "costume" in the sense that she was always in her costume. Meaning whatever she happened to be wearing that day. The elaborate and puffy shirt sure gave the vibes of a hero costume even though she would have worn it to the grocery store just as comfortably as a meeting with the director.

As she entered the room, with a boisterous, "And I feel fiiiiine." she took stock of her own feelings on the matter at hand. Did she feel fine? Honestly, more or less. Little Cassie had been accurate but not perfect after all. There had been multiple doomsday predictions, though perhaps none from someone like them, before so she couldn't yet bring herself to worry.

That said the six month time frame was a bit annoying. That wasn't much time at all! How rude of the world to decide to change so rapidly without any warning after all this time. If it WAS the end then that just wouldn't do. This would be a really dull time for it to just go out like that. Maybe if there had been some exciting events leading up to it..... Well, maybe there still would be. At the very least this was a different sort of threat than she'd seen before.

"Heya Victor." She said to the director as she settled in. She wasn't sure exactly what she was going to be asked to do. Maybe they knew of some kind of doomsday weapon or mega volcano that she'd have to stop.

There were a few other capes in there with her, two of them were basically babies as far as she was concerned but they were somewhat interesting actually. She sorta remembered they used to be criminals at one point just like her. Maybe they were similar in some way then? Could be fun to find out why they decided to switch sides.

Though she supposed she should at least listen to what the director had to say before that.

Turns out they actually hadn't figured out what was going on yet. Her task was instead to make sure the gangs didn't do anything crazy with the end of the world looming. To negotiate with them over some legal stuff. Which wasn't all too exciting honestly. But, on the other hand, meeting with the leaders might be interesting in a way. She had met with multiple gang leaders over time and they were usually a pretty amusing type of person. Some of them were so arrogant that she couldn't help but laugh.

"Well, guess I can talk to those kids a bit and settle em down for you, Victor." She said. Bard's words flashed in her mind, about not being allowed to fight them, and she frowned. "But you know, I can't really say I won't get into a fight or two. You know how it is, what if they're really boring or decide to try and mess with us while we're there? So no promises on that front buddy, I'm sure you get it."

"I said you couldn't start a fight," Bard said. "If they're messing with you, it means they started it, right?"

Director Sekelsky's glare shot from Thessa to Bard, but instead of saying anything he just sighed.

Thessa smirked at this. "Oh, well then there's no problem!" She looked over at the other two capes. "Ya here that? If they do anything I'll be sure to take em all down right there, and you'll get to see it happen! Ain't that exciting?"

Now all she could do was hope they were the type to be so confident that they'd do something so silly as to threaten her. Maybe there was some interest to be found in this assignment after all. "Ooooh who knows what's gonna happen next! I'm getting all sorts of pumped up!"

[Thar]

-----

The sound of a cell phone vibrating against a wooden side table was immediately met with a frustrated groan as Vivian jutted out of her slumber. The splitting headache spared no time hitting her right after as she pressed her hand to her temples, grimacing. She reached out to her phone - the bright LED screen nearly blinding her - and sighed. It was a text from the fates with an encoded message, which she naturally read as a summons for 9 AM.

“Really?” she groaned, “This fucking early?”

Vivian struggled to sit up, as the effort only strained her head further. Each movement was accompanied by another groan. Pulling the bedsheets from her, the chills hit her as she only had boxers and a sports bra on. More groans came from her as she turned to step out into a pair of Jack Skellington slippers set out on the floor just by the bed. It felt instinctual, but then it hit her - these weren’t here before. A few seconds of confusion later, the sounds of footsteps outside her bedroom door made her remember that she wasn’t alone. She couldn’t help but smile as she looked up to see a robe hung up on one of the bedposts, which she immediately put on. The warmth it brought was almost enough to distract her from the throbbing pain in her head.

“Okay, first things first…” she muttered as she walked like a zombie to the door, opening it to the smell of fresh coffee, which hit her like blood to a shark. She barely noticed a familiar face turning to look at her.

“Morning, Vi.” One of Vivian’s personal gangsters greeted with a nod.

“Ace…” Vi murmured back, not even looking at him as her eyes were locked onto the coffee cup that was set out for her on the counter. Taking a swig, her head fell back as a wave of euphoria hit her.

“There’s some pain meds there for you, too.” Ace said, pointing to a few tabs next to the coffee. Vivian looked back down, realizing her head was still throbbing.

“Ugh, fucking hell, what would I do without you, Ace?” she sighed as she popped them all at once, chasing them with another swig of coffee.

“Must’ve been a great concert last night, huh? You had to be escorted back, and you were out immediately.”

“Oh fuck yeah, Messhuggah fucking rules. You guys got a shirt for me, right?”

“Fuck yeah, we did. Hey Jax!” Ace called over to another gangster sitting on the couch watching the news, making Vivian wince with more head pain, “Where’d you put it?”

“Right here.” Jax stood up to walk over to one of the end tables, picking up a folded up black t-shirt with a decal on the front.

“Here you are, m’lady.” he said casually, tossing it onto the counter.

“Say ‘m’lady’ again and I’ll send you through the fucking wall.” Vivian scowled. Jax visibly tensed up while Ace held back his laughter.

“Alright alright, my bad.” Jax’s tone sounded more annoyed than fearful. Vivian only sighed.

“Better get ready, Vi. They’ll be expecting you soon.” Ace said, taking a swig of his own coffee.

“Wait, how did y-” Vivian squinted her eyes at Ace before the realization hit, “...oh for fuck’s sake.”

“You really think they’d just reach out to you without your pops knowing?”

“Ugh, I can’t do any fucking thing without him watching my every move, can I? …well, that explains why all this was ready for me.” Taking another swig, she put her coffee down, “Put that in a traveler for me, will you?”

“Of course.” Ace went to reach for the cupboard as Vivian grabbed the shirt off the counter before going back into her room.

The morning routine was straight-forward: a quick hair brush, a few dabs of foundation, and some eye liner. She then grabbed a pair of scissors from the bathroom drawer, cutting the t-shirt short to show her midriff, and put it on, followed by a black mini-skirt and fish-nets. Her remaining get-up sat up next to the door: her black sunhat, round glasses, and black leather biker heel boots. Finally, she grabbed her black parasol hanging from a hook. She was ready. Making her way out, Ace handed her a traveler with her coffee.

“Need a ride?” he said.

“No, I’ll fly.” she responded hastily as she walked out the door, opening her parasol and holding it above her. Like a gust of wind, energy surged from Vivian up against its underside, picking her up off her feet as she rapidly sped through the air towards the Fates’ lair (for lack of a better word.) She was familiar with its location from what her dad had told her, but the thought of her dad only made her sigh with frustration. Who does he think he is? A gang leader? Am I just another one of his cronies? The thoughts began to consume her as she held her hat on her head from the wind with her coffee mug, which her other hand was holding. Realizing how pointless it was to wear a hat in this situation, she sighed again knowing she wouldn’t be able to drink her coffee without losing her hat.

“Man, what’s wrong with me?” she chuckled to herself, weaving her way through the city over the streets as people looked up as she passed. If they were talking about her, she couldn’t hear it with the wind blowing past her as she neared her destination.

—--

Waiting for a less crowded area, she landed short of the lair, making the rest of the way discreetly on foot. Of course, she took this time to drink her coffee before entering. Just like another day at high school, her entrance couldn't be more casual, the only difference being her clothes. Finding the throne room was second nature to her at this point, and entering felt like walking into a theater class. All the pomp and circumstance of a villainous alliance meeting area sang to her like a goth opera, but then she noticed the triplets themselves, or as she'd be now calling them the Fates. The way they dressed did not match the current vibe at all, and Vi had to hold back a sigh.

"...interesting choice, I must say..." she coyly commented, like she would to old friends despite that they're not that old but rather just distant from position.

The Fates gave a collective shrug.

"We weren't about to ask Rajawongse to receive special materials and then just make stuff we already had with them," Clotho said. "It's a work in progress, but we're warming up to it."

"You're as cool as ever, though," Lachesis chimed in. "Even with the new shirt."

"Even?!" Vi scoffed, "If you could appreciate Messhuggah, you'd know it'd make me even cooler."

"Sure, sure," Lachesis said. "You're the pinnacle of cool."

"The epitome," Atropos chimed in. "The stuff you sent us was appreciated, even if it wasn't quite our vibe. Ours probably peaks out at hardcore punk rather than metal."

"Hardcore punk with colorful dresses and pockets now, I guess," Clotho said. "But then, like half of Dose Your Dreams was basically a dance album, so if they can change, so can we."

"Ugh, fair enough, I guess," Vi chuckled, "though I will say I've been loving Glass Boys so far. I'm digging the suggestions!"

Even though Vi felt like she was speaking with old friends, she was well aware she was now answering to them now. With that, she felt the conversation would end there as she made her way to the seating area where fresh fruit was set up on the tables. This was a pleasant surprise, as she hadn't eaten yet, and she would pop some in her mouth as she listened to the briefing. Naturally, she wasn't much of a listener, and she'd only catch some major points, most significantly the following:

“Right now G3 - The Generic Good Guys - The Group of Giant Goobers-” Vivian rolled her eyes. What is this, a Disney cartoon? “Is going to be pushing us for some kind of temporary truce until they can get their act together, and we don’t have any reason not to accept.” A peace treaty? Vivian thought, slightly conflicted. It made sense, given the situation, but working together with heroes? She scoffed under her breath as she made an effort to hear the rest.

“Your job this morning is to keep Caesar distracted, and the way we’d like you to do it is to wreck some of his shit first.” Vi couldn’t help but crack a smile. This is totally up her alley.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Thar

[Chaos Sonic]

"In six months, the world will end."

These seven words kept ringing and playing over and over...least in the domain of one Victor McCoy. He sat at his desk down in his workshop for a few moments, glasses in his hand as he listened to the isolated audio, hoping to glean something from it...alas, he couldn't. With a heavy sign, he swiveled in his chair and shut the recording down. "It's been eight to nine hours since that declaration...and yet still no concrete clues on this." he huffed, putting his glasses in his pocket, taking a sip of his morning coffee. "P.I.X.E.L., you up and ready?"

"Aye sire...as a matter of fact, was prepping everything this morning, when the Director practically gave an urgent summons."

"Gonna be one of THOSE days, huh?" Victor sighed, downing the last bit of his coffee and shrugging. "Alright, best find out was he wants...even though it isn't obvious." He grabbed a few things, before looking in the direction of his workbench with a coffee pot and machine on it. With a smirk, he pointed at it. "By the way...once again, excellent cup...as usual." From the looks of it, the coffee machine let out a little steam, almost in response to the compliment.

"Alright P.I.X.E.L...time to go to work."

---

BGM

Soaring across the skies towards the G3 Organization headquarters, Override arrived (in his stylish and quite overly extra manner), with the roof of building he knew being the hangar opening slightly. He knew that this was generally for aircraft, but technically...his NOVA suit was classified as an aircraft by all technicalities, so having P.I.X.E.L. opening them was always a good thing whenever he came in.

Once he touched down with a loud CLUNK, the suit of armor seemed to slowly vanish/dematerialize as the nanomachines making it started to crawl back towards the watch on Victor's wrist. Originally he was worried about the secret identity thing here, but he knew these people that worked here would uphold that whole thing, so that's why he signed an agreement of not disclosing his secret identity outside of these walls. "Another successful landing as usual. And I take it we're already connected to th-"

"The G3 database? Aye..." P.I.X.E.L.'s Scottish voice cut Victor off in the earpiece he wore. "Almost seems like they stopped attempting to block our IP and change their firewall protocols."

"They realized it was literally futile...I do it enough and they know my style of power and skill set, so they know it's kind of pointless." Victor wore a proud and smug smirk on his face as he walked into the 'war room'. And of course, he got there a few moments just before Aeon...walked in...singing quite the appropriate song. ...oh and the Director was pissed...as expected.

“Fuck! Fucking goddamn piece of horseshit! Cass goes off the grid for who knows how long and then decides to pull this fucking stunt. Did they know? They must have known. Surely they realized what would happen next, right? So they just left everyone else to clean up their mess, huh?”

Victor huffed slightly at this, surprised at quite the colorful vocabulary of their esteemed director...especially considering he had an A.I. with a Scottish cadence to their voice...so that was saying something. But the technopath simply held his tongue and let the director continue on.

“As you are no doubt aware, the Renegade Cape Cassandra predicted the end of the world at Hallowmas last night. This is so obviously S-Class, it’s practically the definition of the term. Unfortunately, the actual words on the truces don’t agree here. They were written more for singular, concrete threats. A tornado, some supervillain who’s gotten too big for their britches, a bio-Tinker’s experiment run amok. Not something as nebulous and off in the distance as this. If we try to litigate this through the normal channels, that’s precious time lost we could have spent dealing with whatever the fuck this actually is, so we’re hoping to avoid that. We do have some language in our favor, however. We just need the leaders of each of the three main gangs to agree with us, and sign a document saying as much. You three will be facilitating that.”

"So you want us to be your liaisons in the matter...?" he muttered to himself, before watching the one hero, Bard, take stage next.

“In those folders are our profiles on the three gangs and the leaders. Gibbons’ Caesar, The Zodiac’s Ophiuchus, and, of course, the Moray Clan’s three Fates. Most of it’s common knowledge, but make sure you’re up to date on it. It also has my best guesses as to how the negotiations are going to play out. Unfortunately, it is probably going to be a negotiation. Six months is a lot of time for Scarlet City’s underworld to play nice.”

Victor nodded slowly. He knew most of this information already, considering he had access to their database. As such Victor donned his glasses before moving his hand to his watch, already opening up a small holo-pad and pulling up the information that the files had. Once again, as Bard said, it was the basic, common knowledge stuff...but it was what was necessary. But at the same time, it was obvious what was going on here thus far: they were facilitating a whole negotiation with the fate of the world at stake. Heroes and villains alike had to play nice and work together...no pressure, none whatsoever.

Whilst reading, Victor's eyes drifted to his two allies in this room: Aeon and Ember. Aeon was as much of a mystery to him...and he tried, oh he tried, to find any file on hand on her, but alas there wasn't much at all aside from her hero name. His only impressions on her was the fact that she seemed...arrogant...and has constantly thought of individuals like himself as simply children. It was already her playing on the complex he had...so it infuriated him even more.

On the flip side, there was Ember. She was one who always tackled challenges head on, well-mannered and always "fired up". Unlike Aeon, however, he knew at least the bare minimum and bare bones of her power, which was all he needed. She was basically a combustion engine...which definitely would come in handy in the long run.

He was going to be working with these two...so this was going to either be really...REALLY good...ooooooooor...

“Ember, you’re not going to that last one as per our existing agreement regarding Gibbons, report back here after The Zodiac meeting instead for a different assignment.”

...really bad. Victor sighed a bit, returning his look at the holo-pad before minimizing and sending it away.

"Oh, well then there's no problem! Ya here that? If they do anything I'll be sure to take em all down right there, and you'll get to see it happen! Ain't that exciting?"

"As much as I appreciate the thoughtfulness, Aeon..." Victor spoke up, removing his glasses. "...I believe that would take things in the wrong direction. Simply incapacitating them and diffusing the situation might make it easier than an all out brawl. That said..." he paused, before directing his attention towards the director. "...you want us to basically become hero liaisons towards the villains in a manner to which appeals to them and allows us to get extra hands on deck to this mission to save the world. Just how, may I ask, do you intend for us to make this happen without any causalities?"

"If there is combat," Director Sekelsky said, clearly thankful for the opportunity to correct Aeon's little outburst, "it means the initiating party will have broken one of if not the most sacred treaty. You don't start fights under a flag of truce." His glare returned to Aeon and he repeated himself. "You don't start fights under a flag of truce. If they start it, they're one more S-class to deal with, one certainly more scrutable and temporary than our current one."

"Use of force if the situation calls for it. Only if..." he nodded. "Now, on the subject of the Fates...will they be more of an obstacle or a stepping stone in helping us get these signatures? Be it facts or your honest opinion, we should at least know what we can be expecting."

"Of the three major gangs, the Moray Clan are the most likely to play along," Bard said. "Ignoring their willingness in the past to play ball, they stand to lose the most if this alliance breaks down. Their territory is currently in disarray after last night, and while the cleanup efforts have been valiant, it's still in a vulnerable state. Just don't get too annoyed if they act like teenagers in the meantime."

"There's more analyses in those folders," Director Sekelsky said, gesturing to them, still on the table. "Make sure to consult them before each meeting to get a refresher on what you need."

"Hmmmm so in short we've been given a fighting chance right at the starting line. Good..." Victor nodded, quietly drumming his fingers on the table. "That said, I suppose the next big question would be...out of what has been said about the incident...did anything seem off about Cass' reintroduction to the world last night or is their re-emergence still something you happen to be looking into still? I assume it's the latter, but better ask than assume."

The Director's brow furrowed. "We've got sixes banging on our door asking us just that right now. You decided to become a member of the press?"

"I'll take that as a 'No'...which would've sufficed." Victor shrugged. "But message received, sir. I suppose that's all my general questions at the present time. If anything else comes up, I'll have P.I.X.E.L. send a direct line to you."

[yui]

Last night had been hell. It started with a simple phone call...

---

Ember, you aren't gonna believe this! Cassandra's alive!"

"Is she, now? Please pick someone I got along with next time, because this is a pretty shit joke.."

"Girl, this isn't a joke! She's right there! Oh, she's got the mic! She's saying that... the world... is gonna end!?"

"Look, I'm just gonna hang up and pretend this call didn't happen. Please try again with something that's actually believable, or at least funny."

In the end, she never did get that second prank call. Instead, her phone was blowing up with G3 alerts about riots, general discord across Skitty, et cetera. And of course, mentions of Cassandra's apocalyptic prediction. Here she was hoping for a nice night of sitting on the balcony, cigarette in one hand, wine glass in the other, watching the lights and sounds of the night of revelry from afar. No such luck, it would seem. Instead, she'd worked into the small hours of the morning maintaining order in her general vicinity, until things seemed to have just about settled down in her neighborhood.

"Of course CASSANDRA had to fuck it all up," Ember groaned, her last words of the night, as her head collided with the pillow of her bed after a night's volunteer work.

---

Which brought her to today. She'd been cut a bit short on her sleep, but it was nothing a cup of coffee on the way to work couldn't make up for. The secret was to not rely on the stuff - that was an easy way to build a dependence and a tolerance - and to only get a cup in unusual circumstances like this. Coffee and a donut on the walk to G3 was a good thing, and it gave her the good momentum she would no doubt need for a day like this. She'd been asked to be ready for a special meeting of some sort.

Regarding such things as costumes, Ember only ever had one made because it was some sort of requirement? But there also seemed to be no lower end for how much or how little effort needed to go into it, so she opted to keep things simple and functional. Ultimately, the costume amounted to a tank top and some shorts, since something that covered lots of skin would be counter-intuitive for her abilities. The only thing setting it apart from any other tank top & shorts combo was it being made of leather, a choice Ember had made mostly out of inspiration from an old band she'd become a fan of because of one of her gangmates back during her villain career. It did come with the downside of her needing some sort of hoodie for outside once the days started getting colder, but material aside, it also happened to be perfect for the unexpectedly hot meeting room.

“Fucking goddamn piece of horseshit! Cass goes off the grid for who knows how long and then decides to pull this fucking stunt. Did they know? They must have known. Surely they realized what would happen next, right? So they just left everyone else to clean up their mess, huh?”

You're telling me, Ember mentally huffed.

The capes sharing the room with her were Aeon, Override, and Bard. The first, she was pretty sure was older than G3 itself, but had never bothered to actually look into the matter. She didn't have much info on Override, because, again, she didn't really pry into the details regarding her co-workers. Bard was by far the one she was most familiar with in this room. She had encountered him once or twice before joining G3 herself, but that was about as far as personal experience with him went. It would probably have been beneficial to check in with him if she had a bad feeling about one of her wards possibly being in danger, but it was her firm policy to not involve anyone else in protection; every additional eye or mouth that knew who was under her watch was one more that could end up leaking information, even if it was by accident. Even her reports to Sekelsky only ever said "witness is still protected."

Speaking of reports, that was somewhat similar to what brought everyone here today. A report was the opposite of a prediction, but the concept was close enough to call them similar, right? In short, the end of the world was coming, and while this was just about the most blatantly S-Class threat to ever exist, it was also the vaguest one to ever exist. So, it fell to these four capes to meet up with the heads of the big three gangs in order to negotiate how to handle the situation. And, as per her personal agreements with G3, she wouldn't be present for negotiations with Caesar of Gibbons. Apparently, Sekelsky had another job for her after wrapping up with the Moray Clan & Zodiac.

Zodiac would be an interesting meetup for sure. Ember had run paid arson for all sorts of gangs in the past, up to and including them. It was quite some time ago, though, and she wasn't sure if the boss now was the same as the one from back then. She'd never met the leader face-to-face anyway, so it wasn't like either one would know the other. The Moray Clan by contrast, she wasn't sure if they were even a gang back during Ember's villain career. Her gut was leaning toward no, but even if they were, they certainly weren't one of the big three back then. To be quite honest, she was looking forward to meeting them.

"Well, guess I can talk to those kids a bit and settle em down for you, Victor. But you know, I can't really say I won't get into a fight or two. You know how it is, what if they're really boring or decide to try and mess with us while we're there? So no promises on that front buddy, I'm sure you get it."

"I said you couldn't start a fight. If they're messing with you, it means they started it, right?"

Director Sekelsky's glare shot from Thessa to Bard, but instead of saying anything he just sighed.

"Oh, well then there's no problem! Ya here that? If they do anything I'll be sure to take em all down right there, and you'll get to see it happen! Ain't that exciting?"

"...you want us to basically become hero liaisons towards the villains in a manner to which appeals to them and allows us to get extra hands on deck to this mission to save the world. Just how, may I ask, do you intend for us to make this happen without any causalities?"

"If there is combat, it means the initiating party will have broken one of if not the most sacred treaty. You don't start fights under a flag of truce. You don't start fights under a flag of truce. If they start it, they're one more S-class to deal with, one certainly more scrutable and temporary than our current one."

"You don't start a fight under a flag of truce," Ember nodded in agreement, going over the papers regarding the Fates. "I've seen it happen, and the result isn't pretty. Luckily, it shouldn't come to that, not with the Fates or Orphi... Ophic... I hate that damn name, the Zodiac leader. But with Caesar," - Ember also pronounced it ˈsi zər - "I have my doubts, to be frank. Keep your guard up around him."

"I suppose that's all my general questions at the present time. If anything else comes up, I'll have P.I.X.E.L. send a direct line to you."

"No questions here either, sir."

Not for the director, at least. Looking to her fellow capes, Ember posited a question to the three of them. "Any prior experience with these gangs, you three? Papers and files are great, but there's no better resource than personal experience."

Edited December 6, 2022 by yui

[Skaia]

"It could use some work," the young, horned girl mused. The villain was outside, early in the morning - far earlier then most would be with all that had happened last night - looking at the side of a building. On it was what looked to be rather large spray painted letters with the word "DEMON" on it, the letters black with a surrounded by a bright red. The letters themselves, though, looked roughly written and like someone had completely misjudged how big it was supposed to be, with red around it bleeding too much into the letters as well.

Last night had been a rather busy time for Sibyl. With her being able to walk around the streets without any fear of law enforcement, or rather because the rest of the people around her didn't have to worry about it, she had been approached by several people who had been wanting to meet with her. While not entirely uncommon for her, the frequency with which it had happened was certainly to a much higher degree. And she never really minded giving autographs or taking pictures with everyone, though eventually her patience had started to wear on it. It was only when someone approached her wanting to learn about street art did her enthusiasm to keep interacting with them keep up. And so, giving very rudimentary lessons, this was the fruits of their apparent student's labors. Sibyl was unable to actually tell the young street artist her thoughts on it, with the news that the world was ending causing mass confusion and panic, and interrupting her fun last night. The girl's neutral expression broke into a smile, recounting what happened, saying to herself, "not much time left so you're gonna have to put more into it. But not a bad first step."

As Sibyl began to walk away from the picture to go find something to do with her day, she was suddenly stopped by a notification from her phone. Looking at the message, the girl grimaced, then raised an eyebrow in confusion before asking, "why can't they just write like normal." Clearly they wanted something from her, but Sibyl was never actually good at understanding their various ciphers or codes, and so as she continued to squint at the phone, as if that would somehow make the words move into a way that made sense to her, her frustration began to grow. The girl was tempted to just close her phone and walk away, but she had already done that in the past month and that had been such an incredibly obnoxious ordeal for her afterwards that she thought her life would be much easier not repeating that. Still, with no idea what the message was stating, Sibyl let out a frustrated growl before resignation crossed her face. "I'll just go ask them in person. Maybe it'll be fun, who knows." 

---

 Sibyl had arrived there, two other people who were not the triplets being in attendance as well, to see that the three bosses were all decked out in their newest attire. Sibyl had to say that the look was definitely an improvement over their previous one, though couldn't help but feel there was still more to be done about it. "Interesting is right," Sibyl parroted Vi's earlier comment, only to then ignore whatever discussion on music the two of them were having entirely. "I dig the new outfits you guys got. But," she looked at their blindfolds, then to the room, then back to them. "I don't think it's really vibing with everything else you got, you know?"

Clotho stuck her tongue out at Sibyl. "Well, look at Miss 'I can stand to wear the same thing every day,'" she said. Her face turned into a playful sort of smile, though. "It's a work in progress. Big changes are coming."

"Might even extend to the whole clan, in the end," Atropos added. 

"Oooh, exciting," Sibyl smiled, wondering just what kind of plans they had in store here. The girl walked over to the table with fruit, not minding her manners in the slightest and having no sense of moderation as she proceeded to scarf down the food as the trio gave the mission debriefing. Then, after they finished their explanations, summarizing it with her mouth full of food Sibyl said, "just gotta smash up the joint, yeah, sounds good to me." Swallowing, she then looked back around the room, and then back to the trio again. "Oh, and when we're done wrecking the place," the girl pulled out two cans of spray paint from her side, shaking them saying, "I could add some color to the room to match your dresses. Maybe a little splash to those blindfolds too."

"Oh, that's an interesting thought," Lachesis said. "The blindfolds probably gotta come through Rajawongse, don't think they can get paint on them, but yeah if you want to wreck this room too a bit that's cool."

Grinning ear to ear, excitement clear on her face and seemingly more motivated she looked to the other two saying, "alright let's go tear a place up!" 

[(o ×)]

Despite his previous Halloween being such a monumental occasion - the day he was blessed with power befitting a god - Adler did not take part in this year’s festivities. Instead, he spent it cooped up in his penthouse apartment, burning through a pack of beer paid for by a trio whom he doubted was old enough to purchase it legally. “Hope those kids are enjoying themselves, at least.” Naturally, he woke up the next afternoon to see even more riots than there typically were following a Halloween party, with a matching text message summoning him from The Fates.

“Fuck.”

Adler felt painfully out of place. He was the only person in the room who wasn’t a teenage girl, and yet he had the feeling that he was the lowest ranking individual there. Nice and comfy, keeping expectations low. Regardless of his lack of station among the group, he had a feeling that he was included in this bunch as a way to make sure the other two wouldn’t get killed if things went poorly. Despite not being well-suited for violence, I wouldn’t lose to anyone. Let alone one of those monkeys.

“Remember The Stanley Principle. You’re not invincible no matter how far ahead you might seem.” Lachesis interrupted his train of thought with the ever-annoying anthem that the triplets loved to use to put him in his place each time he did something effortlessly that they would never have a chance of accomplishing.

”Yes yes yes Atropo, I am well aware of the Stanley Parable and how it means even a shrimpy thinker like your sister Lachesis could beat DEUS in an arm wrestling match with two days prep time.” Adler rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, looking at the two girls that had been summoned along with himself; it was clear that they were both considerably more enthused about this than he was.

The devilish one seemed particularly excited for the chance to cause mayhem as she turned toward Adler and the girl he vaguely knew of as Fi, "alright let's go tear a place up!" Adler figured that such violent tendencies were common among the gang, but seeing it up close made him uncomfortable. Nevertheless, he figured he was best off if he played along.

”Sounds great. Tell you two what, if we do a good enough job with Caesar’s-” – he pronounced it “scissors” – ”little clubhouse, I’ll take you two to Hot Topic and give you each a twenty to burn through, get as many wallet chains as you like.”
 

Edited December 10, 2022 by (o ×)

[radio414]

Magenta Mountain

The three received a text message as they approached the warehouse containing the actual address of their destination, though, given the circumstances, it wasn’t strictly necessary. Lachesis’ instruction of “the warehouse eleven point five nine kilometers that way” had narrowed it down far enough; there weren’t any other buildings it could be. It was also bigger than someone might be expecting, but that was all warehouses, wasn’t it? The most notable feature was on the side facing them, a set of doors that stretched from the ground to the ceiling, the kind that had to be slid open by a team of people, a hydraulic system, or a brute in a pinch. Sounds of whirring machinery could be heard inside and, occasionally, a giant CRUNCH!

Lachesis had also said “Pretty close to The Shimmer without getting up and personal with it,” but that was underselling it, probably because even with a gargantuan warehouse in front of it, The Shimmer was just so much bigger. In Scarlet City proper, it was easy to just not think about it, to use the relative distance as a buffer from acknowledging the cylindrical barrier keeping the world contained within it. Not so here, with just the one thing for scale. 

It was still early enough that the sun was still behind The Shimmer, causing blotches of color to dance around on the field between it and the warehouse. There wasn’t time to admire it, unfortunately. The Moray Clan had a job to do.

Their phones buzzed with a few more messages from The Fates:

oh by the way
its dee “the shield” moxleys workshop
barrier tinker look out for forcefields ig
go gettem tigers xoxoxo

The Garden Goblin

In addition to the G3 heroes’ discussions amongst themselves as they made their way from G3’s headquarters in downtown Skitty to the Moray Clan-controlled Old North district about the three major gangs of Scarlet City, there were a few other ways they could get a feel for what they were getting themselves into. The first was in their helpfully provided folders, which, as Bard had explained, summarized their database entry down to a few key points. It read as follows:

Lanthimos, Clotho Lachesis and Atropos
Cape Name: The Fates
Active for: 2 years, 7 months
Power Classification: Blaster, Thinker, Blaster respectively
Entry is for all three as despite them occasionally being spotted independently of each other, The Fates are most known for operating as one cohesive unit. Founders and current leaders of the Moray Clan gang. Took part in attacks on branches of Hunter, Fifty-Three, and Boffa banks and orchestrated an attack on an Edison Mk III Armored Vehicle (see: March 15 Incident). 

A file on the March 15 incident was not attached to the folder’s summary.

Goals: Monetary gain is the common throughline in their criminal activity. The day-to-day activities of the Moray Clan involve collecting protection money and otherwise making their presence known to the community they inhabit, which further reinforces this view.

Someone had scrawled “It’s not money!” in the margins of all three folders.

The second way was all the posters hung up every so often as the heroes entered the Old North district of Scarlet City. Each of them had a map of the city and a photo of The Fates someone had managed to take surreptitiously. KNOW WHERE YOU ARE they all read. 

The Moray Clan is generally sociable towards civilians and even towards members of the G3 Hero Organization, fully willing to participate in most truces. This does not mean they are to be trusted, or that they are not still working at cross purposes to the law. They are occasionally known to display a vicious ruthlessness toward those they deem their enemies. G3 cannot condone agreeing to any form of recruitment, however temporary The Fates promise your experience might be.

Most of these posters had been defaced, most of them by random graffiti tags or stickers, but a few had been slashed up entirely.

The third and final impression Ember, Aeon, and Override got of The Fates on that crisp first day of November was the tableau The Fates presented themselves as the heroes descended the staircase into Echo Park proper. Each of them was on their phone. Atropos had extended one of the corners under the bridge so she could sit by the water while watching something on her phone, her face intent and her headphones locking her out from the world until Clotho noticed the heroes. Clotho, for her part, had been pacing up and down the park’s main walkway sending text after text. She only really noticed the heroes by happenstance.

Lachesis was taking a selfie by the mural under the bridge. The mural was of several of Scarlet City’s bird species. This was actually the second version of this mural, made after the first had fallen into disrepair, and taggers had wasted no time covering the new version with political messages. The bird Lachesis was taking a selfie with had a pair of breasts spray painted on; the fact that it was a cardinal and not a tit didn’t seem to bother her.

It was Clotho that addressed the heroes first. “You guys don’t use Catty Key on us unless it’s really important,” she said.

“It’s about this, right?” Atropos tilted her phone to reveal she’d been watching a stream of Director Sekelsky addressing the press.

“Real, true end-of-days stuff.” Lachesis said. “Cassandra showing up on our turf after disappearing for so long too. Imagine being the only one knowing about an S-Class.”

“Basically our turf,” Atropos corrected. “The Fairgrounds aren’t officially ours yet.”

“Okay, basically our turf,” Lachesis said. “Still, imagine being the only one knowing something, anything, really. You probably act differently just to keep the illusion. But now I’m rambling.” She cast her eyes towards the folders, then back up, scanning each hero in turn. She lingered long enough on Aeon -- certainly longer than the other heroes -- to be noticeable, “Those things have the plan, then? What do you have for us?”

---

OOC

Spoiler

Subtitles are King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard songs. 

Team G3 got a few more words than Moray Clan mostly because they needed both location exposition and NPC exposition. I don't like assuming that people keep up in chat or docs to know about these characters, and I forget details in those places besides. I don't know if playing with fonts will continue, but it was a fun experiment.

Moray Clan: Okay call me a hypocrite but it was mentioned in discord that Adler could get you to the location in minutes, so I moved you the full eleven point yadda yadda kilometers without hassle. Another way to think of The Shimmer is its namesake from Annihilation, except a bit more opaque. I said you can't see heavenly bodies through it and I meant it, but that doesn't mean light can't still filter through. The warehouse itself I wanted to evoke the image of a smaller-end airplane hangar. You're actually where John Glenn International Airport (CMH) would be if the enclosed nature of the setting removed the need for most air travel.

But yeah, you have things to respond to from your own chatter, you have new things to take in, and you have a demolition mission to plan. Let me know if you need anything else, feel free to work with me or each other.

G3: It's easier to film in a park that does exist than in an airport that wouldn't.

I also moved you to your destination even though I don't know how you got there. Flying, if you can fly? Taking the very robust Skitty public transportation system (look this gets to be wish-fulfillment for me too ok?)? Ember also asked what dealings you might have had with the various gangs, so take answering that into consideration in your posts. I tried to give you some other things to respond to or at least ask about so it's not just "here's the contracts" unless you want it to just be regurgitating what you've been told, I guess?

Lachesis isn't cluing in on any particular secrets you or your character might have, by the way, she's got her own reasons to linger. I've said it before but I know better than to steal secrets.

I know at least one of you said you needed to DM me about some of this -- feel free, of course. Happy posting to all of you,

-r

 

[LordCowCow]

"You sure worry about the smallest things, don't ya." Thessa said in response to Victor's query. "Why they popped up now doesn't matter as much as what they said I think."

As for the rest, "Well if they do start the fight then I'll just end it, wham! Just like that. So not too worried. None of em are strong enough to take me on anyway." she laughed and waved to the director, "good luck with all that official stuffs."

She paused before exiting as the girl asked a question of them.

"Any prior experience with these gangs, you three? Papers and files are great, but there's no better resource than personal experience."

"Well, I was part of Zodiac like, I dunno, hundred so years ago? Other than that tussled with em here and there but haven't we all?"

---

Thessa couldn't help but chuckle as she made her way down the stairs to meet with the gang leaders. They sure did present the picture of a bunch of high school kids didn't they? Not caring about what was around them and giving an air of casualness that Thessa found herself amused by. Especially given the end of the world thing that has been affecting most people around.

Her amusement grew when they got into semantics about what was or wasn't their turf. Such a silly thing to be so specific about. Your turf was wherever you were standing, that's how Thessa saw it, and if someone else was in the same place as you then whose turf was whose only mattered if you decided to push it. For instance, if they tried to tell her that this place was theirs...well, maybe she'd claim otherwise just to see what they did.

For the moment she decided to focus on the task at hand. And by focus she meant ignore it entirely. She wanted to be sure to sate some curiosity before they had to get into the dull stuff. What really mattered to her was how all this business changed how they looked at things and what they were thinking about doing about it.

"Oh, huh, yeah we do have a thing for you I guess. But I don't much care about that thing, instead I'd rather know what you three think about this. Like, if the world is actually ending or not. It's kinda a big deal if it's true. I'm real curious what a group like yours would do if it ends up being real."

"Well," Lachesis said, "if the end of the world does come, I guess we're all going to die."

"Horribly," Atropos added.

"But if it's an end of the world we can fight off, like, despite what your little packets might say, we do care about the people under our protection," Clotho said. "We'll manage."

"Oho aren't you three so cool." Thessa said. "So, what, no wild last ditch rampage or something if this is the end? Nothing y'all wanna be sure to take care of before everything goes gone? Guess you wanna play it safe in case it doesn't end. Unless you're already thinkin' of ways to swing things in your favor while this goes down." Thessa tapped a finger to her chin as she essentially began to think out loud. She couldn't imagine that they were just going to sit back and not use this as a power grab. In fact she expected it from all of the groups, heroes and villains alike.

And it was a rather exciting thought. Maybe this was what would really prompt things to get shaken up in a big way.

Clotho smirked. "Oh, like a play for world domination?" she said.

"That could be fun," Lachesis said. "But that's contingent on there still being a world, you know? So no, we're not going to wreck ourselves in the meantime."

Atropos said, "Gaining favor, though? Getting wheels rolling on plans? I like to think we're already doing that. Everyone does that."

So very pragmatic. So very unlike the disinterested high-schooler set up they presented them with before. It was a bit more boring than she'd hoped but at least they were being more or less open. The final one's response made her smile widely. "My, everyone? Yeah, I guess all of you do that a lot. Doesn't that ever get tiring? Having to worry about that with everything you do."

It was one of the many things she couldn't bring herself to understand about all of them. Never being able to just do things. Everything had to have something to gain from it.

"I guess not everyone. All you need to do with your grudges is wait 'til the offending party dies, right?" Lachesis was the only one to respond that time.

"Grudges?" That gave Thessa pause. Did she...have any grudges? That she didn't solve by hitting them? It wasn't something she had given much thought to. Which unintentionally left an opening for the others to actually get some words in as she wasn't hogging the Fates's attention.

[(o ×)]

After the vague instructions from The Fates, the trio was out the door. “Y’know, thinking about it, the main reason I’m assigned to this is to get you two hellions to the objective.” Adler sighed as he pulled a handkerchief of sparkling silver fabric from a pocket of his outfit, as he lifted his facescarf and lowered his goggles to conceal his identity. The fabric had a bizarre property beyond the glittering light it gave off, in that the moment it was free of his pocket it began to fall upward, his two-fingered grip the only thing preventing it from flying away.

“Neat, right? Clotho wove it, apparently they figured giving fancy toys could make godlike power even more applicable. It falls upward, and is easy as hell to notice.” Upon releasing the length of cloth, it did exactly as he stated it would, and began drifting up into the air, moving slowly and listlessly as it was tossed to and fro by the wind through its ascent. “Each of you put a hand on my shoulder, and probably close your eyes if you have trouble with heights or get motion sickness.” Adler gave the girls a few seconds to comply, before sighing and reaching upward, taking grasp of the cloth far above like it was the moon and he was an overly ambitious character in an old cartoon.

The moment his hand closed, the cloth was within his grip, though it had not moved from its position high in the sky. Instead, the three villains were hundreds of feet above Scarlet City. Adler looked down, scanning the area below for the warehouse in question, “Don’t let go now or you’ll get a skydiving lesson.” Just like that, the three stood upon the pavement, across the street from the building they were sent to ransack. Adler brushed the hands off of his shoulders as if they were dust and he were trying to keep up appearances. “You have arrived at your destination, thanks for flying the friendly skies with Command Editor.” Unfortunately, Adler was well aware that he wouldn’t get a good bonus if he walked away at this point. Even without fighting, he knew there was more he could do without effort.

“Stand back.”

Adler stuffed Clotho’s gift back into his pocket, then raised his hand, reaching forward toward the enormous sliding door of the building. He took a deep breath, and the two girls would see the space between him and the building, about 50 feet, glow with a faint blue hue for a second, as he felt the cold metal against the palm of his hand. As easy as it was, the novelty never really wore off for him. After a second of contemplation, the sliding door was displaced to teeter in front of Adler with a sound like a point-blank strike of lightning, the contact between it and his hand now clearly visible. With a gentle push, he knocked it down, eliciting no reaction from his as it crashed against the pavement.

Contrary to what he expected, the warehouse was not filled with armed guards. In fact, there didn’t appear to be anyone present. There was a normally-proportioned door in the back, but the main area now clearly visible had nothing but racks upon racks of what appeared to be simple chrome orbs, each about the size of a basketball. Through an unknown combination of overconfident recklessness and curiosity, Adler reached out with both hands, for one of the orbs to appear between them. It gave off a subtle hum, and he could feel a warmth emanating from it. Of course, his intrusion didn’t go without notice, and an array of sirens marked the Moray Clan’s arrival. “Looks like stealth is out the window. So, you two wanna head in there and raise hell?”
 

[Chaos Sonic]

"Any prior experience with these gangs, you three? Papers and files are great, but there's no better resource than personal experience."
"Well, I was part of Zodiac like, I dunno, hundred so years ago? Other than that tussled with em here and there but haven't we all?"

"Well that doesn't necessarily help us in the long run now...considering things change between 100 years prior to the present day...rules, regulations and the rest change over time." Victor sighed, standing from his position at the table and proceeded to exit the room, having the nanomachines in his watch start to emerge and cover him once again in the NOVA armor. "In any case, you two can handle the ground...I'll rendezvous with you both at the intended location...I'll just take to the skies. Much easier for me, honestly."

Without much word afterwards, Override made it to the area he entered in and rocketed up and out without much of a warning or care.

---

"P.I.X.E.L., bring up the information up real quick one more time."

"Aye sir."

A few lines of text began to appear in Override's display...

Lanthimos, Clotho Lachesis and Atropos
Cape Name: The Fates
Active for: 2 years, 7 months
Power Classification: Blaster, Thinker, Blaster respectively
Entry is for all three as despite them occasionally being spotted independently of each other, The Fates are most known for operating as one cohesive unit. Founders and current leaders of the Moray Clan gang. Took part in attacks on branches of Hunter, Fifty-Three, and Boffa banks and orchestrated an attack on an Edison Mk III Armored Vehicle (see: March 15 Incident).

Now this was something that Override remembered. The news outlets were all over the March 15th incident, even if the file for the specific incident wasn't provided. But as the armored hero flew overhead, he couldn't help but wonder how this little trio could be able to handle this much and operate as well as they have for two years. However, his mind also had him take another path…eight years ago…

...they did stuff like this in only two years time...how many lives did I ruin and possibly put into jeopardy with my antics? he thought before proceeding to shake his head, to the point where it caught the attention of an artificial eye.

"Is everything alright, sir?"

"Yeah…yeah, just thinking of some old memories, P.I.X.E.L., nothing more." he sighed.

"Very well. We've arrived near the entrance to the Old North District."

"Prepare for landing then." Override nodded, as the hero made his way down, landing near his allies and companions. At first, his scanners from the suit's visuals definitely showed quite the interesting ones…

A staircase down, posters with the visage of the Fates…albeit slightly defaced…it was just a lot to take in. Plus the atmosphere seemed pretty cold and stale. It was the beginning of a tense moment for sure, but considering the situation, that was a given. Regardless, the sounds of Override's armored boots clunk along the stairs, echoing quite a bit in the open area that followed. If this was a stealth mission, he'd definitely would've blown their cover for sure. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but wonder why these three specifically that they were to recruit. Per information regarding the Fates were that they weren't to be trusted, even IF they seemed sociable with civilians and some G3 Organization members. Same time...he wanted to stay at least on their good side, knowing that these three...despite their stature, would display any sort of viciousness towards their enemies.

Nevertheless, they continued to descend the staircase...finally finding them...and there they were…on their phones…of course they were…annnnnd Aeon was already talking to them. Override wanted to have his armored hand meet his face, but it was already too late, she was already into it.

"I guess not everyone. All you need to do with your grudges is wait 'til the offending party dies, right?" Lachesis was the only one to respond that time.
"Grudges?"

Thankfully, however, she stopped short and paused. Now was the moment he could slip in and talk to the three.

"If I may…" the armored hero spoke up, starting to step in. "...we should be getting back to the task at hand, as time is of the essence." He held the folder designated for the Fates in particular. "We're here as liaisons for the G3 Organization. So if you three could please allow us to get started…"

Clotho reached for the folder and pouted when Override moved it out of her reach. "You're no fun," she said.

"Yeah, speaking of grudges," Atropos chimed in, "if you're gonna dangle G3's grudge file in front of us, you can't expect us not to try and see what it says."

"Grudges aren't on the agenda...all that's on the agenda is trying to settle our differences for a time in order to keep things from going further into turmoil." Override simply said. "Now while you think that may be alright in the long run, if I've been running numbers correctly...and I have, thanks to my assistant..."

"My pleasure sir..." the computerized voice spoke.

"...it would be bad for business on your end, am I wrong?"

"Grudges are always on the agenda," Lachesis said. "Aeon just said that."

"A sign of division, perhaps?" Atropos said. "Grudges of your own?" But she stuck out her tongue. It was more of a tease than an actual observation.

"We'll cooperate, sure." Clotho said. "Just gotta see what it is you're making us sign." She made another jump for the folder.

Override sighed, starting to slowly lower his arm. His grip was a steel tight one on the folder as he put it forward towards Clotho. "Fine...but I will say this up front: anything happens with this, I have back ups..." he smirked behind his helmet. He glanced in the direction of his companions. "Had P.I.X.E.L. scan and make digital copies, have them stored in my database. It pays to be prepared."

"No fun AND thinks so little of us," Clotho said. "Just because we have grudges doesn't we're petty."

"You ladies have the wrong idea." Override said, the folder now in front of Clotho. "I'm just covering our bases at this point. After all, you are still criminals at this point...so if anyone is 100% trusting of you, even in these dire circumstances, it would be a bit of a mistake. Caution is all I'm taking with my actions, you understand."

"Don't you guy's have a supervillain rehabilitation program?" Atropos said, moving around to be next to Clotho and the folder. "So you're already working with criminals then. You trust them?"

The mechanized hero was silent, deathly silent even, when Atropos said this before finally breaking the silence. "Their pasts no longer define them..." he said bluntly, an image in his own mind reminding him of that fateful night. "...it's something a mentor of mine once said when I started at G3. I don't know if that's the case or not...but if they aren't trying to kill me, then they can't be all bad, am I wrong?"

[Thar]

“Interesting is right.”

Vi seemed to time her arrival just right for the other summoned capes to show up right after her. The responding voice came from right behind her before she turned her head to see Sibyl, a familiar face that made it feel like yet another day working for the clan. Despite knowing her for a while before as coworkers, Vi kept herself reserved as she continued to sip her coffee, still not quite awake and still rather woozy from the hangover. It’s nothing she hasn’t been able to deal with before, especially after concerts, but it still hindered her ability to socialize in the mornings, especially as early as this. She merely observed the following conversation with Sibyl and the Fates with slight interest as she read the room, also noticing Adler, another familiar face, entering. As disheveled as ever, Vi had always found the stark contrast of his presence with everyone else in the room to be oddly charming, albeit strange.

With that, the briefing started, and the mission was laid out.

“Ooh exciting, just gotta smash up the joint, yeah, sounds good to me.”

“Hell yeah, I could use a therapy sesh,” Vi responded nonchalantly, delighted to see another person as thrilled as she was for destroying things. On the other hand, she would read Adler in her peripherals, tickled as always by his lack of enthusiasm.

“Yes yes Atropo, I am well aware of the Stanley Parable and how it means even a shrimpy thinker like your sister Lachesis could beat DEUS in an arm wrestling match with two days prep time.” Vi needed a second to process what Adler just said. Aside from some of his phrasing going over her head, the fact that he couldn’t tell them apart was both baffling and hilarious. Vi could feel an instinctual laugh coming on, but she suppressed it just enough to be unnoticed.

“Alright let’s go tear a place up!” Sibyl said, which made Vi even more pumped.

“Sounds great. Tell you two what,” Adler followed up, grabbing Vi’s attention, “if we do a good enough job with scissors-”

Another laugh needed to be suppressed to avoid being rude, but this time it was more difficult. This guy just pronounced Caesar as fucking SCISSOR.

“-little clubhouse, I’ll take you two to Hot Topic and give you each a twenty to burn through, get as many wallet chains as you like.”

“Well, that’s rather thoughtful of you,” Vi replied in a slightly facetious tone, “Maybe I’ll get a hat that’ll actually stay on while I’m flying. Couldn’t even drink my fuckin’ coffee on my way here.”

—--

Once the Fates were finished with Vi and the other two, they made their departure, leaving the trio to make their own. Exchanging glances of acknowledgement, they made their way out.

“Y’know, thinking about it, the main reason I’m assigned to this is to get you two hellions to the objective.” Adler sighed as he pulled a handkerchief of sparkling silver fabric from a pocket of his outfit, as he lifted his face scarf and lowered his goggles. Yet again, Vi held back a snicker. It was such a goofy look, but it works for Adler, so she tolerated it. “Neat, right? Clotho wove it, apparently they figured giving fancy toys could make godlike power even more applicable. It falls upward, and is easy as hell to notice.”

“You never fail to impress me, Adler.” Vi stated passively, barely even looking his direction.

“Each of you put a hand on my shoulder, and probably close your eyes if you have trouble with heights or get motion sickness.”

“Sure, whatever,” Vi said with the same passive tone, doing just that without hesitation with her free hand which was no longer occupied by the traveler of coffee she had earlier which was now stuffed into a side pocket on her backpack, “In case gravity isn’t our friend, better prepare to grab onto me and hope it’s a good enough grip, cause I only have one free hand to grab any of you if you slip.”

With that, Vi let Adler do his thing as they suddenly appeared very high up above the city. Vi was hardly affected by the height, but the slight vertigo came from what felt like the lack of movement between points in space. More headaches came as she tightened her grip on her parasol and a thumb on the button to open it, just in case. The comment on falling from Adler barely even registered. Before she knew it, they arrived across the street from the building. A tinge of relief hit Vi as she could be on solid ground again, despite how quick it was.

“You have arrived at your destination, thanks for flying the friendly skies with Command Editor.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Vi mumbled, rolling her eyes as she wasted no time crossing the street.

“Stand back.”

Vi sighed, backing up slightly. With Adler in front of them, Vi watched as he reached his hand out before a deafening boom, which made Vi flinch and clutch her head, “Ah fuck, really…” She looked back up to see the sliding door standing directly in front of them as Adler pushed it down for it to crash onto the pavement with another loud bang, which Vi was more prepared for. She simply groaned, sighing in acceptance of the amazing shit she just witnessed.

“Okay… that was pretty rad.” Her words went with the sigh she expressed as sirens began to sound before she noticed two chrome orbs the size of basketballs appeared in each of his hands.

“Looks like stealth is out the window. So, you two wanna head in there and raise hell?”

“Now we’re fuckin’ talking!” Before Vi advanced, she looked at the orbs in Adler’s hands, “Hey, are we taking those?”

"I dunno, just thought it looked neat. You want it?"

Vi shrugged, “I don’t care, just wondering if they were important.” Now free to proceed, a smile crept across her face as she looked back towards the building, letting out a long, drawn out growl signifying a release of a heavy rippling of air around her, appearing as heavy waves in the air along a road on a hot day. She let down her parasol to wield it like a club, her growls getting louder as the ground around her cracked and crumbled where she stood as she dashed forward with inhuman speed, the air around her distorting with her movements before she swung upwards at the door towards the back of the room. A shockwave of energy and thunderous sound followed the arc of her swing as the door and the walls in its path shattered, creating a massive hole between the scattering debris.

“Hoo yeah baby, this is my kinda work!”

Edited December 24, 2022 by Thar

[yui]

"Well, I was part of Zodiac like, I dunno, hundred so years ago? Other than that tussled with em here and there but haven't we all?"

Not very helpful. Anyone in Zodiac back during Thessa's stint with them was surely dead by now. Or very, very retired. Time to wing it, then.

---

The hideout of the Moray Clan... entering any sort of gang hideout took her back, to be honest. There was that distinct something in the general atmosphere of one. Like stepping into a place where you know just by human instinct if you belong there or not. Like the back rooms of a store, or a police station. Although, instead of managers or cops, all that was waiting down here was a group of dumb kids. Smart dumb kids, obviously, since gangs run by idiots didn't tend to stay that way for long, but still dumb kids all the same. Dumb kids who seemed very particular about what was or wasn't their turf, by the sound of it.

"Oh, huh, yeah we do have a thing for you I guess. But I don't much care about that thing, instead I'd rather know what you three think about this. Like, if the world is actually ending or not. It's kinda a big deal if it's true. I'm real curious what a group like yours would do if it ends up being real."

"Well," Lachesis said, "if the end of the world does come, I guess we're all going to die."

"Horribly," Atropos added.

"But if it's an end of the world we can fight off, like, despite what your little packets might say, we do care about the people under our protection," Clotho said. "We'll manage."

The discussion then went on to cover the idea of going on one final rampage before everything was destroyed, and the Fates declaring that this was not their intention. And a mention of grudges, in the context of Thessa's ability to simply wait until the offender died someday. Not a power Ember envied, to be honest, but she'd be lying if she said the option to simply do that wasn't one that sounded tempting. But she could think about the living fossil's powers some other time. Right now, it was time for business, and business she planned to do.

"If I may… we should be getting back to the task at hand, as time is of the essence." He held the folder designated for the Fates in particular. "We're here as liaisons for the G3 Organization. So if you three could please allow us to get started…"

That elicited a nod from Ember. With Override, it seemed to be straight to the objective. She could respect that. There was perhaps some room for some breaking of ice first, the usual niceties when doing business from one group to another, but calling a gang a business usually didn't feel right.

"I'm just covering our bases at this point. After all, you are still criminals at this point...so if anyone is 100% trusting of you, even in these dire circumstances, it would be a bit of a mistake. Caution is all I'm taking with my actions, you understand."

That, on the other hand, elicited a small heel kick from Ember, to Override's own foot. Nothing that would hurt, but something most people would probably recognize as the kind of thing someone did if they were sitting next to you at the table as a means of telling you to shut the hell up or at least not say the things you just said. In what world was "we aren't willing to offer you our full trust" a statement that would do literally anything good for business?

Ember had hoped to leave the negotiating to these other two, but at this rate, she was starting to fear she'd have to take matters into her own hands.

"Their pasts no longer define them... it's something a mentor of mine once said when I started at G3. I don't know if that's the case or not...but if they aren't trying to kill me, then they can't be all bad, am I wrong?"

"And speaking as one with such a past myself," Ember interjected, "Most gangs can at least be trusted to uphold any sort of agreement they make. Backstabbers don't tend to get very far in the villain business, you see."

"Ohhhhh is that the nerve?" Atropos said, moving back away from her sister and Override to meet Ember where she stood. "Well, my apologies for bringing it up then. I'm sure you're very trustworthy."

As the other Fates chimed in, Atropos was responded to with a wave of Ember's hand. The kind that gave off the signal of "don't even worry about it."

"I'd say she looks the most trustworthy of the three," Lachesis said. "She's right, too. The Peacekeepers love us and The Zodiac for being perfect little angels when it comes to signed and notarized contracts."

"Two out of three is 'most,' right?" Clotho said, her head buried in the folder.

"Statistically, yes, two of out three is most," Ember nodded. "And if I'm being honest, I'm curious how the negotiations with the remaining one will go, since we appear to be on the same page regarding them. But we're here to see what terms you girls would find acceptable for something that spans as potentially far out as April. Six months isn't a short time to agree to, after all, and every resource we spend negotiating with the big gangs is another resource we aren't putting toward investigating and stopping the end of the world."

"This says it's just a temporary agreement until-" Clotho got close to a particular piece of language. "Oh, they want the Peacekeeper meeting to be Monday?"

"That's the day before election day, isn't it?" Atropos said, looking over. "Interesting move from Mayor Gladwell."

Lachesis took a moment to process the new information. Her power involved measurements, so it made sense she was in charge of managing her gang's resources. "I'm not going to say what a six-month hard armistice is worth without being at the negotiating table. But for one week? Right now? Easy: Two favors from each of you. Nothing dramatic, nothing illegal or that would put you in jeopardy of your job or whatever, but that's the price. One of which we can even clear off the books right now, if you want."

"By all means, please tell us about these favors you'd like."

In hindsight, perhaps I should have given the folders a bit more of a read on the way here... it seems to be working out well enough despite that mistake, though.

"The first one for each of you is just a one-on-one meeting right here in the park. We'll split off, one pair goes that way, another goes that way, another goes --" Lachesis seemed to realize that the park really just had one pathway -- "back up the stairs, I guess."

"Understood. That's fine with the two of you, right?" Ember asked, looking to her fellow heroes.

Edited December 21, 2022 by yui

[Skaia]

The journey to the warehouse had been filled with a short burst of, "oooh," "whooa," and "whoa ho ho," from Sibyl as they darted from one point in space to another. The sensation was something that was fairly indescribable to Sibyl, given that she hadn't ever had an experience quite like it before. Touching down on the ground after their journey had completed, tapping the ground with her feet to center herself after that jarring flight, the girl then gave a whistle as the door came to them, something she had much more experience with albeit it usually looked less abrupt, and slapped Adler on the back. "Man old timer, you've got some pretty rad tricks." With some pep in her step, and a smile on her face really starting to get amped as Vi charged forward to destroy the door in front of them, Sibyl made her way to it.

Beyond the door, or rather the newely created hole in the wall, was a hallway that ran perpendicular to where they were entering from. A man, someone who seemed to look remarkably average, was dashing down this hallway in a hurry, spewing a string of profanities. "Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

"Hoohoo, guess it's my go now." The girl ran after the man, shadows covering her arm and turning her fingers into more pointed claws. Reaching out, the shadows extended off the arm and grabbed the man's arm. "Hey there! Where you off to?" 

The man had already made it to another door, banging on it and shouting,  "Dee! Babs!" After his arm got pulled back, the man quickly pulled out what appeared to be a toy gun - like some kind of small laser blaster type thing that'd be in an old sci-fi show. Pointing the gun at her, the man shouted, "let go of me!" 

Her already jovial expression started to bear a wide grin on it as she said, "ooh, nice toy you got there!" The girl certainly did think it was neat, retro even, and couldn't help but start to feel more excited from the man's clear aggression. Yet, while she thought the blaster thing was cool, she preferred her fights to be more "personal." "Well, if you're asking, then," and the girl let go of him. Almost immediately after, her shadow hand flicked itself towards his gun, slapping it out of his hands before shadows covered Sibyl's other arm. Closing her hand into a fist, the girl stretched the shadow arm forward and slammed it into the man's face. Shouting at the door she gleefully asked, "anyone else wanna come out?" 

[radio414]

Bosses Hang, Pt. I

The Fates didn’t wait for an answer. They moved as one, each grabbing at the wrist of the hero they wanted to spend their favor on and guiding them towards their assigned section of Echo Park. It was a wordless process. Had they arranged this beforehand? Or was it something that came up often enough that they already knew?

In any case, each Fate had already been in front of their intended target. Clotho grew frustrated with Override’s suit of armor weighing him down and making it impossible for her to drag, so she settled on simply walking backward ahead of him with a beckoning hand gesture.

Echo Park was just two paths, and Clotho had taken her charge further down the main one, following the creek to a small bridge, across which was a picnic table and stairs leading up to houses of those who were fortunate enough to have a whole park as basically their backyard. One such person came down the stairs with a dog on a leash. Clotho waved at them with a smile, one that the person returned before moving on, away from the other capes in the park.

“You can sit if you want,” Clotho said, gesturing to the picnic table. She remained standing. “I will say up front that part of this favor is contingent on you not recording this or listening to the conversations of my sisters through external means. Obviously, I can’t stop you from relaying our talk through memory alone later, nor can we control your teammates if there’s a particularly loud outburst, but if we find out you stuck a microphone on them or your suit’s got a camera on, well, then you’ll owe us an extra favor, I guess.” She shrugged. “And it’d probably be a favor that didn’t have those moral protections the first two did, so, you know.”

She paused, both to give time for Override to disable whatever he needed to and to let her threat linger in the air. “We’re not going to check, though. We’re not going to go looking for it, because what I want to spend my favor on is a matter of trust.”

Another pause. Then she said, “Do you think I’m actively plotting to kill you?”

Clotho didn’t give Override a chance to answer. “I ask because, well, if that’s your primary motivator for trusting villains, a binary ‘Are they killing me? Yes or no?’ you probably should be a lot more trusting in general, and then you wouldn’t need to be dangling this --” she held up the folder “-- out of reach. And if it’s just an ‘Oh, they’re supervillains’ thing, come on. Like, you’re the one trying to get me to sign something.”

An impish grin crept onto her face. “Unless you want me to be trying to kill you,” she said. “I mean, my schedule’s pretty busy what with the world about to end and all, and it obviously won’t be right away, but I can probably slot you in if you want that.”

Bosses Hang, Pt. II

Atropos took Ember to the other side of the park. There was a wall there that nobody could quite remember the purpose of. It didn’t support anything and it wasn’t even attached to the overpass where the bird mural was. And yet, it had always existed as a part of Echo Park. And it had only gotten thicker over time, as more and more paint between the spray tags and the hackneyed cover jobs Scarlet City occasionally arranged cycled between each other ad infinitum. It was currently in its vandalized state.

“Really ought to get Sibyl down here one of these days,” Atropos said, touching the wall, then turning around and leaning up against it. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her butterfly knife, and idly began toying with it as she spoke to Ember. “So, you’re one of the ones that got away, huh? Can’t say I blame you. There’s security in that that a lot of gangs don’t offer. I mean, we do, or try to, anyway, but still. Is that why you left?

“No, don’t answer that.” She wasn’t flipping her knife around, just holding one of the handles in each hand and swinging the blade back and forth. Her attention was almost more on that than the actual words coming out of her mouth. “Make no mistake, I’m not trying to get either of us to switch sides here, I’m just trying to get to know the person who owes me another favor a bit more. You know, so you’re less likely to renege on the deal later ‘cause it’s just so tuned to your interests as well as ours or whatever.

“Clotho’s definitely going to sign that, by the way. No worries there. My sister can speak for us all just fine. But yeah. If we’re going to be working together either because you owe us or because the world’s going to end otherwise, it’d probably be a good idea to drop all that for a moment and just hang out a bit.”

Atropos seemed satisfied with the condition of her knife and went back to swinging it around. “Here is a question you can answer for me,” she said. “The other two, they didn’t really get a choice, I don’t think. But when our participation got priced at six favors, you said yes. I dunno. I think that’s interesting. I might have haggled a little. Why’d you say yes?”

Bosses Hang, Pt. III

Lachesis took Aeon to the top of the stairs and moved a little bit further down across the overpass to the corner of an intersection, crossing it to the other corner where an ice cream shop awaited them. It was closed, unfortunately (Lachesis pointed out their limited hours sign and said something like “Winter hours and it’s not even Winter yet.”) but the seating was still out and Lachesis scootched into one of the tables and gestured for Aeon to sit across from her.

It took a moment for Lachesis to say anything. She looked Aeon up and down a few times first, then, “Freaky.” She looked up from the table. “You’re freaky, you know that? And I don’t mean, like in a bad way or anything. I mean, like, I try to size people up on first meeting them, just questions like height, weight, shoe size, all that good stuff. Age is a big number I like to grab ‘cause I can get it super specific and that catches people off-guard. But looks are a big part of that and, to be blunt, you don’t look that old. I’ve done my homework. I know how old you are - or how old you say you are, anyway - but, you know, dissonance. Freaky.”

She settled down into her seat, leaning in to talk to Thessa further. “So, Æon,” -- it was not clear whether her mispronunciation was deliberate or not -- “The Immortal Hero. Keeper of Grudges, apparently. How’s G3 life treating you? I don’t actually know what I’m supposed to say here. I’m tempted to just act like this is a book club and talk about something I’ve read recently you might find interesting. Is that okay? I mean, it’s my favor, so I guess it’s okay.

“I’ve been reading this book called All Men are Mortal by Simone de Beauvoir,” Lachesis said. “It’s about this prince of a made-up land called Italy who becomes immortal and decides to use his newfound lifespan to take control of the whole county. He thinks the only reason nobody has done this before is because they die partway through achieving it and progress stalls without their strong hand. But that turns out not to be the case. It turns out you can’t change the system by the rules of the system itself.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s something every immortal fears or just the ones in stories, but you make me think of it.”

Lachesis leaned in a little further into the table to the point she was almost lying against it, stretching out her arms to the edges of the thing. “The prince is a bit stupid anyway. Firstly because he gives up after, like, a few hundred years, which is surely nothing to someone who’s doomed to live forever, and second, like, you don’t have to become immortal to make a change in the world. I hope not. It’s tough given what the world is like, but, you know…”

She perked back up. “That was a downer. First no ice cream and now all of that. I’m sorry. Hey, you know what?” She pulled a pen and paper out from one of her pockets. “As payback for being a lame-o, if you ever want to dump some nonsense on me, doesn’t have to be G3 work, just whatever you want, give me a call.” She wrote down her number and showed it to Thessa. “You have a good memory, right? Memorize it quick ‘cause it’s about to, uh.”

It was a piece of nitrocellulose. Flash paper. Very quickly, the whole thing was in flames, and Lachesis tossed the thing on the ground and stamped the fire out. She looked back at Aeon and made a clicking noise with her mouth and a “call me” sign with her hand.

Undoing a Luciferian Towers

Dee Moxley didn’t wake up to the alarm on the main gate going off, she woke up to her own. That was the sort of person she was, always on a schedule. She didn’t even register the banging on the door until she rolled off the mattress the Gibbons had provided her when assigning her this station, put her glasses on, and pounded the top of the instant coffee machine to dispense something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee. She knew it was a tinker’s fault, that the person who had made the machine had had to scale back their design to the point that the machine could only be described charitably as “doing the best it could,” and she forgave the machine itself for its creator’s folly, but she missed the days of being able to leave the house and go down the street for a double shot of espresso. 

She’d wanted this post. This was the reason she joined Gibbons in the first place, for access to their resources, particularly the land so close to the Shimmer so she could study it without being bothered, but it did have its trade-offs, and that was one of them. Another was the people Gibbons had assigned to be with her. Babs slept through just about anything and lazed through the day despite her power and Güber, well, he was the one who made the coffee machine. At least it woke her up.

It woke her up enough, anyway, to know to not respond to Güber’s wailing on the other side of her door. There was no way, without her console at hand, that she’d be able to help him by opening that door. But there were other ways. She tapped the side of her glasses and scrolled through the options that appeared on the lenses, finally selecting a few options that she believed would help the most.

First was cameras. She needed to see what was going on, and her glasses flooded her vision with information. Next, obviously, was locking down the room. Whoever was attacking Güber was just on the other side, and though they’d demonstrate the ability to tear the walls of her lab down, now they’d have to try a little bit harder to get to her. Through the cameras, she saw the shimmers of her forcefields envelop the exterior of the room. They were the harder ones. The softer ones, those were the ones on the drones. It was time to wake those up as well.

Her laptop was not in the room, an operational security oversight that probably had to be corrected once these particular invaders were repelled. Without that, she could only switch her drones on, off, and through a few basic modes. Two out of the three invaders were still in the warehouse? Maybe the plan was to contain them there until she managed to get Babs up. As for Güber, maybe if he didn’t pull out his “Ray Gun That Makes You Say ‘Ow’ And Nothing Else” at every opportunity he could think of something actually worth trying.

She watched him struggle to his feet only to get duffed again and sighed. Alright, maybe not. But there were two more things to do before she had to go play the hero. She switched all the drones on standby in the warehouse to activate and put them on their defensive programming. A softer forcefield and electrical shocks within their range would hopefully be a good enough deterrent, and if it wasn’t… there wasn’t a good answer to that. But she’d think of something.

As the drones, those perfect little balls of metal and tinker engineering, rose from the racks and started hovering around the warehouse in search of threats, all Dee had left to do was grab two supplies. The first was a forcefield extruder, a barrier gun that could buy her some time, and the second, meant for Babs personally, was an airhorn.

“Anyone else want to come out?” someone said at her bedroom door. Dee readied her extruder, lowered the lockdown field around her room back down, and answered by bursting through.

---

OOC

Spoiler

Spoiler

Dee "The Shield" Moxley -- Chad "Gruber" Michaels

Subtitles are songs from the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor

I'll have images for the newly introduced members of Gibbons Gang later, but for now, I described Güber to Skaia as "severe 'generic white guy'" aesthetic, while Dee gets the description "blonde woman with glasses." I should probably describe what the drones are doing in a bit more detail here as well.

If you've read Dune, you might understand how I'm about to describe "soft shields." Basically, you can move through them, but only slowly. If you go too fast, you'll just bounce off. But they're extremely vulnerable to energy attacks (though unlike the books, they will not cause a nuclear explosion), so that's something to keep in mind, I'm sure. These surround all the active drones -- about half the spheres in the room -- including the one Adler is currently holding. The other weapon these drones are employing looks similar to one of those lightning ball toys. Electricity arcs in the center of each ball out to the edge of their soft shield, about half a meter radius sphere around the drone. Nothing debilitating, but it will hurt a bit. You can also think of that game Shock Absorbers from Mario Party 5 if enough of these things get close together.

Harder shields like the one made by Dee's extruder are about what you'd expect from the phrase "force field."

Meanwhile, over in Echo Park, you've been split up each with your own things to respond to. I like to think these are a bit more self-explanatory but do feel free to ask questions if you need anything. I will say that my availability is going to be limited until the new year, but I'll try to respond when I can.

Speaking of the holidays, hope yours were and will be good. Happy posting,

-r

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by radio414

[Thar]

Following the massive blow to the warehouse that created a big hole in one of the walls, the adrenaline coursing through Vi’s body clouded her surroundings for a moment. It wasn’t until the force of the impact blew her hair into her face when her clarity began to return to her as she instinctively blew and spat to keep anything from going into her mouth. With one big flip, her hair flopped back behind her before she realized her hat had fallen off.

“Ugh…” she growled. She knew it would happen at some point, especially when she lets loose. That hat was never the most practical thing to wear during missions, so leaving it behind seemed, and seems, like the most ideal thing for now. That said, the energy shifted back when she saw Sibyl rush past her through the new opening past the rubble. A glint of excitement came to her as she saw shadows form on her co-worker’s arm, something she could never get tired of. It was only at that moment when she even registered the person down the hall screaming for help. Vi could only let out a laugh of amusement upon seeing them pull out what looks to be a toy gun, only to be pummeled by their opponent like it was nothing.

Her expression changed, however, when she heard what she assumed was mechanical sounds all around her. Confused at first, her first instinct was to broaden her stance with her umbrella held out back towards the entrance to the building. From there, she saw the metal balls on the shelves begin to float around the room with the same humming sound she heard from the one Adler was holding before. Vi’s unsettledness naturally strengthened the rippling aura around her as she opened her parasol, forming a barrier along its outer surface which appeared as a giant contact lens. She watched as the spheres merely wandered the space, specifically around the hole that Adler had made, holding her defensive position.

“These look annoying…” Vi murmured as she slowly inched towards the strange mechanisms, unsure how they work. This uncertainty soon caught her by surprise when she reached a certain distance from one of them that deviated closer towards her than she was anticipating. A quick and powerful shock jutted out from it, striking Vi’s barrier with enough power to knock it to the side. Vi grunted, reflexively jumping back.

“Okay, these things are fucking annoying!” Vi let out another intense growl through her teeth as she condensed more of the aura to surround her entire body with a shimmering armor. The lens-shaped barrier grew slightly as she held her parasol in front of her with two hands with a tightened grip, and she lunged forward. More bolts of electricity shot at her, knocking her around slightly against her armor before she held a strong stance just before them and thrusted the open parasol at them. The barrier bursted, releasing a shockwave intended to damage at least the closest few from Vi and knock them back. Breathing heavier and beginning to sweat, she returned to a defensive stance facing the remaining drones, keeping one eye on Adler who was holding one outside, and another on Sibyl.

“Anyone else wanna come out?!” she heard her shout before the door before her immediately busted open. Shifting glances in both directions, Vi could feel the mission was about to get more difficult than it felt before as she continued to face the swarm in front of her with a phalanx-style advance and upward thrust against what she assumed would be more oncoming shocks.

[Chaos Sonic]

"The first one for each of you is just a one-on-one meeting right here in the park. We'll split off, one pair goes that way, another goes that way, another goes – back up the stairs, I guess."

"Understood. That's fine with the two of you, right?"

Override was a bit hesitant at this, namely hearing that they wanted favors from them. Nine times out of ten, favors always ended up in a much more different manner…especially whenever it was time to collect on said favors. But, he knew they needed to play ball and to get them to sign on the papers they had received. He had his orders after all…

“Not really in any other position aside from just obliging.” he simply sighed, shrugging slightly. Override glanced over at the Fate called Clotho, which seemed to be the one that he’d be chatting with.

He did, however, find it amusing and almost hilarious at Clotho trying to drag him by the arm like she was. It even caused him to stifle out a slight chuckle. “Unsure why you thought that would’ve worked, but I applaud you for at least attempting.” Override could tell she was glaring at him from behind her blindfold. It caused a smirk to appear behind his helmet. Nevertheless, he just followed after being beckoned by the young girl, who led him to a small picnic table…odd choice of location for a simple talk.

“You can sit if you want,”

“If you insist.” Override moved slightly and sat down at the picnic table with a CLUNK.

“I will say up front that part of this favor is contingent on you not recording this or listening to the conversations of my sisters through external means. Obviously, I can’t stop you from relaying our talk through memory alone later, nor can we control your teammates if there’s a particularly loud outburst, but if we find out you stuck a microphone on them or your suit’s got a camera on, well, then you’ll owe us an extra favor, I guess. And it’d probably be a favor that didn’t have those moral protections the first two did, so, you know.”

A sharp sigh escaped Override’s lips from inside the suit. He held his hands up slightly, seeming a bit defensive…but not in a mode of wanting to attack…more like, showing he was harmless. Though that didn’t mean much coming from the guy in the mech suit. “Firstly: I didn’t bug the other two. Although I wouldn’t have minded that, it’s against my ethics to do so.” Override started, only to be cut off.

“The ethics being the fact that they’re women and he doesn’t want to invade their privacy.”

“...thank you P.I.X.E.L…I’d prefer you stay silent for the most part here.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Override continued. “Despite my reasons and ethics, I don’t make it a habit to bug them. As for the recording of this conversation…I suppose I’ll relent on this. P.I.X.E.L., cut the recording software of the suit until the conversation is done. And while you're at it, take five. If anything happens, I’ll call you.”

“Aye sir.” the computerized voice said, before a few beeps occurred.

“There. I’ve cut the recording software as well as made sure my A.I. is taking a break. Will this suffice?”

“I believe you.” She seemed to respond in a bit of a snarky tone. “We’re not going to check, though. We’re not going to go looking for it, because what I want to spend my favor on is a matter of trust…Do you think I’m actively plotting to kill you?”

Well that’s a sudden drop of a question… Override thought, preparing to speak but Clotho beat him to the punch.

“I ask because, well, if that’s your primary motivator for trusting villains, a binary ‘Are they killing me? Yes or no?’ you probably should be a lot more trusting in general, and then you wouldn’t need to be dangling this -- out of reach. And if it’s just an ‘Oh, they’re supervillains’ thing, come on. Like, you’re the one trying to get me to sign something. Unless you want me to be trying to kill you. I mean, my schedule’s pretty busy, what with the world about to end and all, and it obviously won’t be right away, but I can probably slot you in if you want that.”

Override was silent as he let the young girl speak her mind. Before long, she finally finished and he proceeded to speak. “First off: if I actually thought you and your sisters were going to kill us, then you would’ve done so already by the time we arrived down those stairs. The motivator for trusting villains being as banal as that…you can rest assured that wasn’t the case. Truth be told, intel on you was that you three weren’t to be trusted in general, even if you three were sociable with both civilians and G3 members.” he paused in his explanation before continuing. “My motivator for trusting villains at this moment is the intel. It was said you three show viciousness towards your enemies, and quite frankly, I would prefer to stay on the hilt side of the knife so to speak.”

"The one with the knife is my sister," Clotho said. "But okay."

She leafed through the folder again, mumbling a long as she read. "...otherwise making their presence known. This is good stuff," she said, in that mocking compliment sort of tone. "You guys worked hard on this even if it seems someone disagrees." She held up the paper with the IT'S NOT MONEY scrawl. "But this intel is in my hands now, not yours, and if you did what you said, you turned off your access to your backups. Everyone else is out of earshot, it's just you and me." Clotho climbed up on the picnic bench and looked down at Override. "Override, tech hero of G3, with your own eyes and ears," she said, "do you trust us? To follow through with this, at the very least?"

"First, I'd say your definitely the more dramatic one of the three...at least in this scenario." Override chuckled, seeing Clotho in the position she was now. After a moment, however, he grew silent and simply leaned forward. "If we want to make sure the end of the world doesn't occur, then regardless of what I myself want, I have orders."

But he simply placed his hands on the picnic table and almost stared down Clotho. "...that said: I myself trust you. I know to an extent what you and your sisters are capable of. That's more than enough reason to trust you."

She smirked. "That's a lot of qualifiers, more than I gave you, but at least you're honest," she said. She pulled a pen out of one of the pockets on her dress, scribbled on one of the papers in the folder, and tossed the thing back.

"So, what's the favor then?" Override asked. "Lachesis said you wanted two favors...one of which was simply this conversation before we split up. As I'm aware, this has only been one of those two favors."

"I don't know yet." The smirk got wider. "But you'll be sure to know when we figure it out."

"Very well...then I guess we've wrapped up then, doesn't it?" Override chuckled, starting to get up from the picnic table. He was worried on what he just got into, but at the same time...with the fact that the world was ending...desperate times called for desperate measures.

[LordCowCow]

Thessa's answer, that she didn't mind, wasn't needed it seemed. One of the girls took her away soon after and led her, of all places, to a closed ice cream shop. Maybe there was some sort of message in that but at the moment Thessa's first thought was how she should go get some ice cream after this.

She just smiled as the girl spoke about Thessa's 'freaky' age. She knew enough to not say anything on it. She didn't want to prompt the girl to delve deeper into how exactly Thessa's age worked after all. A short laugh came out as they went from asking a question to talking about a book.

Thessa knew the book. Of course she did. How could she not have read something of that sort? The girl was right, of course, a few hundred years isn't all too long with so much ahead. But that was just it wasn't it? Something she noticed in any story with immortality is how often the writers struggled with the concept of living more than a couple hundred years. They assumed someone has to go mad soon enough and just give up on everything. But what is the point in surrendering your sanity so quickly? There's always time for things to change if you're meant to live forever.

Unless the world ends of course. Which, Thessa remembered, was kind of the point of this meeting.

She took note of the phone number given, one of many, many, numbers that now floated around Thessa's head, and leaned back a bit. Instead of saying something along the lines of 'if anyone should be calling the other it should be me getting the call' she brought it back to the book. "You know the strangest part of that book? The world they're from. In a span of three hundred years their world is completely different from where it started. How much do you suppose has changed from when I was born to now?"

"Like I said, I've done my homework," Lachesis said. "I know how long stuff like G3 has been around. And you get hints from every time one of those industrial farms announces an anniversary. But you're the one that's lived it. You tell me."

Thessa smirked. "I have, that's right. Its one thing to hear about it but I doubt you really can notice if you weren't there. And I can tell you...not much. Not really. People come and go, certain things get popular or not, stuff is created or torn down. But the kind of changes you see in stories like that? Nowhere to be seen. I really thought, you know, after a hundred years 'huh that's weird, maybe it takes a bit longer' but then two hundred years and now almost three hundred. And...it all remains the same." She leaned in and looked Lachesis in the eyes. "You know what else is the same? People wanting to make a change. And yet here we are...what do you make of that?"

Lachesis got up and stretched. She made a special point of taking off her blindfold and readjusting it on her face, too. "It's inertia, for sure," she said. "Three hundred years, probably more, of staticism. The world's actively hostile to it. When my sisters and I started the Moray Clan, we saw that hostility. Skitty is a finite world, already carved out. There wasn't much room for new gangs. But hey, we're still here two years, seven months, fifteen days, and an hour in."

She returned Thessa's eye contact. "You asked us about world domination in Skitty's final hours. I said no, my sisters and I aren't interested, and maybe I said something benevolent too like 'the world's going to end and we've gotta stop that first.' But the real reason, just between you and me, is that the world just isn't to our tastes right now.

"I believe you when you say other people noticed this stuff before us. Obviously, I believe you when you say it never took. Call it naïveté, but you know what the big difference is in my opinion? They didn't have us."

Thessa had to laugh. It wasn't a dismissive one, nor deriding, at least not intentionally. But how could she not laugh in the face of such bold confidence. "Ah, man, that's good. I really didn't know what to expect out of you but I'm glad you didn't give a boring answer."

She stood up as well, then, and kept her gaze on Lachesis. "It'd be nice if you could do something. I'm not sure if you have it in you or not really. It's not like I think you're hopeless but if we're being honest with each other I don't see you as all that powerful. Maybe you have some plan you're not telling me, something you've got in wait that'll really shake things up, or maybe you're just getting started. I'm patient, I can wait a few decades and see how it goes. But I'd really prefer sooner. I'm probably not supposed to say something like this but, really, good luck. I hope whatever you're up to isn't just a dud."

She giggled then. "If you don't feel like telling me how you're gonna do it now, well, calling goes two ways, I'm always willing to hear what people got planned. And, hey, if its got potential I might not even try and stomp it out!" It was Thessa's turn to give out her number.

Maybe she should go get some ice cream now...

[Skaia]

Sibyl let out a small whistle as the door in front of her was smashed in response to her question. Behind was a blonde woman, holding yet another strange looking gun and seemed poised to fight. "Now that's what I'm talking about!" The girl's smile grew wider as the shadows around her arms started to thicker. The blonde woman, however, rather than fight instead fired something else from her gun. What appeared to be a block of force that expanded to fit the hallway  they were in. The woman then took off, going past a corner and making her way out of sight of Sibyl. The demon villain girl, upon seeing this force wall, brought her shadowed arm up and slammed it against the wall, cracking the translucent force. 

"Sturdy huh? Then how about," the girl brought her other arm back and punched the wall yet again, it continuing to shudder and crack more under the pressure of her attacks. Bringing her hands back and clasping them together, Sibyl went for one more swing with the both of them, smashing the wall and returning it to nothingness as her arms whipped through it. Satisfied with results, the girl called out, "that was a nice wall you had there! Real tough!" Turning the corner the girl saw the woman still running, likely attempting to turn the left where this hall now ended in as well, and whipped out her arm, extending it towards her. "But wanna try something a little more direct now?"

Though she had been running away, Dee had still been facing where Sibyl had come from and was able to dive out of the way of the attack. "Not really a direct sort of person, sorry. But I do have a few tricks if you want." The woman brought her hand to her glasses, doing something before one of the various doors in the hall was burst open. 

A robot, keeping in line with the retro sci-fi theme the owners had so far, walked out. The shadows started to grow across Sibyl, covering more of her body, as she said, "fine by me!" Simple as she could be still, Sibyl brought her arm back, before extending it forward to punch the face of the robot. 

[(o ×)]

Adler's companions wasted no time in advancing into the warehouse. The sphere in his hands, which he now understood to be some form of autonomous defense, hovered out of his loose grasp, and hummed with a greater volume than before. Ah yeah, guess that makes sense for a thinker. It wasn't long before it began emitting sparks, but for reasons not immediately apparent to anyone unfamiliar with Command Editor, the arcing electricity only managed to extend a few inches from the surface of the drone in Adler's direction.

Casually diverting his path to go around the drone, Adler walked up into the building. He noticed a flash of movement above his head, and reflexively reaching upward he grabbed hold of his companion's hat that had been knocked off by her movement, floating dozens of feet above the group in the chaotic winds. His stride was purposeful, as he showed no more concern for the drones now that their purpose was made apparent. Several of the drones approached him, but their advancement became progressively slower and slower as they neared him, like Achilles futilely trying to catch up to a tortoise that had been granted a head start. Adler wasn't sure what he was expecting the thinker to have in terms of defense, but in retrospect he realized he shouldn't have expected much. At least the first step to save the world wasn't a difficult one.

Upon passing Vi, Adler dropped the hat on top of a drone that was closing in on her, making it easily the most well-dressed component of the warehouse's security system. Or at least, the most well-dressed that Adler was aware of. "Keep fighting the good fight Powder Keg, teach those tin cans a lesson. This certainly isn't an exercise in futility." Next on his path was Sibyl, who was engaged with a familiar-looking mechanical menace. Despite the close proximity, the machine would find itself unable to reach Adler if it attempted to take a swipe at him as he sidestepped the demon-on-robot violence. No way of knowing how many more tricks are up her sleeve, gotta use this sightline while I have it.

"Shields." despite Adler not quite getting her alias right, it would be abundantly clear from context that he was speaking to Dee Moxley. Not only was he looking her in the eye, his own eyes shone blue as his words would sound to her as if they were spoken by someone only inches from her face.

In less time than it would take for her to blink, Demiurge was upon her, standing a polite yet imposing arm's length away. "Welcome to the Moray Clan hostage program, where we pick up stray eggheads and leverage them for personal gain." Adler reached into a back pocket concealed by the ridiculous cloak The Fates gave him, pulling out a completely mundane cell phone, "You are now free to call for backup. If you find yourself unable to with whatever tools you currently have available, feel free to borrow my phone. Just stay out of my messages, I don't like having my personal life and work life commingling."

Adler paused for a moment, trying to think of any kind of sinister villainous edge he could attach to his ultimately courteous approach. "If you feel like you have this covered without hitting up the other Monkeys, I can drop you off thirty miles into the Shimmer I'm sure you spend your billable hours making googly eyes at."

[radio414]

All I Can Say

Clotho and Lachesis guided their respective heroes to Echo Park’s entrance again. Atropos was there waiting for them. “Just so you know, because we wouldn’t want you to think we had anything to do with it,” she said, “your friend got a page or something and had to go on ahead. Nothing to worry about, I don’t think, unless you’re one of those people who worries about everything.”

“We were the first gang you met with, right?” Clotho said. “Oh, that means we get to do all sorts of influencing over your next two meetings, huh? We could say something stupid like ‘Ophiuchus likes to eat live rats so make sure to catch one and bring it to him’ and you might even believe us.”

“And don’t comment on Caesar’s height because he’s got a complex about that,” Lachesis added. “He says he’s five foot five and a half but he’s not, and besides, who says how tall they are on a regular basis anyway?” She snapped her fingers and pointed some finger guns Thessa’s way. “Anyway, tell your boss we’ll see him on Monday. Have fun saving the world or whatever it is you heroes do. Don’t forget your favors either. We’ll be in touch.”

The next stop on the now duo’s mission was further north, towards the neighborhood colloquially referred to as “Wonderland.” The name was an old relic, as were most of the buildings -- this was an area that had managed to survive most of Scarlet City’s superpowered battles, and certainly all of them in recent memory. At the same time, only the more impressive buildings seemed to receive any kind of regular exterior maintenance (or perhaps it was because of their maintenance that they seemed at all impressive), and in the center of Wonderland was where Ophiuchus, leader of the Zodiac, resided.

This is what G3’s files had to say about the man:

Ulmer, Ray
Cape Name: Ophiuchus XIII
Active for: 5 Years, 5 months
Power Classification: Shaker
Current leader of The Zodiac gang. No known direct participation in criminal activity but orchestrates the distribution of controlled substances grade C-52 and above.
Goals: As the oldest currently active gang, The Zodiac’s goals have shifted from power and expansion to a consolidation of power within their territory and maintaining the status quo. Any improvement is spent on efficiencies of already existing processes.

Included in the dossier was an extra sheet of paper with one extra instruction:

DO NOT INCLUDE “XIII” WHEN ADDRESSING OPHIUCHUS. Marking is for archival purposes only. The Zodiac considers each Ophiuchus as less a successor to the previous as another segment of one long, continuous string. Reference previous bearers of the title only when absolutely necessary.

There was no signage in Wonderland proper like there had been for The Fates. It seemed everyone knew where they were and what else was expected of them if they remained.

They were met at the door of arguably the most ostentatious building in the area (and certainly the most maintained -- it even had a lawn trimmed to a precise height) by a woman a strong memory or a quick check of the G3 database revealed to be Cassiopeia, Ophiuchus’ right hand. There was no need for introductions beyond that. The only real acknowledgement she even gave the heroes was a stare and a curt nod before she turned around and led them into the manor.

The interior of the place matched the aesthetic of the outside, though as Cassiopeia guided Thessa and Victor to a room just off the main foyer where Ophiuchus and his snake awaited them, the more immediate impression they'd probably get was that it was hot. Swelteringly so, made even more apparent by the fact it was the beginning of November outside. Neither Zodiac member seemed to mind. Cassiopeia didn’t even loosen her collar and Ophiuchus, well…

Ophiuchus sat practically motionless on his throne, not even shifting his gaze to watch the three enter the room. The snake draped around his shoulders was a bit more animated, constantly adjusting its coils even if it wasn’t slithering around, but still only a bit. When he finally did speak, his voice was methodical and steady. “Welcome,  honored  guests,” he said. Looking at Thessa, he added, “and,  to  our  particularly  honored  guest,  welcome  back.  It  is  a  shame  we  could  not  meet  under  better  circumstances,  but  what  can  one  do?”

He slouched in his chair but immediately straightened himself back up. “I  assume  you  are  here  to  apologize  for  last  night’s…  indiscretions?  Let us  call  them  that.  Your  messenger  certainly  made  it  seem  as  though  that  were  the  case.”

The Curse of the Blackened Eye

She really ought to have kept running, Dee thought. After all, the closer she was to Babs’ room the better everyone’s chances were. But no, her tinker curiosity had gotten the better of her, she just had to watch to make sure her robot was properly deflecting incoming attacks. Generating force fields just to dismiss them immediately on impact was energy-costly, but the extra space meant she could be a little less efficient about things. At least it meant the barriers were harder to break.

In terms of offense, well, that was a little more lacking, but its arms could extend and fire off electrical pulses just as her drones could. It wasn’t completely helpless. Still, it wasn’t able to keep another person from coming around the corner and… okay, there wasn’t a great way to describe how Dee ended up in the situation she now found herself in, but that was superpowers for you. If she’d had more time or knew in advance this was coming, she probably could have designed around it, but Moray Clan didn’t seem like the type to play fair.

Dee wasn’t sure what to make of the cell phone offer, in light of that particular thought. She took it, if only because it was one additional resource at her disposal even if it was booby-trapped. If she could manage a minute or two to herself, she might even be able to make something out of it. She had to get that far, but she still had options. Her kidnapper was giving her basically unlimited access to any sort of technology? That was certainly one way to go about things.

Her eyes instinctively reached up for her glasses again to check the camera feeds. There were still only three attackers total, which meant either this was a particularly long con or things had been on equal footing numbers-wise from the start. When her captor threatened to throw her past The Shimmer, though, that snapped Dee back to her current predicament, but not in the way he probably hoped.

It was enough, even, to get a “tut” of air -- not quite a chuckle -- to escape her lips. “Either you don’t know what you’re talking about or you know nothing organic is getting through The Shimmer and that’s an empty threat. In either case, why bother? But look, I’m cooperating, see? You want me to call for help? I can do that. The alarm’s already going off so that’ll turn some heads if they’re listening for it, and I can use this --” a gesture to her glasses, relatively innocuous even as it made her drones much more aggressive to the one remaining hostile in the warehouse, now looking to surround and subdue, “-- and I can use this.” Dee procured her airhorn, pressing down on the plunger. It didn’t make any noise, but it wasn’t designed to. It was one of Güber’s patented useless things, an airhorn that could only be heard by unconscious people. The thing was, of course, that it was really good at doing just that, and the resulting low, almost distant rumble signaled that it had indeed done its job.

Babs, or Baba Yaga, had finally woken up.

To her right, Dee noticed that her robot had indeed returned fire on the demon woman, its arm extending outwards and electricity arcing between its fingers. Next to the robot, she saw the hole in the wall it had created getting patched up, and through her glasses, she could see the warehouse was growing its door back. She smiled despite herself, damn the consequences. Once Babs had everything just how she liked it, that was when she could really start playing with the space provided to her.

---

OOC

Spoiler

Spoiler

Ray "Ophiuchus" Ulmer -- Cassiopeia

Subtitles are Orville Peck songs, NPCs doc and images will be updated later, though it should be noted both Ophiuchus and Cassiopeia are wearing suits even if that doesn't match whatever images I end up finding.

G3: The conversation with the Fates seemed to go well, and you got Clotho's signature, so on to the next. Ember will be missed, but she was already going to be elsewhere for the Gibbons meeting, so really she's just leaving one meeting early. It'll be a bit more difficult to split up the conversation like last time, but two on one isn't the worst thing in the world. I hope "You owe me an apology" is a striking enough introduction.

Moray Clan: Just to cut through the fluff real quick, the drones are moving to surround Vi, Sibyl got her attack blocked by an energy-inefficient robot and the robot is attacking back with its own extend-o arm, and Adler has Dee's antics -- including a throwaway exposition line or two -- and is now minus one (1) cell phone. The Baba Yaga stuff obviously overlaps with all three of you, but it's minor stuff at the moment, and while Babs is powerful, she's certainly not fast, especially while still waking up.

As always, let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for your patience,

-r

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by radio414

[Thar]

At this point, Vi questioned how she even got herself in this situation when her other two teammates were in a completely different part of the building and out of sight. She groaned through gritted teeth as she held her open umbrella in front of her like a shield, keeping her aura dense enough to withstand the constant shocks protruding from the floating drones in front of her. She was too distracted to notice Adler was no longer on the street before she made another glance in that direction.

“Tsh…” she scoffed, rolling her eyes, “...show off.”

Almost on cue, she noticed a sudden shift in the movements of the drones around her. At first they were only passive and reactive, but with what seemed like a synchronized movement, they all turned and began to position themselves around Vi. Her first instinct was to go into another defensive stance, but knowing where they were going, guarding only one side didn’t seem to be a viable tactic in this situation.

“Alright, guess I’ll just… wait a minute-” just as she was about to use her brain for once, her vision focused on one drone in particular. Like a spider dangling on a web inches in front of her, she didn’t seem to notice that one of the drones was wearing her hat which had fallen off when she charged in. Perplexed, she blinked a couple times before looking again. She wasn’t going crazy. That drone is really wearing her hat.

“Wha- how the f-” and then it hit her. She didn’t know for sure, but it had to have been, “...you motherfucker…” She didn’t know whether to laugh or growl, but the emotions surged from her once more as she closed her umbrella, holding it to her side as she twisted her hips and pivoted her legs preparing to spin. Once wound up, she executed the motion with a strong release of her aura energy as the air around her violently swirled like a vortex which brought a bunch of the debris from the destroyed warehouse with it. The combined force of the whirlwind as well as the impact of the rubble seemed to have caught the drones surrounding her, causing them to stagger.

The attack didn’t last long. Vi only seemed to want to test it out in the heat of the moment, which appeared to have been effective enough to show results. The drones looked to be less of a threat as the electricity from their shock weapons had less of an impact against her armor. She gave a smug grin as she wound up for the same whirlwind attack, satisfied by the fact that the same debris she would use was almost in the exact same area when it settled from the first. As expected, the same scope of damage managed to finish them off.

…except for one. The one drone wearing Vi’s hat sat floating just outside of the area of effect, and an awkward pause lingered as Vi would’ve locked eyes with it if it had any. With one last scoff, she simply lunged forward for a stab, releasing a burst from the tip of her umbrella on impact that knocked it back against the wall where it lay out of commission under more rubble. The burst caused her hat to fly upwards in an arc that almost touched the ceiling. Not even looking up at it, she turned around to start heading down the hallway where everyone else seemed to have gone, catching it with one hand and putting it back on without even a break in her stride.

At that moment, the adrenaline began to wear off when she noticed the hole she had made before the hallway was starting to… repair itself? Taken aback, she looked around, also noticing the hole to the outside was doing the same.

“Uh, guys?!” she shouted down the hall, making her way down to catch up with the group, “...what are we doing now? The building’s fuckin’ healing itself, who's doing that??”

[LordCowCow]

She wasn't really looking forward to this one. Her history with the gang didn't really matter to her, she had been part of too many groups to feel awkward about seeing one of her former groups, but it was this gang in particular. They just were way too...the same. It was almost liked they took pride in keeping things from changing too much which was something she just couldn't get behind.

Still, it might be interesting to see if Thirteen might be more fun than the other twelve. At the very least she noted that his right hand woman got her interest a bit. Thessa didn't interact much with people like that but she was curious what such a serious and quiet person did for fun. She didn't ask, though, as her mind was distracted soon by the warmth. Her 'costume' wasn't exactly good for this kind of temperature.

As she considered taking off some layers she got a good look at the current leader. He wore the same style of clothing and looked in all honesty pretty boring compared to the Fates. The snake on his shoulder was more interesting than the man. There had been a snake last time too. Maybe it was related to the snake from back there? For some reason she felt herself wanting to talk to the snake more than him.

Though him asking for an apology did manage to catch her off guard.

"Huh, whaddya want us to apologize for?"

Ophiuchus looked at her with an expression mixed between concern and surprise. "Certain  members  of  your  organization  breached  the  terms  of  the  Halloween  truce  last  night.  You  expected  this  to  go  unnoticed?"

Did that happen? It might've been part of the meeting and she had forgotten it. Sure she had a good memory but only if she was actually paying attention.

"How the heck should I know about that? I barely keep track of what I do let alone the other guys."

"I  assumed  you  had  been  informed.  I  thought  better  of  your  superiors," Ophiuchus said. "That  being  said,  either  they  informed  Spotlight  of  how  best  to  assist  Cassandra  last  night,  or  were  negligent  enough  to  let  it  happen  all  the  same.  If  you  did  not  come  here  to  speak  for  them,  why  did  you?"

Ugh, right to it huh? Well at least maybe it'd shake things up and then they'd be out of there. She was about to answer, then she paused, looking off in the distance as her eyes glazed over and she gave it thought. "Uhhh..." Thessa glanced over at the other hero with her. "Something about signing something? Honestly I think at this point I'm just sorta along for the ride."

"You  haven't  changed  since  the  day  you  left  The  Zodiac,  Aeon."

A flash of...something hit Thessa then. She couldn't identify the feeling but for a brief, wild, moment she felt the urge to go up there and strangle the man using the snake. Then she focused on the man and replied. "Sure I have, I had shorter hair, and it was uhhh red? I think it was red. Anyway, I'd say you haven't changed either but that ain't totally right, is it, Thirteen?" she said, with a slightly malicious smirk to accompany the statement.

In the corner of the room, Cassiopeia tensed, but Ophiuchus manifested an ethereal hand and waved her back at ease. "I  have  changed," he said. "But  that  is  two  apologies  you  owe  me  now."

The edge to Thessa's smile softened a bit and she let out a laugh. "That's a pretty good one. Well," she looked at the other hero. "Maybe he's got the apologies on him somewhere. He seems the type."

[Chaos Sonic]

“Just so you know, because we wouldn’t want you to think we had anything to do with it, your friend got a page or something and had to go on ahead. Nothing to worry about, I don’t think, unless you’re one of those people who worries about everything.”

And then there were two...Override wasn't exactly thrilled about losing one of his allies this early on, but duty forever called...so to an extent he could understand. Nevertheless, it was he and Aeon left, which could've been good or bad, he wasn't too sure about that yet. But now they needed to go off towards "Wonderland" and Zodiac...trying to talk with their leader, Ophiuchus XIII.

Override was overhead again, soaring in the skies as he had the file and information pulled up on his HUD.

Ulmer, Ray
Cape Name: Ophiuchus XIII
Active for: 5 Years, 5 months
Power Classification: Shaker
Current leader of The Zodiac gang. No known direct participation in criminal activity but orchestrates the distribution of controlled substances grade C-52 and above.
Goals: As the oldest currently active gang, The Zodiac’s goals have shifted from power and expansion to a consolidation of power within their territory and maintaining the status quo. Any improvement is spent on efficiencies of their

Just don't add thirteen to his name when referring to him...good to know. But either way, I doubt it'll be an easy one to deal with. Override thought, sighing a bit at how this would go. He just hoped it would be a smooth one.

---

“Welcome,  honored  guests, and,  to  our  particularly  honored  guest,  welcome  back.  It  is  a  shame  we  could  not  meet  under  better  circumstances,  but  what  can  one  do? I  assume  you  are  here  to  apologize  for  last  night’s…  indiscretions?  Let us  call  them  that.  Your  messenger  certainly  made  it  seem  as  though  that  were  the  case.”
........
"Sure I have, I had shorter hair, and it was uhhh red? I think it was red. Anyway, I'd say you haven't changed either but that ain't totally right, is it, Thirteen?"

The armored hero could only be seen with his hand on the "face" of his suit. Once again, Aeon spoke up first and now put them in hotter water than they already were apparently. "...the dossier said don't call him by the number marking...that's for archival purposes...Jesus H. Christ." he muttered quietly, to which he heard P.I.X.E.L. speak up.

"I believe you may need to talk your way out of this, sir." his Scottish voice broke the silence for a moment in his helmet.

"...you may be right..."

"But  that  is  two  apologies  you  owe  me  now."
"That's a pretty good one. Well, maybe he's got the apologies on him somewhere. He seems the type."

Override simply looked in the direction of Aeon, his suit hiding the fact that he was glaring daggers at her. She was fortunate that she had not on any obvious technology on her, otherwise he planned to use them against her in an instant. But nevertheless, he sighed and stepped forward, hoping to make a better impression. "I don't have the apology, we weren't sent with one. I can tell you if anything, our superiors can give you one at a later date, if you so wish it, Ophiucus." Override spoke. "No, were simply here under diplomatic reasons...coincidentally, in regards to what was displayed last evening."

"You  are  here  to  ask  something  of  me  regarding  last  night?" Ophiuchus didn't seem the laughing type, but even he seemed bemused by this. "To  my  knowledge  the  Zodiac  took  no  part  in  any  of  the  riots  and  if  you  present  proper  evidence  to  the  contrary  the  offending  member  will  be  immediately  excommunicated."

"I'm not referring to the riots. Right now all I'm referring to is the declaration that Cassandra made last night and our efforts to prevent it." he attempted to continue, however now the bemused smile disappeared. He tried not to show the fact he was nervous at seeing this, thank God for the suit of armor.

"I  am  referring  to  the  riots  because  procedure is important.  The  truces  were  put  in  place  and  have  survived  this  long  for  a  reason." In the corner, Cassiopeia tensed again, and there was no ghostly hand to put her at ease this time. Ophiuchus continued, "Your  G3  organization  has  a  different  perspective  on  things.  I  see  that  now,  and  will,  in  fact,  discuss  this  with  your  superiors.  But  you  are  not  exactly  in  a  position  to  be  dancing  around  the  issue.  I  am  already  annoyed,  so  say  what  it  is  you  were  sent  here  to  say."

Override thought for a moment, realizing what he was referring to now, recalling what he asked Aeon a moment ago. There was a breach of true at the end of it last night...Spotlight helped Cassandra and he shouldn't have. And G3 seemed to have either swept that under the rug or neglected to mention anything to them. Either option was plausible at this point, but for the time being, he had a job to do. Later...later he would be doing some digging for sure. Override held the file in the hand with the documents for Ophiuchus to sign, glancing in the direction of Cassiopeia. "This is what we were sent here for. Would you mind handing this to him? I'm sure this would be safer than allowing a Cape to just approach your boss like this." he said, extending his hand with the document towards Cassiopeia. "All we need is your signature and cooperation...that said, while I can't physically guarantee any negotiations to occur in regards to the evening prior, I will say that speaking to our superiors and their negotiators may be able to assist in fixing and even apologizing for what transpired."

Ophiuchus took the documents himself, manifesting another ethereal hand open and ready to accept them. "Better," he said.

He continued to hold the folder with his power as he read. The snake around his shoulders also seemed interested in the document, curling up into the crook of his shoulder to get a better look. Eventually, he said, "This  is  asking  a  lot  of  us,  but  it  is  largely  acceptable.  For  my  signature,  however,  I  have  one  additional  price:  an  explanation.  I  want  to  know  why  the  events  of  last  night  took  place.  Why  then?  And  why  were  those  helping  Cassandra  willing  to  break  one  of  the  more  sacred  truces  to  do  so?  Swear  to  answer  those  questions  for  me,  and  any  others  that  might  come  up,  and  I  will  assent."

"...yes, I suppose the hand thing was definitely more simpler." Override nodded, relenting at the ethereal hand. However, Ophiuchus brought up his price for this signature, which made the young man think this was generally a running theme with these villainous leaders, but he digressed. All this one wanted was answers, which was the same thing they themselves were looking for. "Seems somewhat of a simple thing to ask for, Ophiuchus, but knowledge is power in some's eyes, a powerful weapon to wield. In truth, we're looking to learn these reasons ourselves, so I will say right now...the moment we find the answers to these questions of yours, I'll personally hand you the information, either myself or I'll have P.I.X.E.L. deliver it."

[Skaia]

As Sibyl's hand deflected off a forcefield the girl said, "another wall huh? Well, I'll just have to put it up to another stress test." The girl extended out both of her arms to the side of the walls, smashing them against the wall and leaving her midsection undefended. As the robot shot out an electrified hand towards her, a third arm of shadow appeared out from the girl's waist, catching the fist mid-flight. The electricity tried to arc across it but found the mysterious dark substance that the arm was made of incredibly non-conductive. "Ho ho, so you're not just a wall on legs?" The girl seemed to be enjoying taunting the creature, the grin on her face still present. As she heard the shout of Vi from the down the hall, Sibyl noticed that the walls were in fact starting to heal. Yet that did little to dampen her mood. 

"What does it matter? Our job is to break shit and if it fixes itself then we just have more to break!" She shouted back, entirely uncaring about what could even be causing it in the first place. "Now back to you," The girl swung both of her hands at either side of the robot's head, the first one smashing against yet another shield and the second one managing to hit the metallic head. The robot stumbled from the attack, though seemed to be somewhat durable and still capable of offense, as in tandem with her attack it had fired off another fist towards her. Sibyl, with her third arm, swung it and the arm it was holding towards the robot's attack, knocking the metallic hand off course but still managing to let out a pulse of force that struck Sibyl's side, causing the demon girl to be knocked down. 

Letting out a small chuckle the girl said, "now you're getting into it." The girl swung one arm into the wall, digging her claws into it, before herself up and off the ground, practically flinging herself towards the robot. With both of her other hands still free, she clenched them into fists and swung at the robot, the mechanical adversary projecting yet another wall that was smashed under the force of the two arms and being struck. The robot stumbled backwards, going towards Alder and the woman with Sibyl shouting, "heads up old timer!" Giggling a little in glee as she did.