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Star City- Heroes of Tomorrow IC

If she's fraying, start praying. (Artemis)

DeathsKnight said:
Back was that snarky confidence and John felt that the symbiote was trying hard to remember and needed silence to mull over the Beetle. He said nothing and followed the group, unconsciously staying close to Artemis. He knew she didn't like him, but after their battle she did seem to mellow a bit.

Her remark made him grin, "I'm pretty sure most of us here can do just that. I doubt that I can do that balloon thing though, come to think about it...I'd suck dealing with traumatized children. Saving them is one thing, dealing with feelings the complete opposite." He kept his voice low, making sure that Artemis heard him.
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She didn't not like Venom. He actually seemed pretty damn good at what he did, now that she'd seen him mixing it up out there, fucking shit up for bad guys.

But that suit-- that suit that coated his body like a ruptured oil pipeline-- giving yourself body and soul over to something like that? It gave her the friggin' wiggins, baby. Not to mention her childhood issues with bugs, and she didn't care what you said, spiders might not be insects but they sure as Hell were bugs, and his work-clothes were Hella spidery.

Maybe he was G.I. Average Joe under the goo, but he sure as Hell looked better without the big pale eyes and the yellow Joker teeth.

She squinted at him. "Yeah, I hear that. The-- dealing with feelings. I could just give them candy or something, kids like candy. And you'd never catch me joining a circus, except maybe as a trickshot artist. I could pop balloon animals-- or put an arrow through one of them so mad skillful that it didn't pop."

Lunaramblings said:
Barbara had handed out a couple of animals when she noticed Artemis. She smiled and walked over. "Hey. You don't remember me do you?" Barbara looked over the slightly younger girl.
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"Oh, no," Artemis touched her mask to make sure it hadn't slipped out of place, her voice cracking only slightly as she subdued her surge of panic, "where would I remember you from?"

Lunaramblings said:
"When you have a minute we should have a chat. I know your busy. But I have some news. From home." Barbara winked before turning and heading back to the kids.
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Okay, this was-- this was infuriatingly cryptic, this was-- Artemis hated nothing more than being strung along with no idea what was happening, and being made to feel like an idiot for it. WHAT THE FUCK WAS HER DEAL?

Atom screwed with her arrowset, this girl was acting like they were besties that followed each other on social media and had somehow known her despite the mask-- Did someone declare this National Do Things to Piss Off Artemis Day?

Lunaramblings said:
She stopped half way back and turned again. "Your boyfriends cute."
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That was the last straw, Artemis poked herself in the arrowhead symbol with a thumb, teeth clenched. "I don't know what you're talking about. 'Boyfriend.' Trust me, if I was getting laid, I'd know about it."
 
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"A cause of happiness." (Felicity)

Lunaramblings said:
His eyes flutter open and she is there.

"For you anything" He pulls her back in, kissing her again. "I'm sorry. I was so focused on John and the kids that I let my guard down."
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Happily oblivious to Oliver's "Devil and Daniel Webster" moment, Felicity moved back in for a very relieved second kiss, smiling against his lips.

When he drew away, and made his apologies, she instantly frowned, however, and slugged him in the arm-- maybe hard enough that he'd feel it the next time he went to do The Salmon Ladder. "Hey. Hey. You listen to yourself. Would you put up with excuses like that coming from Artemis? Or from Roy?"

On a roll, furious, she stampeded: "You do this to me again, I'll make sure Zee or Tatsu or whoever brings you back from the dead so I can kill you, and you laugh, famous super-violent hooded vigilante, you laugh, but I've done enough autopsies for you that I know how to make it stick."

And then her lip quivered, and she burst into full-blown tears, and buried her face in his shoulder, arms wrapped around him.

She could be goddamn stoic if she had to be, but the need for that had passed, she could be human for a minute.
 
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Jaime was trying to just think of nothing. He felt exhausted and it had nothing to do with any physical exertions. This conflict with the Scarab could not go on. They were like two minds fighting for control of one body. In a daze, Jaime stood in a corner, watching the Guardian deal with the children and the other Society members with the ease of long practice. Jaime felt a little bit envious at how well they all worked together. Constantine went to the other room, the Guardian seemed to go silent, and Jaime picked up the signal of a cell conversation. He chose not to listen, as it wasn't his business. He just stood, like a black and blue sculpture done by a heroine addicted artist in the midst of a drug induced nightmare.

"Hey. 'Sup? Dig the antennae."


Jaime turned his head to observe the very obviously female and even more obviously athletic figure in the green leather.

"Uh, thanks. Nice...Bow. And Arrows. Nice arrows...

The awkward silence stretched out and Jaime was distracted by an insistent whispering from Khaji Da, as if the Scarab were mumbling to himself about something called a 'Symbiote'.

Artemis grumbled to Venom or to Beetle or anyone in earshot of her low, sardonic complaint."Not sure why they hadda bring in a ringer, "I can stick a landing if you need a party trick."

Then she paused, and rolled her shoulder again, and reconsidered when she felt it twinge. "Eh, but she's a guest, I'll let her have this one."

Jaime admired her lithe form and agreed silently that she probably could have shown the kids some tricks...or maybe .. he shakes his head, glad for the mask that covered his blush. It had been a while since he'd been around women.

The guy who'd been in the seething black oil slick of an outfit earlier, the one Khaji Da kept mumbling about suspiciously in the back of his head, grinned at Artemis.

"I'm pretty sure most of us here can do just that. I doubt that I can do that balloon thing though, come to think about it...I'd suck dealing with traumatized children. Saving them is one thing, dealing with feelings the complete opposite." He kept his voice low, making sure that Artemis heard him.

Jaime felt himself start to withdraw, sensing the undercurrents between the two. He was an outsider here and could not let himself forget it. He was only helping because there were children in danger, and once that had been handled, he would confront J'onn and demand his promised help with Jaime's own troubles.

The Blue beetle lumbered away and faded into invisibility, phasing slightly out of this reality, hiding in the space between shadows.
 
That was the last straw, Artemis poked herself in the arrowhead symbol with a thumb, teeth clenched. "I don't know what you're talking about. 'Boyfriend.' Trust me, if I was getting laid, I'd know about it."

Barbara smiled quizzically. Unsure what she had said to upset her. She remembered Bruce saying he saw potential if she could get past her anger. Maybe this is what she meant. Barbara thought for a second before she spoke again. "Sorry, I uh. I thought you and your friend, just looked good together. Listen, sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. We met. In Gotham. A while back. Let me show you something. C'mere."

Barbara stepped toward an empty study room. She really hoped she could salvage things. Bruce had asked her to try to make friends with the girl. To hang out with the Justice Society. She had been meaning to get over here a long time ago. But she had gotten caught up in classes. And hey, for once she didn't have to patrol every night. As she ducked into one of the study room, she slipped out of her jacket. Underneath her track suit she was wearing the batgear. She pulled the mask from behind her back and up over her head. Now wearing the gear she hoped Artemis wouldn't be too upset.
 
Oliver pulled Felicity tight against him. He forced his body up from the table, taking her with him.

"Your right. And you have my word. Next time I do things right. Or not at all. I love you so much. Felicity, you know the life I live, the one before I dragged you into this, the pain I caused, and the loss, you are what allows me to put that behind me. To be the man I need to be to push this thing forward. I couldn't do that without you. Your my superhero." Oliver looked over toward Zatanna. He smiles as realizes that she was the one that pulled him back. "You never heard that Z. I mean it. And thank you."

Zatanna stifled a snort as she laughed at Oliver's declaration. Oh lovey, I heard it. And one day, your gonna owe me big for not telling every single one of them about your touchy feely side."
 
Shafted, much? (Artemis)

Nevyn_Black said:
"Hey. 'Sup? Dig the antennae."

Jaime turned his head to observe the very obviously female and even more obviously athletic figure in the green leather.

"Uh, thanks. Nice...Bow. And Arrows. Nice arrows..."
Click to expand...

"Um, yeah," Artemis nodded, still embarrassed by her own lack of social graces, and completely unable to assemble a response to The Beetle. "I just relabled all the nocks."

Aaaaand there wasn't much to say after that.

********​

Lunaramblings said:
Barbara smiled quizzically. Unsure what she had said to upset her. She remembered Bruce saying he saw potential if she could get past her anger. Maybe this is what she meant. Barbara thought for a second before she spoke again. "Sorry, I uh. I thought you and your friend, just looked good together."
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"Me and my frien--" Artemis frowned, she was already frowning, she frowned deeper, "--wait, which, did you mean Agent Venom, or Billy Whiz, or-- that--" she looked over her shoulder to find that The Blue Beetle had vanished without a trace. "--Beetle... guy...?"

She narrowed her eyes. Okay, she hadn't been that embarrassing that she woulda driven him off. ...had she?

Lunaramblings said:
"Listen, sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. We met. In Gotham. A while back. Let me show you something. C'mere."

Barbara stepped toward an empty study room. She really hoped she could salvage things. Bruce had asked her to try to make friends with the girl. To hang out with the Justice Society. She had been meaning to get over here a long time ago. But she had gotten caught up in classes. And hey, for once she didn't have to patrol every night. As she ducked into one of the study room, she slipped out of her jacket. Underneath her track suit she was wearing the batgear. She pulled the mask from behind her back and up over her head. Now wearing the gear she hoped Artemis wouldn't be too upset.
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Artemis followed, eyes narrowed to slits, fists all tense at her sides, and she stared in mingled horror and fascination as one quick DIY Sailor Moon transformation sequence later, "Barbara" was suddenly "Batgirl."

"Jesus," she groaned, clapping the heel of her hand into her forehead.

"So that was you at that fancy prep school. What other superheroes did they have on the Student Council, huh? Goddamn-- Flamebird? ...one of the Robins? That little dick of a mathlete that selfied me the first day, I knew there was something suspicious about that kid--"

"And, what, The Big Bad Bat just-- hands out my secret identity like Halloween candy? This is the best day ever."
 
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"And, what, The Big Bad Bat just-- hands out my secret identity like Halloween candy? This is the best day ever."

Barbara just continued to look at Artemis. She let her vent for the moment before she interjected again.

"Actually I hacked the computer. That's why he made me take a semester away. Said it was a violation of trust. I just wanted to prove a point. Listen, I didn't mean to upset you. I just wanted you to realize that once a member of the family, always a member. Batman asked me to check in on you. Make sure you were comfortable. Being treated well. All that. But seriously, if I upset you, I apologize. I thought you knew who I was. I really did. And sorry about the boyfriend thing. Guess I was just getting the wrong vibe from you and the normal looking guy. Blue Beetle, he kinda scares me. But then, so do you. Think you can um... unball the fists? And here, please, take this. It's a link to the Batlines. Only the Bats have access. I was supposed to give it to you when I got here. Sorry." Barbara shrugs as she produces a small black device from her belt. "I also thought you should know... Batman, Nightwing and Robin are... well they haven't checked in for a few days. They were investigating something in Santa Prisca. I was actually glad when Guardian called tonight. I was planning on coming by tomorrow to talk to Arrow. But clearly you guys have your own stuff. It's cool. I'll call in some favors. Listen, I gotta ditch this and get back to the kids. Again, sorry."
 
Venom

He watched as Artemis moved away, sensed that Beetle withdrew and felt how the symbiote settled down, the murmuring in the back of his head went silent. Though a patient man, he felt that he needed to know what that was all about, but the symbiote had locked him out so well that it was frustrating.

"Hey mister, do you know how to make a balloon animal?"

He looked down at the girl who stood in front of him. Wasn't she supposed to be scared of strangers? He was a stranger after all. After seeing a strange man kill people would you not be scared of strangers?

The obvious answer would be that she saw him as safe. The people who had rescued them trusted him, to her that made him a stranger, but a stranger who would not hurt her. He started to say that he didn't have the faintest clue how to make a balloon animal when the symbiote popped into the controls.

"Sure", he saw his hands reach for the inflated balloon, tested the tension and started to deftly fold, tie, bend and twist the balloon.

'What are you doing?'

Creating a poodle

'I don't know how...'

A soft chuckle in his mind.

You do. Your subconsious can remember when you watched some artist do it. It interested you enough so that you remembered it.

'You can access my memories?'

Duh

The sarcasm wasn't lost on John and he even managed a smile when he handed the pink poodle to the girl. He looked around once more and walked to the door, opening it, he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. Taking a deep breath, he leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest and thinking about what the symbiote had just told him.
 
Paranormal Hacktivity. (Felicity)

Lunaramblings said:
Oliver pulled Felicity tight against him. He forced his body up from the table, taking her with him.

"Your right. And you have my word. Next time I do things right. Or not at all. I love you so much. Felicity, you know the life I live, the one before I dragged you into this, the pain I caused, and the loss, you are what allows me to put that behind me. To be the man I need to be to push this thing forward. I couldn't do that without you. Your my superhero."
Click to expand...

She wiped her eyes and smiled through the tears. "Okay. I'm still furious with you, just for the record. But that was one of your better speeches."

Sniffling once more, she tried wiping her nose with the back of the same hand she'd wiped the tears with. "I still think I should get a codename, one of these days. If I'm your superhero."

Lunaramblings said:
Oliver looked over toward Zatanna. He smiles as realizes that she was the one that pulled him back. "You never heard that Z. I mean it. And thank you."

Zatanna stifled a snort as she laughed at Oliver's declaration. Oh lovey, I heard it. And one day, your gonna owe me big for not telling every single one of them about your touchy feely side."
Click to expand...

Felicity blew her nose, washed her hands, and returned to her waiting laptop.

"Please, you two don't know the first thing about blackmail. I have YouTube video of Batman singing queued and ready to upload. That'll be an interesting day."
 
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Compounding the Problem. (Artemis)

Lunaramblings said:
Barbara just continued to look at Artemis. She let her vent for the moment before she interjected again.

"Actually I hacked the computer. That's why he made me take a semester away. Said it was a violation of trust. I just wanted to prove a point."
Click to expand...

Artemis hesitated. "Wait, you hacked whose computer? Felicity's? Oh, man, you got bigger problems than me right now. Shit, yeah, 'violation of trust,' but I don't care what your chops are as an infojock she'll corrupt files you didn't even know you had, say goodbye to that Dora the Explorer limited edition digital watch, hope you didn't catch too many Pokémon."

Lunaramblings said:
"Listen, I didn't mean to upset you. I just wanted you to realize that once a member of the family, always a member. Batman asked me to check in on you. Make sure you were comfortable. Being treated well. All that."
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Artemis quieted. Her knuckles were still white and tight, but the peak of her considerable fury had passed them by, and they dwelt in the eye of the hurricane. "These have been the best years of my life. I couldn't call Arrow a father, but he's been a better damn older sibling than my sister ever was. And my-- real dad-- I'm assuming you violated that trust, too-- he comes back after me in Star City, he's gonna find me with a whole new support system, and I bet you he won't like that at all."

Lunaramblings said:
"But seriously, if I upset you, I apologize. I thought you knew who I was. I really did."
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"How would I?" Artemis replied coolly to that, not threatening to erupt but stating logic with a hint of a growl. "Being scared to death that people would uncover my secrets didn't give me a lot of time to disrespect yours."

Lunaramblings said:
"And sorry about the boyfriend thing. Guess I was just getting the wrong vibe from you and the normal looking guy. Blue Beetle, he kinda scares me. But then, so do you. Think you can um... unball the fists?"
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"Two for one deal on treading on toes today," Artemis noted sardonically, "one-time promotional offer. He ain't unpretty, but his plus-one kinda squicks me more than a little. Beetle's, too, but that's a whole 'nother thing."

But she did, however, slowly, uncurl her fingers. Her fingernails had been pressed so firmly into her palms they left impressions behind.

Lunaramblings said:
"And here, please, take this. It's a link to the Batlines. Only the Bats have access. I was supposed to give it to you when I got here. Sorry." Barbara shrugs as she produces a small black device from her belt.
Click to expand...

Slowly, warily, Artemis accepted the device, and scrutinized it. She could have Felicity look it over, of course, make sure it wasn't bugged or trapped or anything. But this was still pretty cool. "My own Bat-Signal."

Lunaramblings said:
"I also thought you should know... Batman, Nightwing and Robin are... well they haven't checked in for a few days. They were investigating something in Santa Prisca. I was actually glad when Guardian called tonight. I was planning on coming by tomorrow to talk to Arrow. But clearly you guys have your own stuff. It's cool. I'll call in some favors. Listen, I gotta ditch this and get back to the kids. Again, sorry."
Click to expand...

Artemis continued to stare thoughtfully at the device in her hand, and then glanced up again at Batgirl. "Look. You should talk to The Arrow before you go. Maybe we're all full up on multi-tasking, maybe we're not. He's the guy who would know. Knowing him he'll pull through on some Han Solo luck, or on a Justice Society miracle-- you should talk to him."

"You said-- once a part of the family-- well, I'm not a part of your family. I'm a part of his."

"But there's no goddamn reason our families can't look out for each other. Provided we can trust each other. All right?"
 
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"Strength of a Thousand Men," by Two Steps From Hell. (Rose)

The watch dialed-- and rang--

--but instead of an answered phone call, something odd happened.

The watch's dial flickered, and then revealed a progress bar-- a download-- adorned only by letters of that mysterious techno-runic alphabet.

Robby hesitated, glanced at Rose-- "What-- what does it say? You can read it, right?"

Rose tried waving him away, she was squinting at it: "Hold on, I've never seen so many together before, I think this time it's actual words--"

But before she could decipher any of those words, the progress bar completed, and the dial flipped to a new screen. A ring around a rune. Just like that of the H-Dial App. Except it glowed blue, and the rune at the heart of the circle wasn't an "H," it was a--

"'J,'" Rose whispered, awestruck, and touched the symbol just as she would have touched the H-rune.

In the pocket of her jeans on the floor by the bed, her phone lit up so brightly both she and Robby could see it clean through the denim.

Bright bright blue blue blue.

And--

CCCRAAAAAACK

--the world ripped open--

--and a man stumbled through the rip.

A tall man, with somewhat-mussed red hair that had been neatly trimmed, and with blue eyes that could cut glass.

The couple in the bed stared for a moment, astonished, and then quickly scrambled to cover themselves with the sheets--

"What the Hell--"

"--who are--"

But he wasn't paying any attention to them. He crouched for a moment, took Rose's phone out of her jeans' pocket, and gazed at it reverently, slowly standing as he balanced it on his fingertips.

"Oh, now, this is next-gen's next gen. I mean-- the phone is old, relatively speaking, everything's relative-- but the H-Dial firmware, I've never seen anything like it. Such solid, stable ectypes-- maybe the limited selection adds stability, I never would have thought of that. Pity about the randomizer function, and only one prime mover, but I guess you've gotta take the bad with the good."

His voice had an almost melodic whisper-growl to it-- a hypnotic quality, though he didn't seem aware of it, it didn't seem intentional. He was just one of those magnetic people, apparently.

He half-glanced at them, but he did so without even really seeing them. "I like the idea of pairing a watch and a phone, that's something they should incorporate in future iterations if the host technology remains available."

Then he tossed the phone onto the bed between Robby and Rose, really looking at them for the first time, but apparently not bothered at all that he'd caught them post-coitus. Rose grabbed up the phone and stared at it as if she was worried he'd cracked the screen.

"Sorry about the entrance," he drawled, though he didn't sound that sorry, his apology was a matter-of-fact, "it was kind of an emergency, a violent rival faction was trying to kill me, you called me just in time. When two Dials handshake under desperate circumstances, it unlocks a one-time-use J-Dial function, allowing the called Dialer to Jump to the calling Dialer's location."

"You know about The Dial," Robby stared at him, aghast.

"He knows about Dials, plural," Rose sputtered. "He has another Dial."

"You should get dressed, you two," he suggested, turning his back to give them a modicum of privacy. "We have a lot to talk about."

"But," Rose hesitated, even as she grabbed for her shirt, "who-- who the Hell are you?"

"So much for Caller ID," he quipped, not-quite glancing over his shoulder.

"Victoria Rose Grant."

"My name is Christopher King Grant."

"I'm your father."
 
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ChasNicollette said:
Artemis hesitated. "Wait, you hacked whose computer? Felicity's? Oh, man, you got bigger problems than me right now. Shit, yeah, 'violation of trust,' but I don't care what your chops are as an infojock she'll corrupt files you didn't even know you had, say goodbye to that Dora the Explorer limited edition digital watch, hope you didn't catch too many Pokémon."

Barbara giggled a little. Despite herself. "Not hers. HIS. Sorry. He was keeping secrets. I don't like secrets."

Artemis quieted. Her knuckles were still white and tight, but the peak of her considerable fury had passed them by, and they dwelt in the eye of the hurricane. "These have been the best years of my life. I couldn't call Arrow a father, but he's been a better damn older sibling than my sister ever was. And my-- real dad-- I'm assuming you violated that trust, too-- he comes back after me in Star City, he's gonna find me with a whole new support system, and I bet you he won't like that at all."

I didn't read your whole file. Just got a name. But I put two and two together. I just wanted to reach out. I swear." Babs did a quick cross of her heart with her yellow gloved hand, inadvertently crossing the bat as well.

"How would I?" Artemis replied coolly to that, not threatening to erupt but stating logic with a hint of a growl. "Being scared to death that people would uncover my secrets didn't give me a lot of time to disrespect yours."

Barbara continued to look serenely, but inside her heart creaked a little knowing she had hurt the girl... woman, that she had hoped to befriend.

"Two for one deal on treading on toes today," Artemis noted sardonically, "one-time promotional offer. He ain't unpretty, but his plus-one kinda squicks me more than a little. Beetle's, too, but that's a whole 'nother thing."

Babs nodded, "Yeah, I tried dating heroes for a bit. It is easier than dating no heroes, but still, so many secrets and everything. Me and Nightwing were pretty serious for awhile, but that fell apart."

But she did, however, slowly, uncurl her fingers. Her fingernails had been pressed so firmly into her palms they left impressions behind.

Slowly, warily, Artemis accepted the device, and scrutinized it. She could have Felicity look it over, of course, make sure it wasn't bugged or trapped or anything. But this was still pretty cool. "My own Bat-Signal."

Artemis continued to stare thoughtfully at the device in her hand, and then glanced up again at Batgirl. "Look. You should talk to The Arrow before you go. Maybe we're all full up on multi-tasking, maybe we're not. He's the guy who would know. Knowing him he'll pull through on some Han Solo luck, or on a Justice Society miracle-- you should talk to him."

Babs nodded again. Feeling a little humbled. Yeah, I guess so. Can't hurt."

"You said-- once a part of the family-- well, I'm not a part of your family. I'm a part of his."

"But there's no goddamn reason our families can't look out for each other. Provided we can trust each other. All right?"

Barbara smiled, "Listen, Batman, well he has engendered this whole trust no one thing. He doesn't trust anyone. He expects us to do the same. It takes a lot to get him to accept you. But he does accept you. He wanted me to make sure things were going okay here. He would never admit it, but he has a lot of respect for what Arrow and the rest did. And yeah, know that anytime you need it, you have backup. I do apologize for violating your trust. I should have done it this way in the first place. I hope we can move past it. There is a beacon in the device I gave you. Leads to a back up Batcave in Star City. He has them everywhere. If you ever need anything, its there. Has a beacon in there that you can activate to call for help too. Not that you would need it. I mean, I get it, you have this new life. Sorry I brought up the old one."

Barbara pulls back the cowl and tucks it into her suit. She slips her jacket back on and puts the gloves in the pockets. Just...sorry. I made a mistake. I'll have a word with the society once the kids are gone." With her costume safely stowed under her civvies she heads for the door.
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Jaime was tired of being stuck in the armor and he felt like he wasn't being very helpful. There were too many people in this building and too many kids.

Not that he didn't like children, he'd always loved them and been good with them at one point. Being from a Latin family, the one thing you could count on was a lot of small children and babysitting experience. Yay Catholicism.

But lately, he couldn't take a lot of noise. He jumped sometimes, got scared for no reason, even got irritable with little provocation. He hated crowds with a passion.

It wasn't that Jaime didn't know what was happening to him. He had a Phd of abnormal psychology from Texas A&M. He knew well enough that what he was going through was called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In his case it could have been caused by any number of things, he'd been undergoing trauma's for years.

The problem with being a psychologist is that you tend to feel as if you should be able to cure yourself, or at least treat yourself and control the symptoms. But it just never works like that. Jaime knew the cause and linkages of every thing that was wrong with him and it made no difference to actually experiencing it.

But it did make him very good at being able to get into the heads of the bad guys.
Which was what he was good at. What he was trained for. He was a Profiler.

He triggered his subvocal communications network and tapped into the Society secure channel. There was a minute pressure change.

"Mrs. Smoak? This is the Blue Beetle. I understand you might be busy with personal matters right now, but if you could spare a little time, I might be able to help us all out a little. I sure would appreciate it ma'am."

Jaime moved through the room, watching everything, seeing it all as a person might watch a movie while doing household chores, his mind on what he was doing, but still aware, still taking it all in. No one saw him or felt his presence, as he was partially faded out of normal space-time. He was trying to find a door to the back offices of the Society building, somewhere he could take off his mask.

"What I need ma'am, is information on the events of the day, everything that has happened all over the city, from police reports, to news casts. And I need everything you can give me about the bad guys we've faced so far. Oh, and I could use a quiet room to use."
 
Impulse

Before. [Upon the bus ride over]

The Kids. Boys. Boys, and girls. A whole, boatload -- nahh, busload -- of them. With one super, heroic. Caretaker, in. Charge. Oh. And, Bart. Somewhere. In the midst, of it all! It promised, for. One. Heck. Of an, interesting. Ride...

The bus heaved onward, from one street. To the next...

..and Bart, for the life of himself. Still couldn't, sit. Still. He just had, to. 'Check in', with the. Each, and every. The one, of the. Children. Back and forth. Up and down. Left and right. Tending, maybe. Not only to them. But more probably, to. His curiosity.

"Toldja it's 'im." declared one boy. Head turned, looking over the seat. Hand atop of, it. Confident.

"...that's not The Flash. He's our driver!" responded another. Shaking his head. Not looking up, from his. Android phone. Unimpressed.

"Yeah, well...he's FAST! How you gonna explain that?" he smirked, at his. Peer.

"Look, it doe.s....n't..........um......" his voice, trailing off. When they both, realized. Bart was, seated. Right next. To the second, boy. "...matter?.......uhh....hello?"

Bart's yellows, were. Caught, twinkling. Staring at the, smart phone device. It must, have. Sensed its audience, because....

Droooiiiidddd!

Mouth. Agape. ".........."

And then, he spent the. Following, one hundred. And eighty, seconds. Firing off, questions. About it, to the boys(even as they might have, had some of their own...for him).
"Was'at?"
"Was'it do?"
"HowHow come?"
"CanYouCanYou...CanYouMakeIt...dothe....the...soundsoundsound 'gain?"
"CaniTouchit? CaniHoldit? CaniCaniCani?"

...at one point, he was so. Thrilled, albeit not. Completely understanding, he. Zipped on. Up, to the very front. Wherein Barry was, behind the. Steering wheel. And proudly, displayed for him. The Android. As if, he'd won. First prize, at some. Prestigious contest, some. Thing special...

A Robin action figure.
A Nintendo 3DS.
A Magic The Gathering TGC pack.

Each time, the. Every. Single. Time. He enthusiastically, bolted. Instantly. To show, Barry. As. As if, the individual. His caretaker. The Crimson One, himself. Had never, seen. Nor heard, of such. Trivial items. Or was, it. About the experience? Never-the-less, the kids. And Bart, appeared. To be getting along, just. Fine. His antics, certainly. Entertaining, to them. And he, obviously. Beside himself, beyond. Himself, at. All the new. Never-before-seen. Trinkets, and toys. Wonders, that they all. Beheld!

Though, by the. End. Bart's poor little, gas. Tank, hit. Empty. Somewhere, in there. He ended up. Passing out, in one. Of the seats. His snoring, the tell tale. Sign....
========================================================================
Arrival. [At the Justice Society Headquarters]

The brakes, of the. School bus, screeched. Stopping, as The Flash. Parked the vehicle. Successfully transporting, everyone. Back to safety. The notion -- and movement, in itself(along with a friendly poke, from a neighboring kid) -- woke, up. Bart. From his power napping...

Lifting his visor, and rubbing. The sleepy, out of. His eyes.

"You did your best. Thank you." Bart glanced up, and over. To Barry, whom was. Watching him. And speaking to him. "You definitely need some work, cut out the Impulse control issues a bit, but one day kid, you could be a hero."

BlinkBlinkBlink's. His lemon colored, irises. Searching all, of. His mentor's face!

Impulse.
hero.

"...MeMeMe? LikeReallyReal? ForRealReally?" he gushed on.

Smiling, the older man nodded. To the youth, before him, "Let's get you back in. Guessing your starving. I know I am. Pizza or Tacos?"

Gurrrrrrrgggglllleee. GRUMBLE!

"OhOhOh! i-i-i...YumYumYum...ExtraCheeseExtraMeat's....ExtraExtraExtra Breadsticks?" he griiiiiiiiiiiiinnn'ed, enthusiastically. HopHopHopp'ing the, up. Up and Down. 'Round and 'round. What was not, to be. Excited for?
========================================================================
Inside. After the food, was...picked up.

The youth, sort of. On a casual. Leisure-like, discovery. Of sorts. Pizza box, in one. Hand. Big glass, full of. Cherry Pepsi, his. Other. Not too long, he stumbled. Upon the Library. Where the group, of children. Were.

To which, he. Sported suuuuuuuuuuuper-bigggggggg-smiiiiiiillles, for. All! And even, shared a slice. Or two, of. His pizza. Numm'ing on, some. Of the extra. Cheese, himself. Never able. To fully, sate. Himself of the, spectacular. Dairy product. Melted with sausage, and. Hamburger, atop...

"Did I mention that I do gymnastics? Also, I have a friend, see he grew up in the circus. So he taught me how to make balloon animals. Who wants one?" A female individual's voice, rang. Out. Addressing everyone, in the room. It was enough, to. Stop. Bart. In his tracks.

He turned.
He gazed.
He saw.

...and he, dropped. The pizza box, entirely. Was it, the lady? Whomever she was? Noooo. She. She. She was, gesticulating. With her, hands. Fingers, moving. Fast. And then, some. Shape. Some, animal. Was created!

BlinkBlinkBlink! Whoaaaaaaaaa.....

"............" he found himself, too. Flabbergasted. Too awestruck. Too engrossed, to. Raise his hand. For her, to. Also. Make him, err....create him, something. Anything. With those, magic hands. Of hers.

Seeing Stars!
========================================================================
When the auburn, haired. Lady, left. He was, able. To scrounge. Up, several. Of the balloon, things. She had, in her. Possession. That she, must have. Dropped. And he tried.

BLOWblowBLOWblowBLOWWW'ing air, into. The balloon, just as. He could, have. Sworn, she did. Only, each. Only, every. Only, all. The. Time. The same thing. Happened. For him.

POP!
POP!
POP!
POP!
POP!
POP!

5X6=??

What was, he. Doing wrong? Why wasn't, it. Working? Flustered, and. Befuddled. He picked up. His food, and drink. And wandered, out. Of the Library....
========================================================================
"Hey mister, do you know how to make a balloon animal?" Bart froze, as he. Heard, one of. The kids. A girl. Asking that, question. Where though? Was it, from. Behind a door?

*FFFFSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooooooooosssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh*

Doh. Left the soda, back. There!

*FFFFSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooooooooosssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh*

Now then. Where, was this--

"Sure." came the response. From a male, individual.

!!

*FFFFSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooooooooosssssssssshhhhhhhhhhh*

Unfortunately, by the time. He reached the, person. Another balloon, animal. Was being, handed. Out. One to, the. Girl -- presumably, the one that asked for it. With a smile, the. Man, whom. Bart didn't, know. Turned away, from. His now, very. Happy customer. And exited, the building. Through a door.

Ga-asp. Droop, of....shoulders?

W-wasn't...there...anyone. That could, help. Make HIM, a. A. A magical, balloon. Animal?

Sadness.

He sippppppp'ed on, his. Cherry beverage. As little, to. No consolation. Whilst, shoving a breadstick. Between his teeth.

MmmmmmMmmmmm's!

Just needed, some. Pep, in that. Step...
========================================================================
Losing his, sense. Of navigation. Bart reached, for. Another door, and turned. The handle. Opening it...

"Just...sorry. I made a mistake. I'll have a word with the society once the kids are gone." spoke a female individual.

When he entered, and made. Eyes, and. Face-to-face. With the lady. The one, from. Before. From the Library. The redhead. He hadn't, caught. Her name. (not that he, would probably...have...retained it though!) But. But. But she, was. HERE.

His face lit, up. With pure joy. He smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiled, all. Happily. To this person. And to boot? He even, saw. The other, teenager. In the room, as well. His...friend. The blond archer, in green. Threads!

With a griiiiiiiiiiiin, as. As big, as one. His physical self, would. Allow it. He ziiiiiiiiiiiiipp'ed, over. To the blond archer. And waving. Laughing. Offered her, quckly. A slice, of his. Super, yummy. Super, delicious. Still, probably. Warm pizza! And after she, accepted(if in fact she did), he. Dassssssssssssh'ed, back. To the auburn haired, lady. Extending the same, offer.

Obviously, it was. Pure happenstance. That Bart, even. Found this, room. Let alone, either one of. Them. The both, in here. Together. They of course, might have been. Having a private. Moment, of. Conversation. He, himself. Felt so....gosh. Darn, happy. So fortunate. So reeeeeeeeelieved. He couldn't stop, expressing this. On his, face!

Until...

...setting the, close. To empty, pizza box. Down. He reached, into a pocket. And produced. Not one. Nor two. But SIX popped, balloons. Momentarily, once more.

Sadness.
Drooped shoulders.
Confusion.

His yellows, reached out. To the woman, before him. Pleading. "iWantedOne, iWantedOne, EveryOneEveryOne...GotOneButMe...pleasepleaseplease?"

It was, a mighty. Fine line. Betwixt. Sad. Sad, and. Hopeful. One moment, to. The next. But....one must. Ask oneself. What would one, do. For a 'magical', balloon. Animal?
========================================================================
 
Reyes-ing Heck. (Felicity)

Nevyn_Black said:
He triggered his subvocal communications network and tapped into the Society secure channel. There was a minute pressure change.

"Mrs. Smoak? This is the Blue Beetle. I understand you might be busy with personal matters right now, but if you could spare a little time, I might be able to help us all out a little. I sure would appreciate it ma'am."
Click to expand...

Felicity had just gotten back to her keyboard when the signal came in-- an algorithm translated the subvocal chatter into sound in Blue Beetle's voiceprint, technology evolved from copying Sara Lance's voiceprint to mask Laurel's about a decade ago. Felicity could hear him in her earpiece as perfectly normal, but talk-to-text from the subvocal channel also popped up n a window on her screen.

Having absolutely zero capacity to speak subvocally, Felicity typed back to him instead-- and, in turn, her typing could appear on Beetle's internal HUD if Khaji Da opted to put it there, but text-to-talk software would also translate Felicity's typography into her voiceprint audio if Jaime wanted that as well.

@SmoakonTheWater: It's "Miz," actually. "Ms. Smoak." I never could bring myself to call myself "Mrs. Queen" after Moira-- uh. What can I do for you?

Nevyn_Black said:
"What I need ma'am, is information on the events of the day, everything that has happened all over the city, from police reports, to news casts. And I need everything you can give me about the bad guys we've faced so far. Oh, and I could use a quiet room to use."
Click to expand...

@SmoakonTheWater: Yeah, I can arrange a wholesale info-dump. I mean, you don't need my help parsing data, your little buggy buddy probably has more processing power than every Cray on the planet combined.

@SmoakonTheWater: But I could help you narrow it down a little? What sort of thing were you looking for in particular?

@SmoakonTheWater: Also-- we can just skip the honorifics, okay? None of this "ma'am" stuff, I feel old enough as it is. "Felicity" is fine. At least until I get a real codename.

@SmoakonTheWater: I don't see you on the floorplan, are you cloaked? Anyway, the second floor northwest corner has a dojo that's often used for meditation, no-one's in there right now. Elevator should be just down the hall from you... I think?
 
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Barbed Arrows. (Artemis)

Artemis hesitated. "Wait, you hacked whose computer? Felicity's? Oh, man, you got bigger problems than me right now. Shit, yeah, 'violation of trust,' but I don't care what your chops are as an infojock she'll corrupt files you didn't even know you had, say goodbye to that Dora the Explorer limited edition digital watch, hope you didn't catch too many Pokémon."

Lunaramblings said:
Barbara giggled a little. Despite herself. "Not hers. HIS. Sorry. He was keeping secrets. I don't like secrets."
Click to expand...

"Nah," Artemis scoffed. "I guess that's self-evident. But there's a time and a place."

*******​

Artemis quieted. Her knuckles were still white and tight, but the peak of her considerable fury had passed them by, and they dwelt in the eye of the hurricane. "These have been the best years of my life. I couldn't call Arrow a father, but he's been a better damn older sibling than my sister ever was. And my-- real dad-- I'm assuming you violated that trust, too-- he comes back after me in Star City, he's gonna find me with a whole new support system, and I bet you he won't like that at all."

Lunaramblings said:
I didn't read your whole file. Just got a name. But I put two and two together. I just wanted to reach out. I swear." Babs did a quick cross of her heart with her yellow gloved hand, inadvertently crossing the bat as well.
Click to expand...

"Yeah," Artemis ran her tongue around her teeth, she couldn't ignore how potent that imagery was, like Batman himself growling Don't swear to God, swear to me, "One look at my last name, it doesn't take training from The World's Greatest Detective to figure that out. And I've stepped on my share of toes enough to know-- reaching out works better if you let the other person meet you in the middle instead of just lunging and snagging."

********​

"How would I?" Artemis replied coolly to that, not threatening to erupt but stating logic with a hint of a growl. "Being scared to death that people would uncover my secrets didn't give me a lot of time to disrespect yours."

Lunaramblings said:
Barbara continued to look serenely, but inside her heart creaked a little knowing she had hurt the girl... woman, that she had hoped to befriend.
Click to expand...

********​

"Two for one deal on treading on toes today," Artemis noted sardonically, "one-time promotional offer. He ain't unpretty, but his plus-one kinda squicks me more than a little. Beetle's, too, but that's a whole 'nother thing."

Lunaramblings said:
Babs nodded, "Yeah, I tried dating heroes for a bit. It is easier than dating no heroes, but still, so many secrets and everything. Me and Nightwing were pretty serious for awhile, but that fell apart."
Click to expand...

"So," Artemis deadpanned, "you're saying he's single."

********​

Slowly, warily, Artemis accepted the device, and scrutinized it. She could have Felicity look it over, of course, make sure it wasn't bugged or trapped or anything. But this was still pretty cool. "My own Bat-Signal."

Artemis continued to stare thoughtfully at the device in her hand, and then glanced up again at Batgirl. "Look. You should talk to The Arrow before you go. Maybe we're all full up on multi-tasking, maybe we're not. He's the guy who would know. Knowing him he'll pull through on some Han Solo luck, or on a Justice Society miracle-- you should talk to him."

Lunaramblings said:
Babs nodded again. Feeling a little humbled. Yeah, I guess so. Can't hurt."
Click to expand...

"You said-- once a part of the family-- well, I'm not a part of your family. I'm a part of his."

"But there's no goddamn reason our families can't look out for each other. Provided we can trust each other. All right?"

Lunaramblings said:
Barbara smiled, "Listen, Batman, well he has engendered this whole trust no one thing. He doesn't trust anyone. He expects us to do the same. It takes a lot to get him to accept you. But he does accept you. He wanted me to make sure things were going okay here. He would never admit it, but he has a lot of respect for what Arrow and the rest did. And yeah, know that anytime you need it, you have backup. I do apologize for violating your trust. I should have done it this way in the first place. I hope we can move past it. There is a beacon in the device I gave you. Leads to a back up Batcave in Star City. He has them everywhere. If you ever need anything, its there. Has a beacon in there that you can activate to call for help too. Not that you would need it. I mean, I get it, you have this new life. Sorry I brought up the old one."
Click to expand...

Artemis was quiet a long moment after that, and then: "I feel like he only trusts people when he's got their number, and he's got mine cold."

"But apologies," Artemis then murmured quietly, shaking her head. "Never gonna handle it well when people dick me over. But apologies are new. They're nice."

"And so's backup."

She smirked. "But yeah. Not that I'd ever need it."

Artemis gave a quick twitch of her head, her ponytail wafting as she did so. "I'd demand that you promise never to pull this shit again, but you kind of went big. Cat-- bag-- you know? Just-- just pay it forward, you know? There's better ways to make friends than showing up in someone's house saying I Know Who You Are. That's your Bossman's routine, and just because you wear him on your heart doesn't mean you've gotta lockstep his dance-numbers."

Lunaramblings said:
Barbara pulls back the cowl and tucks it into her suit. She slips her jacket back on and puts the gloves in the pockets. Just...sorry. I made a mistake. I'll have a word with the society once the kids are gone." With her costume safely stowed under her civvies she heads for the door.
Click to expand...

Lachiyous said:
When he entered, and made. Eyes, and. Face-to-face. With the lady. The one, from. Before. From the Library. The redhead. He hadn't, caught. Her name. (not that he, would probably...have...retained it though!) But. But. But she, was. HERE.

His face lit, up. With pure joy. He smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiled, all. Happily. To this person. And to boot? He even, saw. The other, teenager. In the room, as well. His...friend. The blond archer, in green. Threads!

With a griiiiiiiiiiiin, as. As big, as one. His physical self, would. Allow it. He ziiiiiiiiiiiiipp'ed, over. To the blond archer. And waving. Laughing. Offered her, quckly. A slice, of his. Super, yummy. Super, delicious. Still, probably. Warm pizza!
Click to expand...

She stared at Bart, startled at his presence. It was easy to lose track of him, despite how much larger than life he was-- he flitted about so often it was easy to lose "object permanence" on the kid, like out of sight and out of mind.

(Of course, whether he was out of his mind, the jury was still out.)

But then he was standing next to her with a slice of 'za and-- and what was it with people offering her food today? First the Martian offered her a cookie, and now this? It would be rude to refuse, wouldn't it? ...food was super-important to speedsters on account of the metabolism, so, an offer of foodstuffs must mean--

--not to read too deep into it.

"Thanks," she nodded to him, still on her back foot, and picked up one slice by the crust.

And took a bite.

Lachiyous said:
And after she, accepted(if in fact she did), he. Dassssssssssssh'ed, back. To the auburn haired, lady. Extending the same, offer.

Obviously, it was. Pure happenstance. That Bart, even. Found this, room. Let alone, either one of. Them. The both, in here. Together. They of course, might have been. Having a private. Moment, of. Conversation. He, himself. Felt so....gosh. Darn, happy. So fortunate. So reeeeeeeeelieved. He couldn't stop, expressing this. On his, face!

Until...

...setting the, close. To empty, pizza box. Down. He reached, into a pocket. And produced. Not one. Nor two. But SIX popped, balloons. Momentarily, once more.

Sadness.
Drooped shoulders.
Confusion.

His yellows, reached out. To the woman, before him. Pleading. "iWantedOne, iWantedOne, EveryOneEveryOne...GotOneButMe...pleasepleaseplease?"

It was, a mighty. Fine line. Betwixt. Sad. Sad, and. Hopeful. One moment, to. The next. But....one must. Ask oneself. What would one, do. For a 'magical', balloon. Animal?
Click to expand...

Artemis couldn't help but grin at this, and swallowed her mouthful of actually-not-bad pizza.

"See, this here's a perfect example of reaching out and then letting the other person bring it the rest of the way. Go on, show the kid what we've learned today."
 
Last edited:
Babs was a little taken off guard when the speedster kid appeared. She had met Barry a few times. Was sort of okay with the whole there not there thing. Hell Bruce did that without super powers. But she still was caught off guard.

His yellows, reached out. To the woman, before him. Pleading. "iWantedOne, iWantedOne, EveryOneEveryOne...GotOneButMe...pleasepleaseplease?"

It was, a mighty. Fine line. Betwixt. Sad. Sad, and. Hopeful. One moment, to. The next. But....one must. Ask oneself. What would one, do. For a 'magical', balloon. Animal?

As Artemis ribbed her she couldn't help but smile. She fished in her pocket and pulled the balloons and the small pump out. She deftly chose a handful of different balloons. She smiles at him and begins blowing up the balloons. "Since I missed you before, lets say I do something really special for you. Watch. I'm gonna go slow. And when I leave later, I will leave you some and you can try." Babs began making twists and turns, quickly the balloons took shape and soon she was handing it over to her new admirer. "Hope you like Dinosaurs. She quickly drew a pen from seemingly nowhere and dotted the eyes as she handed it over.
 
Barbs and Archers: Not just a strategy for "Clash of Clans." (Artemis)

Amazed at the skill and speed with with Babs-- Batgirl-- manipulated the fragile plastic without popping it-- Artemis couldn't help but think that Batgirl would be simply unstoppable using aikido or other soft arts.

All the same, someone had to keep an eye on those kids while Batgirl reenacted "Land Before Time" for Billy Whiz, and with a rueful dash of chagrin, Artemis realized that might well be her.

Picking a bit of mozzarella out of her teeth with a fingernail, Artemis sauntered past Bart and Babs and moved back out into the room with the kids.

"You two play nice now."

"I'm gonna see if these tykes'll put up with an unintentional mash-up of Baa-Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle, and A-B-C-D."
 
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Rock on.

:::Meanwhile, at the Rock of Eternity:::​

The two new heroes appeared from nowhere, holding a very hurt Martian. The Wizard sat on his chair staring angrily at the two.

"Why bring that one here? You should have allowed the one they call Mid-Nite to take him."

"You did this. You gave us these powers. And I told you, promised, that we would use them to do the best we could. Now, can you heal him. He is a friend of a friend. And he is hurt."

The Wizard rose, seeming to almost float to the two as they held him. "And what would you tell him? Who are you?"

"Well, you said that we would be a Marvel to the human world. So I guess that's what I will call myself. Marvel. No, wait, Captain Marvel! And you can be... what was it you used to want to change your name to in third grade? Oh! Right, MARY! Mary Marvel!"

"Why do you get the title and I just get a name? Whatever. I kinda like it. Fine. Captain Marvel. Nice. I guess Mary Marvel will be pretty cool. Ok. So, satisfied? Think you can heal him now?"

The Wizard glared at the children. Perhaps the beggar had been correct. Perhaps this was too much to expect children to handle. But they were the only beings pure of heart that he had been able to find. And it was time. Too much was happening. There needed to be a force to protect the good. A force to bear the power of the Ancients. Without the power of of SHAZAM inhabiting a human host, the world would be in great danger when the Darkness returned. The Beggar stopped it once. But now a new force was coming. A force more ancient than anything the Wizard had known. They would have to do.

"Fine. I can assist him. By the Blessing of Apollo, be healed J'onn J'onnz, The Manhunter of Mars!" The Wizard raises his hand, white light envelopes the Martian. And in a moment his wounds are gone. The Wizard gestures to the champions to go before disappearing.

As he awakes, J'onn looks up to the heroes who had brought him here. "While your minds are now shared with the minds of others. I still sense a familiarity. But he prevents me from finding the true you. You saved me. For that I thank you. I can sense a very fractured persona within you both. One that is using your true minds to hold together. Beware. This is a dangerous game. You are holding a great deal of power. Power that may be more than you can handle."

Mary Marvel smiles. She had always been a little afraid of J'onn. But now, she realized that he was a truly good man. The Wisdom she held told her. For if he had not been, then he would not have been healed. Your right. And sometime, you will have the knowledge you seek. But for now, you must go back. Tell your friends that the children they seek will arrive home soon." Mary waves her hand and summons forth a doorway. Through which can be seen the lobby of the Justice Society Brownstone.

"I take that you know more than I can read. So be it. I will deliver this." The Manhunter stands. Stretching to his full height and moving toward the doorway. "Thank you again for your help. I believe that I can trust you. Though I know not why." He walks through the door and as he does so the portal ceases to exist.

J'onn walks to the front door, opening it just as Lance tries to knock. Behind him the street is full of unmarked cars, carrying many families to retrieve their children.

"Welcome. Let us reunite these families."

Babs had just finish her millionth balloon animal when the doors open and the Manhunter leads the families in. The kids scramble to dive into the waiting arms of their kin. All except one older woman. Ma Hunkel. Her eyes are wet as she surveys the room and realizes Billy is not there. J'onn reaches out and gently addresses the matron.

"I have word that your Billy will be home quite soon. You must simply have faith and trust."
 
ChasNicollette said:
@SmoakonTheWater: It's "Miz," actually. "Ms. Smoak." I never could bring myself to call myself "Mrs. Queen" after Moira-- uh. What can I do for you?
Click to expand...

"What I need ma'am, is information on the events of the day, everything that has happened all over the city, from police reports, to news casts. And I need everything you can give me about the bad guys we've faced so far. Oh, and I could use a quiet room to use."

ChasNicollette said:
@SmoakonTheWater: Yeah, I can arrange a wholesale info-dump. I mean, you don't need my help parsing data, your little buggy buddy probably has more processing power than every Cray on the planet combined.
Click to expand...

The text rolled up on his HUD overlay as any chat box would on a computer screen, but this was all transparent so that he could still see the 360 degree surround of his environment. The words were red to draw his attention to them.

ChasNicollette said:
@SmoakonTheWater: But I could help you narrow it down a little? What sort of thing were you looking for in particular?

@SmoakonTheWater: Also-- we can just skip the honorifics, okay? None of this "ma'am" stuff, I feel old enough as it is. "Felicity" is fine. At least until I get a real codename.
Click to expand...

Jaime smiled a little at this.

ChasNicollette said:
@SmoakonTheWater: I don't see you on the floorplan, are you cloaked? Anyway, the second floor northwest corner has a dojo that's often used for meditation, no-one's in there right now. Elevator should be just down the hall from you... I think?
Click to expand...

Jaime followed her directions and ducked into the elevator, taking the time to let the armor slip back into his body, revealing his street clothes, consisting of jeans, hiking boots and a charcoal gray hoodie. Jaime let out a deep sigh and wiped his brow, which was slightly sweaty. No matter how often he was told that the suit never got hot or cold, he still felt confined when he spent long periods inside it.

Slipping into the Dojo, Jaime at last relaxed completely, away from people.

"Felicity, call me Jaime. As for what I'm looking for...that's a little complicated."

Jaime began pacing casually about the edges of the mat, gesturing with his hands, knowing Felicity would now be able to watch him on whatever hidden cams and monitoring systems the building had. As he paced, he tried to explain.

"One thing we can all understand is that this whole situation with the children was a big game. Our attention has been focused away from something that the enemy doesn't want us to notice.

Jaime bent down and untied his boots, kicking them off and setting them aside, by the door. He walked onto the cool mat and paced slowly in circles, talking to Felicity, and thinking out loud.

"What our enemy might not understand, is that the more complex the plan, the more elements of the person who comes up with it, will be incorporated into the plan. And this is a very complex plan, you don't build or create trans-dimensional hubs-or magical portals- easily or cheaply.

Jaime shrugged out of his hoodie, revealing a gray FBI T-shirt underneath.

"Whoever this is, they are like a chessmaster who can see five steps ahead. A strategic thinker. Strategic thinkers tend to have very strong, colorful personalities. Like your husband as an example. He's a very strategic thinker, and you can see parts of his mind within the plans that he devises. For instance, the color green, it's obviously an important symbol for him, he uses it everywhere. That's the sort of thing we're looking for...the patterns that recur. If we can find enough of them, I think I can put together a psychological profile on the person behind all of this."

Jaime stops, his expression grim. "And I think we should hurry. Because at the risk of overusing the chess analogy, I think we just might be in Check."
 
Down Among the Gingerbread Men, Part I. (Vixen)

October 14, 2015
7 PM
********​

The flight to Keystone-Central had been an uneventful one, but Mari McCabe always felt claustrophobic on planes, now.

But over long distances, it was either that or fly herself, and even taking on the migratory endurance of Canada geese such a long trip would take days and do a number on her shoulders. I've just flown in from Chelsea, and boy are my armstired!

So thus she had come to The Fairfax Museum of History and Mythology.

She stood at the foot of a statue of a dragon, said to be the remnants of a lost civilization known as "Skartaris," and idly fingered her fox-head necklace-- before she suddenly remembered that touching it when she didn't mean it could be a bad scene and she let it go in a hurry.

At that moment, a dark-haired woman with a thin dusting of freckles and a pleasantly-gaptoothed smile hurried up to her.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she apologized profusely, holding out her hand, "bit of an argument with a shipping company, we've had trouble with them for almost two years now-- I'm Ceri Grant."

"Totally fine," Mari promised. "Good to meet you. I'm Mari McCabe."

The Welshwoman nodded easily. "'McCabe.' Scots, isn't it? Irish?"

Mari smiled faintly. "Irish, sort of. My paternal great-grandparents were Jews in Germany about seventy years ago, and an Irishman helped them adopt identities in his family in order to escape. Kept the name ever since."

"A fitting tribute to a brave fellow," Ceri nodded gently. "But I'm sorry for your family's pain. My own grandmother told me stories of The Cardiff Blitz, but that's not nearly the same thing."

"It's okay," Mari promised, though there was a dark pain just behind the mahogany of her eyes, a pain that still burned fresh in her heart. "My family has a history of getting out of Dodge."

Some of it more recent than others, she didn't add.

Ceri hesitated, and then her eyes locked onto the pendant. "Oh! Oh. Is this-- may I?"

Mari reached up to unhook her necklace and nodded as she did so. "It belonged to my mother. I think it she inherited it from her ancestors, village shamans in Ghana? But she never did get to tell me about its history before she died."

Dr. Grant caressed the pendant, laying it reverently across her palm and gazing at it quietly. "...and what a history. If this is what I think it is... you said her side of the family was from Ghana?"

"By way of Nigeria, yeah," Mari confirmed.

"The legend of The Trickster has taken many forms, appropriately enough," Ceri murmured, peering down at the fox-head and stroking it gently. "Coyote, Rabbit, Cat, on and on, Fox, definitely, though oddly there's no species of fox native to West Africa that I know of. That might've been part of his joke-- in Ghana, the Trickster and Storyteller is Kwaku Ananse, The Spider-Man."

"There's a legend of a warrior named Tantu who sought to keep his village safe from predators both man and beast, and he thought to do so using the power of those beasts. So he beseeched Ananse, who with his cunning and trickery had bested every creature under the sun, sometimes robbing them of their gifts in the process, sometimes bestowing them-- he asked for a boon that would give him those animal gifts at a touch, so long as he and his inheritors would use it to protect the innocent."

Ceri shook her head slightly. "But it didn't work. For whatever reason-- maybe Ananse was just toying with Tantu for a lark, or maybe Tantu's home village wasn't as 'innocent' as Tantu thought, enough so that the totem refused to 'kick in'-- it didn't work. But Tantu-- or so the legend says-- still wore it as a badge of courage, never giving up his oath to keep safe people who needed it, even if all he had was the power of one man. And so his bloodline kept it sacred, passing it down, holding true to that oath. All the way down, apparently, to you."

Hesitating, Dr. Grant glanced up at Mari, offered the pendant back to her. "I'm-- I'm certain it's authentic. We'd have to test it, though, f you wanted it officially appraised-- if you ever wanted to donate it-- or--" Ceri winced at this "--auction it off--"

"It's authentic," Mari promised ruefully, accepting The Tantu Totem back and putting it back on around her neck, "trust me on that. But there's no way I'm selling it. Even if my parents didn't leave me a chunk of change, even if I didn't have a photoshoot a few months ago for Neil Richards that made a spread in Newstime London-- this is important."

She paused, considered. "But I'll make sure to leave it to The Fairfax Foundation in my will if I don't have any kids."

"That's very generous of you," Ceri beamed gratefully, her hands still trembling a little at having been so close to the stuff of legend-- she laced her fingers together to steady them. "We'd be honored."

After a brief further discussion of Ananse myths, Ceri and Mari traded business cards, and they parted ways.

Ceri stood there for a moment by The Stone Dragon of Lost Skartaris, hands resting on her lower back, and she shook her head.

"A magical artifact that gives you powers when you touch it," Ceri murmured softly, before heading back to where her daughter waited for her in the break-room. "May wonders never cease."
 
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"To Glory," by Two Steps From Hell. (Rose)

"It's him," Rose murmured, a dusty family album open in her lap.

"I-- I didn't recognize him, 'coz he's-- older-- so many more lines on his face-- and I was so-- I couldn't get traction on the context--" she glanced up at Robby as he handed her a mug of warm lemonade tea, holding his own cup close to his chest.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Robby admitted. "Listen, I tried Skyping your mom, no answer, but that's no big surprise considering how spotty her internet connection has been."

"Yeah," Rose mumbled, sipping her tea where she sat on the couch and gazing across the room at her-- her father. "Like certain other conversations, this one might be better done in person."

He'd been dead and gone for practically all twenty-plus years of her existence and now there he was.

On his belly, across the room, making little chirrupy noises and twitching his fingers at Captain Jack the Cat, trying to coax him out and make friends.

Jack was having none of it, though. This was not especially surprising, given Jack's usual cowardice around strangers-- but the sight of the tall red-haired man prostrate on the floor was still an odd one.

Rose hesitated: "Dad. You were-- you were dead. Where'd you go?"

Chris Grant glanced up at her, and smiled a languid, distant smile. "Heaven." Then he paused. "Well, not really. But by some definitions."

His blue eyes went away for a long moment, and he murmured: "And like in some Heavens-- there was a war."

As Robby sat beside Rose on the couch, Chris sat himself up on the floor, wrists draped over knees lightly-bent, and began: "9/11. I was in New York when the planes crashed into The Towers. But when that happened-- when that happened my life changed. My phone was in my hand, my old Nokia-- well, I'd only had it like a month at that point, but it's old now. And it changed. Not on the outside, but-- all the letters on it changed, the letters on the keypad turned into this incomprehensible alphabet that I could still-- somehow-- comprehend-- all the alphanumerics on the screen. It became indestructible, or so it seemed, and the battery never died-- but the signal was just gone. I could be right next to a tower and not get a single bar."

He pursed his lips, twitched his head. "I'm a little ashamed to admit that I became obsessed. Your mother and I-- we were big on looking for things, for symbols that could inspire the world to be a better place. And I knew-- I knew-- in my heart of hearts, balls to bones, that something had happened to my phone that made it one of those things. But I needed to understand what it was. Why. I needed this like I needed air."

"More than you needed me and Mum?" Rose croaked a bit, her eyes red-rimmed.

Chris met his daughter's gaze and looked haunted. "I certainly thought so at the time. I know that makes me-- a terrible father-- but I was-- I was trying to save the world. Make it the-- the way it's supposed to be. And sometimes to carry something off that huge, sometimes you've got to make sacrifices. And I'm sorry. I'm-- I'm really sorry."

His haunted expression turned inward. "I walked the world. I went-- everywhere in search of-- answers. Qurac, Kahndaq, Bialya, Vlatava, Pokolistan, Bhutran-- even chased down the monks of legendary Shamballa itself-- none of them could help me. I searched for gurus that studied the ways of mysticism mixed with telephony, I found this backwards little church in Paris, and the cleric there gave me coordinates for a abandoned outpost of Atlantis, an underwater temple-- but all of it was dead ends, red herrings, all of it was for nothing."

"Mister Grant," Robby mused slowly, holding Rose's hand tightly, "I can-- I can understand the need to follow after epiphany. The number of times as a kid I went sleepless for a week at a time looking for an elusive bit of programming code or a scrap of data-- genius is a blessing, but it's just as often a burden-- but even after all that, why couldn't you go home?"

"I almost did," Chris admitted. "But then, as I was standing at a battered old payphone in St. Roch, my last handful of coins in my hand, half-drunk and the other half mad..."

He took his phone out of his pocket, flipped it open, held it up. "I got a text message. On a phone that hadn't had a signal for twelve years and two months to the day. December 11, 2013."

Robby and Rose shot each other a look, knowing exactly what that day was, what that night had been.

The particle accelerator. The beginning.

"It said, 'You are ready.'"

"And then it rang."

"When I answered, a J-Dial unlocked on my phone just as it did when you called me. And I went-- away."

"Much."

"Further."

"Away."
 
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Down Among the Gingerbread Men, Part II. (Vixen)

October 14, 2015
8PM​
********​

Head spinning, whirling like her equilibrium was shot to Kingdom Come, Mari walked through Keystone City like she'd been moonstruck.

Mom said she wore this necklace but she stopped when it started talking.

December, what, two years ago? 2013? Nearly two years ago.

That's when it started working. Only she didn't recognize it for what it was, .

If she'd been wearing it the night they were attacked-- she and dad might be alive now.

If I'd been wearing it the night the school was attacked-- I could have saved those girls. Some of them. Maybe even all of them.

A little cheetah speed, a little gorilla strength--

Ugh. Ugh. What might have been.

God-- God dammit, Mom! Why'd you have to-- why'd you--

--why'd they have to--

--suddenly Mari realized she had fallen to her knees, her designer jeans ruined, her palms scraped, tears blurring her vision, and she had no idea how long she had been there. Dragging herself to her feet, she wiped her face on the sleeve of her jacket and looked around, expecting that people would be staring, pointing, laughing, taking cellphone video--

But no-one had even noticed her.

What few passerby were still out in the open on the streets were staring across the street--

--one of those storage-locker places, climate controlled, big parking lot. And there were a bunch of box trucks and pick-ups and other vehicles parked in the lot-- and there were a lot of angry people.

Black people gathered around the storage lockers, around the vehicles-- it looked like a lot of them were family to each other. And this guy in a tracksuit, this white guy with some kind of Eastern European accent-- Baltic? --he was having an argument with a tall, broad-shouldered member of this black family-looking group.

He was using the N-word a lot. And a serious stream of Islamophobic vitriol.

Mari narrowed her eyes. She had had Jewish influence on her life, though her spirituality was largely "undeclared" at this point, and most of the girls she had gone to school with in Nigeria had been Christian. She had been attacked by Muslim terrorist hardliners. But she wasn't an asshole. She didn't blame these Muslims for what had happened to her-- even if they were Muslims, and this wasn't just another layer of prejudice from the guy in the tracksuit.

"You can't just kick us out," protested the big guy. "Can't just raise the rent. We've been loyal customers for months-- and we got no other place to go. After the Flashpoint--"

"Don't talk to me about Flashpoint, [racial slur]," tracksuit snarled. "You were refugees when you moved to Central from whatever [racial slur] country, now you're goddamn refugees from the Flashpoint, you know how it is. Not enough housing to go around. So either I make more money off of renting storage space-- or I kick 'all y'all' out on your [Islamophobia] asses and I bulldoze the place and build some cheap-ass apartment buildings that people'll pay out the ass for. Either way-- you can't pay-- you gone, baby."

"We'll find a way, then," the big guy insisted, looking pained. "We just need a little longer to get our feet under us."

Tracksuit sneered, and backed off, pointing finger-guns at the big guy, apparently the de facto leader of this makeshift refugee community: "Oh, you get your feet under you all right, you get them moving. One way, or the other. Probably the other."

And then he turned and he sauntered out through the facility's chain-link gate, slamming it behind him but not bothering to lock it. He started whistling to himself as he sauntered off, that sneer still on his face.

Hurrying across the street and ducking through the loosely-latched gate, Mari approached the big guy as he attempted to console a couple of older women in the group who had started to cry pitiful hopeless tears.

"What a dick, huh?" Mari attempted to strike the right sympathetic chord-- if she got it wrong, he might turn on her in his frustration, and that was the opposite of what she wanted.

"Used to be this was a nice town," the big guy bemoaned, turning to look at her with big sad eyes. "The Flash showed up and everyone in Central and Keystone got a little bit nicer, rallying with their hero against the supervillains. But then the--" he gestured helplessly in the general direction of neighboring, half-destroyed Central City "--thing happened, drove so many people across the bridge into Keystone in the evacuation. The dick is right-- the city is cramped, there is not enough room to go around. There is no place for us anymore. If there ever even was."

Shaking her head furiously, Mari reached out and gently touched the man's arm, her expression grim. "Hey. You listen to me, pal. Last I checked, this was still The United States of America, and I don't care what the racist, xenophobic, theocratic police state says, there's a place here for everyone."

"That sounds like a fascinating discussion to have over a nice glass of white wine," a thunderously deep voice boomed from behind her, and a moan of terror fluttered through the knot of refugees as the big guy's eyes widened in worry and amazement. "But I'm afraid your minority-persecution rhetoric is essentially moot at this point."

Mari wheeled around.

There were four of them.

A beautiful blonde woman, floating in the air.

A brown-haired man positioned on the corner of a nearby four-story rooftop, sniper-rifle on display.

A brown-furred bestial-looking figure, lycanthropic.

And the one who spoke, looked like he was twelve feet tall and built like a tank.

They were all wearing red and blue uniforms, each with the letters "TT" emblazoned over the top left corner of their chests.

"Greetings all and sundry," the massive fella-- the "big guy" was no longer the "big guy" in attendance, "I am Rumble, these are Miasma, Caliber, and Wildside. Collectively, our nom de guerre is Team Turmoil. And as that eponymous turmoil suggests, we are here to throw your admittedly hardscrabble existences into further fearsome disarray. I invite you to oppose us-- I would not want you to feel dismissed or disrespected out of hand, though I assure you it will prove entirely in vain."

"Oh," Mari demanded loudly, stepping forward, her hand near the pendant at her throat, baring her teeth, "is that right?"

The leader guy from earlier made a noise of worried protest. "Girl, what are you doing?"

"Stay back," Mari growled. "And besides, I turned eighteen a few months ago. You can call me woman."

Rumble rolled his eyes, and gestured to the lycanthrope. "Wildside, exemplify the outlier woman, would you?"

"GRWRRAWR!" Wildside replied, more roar than speech, and bounded down from her perch atop the chainlink and bounded towards Mari with violence aforethought, all claws and teeth and fur and rage--

--Mari hadn't known which of them would come at her first, had had no idea what animal to call upon, she'd pulled all-nighters for the last month reading and studying animals but she didn't know which one to use first, and now this frothing rabid werewolf person was storming at her and Mari felt herself freezing like deer in the headlights--

--but no--

--no--

--not deer--

--wolves eat deer--

--her fingers stabbed at the heart of the pendant and she felt power flood through her.

GRIZZLY.

Decent speed, powerful senses, strength like you would not believe-- territorial confidence-- all of it welled up inside her from the bottoms of her soles to the tips of her hair and she knew she had this--

--it would take a whole pack of wolf-people to take down a bear-person, and as Wildside lunged for Mari's jugular she lashed out with a backhand and felt Wildside's skull fracture under a punch that hit like a speeding car.

Wildside corkscrewed away in mid-air and landed face-down, and didn't immediately get up.

"I'm the outlier, huh?" Mari trumpeted, pointing at Wildside's crumpled heap. "Then how come they're the one who's lyin' down? How come they're the one who's out? There's four of you, but you're one quarter gone."

"Trash-talk," Rumble rumbled, cracking his knuckles in his palm, and stomping towards her with strides that made the asphalt shudder, "how witty. How Wildean."

Superstrong guy, Mari shook her head, instantly knowing that as strong as the grizzly was, this wasn't going to cut it here-- again her fingers tapped The Tantu Totem--

AFRICAN BULL ELEPHANT.

Her senses rippled and shifted-- she now had access to a different range of scents, certain ranges of infrasound-- her strength wasn't so much now speeding car as it was runaway truck--

--it still wasn't enough.

Rumble's first punch took her off her feet and blew her back clean through the chain-link fence that enclosed the storage facility, all the way across the street and into a concrete wall.

She tasted blood in her mouth. The world was ringing and singing with the pain of it. The elephant's strength made her sturdy, but she still felt like she'd taken a punch from Muhummad Ali in his prime and she was just a skinny girl with a pretty smile living in a loft in Chelsea--

Rumble stalked over to her. "If one desires a task be accomplished correctly, one needs must accomplish it oneself, I daresay. Once I squash you, tiny little amateur do-gooder," he considered, "indubitably the remainder will in their trepidation become obsequious to our every caveat."

He reached down, picked Mari up by the front of her jacket, and raised a fist to cave in her face. "I should perhaps tender my gratitude."

"Don't," Mari shook her head woozily, "thank me yet."

And she hit him with both fists balled up, boxing him around the ears.

He actually flinched. Actually staggered under that hit. And then tutted, looking at her disdainfully.

"Oh, do-gooder. You shall have to, pardon my vernacular play on words, do gooder than that."

Mari grunted. And slapped the totem.

MANTIS SHRIMP.

Her eyes instantly became capable of perceiving vast spectra of color invisible to the human eye, and at any other time she would take a moment to marvel at how beautiful the world was--

--but right now wasn't about senses, it was about defenses.

Her fist flashed out.

Seriously flashed out.

Moved so fast that it underwent over 10,000 g's of acceleration, so fast that it superheated the air and the air exploded in a sonic boom and a flash of sonoluminescent light--

--Rumble hit the ground like several tons of bagged potatoes, and Mari found herself dropped to the sidewalk with a grunt. "Hnh. Half gone."

Before she could take stock of her situation, however, green mists and smokes billowed down around her-- the woman called Miasma was swooping at her-- every breath was agony, her flesh started to bubble-- red red pain blossomed all over her--

"I don't care how many powers you got, chicky," Miasma declared, furiously. "You still got skin, and acid'll sizzle that skin right off of you."

Her eyes were burning like tear gas, Mari couldn't think, she couldn't breathe--

--no--

--no, she could still think, dammit--

--could still force herself to remember all these little random tidbits of data she'd read online--

--could still touch The Tantu Totem.

NAKED MOLE RAT.

"I got animal powers, 'chicky,'" Mari growled, standing up, walking out of the cloud of smoke even as the wisps of green flayed her skin down to the muscle, still standing and walking even though she had to be in crippling agony.

"And here's a funny story. Naked mole rats are immune to pain from acid burns. Don't even feel it. Evolution's a crap shoot."

Miasma stared in horror at the chemically-burned figure before her-- "What the f--"

Mari slapped the totem again.

OCTOPUS.

Oh, now, here was a funny fella.

They could squeeze boneless through tiny gaps, breathe underwater (obviously), use chameleonic color changes to turn practically invisible, wallcrawl--

--Mari did a thing with her hand, ASL I-love-you, and black goop splattered Miasma in the face--

--shoot ink--

--and then Mari's injuries started to repair themselves at a ridiculous rate, all those acid burns rippling back into fresh baby-soft skin, her internal bleeding from Rumble's punch, even the scrapes on her hands from falling down before--

--and they had fantastic regenerative properties.

Miasma tried to wipe the ink off of her face, but Mari was already changing gears--

ELECTRIC EEL.

--and lightning flashed from Mari's fingertips, the smell of ozone filled the air, and twitching and tasered, Miasma crashed to the ground.

"Three-quarters gone," Mari drawled.

BLAM.

WHEEENG.

A bullet whizzed past Mari's ear, grazed her skin. Caliber.

Her necklace snapped.

The pendant dropped away, and with it the electric eel's powers, she could feel the crackle in her nervous system already ebbing--

--he must have seen her touching the necklace each time, must have made the connection--

--cursing frenziedly, she dove to catch the falling Tantu Totem, and that dive was the only thing that saved her life as the next bullet drilled through where her head would have been.

She snagged the pendant before it hit the ground.

And that touch was all she needed.

PEREGRINE FALCON.

She shot up into the air, faster than the human eye could follow, fastest bird in the sky, she swooped up to where he'd set up shop on that rooftop and before he could blink his gun was in her hand, a hand curled like talons.

She whirled and cracked him across the face with his own rifle, she had such amazing speed--

--he skidded across the rooftop and slumped to a stop.

Touching down on the roof, Mari dropped the rifle, and slowly took stock of what she'd done.

Through luck and skill and the power of The Tantu Totem she'd disassembled a whole team of supervillains.

She'd protected the innocent.

Saved them--! Saved them the way she couldn't have saved the other girls when she was a kid--! Less than a year and a half ago but it seemed so long and it seemed just yesterday but she had done this!

"All gone," Mari remarked, taking a deep, shuddery, joyful breath, glancing down at The Tantu Totem in her hand.

--THWIPP.

A green arrow stabbed the rooftop at her feet, and she flinched and jumped back. "Oh shi--!"

Before she could finish her curse--

--FWHOOOOSH!

Something red stormed past her, so so so much faster than even her Peregrine falcon speed-- and The Tantu Totem was gone from her hand.

"No--!" she screamed, her eyes wide--

--but then she realized who was standing with her on that rooftop.

The Arrow of Starling City, grim and hooded and with another arrow already nocked and cocked and ready to rock.

And the hometown hero-- The Flash. Holding her totem.

"I don't get it," he shook his head with a frown, half-showing it to The Arrow. "There's no-- moving parts-- no receptors or transmitters-- it's just a little sculpted fox-face."

"Magic," snarled The Arrow, and Mari got the impression his eyes would have rolled if he wasn't keeping his aim square at her face. "I hate magic."
 
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"Nero," by Two Steps From Hell. (Rose)

"Like Stephen King once wrote," Chris Grant murmured, almost wistfully, "'there are other worlds than these.'"

"At the center of this Universe, there's a funny little red-brown world orbiting a green star called Sto-Oa. But this isn't the only Universe. And at the place at the center of all the Universes, all the parallel Earths and all of Hypertime, there's a world called The Exchange. Once upon a time, the beings of The Exchange discovered that they could copy anything they wanted from the rest of The Multiverse by using a technology that they called Dials. And so they did-- calling themselves Operators, they used their Dials to turn themselves into superbeings that could build cities in days, to conjure technology and supplies and forces of nature and anything else you could possibly imagine."

"Only sometimes the Dials didn't just copy. They stole. Tore meals off of the tables of lower realities. Siphoned away the powers of superheroes as they were in the throes of battle, with disastrous results. But the Operators considered these acceptable losses, an acceptable coefficient of risk, and kept Dialing no matter the pains suffered by other peoples in other places. And over time, rumors spread throughout The Multiverse of these 'vampires,' these 'parasites,' at the heart of all things. Soon there was a war, an alliance of angered worlds pitted against the infinitely diverse resources of The Operators."

"When the battle turned against The Operators and their beloved Exchange, one Operator, a mad genius determined to win at any cost-- he used an unholy combination of technologies to detonate a Time Bomb, a weapon that could punch a crater in Reality and unleash unimaginable forces. The other Operators were desperate to stop him, they fought against him, but nevertheless he detonated The Time Bomb, standing atop the shrapnel of their battle, atop a junkyard of broken Dials."

"The force of The Time Bomb turned The Exchange inside out and scattered those broken Dials across The Multiverse, and wherever they went those Dials touched lives and spread chaos both terrible and wonderful-- even influencing technological developments on the worlds they came to, such as the telephone. The Exchange lost the war soon after, and became a wasteland under the rule of that mad Operator, a bulwark from which The Operator would begin a campaign of vengeance on the worlds that had ravaged his civilization."

"But Dial-touched heroes from elsewhere in The Multiverse-- the legendary Manteau and her companion Rescue Jack, and the formidable Open-Window Man, from worlds not unlike our own, and others, from worlds far more diverse-- they formed a band of pilgrims and quested for the forgotten legends of The Exchange. When they got there, they freed The Exchange from The Operator and his cohorts and began to rebuild the world into a new utopia, inviting in the people who had fought against The Exchange to partake of the resources available to those who wield The Dials."

"All of this was decades ago-- time moves differently in The Multiverse, Time's Arrow flies at different velocities in different worlds-- and since then new souls have inherited rulership of The Exchange, and they have not managed to maintain the utopia that those heroes created. There has been a difference of opinion-- and two factions now war for the heart and soul of The Exchange. One faction supports the ideals of Manteau and Jack, the freely giving and the selflessly saving-- the other wants to use The Dials to command, to control, to exert their power over the worlds of The Multiverse like an iron fist. As part of that war, both sides have sent out signals creating new Dials on new worlds throughout their histories, hidden in the available technologies, bonding with compatible souls in times of great transformative danger, in hopes of recruiting new Dialers to each of their respective causes and drawing them to The Exchange to help them fight."

"Many of those Dials were made here on this world. Stonehenge, Mayan calendars, sundials, on and on throughout history-- but something prevented them from working. Even my own phone, transformed by the power of The Exchange, could not get a signal for twelve years."

"But then everything changed that December night, and all the Dials of this world awoke and waited for Dialers to unlock them. Your own phone became a Dial that night, and was waiting for you until just months ago."

"Imagine. All those Dials. Out there waiting in the world. Waiting for people to find them and become so amazing... we could use their help, Rose. We're losing. We could use their help, and we could use yours."

Rose stared at him, mesmerized by the influx of data, the myth and the mystery and the legend and the idea of things so much bigger than she could possibly comprehend... "Dad. Dad... why are you here?"

Chris Grant smiled softly, grimly, but hopefully, his blue blue eyes dancing.

"Reinforcements."
 
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Down Among the Gingerbread Men, Part III: Conclusion. (Vixen)

October 14, 2015
9PM
********​

"What were you thinking?" The Arrow demanded, pointing out at the street where ARGUS operatives were hauling off Team Turmoil to a holding facility-- The Pipeline had been destroyed and The Gulag was still seven years away from being complete. "A whole team of supervillains? The Flash would have had a hard time with those guys."

"That's not entirely surprising," Mari sassed without batting an eye. "He doesn't look like he's been eating enough lately, and that's coming from a model."

Having just zipped back up to the rooftop from running Caliber down to ARGUS, The Flash seemed to think this was hilarious, snorting and turning away and slapping himself on the arm. But she wasn't wrong. Barry's uniform was a little baggy on him these days-- he'd been pushing himself so hard, and had barely been eating enough for a normal person, much less a speedster.

The Arrow, meanwhile, remained stoic and grim. "You're not going to help anyone by jumping in at the deep end without training-- all you're going to do is get people killed. Probably yourself."

"I'm not gonna get killed," Mari defied him. "Whatever hurt they put on me, I can just go seastar or earthworm or octopus and heal the injury back like blinking. Animal powers."

"That won't help you if someone takes off your head," The Arrow countered.

"Actually," The Flash noted, "there's these things called planarian flatworms that can regrow their heads with all of their memories intact--"

"I'll have to look those guys up," Mari smirked. "Good to know."

The Arrow shot The Flash a dour look. "Not. Helping."

Barry grinned an exhausted but good-natured grin and held up his hands in surrender. "My bad. My bad."

"There's a thousand ways," The Arrow declared, definitively, pointing at Mari, "that you could die that you couldn't ever heal back from. And things that are worse than dying. And you know it."

Mari crossed her arms over her stomach and steeled herself against the intimidating vigilante. "So then maybe I'll die. Or worse. But I'll die-or-worse knowing I did what was right instead of watching other people suffer while I enjoyed a better life."

"Better living that life that than destroying your life," The Arrow replied, outwardly unmoved by her argument, "or losing it, messing around in a realm you don't understand."

"Look," Mari snarled, "if I wanted a bunch of white guys to stop me saving the world, I'd run for President--"

"He's just trying to look out for you," The Flash interjected, shaking his head. "Look-- I'm-- I'm tired. There was a nuclear disaster in Central City a few months ago, we barely--"

He stopped, his arm fell to his side mid-gesture, he hung his head. "I failed my cities."

The Arrow looked away, at that, and hunched his shoulders in such a way that suggested this was-- very hard for him to hear, coming from his friend.

"This is a world that-- that such big things can happen in," The Flash continued. "Big-- cosmic-- crises. Man-made earthquakes that can kill hundreds of people in a matter of minutes. Unnatural disasters. We're trying to save you from being dragged down with us."

Mari's lip quivered, and her eyes blazed. "These things are going to happen-- it seems to me-- whether I'm in the thick of them or not. I got kidnapped once-- me and hundreds of other girls-- and that seems to me this world was dark and twisted even without super colliders going Three Mile Island. And if this world is going to be dark and twisted whether I'm fighting it or not-- well dammit I'm going to fight it. If you're gonna give me shit for not doing it right, then show me how to do it right."

The Arrow harrumphed, and narrowed his eyes. "You see how much we have to deal with, here? And while I'm out here in Keystone-Central, my team is back in Starling holding it down without me-- I don't have time to babysit and handhold another rank amateur."

"Arrow," The Flash murmured. "I'm going away. Going to that place in England that we talked about-- Ravenscar. I need the rest. I need to-- get my head back on straight. You're going to be down a Fastest Man Alive. Maybe a Woman With Animal Powers might fill the void a little?"

The Arrow pressed his lips together, and then bowed his head for a moment. "Maybe. A little. Not enough. But a little."

The Flash turned his attention back to Mari. "Have you thought about a name?"

Mari hesitated. "I actually hadn't. Animal Woman? Beast-- Girl?"

The Flash glanced down at The Tantu Totem in his hand, and he gave it back to Mari. "Well. I don't have the skill at naming people that a friend of mine has. But it seems to me this pendant thingy looks a lot like a fox. And what's the female name for a fox?"

Mari ran that around in her mouth for a moment before slowly smiling. "...huh. That's not bad."

"We'll need to get you a suit," The Arrow harrumphed. "And a mask."

"Oh, no," Mari shook her head. "Well, a suit could be good, but I'm not hiding this pretty face. I whup a bad guy's ass, they're gonna know it was me that did it."

She put her necklace back on, touched The Tantu Totem.

AXOLOTL.

The graze on her neck from Caliber's sniper round healed as though it had never been.

"They're gonna know it was Vixen."
 
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