[h2]Alessa Heather: PRT Headquarters[/h2]
'Lyn...' Alessa smiled as she said this; it was short and sweet, as they say. Before she could really offer anything else in response, Dean said something about Tulpa "being stuck with us"- though she seemed perfectly happy to be there, from what Alessa could tell- swiftly followed by Sonar ushering the Wards out of the room, apparently in response to an unauthorised presence of some sort. It turned out, once everybody made it to the training room, that said presence was a hovering drone - not massive, but big enough, and judging by how nearly everyone else in the area reacted to its presence, up to and including Decoy himself, potentially dangerous. For her part, Alessa wasn't quite sure what she ought to do, especially when Tulpa announced that it had no weapons at all on it.

...and how could she know that? Maybe she was just trying to lessen the tension, but if she was telling the truth... did that mean her power was Thinker-based? There wasn't exactly a metric for surety there, since she'd only just met Evelyn a couple of minutes ago. In any case, Alessa couldn't think of anything to do that might alter the situation right now - even if the drone was armed, she could probably melt it into slag in but a moment, or at least its internal components, if Decoy didn't hack the thing into submission first - so for the moment, she kept her mouth shut and her eyes peeled. Maybe the Protectorate would let... Ruben, was it? ...go free in spite of his trespassing. Maybe.

[hr]

[h2]Raymond Haywood: Icehouse Hideout[/h2]
'Water would be good,' Headhunter offered, murmuring a quiet 'Thank you' to the Broker once the glass was received. Pulling his scarf down just enough to sip at the glass of liquid in his hand, he listened as the Broker introduced each member of the team - noting that the specifics of Raymond's own ability had been subtly left out of the listings, where every other cape in the room save the Broker himself had had theirs announced accordingly - before going over the rough purpose of the gang, namely to pretend to be a low-level gang which secretly had its fingers in a great many pies. Or at least a more significant purpose than the public would believe.

He bristled somewhat at the announcement that his power would not be put to best use, but remained silent through the Broker's list of rules until they came to their conclusion, before stating the most obvious point in a quiet tone: 'I should ask why you've hired an assassin to engage in non-lethal warfare. I do appreciate the inclusion, of course, amongst other things, but the nature of my skillset would seem to be... counterintuitive... to your stated goal of acquiring living parahumans.' Not, of course, that he couldn't adapt to a less lethal method of operation. It'd just mean his strongest weapon would end up reserved for particularly hard-to-damage targets. And, well, it was always simpler to pick your poison when one assumed no maximum limit to power was needed.