Thanqol

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Holding off on Timmy's reaction until we see how this expert act of charm shakes out. :P

@TheAmishPirate

Oh, sorry I totally missed that was a miss. I'll do a thing.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

All her dreams come true? Adila doesn't even know what that looks like. Maybe today having never happened. Maybe getting to be someone else whose head wasn't a ticking time bomb of heartbreak. Maybe someone to throw a ball. You know, actually, maybe she's onto something with that last one. If someone threw a ball for her and she got to run after it then she'd get to show how good she was at running and she'd also get to show what a good girl she was for bringing it back. Wouldn't that kind of solve all of her problems in and of itself? She'd get to be fast and good. And she'd have a ball. And someone to throw it for her. And they'd throw the ball. And then! She'd bring it back! And then they'd throw it again!

Argh! No, stop, stop, stop letting it get into your head, Adila! You need to prove that you're better than that, that you can stand up for Princess Dandy when it matters. It's the only way to make things right. There's no use pretending now so you'll have to sort through your feelings honestly. Let's start by getting this collar off. Scratching it off should work, it'll be no match for your claws, and probably the most convenient leg to use is one of your hind ones and oh no damn it.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 4

@SARAHPHIM: This sucks.
@SARAHPHIM: Sit tight, Dommy, I’m coming.

“I had a meeting, you know,” Sara groans as she pulls herself up the fangirl like ivy creeping up a trellis, ignoring her scandalized squeaking. She can handle having a half-concussed superheroine clinging to her for balance. “Was gonna sign on to an awesome clothing line. But everything’s got to be an ordeal these days.”

The unwritten contract between @SARAHPHIM and her fans is that she will be there to save them. Witcherphim can beat her for all she cares, she just needs to be there for Dominus first.

She tosses a glitter bomb through the broken window and scampers madly for the back, her sword and cloak melting away, the biotech stuffed in one of the shallow pockets on her suit. The fan will probably follow her, but no way she’s as fast as Sara at a dead sprint.

The helicopter’s spiraling down towards the ground, and Dominus needs more time to get the pilot out so they can both eject before their firey doom. You work with the tools you have: Sara begins juggling the helicopter with hardlight blasts, keeping it at a level altitude while also shaking Dominus and company around in there like pinballs. If there’s anyone who could escape in those conditions, it’s Dominus.

[7 on Defense. Exposing self to danger (hot) in order to take Influence on Dominus.]

@Tatterdemalion

Dominus is the last one out of the helicopter. She's also the one that you happen to catch in a perfect princess carry and make her go from supervillain to blushing and stuttering as her brain is forced to confront the reality of things being Just Like Her Fanfictions.

But you're trapped. The burning helicopter is trapping you in. Witcherphim and Sarampire are coming at you and there's nowhere to go. This feels like a final stand moment.

But then there's that fan walking out into the space between the two sides, trying to look confident. You're just getting ready to throw everything behind shielding her from the incoming barrage of destruction when lights explode so brightly that you - and all the cameras - are blinded.

Angel-IKA: oh my god
Locker: can we get an instant playblack there
Ferraphim1tp: dominusblush.gif
Locker: i mean of the important part
Bode: Is the stream down for anyone else?
Angel-IKA: Dominus!! What's happening?
Dominus: OH GOD UM I HAVE NO IDEA
Locker: dominus stop being a gay disaster i need u here

"How can you just stand there and let this happen, Commander? What happened to our AEGIS?!" she shouts at the top of her longs, voice trembling with the effort, "Don't you dare tell me this is just business! Don't you dare! A real merger would have me in contract negotiations upstairs, in a room with sunlight and cameras! You're standing in a fucking basement watching her threaten me with my team's lives to force me in line! She doesn't care about AEGIS! She doesn't care about anything! She's gonna turn our organization into the god damn mafia and you're letting her do it!"

Hot adrenaline-fueled tears streak down her face. She reaches out, even though she's standing too far away.

"It doesn't have to be like this! We can... she's right there! We can end this right now! If AEGIS means anything at all, we have to!"

[No, You Move: 11. Live up to Errant's standard or mark a condition. Errant takes Influence]

@Phoe

Victoria calmly lifts up her helmet and puts it on. There's a whine of armour systems energizing. She turns coldly to look at Warren.

Immediately Agents Buddy and Bargain spring into action. They circle him like raptors, their patter still seeming lighthearted but their sunglasses nothing but mirrors.

"Of course AEGIS means something!"
"Security, continuity, safety, defense!"
"We're just expanding is all."
"Broadening our reach."
"Bringing the world into alignment."
"And making a profit on the side!"
"What could be better?"
"Well, I can think of a few things."
"Like a raise?"
"Like a scholarship for your son?"
"Like a company car?"
"Like not having to uproot your entire life and turn your back on everything you've ever worked to build?"
"We know that times are hard."
"I think there's some room in the budget."
"For our most valuable assets."

Commander Warren gave an exhausted sigh. He looked old.

And then, with the cyberboosted reflexes of an ancient gunslinger, his multi-pistol is in his hand, spiraling through the ammunition options as eye-bendingly fast as a spinning revolver, and settling to put an E/M round directly into Victoria's centre mass. She hits the wall armour shorting out for a second - but already you can hear the scream of the reboot process starting. "GO!" he shouts.

In the next second he's on the ground in an arm-lock from Agent Bargain.

Agent Buddy points. Both your and his uniforms turn criminal red. You see the all-user alert go out before the system locks you out of your own comlog. And... your limbs keep working. That you weren't expecting. Did they genuinely think putting a shutdown code in was too big a risk? Did someone lie to Buddy about the code? Or is it some product of Queen Ourania's blessing that makes these arms yours and not theirs?

Whichever it is the guy is not expecting to be hit right in his mirrorshades.

"Wow, that is so much more badass than watching an Aristeia game," Victor admits. "I mean, I got a hot tip that Dominus was plotting something. Is that what you're talking about? Be polite, I haven't met your friends before. I'm."

Crap. In hiding. Recognized. Double crap.

"Bill," he finishes, poorly. "Bill Ding, at your service." Suave, dork. He grins nervously, and dangles his hand limply in their direction. Don't leave him hanging, man.

@Balmas

Locker gives you a look that implies he has zero time for this. Luckily the robohelmet girl highs your five, changing her helmet to :D

"Getting Angelica kidnapped by Dominus would resolve two of my problems," said Locker immediately starting to move. "It'd stop her getting kidnapped by the Spiral Corps goons who are being sent to grab her to force an Athena Macrotech/AEGIS merger. And it'd resolve the insufferable will-they-won't-they thing that they've got going," he glanced out through the window suspiciously. "Ferraphim1tp did some digging into the Spiral guys with that data you got her. They're supervillains from AEGIS' cells pacified by the zombification drug that Sabrem used. And they want Angelica."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Feathers swirled around her ankles as she stood and raised her head. The emerald green plumes hugged her figure so tightly they seemed almost like part of her, transitioning seamlessly from soot-black scales to the glitter-green of the rainforest, to fire-red blues and greens. It was like she was being swept backwards, all her energy on her extremities - while her Crystal Gala dress had served to emphasize her form this did the opposite, almost erasing that there was a dragon there at all. She seemed like two golden eyes floating in the midst of swirling blue and red feathered eyes. Her bare neck was slender, birdlike, so naked against the backdrop of the dress. It made her seem slender, beautiful, fragile and weak.

+Hi everyone, I'm Princess Adila II,+ thought Adila. There was a miserable and apologetic undertone to her thoughts, a defeated sullenness. +You already know that I'm too weak to handle my own emotions, let alone fight off a hypnotist. I've got three of them acting on me right now, you know? Princess Eupheria, of course, and Princess Eska, but you probably don't know that I've been under the influence of Princess Adila I all this time. Her spirit can act and speak through me and I've been pretending not to notice because I'm kind of into being mentally dominated.+

She immediately tried to sit down again. And she immediately discovered that she couldn't. The spotlight blared onto her and wouldn't let her leave. A deep sigh ran through her body and her shoulders slumped with the weight of a secret confession finally forced to the open.

She fastidiously looked away into a corner and you could feel her trying to pretend that she wasn't telepathic at all and was just thinking these things to herself. +But that's a half truth. The real reason I like it is because I think I'm polyamorous. I am intensely attracted to multiple people for very different reasons. I go out of my way to string them along while avoiding real commitment because I don't want to lose any of them. I know that my only real, healthy relationship is with Princess Dandy, and I love her deeply and don't want to hurt her. So instead I look for moments when I can pretend to not be in control of myself and lean into them, while hoping that in the long term I grow out of it enough to settle down.+

She almost fell back into her chair the moment the spotlight left her, and immediately slumped down as low as she'd go.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Princess Adila's mind is a storm of priorities. Save Eska. Save Dandy. Save Hyperborea. Save Eupheria. For all that she's previously agonized about being too big this feels like a moment where she's not big enough. She's pulled in every direction, wings and tail and tumbling, even before gravity shifts and tentacles drag her down. Save everybody!!

It's too much. She twists and ties and lands in a bundle at Eupheria's feet, heart torn in every possible direction.

[Damaging courage]

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

CREEP
WHIPPED
TRUANT (I think?)

"You. Are you serious?" Annalee looks ready to do murder. She has one thing she wants, she doesn't want to deal with anyone else right now, would every freaking person, monster, and animated Hot Topic just get the hell out of the way already? The answer is yes, they would. Or at least, they would find it really hard to get in the way, which was close enough. Annalee started speaking in tongues, trying to chant a spell that would completely prevent the Sphinx from doing violence of any kind, so that she could just walk right past her.

Simple, convenient. Unfortunate, however, that she had just read up on that spell today before detention and in the all the confusion hadn't really had the chance to do something like practice it. So, it was almost certainly going to go horribly wrong in interesting ways.

[Hex roll: 1+3+1=5. 1/5 Experience]

@Anarion

The spell you're looking for is called 'Binding'. The title is important. When it was originally scribed by powerful witches in ages past the purpose was to call up and enslave supernatural entities to your service, trapping them within arcane circles as a precursor to diabolic negotiations. It turns out that the circle part wasn't optional. The Sphinx slides forwards on her heels and then just kind of bumps into you and stop.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asks. She raises a hand casually filled with claws... and then puts it down again.

In the absence of a proper ritual circle binding her to a physical place it turns out she's been bound directly to you. You can't pull away from her or she from you, and you can't physically harm each other. You're stuck together in a weird three-legged race scenario.

At first, it is not all that bad. Provided you're there of your own free will because necessity demands it. Then the time passes almost by itself as reality, hallucination, semi-controlled dreaming and complete blank unconsciousness mix, mingle and blend to an existence which is insane but largely painless. The really old gain stronger control and can even create internal mind-escape worlds to live within for at least some of their durance. The stronger your body, the stronger the mind, however, and the harder it is to convince to surrender; it is the final bunch of decades, when lying mostly recovered but not yet strong enough to break free, that are the real purgatory.

Sam is certainly not looking to be back in such a situation if he can help it. He is however looking to know what's happened to dear Ana and Timmy.

[Rolling to Gaze in To The Abyss: 4+1, now I don't have Sam's sheet so unsure what his Dark is but I doubt is enough to raise this roll from a Miss]

@Elanorin

You had prey creatures the last time this happened.

You remember the faces. Innocent. Vulnerable. Puppets on your strings. You were in their heads and in their veins and the world was good. The hunt was over and all that was left was toying with the already defeated prey like a cat plays with a mouse. Everything was perfect up until it wasn't.

Your hands beat against the lid of the coffin. You splintered the wood. Tore it apart. You didn't stop striking until you had surrounded yourself in splinters and finally acknowledged that they'd dumped the coffin in the back of a cement truck.

Like you said, it wasn't that bad if you were there voluntarily.

They betrayed you. Where had they got the courage? Who had put them up to it? Rache? Her face showed up in your dreams more and more. She had the skill, the power, the reasons to do something like that. But she'd always seemed like she'd sit on her grudges forever. Just as weak as the rest. Until she wasn't.

The room darkens and fills with smoke, and lightning flashes outside. Tell me of the past, Samael.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 4

Showmanship. It’s all about the showmanship. Sure, she could try and just smack Witcherphim in the face with a laser, but that’s not sporting. That’s not a good show. That’s not going to leave the audience hungry for more.

So when she lunges forward, it’s with her own hardlight blade and a shimmering rainbow cloak over one arm: useful both for disguising the biotech injector in her hand and for disrupting Witcherphim’s strikes.

Go fast. Go hard. Go unexpected. Then just jam the injector up against her like it was a hidden knife and let it do its work. That’s the plan. But what’s a plan without a little flair, right?

[Snake Eyes on Unleashing her Powers.]

@Tatterdemalion

Go fast. Go hard. Go unexpected. Words to live by, right, @Sarahphim?

"THE WORLDORU!!"

You get hit by a tidal wave of energy from the side and blasted through the window of a shop. You come crashing to a halt in the midst of a glass display cabinet full of macrons, dazed eyes picking out the descending form of Sarampire in her stupid goofy nosferatu cloak and terrifying glowing red eyes. The only reason she and Witcherphim don't immediately follow up against you is because they both turn their attention to blasting Dominus' helicopter out of the sky.

That fangirl is standing over you too, hovering hesitantly. First thing you notice: her makeup is terrible. "Um, hey," she's applied the foundation cakingly thick but it still hasn't covered up the weird black-line bruises on her face. "So, um, someone put out an offer to all the Saras offering them a l-lot of money if they take you out," green eye-shadow isn't bad in theory but that is not the right shade of green at all, girl, and it's much too heavy on the glitter.

Locker: watch out
Locker: oh too late
Dominus: OH CRAP
Bode: Did she just shout 'the world'? Why? Is that a vampire thing?
Ferraphim1tp: Yes, all vampires shout that :)
Dominus: OH CRAP OH CRAP

She could do that. All of it. Any of it. Almost anybody would. Almost nobody would blame her.

...But a True Princess would never, ever look away.

Errant reaches up and clicks her visor on over her eyes. Loving something means that you can't look away when it starts going bad.

@Phoe

"She's not going to go for it," said Victoria Messermitt, fully outfitted in that terrifying power armour. "You're wasting my time, Warren."

Commander Warren's face was stone and slate. "Agent Errant is an indispensable asset. It is worth sounding her out."

"She and her entire team has been nothing but -" her lip twitched with a flash of anger. "Problems. For me. And I guarantee that they'll make it personal."

Yes, and simultaneously no? I mean, he's been in classes, with children, of the same approximate age, being taught stuff by a teacher, but if you look at the offical records, he's never set foot in a school or received a degree.

He's never felt so out of place in his life.

Which makes no damn sense, by the way. I mean, these are the kinds of people for whom genetic perfection was guaranteed approximately six months before conception. Anybody whose parents didn't have the money to ensure such was the case couldn't afford to attend here. And since winning the genetic lottery wasn't enough, the students have had to improve on perfection. Green eyes? Go for it. Wings? Hell yeah. Typhoid yellow floor-length Sailor Moon animatronic hair? The sky, your parent's bank accounts, and the current trends are the limit.

Compared to the polychromatic zoo around him, Victor cannot help but feel... plain. Dammit, he can make wings on the fly, convert his body into a freakin' miniature jetplane if he wanted to, but there's a not-inconsiderable part of him feels envious of being able to just... decide to graft on new limbs as desired. And he's realizing, too late, that posing as a talent scout disguised as a student requires that the students think he's worth paying attention to.

And, also, some functional knowledge of how Aristeia is played, but that's a different problem.

@Balmas

Fortunately for your cover, you are not the only shifty looking guy here.

"hey," said Locker from immediately behind you. He looks tired. "you're here on work too, huh? Makes sense you'd figure it out." Nobody has ever looked like he has belonged in a high school more than Locker. The deep shadows under his intense eyes, scraggly facial hair, the entire aesthetic of goth-with-motivation-issues. He fits here, so well that he's got an androgynous guy hanging off his left arm and blowing bubble gum and a lady with a daft punk helmet displaying a :D emoji on his right.

"come on," he said. "we've got to rescue a princess."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Princess Adila staggered from the force of the blow, legs shaking. When had it happened? When had she broken? Wasn't it just yesterday that she'd smiled that invincible smile? When had... everything...

+I'm doing this for everyone's good+ she thought on pure reflex, eyes welling up with tears she didn't understand. +It's... not like that...+

Dandy Eska! Eska was in trouble and that was meant to be her priority...! But why was it this way? That trying to do the right thing hurt people? She was so certain but she couldn't reconcile that certainty with the tears that both of them had in their eyes. She just wanted to stop. She just wanted to stop and work this out but... how could she? There was still... so much work to do... and she couldn't wait. She couldn't take the time, the chance. C-could she?

+I'm s-sor-+ the thought tangled and snarled through tears and confusion. And then she was rushing away to do what she had to do and it felt like her heart was breaking all over again.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Annalee considers whether she might just explode from the frustration of this. Doubly so because somehow G'eldriia had lapped her and gone in ahead. That was injustice enough and now this idiotic sphinx wanted to stop her here. Oh, when she got just a little more magic, she was going to rain fire on this whole place. Even the moat. Especially the moat. For the moment she just seethed, thought about it a little, and came to her answer.

"That's not...even a riddle. I'm just...ugh I cannot even. Okay, ugh, first, I do not care, like, at all. Second, let's cut to the chase, okay? Here you go, they're perfectly fashionable and you look great in them. There I answered, can we skip to the part where you let me in now?"

@Anarion

"Yeah, I don't know," said the Sphinx. "You dress like a creepy old cat lady so your opinions are, like, pretty worthless. So I'm going to call that one wrong. Your punishment from here," she pulls out her phone and starts texting on it mid sentence, "is to run down to the shops and get me some stuff. Like, I need panini, but the good kind, and a watch with a plaid band, and full cream milk but it has to be paleo."

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 3

#horny-nerd-convention

@SARAHPHIM: hey @everyone so hit me up with some of that Witcher knowledge
@SARAHPHIM: ideally, how long their pow-ups last, their weaknesses, that sort of thing
@SARAHPHIM: OH SHIT THAT’S FAST

[12 on seeking help from audience. Never say I didn’t do anything for you.]

@Tatterdemalion

Locker: she can do magic
Locker: fusrodah, shield, fire, hypntosim, stuntrap
Ferraphim1tp: These are arcane signs of the Elder tongue, not spells proper - a true battlemage is capable of much wilder feats but a Witcher's spells are brief, sudden invocations and
Ferraphim1tp: I was getting to that Locker!
Locker: got to go fast
Ferraphim1tp: Outlasting a Witcher is unlikely as when they come into a battle prepared their alchemical compounds can endure for the majority of the day in their bloodstream. They are at their weakest when caught unprepared, without being able to tailor the precise blend of potions and poisons to their opponent!
Bode: That seems unhelpful in the current situation.
Locker: yea nerd
Dominus: INCOMING

You're so focused on avoiding the blurring slices of that Hardlight assault that you barely hear the helicopter until it's almost too late. You hear rifle fire and the scorching blasts of rockets as chaos breaks out in all direction. Dominus' crew is actively shooting up the place, targeting CSU robots and security cars, shattering enormous multi-holo billboards and signs.

You look up at Dominus right as she's looking at you. You see her mouth move but the word appears on your visor from her text-to-speech: CATCH. And she drops something - a nano-injector, a pistol shaped construction that if placed point blank against your opponent's skin will seamlessly transfer the biotech within without even seeming to pierce skin.

Witcherphim looks up and around at the chaos for a moment, people running for cover in all directions. She misses you catch the nano-injector. Instead she just grunts "Not my problem," re-ignites her blades, and starts coming straight at you again.

She zips away like she's been fired out of a cannon. Fuck. God. Now she's thinking like Victor. Calm down, Euna, calm down. Think about this.

But what else could it mean? They're testing her. They don't care if she knows anything about Victor or not. There's been a merger, and someone in Command wants to know if she's going to respond to this as the obedient soldier or the wide eyed idealist. And if she fails... a-and if she fails...

She shakes her head. She's doubling back to the interrogation room. Someone's watching her in there. Someone more important than Buddy or Bargain. She's being ridiculous. She knows she is. But she has to ask anyway. She has to know.

@Phoe

"Welcome back!" said Buddy. Behind him there was an extremely traditional one-way mirror.
"Sorry about the sugar," said Bargain. You know that you'd just need to pull down your multispectral visor and you'd be able to see right through it.
"He'll forget his own head next," said Buddy. They keep up their background patter, same as always. It could be normal if you let it.
"Ha ha! It's not my fault, forgetting things is so easy!"

Is it?

Right. So, Neo Chaos Spire. The rich and powerful, the elite, playground of the riche-nouveau. He's not important enough for there to be wanted posters on every corner, disturbing the fantastically wealthy, but it's still unnerving to see his face staring out at him from under "have you seen this man." So, the best way to do this? Probably two best ways that he can think of--jam as many cameras as he can. Make it seem like it's just a malfunction and pray that the security guard playing on his phone doesn't think to question how come all the cameras surrounding an intersection are going down at once. And that the cameras are all broadcasting on the same narrow band.

Okay, so plan A has its flaws. Which is why plan B--assume holographic disguise--is probably the one he'll go with. It has its flaws, as there are cameras that can pierce this kind of stuff, and he needs to sync up his actions with the disguise, but most of the things in the spy-counterspy actions are focused on invisibility and the piercing thereof. Hopefully, just looking like someone else will keep him from more than casual glances.

[Always Prepared: 8.]

@Balmas

[As Always Prepared is a buff to Unleash Your Powers, I'm assuming you're going with the 'temporary solution' from that move's results]

So, Brainstorm. The mission calls for you to impersonate a high school student. And while you did a bunch of preparation to disguise yourself you never thought you'd have to infiltrate a high school.

It's not too bad. You're the right age, you know, normally. But you quite reasonably preset all of your holographic disguises to make you look like an old man thinking that would be much more useful in the places you were likely to infiltrate. Plus, you know, I don't know how in touch you are with the styles and fashions of the millionaire kids of Neo Chaos Spire.

So you're able to do a little reprogramming on the fly... but however you do it you're going to look extremely How Do You Do Fellow Kids. It's enough to get you past security but you're going to collect a lot of Looks.

Why don't you tell me about what that looks like, Victor? And while you're at it, have you ever been to a school before? If no, what do you imagine it to be like? If so, why did you drop out?