"Well, since you all seem to have things in hand I think I'm going to get going."

He turned to the captive Elite.

"Nice to have met you. Please don't attack minors anymore."

Inside he struggled to find Terri and hurried her out of the building.

"Let's get home. I don't know how you convinced me to come to Vegas, but let's try to forget this place even exists, okay? A guy can't even loiter without running into six novas and a felony."

Cassia turned to watch the giant walk back to the club.  "I..." Coughing shook her thin body as she raised her voice.  "Thank you!"  She didn't know who he was, and he frightened her, but he had helped defend her too.  No one had done that in a long time.

Looking at the two young nova hotshots that had saved her, Cassia couldn't help but be disappointed when they said she would have to go somewhere else.  But she didn't have other options, and she trusted them more than she probably should have.  Face downcast, she nodded.  "Si.  Yes.  I will go."

Chance Meetings
Joe received a grunt from his elite hostage before walking back into the club.  Not a very rewarding conversationalist, that one.  Inside, the music was deafening, and the press of bodies made it dangerous for Joe to walk, or more precisely it was dangerous to others for him to walk.  After finally making his way to Terri, he found her with a far too attractive nova woman easily recognizable as Narcosis, one of the more popular media faces for the Teragen movement.  Joe's altered physiology made him resistant to the woman's namesake abilities, but Terri was not blessed with his resilience and was experiencing a potent dose of Narcosis's pheromone cloud.

---

With Joe's exit, the elite that was still conscious took the opportunity to bargain.  "Ya know, my friends, they gonna wake up soon.  And ya don't really want us talkin' ta no one, not with what we've seen, not if ya wanna keep the girl safe.  I'm willin' ta call this'un a' wash.  Ya'll can just take off, I'll scrape them off o' the pavement, everyone walks away happy."

Time was passing quickly, and if the men wanted to get Cassia to Dragon safely, they had a limited window in which to act.


Debts Paid
Belphegor nodded slowly, as though he had received advice of great worth.  "It is little to go on, but enough to guide my path.  I will puzzle out the meaning of your words. Thank you."  Prodigal, his stern demeanor breaking momentarily, actually rolled his eyes and shook his head in exasperation.  Belphegor did not notice, and moved close to his escort.  "Until we meet again."  A cloud of foul vapors was the only evidence that the two had been there.  The waitstaff seemed not to notice any of the exchange, as they moved in and refilled Gale's water.

---

Outside the Bellagio, the strip was slowly becoming more crowded as the afternoon lull passed and early evening tourists resumed their sightseeing.

Strained Relationships
Shrapnel laughed.  It was a grating noise, metal on metal, and it echoed strangely.  "Really?  I should care about how our actions look to baselines?  And you talk about the laws we've "thrown off" even as you try to make new laws to bind our kind.  You are a hypocrite, just like the rest of your friends.  But let no one say I'm not reasonable, that I'm too biased to adapt.  You've heard we're planning something, so others may have too.  There aren't enough of us for a full scale war, not yet, and we need troops more than we need to make a statement.  We'll abandon our plans, take a different approach, something more... subtle."  Her smile was unsettling, and held the promise of future complications, but she seemed genuine in calling off the planned Dominion attack.

---

Matador bowed.  "I am an excellent dancer, though this noise is far from my taste in music.  We will make our own music, yes?"  He gripped her hand tightly, pulling her in close.  He began a slow tango in the midst of the crowd, moving perfectly to a music only he seemed to hear.  The crowd jeered and snickered lightly at the start, but they were quieted by the grace of his movements and the hypnotic sound of his footfalls as he slammed his heels down to set a rhythm for Baroness to follow. He was showing off, but wasn't that what being a nova was all about?

---

The two little monsters hated each other at first sight.  Glowing green ectoplasm and gobbets of flesh stained the bar as the constructs tore at each other.  Exhausted and realizing it was far too much effort to kill each other, the two happily scampered off into the crowd together to make mischief.  Crawling up legs, spilling drinks, property damage, fun was had by all.  Or just by them actually, but that was really all that mattered to the little monsters anyway.

Thieves in the Night
Angelo disabled the baseline guard with skill and alacrity, but his years of training warned him that something wasn't right.  The wind from Suzukaze's passage was the only warning he had as glowing quantum blades flashed against the dark Russian sky.  The unpredictable assassin chose to attack while his back was turned... But it wasn't Dragon she was attacking.  Her blades pinned a nearly invisible nova to the stairway access door, sizzling and crackling slightly as they cauterized the camouflaged nova's wounds.  She whispered something unintelligible into her victims ear, then turned to Dragon and smiled.  "We see them in the dark, watching.  Our eyes shine bright, as the light dims in theirs."  Her blades were still buried in the guards torso.

Ignoring the unnerving actions of his teammate for the moment as he scanned for a way in, Dragon could tell that the stairwell would be a mistake.  Too visible, too many guards.  His best bet was to cut a hole in the roof, and climb across the ceiling to his target.  No one ever looked up.

Joe approached the two women with a scowl.

"Terri! I see you've met us a new friend," Joe said with a smile. He didn't truly properly have bones any longer, but the coral formations that served shifted and ripped through Joe's shirt in sharp, nasty looking spikes.

"Hi, I'm Joe. I bite," he said, extending a hand and looming.

Chance Meetings
Narcosis almost took the offered hand, then thought better of it.  She quickly took in Joe's posture and smiled.  "I am so sorry, I didn't know she was yours.  Please, let me buy you two a drink."  She turned to flag down someone to take an order.  "Get these two whatever they want to drink, put it on my tab."  Another winning smile directed toward Joe, completely ignoring Terri.  "I can leave you two alone, if you prefer.  I'd love to stay and talk though, you're the most interesting nova I've seen all night."

"No, I'm not. And we're leaving, I just remembered someone's grandmother died and we need to wash her hair."

He turned to Terri.

"This place is boring, let's get out of here? If I stay here any longer I think someone might die."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 20:06, Sat 28 Sept 2013.

"Well I appreciate you showing me around your city and offering to answer my questions. Its nice to have more people willing to help get me back on my feet"

Daphne smiled to her self and tried to hide her giddiness at Dillon's response. She also started to notice the sudden surge in pedestrian traffic around her, making her somewhat nervous about all the people around her. "I've never been to the Rio, then again I haven't really been to any of the Casinos other than the Palms with Laura for fashion week. That wasn't too bad of an event, it was hard dealing with all the press though. So are you not worried about Gale being back there alone with those two?"

"You're missing the point with regard to laws we make ourselves. The Null Manifesto itself alludes to such a situation. And, yes, what baselines think does matter. For the moment they outnumber us by something like 1.3 million to 1. Even if we're a million times more powerful than they are individually - and we're not, on average - they still have the edge. Right now they control the planet. That may change in the future, but this is now." He held up his damaged right hand, "And I don't know about you, but I'm not eager to survive another nuclear blast."

He sighed, "Anyway. It seems we've gotten what we came for, even if for the wrong reasons." He looked from Phantasm to Solitaire and back to Shrapnel, "I go as I came, in peace." With that, he turned to leave. He knew he wasn't particularly welcome there, while his two former teammates may be somewhat more able to stay without causing undue strife - if they chose to do so.

Sensing trouble, Dragón stood up from his examination of the roof and started scanning back and forth, using his ears and nose as well, trying to find where the danger was.  Suzukaze's sudden passage startled him enough that he turned toward her with a quick snap and rolled back into a well-braced stance.  "Thank you for the assist," he said, though he found it difficult to put any real feeling into his words.

Discarding the obvious stairway, he scanned the roof under his feet to determine where the structural supports were.  He chose a square area between supports then formed a micro-thin force field "blade" and used it to cut through the roof.  Lifting the chunk of roof material up slowly, he canceled out the thumping sound of the club's music and listened for sounds of nearby movement.  If he heard nothing, he shifted his eufiber to a color pattern suitable for the darkness below him, then floated slowly down into the ceiling space and took a good look around before he moved anywhere.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
18:29, Sat 28 Sept 2013: El Dragon rolled 2 3 successes using 7d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 ((8,3,3,5,1,10,5)) Activate boost, making my M-Str and M-Sta both 5.

---

This message was last edited by the player at 01:13, Tue 01 Oct 2013.

Baroness ran her finger across her lips, catching the knuckle in her teeth for a brief moment in appreciation of Matador's words and display. She let herself be pulled in with a smirk, pressing up against him. She was able to hold her own in the dance. While she was clearly not trained in dance, nor gifted with Nova level grace, she was still fluid in her motion. She could anticipate his movements and followed without hesitation. What was clear was that there was no move that seemed to fatigue her, even in her impressive heels, instead seeming no less under exertion than on a light stroll through the woods. She let her eyes grace the crowd, daring them to watch and be awed and jealous in turn. She chose the role of the rose, allowing Matador to turn her about in display for the crowd of his abilities and her beauty.

She ran her hand across Matador's shoulder and down to rest on his arm as they turned, catching sight of Gravitas' movement to leave. She looked back to Matador and stared into his eyes, seeming to need only them--unfazed by his mask. "You are, indeed, excellent. A warrior and an artist. I've not had such fun since my rebirth," she said with a full laugh, letting her hair shake about her face as they spun in another flourish--pressing close to him once more and reveling in the tension she so easily juggled, continuing on just before the moment reached its peak, "But tell me, if you would. What do you think of Gravitas? And I mean truly--I have no doubt of your loyalties. But as one man, one fighter, of another--What do you think of him?"

" Blackmail? Ye' stupid sod! Y'ain't no elite, yer jus' hired mooks wif a bit o' extra gristle in yer custard! I've got yer ugly mugs stored in me' hard drive," he tapped a squarish bulge in his jacket, " An' we're canny t' yer coney, an' we know tha' ther ain't nobody nowheres tha' hires a flaccid han'ful o' mooks like ye' t' kidnap no child tha' wan's the world gettin no eyeful o' their knicker drawer, innit!? Ye'll be deed afore ye' get downa stairs o' the courthouse, ye feking imbicile!  An e'en if ye do survive, which ah doubt, ye'll never find no work anywheres af'er ye' turn stoolie on the han' at feeds ya! Go righ' on ahead, flap yer yapper! See how far it gets ye!"  Paidrag wasn't about to tell the man that he was going to upload their pictures anyways, such unprofessionalism and gratuitous lack of talent sullied the names of elites everywhere. He looked to Johnny, " This fella', Dragon, tha's tha same 'un wif th' burns, yeh? Solid bloke tha', real standup fellah, i hear. Ye stay here an' deal wif the coppers an cam'ras, s'wha they pay ye' th' big bucks fer.  I'll escort t' young lassie t' Dragon, safe as houses." He looked to Cassia, " Now then, lil 'un, ahm jus' gonna change inna yer own pers'n'l carriage, like, then we'll get ye gone from here an inna safe hands away from these dingleberries." No sooner had he finished speaking than he shifted into his robot form, glared a remarkably expressive "bust my apple sack 'bout this inna future an' it's bloody on, innit?!" look at Johnny, and shifted again into something that looked suspiciously like Cinderella's magic pumpkin carriage, only with rather beefy tires, a shining white and chrome engine on the back, and with tinted black windows.  One of the doors swung open, revealing a plush pink satin interior, Paidrag's voice emanated from somewhere on the vehicle, "Le's go, lassie, time's a wastin'"

Gale didn't know if Prodigal was rolling his eyes at her or at Belphegor.  It didn't matter much, but she smiled inwardly at the thought that Prodigal was annoyed by the pupil he had worked so hard to get.  She finished her drink, settled the bill, and then headed out to go see where Comstock had taken Daphne.

On the street, not seeing them immediately, and wanting to avoid the crowds, she took to the air.
This message was last updated by the player at 03:49, Sun 29 Sept 2013.

Coming to terms with the shroud of bullshit and confusion he had just invoked, Operator regained some functionality. He would be at 50% or less while keeping up the shroud, but it could make the difference between success or failure. He gritted his teeth in frustration as his team flew into their mission, while he scaled down the side of the building and worked his way to the fire escape. Climbing the side of the building was an option, but this would work fine. He nodded at a couple club goers and a guard who noticed him, and then didn't, as there was nothing to see. Operator reflected on his years of wet work, the careful preparations, the precision insertion, execution, and extraction, the backups for backups, then his time out there on the edge, running from everyone and everything, making split decisions every day, chasing a pair of long legs...

The rooftop. In all his years as a first class, Tier One operator he never thought he'd be chasing his team who could fly. El Dragon was descending into the cacophanous pit of rapture, while Suzukaze was morbidly drinking blood or whatever. There was only so much a sane person could enjoy killing another human being, and that amount was nil. Operator silently but decisively marked Suzukaze as a PROBLEM, and one that would eventually have to be dealt with.

At the edge of the opening the mixture of his own field of mis-information, combined with the rising column of sweat, cigarette smoke, booze, and other body fluids, the noise, and the flashing lights sent Operator reeling.

"Jonas! What do we do?"

Staff Sergeant Jonas Black hugged the ground, the stench of jungle, death, and cordite filled his nose. Panic, crying, and gunfire filled his ears. He wanted more than anything to be anywhere but here. The LT next to him was panicking hard. Jonas met his gaze. He looked like a kid. He was just a kid. These joint operations were always tricky, but here was a bonafide british aristocrat who happened to make it through 22-SAS and into this hellhole. Jonas felt nausea coming on. Had to stifle it. No time for biology, he had to fight his way out of here.

"Ditch the package. Give them what they want. Our secondary evac is in less than an hour and is five kliks from here. Let's GO LT."

The lieutenant shook his head.

"We're not ditching the package. I'm not letting this mission fail! We are going to secure that..."

A wet pop accompanied a spray of pink. The LT was gone now too. Just Jonas then. He grabbed the silver briefcase. The gunfire was drawing closer; he had precious little space to work in. He opened it up in spite of being told not to. A laptop. There were few cargoes he hated as much as a laptop. There could be anything on it, and there was no way to tell. Crypto-drives and hidden sectors meant that even if he had time to go through it he would never be certain that he had found what was really on it. Only one way to be sure that it was gone. He pulled the pin on his Thermite grenade and dropped it into the briefcase, slammed it closed, and threw it over the mound towards his assailants. 3 to 5 seconds would be all he had. One. Two. Three. Four. The gunfire stopped. Shouts in whatever language they were speaking followed. This was his only shot. He leapt from his cover and ran as hard as he could into the woods. He shook out of his backpack and dropped his primary weapon. Five. The cries from behind him indicated that the Thermite grenade was going off, melting the laptop, case, and hands of anyone unfortunate enough to be holding it. Evidence destroyed. The gunfire resumed only a breath later. Whatever he had just annihilated, it was important to the enemy, and important to the Army. LT Dalton would be held posthumously accountable for mission failure, which was fine by Jonas.

A bullet tagged Operator.

He hit the jungle floor. All that...for this. Blood welled out of his abdomen. They were still coming. With his left hand he compressed his wound, with his right he drew his sidearm and squeezed off a few suppressed shots at the oncoming wave of militia. They didn't return fire. That was the worst thing they could have done. They kept cover while he panic fired the rest of his magazine, and then were on him like locusts.

"If we can't trade encryption key, we can trade YOU, American!"

Operator lay on his back behind an air conditioning vent, his hand shaking and clutching his pistol. It was warm in his hand, and the end of his suppressor smoked. Had he been firing it? Had he hit someone? He was in a cold sweat. He felt much of his mind still occupied with maintaining the information screen. At least it had probably not gone down. He checked his clip...empty. He reloaded and checked his surroundings. The hot casings were scattered over the roof to his right. He gathered them up. .45 ACP casings DID NOT need to be found at the scene. He swallowed hard. His abdomen hurt, was that a memory? He checked himself. A few scars from the bullet and the torture, but no fresh wounds. At the opening in the roof that El Dragon had magically made, the hispanic Ranger was still descending into the club stew. Operator steeled himself. Keep it together. People were counting on him, people whose trust he had yet to earn. Wallowing and panic firing into empty distance was no way for an operator to behave. With any luck, the other two were involved in the mission and didn't notice. With a flush in his cheeks, he realized that this sort of display was exactly why he considered Suzukaze a problem. He resolved to revoke that designation for the time being, given that he had reasons to be understanding about her...issues. Perhaps they had something in common, perhaps all three of them did. Only time and trust would tell.

Lowering himself down into the building, most of Dragón's focus was downward, listening for sounds of movement nearby.  In his mind, he edited out the sound of the music and the buzz of voices, so that all he could hear from below was the shuffling of feet.  Suddenly, the staccato thumping of a suppressed .45 brought his head up with a snap.  He saw Operator lying behind the air conditioning unit with his pistol clenched in a shaking fist and beads of sweat building up on his face.

Caramba! he thought, what a time for a flashback.  He started to yell at Operator for leaving his cover position, but thought better of it.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
20:39, Mon 30 Sept 2013: El Dragon rolled 8 9+1=10 (Natural Leader) successes using 11d10 with the Target Number system with a target of 7 ((8,5,3,9,7,4,10,7,9,9,9)) For a Command roll.

---

"Easy soldier," Dragón said into his comm, "take a few deep breaths and get your bearings.  You can do this."

Turning his attention downward again, he lowered himself onto the metal skeleton of the club's ceiling.

Operator nodded in acknowledgement and thanks to El Dragon. Of course the man would understand. Man? By comparison, El Dragon was a god. And Operator was overawed to work alongside him.

"You lead the way, Ranger."

The understanding El Dragon had shown washed over Operator, and his authority helped clear his mind. Focus on the non-sense storm and the mission, worry about Nigeria, Cambodia, Laos, and everywhere else, later. Operator kept his mind open, telepathically, for those thoughts that would betray novas and others involved in the nefarious activities of the evening. His best bet for getting through this was staying useful and staying alive.

Captive Audience
As the police, a military nova response unit, paramedics, and others converged on the scene, Serenade and Kraken's lovely concert came to a close.  The next 6 hours were spent giving statements, spinning the situation for the media, and attempting to make the fiasco less of a disaster.

In the wake of the night's events, Impetus took a mild dip in the polls, Serenade's latest album showed a 62% increase in sales, and KHI stock held steady despite a massive growth in the recent Kraken Wear apparel line.  The media continued to replay the night's events for several weeks, but coverage declined after pictures of cats dressed as T2M:A heroes took the opnet by storm.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
and that's a wrap

---

Chance Meetings
Cassia giggled at Paidrag's efforts, momentarily forgetting her disappointment as she climbed in to the vehicle.

The one elite still conscious looked at Paidrag with confusion before turning to look at Johnny as the pumpkin roadster drove off.  "Uh, so did that stream o' words mean I can take off, or what?"

---

Inside the Archon, Terri groggily agreed that it was time to go home.  Narcosis smirked at the big man as he hauled away his pet.  "Have a fun time, sorry you couldn't stay and play."

---

The drive was a long one, and Cassia was asleep before the car had even left Las Vegas.  265 miles and one very unnerving visit to a McDonalds drive-through later, the pair were parked outside Casa Devarga.

Debts Paid
Gale easily sighted Dillon and Daphne from her elevated vantage point, and was also rewarded with a view of the new Las Vegas, illuminated by the low-hanging sun.  The two were talking as they moved toward another of the strip's attractions.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Feel free to continue this as long as you want, but unless people do something crazy, my narration isn't needed here any longer.

---

Strained Relationships
With Gravitas's exit, a palpable tension and anticipation left the building with him.  The crowd seemed simultaneously relieved and disappointed that a conflict was avoided.  Solitaire was left without her ride, but as everyone was well aware, she could get around just fine on her own.  As she floated casually above her bar stool, the two gremlins terrorizing the room maneuvered themselves to drop a light fixture on her from above.

Matador, swept up in the dance and Baroness's words, was taken aback by the question about another man.  "I-- You share a passionate dance with a man, and then you slap him in the face with another man's name?!" The tone masked some genuine hurt, but was mostly machismo and showmanship.  He laughed loudly as he spun her once.  "You really wish to know?" he said quietly into her ear.  "While children may move past their parents, only a fool shows them no respect.  He was a founder of this grand movement, and as he showed against Geryon, he is a ferocious opponent.  Not that I would even blink at the prospect of opposing him, if only I could draw your affections away from that unfeeling man.  He has eyes only for his laboratory you know."  There was a smile under the mask as he continued to flirt.

Thieves in the Night
The man at the door flinched at the sound of gunfire and moved to investigate.  He returned to his post moments later though, as the world dismissed the gunshots as irrelevant.  Operator caught his breath as he moved into position to provide backup for El Dragon.

Angelo, meanwhile, was crawling slowly and stealthily across the ceiling toward his targets.  Between his sharp senses and a bit of telepathic direction from Operator, Dragon pinpointed the  area where the men were, the second floor of a large two story office in the center of the building.  The sound of arguing voices speaking in Spanish wafted up to Angelo.  "But Jefe, we've been waiting for over an hour--"  "We wait!"  "But they disrespect us, they disrespect you..." "Still, there is more at stake here."  New voices joined the conversation, English with a Chinese accent.  "You have it?  Let's make this fast."
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:22, Wed 02 Oct 2013.

Baroness laughed, throwing her head about during the dance at the hint of hurt from the gruff nova. She smiled back to him, soothing him by running her hand down his arm, "Oh dear--I meant no disrespect. I simply didn't think my words could scratch a man like yourself." She listened politely, keeping the small smile at her lips as she continued to let him move her about in their dance, letting the smile turn to a smirk at his obvious flirtations "Oh, is that so? Well, you mustn't worry. My interest in him is just as--clinical."

She raised her hand up and ran one of her fingernails gently across the back of the man's neck, where his mask met skin, "But let's talk about you then. I'll tempt the bull and ask about your beautiful mask. Do you always keep it on?" She said with a wink. As she turned about she cast a quick glance back to Solitaire and Phantasm to show she hadn't forgotten about them--though she didn't notice just what mischief her homunculus was up to.
This message was last updated by the player at 04:40, Wed 02 Oct 2013.

Two hours after he'd left Johnny and the muppet, Paidrag pulled into the driveway of casa devarga. When he was within 50 feet of the house he stopped, headlights on, waiting for the occupant of the house to come outside. As he pulled in he spoke to Cassia. "Time t'wake, little one, we're here." He gently increased the interior lighting as she woke up. "Now, this here Drag'n chappie, he's as solid as they come, or so me sources tell me. He'll treat ya right an' keep ya safe, y'hear? An' I ain't outa yer life neither, Ah'll check in on ya regular like."

Chance Meetings


Johnny wasn't the smartest man in the world.  But his mind worked fast.  He'd returned the smart phone to its owner and there was a lull in passers-by.    Carefully, he replaced his helmet.  "Yeah, about that ..."

Without another word, he turned in one smooth motion and fired from his wrist a six-inch long self-propelled missile.  It struck the elite and injected a combination of mox, procaine, morphine, and some sort of nova-class barbituate -- Johnny didn't claim to understand how it worked, but he was told it was similar to nimetazepam.  The elite slumped to the street.  Johnny watched, ready to fire a different, more explosive weapon if it turned out that this one had developed an immunity to the Triton Foundation's pharmacological wonders or a secret force field or some other power to negate 'the Tooth'.

He calmly checked on whether he'd managed to transmit anything to the OpNet while he waited (he hadn't).  A minute went by, and he waived off some other pedestrians and fans with some line about a crime scene or official business, and organized the photos and other information.  He zipped, encrypted, and hid the folder with the photos, then pulled his helmet off to manually screw up his OpNet connection a little more.  Best to make things believeable.

Five minutes passed.  Johnny was confident now that the elite was either a very successful actor or fully unconscious.  If he was unconscious he was unlikely to recover without medical assistance.  So Johnny cuffed the nova, activated an emergency tracker, and checked the novas pulse while police and utopia security were dispatched.  Then he delivered a brutal kick to the man's prone form, enough to snap his neck and make it look like the fatality could have been a result of the brawl.

He wasn't sure what he'd do with all this information, but he wanted to hold onto it for awhile.  And elites who'd listened to the whole conversation and seen his buddy ride off with the girl just didn't fit into that plan.

Dragón met the car in the building's parking garage.  There was a moment of confusion as he spotted a young girl in the passenger seat of a driverless car, but he quickly sorted it out.  "Mechanus," he said, nodding at the idling car.

Then he stepped around and opened Cassia's door.  "Good morning, chiquita," he said, smiling.  He helped her gather up the remnants of her McDonald's raid, thanked Patrick again, and took her hand to lead her up to his home.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:44, Sun 06 Oct 2013.

Dillon considered the question.  "Once upon a time ... yeah, I would have been really worried.  But she's found her feet."  Can't fight their battles for them.  "She's fought that battle already, and come to a better conclusion than David did.  Prodigal.  The weird angel-guy."  He frowned.  "It's a long story."

-

At the Rio, Dillon led straight to the elevator and his new favorite spot.  The Archon, in his mind, had a problem: it was all about novas.  But the VooDoo Rooftop Nightclub was a place where Vegas denizens could mingle and see the whole of the strip laid out before them.  In the last year, Dillon had come to know a lot of the staff, and dropped a fair amount of money on the establishment, which came with perks.  Namely, that with a polite request they let him and his young friend get a table hours before the club was set to open.

"Tomorrow, we can see the rest of the strip.  For now ... a table and a view."  He passed Daphne his phone so she could let Serenade know where she was if she wanted.  "So ... when did you erupt exactly?"

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: It's true, the VooDoo has one of the best views of the city.  You look east, and the whole of the strip is lined up north to south for you.  Here in real life, the nightclub is mostly for the trendy and vapid - the Paris Hilton's of the world - but I'm declaring that a bit more class lingers in this place in this iteration of the Aeon-verse since the Archon has drawn away the trendiest of the trendy.

Also, Serenade if you want to join in, you are welcome.  Dress code is casual, and the kitchen isn't working yet.  It's just drinks, casino employees, and a few VIPs hanging out in the evening sun.

---

With some privacy and seclusion 51 floors above ground, Dillon could finally relax.  And hopefully give Daphne a few moments of friendly normalcy.  And by the time Gale arrived, the conversation had wandered.

"Alright, so another weird thing about living with this stuff," he started.  He was describing his own personal parasite, the metal, the source of his super-density and invulnerability, the product of his node and thief of his taste and smell.  Doctors could describe technical details of nova-dom, he focused on the banal things.  "Alright, so, I don't know how its been for you -- you look like you're weathering things pretty well -- but pretty early on I figured out that I had a serious problem.  I liked my hair short, right?  And had always been clean shaven.  But I couldn't cut my own hairs with a conventional razor anymore."  He laughed and mimed razors breaking against his face and his head.  "Took me forever to figure out something to keep my hair trimmed.  And it's still a pain."  He shook his head, laughing.  "This nova business ... it's weird, Daphne.  It's really weird."

Daphne couldn't help, but be in awe at the view of Vegas that she currently had. Daphne takes the phone and texts Laura with her location and who she was with.

"Well it was a few months ago not long after my birthday. My best friend at the time, invited me to a party and that didn't go so well and I left in a bit of a hurry. Without my ride I headed to a train station where some guy tried to mug me and I ended up on the train tracks."

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Daphne will continue to give you a brief of her eruption. Probably including a better date, which I don't actually have.

---

Daphne is sitting listening to Dillon with a look of fascination on her face. She gives a little laugh before responding to Dillon. "I hadn't even really considered my hair yet. I do prefer it long, but I'll probably have to get inventive with hair styles if it gets too long. This nova stuff is very weird, I haven't really weathered it well. I am getting more used to it, but the month I spent in San Francisco trying to kill myself was definitely not the most productive thing I've done."

Suicide attempts.  The topic was a little more solemn than he liked, but clearly meant a lot to the young lady.  "If what you're telling me about your powers is true, your odds of dying are probably about as good as mine."  He drank in the scenery, letting the wind and the quiet mix.  "Knew some people who spent time with Rashoud and Mazarin, and some of my friends have some strong ideas on what makes novas the way they are.  There's some wish fulfillment or self-actualization ... but the survival instinct's powerful.  Probably the most common trigger for eruption.  Sooner or later, you'll have to start living, because your body's not going to give up anytime soon."

He turned to look at Daphne.  "And if you're not over the death-wish, please don't try and indulge it here.  I don't know how you work, but if I took the express to the bottom it would just crater the earth and probably get a lot of people hurt.  They don't need that."

"And I'd probably catch you first," came Gale's voice from above as she floated down onto the roof to join them.  She had just followed them from above the whole way, not wanting to mess with the afternoon crowds, and then taken her sweet time getting to the top while they had to take the elevator.

"The why doesn't matter so much as what comes after.  What are you going to do with it?  What do you want to do with it?  It's a tough question.  But you have a lot of choices.  As a nova, almost any door can be opened for you.  Some people chase after the dreams they never thought they'd get a chance at.  Some just want to go back to what it was like before.  Some carry on just as they always had.  Most of us walk something in between, or forge something completely new."

Daphne smiles as she sees Gale return from her talk with the two strangers earlier.

"I am glad to see that you are alright. As for my death wish, well it is very diminished. Jumping from buildings and getting shot isn't much fun. I mostly just bounce and leave a small dent from falling. As for what to do, I just don't know. I hadn't even really started thinking about what I wanted to do before I became a nova. Now it seems so much more daunting of a task than before. I think helping people would be a good place to start. Even though my parents were apparently a little crazy, some of the things they taught me were right. I think God would want me to use this power to help others, not just use it to benefit myself."