OOC: Something Big(ish) to try and get this fired back up.

Weeks pass and school falls into a 'normal' pattern, for values of normal. Val finds that he classes are challenging but not insurmountable. Phys Ed is particularly rewarding..and difficult with Valerie quickly rising to the top of class.

Just after lunch on an otherwise calm day Val's comm-link barks in her ear. The voice is unmistakeably one Jason Moon Hightower aka Tower.

"Need help...bad..", the transmission ended there.

It had been a challenging afternoon for Val, in a lot of ways she was ahead of a lot of the students since she had been pretty much tutored since she was six by grad students and people working on this or that degree while they tried to unravel her kinked DNA. Except for the truly epically smart, which there were many at the school. She felt a bit odd at times, given that in a lot of ways 'Supers High' was not anything like the school she'd seen in TV shows.

There were the geeks, the freaks, the jocks, the hip chicks and the rest of the cliches from the movies and tv shows, only most of these folks had that little something extra.  Or a lot of something like she did.  One of the things that came up as she learned her physical limits were that they were pretty damn high. Some days the PE teacher couldn't seem to find something challenging, then the next he'd have something that would stop her in her tracks. It was kinda awesome actually, she'd learned more about controlling her strength in the last few weeks than she'd done since she'd come into her powers.

Needless to say she hadn't expected to hear Tower's voice in her ear asking for help. While she'd enjoyed teasing him about the attack in the mall, they both knew that wasn't the way things usually went in a fight when he was involved and he sounded rough over the ear bud.

"Tower where are you at? I'll come and get you." Val said, not thinking about fighting but getting him clear. Blond she might be but she DID listen to her mentor and he steadfastly didn't want her 'side kicking'.

Only silence comes from the comm-link and Val's mind rushes back to the briefing she was given on just how much force was necessary to take one of the Myth-tech devices offline.

Just as the frustration was setting in Joey "Whisper" Ashefarber jolted nearly out of his seat and grabbed his ultra-sensative ears. Joey was an ubernerd but had nonetheless made an effort to befriend the statuesque Valerie seemingly unfazed by her looks.

"I can hear them fighting Val. Major impacts in downtown...I've never felt pressure like that.", He quickly slipped his safety earbuds in.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:43, Tue 20 Sept 2016.

"Thanks, I'll need you to call it in. I got to see if Tower needs a hospital drop. Anything that has him calling for me to come help can't be good and I did promise 'coach' no hijinks.  Call me if you get any reports while I'm en route, I don't want to fly in a war zone."

Val waved  as she dashed out and took off heading for downtown. She'd done more than a little study on the events that had occurred over the years. Not wanting to go thru  that sort of thing she had listened to Tower and didn't go looking for trouble.

"Wonder what hit him so hard to knock him offline so quickly?" She liked Tower.

At 250 mph it didn't take long for Val to reach the outskirts of downtown. Her recent training had prepared her to look for certain things and she saw most of them now. People were streaming out of the area around the towering buildings and APD was setting up barricades to keep the inevitable oblivious motorists from driving in anyway.

[At this point you should decide, if you haven't already, what Val's "super suit" looks like]

She could see officers struggling to keep things moving safely at the edges of the downtown area.

Val took in the panic, that wasn't a good sign. When she'd met Tower, she'd fought a trio of thugs that had the ability to chop up cars (and heroes) and the mall's food court barely cleared for the fight, of course three rednecks with mythic powered forestry tools wasn't too high on the list of 'kaju' level panic.

Whatever did this was, however, very high on that list but not tip top. No buildings were collapsing (yet). She landed by the police check point feeling a bit.. 'cosplayish' in her workout suit. It was a mostly black and looked like something an athlete in the olympics might wear. If Underarmor made body suits. She weakened the 'costume' look with a pair of work boots, a t-shirt (todays was a 'wibbly wobbly/timey whimey' Tardis t-shirt in blue), an old 'bomber' style jacket and took off her goggles. The Jacket and goggles were her concession to the twin banes of flight.. chill and bugs. A junebug in the eye at 250 mph might not kill her, but dam it hurt.

"Hello.. I'm Val Dobson, I got a call from Tower that he needed help then his 'link cut out. I have instructions to help out the authorities but not to go out and do 'damn heroics' unless it's end of the world-ish. So, I was wondering if you guys needed help evaccing folks and maybe knew where my mentor was?" Val said sheepishly.

The APD officer, his name tag says "Hennig", never stops doing his job but Val can see some level of relief on his face at her arrival.

"He's in there.." He gestures further into downtown,"..and there are at least three hostiles. Radio chatter says they are all moving at parahuman speed but no word on how."


Make a perception roll.

"Well damn.. he likes bringing in trios.. something else to tease him about." Val said with a wide, and wicked, grin. She glanced around as she replayed what Tower had told her when walking into a situation blind. Ask (for advice), Assess and look for an angle that gets you in and out. She figured in a year, or six, he'd let her help out iwht another fight but till he, and she suspected Myth, were  satisfied that she understood how to avoid a fight she was support. Truth be told, she didn't mind, was less wear and tear on her meager supply of rugged Mythwear. Boots in her size were a pain to get.

"Got any flyers or just runners? And can they go up vertical surfaces? I figure I could go in high, spot him, and fly in and out. Reduce the chance of the fight moving out of there before the rest of his team mates show up to put them in shackles." Val said, giving the officer a look that told him she didn't plan on starting with 'pummel the baddie' as her plan for contact. She was more worried about Tower getting ganged up on (again).

The officer looked at Valerie as his look of relief faded before her eyes.

"Ma'am are you new at this? Do you realize how serious a situation has to be before we would try an evacuation on this scale? Grady Memorial Hospital is in the threatened area. People are going to die because we had to move them just so they would have a chance!.."

"..and Tower doesn't have any teammates."

"I don't think you're taking this situation seriously enough. You need to get your head in the game!"

He speaks quickly and earnestly and then runs off to help a little girl up before she can get trampled.

With that roll Val is able to notice that the slide of the officers service pistol is locked open in the "I shot all my bullets and now I'm out" position.

"Okay.. time to break the rules." Val whispered as she jumped into the air and headed into the area. She figured that she needed to get to Tower, find the speedsters and break every damn rule that he and Myth yelled at her over the last few weeks. She looked for clues to the speedsters, recalling some of the things that Tower told her to look for and how to use the environment against them. Most speedsters could be tripped, distracted and were fairly 'squishy'.

She kept high in the air initially to scout out the area. She was looking for four things: Tower and three speedsters.

As Val moved deeper into downtown she spotted a man in an APD uniform hanging halfway out of a sixth floor window. They way he was stuck in the shatterproof window suggested he had arrived there from OUTSIDE rather than in.

He was breathing and moving slightly.

Val had a secret, she was a lot more heroic than she said she was. Tower was breaking down the fundamental issues she had, being the 'kid who shouldn't have lived' then becoming the exaggerated 'juggxrnaught teen' that was bullet proof capable of flying and tossing cars. She wanted to help folks, to repay the debt that she felt she owed to all those folk that kept her alive over the years.

So she couldn't help but divert her search and rescue the man.

"Hey.." She said as she slid in close and eased the man upwards into the hole, away from the multistory drop. "I got you.. in you go, can you talk? How do you feel? Are you okay?"

At close observation it appeared that the officer's body armor had prevented any permanent injury but he was obviously stunned. With Val's help he made it into the building through the hole he had made in the lexan window.

"Th..thanks ma'am."

He knelt inside the hole though it was unclear if he was resting or just unable to stand just yet.

"There's three of them...and they can fly too." He glanced at the hole he had just come through. "Strong as hell. Small arms are completely useless."

"I was trying to signal a Category 4 alert but something is jacking with our comms. Maybe if I get up to the roof I can get a signal out."

"You better hurray Ma'am. If Tower don't get some help soon he done for!"


A quick reminder that in the world of Foundation parahumans are rated in Categories from 0 (Sub-Cats) to 5 (world destroying threats like The Sunkiller). Yeoman would be rated Cat 2, Val and Tower are considered Cat 3, Patriot and Dr. Myth are considered Cat 4 (though some dispute Myth's rating as too high).

"You should stick to the indoors if you're going up there. Skydiving without a chute is better left to folks like me. Call in folks who can fight these guys, odds are I'll need to get Tower to a hospital if hes' been fighting with folks that high up the encounter table." Val said before stepping out into midair and looking for clues for where Tower had been fighting.

Typically that entailed property damage, though he did his best to avoid it but size 84 wides were hard to miss.

The officer seems to agree as he turns and jogs toward the nearby stairwell.

As Val flew deeper into the shadowed valleys of downtown she saw no further immediate signs of parahuman combat. What she did detect were occasional shock waves powerful enough to rattle her nigh-invulnerable teeth.

Val turned over as she came around a building corner, using her slow roll to look for potential attackers, before focusing in the direction of the shockwaves. It gave her time to think thru the rules of combat that Tower had been teaching her.

Never announce yourself unless it helps the fight.
Look for an advantage.

There were others, but when you're going into a three on one fight with the man who is teaching you to fight calling for help, those are the things she focused on. She wished she had stuff like some of the characters in the books she read, like Astra from Wearing the Cape with her 100 pound titanium maul.

"Focus, on finding Tower and getting him clear." Val muttered as she stayed high to look for the fight, see what was going on before making her play. Odds were she'd only get the one shot at helping her friend.

As Val flew high scouting the streets below a courtyard came into view, the courtyard at the Marriott in fact. The most obvious thing in the courtyard was Tower, over twenty feet tall and battered from head to toe. His clothes were a mess.

Three near invisible blurs were swarming around him, one yellow, one red, and one blue, and each time one of them touched tower there was a shockwave like a 500lb bomb and the giant hero was rocked.

Tower rep for defending Atlanta was well deserved however and he was taking the beating lying down. While Val was watching his spit blood to the side, glared through one swollen eye, and smacked the red blur into a nearby building.

Somehow during all of that Tower looked up and saw Val's arrival. What confused her was he didn't seem relieved but instead printed across his enormous battered face was fear and concern, obviously for her.

In her ear she hears,"They got your powers Val, all of them and then some, and there's another one around here...at least one more."

Before she can even process this information Val realizes that she is not alone in the sky.

A man simply appears only a few feet away. Tall, as tall as Val, and well muscled over a lean athletic frame putting her in mind of a champion swimmer...or fighter he had golden hair an his eyes were obscured by glowing energy.

"Hello Valerie Dobson. I am Thane of the Oberon. You are summoned before the Throne. I have come to take you there as you do not know the way."

He seems to await a response as if there wasn't a battle going on nearby.

'Gosh and here I am in a tee shirt and yoga pants.' Valerie thought as she forced herself to look past the obvious 'minder' that had been sent to 'fetch' her and  her mentor/friend who was getting beaten down by three similarly empowered foes.  It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how the threesome running down her friend got there.

"I'd be happy to, after I help my friend out. I don't suppose you know anything about those three?" She asked bluntly. She'd read a lot of quotes from a lot of heroes a lot of them came to mind. She was watching three heavily powered men beat her friend down and they had thrown at least one cop into a situation that would have resulted in his death had she not came by.

"Call them off."

"The Trifecta Ultimate are merely performing their duty."

"Not only did this churl refuse to disclose your location but he struck Prince Stormhold so hard he hasn't come down yet."

The glowing man gestured at the sky as he spoke.

"I'm sure that the Prince was the epitome of politness and manners. I'm still a child in the eyes of many on this world, and one doesn't tell just anyone where your students are in any matter." Val said as she looked at the trio. "Three on one.. real fair. They stop now.. or I don't go anywhere willingly. I'm sure the Throne wants me to come along willingly. You want to drag me to it bloody and broken..." She pointed down where her mentor and friend was being beaten on.

"You think he's stubborn? Try me."

"You have been found and if your protector will agree to cease combat there is no reason for the Trifecta Ultimate to continue. Prince Stormhold may be more difficult to convince."

He seemed to think one his words and then looked at her meaningfully.

"You do need to understand that you have no choice but to answer the call of King Dondarian."

"As a wielder of the Power Imperial you are required to answer his call. To do otherwise would forfeit your grant of power. None of us wishes that to occur."

"Perhaps if you inform Lord Tower that you will be accompanying us the battle will cease.

Arrogance was clear in these people, Val thought. Two things kept her from flipping off the King's representative. One had been Dr. Myth's charge weeks earlier to think more on her actions. The second was that Tower had drummed many rules in her head in the meantime. One of which was really simple. Don't start anything you can't finish.

Possible superior wielders of the Power Imperial? Definitely in that category.

Was very tempting though, she though as she flipped over and dove for the ground. Dr. Myth hadn't said much bout the Oberon, simply they were the wielders of the power that had cured her of her myriad conditions and they were a race of warriors. She had thought they were more like the samurai with duty and honor, not so .. well conan like with 'smash any insult in the face...'.

She dropped to hover by Tower announcing herself as she came down.

"I'm Valerie Dobson, stop now and I'll go with you." she yelled as she came to a stop about a yard from the ground. She stayed to one side to not block Tower's view and to give him cover from one side. She figured if the men he was fighting came at her to restrain her, she could go for one of the grabs that Tower had been teaching her to let her mentor get a solid hit on one.

She hoped she was doing the right thing.

Immediately the three streaks of color froze in the air and resolved into masked humanoids each dressed in an armored uniform of their chosen color.

Tower looked as if he were going to continue hostilities for a moment before releasing a long exhale and reducing in size to around seven feet tall. He grabbed the lapels of his jacket and settled it around his shoulders and dusted rubble off of his chest.

Thane drifted down and landed next to Val.

Everyone continued to eye one another for a few pregnant seconds until at last the warrior in red looked up at the sky and spoke from behind his mask with a surprisingly soft voice.

"His highness may be...less agreeable when he returns."

"I will deal with the Prince."

Thane was calm but the three warriors were clearly ill at ease.

Tower moved next to Val but remained facing the others.

"I ain't givin' a shit what His Highness thinks. They ain't brought nobody with 'em that can take you out of here if you don't wanna go."

When he was really really mad Tower's usually erudite accent went to something between a hillbilly and intercity Atlanta. He was clearly past that point now.

"Rule #7: Trust Dr. Myst.. He's as cryptic as a fortune cookie fortune but he sees things clearler than we do. I told you about my experiences with the man, you know I think he'd got a doctorate in cryptic but hes' also the smartest person I've met. HE asked them to help me out." Val shrugged at him as she looked up in the sky. "So, you punched him into orbit.. I so want to see the footage of that punch. So, how big a tool is he?"

She glanced over a the others, taking in the three soldiers and Thane.

"Thane says they can take the power from me, and you know what that will do to me. I'll be dead in months if not sooner. So, I trust Dr 'Fortune Cookie' and you look after my parents till I get back." Her voice dropped to a whisper for just Tower. "If I have to sucker punch him.. what works?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:15, Sat 20 May 2017.

Tower leans in and in a grave whisper says, "Broke my hand."

Val can clearly see the swelling across his knuckles.

A faint whistling sound can be heard in the distance and all of the Oberon except for Thane look skyward in expectation.

Val almost thinks there is a faint smile on Thane's lips as he announces,

"His Highness returns!"

Bare seconds after he has spoken something impacts the street a short distance away causing an explosion, a blinding flash followed by a shower of dust and tiny debris. It is possible that normal humans would have been injured but this crowd is merely soiled.

"That ain't cool. You're  as tough as me but I'm used to breakage remember? ." Val said as she watched the aliens and considered things. Four on one, Thane was clearly the alpha of this set and he looked smug as she heard the whistling sound coming from he sky. The Prince is back and boy I'll bet he's pissed, she thought as she looked up and spotted his return a moment before impact, and a colossal show off too apparently.

In her wheelhouse, only showoffs and arrogant villains in movies did that type of landing when they can do the the 'float down gently' trick she knew everyone here but Tower could pull off. This was to make a point.

She really hoped it wasn't 'I've come to squash Tower like an ant, just let me pull on my shit-kicking boots.' She looked to Thane with a firm gaze.

"No retaliation or you can start round two." She slid to stand by Tower from his injured side. "You going to need a hand punting him back up into orbit?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:47, Sun 21 May 2017.

The dust settled and the form of a man, a very large man even by the standards of those gathered here, began to resolve itself.

He wore a helmet of shining metal and a cape that appears to be made of some sort of animal hide. At his wrists, waist, and boot tops showed a different metal, gold in color. Of matching gold was a mace carried in his right hand. Like a scepter but clearly a weapon and not a simple symbol of status.

His eyes burned with a light that Val knew to be the Power Imperial...a lot of it.

He is clearly in the midst of a serious rage. Nevertheless he speaks rather than strikes.

"I saw that the fighting had ceased and so diverted my attack. You have prevailed through negotiation Laertes?"
This message was last edited by the player at 02:08, Mon 25 Mar 2019.

"After a fashion. We are ready to depart...unless there are to be further hostilities?"

"Well, Dr. Myth said you'd help me get a handle on these abilities." Val said as she stepped between the aliens and her friend. She kept her eyes on the prince as she spoke to Thane.

"Like I said up , back off of Tower and I'll go. Not just because of stopping this fight.. but because Myth said I needed to go." Left unsaid was her heartfelt belief that if they screwed her or Tower.. Myth would make these men regret it.

"I got my iPod, three battery packs and ear buds, I'm ready to go." It was clear to Tower that she was not entirely as comfortable as she put out to the aliens.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:47, Tue 23 May 2017.

"Keep your comm-link charged. Doc's got repeaters all over the place."

"If we lose contact with you..we'll be coming for you."

The tall red headed man rubbed his jaw and spoke with a deep voice.

"She must answer the summons but it was not given in the proper way. Kings can be less than considerate that way."

"She will not be endangered beyond what is expected of any thane of the Oberon and any who threaten her shall face my wrath as well."

He inclines his head to look Tower in the eye.

"Your legend is well deserved."

"So you knew what was up the whole time?"

"Yes, but I had to feel it for myself."

"The Builders will repair what has been done here."

"We must go. Thane..."

Thane's deep blue skin begins to glow with golden energy as he stretches out his arms.

"Are you ready Valor?"

"Well the name is Val.. and this was all .. you guys 'measuring' a certain part? Testing Tower's prowess?Val asked as she paused. Valor did sound kinda cool, but she'd have to move past yoga pants and a mythtech tshirt. She shrugged as she nodded to Tower, he'd look after her family while she was gone.

"Though it sounds cool..just.. no capes.. sorry your highness." Val said as she took Thane's hand. She could stall or step forward.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:57, Wed 24 May 2017.

With a massive rush of air and change of local pressure a portal opened. The hole, a clean vertical oriented oval, hung in the air about a foot above the street.

The Trifecta entered immediately.

Thane and Stormhold seem to be waiting for Val to go next.

Three in front, tow in back, Val noted as she tried hard to not linger on the image of a prisoner on the way to solitary. Too much imagination and not enough sense, she told herself as she floated up and thru the portal.

"Think my frequent flyer miles will go up with this trip?" She quipped to Tower before moving thrushes portal.

"They better hope mine don't".

Thane entered the portal followed by Stormhold and then the opening closed with a faint thump.

val came out of the portal, actually aware that she most likely travelled further than any human had on their own. She would be seeing stars that no member of her family had ever seen. She spun in the air as she kept pace with the Trifecta and kept moving. She took in the scene as she kept moving.

"So.. where are you Dorothy Gale..cause this sure ain't Kansas..." Val whispered as she took in her firstt Alien world. She wondered what one of her other literary heroines, Astra from 'Wearing the Cape', would have thought of this moment. She tried to memorize every detail of her arrival, she wanted to remember this moment for a long long time to to one.

Assuming she survived what was to come.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:38, Fri 28 June 2019.

A tall man in crimson robes greeted Val with a bow as she stepped out of the portal.

To her shock when he stood back up she realized the man was a couple of inches taller than her.

"You are on the Palace Moon of Lear, Valerie Dobson. I am Elias. I am to assist you in preparing for your audience with King Dondarian."

Valerie nodded, uncertain what to do initially, as she took in the tall man in front of her.  She tried to imitate his bow but wasn’t sure she had gotten it right. She felt a thrill of at the thought of being on another world, but pushed that eagerness down for the moment. Clearly the King and his people had more important things for the newly arrived guest to do beyond sightseeing.

“Uh.. hi.. Elias, I definitely need help with that. Product of 21st century America... we tend to be tackless inadvertently and my mentor told me to behave. So, how do I bow, curtsie or whatever to make the right impression?” Always be polite, Grandma said, she reminded herself.  Plus, she needed to figure out why the sudden interest in her.

"If you will follow me I will show you to your quarters".

He led off walking toward a set of beautiful stairs that seemed to float, individually and unsupported, between this floor and the next.

"There are those among the Oberon who are a savage as beasts. The Eleven Moons are populated by the remnants of a hundred cultures. You would be hard pressed to discover a method of offense that has not been mastered here."

She could hear the smile in his voice though he kept his face turned in the direction they were walking.

"The first thing you must bear in mind is that you are a Thane of the Oberon and therefore the equal to all other Thanes. While the Prince and the King stand above you it is a "First among equals" arrangement and not a blind hierarchy."

"The rules apply to all. A Thane or other official may have authority in a particular situation, such as Thane Laertes being sent to retrieve you, but that is the end of it."

"King Dondarian is burdened with control of the source of the Power Imperial and so he hold sway in general."

He paused and looked at her apologetically.

"I will stop lecturing now. I was a teacher before I retired you see and I am still prone to long speeches."

"Have you any questions?"

“About six to ten weeks worth. I don’t know how I came into these powers, I suspect my grandfather is tied into this somehow and there are others who I suspect helped out. Not questions your folks can answer I’m sure. I imagine that the answers you guys can give will turn up soon enough. A Thane huh...” She said thoughtfully as she walked with him.’’

“So this Thane thing.. is it a title or is it a rank? That is do you get it for the Power Imperial, or is something hinting towards responsibility and or duties? My sources on Earth were a little light on details when they told me I had the Power. Sorry I tend to babble when I’m nervous.” Val said as she walked with him. “Basically.. what is expected of me as a Thane?”

"The answer will sound somewhat obtuse said alone for it is simply "Yes"."

"Thane is both a title and a rank. It is in fact given to all of those who control a part of the Power Imperial and it, and the power, come with both great responsibility and certain duties."

"The duties can vary from thane to thane but The Code is always the same. Wield the Power Imperial dishonorably and you risk violating The Code."

"This is why you have been Called Before the Throne. You wield the power but you do not know The Code."

"There are two ways a lliving wielder can lose their title and the Power along with it. King Dondarian, as keeper of the Power Imperial, can remove the power or, if The Code is violated, the Power Imperial will remove itself. Leaving the Wielder powerless."

"I do not know your story but I was told you would understand the gravity of that fact."

Val thought on that for a moment, she was a reluctant heroine at best despite her impulses. Tower was till teaching her the ropes, and the rules of knowing when to step in and when to call the cops. Lots of rules to learn. This sounded a lot like what Tower told her all the time as he taught her. With a dash of the Round Table added in, and maybe a dash of the Texas Rangers.

“I’m not even sure how I got the Power Imperial. I know that Dr. Myth was involved and I suspect my grandfather had something to do it. They did it to save my life, I am..well the best way to describe it is..I’m genetically messed up. I was born with fragile bones, reduced immune responses, and a bunch other things, ” She shrugged. “I figure that the Power fixed whatever mess I inherited from my grandfather. So, given my natural impulses as a do-gooder, I’m more than happy to hear you guys out and find out my responsibilities. Tower, the big guy your associates were beating on, has been teaching me.”   She grinned wickedly at him

“I think I might need to know how to be proper and polite for the King.”
This message was last edited by the player at 01:42, Sat 13 July 2019.

"Etiquette is a mutable thing here among the Oberon. You are expected to uphold the ideals of your people."

'The only rule is that as you have not met him you must address King Dondarian as "Your Imperial Magesty". As you have previously met Prince Stormhold how you address him is more flexible. "Highness" is acceptable but I think you will find he prefers simply "Stormhold". Laertes is most commonly known simply as "Thane" as he is the Thane of the Throne Moon. All others you will have to learn as you go."

"How you dress is of more importance. You must dress in a way that shows your martial status. There are so many races among the Oberon that it has become traditional to wear masks in court to demonstrate unity of purpose where unity of species is impossible."

"It is for that reason that you have access to this..."

Elias gestures with a flourish and a doorway, actually most of one wall, opens to reveal a closet larger than Val's entire home.

Inside are every sort of clothing and mask she could imagine. In the rear of the space there works an entire staff of android seamstresses making outfits of all sorts.

[Essentially Val has carte blanche here to create whatever costume she wants. The only requirement is that it have a mask that conceals her face because courtly etiquette requires it.]

She blinked at the sheer range of things that was available in front of her. Her father’s occasional jokes about women and shoes came to mind, they had seen a documentary on the late Imedla Marcos of the Philippine and her HUGE closets were brought up in it. Even they paled in what she was seeing here.

It was, realistically, more like a supply depot than an actual closest she decided after a long moment. She’d gone around with Tower over costumes and masks. She didn’t like the idea of wearing an out and out costume, and there were some rules that she went by. She felt a bit ‘exposed’ flying, so she kept to slacks or jeans; she liked a bit of heel, most likely from being the shortest kid for like.. forever. Most folks don’t recall when they broke three feet tall, she could easily recall that height. It sucked to be shopping in the little kids section into ones teens.

She considered the mask bit, her big hang up, as she looked around.  She liked the way her companion had stated it. Unity of purpose where Unity of species was possible.

“That’s kind of deep when you say it like that, and makes a lot more sense than some of the reasons I’ve heard back home, I’m publicly known so a mask for being.. you know.. anonymous isn’t that bit a deal to me. Now to show a common focus.. that’s kinda deep.” She picked one out and put it to her face, it covered a lost of her face with a sort of ‘Batwoman’ vibe to it, without the ‘bat ears’ on top. She looked at her image wearing it. “You got any colors or motifs I should avoid? I know that in the past certain colors were class restricted.”

Martial status.. that was a bit tricky, she was a girl of simple tastes, despite mom and grans many attempts to ‘fix’ that problem. She liked comfortable slacks, T-shirt’s, golf shirts or simple blouses mostly with a causal jacket. Part of that was due to the fact she tore clothing so often she didn’t want to bust seams on something expensive. Still this was more ‘hero’ than ‘Val on the town’ she decided.  She knew she couldn’t claim she wasn’t a fighter, Tower taught her a lot and her impulse was to step in when someone was in need. Val was honest to admit she ran towards trouble than not; she wasn’t going to change in that respect.

“We talking like.. what the heroes wear back home? An out and out costume?” She asked as she looked over the styles, looking for something that fit. She found it ironic that her favorite heroine wore a style that she didn’t like wearing herself.  “Tower would enjoy this a lot.. he’s always trying to get me to do the Myth-tech body stocking in primary colors.” She snarked as she started with a body stocking to build on, asking the seamstresses for help with something capable of handling the sort of abuse she gave clothing.

From there she build an outfit based on one of Liberty Belle’s outfits, but with a mix of blue and silver, the school colors, rather than the colors Belle used. With a body stocking under neath the outfit she was okay with the knee length dress and the rest. She looked around.

“No photos please.. Tower will have a field day with this outfit: facebook, tumblr, instagram and twitter to begin wit...” ; She joked as she turned around to look the outfit over and put on her mask before turning to her companion for his approval.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:05, Sun 14 July 2019.

"It would not be considered a "Costume" here my Thane but yes that is exactly it."

He stepped out from behind some racks holding a jacket that somehow looked familiar and brand new at the same time.

"It is almost time. You will feel The Call soon and I will escort you before The Throne."

‘My Thane’  She could hear it capitalized, like the way that certain royalty or nobility was back home on Earth. She felt it in the bones of her body as she considered what she was told. It was a title, but it was something more, as well as a badge of honor and ..what was it grandma called it about her mysterious grandfather... an ‘acceptance of duty.’.

Even now, light years from home, part of her literallly itched at the thought of her paternal grandfather and his mysterious involvement with her new state of being.

“Yeah, I am as ready as I’lll ever be I imagine.” She conceded as she took the offfered jacket and tried it on. She looked at the tall blond in the mirror, the jacket fit she decided. The mask, she would do it here, but too many folks already knew her face for it to be practical back home. Still, Val decided, it made sense here.

Putting aside the Val, to be the Thane among her newly found peers was right

Though there had been a warning it still seemed to come suddenly.

At first Val's entire body began to emit a visible golden glow and then she felt more than heard a summons. "The Call" Elias had called it and that was exactly the name she would have used even if he he hadn't.

Seconds later the door to the chamber opened on it's own and instead of the hallway that had been outside before she could see that it opened onto a semi-transparent golden bridge that led out into the sky toward an impossibly large structure in the distance.

"It is time my Thane. It is traditional to walk."

Elias stepped forward. Now wearing a helmet and carrying a strange sort of techno-spear. His clothing had changed to match the colors Val had chosen for her own outfit.

Val nodded as she turned to see the  bridge to her audience appear, swallowing a bit nervously as she walked with Elias to meet her destiny with more than a bit of concern. What if she started a war with them over some point of protocol or such?

Relax Val, they just want to make this thing.. formal. I’m not that important in the color of things. She chided herself as she walked along the glowing bridge.

“Just give me hints on when to bow or whatever so I don’t make an utter fool of myself please?” She asked nervously as she walked with Elias. This was definitely not what she had expected when she got up this morning; the biggest concern on her mind had been AP History, like anyone understood the evolution of countries in the Middle East post WW1.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:43, Sun 05 July 2020.