A week later, all of you are in Manhattan, going about your life... It's about 10 am.

...Post what each of you is doing today, please... (you too, Twist)
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:22, Thu 02 June 2022.

Coming around the block, White Lynx turned on a dime and sped off. It was a little early to be out hero-ing, but it was important that she be seen on patrol. Her injuries had been too difficult to hide in her civilian identity, so she'd had to play them up instead. As far as the paper was concerned, Diana Clarke was projected to remain in recovery for another week. It wasn't great for her internship, but they were kind enough not to complain too much. White Lynx, on the other hand, was perfectly fine and could do ten laps around the borough before anyone had their morning coffee, all without breaking a sweat.

Wiping a bit of the liquid off of her forehead, Lynx conceded in her head that maybe 'without a sweat' was pushing it a little bit.

Gil Woods sat in class, trying his best to learn something. It was why he was in college, after all. And yet it was difficult to concentrate when he seemed more the center of attention than the professor was. And even she fawned over the super-hero in the class from time to time. It made Gil wonder if maybe he should have kept a secret identity when he decided to be a hero.

Scraps lay under his desk, by his feet, snoring lightly.

Cosmic Girl - or, as everybody else knew her, well-liked local girl Peggy Potter, perky schoolgirl, and star of her local football team's junior cheer squad - was doing what any other girl her age was doing. She was going to school!

Except, she wasn't.

She had followed the same routine for most of her life. She would get up, have breakfast with her parents - today eggs, bacon, maple pancakes, and an inadvisable quantity of coffee, which she could drink without any apparent side effects, as her super metabolism seemed to turn caffeine into an entirely benign compound - and then she would put on her school uniform, pick up her school bag, and head out to where the car was waiting. Everybody could see her being driven off to school.

She never arrived.

It was all a very complex ruse. Since her birth, she had been an assett of the government. The life of her family was an incredibly detailed sham. And every morning on a weekday, she would be ferried away from her home, and taken to an entirely unremarkable building, within which she would be subjected to tests, training, and... unfortunately... education.

Yes, she did not have to go to an actual school. But the tutors she had been assigned by the US Government were probably far more demanding than any high school Principal would ever expect.

And so there she sat, staring at her textbook, and wondering for the millionth time, why she would ever need to know the gross domestic product of the leading nations of the world.  She had been raised to fly about and shoot down supervillains. She seriously doubted any of them were going to pause to ask her the top five imports of West Germany before unleashing a horde of buzz-saw toting attack meringues, or whatever the crazy fool had hidden away.

Her tutor watched her impassively. He was an archetypal MiB type. Just once, she thought, it might have been nice to be a normal girl. But then, she would probably still have geography finals to pass. Maybe the biggest evil mastermind of all was whoever set the curriculum...

"That was 'Take This Hammer', from the album Odetta At The Gate Of Horn, here on WKCR... the original FM. I hope you've enjoyed your Bluesday Morning," drawled Sonaly into the microphone. "Taking you into the ten o'clock hour is the great John Lee Hooker, 'Boom Boom Boom'. Be sure to join me next week for another wake-up with the best of the blues." She lowered the needle onto the waiting record. "I'm your host, Sonaly Pelham, signing off. Be good, New York." Sonaly dialed the microphone volume to zero, leaned back in her chair, and exhaled. Decent show, she thought to herself. Decent show.

As she passes a radio at super-speed...

...Wait, what was that? It'd been very blurred by the Doppler effect, but... White Lynx races back a few blocks to the same spot.

Something on the radio... urgently asking all heroes to report immediately "to Fort Terry, on Plum Island, to respond to an emergency. If you cannot fly nor travel to an island quickly, please contact your nearest police station, and a helicopter will be sent to pick you up..."

---

A college staff member nervously comes in the door and makes a beeline for Gil. "Um, uh... the government has called and told us to tell you there's a problem on Plum Island. A huge emergency... happening right this second."

Oh no. Gil remembers what's on Plum Island-- the secret supervillain prison...

---

An announcement comes over the P.A. system. "Codename Cosmic Girl! Report to Plum Island, off the eastern tip of Long Island, immediately! You'll see the problem when you get there-- probably a little before you get there--!"

---

Sonaly's boss comes in at that moment and hands her a piece of paper. "Before you go, please read this announcement really quick-- it's from the government-- there's an emergency somewhere called Plum Island. Apparently they want us to announce it so they can get any superheroes they can get their hands on to go there fast-- they'll send a helicopter to any police station if heroes can't fly there on their own or anything..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:56, Sun 05 June 2022.

Sonaly muted the turntable and clicked the microphone on. "We interrupt your musical program for this breaking news: In response to a developing emergency on Plum Island, the government has issued an urgent call for super-powered individuals. Responders who cannot fly or travel to an island quickly, please contact your nearest police station and a helicopter will be sent to pick you up. Once again, in response to an emergency on Plum Island, the government has issued an urgent call for super-powered individuals. Thank you." She gradually restored the turn-table to its prior volume. "That concludes this news bulletin. You are listening to WKCR, the original FM. We return you now to your regularly scheduled program." Snapping the microphone off, she turned to her boss. "Sorry to go just as things get exciting, but I have a study meeting. Derek should be in before the record ends." Sonaly snagged her purse and was out the door before he could reply. "Byeeeeeeeeeee!"

Peggy looked up at her tutor. The man just raised his eyebrow, and jerked his head at the door. So she wasted no time. She jumped up and ran out, thanking whatever entity it was that saved her from another day of excrutiating tedium.

It did not take her long to change into her costume. She had practiced it so often that she could change at a speed that was quite remarkable, although the process did not look remotely graceful. She would work on that, when she had time. But not today.

A few minutes later, she was airborne. She zoomed across the treetops, watching Queens below her, moving too fast to really make out individual people going about their daily lives. Below, occasionally people would point up and stare. It was all part of the job.

It was a little over a hundred miles, as the crow flies, from central Manhattan to Plum Island. But in a straight line, flying without any obstructions other than the occasional alarmed pigeon or doomed bug, she made good time. Ever since she had manifested her aura, flying had become far more pleasant. Now bugs just zapped and fizzled when she ran into them, rather than accidentally getting caught in her throat. It happened. Being a superhero was not all glamour.

In the distance, she zipped past the Hamptons. Up ahead was... a problem.

Lynx stared at the radio as the warning ended and transitioned into some music. Maybe hero-ing this early wasn't actually an issue after all?

She wasn't entirely sure where this Fort Terry was, but if this was an emergency, then the speedster already in uniform was likely in the best position to respond. It was time to show Earth that she wasn't out for the count.

Legs sparking against the ground, Lynx took off. The fastest way to the island was to head there in a direct line, or as the humans seemed to like to say, "as the crow flies." Given that she wasn't capable of flight without an aircraft, she would instead go as the White Lynx ran, racing across the top of the water at super speed.

Along the way, she hummed the handful of words she'd heard before abandoning the radio.

"Boom, boom, boom, boom..."

Sonaly headed to the roof of Carman Hall. She shrugged out of her street clothes, once there, and into her heroic attire all in one fluid motion. Stowing her street clothes in her purse, and her purse behind a maintenance panel a couple yards up the AM antenna, Sonaly swung into action. She cartwheeled east-northeast via the campus roofs, then across Morningside Park until she reached the NYPD 28th Precinct. Don't wanna scare the white folk, Sonaly reminds herself with a wry grin, so best I go to a Harlem precinct. Lightly touching down, she collected herself and dashed into the precinct. "Good morning, sergeant," she said to the person manning the duty officer's station. "I'm here in response to the call for superheroic assistance. Would you be so kind as to radio for a helicopter? Tell them to meet me at Locust Point in fifteen minutes, thanks!"

"Excuse me," Gil said to the professor and the rest of the class. "Gotta fly."

He didn't bother with the door. Getting to the nearest exist to the building was a bit of a maze if he followed the halls. So instead, he opened the fourth-story window and jumped out, flying away with Scraps in one arm and his books in the other. He was reasonably sure he knew where Plum Island was, so he didn't need to make an embarrassing stop for directions.

A little while later, after a few course corrections, he arrived in his familiar golden glow.

Amazingly, everyone arrives at almost the same time-- Cosmic Girl first, then Goodwill, then White Lynx and then Twist.

What they see when they get there is basically that someone appears to be trying to do a jailbreak.

Supervillains who've been in the newspapers are out in the open where they shouldn't be.

It's clear that governmental authorities have been trying to stop everything from getting out of control long enough for help to arrive. They've failed, and are seconds away from retreating.

One man is tossing around orange bolts of energy without breaking a sweat. He's got an red cape on, and some sort of symbol on his costume's chest, a yellow circle in the middle of a black triangle.

The guy is simultaneously holding off (and defeating) not only armed agents of the type that hang out with Agent Delancey-- and yeah, there he is right over there... but also villains that Goodwill recognizes as Tetsubo and Blackjack and The Cogster... and that guy that Goodwill and his colleagues stopped at the museum that one time, too.

Meanwhile, over behind a very large rock that's part of the landscape, Blue Dragon and The Impersonator are hiding and watching...

"Whose side is this guy on?" Goodwill wondered aloud. The guy in the cape was fighting government agents and the escapees? "Hey! You! Identify yourself!"

(Hmmmmm. Roll Charming, please, Lance...)

Cosmic Girl bobbed down. She was still airborne, but came close enough to Goodwill to hear the answer. And she took stock of the escapees. She looked right at Tetsubo and grimaced.

"Not this guy again. How many times do we have to put this bunch in prison before it sinks in that this is where they are meant to be?"

She drew two balls of cosmic fire to her hands and waited for the answer.

OOC: Can we get a brief word on the powers of the new faces at all? Cogster, Blue Dragon, and Impersonator are people we haven't met yet, I think? But if they've been locked up, presumably their powers are known. Or are these other heroes?
This message was last edited by the player at 18:41, Wed 08 June 2022.

Standing on one of the helicopter's landing skids, Twist scanned the area to get a better handle on the situation. "A score card would be useful here," she mutters to herself. "At least few of these boys made the news, thank god, or I wouldn't know who's who."

Lynx's eyes dart between the fighting and the two villains watching and waiting.

"Those two hiding over there..what do you all think they're doing? Are they unable to run or do they just not plan on leaving?"

She then stopped in her tracks for a moment and looked between the other heroes. "Oh, hello there, Cosmos and Goodwill. I heard that you all took care of Norwood. I'm glad that's all over for now. Sorry I couldn't be there."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:18, Wed 08 June 2022.

OOC: Twist is not currently in conversation range. Still a dozen yards overhead clinging to a helicopter.

(Blue Dragon and The Impersonator were kind of hushed up by the authorities. The Cogster made the news, though-- he's some sort of technology genius (just electronics, not biochemistry too like Norwood) who mostly does things with force fields.

I will add, though, that Blue Dragon and The Impersonator look like they're Cosmic Girl's age, more or less, so their youth, and the fact that they're currently hiding while watching, immediately make them seem less dangerous than the others...)

OOC: Apologies! I'll just remove that then.

Who's Lance?

(PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT. Someone in another game I run with a portrait that looks like yours!

I meant YOU!)
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:27, Sun 12 June 2022.

Goodwill rolled 12 using 2d6+1 ((5,6)).

The guy blasts Tetsubo, knocking him back, and then he grabs Blackjack by the throat in mid-leap. "I am known as Captain Cosmos! Keeper of the balance between good and evil, order and chaos-- by smiting evil and chaos! Away, monster!" he adds as Blackjack's weird ribbon-like wrappings come to live and start trying to wind up the Captain's arm and go for his throat. The Captain tosses Blackjack a good 40 yards into a wall. "How dare you presume to do battle with a wielder of the Power Eternal!" The impact with the wall would have killed anyone human, but apparently Blackjack doesn't fit well into that category-- he gets up and shakes his head to try to clear it...

Let's see if all the practice pays off. Twist flung a hand toward the nearest guard tower and stepped off the landing skid. May attract a little attention along the way, but that's one hazard of the job. Taking a firm grip on the flagpole atop the tower, she converted her downward linear momentum into lateral angular momentum, to swing around and lightly touch down on the tower's roof. Hey hey, didn't suck, she told herself with a grin. You go, girl!

---

11:52, Today: Twist rolled 12 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 4,6.  Remain Undaunted (Acrobatics).