Dragon Fist nodded, gesturing the small force that was with him forward as they made their way now to the alarmless complex.

>>>>>>>>To The Tzarina's Complex>>>>>>>

Dane opened the door to Weston's Department of Paranormal affairs, and walked in. He moved exceptionally quietly, even when he did not intend it; years of training and a natural proclivity to move through crowds without leaving any sign of his presence were significant assets to his chosen profession.

Yet now he sought a different life. Treaties put in place when the first parahuman manifested frowned on using supers in combat, and being a proud registrant, that life was closed to him.

To the desk assistant, he said, "Excuse me, ma'am. My name is Dane Sinclair. Would Director Sharp be available? I'd like to discuss enlis... er, joining your group.

The woman looked up from her computer when Dane approached. She was small in stature, with blonde hair she kept in a ponytail and glasses. "And what is your name sir?" She asked politely and proffesionally with just the right amount of warmth to seem friendly without seeming TOO friendly.

She reached into a drawer and pulled out a clipboard with some papers and a pen attached. "I'll also need you to fill these out." If Dane looked at them the papers looked like a standard government application with a few added sections. A checkbox for if you possess powers, a section for the type of abilities, known limits, how they were acquired.

Dane nodded. There was nothing so constant in the army as paperwork.

Name: "Dane McCalister Sinclair"
Address: (supplied)
Phone and Email: (supplied)
Qualifications: Master Sargeant, United States Army, Retired. 5th Special Forces Group, attached to 82nd Airborne out of Fort Bragg. Extensive combat training, including small arms, heavy weapons, demolitions, hand to hand, military tactics, and counterinsurgency.
Commendations: Silver Star, Purple Heart (2), Congressional Medal of Honor.
Education: BA, History, UMass
Checked for Powers: (Checked)
Powers: Flight, Strength, Toughness, Speed.
Known Limits: Unknown. I haven't found anything I can't lift. I can fly from New York to Paris in about two hours, and faster in space.
How Your Powers Were Acquired: Military background. Multiple tours in Afghanistan. Came under heavy fire, sustained casualties, powers appeared. Terminated enemy. Further details are classified.

Once he had answered the questions to the limit of what he felt he could discuss in a non-classified setting, he handed the clipboard back to the woman behind the desk.

"There. And if you have the security clearance, the details of the incident I cited are filed under 'Operation: Lost Innocence'."

The woman nodded and took the papers. "I will pass the information along to Director Sharpe so he can look into it. If you'll take a seat over there, I will let him know you are waiting for him."

In reply to Justice (msg # 47):

Dane nodded politely, and sat down to wait.

After about 30 minutes of waiting a well groomed, handsome man in an expensive suit came out of the elevator and began making his way towards Dane. He smiled charmingly as he reached the seats, inquiring in a cultured British accent. "Sergeant Sinclair? Ethan Sharpe" He extended his hand, still flashing that charming smile. "I hear you're looking for a job."

In reply to Ethan Sharpe (msg # 49):

Dane smiled and shook Ethan's hand. "Director Sharpe. Good to meet you."

After withdrawing his hand, he said, "Actually, no. I don't need a job, sir. I want to contribute. After "Operation: Lost Innocence" concluded, I was mustered out with full benefits and given retirement as if I had spent my full twenty years in, plus the monthly stipend for the Medal of Honor. So I can live modestly and never have to work another day in my life. Plus, people still start up Go Fund Me pages for me all the time... unasked, of course, which I simply donate to charity. No, sir, what I'm looking for is a purpose. I have had the best training the United States' military can offer, plus the powers, and it seems that sitting on my ass and not helping when I've been given more than my fair share of ability to do so would be a waste."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:53, Wed 28 June 2017.

The man chuckled. "I'm afraid one must go with the other, I can't use you without employing you, red tape is the cost of going public I'm afraid. I can bring you on as an 'active consultant', the new term we had to come up with for a consultant that gets involved in the action, but I'd still be forced to compensate you. Though I'll admit I give my salary to charity as well, with my investments and the treasure I amassed during my time as a pirate I'm rather set on currency for at least the next four centuries."

Ethan flashed a charming smile and gestured for Dane to follow him. "But if you'll follow me up to my office we can hammer out any specifics. Do you have any questions or concerns on our way up?" Ethan led the way to the elevator, stepping inside and pressing the button once Dane had joined him.

In reply to Ethan Sharpe (msg # 51):

Dane nodded. "A few. First, in your opinion, is this job a good fit for a military man, or is there something else you might recommend? Second, as a registered parahuman, how much latitude would I have in the pursuit of my duties? Let's start with those two."

"Well that depends, it's possible since you're already registered to just go down to Weston PD and give your name and contact information to the SCU. They'll call you if they need a hand, and as long as you don't cause excessive property damage, try to be the next Hunter, or generally make a nuisance of yourself, you'll be free to go the vigilante route."

"There's also another position I could offer you, as long as you don't mind going back into covert ops."

In reply to Ethan Sharpe (msg # 53):

Dane's expression did not change much, but his bearing experienced something that could be described as, 'perking up.'

"I was planning on speaking to the WPD anyway about that, but... I'm listening."

The elevator dinged and Ethan led the way into his office. "I head an off books task force with the Department 12, the branch of the millitary that runs Strike Team Alpha and the Think-Tank*, we call it Strike Team Beta but the members are just as likely to work individually as they are to as a unit." The Immortal Spymaster explained as he sat behind his desk.


"Strike Team Beta operates in secret, performing black ops involving powered individuals, bleeding edge tech, dark magic, and the like. Everything is completely off book and the actions of any agent will be denied if captured."

In reply to Ethan Sharpe (msg # 55):

Dane smiled. "Yes, sir, I would be MOST interested in that. If you'll have me."

The Immortal Spy smiled. "Excellent. Then lets get you acquainted with the support team and the base of operations." Ethan stood from his chair and tapped his ear. "Door to Safehouse 17." After a few seconds a glowing blue portal roughly the size and shape of a door appeared in the center of the room. Teleportation technology was a fairly recent advancement and required a large central machine to produce the 'doors' which in turn took a massive amount of power. Which was why it was mainly used by the military and most frequently the divisions that dealt with powered threats. "Now if you'll follow me." Ethan said to Dane then stepped through the portal

>>To Safehouse 17>>

In reply to Ethan Sharpe (msg # 57):

Dane followed silently.

==> to Safehouse 17

OOC: do we continue in this thread, or will you set up a separate thread?

The portal deposited the two of them into Ethan's lavishly decorated office. One couldn't help but wonder which was older, the antique furniture and art pieces, or the man that owned them. Almost immediately the intercom on the desk buzzed. "Director Sharpe, the two agents you requested have just arrived." EThan leaned over and pressed the button. "Excellent, send them right up." "Yes sir."

"So what did I miss in the last several months?" she hesitated with slight stutterng but only quiet enough so only Ethan could hear her.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:40, Fri 14 July 2017.

"Business as usual for the most part, no major crises." Ethan sat at his desk indicating for Lina to take a seat, then pressing a few buttons on his holo-watch*. "Now you'll recall I said that only one individual had ever gotten anywhere close to what we saw in that lab, a para-genius who went by the moniker of "The Builder", I've just sent you his file. The two agents on their way up are two of his former victims, and members of our covert branch. I want you to describe what you saw in there, and they'll let us know if it matches with his M.O. "


* essentially a smartwatch supercomputer with holographic interface.

"Okay, I'll do my best to describe what I saw." Lina assured the director as she sat down in the seat before him. The experience still left a bad taste in her mouth but knowing that someone had "possibly" cloned her and created a para with her DNA was unnerving.

Lina went over the report. A flash back of when she eavesdropped on the group she and Carl were spying out the dark and dismal place serving as the Firestorm Cult's former base of operations. One of them was bragging about "boom headshotting" a former colleague in custody a while back. They believed he was collateral damage. Lina gasped softly to herself as she read the last paragraph of The Builder's bio.

  The door slid open, and a young woman of Asian descent entered, her long black hair pinned back with two butterfly clips.  She had hold of a young man's hand, his hair was a sandy blond, cropped relatively short, with a matching goatee.  He moved with a watchful, protective step, and his eyes were alert and downright dangerous if he felt threatened.  The Asian woman, who moved toward Lina and Ethan without error, but her dark eyes seemed to glide right past them both into infinity beyond.  She said softly, her voice far older than her body "Ethan, we are here.  I pray your suspicions are untrue, but I will do my best to assure us all that if he is not gone, we make him so."

  Jack, also known as Rebound, said "Honestly, Ethan, I think this is a bit of jumping at shadows.  I know we've had our mistaken corpses before, but I think we can be pretty sure we got the right man when we watched him die last time.  Erinyes made the right choice about whom to heal that time."

Ethan smiled as Penny and Jack entered. "Glad you could make it. And I can only hope it's a false alarm, but you can never be too careful with someone like him."  Ethan turned to Lina. "Lina, these are Agents Jack and Penny Pride, also known as Rebound and Seer, from our covert branch. Jack, Penny, this is Agent Lina Anomaly. Lina, please describe to them everything you can recall about the lab itself, it's setup, the equipment present any details you can recall, they'll see how it lines up to what they remember about the Builders lab. Hopefully we'll put our fears to rest, and then we can talk about your next assignment."
This message was last updated by the player at 05:52, Sun 16 July 2017.

"Yes, nice to meet the both of you." Lina started with a greeting. "From what I remember, aside from it bieng dark and dismal, it had like a ritualistic type atmosphere. Gave me bad vibes bieng in the area. Yet the human sized test tubes and array of computers made it seem more awkward. In one of them was lady but I couldn't tell who she was at first until..."

Lina paused to compose herself from the grief. She cleared her throat. "That's when everything went south. Like they knew we were there. What I didn't understand was how they could because they didn't really have a tight security. So either they were tipped off or had paras in places I couldn't sense mentally. That's if that lady who recently awakened from that tube wasn't their first success. When Carl and I were scouting out the place, a group of people in an office area were talking about plans to carry on 'his' work but this one guy was talking about him really disrespectful. He had an idea from a recently acquired 'asset' but his superior was slow about assigning a team to research and develop it. If this 'superior' was the Builder, I think that maybe his death was an inside job. A conflict of interest, nonetheless. If so, I don't know why the Builder wouldn't want to explore the possibilities with that 'asset'. From what I got from his so called subordinate, the Builder was skiddish about having his team work on this 'unknown in origin'... substance. From what I've read in his file, he would've jumped on an opportunity like this in a heatbeat. Maybe something about this thing 'spooked' him? Or did he have other priorities? That I can only find out through time itself."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:18, Sun 16 July 2017.

  Penny listened, and said quietly "Perhaps a student or a protege, but not HIM.  There isn't enough pure sadism in your description to make me inclined to think it is the Builder again.  I have never seen his particular brand of cruelty in anyone else, and what you are describing doesn't sound like him.  He was very big on security.  He didn't want his 'toys' getting away."  She was gazing out, into space, and the haunted look on her face spoke volumes on what she wasn't saying.  The power of her grip on Jack's hand said more, the white of her knuckles standing out clearly against her normal skintone.  Calm as she sounded, there was a great deal of emotion and feeling there.  And not one trace of it escaped her psionically, her mental shields were so good, it was like she was psychically invisible.