Oh ho. So that was why she seemed so familiar, eh? This girl who appeared to have lost a fight with a bottle of soda was in fact the powerful Cosmic Girl?

"Scraps is a pretty awesome dog," he agreed. Scraps was happily sniffing and licking the girl like a long-lost friend. Goodwill had to admit, it was good to see her. "He thinks pretty highly of you, too, miss...?"

If he got a real name out of this, maybe he'd even be able to contact Cosmic Girl in case of future emergencies. Or just to keep in touch, if nothing else.

"Potter. Margaret...well, Peggy. Peggy Potter!" She rose and held her hand out enthusiastically. Using her real name had been necessary to get into the school - it would have taken far too long to set up some kind of fake identity. "It's just so amazing to meet you! Wonderful! Are you here on a case? is their a villain here?" her eyes grew wide, and then she blushed. "I am sorry, I am gushing at you, it's just i have never met a celebrity - a superhero - before!"
This message was last edited by the player at 21:44, Sun 26 Apr 2020.

“Well, considering that there’s no hostages, as far as we know, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have some form of backup. Though it might still be better to have only a few people close to the scene so no one notices any interlopers. Would it be alright for there to be some officers a little ways away? We can signal you all to come in if things go sour and we lose any notion of stealth? Or at the very least, for a speedy arrest. Course, if you can’t spare anyone, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Great, he wanted them to do it alone. It wasn’t like she was looking forward to a rematch either!

"Well, I was worried about there possibly being a villain here," Goodwill said, shaking Peggy Potter's hand. He gestured to the principal, adding, "But your principal was kind enough to show me and Scraps around... and we can now say with reasonable certainty that there is not.

"That said, I'm having a hard time figuring out where a couple of very real super-villains are, even if I've got one place where they aren't."

"I am afraid I don't know anything about that!" Peggy said, a little regretfully. "There's some girls here who are pretty villainous, but there's nothing super about them. As far as I know, the school is jus a school!"

And that gave her report. Nothing to report. It was a pretty rubbish report.

"I'll speak to my captain, but I'll bet he'll authorize some people to be not far from the park on standby, when the time comes.

So are you heading over to talk to Goodwill now..."

“Great, thank you. And yes, I’ll be heading over now. Apologies for taking up your time!”

And then she left the building and began running towards Washington Irving, leaving behind a cloud of sparky dust.

---

Skidding to a stop, Lynx stifled her electrified feet and headed to the entrance. Hopefully, the receptionist wouldn’t mind an unannounced visit, especially considering recent events and her business here.

“Hey, sorry, I don’t mean to be here long. Just need to share some important information with Goodwill and Scraps. Purely business stuff. Do you know where I could find them?”

"Er, they're here somewhere... let me call for them..." She turns to a PA system. "GOODWILL AND SCRAPS THE DOG, GOODWILL AND SCRAPS THE DOG, YOU HAVE ANOTHER HERO AT THE MAIN OFFICE HERE TO SEE YOU..." rings out throughout the rooms and hallways of the school...

"Oh!" That might be White Lynx, Goodwill guessed, being as how she had a little skin in this game, too. "I guess I ought to see to that."

"Thank you for your time today," he said, turning to the Principal and shaking her hand. "You've been extremely indulgent in what may have been a wild goose chase. Seeing how you've probably got better things to do by this point, why don't I just have Miss Potter here show me the way back to the front office?"

If it was Lynx, then anything she had to say, she ought to say to Goodwill and Cosmic Girl.

"Oh, I'd be happy to!" Cosmos gushed, clearly overjoyed to be able to spend time with the hero. Like pretty much every girl in the school who caught sight of him. It was a shame she had no plans to stay, as she would be able to rub faces in this situation afterwards. But she had discovered that normal girls in a school were utterly dreadful creatures, and would be glad to get back to her normal life.

" B A R K ! "  Scraps concurred, and began leaping and running and sniffing around.

Saying goodbye to the principal, Goodwill allowed Peggy Potter to 'lead' him and Scraps back to the main office.

Soon, the four heroes-- one of them undercover on her self-assigned plainclothes case-- are once again all in the same place.

"Um, if you need to use a conference room, there's one just down the hall, that the principal uses for meetings with parents," says the school secretary. "Miss Potter can show you where it is..."

“Thank you kindly,” Lynx said to the secretary. Turning back to the other heroes (and Miss Potter), she asked, “Do you happen to know where Cosmos is, Goodwill? I think I know where the meeting place might be, and I think she’d probably like to hear about it too.”

"I'm so happy to show you the way. Please, this way!" Miss Potter led the way to the conference room, and when she was sure they were out of earshot, she added more, very quietly.

"I am so glad you are here. I've been trying to find anything out that I can, but I am pretty sure the girls and staff here have no clue what is going on. Or they're very well schooled in keeping secrets. If there is any trickery going on here, any villainous plot, it has passed me by completely. I know spy work is not my forte, I am more about blowing things up..."

She plucked her COsmic Girl domino mask from her pocket, and held it up to her face, "Boo!"

"It's amazing how a little mask like that can change a person's entire identity," Goodwill commented, noticeably impressed as he was. "It's like that guy in the comic books, with the pair of glasses.

"Anyway, good to see you again, Lynx. What have you got for us?"

“Ah! I suppose it does, doesn’t it?” So Miss Potter was actually Cosmic Girl! Ch’rava was a little sad that she hadn’t pieced it together on her own, but decided to not let it bother her too much. Instead, she planned on filing the “comic book with the glasses guy” thing for later. She had no idea what Goodwill was talking about and wanted to check on Diana’s comic book collection to see if she had any with that character. Would certainly make it easier to chat with her “co-workers,” not to mention how she could keep herself from looking the fool for not knowing about something rather common.

“Well, I was asking around and someone pointed out that Public Schools 19 and 40 are roughly nearby this very school. Plus, if you draw a triangle with all three of them as points, Stuyvesant State Park is right in the center! I’m thinking that might be where the meeting is supposed to take place.”

"Oh, for Pete's sake." Goodwill looked to Cosmic Girl to see what her reaction was, but he was already convinced. "We should check the park, ASAP."

At the very least, Scraps would enjoy it. But a park was a much better place to confront villains than a school would be.

Peggy looked relieved. "So the reason I found nothing here, is there is nothing to find! That is a good thing, I thought I was just being useless!" She grinned. "Let me suit up. I'll meet you in the park, then?"

“In that case, I can just pop on over and wait for you all.” That ended up going pretty alright. Hopefully the stakeout would go as easily. “I’ll see y’all then!”

And then she was off...at a normal walking speed to the school’s exit. It wouldn’t be good to speed around inside a building as busy as this!

"Sure. Meet you at the park."

(To the park!)

Stuyvesant Square Park turns out to be two parks, side by side, one mirror-imaged from the other, on each side of 2nd Avenue, between east 15th and 17th Streets (and blocking/getting in the way of east 16th Street).

There's a nice smallish round reflecting pool in the middle of each park, and paved walkways, and lots of trees and bushes and flowers and statues and stuff.

(Scraps notes that that smell he smelled on the note that was being passed around is here, very faintly. Especially around the pool on the west side of 2nd Avenue. The person the smell belongs to hasn't been here for days, but Scraps is sure they were here, just long enough ago that their odd smell hasn't quite disappeared yet.)

Apparently, on the date in question, Blackjack is supposed to meet someone here... Probably at night, if Blackjack can't pass for a normal human, but we don't know enough about him to know if he can or not.

In any event, by Scraps' sniffing the air and barking, this must be the place...

Nothing to do now but come back and stake the place out (in disguise?) on the date in question...

The date in question arrives... what's the plan?

Stake it out? Perhaps with us split up from multiple safe distances and talking to each other over comms?

Goodwill might be disguisable, but Scraps wouldn't be. They might need to be doing a fly-over. Fortunately, nobody in New York City ever looks up.