Well that was certainly helpful, as responses went. Nice little briefing on the situation, assuming she could be trusted, and a perfect little role to play. And Ch'rava knew a thing or two about playing roles.

"Halt, you fiend! I can see through you and your words! None shall disturb the city's peace on my watch!" With another bright flash, Lynx burst off towards Agent Devil at breakneck speed, shooting off sparks of electricity from her hands... at where the oni had been a moment ago such that she was in no actual danger of getting hit. "You won't get away from me!"

Hopefully, by saying she could see through the rebel's words, she'd gotten across that the message was received. And if not? She could always apologize once they'd gotten out of the officers' earshot.

The door looked heavy. Like it could take a bazooka blast.

"Need any help with that," Goodwill asked, "or have you got it?"

Around the corner, Agent Devil waits for White Lynx. Then the big woman peeks around the corner. "They're letting you handle me-- they're not chasing us yet," she says, pulling her head back again. "So, you're from th' rabbit's universe or whatever, 'm'I right? Th' plan worked? Or maybe partially worked?"

---

The woman in blue opens the door. "Its forbidding nature is a ruse," she says. "We keep it well-oiled. Please, follow me..."

She starts leading the way through the tunnels that the heroes remember from when they met Jules...

(Pausing here for a little reaction-post-ery from y'all...)

This message was last updated by the GM at 20:27, Sun 26 Feb 2023.

Silently slowing to a stop out of view, Lynx nodded at the woman. "Thank goodness for that. I wasn't sure that all was going to pay off, if I'm being honest with you." Starting to stretch her arms forward a bit, she continued, "I'd heard about a hero from our side of things that had gotten trapped over here, so I'd say that's probably right? That's the one in the rabbit outfit? Don't know much about the plan working though. Unless there was one we didn't know about on your end. Kinda... ran off when we came over."

EDIT NOTES: What's that? Seagreen? Never heard of that text color! (Sorry, got text colors mixed up between games. Fixed now!)
This message was last edited by the player at 05:55, Mon 27 Feb 2023.

Cosmic Girl went along inside, but she looked about nervously. "I really can't shake the feeling that someone is about to rush at us. Or there'll be an explosion. Or a horde of cloned Norwoods are about to attack. I also wouldn't want to run into any large angry sentient reptiles, if they have an opposite personality. Our version is a nice guy. But a really nasty version... no thanks. And it would feel wrong to have to hurt him. Hard to get my head around all this."

She also frowned slightly. "If we're here too, and we're opposites, that could be really awful. I wouldn't want to have to fight me. I know how dangerous I am!"

Twist flits around the group in her stretchy rubbernecking fashion. "Don't have the history y'all have with the good guys and bad guys, so I'mma keep an open mind. Not that I'd expect to, bein' a tad darker than y'all. Not bein' automatically suspect due to my fabulous chocolate self is still kinda new."

Goodwill floated through the tunnels about a foot off of the floor, to cast his trademarked glow through the darkness. He followed the rabbit-girl.

When Twist said that she was often suspected of criminality just because of her skin color, he didn't know what to say to that. His jaw clenched. He knew people like that, but fortunately he was raised better.

"I care more about what you do than how you look," he said.

"Yeah, Usagi. I don't really know that much about th' plan... d'you know the Triborough Bridge? There's a special door under it, looks like a door on a submarine..."

---

"Ah... You... know who Professor Norwood is...?" says the woman with the rabbit logo...
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:07, Sat 04 Mar 2023.

Cosmic Girl nodded to agree with Goodwill. Racism was not really on her agenda. Her parents were highly progressive. Her mother was the first woman in space - even if it was top secret and nobody was allowed to know. That's how she got her powers. Suffice to say, if you're pregnant (even if you don't know it yet) being exposed to a burst of cosmic radiation outside the Van Allen Belt is a really good way to cook up a superhero.

So she was not given to judging people on looks, or gender.

"Professor Norwood? Oh, you better believe we know him! Our Norwood is a total lunatic. He creates all sorts of dreadful experiments. He doesn't care who he hurts. He attacked me... with a toaster!" In fact, it was several toasters. Flying killer laser toasters. If Norwood here was as skilled as the one back home, but was also sane, and working for the good of mankind, he was probably an amazing person to have on your team.

But maybe he was just as nuts, doing something equally barking mad. At this point, she would believe just about anything.

Usagi. An appropriate name.

Lynx nodded along. "I'm familiar with the bridge. Is that door part of the plan or is it a hideout?"

"Er. Well. Yes. Our professor is a very nice man... so I suppose it's logical that his alternate self... wouldn't be. So, ah... well... please don't attack him, when you meet him... because you're about to. He's... very easily startled. And he's important to our plans, so please don't frighten him... When he has a panic attack, it can take days to straighten him out, and time to act is vital right now..."

---

"More the second thing."

"Got it. Thanks. I assume the others will meet up there eventually, so I'll head over. Is there anything specific I need to do to get in? Or will you be coming along?"

"Pffft-- if you're fast like Crimson Comet, which is how you seem to me, then you'll get there way before me. Go on ahead and let yourself in-- it's not locked, because the whole point is that it shouldn't need to be locked, it's a secret. Just try not to let anyone see you using it, which should be no problem for you. I'll get there when I get there. I'm not sure I'm even needed personally for the next part of the plan anyway."

"Alright then," Lynx shot a thumbs up at the hero, "And don't worry about the speed. If your Crimson Comet is as fast as their namesake, I'm faster." With that, she sped off for the Triborough Bridge.

"We'll play nice," Goodwill assured Usagi. "The last thing we need is a panicky super-genius on our hands."

"I can always do my human pretzel routine to make him laugh," Twist sheepishly volunteers. "The ghetto kids always get a kick out of it. Even the bad ones."

Cosmic Girl Smiled ruefully. "I'm not going to do anything to alarm him. He might be our ticket out of here! Good or bad, he is a genius. Sooner or later I want to go back to my own world, and we might just need a genius to help us do it!"

The idea of being trapped in a reverse-world was very daunting. With her abilities, she was always equipped to survive in a bad situation, but when she was not zipping around the sky, blowing up villains and the like, she was more or less in the care of the government. Oh, yes, she had her parents of course. But their home, and every aspect of their lives, had been constructed to protect her identity. Without them... she would be totally lost. She was capable of shooting beams of energy from her eyes, and could cause a sonic boom over Brooklyn on a good day with a favourable tailwind... but she had no idea how to live in the real world.

"So... how are race relations in this universe?" Twist queries Usagi. "If it's truly the opposite of ours, black people run the country and the whites are the oppressed former slaves." She peeks at the others. "What? I might wanna vacation here someday."

"I'm more concerned with what we're like in this universe," Goodwill replied. "I'd rather not find out directly, but I'm still interested to know."

Your host grimaces. "I'm afraid that things are the same as far as that goes. If everything were the opposite, Manhattan would be covered with trees and grass, except for where Central Park should be. The Statue of Liberty would be called something else and would be at the north end, things like that. No, I'm afraid that the biggest difference is just that people who have decided to be good and resist temptation in one world have decided to be bad and to give in to temptation in the other, and vice versa. There are other things, sometimes-- name changes, gender-differences in individuals... but the ways in which people choose to be evil are, sadly, the same-- more or less the same stereotypes, more or less the same prejudices."

She leads the way through the tunnels further, to a (familiar) door. "All right, the professor is through here. Everyone have your... calm and friendly faces ready...?"

(EDIT)

White Lynx zips to the bridge, finds the door in question, opens it and closes it behind her, and zips through the mostly-familiar (it smells better than in the other universe) corridors until she spots her friends. "Ah, welcome," says the woman with the rabbit symbol. "Ah, I was just mentioning that Professor Norwood is through this door-- and that he's very nice and meek and not-evil in this universe," she adds quickly. "In fact he's very easily alarmed, so let us all smile at him in a reassuring, calming way, if that's all right...?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:48, Sat 11 Mar 2023.

Lynx blinked, grimacing momentarily at the mention of Norwood. "You must be Usagi. I... can't say I'm looking forward to meeting another Norwood. Our version landed me in the hospital. But I understand he's not the same. Had a very nice chat with an Agent Devil just now. I can keep up the niceties."

The woman nods, and opens the door.

On the other side is a laboratory-- and Norwood.

But he's not the same man you knew. He looks the same... but different. He's wearing glasses, for one thing. For another, his body posture is different-- kind of hunched over. And he's wearing a white lab coat.

When the door opens, he looks up, startled. When you all enter the room, he kind of tries to hide behind some electrical zappy-things.

https://media.tenor.com/h5cJdk...stein-laboratory.gif

"Professor, I've brought some new friends. The plan worked just like it was supposed to. They're very nice people, and they're going to help us, all right?" She glances at you. "Introduce yourselves--" she kind of hisses at you, smiling.

Twist smiles and takes a step forward. "A pleasure to meet you, Professor Norwood. I'm Twist." She corkscrews herself into a human helix and back again.

He backs away and mostly-hides behind a lab counter. "Please don't hurt me...!"

Twist is all reassuring charm. "Wouldn't dream of it, Professor," she tells him. "I'm here to help people, not hurt them."

---

15:42, Today: Twist rolled 8 using 2d6+1 with rolls of 5,2.  Talk Things Out.