A. gets his composure back, and tries answering this guy. Playing a hunch, he figures a little "technically true" resume padding might help.

"This is Squirrel Girl, Great Lakes Avengers, Moondragon, Avengers, Defenders- she has moon-dragon powers but don't worry, she's with us, you're safe-..."

[OOC: Listing anyone else along- Iceman, Speedball, Bova, any roid-apes who might still be following us around- here]

" That is USAgent. exAvengers 50 State Initiative Canada, and I'm Armadillo. retired Avengers 50 State Initiative...Texas"

(He said that last bit as if playing poker and laying down a flush, but decided to go with the truth for the last bit.)

"And that's Lockjaw, who is a dog from the Moon. We're watching him."

It was a surprisingly strong finish, the most anyone on the team had heard Armadillo say at one time, He immediately failed to stick the dismount, though, as he added "Not from the same part of the moon as the dragon though? Not sure... they really don't cover that in school, yknow?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:16, Mon 27 July 2020.

“Different moons, Armadillo.” Moondragon stared at Maurice with narrowly slitted eyes that suddenly widened. “Maurice. I sense that underneath your brutish, folksy veneer dwells the mind and diversified palate of an exceptional connoisseur. I also sense that you run...a Bed & Breakfast? And that you cook a most sophisticated brunch. If so, may we avail ourselves of your service? The dog led us a merry chase, and I did not have an opportunity to eat breakfast after my morning exercises and meditation.”

(A. starts to wonder if Lockjaw was okay after the near-hit. And if he's where he was.)

Lockjaw saunters out of the road and over to the sidewalk near the mural where everyone else has gathered. He takes a moment to lift a leg and pee on a street sign.

Maurice hitches up his pants. "The Moon eh? Didja know I was an astronaut? Got this close to goin' to the moon on Apollo 14." he holds up a hand indicating less than an inch between his thumb and forefinger.

"And you're superhero types. Well, that explains the outfits. Say... you wouldn't happen to be the latest Alpha Flight team, would you?" he says with a smile.

"The thing about a bed and breakfast is the AND. I'm 'fraid I can't delight you with the ole Minnifield biscuits and gravy recipe, but the Brick over here is probably your best bet for breakfast at this point." He points out a pub around the corner from the mural. Noises from inside indicate that it's doing a pretty good business this morning.

"Say no more," days Iceman, giving a lazy yawn as he stretches his arms. "Let's go, gang, I'm starved."

Squirrel Girl stays uncharacteristically quiet through all this, just standing towards the back with her hands behind her back, rocking forward and backward on her feet a little while eyeing Lockjaw. Part of her still wants to pet the puppy. Part of her wants to climb on top of Armadillo and look small so she doesn't get eaten. But also puppy.

She does perk up at the mention of food, though.

Armadillo was wondering how this guy wanted to know more about Alpha Flight than the Rangers, but then got distracted by distractions from his distraction.

Food sounded good. But if he was an Odd-Job Guy, the main thing was the odd job.

"Are they pet-friendly?"

"I mean, if I gotta stay out here, cool by me, just get me a burger okay?"

"Oh, uh... good point." Maurice says as way of recovery at obviously missing something. "Your moose-dog is gonna have to stay out here. And one of you probably want to stay with it." He directs the next statement at Armadillo, looking him up and down "No offense, but I'm not sure how well the furniture is gonna take to you, big guy. You might want to wait out here too."

A few pedestrians and pickup trucks have passed by during the exchange with Maurice. People give the group (especially Armadillo and Lockjaw) a lingering look, but seem surprisingly ok with such a strange group of people being in their small town.

"Well... yeah. Okay."


[OOC: Big open space near here? I assume there's a nice big field or something? Got an idea. ;)]
This message was last edited by the player at 23:13, Thu 30 July 2020.

Iceman shrugs, peering into the restaurant's windows from the heroes' position down the street. "Maybe I oughta stay outside with Bullwinkle here. Looks like they just finished mopping." He gestures to his own icy form, long the bane of restaurant staff who don't take kindly to his dripping all over their floors. He didn't want to say it aloud, but he was also wary of how the locals around here might treat mutants. You never knew in these kinds of places.

"Besides, he won't get away from me," Bobby adds with a smirk. "You want me to freeze you, doggy?" he says to Lockjaw, putting on his best playful voice. "Do you?"

[Assuming there's the field!]

While he has a moment, 'Dillo tries something he's been meaning to, since he was told he was watching Atomic Dog there:

One of Armadillo's "Signature moves" was something called the "Roadkill Slammer". ( https://images.app.goo.gl/oBTVJ9FUBnpUNXtj6 ) -where he formed a ball and rolled. He could do it slow enough to be playful, or hard enough to break a jeep.

He decided to go try "playful". "C'mon boy!"
This message was last edited by the player at 18:53, Sun 02 Aug 2020.

“Nonsense,” Moondragon said to no one in particular. She glanced at Armadillo and Maurice. Her brow furrowed in a slight frown, her telepathy spread like a net over the minds in their immediate vicinity and inside the Brick. The Titan-trained telepath extended her will in a subtle “push” on those minds. They wouldn’t have any problem with Armadillo’s appearance or Lockjaw’s size.

“You will eat breakfast with us like the man you are, not linger outside like some castoff,” Moondragon said softly to Armadillo. “They will be no trouble, Maurice. No one will notice.”

In a telepathic aside, she addressed Baby Lockjaw. You must be quiet and make no mess.. Moondragon knee that while Lockjaw’s sentience might be a matter of ongoing debate, he was still smarter than the average dog. She beckoned the group to enter. “Come. We need repast.”


OOC:

Mind Control to make Maurice, Shelley, Hollings, etc. regard a giant armadillo man and giant puppy as normal and acceptable patrons.

3d10–Solo, Mind Control, Psych Mater
1d8–Dragon of The Moon

14:29, Today: Moondragon rolled 17,1 using 3d10,1d8 with rolls of 10,2,5,1.  Mind Control .

I will buy that opportunity, making the Doom pool now 3d6. Moondragon succeeds at her asset creation.

Before Armadillo can wander down the street to an open lot, Moondragon does a little mental manipulation. Maurice shakes his head briefly like there's a mosquito buzzing around him, then shrugs. "Sounds like a plan!"

He leads the group into the pub. It's lightly populated. There's a few Inuits and lumberjack looking types sitting at tables and playing a pinball machine in the back. A dark, curly haired guy and a woman with a boy haircut but really attractive face argue back by the bathrooms (and is that a pay phone!?). A young Inuit man in a leather biker jacket and jeans sits at the bar chatting with an attractive young blonde woman and a grizzly old guy doing the stereotypical bartender-drying-the-glass thing. There's a radio playing from behind the bar and a guy with a smooth voice is talking.
https://alaskanriviera.files.w...holling-shelly01.jpg

"... pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It's a messy business, life. It's hard to figure - full of surprises. Some good. Some bad."

The old bartender guy looks up when the group comes in the door. "Maurice! There you are." The guy has kind of a drawl. The last word sounds almost like 'har'. "Ed here was just tellin' us that you met a bunch a strangers. This must be them."

The blonde's face breaks into an ear-to-ear smile when she spots Lockjaw. "Eeeee!" she squeels coming around the bar and rushing up to the group. She kneels down and gives LJ and enthusiastic petting. "Holling, isn't she so cute?!" she asks.

"Well now, Shelly, darling. First off, I think it's a he. Second, why don't we let our new guests take a load off and introduce themselves." he suggests.

She stands back up again, a bit more professional now. "Of course. Why don't yall come this way." she says showing them to a large table made of rough hewn wood. "Can I get any of yall coffee or somethin' else ta drink?" she asks.

"You know, 'Dragon, I was gonna- I was okay with..."

With a bit of a sigh, Armadillo picks up and moves in with the group. He picks a seat with its back to the wall and sits down. It was a pretty standard diner/small restaurant chair, about fight a battle versus a 540 pound guy sitting on it. He hoped for the best. It groaned, a bit.

"No coffee for me, thanks."

He surveyed the room a bit. Mostly for trouble, but people seemed not to be looking at him. [OOC: Are they looking at Bobby, though, or any of the others? SG has squirrel ears and a tail, for instance. He's sort of projecting his defensiveness outward a bit.]

The U.S.Agent -- who spent the time since the Royal Inhuman Family left "scouting the perimeter" of the house (which seemed to be rushing to corners of the property and staring out at nothing) -- generally stayed in the background, ready to lead when the others couldn't decide what to do. The sudden transportation to such an alien place has caused him no overt concern, but this bar bristles the hairs on the back of his masked neck. Could it really be this friendly or... "Murderworld?" he murmurs to himself, far too quiet for anyone to hear, as if the suggestion has been planted at random by a compatriot and he can't get it -- and the excitement of adventure to be had in one of those -- out of his head. Regardless, he struts into the place with his fellows, leading with the American flag proudly displayed on his broad chest, and takes a seat at what could be the head of the table.

He puts his fists on the table. "Yes," he exclaims to the bar maiden. "Black coffee matters."

When the party at the table freezes while collectively glaring at him, he asks "What?", like he really doesn't know. "In America, we -- "

"Don't," says anyone -- or everyone -- who wants to volunteer.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:36, Tue 04 Aug 2020.

The townspeople are giving the group b a good looking over, but it doesn't seem overly hostile. Armadillo and Bobby have be seen enough angry mobs to recognize the early stages and this doesn't seem to be it. Armadillo had frequented enough small towns to recognize this as normal fascination with outsiders, maybe kicked up a notch for their colorful appearance.

Nice crowd, Bobby says, looking around the room. "No pitchforks." He takes a sip of ice water, trying to relax a bit as the other patrons stare in the group's direction. "Romeo's not gonna believe this."

Armadillo's head shot up (making the chair protest at the sudden motion) when USAgent said "Murderworld".* He then relaxed down when Agent started talking about literally anything else.

Off Bobby's comment about the lack of pitchforks, Tony agreed. "Must be the dog?"

Making a small effort at neighborliness-or-whatever, Armadillo nodded at one small group of people looking at him, at random... he picked the girl with the pixie cut and the kid.

"Hi! What's up?"

He then registered that the old guy said something about "introducing themselves". Antonio pointed at himself and said "People call me 'Armadillo'."

[OOC: How well did Moondragon's "Don't notice this guy is unusual" work? Is Holling's reply likely to be "Why?" to "they call me Armadillo"? Not saying that wouldn't be funny. Cause it would.]

*(Yep, him and Arcade. It was a thing.)

Moondragon rolled her eyes when U.S.Agent spoke. She found that had become commonplace since he first arrived, a recurrent phenomenon nearly every time he spoke. Perhaps in this instance, Cause can indeed equal Correlation? With a disdainful chuckle, she said, “Why don’t you just yell ‘Pizzagate’ while you’re at it, Walker.”

The overt friendliness could have just been the Canadian influences in Cicely. They were certainly a people who embraced meeting strangers with courtesy more than the ‘Ugly American’ the rest of the world saw when people like John Walker even deigned to step past their national border (or city limits). It was an idiosyncratic, but not necessarily off-putting, behavior from their hosts. She pondered the curiosities of Earth humans as she smiled politely at Maggie & Joel.

The knowledge of those names stopped her reverie.

Why do I know their names? Maurice hasn’t introduced them yet. I haven’t scanned their minds that deeply, either.

That realization bothered Moondragon more than the Agent’s usual hijinks. She frowned as she wondered where she’d heard their names. Indeed, the people they’d met and the town itself felt eerily familiar. Why? She stood from the table and strode through the bar. She looked closely at Shelly, Holling, Maurice, Ed, Maggie, and Joel as she walked past each. The radio deejay also caught her attention, not just for the auditory pleasure of that deep, soothing, masculine voice. She felt a nagging certainty that she’d seen these people before!

Closing her eyes, Heather Douglas utilized a skill taught by the monks of Shao-Lom. She sifted through her memories in search of her initial encounter with the people of Cicely.

Her journey brought up a particular image. A man with golden armbands sitting on a sofa with his arm around his wife. The wife in question was a stunning woman of perfect complexion, pleasing curves, long limbs, and a bright mane of red hair that she recalled smelling faintly like peaches. Rick & Marlo Jones’ apartment in Las Vegas, during the time she stayed with them tutoring the late Genis-Vell. A night in watching television, while she levitated nearby. Moondragon had paid as much attention to the woman as she had the program they were watching.

Like many evenings at home, they watched a television show, in this case a “rerun” from the Nineties called Northern Exposure. The town of Cicely, the pub owned by Holling & Shelly called “The Brick”, the other patrons, the Alaskan wilderness. Moondragon had seen all these back in that time spent with Genis, Rick, and Marlo.

“This isn’t real,” Moondragon said softly. She walked briskly back to her table and her companions. She stepped between Squirrel Girl & Iceman’a chairs. “Don’t you see? This town is fictional! It and these people,” she gestured at the Brick’s regulars, “...are television characters! They are all part of an old television show called Northern Exposure!”


OOC:

Moondragon spent ample time with the most Genre Savvy character besides Deadpool or Gwenpool. She also has been shown scanning her own mind for memories, so I thought I’d use Solo d10, Disciplined Mind, Telepathy, & Psych Master for this realization.

16:11, Today: Moondragon rolled 1,15,1 using 1d12,2d10,1d8 with rolls of 1,8,7,1.  Disciplined Mind: Total Recall to ID Cicely.

"They have pizza?" the U.S.Agent said. "I'll take that!"

“If only you took the next plane back to Guantanamo Bay instead...”

Armadillo looked at Moondragon as if she'd grown two heads.

"Never heard of it."

He heard her go on about the place being fictional, he wasn't sure what she meant. (He did know She-Hulk, who used to kid about that sort of thing, but he didn't really get the joke.)

He looked at Squirrel Girl in a "What?" way, and then asked the important question.

"So we're not getting breakfast?"

Moondragon groaned at Armadillo’s obtuseness. A few mindful breaths later, she scanned Dory & Bobby’s minds for another reference. “Fine. When you were younger, did you ever watch a movie called Pleasantville? (Sirens of Titan, please say ‘Yes’) If so, I am saying that we may be experiencing a similar predicament.”

Armadillo makes some small talk with the locals. The two in the back come on over, continuing their argument.

"I'm just saying it scientifically impossible, O'Connell. Cannabilism, despite the questionable ethical implications, can't turn someone into a raving monster." the guy says like a neurotic intellectual.

"Why can't you open your eyes, Fleischman?!" the woman says in an exasperated tone. "You're from New York. That place is filled with gods and monsters running around in spandex and doing who knows what. In a world with stuff like that, why can't you believe that the Wendingo is possible!?"

Somewhat taken aback, the guy responds, "Well... well... those things aren't as common as you might think. Except for that one time I spotted Spider-Man... ONE time, O'Connell. One time." he says holding up a finger.

"Hi!" they both say in unison to Armadillo, turning to him breifely before going back to their argument.

"Oh, I know that movie." the kid in the leather jacket says to Armadillo and Moondragon. "It's a Woody Allen, right? Oh. I'm Ed." he says with a smile.

Shelly brings everyone their drinks. "Can I getcha anything ta eat? Pizza? Anything else?" she asks.

Maurice pulls up a chair, turns it around and sits in it backwards with his arms up on the top of the back. "So you were sayin' you followed the dog here? You musta been in the area already then, right? 'Course, seein' as how you're super-hero types, maybe he flew you here?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:46, Thu 06 Aug 2020.

Sensing Squirrel Girl's melancholy, LJ comes over and nestles up to her, wedging his nose and head under her hand. He looks up at her with puppy dog eyes, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.