Rocket puts a hand over his eyes to block out some light.  He looks first at Wade's destroyed phone, then Spider Woman's.  "Is that... Earth tech?  That backwater wouldn't have communication setups that that works without a relay to a network.  I had a suspicion when ya mentioned that 'Modock' thing Quill made up.  Given your conversations so far, how many of you are from that mud ball?"



((My last reply before I wait for a post or two from the slower posters as not to leave them too far behind.))

(To Polaris) She shook her head as to the large and lavish wedding. "No. My husband insisted on small and private.  A secretive sort of guy, you could say. As for ditching and scoring, I'd say that sounds cool. But, whose to say we're going to find a city? And I think -- I think we may all be in this together. For better or worse." She shook her head.

"Transcendent Mutants?  Is that his schtick, where you're from?  'Magnus' tried to recruit me.  Let's just say it didn't go down well. Are you a mutant too? Or just an activist admirer?"   

(To Spider-Woman) She laughed at what Spider-Chick suggested.  "Oh, sure! That's me -- conqueror of cities, and psycho suffocater! Reality TV, you said? Ha!  Isn't that the oxymoron. My father's a dedicated scientist, not some Hollywood hack."  But, she caught the reference that the woman had no idea who Spider-Man was.

"Okie doke, you were right on," she remarked to Sally, nodding.  "We do not come from the same realities."

Sue knelt, scooping sand into her joined hands, then letting it slowly seep through her fingers.  Noting texture, temperature, color, the sensation -- and appraising whether it seemed about like the sand with which she was familiar.

While doing, she spared a glance toward Wade, Fem Spidey, and Humanoid Hare -- the devices they were fretting over.   It couldn't help but remind her of Reed.  She doubted they had anything that would help.  But, maybe...

And then glanced toward the felinoid, the man-tiger that Sally had called 'Tony.'   (okay, it was kind of funny)

(To Tigro)"Sir," she addressed him.   "Sorry if this is too personal, but, you know," she dropped the rest of the sand, gestured around them.

"Are you perchance from a place called Attilan?"
This message was last edited by the player at 20:50, Mon 25 Jan 2021.

While the others converse amongst themselves, Iron Fist hangs back and observes their surroundings. So much of this doesn't make sense. How are any of them alive?

Not caring to share too much of himself with these strangers, he keeps his eyes on the horizon. As he scans for any sign of danger, there appears to be nothing there but sand and sky.

In reply to Unseen (msg # 24):

To Sue: "Dr. Fantastic? We've met? No, I'm not from Attilan, I was gifted with this form by the Cat People. Don't you remember? Why is she calling you Richards? Isn't that Mr. Invisible? Richards-Storm?" He says confused, "..and Spider-Woman is..well, never mind."

As he remembers her her need for a secret identity, something he'd given up. Nope. Petra was lovely but a bit too young for his tastes. But this didn't sound like Petra. 
"Maybe we need a quick run-down of who we are? I'm an Avenger, lead by Dr. Pym, Ant-Woman."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:03, Tue 26 Jan 2021.

“You’re from a sex-swapped universe? Groovy.” Suddenly, Sally wondered what life would be like if she was a man and Alex was a woman. Head tilted to the side, Sally frowned, smiled, then frowned again and shrugged. “Total head trip.”

Since the hunky Tigro shared more details about his life, and since Sue asked, Sally decided to share as openly about herself. She clasped her love beads. “Yeah, I’m a mutant—and proud of it, too. I’m not really into the superhero scene like you all, but I’m part of a Super-movement. When we take it to the streets, my handle is ‘Polaris’. Also,” she added earnestly, “Where I come from, Magneto isn’t a con man or a villain. He’s a leader for Peace and Mutant rights—hell, just human rights in general!

 You know he survived the Nazi concentration camps, right? He swore he would never let that happen again to anyone—regardless of race, creed, religion, sex, or even sexual preference. Hell, he even saved Dr. King’s life! And Bobby Kennedy! Sounds pretty copacetic, as shticks go...!”
This message was last edited by the player at 23:30, Mon 27 Sept 2021.

Gwen raises her hand at the Earth question when Rocket asks it.

To the others she says "I've uh, never heard the term Mutant used to describe a person before or heard of any of the people anyone has mentioned other than Senator King, RFK, and Schrodinger.  The Sue & Johnny Storm I know are trouble, so I guess it's good you're not her.  You look older anyway.  Sue goes by Doctor Doom where I come from.  I think you all have more superheroes than I do, I don't know what an Avenger is, unless that's like SHIELD?"

"Super-hero?" Wade nearly fell down laughing. He was nobody's idea of a hero even before he'd been bonded to a demon. He had somehow given someone a very wrong perception. "Momma Wilson didn't raise herself any super-heroes."

Momma Wilson didn't raise anything but a glass, really. A lot of glasses. But that was neither here nor there.

"And the Avengers are all dead where I come from."

“The Avengers crack skulls for The Man where I come from.”

She couldn't make sense of anything Tigro said.   She didn't know any of those people; other than there seemed to be a Richards with an invisibility power.  'Avenger' meant nothing to her.

"Yeah, well -- sounds like a great guy, alright," she said to Sally, regarding her reality's Magneto.    "Almost too good to be true. The one I knew is what psychology would deem a narcissist. Great guy as long as you're playing to his tune, feeding his bloated ego. Gets pretty vindictive when that doesn't happen. And, I just don't make a good butt-kisser.  Dr. King, huh - Captain America saved him from an assassination, just last year, where I come from.   He leads a team called The Aegis. They're kind of America's premier group of superheros, pretty plugged into the establishment.  Black Widow was unhappy with it, and now leads her own faction team, the Defenders."

"Dr. Doom?" she laughed, gave Spider-Woman an are you f--king kidding me kind of look.  "That's got to be the dumbest thing I've heard! Like something by a really bargain rate sci-fi script writer, or something."

When Sue trashed Magneto, Sally opened her mouth to protest, but she just stood there. She’d heard criticisms of the head of her commune back in her own world. Then, Sue got a taste from Spider-Woman. Her expression turned into a wry smile.

“So, in Spider-Woman’s world, you’re the narcissistic terror.” She playfully twirled her beads as she circled Sue. “In my world, you’re a simpering debutante of the superhero set who always needs to be rescued by the men in your life. You’re not tuned into either of those wavelengths, though, are you? Maybe there are other worlds where the people I know aren’t maniacal manipulators, huh?”

She’d said the last part gently. “Black Widow sounds right on, though. She’s pretty revolutionary in my world, too. Doing her thing on her own terms after she dumped the loudmouth in purple with the bow & arrows.”

She watched the bead twirling with one brow faintly raised. Thought of saying something, but bit down on it.  Considered her next words for a moment, then said:

"If I insulted someone you love and highly respect, and it's obvious I did, then I apologize.  I thought we were comparing notes here; I had a bad experience with that guy in my world, and was speaking from that experience about that guy.   In Spider-Woman's case, I was laughing at that name. Which I still think is silly.    And don't apologize for, even if I made it up."   She squinted off into the bright horizon for a moment.

"I confess, my priority here isn't making friends.  And who did what in some other reality doesn't really matter to me.  Figuring out what's going on, is what I'd really like to do." She looked off into the distance again.

"There are such things as illusions, mirages, dimensional distortions, and what have you.  Maybe this distance only looks endless." She shrugged.

"I'm going for a walk."   She picked a random direction.  Any was as good as the other.  She started walking.

When Sue left, Sally watched her walk off for a few seconds. Then, she held out her arms and reached for the ambient magnetic energy of the desert. Sally’s feet slowly rose off the sands as she levitated. She floated after Sue, hovering a few feet beside her. “Hey. I didn’t mean to make a such a heavy scene back there. What you said was based on what you know.

I get that you’re fighting the Establishment, too, in your own way. Just...while you’re asking what’s happening, don’t forget to ask why. Whatever is responsible for it probably didn’t bring us all together from these different worlds just so we could all go our own way.” Sally smiled and flashed the Peace sign. “Like the song says, Come together. Right?”

As Sally peered off into the horizon that intrigued Sue, pensiveness filled her face. “Besides, I get a strange feeling that we won’t just walk away from here...”
This message was last edited by the player at 06:17, Tue 26 Jan 2021.

Unseen and Polaris walk away from the circle, talking quietly amongst themselves. They vanish almost immediately over the horizon.

A couple minutes later, they see the same group of "costumed adventurers" ahead of them, still watching in the direction they had departed.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:08, Tue 26 Jan 2021.

After getting (mostly) ignored, Rocket groaned rolled his eyes, flipped around, sat down and got to work.  As he worked, his ears would twitch about as people conversed.  Waste of time usually, but ya never know when tidbits of into can be abused.

Started with some wire to expand the signal on his headset's radio.  Nothing.  If anything it was worse.  Simple signal relay, shoot out a distress call on loop.  Two inches from his coms and he can't pick it up.  'Odd, the physics here almost match a wormhole better then not.'  He pulls out one of his remote bombs and the detonator, places them against one another, pushes detonate twice.  Nothing.  A frantic, rapid, and even number of presses followed.  'Ok, that doesn't line up.'  He re-extends his makeshift antenna, picks up some sand, moves it around the antenna and sifts it over it while listening.  No change to the signal.  'There goes that theory.'

Rocket glances back as the two leave.  'Huh, flight.  I wonder if my jetpack still works.  Would make searching faster.'  He disassembles his scrap devices back into a more spontaneously constructible state, then runs a quick diagnostic and cleaning of his jetpack.  That's one device that MUST stay working.  Right around as he finishes his ears start twitching quite a bit.

((OOC: 90-100 seconds for dialogue in the above section I suppose.  I'm too lazy to try and fit the second part in as a second post, so I figure it would be easier to offer it as a heads up to what will be a sudden behavior shift.))

Hey!  Quiet!  Do ya guys hear that?  Rocket abruptly stands up, tilts his head a couple directions and angles.  "Where'd they go, and who the heck is approa... no..."  He'll look up into the distance ahead of him, squinting into the light as he listens to the two that left heading right back in the opposite direction.  "Krutack!  Either we are stuck together, or our wormhole is looping.  Removing the 'us' variable.  Weapons test!"

With that very short heads up, Rocket pulls his gun and starts rapidly firing in a somewhat upward angle in a variety of directions, only doing the math to avoid hitting people the first couple loops if he calculated his distance correctly.  He begins intensely staring around the air for his shots, ears upwards and alert.  His eyes hurt, but not knowing would probably hurt worse.

Rocket's mathematics hold true... for the first couple of loops. After four or five circuits at supersonic speed, the crackling blue projectiles start hailing down on the unprepared and recently deceased.

To no effect. Whether they strike the ground or a human target, the projectiles dissipate harmlessly with an alarming ZAAAP!! sound and a mildly less alarming static discharge.

Feel free to assume that they hit your or they didn't, as you prefer.

Gwen's Spider-sense says the projectiles are dangerous so she jumps into action slightly before they start coming, even though they're way too fast.  She jumps closer to the others who haven't gone off anywhere, and suddenly strands of gooey webbing start rapidly coming from her hands to form up a half-circle cocoon of reinforced webbing, just like when a bomb was set off in the club.

It should provide some protection for Wade and Tigro and Iron Fist unless they don't want it to.

08:40, Today: Spider-Woman rolled 7,1,6,4,5 using d8,d8,d8,d6,d12.  safety d8, rushing the beat d8, enh senses d8, sfx web constructs d6 +1 effect, acrobatics d12.
Total 13, effect 6 (5+1), 1 opportunity

Once it's complete, (if a little sloppy) she throws a webline to Rocket to attempt to pull him in.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:22, Tue 26 Jan 2021.

"Thanks for the cover," Wade says as Spider-Woman spins up a large web-shield, "But I think maybe it's a little unnecessary."

As if to underscore Wade's point, a crackling blue projectile landed a bit wide of the shield and fizzled, but didn't even disturb the sand.

"Rocket may have fired off some big blue balls, but they lack a certain potency."

Sue had returned the smile and peace sign to Polaris. "No worries.  I don't plan on going that far.  It should be hard to lose sight of the group on such flat terrain.   And, as to the why...I'm also thinking maybe there's somebody who can explain that.  And that maybe one of us doing something not to plan might provoke a quicker introduction."   She smiled again.

"After having my brains blown out, I think I'm feeling just a little jaded where it comes to risk." 

However...

"Well, that's a mind f--k!" she remarked to Sally, once it had become apparent they'd looped back around.

And then as Rocket began firing, and the effects of it became apparent:

"Holy SHIT!"  Instinctively, Sue manifested a force field to shield Sally, herself, and the others, though she realized Spider-Woman had beaten her to the draw.

Blue-bolts impacted upon the unseen shield, in a dazzling flurry of flashes and sparks. The logistics of arranging it, though, were a little unwieldy, with the separated locations, and she left herself partially vulnerable.

"Ahh!" she cried out when struck, anticipating much pain, but then feeling none.  Upon rejoining the group:

"Silly rabbit...tricks are for kids," she mock scolded Rocket.  "Seriously though; this only makes me more certain this is some sort of after or - between - life.  We can't be killed or harmed, since we've already croaked."   

She then spread her hands apologetically, "I mean, sorry to throw a damper on the party!  It's just what I think.  I'd be real happy to be wrong."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:06, Tue 26 Jan 2021.

Sally’s laugh at Sue’s appraisal of their mind-f**king circumstances abruptly cut off when the Funny Talking Animal rained fire down on them all. Whatever any differences with the Invisible Girl she knew back home, Sally recognized the power of Susan Storm-Richards at work. The barrage bounced off a bubble of unseen force! Sue’s unselfish act was repaid with a strike that should have killed her, and that realization made Sally furious!

The mysterious Spider-Woman rapidly spun a web to protect the men, leaving Sally free to deal with the rabbit. “Hey, knock it off, Looney Toons!” Sally waved her hand with a flourish. Magnetic waves washed from the raven-haired flower child. “We’re freaked out enough without the ‘Death From Above’ routine!” Sally directed the magnetic energy toward Rocket’s gun, and attempted to yank it from the creature’s hand with a powerful magnetic pull!

OOC:

Violence d6 + Mistress of Magnetism 1d8 + Magnetic Control d10 + Tech Expert d8.

Total: 18
Effect: d8
Opportunity: 1


11:31, Today: Polaris rolled 1,8,10,5 using 1d6,1d8,1d10,1d8.  Magnetically yank gun away.




This message was last edited by the player at 06:26, Wed 27 Jan 2021.

No one was more surprised than Susan by Sally's reaction.   She intervened as quickly as she could:

"Whoa! WHOA!  Sally, it's okay, I'm okay, there's no need!  It was an honest mistake! One we learned from!"     She put a hand on the other woman's arm.

And then it struck Sue:  'She knows I'm a mutant.  She's protecting one of her own...'
This message was last edited by the player at 17:19, Tue 26 Jan 2021.

“I’m copacetic, Sue.“ Sally shrugged. The floating gun fell on the desert sand. “I’m only disarming the little guy before he hurts anyone or himself.”

"Cool."     But then she addressed Rocket:

"You could have been more cautious, though.  And, I think we'd like to know a little more about you, at this point.   You're more different than the rest of us...as in, like what planet are you from?  I think you should answer your own question.  And reassure us you're trained and licensed to be packing heat, wherever it is you come from. Not that it really matters if we're dead, but, you know."     
This message was last edited by the player at 18:11, Tue 26 Jan 2021.

Iron Fist calmly sidesteps an energy ball as it rains down toward him, observing its effect-- or lack thereof-- upon the sandy ground. The others are right-- something is very wrong about all of this. Now if only they would all focus long enough to figure it out. Whatever answers await them, it appears they won't be found here-- wherever here is.

"Pardon me," he says to the group, turning to follow Unseen and Polaris as they head off on their own. Let the others follow if they like-- so long as they don't expect him to share his story too.

Tigro replies "Sex-swapped? You mean Ben Grimm is a woman where you are?" Before he's assaulted by projectiles which he leaps and tumbles around.

"This is not usual?" he growls. I've really no idea who these people may be from where they're from but, act now worry later.

"I think we're" he pauses.."testedgrrl."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:50, Tue 26 Jan 2021.

Before Rocket could even finish thinking 'Yup, Wormhole loop.' some strange sounds directed his attention behind him, where some even stranger bits of info revealed themselves.  One of them had mobile shielding capacity of some sort, and something unseen could straight up block his shots.  Nothing unfathomable yet, but he sure didn't see it coming.  What he did manage to see coming was said barrier stuff now flinging at him in a string, deciding most people would consider his actions offensive, he assumed it was a reply in kind and moved to block it.

Rocket rolled 8,10,4,3 using d10,d10,d8,d8 with rolls of 8,10,4,3.  Blocking web 'attack'.
New to system, Dice used: Violence/Combat/Gun/Enhanced Reflexes
Total: 18, Effect: d8
((As I used the 2d10 for the result, couldn't do a d10 effect die. I think I got this figured out, but lemme know if I missed something.))

The webbing smacks right into his gun, and nearly pulls knocks it out of his hands.    Rocket threw out an immediate reply.  "Former Rabbit."  His line quickly interrupted by his gun suddenly flinging in the opposite expected direction twisting against his wrist right out of his hand.  Following the direction it flung in, he finds the source. 'Spontaneous sticky super-goo and telekinetic pulls?  I'm sure glad they don't sound particularly mad with my gun out of juice. Jetpack's probably in the same boat.  Some of these people are particularly calm about all this... suspicious.'

((Correct me if I'm wrong, but triggering my 'Limit: Gear' flaw nets me a Plot Point, yes?))



"I was cautious!  You just didn't see me adjust the power output.  Didn't want to make random fragments of glass we might wind up walking through."

'Not that they'd know any better.'

"Ya know what?  I haven't seen any evidence to support that 'I'm dead' theory you (and only you) have tossed out there.  Kinda odd to offer that with no evidence.  Given the lack of places to go, you win.  I'll recap what I did that got me here, maybe then the wormhole bit will be obvious."

"Thanos had some goons chasing us down, again.  They had like 3 cruisers on us and our ship locked in a tractor beam.  Drax and Gamora busted through their front lines, gifting us nearly free reign aboard the cruiser that caught us until they could regroup.  I set some bombs strategically around the ship, including their VERY explosive ammunitions storage I stumbled upon.  I may have miscalculated just a tiinsy bit not knowing they were stupid enough to put the ship's power reactor right next to their ammo dumps.  Quill supposedly disabled the tractor beams.  We got back to our ship, and were set to escape with the aid of a well-timed explosive distraction.  Turns out it was a touch large enough to take out all three capitol ships, and maaaybe Quill should have actually disabled that tractor beam.  Unexpected resistance coupled with massive concussive force both misaligning our jump, our ship was torn apart and we were separated as the explosion caught up forcing us into a jump-induced wormhole.  It makes perfect sense.  I've tested all the wormhole physics I kow, and it checks out 95% of the time.  Now what makes you so sure you died?"

((Long story to dodge a question?  Check.  EDIT: Light adjustment on final line.  Also: TOTALLY clears up the "I'm not dead" logic.  No holes in that theory. <_< >_> <_< Edit 2: correction on the web gun pulling.))

((EDIT: Quote.))
This message was last edited by the player at 17:37, Fri 29 Jan 2021.