Spider-woman's hood peels back (without her hands touching it) showing a 20-year old (at most) blonde girl wearing a black headband.  The top half of her costume morphs into a plain red v-neck t-shirt, and a white button-down shirt that ties itself around her waist.  Below the waist it remains black leggings with blue ballet flats - looking less like a costume and more like normal clothing.  She's really thin, but what's there is muscle.  The costume change involves a lot of tiny legs moving while it happens, but ends up indistinguishable from cloth after just a few seconds.

She's not exactly happy, but seems a little calmer.

"I have one more thing."  She shouldn't say it, he can probably hear.  Gwen isn't the most subtle though.  "I think Timebroker set the bomb."

Explosion big enough to kill me instantaneously with no warning from Spider-sense?  Way beyond the capabilities of New York's current Supervillains.

OOC: I noticed the stick first time around when you checked your pockets.  Hoping something interesting comes out of that.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:49, Thu 28 Jan 2021.

Susan frowned at Fem Spidey's implication, that all their deaths may have been arranged.

"I really f--king hope not.  But, whether true or no, it doesn't change our route to the exit sign."    She glanced to Twig Daddy, but said it as much to all the others:

"Look, I'll wear this Tallus thingy.   But, I've zero interest in trying to assert myself as some kind of GI Jane field commander.  Back home, I was an indie, not a team member.  I believe in the power of freewill.  What I would advise, is that we try to get a clearer picture of each other's strengths and knowledge, so we've some idea who should make the call in which situation."   

She watched Spider-Woman's transformation into her street togs.

"That's really, really handy.  Though if it feels like bugs crawling all over you, you must have nerves of steel."   She glanced down at her own halter-crop top, bohemian long skirt, and sandals.

"As for the rest of us?  Are we like stuck with the threads we came here in?   I can't even ride a motorcycle in this!"

“Well, I don’t know if I want to fly in this getup.” Sally motioned at her jewel-toned psychedelic mini-dress & go-go boots with a downward flourish of her hands. “It’s cute for the Doors show I wanted to catch, but I’m gonna flash a LOT of super-baddies in it! I dig what you’re saying about leadership style, though. I care less about establishing hierarchy and more about getting back home to my man and my world.”

"The Doors?" The skull head came whipping around. "Jim Morrison is still alive in your world? I wanna live there. Is Jimi Hendrix still alive? Best my world has to offer is a ninety-year old Elvis, and he's less about shaking his hips and more about breaking 'em these days."

“Of course they’re alive!” Wade’s quip about Elvis drove an important point home for Sally. “Wait a minute. Are you & Bugs from the future?” She grinned with wide eyes at the possibility. “Please tell me that Nixon was a one-term president, and that they finally legalized abortion!”

She did her best to adjust to the leering death's head visage.  "They're all still alive in mine.   Jimi is at Woodstock, next month.  The Doors turned it down, for some reason -- I still can't believe it!"   She gave Sally a look of profound empathy.

"Dying before a Doors show - that's...I'm sorry."

Sue then tried to get the image of a ninety year old Elvis, striving to gyrate, out of her mind.   It was nearly as bad as the death's head.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:44, Thu 28 Jan 2021.

Gwen is used to the weird looks about the spiders.  They don't phase her anymore (well, a little when they do things she didn't ask them too)

To Sue, she says "My life is weird.  I made my peace with it, and this way I don't have to do laundry.

Before we get to a music history class... slight pause.  All of those people died way before I was born.  The omnipotent jerk said the Tallus would provide 'everything you need.'"  There are air quotes involved.

"That's gotta include clothes.  And I was not joking about that pizza.  I don't think Bugs and Tony will blend into our worlds just from a trip to the mall.  At least Bones has something figured out  Let's find out what we're up against."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:07, Thu 28 Jan 2021.

"Nixon is... complicated," Funnybone replied. Nixon was still a hot-button issue, decades later. The assassination was a distinctly polarizing event in American history. But talking about abortion wasn't something Funnybone wanted to engage in; Wade and Zarathos strongly disagreed on the subject. "But I think we'll have plenty of time to compare universes. Sounds like it's still nineteen sixty-nine, maybe, where you come from...? Viet Nam and Ban the Bomb? If so, my world would make you cry. Twenty-twenty sucked.

"Anyway, if we need to save the multiverse, that sounds like a pretty big project. Not as big as putting together a desk from IKEA, but big. Maybe we ought to get started."

He paused. Looked around. They were still on the endless patch of desert, with nothing else in sight.

"I don't think we go anywhere until someone—" he stared at Sue "—puts on the tallus."

“Oh, it’s cool, Sister.” Sally flashed Sue a Peace sign with a tiny smile. “I saw them play Whiskey A Go Go. This Woodstock sounds like the ultimate happening, though. I dig Jimin Hendrix...!”

The way Spider-Woman—who turned out to be a petite blonde only two years younger than Sally—said “Music History Class” revealed a telling tidbit about her, too. “Between your unisex clothes and funky hairstyle—and the fact that people apparently wear spiders where you come from—I’m tuning into a futuristic wavelength for you, too.”

Wade’s revelation sobered Sally up. “Someone assassinated Nixon? Whoa. Heavy, man.” Luckily, talk of the Tallus distracted Sally from too much rumination about the dark world of 2020.

“Yeah, Sue. Put it on.”

'Oh god, why didn't I piece that together?  I'm so used to blaming Quill it got in the way!'


'and his profiles on us are exceedingly accurate it seams.'

Rocket calmly puts his twig away, and picks up his gun again.  While he's cleaning it up again, he'll talk.


"Don't be hard on yourself like that.  Besides, I've been to Earth multiple times!  Outside a lot of stares, nobody starts nothing.  As soon as they can't figure out what to do, they jump right to their default behaviors with clearing my throat a couple times.  And if I can manage business interactions there, you and Tony will be fiine."

'Oh, great, now I got to deal with two Quills.'

"I'd suggest we leave the damn leash off until we're all on the same page about just how dangerous it is.  I don't know if you caught the context of that round of bad news, but let me clear up a few additional things.  I lied about the fanboy thing to annoy him, he was gloating to himself about his 'math' working.  That means he's not an 'applied' expert.  Things will go wrong, its instructions may be impossible, and there is a very real chance that Timebroker fellah has enemies that started the whole mess he wants us to clean up, or he himself is working on multiple solutions in tandem that will conflict with one another.  Either way, or both, whoever puts on his way of keeping us under control better be the hardest among us to steal it from, because that crippling crutch is a massive bulls-eye."

"I am glad some of us caught on to the fact that he wasn't asking us to choose our leader, he was asking us to choose who wears our leader.  That gaudy gauntlet is going to be calling all the shots as it's our only way home.  And if you were counting on it doing anything useful this adventure, the Timebroker clearly 'calculated' that we were all the math he counted on."

"It frustrates me to no Krutacking end that he gets to get away with killing at least half of us, and he's got us all pegged so well we're still stuck dancing to his tune.  So if anyone wants out, I understand.  But he got me right, and I'd kill Quill's god complex living planet of a first dad all over again solo to see that done.  Know I've dealt with his type before, and we'll find ourselves a decent loophole for you get out with."

"I doubt anyone missed that we only have one shot at this, but to make things worse, every time we fix one of our own dimensions OR someone croaks, we lose manpower.  Don't die out there trying to protect any of us.  Keep within your means.  I assume most of you got your own skill set to draw from."

"I also suggest you actually listen to what I say."  Rocket glares at Wade with that line, but not the following.  "If I tell you to do something like 'steal that yellow shoe off that guy' and you don't, there's a very real chance another team got to keep their Tallus and continue disrupting us.  Leadership will be a crutch here, so I don't care who wears the krutacking knick-knack, but they sure ain't no leader.  I don't work in that kind of team anymore."

"On the note of listening to what I say, I have quite the literal and extensive library of nearly all things engineering exceeding what I know of Earth's capacity directly forced into my brain.  I wouldn't suggest we take apart our new boss, but if it happens we'd better keep the pieces."

"If anyone else has some key insight to contribute on the topic of how screwed we are, I suggest sharing.  If I can listen to Quill's stupid ideas and Earth references, you guys should be a breath of fresh air."

((EDIT: Quotes.  I'll miss the little things like here most.  Leaving out the word 'sign' after exit.  'Bugs' to 'bugs' / 'tallus' to 'Tallus' and such.  I'll miss them.))
This message was last edited by the player at 17:55, Fri 29 Jan 2021.

"1969," she affirmed.    "I thought 2001 was the future.  But, I don't know any Nixon.  Howard Stark's the president of our US." 

To Sally: "The Whiskey -- are you from SoCal, too?  I just moved to Ocean Beach. It's like San Diego's Haight-Ashbury.  You and I need to rap more.  I'm curious now how much your world resembles mine."

Sue had taken it in stride that Spider-Woman's apparel wasn't a familiar style.   Aside from Sally, no one's style was familiar.  She said to her:

"Weird is relative.  Relatively, we've all got weird lives. Or after-lives. Whatever."

The time had come:  "Okay. So. The Tallus. Sounds like the name of a naughty toy, doesn't, it?  A Tallus is a girl's best friend," she soothed, with a wink and a faux-wicked smile.

Then, without more ado, Sue put the thing on...
This message was last edited by the player at 19:16, Thu 28 Jan 2021.