Wolf's Hollow has an eerie feel to it. The old construction, simple houses of wood and brick, stands in stark contrast to the new buildings going up all around, construction sites on every corner. The streets hum with traffic they were not meant to have, and efforts are already underway to expand them. At the edges of the small town, fields are being converted into parking lots and more buildings. A metropolis is happening, with none of the intermediate stages of a city's growth. It leaves an odd feel in the air.

It's a small group of people that have gathered, after much careful contact and feeling each other out. Out of costume right now, civvies for the first meeting, in a park across from the in-progress hospital. There are a handful of people around, walking dogs or sunbathing. None close enough to overhear something they ought not.

Demi arrives early, stakes out a high-traffic spot, and begins busking. She pitches her dusky contralto voice and accompanying instrumental harmonies to subtly tug on the warp and weft of reality to spin an extra-dimensional privacy pocket for the meeting. Anyone outside the pocket could see those within, but would hear only her music even if they strained to hear more. It was a simple thing for her, really, one of the first applications she learned of the alien science at her beck and call. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," said the old adage, she reminds herself.

Zack had arrived on time. People were often surprised by that happening, despite it being a fairly common occurrence. His casual attitude implied tardiness. His messy brown hair at least suggested waking up late and hurrying out the door at the last minute, and blue jeans with a plain white t-shirt didn't help. Not that he had any deep respect for his handlers and their time, but his fellow heroes were another matter.

"So, getting to know each other out in the real world, with its dogs and ice cream and Wikipedia servers," he said, grinning. "The name's Zack. Zack Caligat. I was disappointed to learn that while 'billionaire playboy' isn't disallowed as a day job, they do expect you to be the one providing the billions."

A slender but athletic looking blonde had been arguing one an expensive looking cell phone with somebody her unsubtle shrieking had labeled "Lenny" as she approached the area, clearly frustrated.  Eventually, she shuts the phone off with a huff and slips into a clearly designer purse, scowling.  "This gig better pay off, I did NOT leave L.A. to get lost in the crowd again,' she grumbles loudly enough to draw a few stares, then starts panning her vision around the vicinity, clearly looking for the people she's supposed to be meeting.

Eventually spotting people she SUSPECTS are the ones she's here for, she approaches just in time to hear the the tail-end of Zack's proclamation. "Oh, don't worry, the billions are going to happen eventually, after all, you can't stop a star from shining, am I right?"  She rolls her shoulders a little, loosening them, before flashing a practiced smile. "Gloria Sterling.  I imagine it's too much to hope you've actually heard of me...which brings us to this little career change. Nice to meet my supporting cast."  There's no derision in her voice as she puts the rest of you in a secondary role, simply the attitude of someone who assumed it was obvious they had lead billing.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:30, Tue 09 Mar 2021.

A petite, slender, pale girl with blue hair and eyes partially concealed by a black hoodie slides into the vicinity.  Her gait resembles a feral cat's, and her eyes flit back and forth among the various movements of the people walking by.  She gives the impression of a caged animal.  Her somewhat bulky black cargo pants, combined with the black hoodie hide her form, but the bright blue lipstick she wears almost shines from in contrast to the dark colors.  She looks between the group, listening to the blonde while rolling her eyes hard enough to risk spraining something.

After waiting for her to finish, she speaks up herself, "So... This is how it's gonna be, huh?  This should be interesting.  I'm Fae, bee tee dubs.  Don't call me that, though.  This is a professional relationship.  I'm not here to be your friend."

Her demeanor is certainly icy.  Though because of her general size and appearance, it doesn't come off as being as threatening as it seems to be in her head.

Demi favors Gloria with a beatific, even tolerant smile. "I'll try not to accidentally subtract you from the universe, then," she drawls, clearly familiar with the sort of ego she was dealing with. "Or strand you in the Outer Dark with only the most inimical sort of company." To Zack and Fae, she says, "I'm Demiurge. You can call me Demi."

Gloria rolls her eyes dramatically at the intimidation play. Or perhaps idle boasting. She doesn't know, she never really understood the little people.  "Oh, goooood! We have one of those mousy, nerdy, girl-next-door types! I'll make sure to stay close to you in a fight so I look better by comparison!  Not that I NEED the help, mind you, but hey, contrast is an important part of aesthetic presentation."
Glancing around to make sure she's not in the direct line of sight of bystanders first, she floats just a little bit off the ground, her eyes and fists glowing with radiant light. "So, professionally I'm going by Star Power, for obvious reasons," she says before she lands and powers down, "Though, I've been debating if I want to be an open identity - there's marketing possibilities there."
She pauses, eyeing the other three assembled prospective heroes in evaluation, then nodding to herself as if agreeing with somebody, "That said, that should probably be an all-or-nothing team decision - if some of us are out living it up as known heroes in our day to day, and others are trying to avoid the attention, it could get pretty awkward for us to associate outside of actual ...what do you call them?  Patrols? Missions? Cases?  Whatever. The heroics."

(OOC: Do let me know if I need to tone down Gloria's obnoxious levels of self-absorption, though I'm honestly hoping that'll be a result of character development down the line.)
This message was last edited by the player at 20:58, Tue 09 Mar 2021.

Demi slurps iced coffee from a Starbucks™ cup that wasn't there a second ago and is gone again the next instant. "I'm Velma to your Daphne? I can live with that." The cup blinks back into existence as she turns her gaze to every member of the assembled group one-by-one. "Anyone else wanna Frappuccino®?"
This message was last edited by the player at 22:13, Tue 09 Mar 2021.

"A pleasure to meet you, Demi," Zack said warmly. "A purely professional acknowledgement of fact that I have met you, Frost," he continued, concluding, "And it's an honor to meet you, Gloria. Or it will be one before long, if you're correct." His tone was light-hearted rather than mocking.

He grinned at the sudden drink. "Ooh, neat trick- is it coming from somewhere? Capitalism powers? And yeah, I'll take one if you don't mind."

"If you didn't see the dossier, my heroing identity is Noh. I'm not exactly unkillable- I faked that one decapitation people talk about, for instance- but I'm in the ballpark. Instead of blood, I've got a sort of black oil that I can control. My biology isn't anywhere near normal anyway, so poisons and diseases aren't an issue, I don't bleed if I don't want to, and stuff like my heart is just for convenience. Mostly I use it for self-puppeteering. Unlimited stamina, decently superhuman strength, and so on. It's scary enough when I use it externally, but it's not exactly 'energy beams' caliber." He waved a hand broadly. "Of course, there are plenty of other details to all this, but that's the gist: I can take a lot of abuse, I can keep going all day, and I've got as many tentacles as needed."

Demi raises her cup in salutations. "Mine came from the store near NYU in New York," she says with a grin, "While yours came from the store near Ueno Zoo in Tokyo." At the word 'yours', Zack finds a similar cup, albeit labeled in katakana, in his hand.

Fae exhales sharply through her nose while staring at the cup in the musician's hand, and she finds her next sip impossible as the coffee has turned into solid ice.  She gives a brief apologetic look to the holder of the cup as she continues with perhaps more snark than is strictly called for, "There... Now we've all had a taste of each other's powers.  Perhaps this metaphorical dick measuring contest can end and we can move on to the real reason we're here."  She looks around at the group as she pause just a moment, "This is everyone, right?"

"Ah damn, I'm late, aren't I?" comes an extra voice that's stepped inside the bubble. She's... small is a good word for it, standing at the staggering height of 4'8", with dark green hair, and absolutely swimming in the normal sized hoodie she's wearing. Her jeans fit better, and she's wearing clunky boots on her feet, "Didn't mean to get delayed, but I'm here now. I'm Azoth."

The observant among the group will likely notice the fact that both of her hands and her left eye are made of metal - cybernetic replacements, and she has an incredibly nasty scar around the eye. Precisely how extensive the augmentations to her body are is hidden by her modest and unremarkable clothes.

Demi gives a cheery wave to Azoth. "Hi, I'm Demiurge. Call me Demi." She returns her iced coffee to its original consistency and takes another slurp. "No worries, now you're early for next meeting! Time is relative, after all."

"Nice to meet you, Azoth! I'm Zack. I do think that's everyone now," he said, glancing around again. "Exciting, hmm? I mean, even setting aside occupational stuff, I don't think there's been a boom town like Wolf's Hollow in… decades at least. And normally it's the infrastructure trying to keep up, not causing it." He shook his head, grinning. "It's cool to be in at the ground floor. Well, second floor I guess is probably more metaphorically accurate."

The meeting done, the newly-assembled team makes their way to their new base. It's a newly-built warehouse on the northern side of the city, near the edge of what had once been a town. Built on the top of a large hill, it was fully exposed to the wind that the region was notorious for, which whipped through the streets and left the space achingly cold.

It wasn't hard to see why, despite the impressive view, this hill had been used for warehouses and industrial space rather than expensive housing.

The warehouse had been retrofitted to a degree, making it entirely liveable. There were internal walls partitioning out several bedrooms, each with a simple mattress in it, and a kitchen space with a microwave, fridge, and electric skillet. There was wifi. The bathroom was small, but functional, and even had a shower put in.

Not the most glamorous new home base. But it was a start, and it was cheap rent - well, cheap for the area. Wolf's Hollow currently had high expenses from the sheer demand for the limited space to live in.

Almost immediately upon moving into the warehouse, Demi made a few alterations to its living spaces. The bedrooms and bathroom were all bigger on the inside in the aftermath of her ministrations, and the entire interior turned into an infinite shifting labyrinth in the event of unauthorized access. "Amazing what uses a tesseract can be put to, in terms of home design and security."

"Wow, no kidding…" Zack blinked a bit as he adjusted to the odd feeling of… well, of the walls being too far away, really. "Didn't know those were real, I thought they just made that up for the movie." Higher geometries fell outside his limited areas of expertise.

Finally settled so that his mind could ignore the change in space, he started poking around the kitchen. "Well, let me know if anybody has any food allergies or other dietary restrictions. I mean, folks are welcome to get their own stuff and all that, but I enjoy cooking and don't want to accidentally poison- or exclude- somebody."

Fae lets out a low whistle as Demi rearranged the space.  She glances around, pointing to the bedroom closest to the main entrance, "That one's mine."  She glances over at the self-styled cook, "High protein.  Low carb.  I don't eat anything that food eats."

She pulls off her hoodie, revealing that under the baggy clothing she has well defined muscles, the lean muscle of an acrobat, or a predator.  As she stands there in just her form fitting leotard, without the insulation of the specially made jacket, the temperature in the room starts to drop noticeably, "Lastly, I sleep naked, and when I'm not consciously controlling it or covered up, I suck up heat.  It will be well below freezing in my room, so don't get any funny ideas about sneaking a peak."

Zack considered the statement at face value. Eliminating pork and sticking to beef and chicken would open up a lot more food options. But if you got to consider what was or wasn't food on a personal basis, that could easily be a vegetarian diet, couldn't it? For the most part, plants didn't eat things. Well, the intent was clear. "I haven't done a lot of cooking with organ meat, but I know it's an important part of a carnivorous diet to avoid vitamin deficiencies- liver in particular. I can look into it, though- I enjoy picking up new stuff."

He raised an eyebrow, but nodded. "Duly noted. Hmm, so if you pass out in a fight, I should probably be the one to get you out of the situation?" He held up a hand, and black oil began seeping out of the pores, until it was covered. "Better insulation, and I don't suffer frostbite." Not that it couldn't hurt him, but it wasn't the same sort of permanent damage others might suffer. On that topic, he glanced over at the others. Okay, so Azoth wouldn't suffer any direct frostbite. "Although… I guess spatial shenanigans might be even better? I don't know how that works exactly. Metal hands seem like they'd conduct heat away easily, but I guess that's not considering running extra heating or something."

"I've got energy systems cycling heat through my limbs specifically to ward off frostbite, no worries there," the little cyborg admits, looking around at the venue following Demi's restructuring, "I'll need to claim a bit of space as a workshop, but I shouldn't need a ton. We seem to have plenty of it."