One day, as you sat in your cell, you suddenly found a bunch of guards outside of it.

"You got a visitor," one of them said.

"Oh?" said Diana.  "All right.  Who's coming to see me?"

"You'll see," he said as he opened the small slot in the door. "You know the drill, put your arms through here to be cuffed."

It was utterly pointless of them to bother with that, and they knew it, but Diana stuck her arms out.

...she didn't have her technology, so why bother?  (Well, she had her implants.  She hadn't tried to use them, though, and had no idea if they knew.  They might now.  The alien technology was astonishingly subtle and well-hidden.)

"Here we go," she said.

They bring you to a small room, sit you down on a metal chair and chain you to it. Across from you was a man in a very clean and expensive looking black suit.

"So," said Diana, "to whom or what do I owe the change of scenery?"

"The U.S. government," the man said. "How would you like a chance for early release?"

"I'd love it," said Diana.  "What's the catch?  I'm guessing it's a big one."

"It's an offer going out to a few of the more stable supervillains: do some jobs for the government, get time knocked off your sentences," the man said.

"I'm certainly interested," said Diana.  "What do you have in mind?  I'd be happy to share my technological expertise, of course.  I'm sure the government could find many useful applications for my multiplex drone technologies..."

But she doubted it would be that simple.

"Field work is required," the man said.

"Of course," sighed Hazel.  "Well.  I suppose I can handle that, but of course I'll need Larry and Walpurgisnacht and the rest of it all.  Ideally with facilities for me to make some adjustments, depending on the nature of the 'Field Work' involved."

"Yes, that will be arranged," the man said.

"What are the rest of the conditions?" Hazel asked.  "You're not going to make me stay here, are you?"

"You will have to stay on prison grounds while not on a mission, but it will be in a different cell," the man said. "A much more comfortable one."

"Fine," sighed Diana.  "I hope you'll let me meet the people I'll be working with, though.  That's one thing we'll need to be successful."

She did not ask if the field work would be dangerous.  Obviously it would be.

The man nodded and the guards came in, put a collar around your neck and undid your chains.

"This is a power neutralizer, I understand you are a tech based villain, but it also works on that. You will have more freedom, but the collar is mandatory. It will not be too tight. Now follow me and don't attempt to take it off."

The old man gets up and walks out of the room. The guards stand there.

It worked on tech, too?  How did that even work?  And... could she just figure out how to remove it?  It's not like it removed her skills...

...but she wanted out of the life.  So she wasn't going to try.  She followed the man.

"It will explode if removed without the proper signature," the man said. "There are additional security measures I will not be  telling you about."

The man lead you to a small building on the prison grounds.

Nothing for it but to follow and see who was there.

Inside he leads past some cells as large as a living room, into a board meeting where you see various other inmates there. You recognize a few of them. Lynx, cat themed thief, Brick, a large super strong and tough man, Trickshot, a man who can turn anything into a thrown weapon and Hotshot, a woman who can control flames.

"Well," said Diana.  "Interesting meeting you all here.  Has anyone heard anything about what they have in mind?"

"Some kinda Black Ops thing for freedom?" Brick said,

"Yeah, got that impression," said Diana.  "Probably going to be some dangerous jobs, if they're sending us and not the military or whatever."

Brick snickered.

"Most armies don't stand up to me."

"Brick, I know you have all the power you need," said Diana.  "But that tells me what the jobs are going to be like.  Lots of situations like that, you can solve with ordinary firepower.  We're going to get the hard ones.  Or the ones they can't admit to having a hand in..."

"He'd be a great distraction," Lynx said.

"Very true," said Diana.  "...I've done that, too.  I'm Witch Hazel, and I have an army of drones... they can be a distraction, but they're very versatile-- information-gathering, crowd control, offense, defense."

"I thought we could have had a team up some time...before we both were arrested, anyway," Lynx said.

"I'm honestly flattered," said Diana.  "If we both make it through this thing, get in touch with me.  We might find something more legitimate we could do."

...Looking at Lynx gave her all kinds of ideas what that might be, but she wasn't going to mention them in front of Brick.

"Ah, don't tell me you're going legit!" Hotshot said.

"I might just do that," said Diana.  "I don't know.  I could probably make a ton of money doing tech work, though.  Beats sitting around in jail."

"Whatever, doesn't effect me," Trickshot said.

"What, you weren't in jail?" Diana asked.  "Then why are you here?"

"No, you going straight. Hell, you staying a crook doesn't either," Trickshot said.

"Probably true," said Diana.  "Doesn't matter.  We're counting on each other to get through this alive.  What do you bring to the table?"

"I can make anything into a lethal thrown weapon. Cards, paperclips, coins, anything," Trickshot said.

"...which would be a silent weapon," Diana observed.  "I'm assuming you can move quietly yourself, too."

A subtle approach would be good; Brick could draw all the attention.

"Yes, good. You've all had a chance to say hello," a woman in a suit said. "Welcome to Task Force Black."

A man dressed in army fatigues was standing next to her.

"This is Colonel Steel, he will be your field team leader," the woman said as the lights darkened and a projector started. There was a building with some sort of Slavic writing projected on the screen. "This is Hotel Iakai in Ruritania, it is where several important VIPs of the American government are staying. At 1100 hours local time a group of superpowered terrorist took over the hotel and holding the VIPs hostage. Your job is to get inside, take out the terrorists and ensure no VIP dies. Any questions?"

"Yeah, who are they?" Diana asked.  "Don't send us in blind if you want this to work-- what do we know about the opposition?  You said 'Superpowered'..."

"The group is known as Libertate and consist of six members. Lead by a man named Sabre who can enhance the properties of metals, his right hand man is name Electrode and as you can guess by his name controls electricity, Mad Dog has enhanced strength and endurance and is known to lose his temper easily in battle, Alchemist is an adept poisoner (We don't know much about them and are unsure if he has powers or is just very skilled) and finally there is The Flame, a fire controller from Saudi Arabia and a new comer to the group," the woman said.

"Poison, electricity and fire?" said Diana.  "That's a very bad combination in a hostage situation.  We're going to have to be careful-- scout them out, strike from ambush, move fast.  I've got some tricks that I could use to help protect bystanders, but they're hardly 100% reliable-- especially with an electrical controller around."

"Yes, that is why you all have been brought in. Your skills will be quite useful for this mission," the woman said. "Colonel?"

The man stepped forward and placed a series of maps down on the table.

"This are the floor plans of the hotel."

Diana studied them.

"...Hotshot, you can control flames and not just create them, correct?" she asked.  "Locking The Flame down might become your job.  The last thing we need to deal with is a burning building collapsing around our heads.  If Electrode targets me, we're going to have to shut him down fast, of course, but I might be able to do that, depending on how good his control is."

"Sure, I can do that. I'm the best fire controller out there," Hotshot said.

"Good," said Hazel.  "Lynx and I can scout; we'll need to do that.  Anybody got any other tricks that we need to know about?"

"I'm pretty good at that too," Trickshot said.

"Good," said Hazel.  "I'll be remote overwatch.  Brick, Hotshot, anything else we should know about?  I've got the drone army.  And a witch's broom.  A lot of weapons-- gas bombs, force beams, microwave heat beams.  Very advanced AI targeting, so I can hit only the things I want to hit when doing crowd control.  You don't have to worry about friendly fire, except maybe from the gas bombs, and that's non-lethal and dissipates very quickly.  And I have serious tech skills, but I need gear to do a lot of things."

She didn't see any reason to point out in front of the government types that, strictly speaking, not all of her tricks were gear-dependent.  Just her best ones.

"Nah, I lot of what I got is right up front. I'm really strong and tough. Not good at sneaking or tech," Brick said.

"I guess I can do blinding flares of light," Hotshot said. "If that helps."

"It does," said Diana.  "Disable the enemies without worrying about killing a VIP is a good tactic.  I don't see anything in our brief that says the VIPs can't be made momentarily uncomfortable."

"There is nothing against that," the woman said.

"Good.  Plan on doing that whenever it's useful," said Diana.  "Ditto for my gas bombs.  I know Trickshot's a precision kind of guy, so that should be safe enough.  Lynx, are you a close combat specialist?  That should be safe enough, too.  Brick... if it comes down to it, you provide cover."

"I'm not bad, but nothing amazing," Lynx said.

"That's fair," said Hazel.  "Scouting is key here anyway, and you can be an ace in the hole hitting from surprise."

"Sure, that works," Lynx said.

"All right," said Diana.  "So I assume that we're heading out almost immediately...?"

"Yes, Steel will show you to the jet," the woman said. "if you're done."

"I don't think we can plan much more until we see what's actually going on right now," said Diana.  "So let's go."

Colonel Steel begins leading the group down and honestly confusing number of tunnels underneath the building until you arrive at a hanger with a supersonic jet that could easily sit upwards of twenty or so people. Like it was one of those fancy things the big superteams have.

"Is my gear on the plane?" Diana asked.  "This isn't going to work unless I have all of it."

"Yes," Colonel Steel said. "All gear is on the plane."

"All right," said Diana.  "Then let's get going."

Soon enough everyone was strapped in and the jet took off.

Diana immediately set out to locate her gear and get it ready.  She was taking no chances.  She also tested her implanted tech-- was it somehow blocked by the collar, or were their powers still turned off?

It did seem that your powers were blocked by the collar, but your gear was operational.

That fact gave her some interesting information-- it must work on the neural level; her "Powers" were just high-tech implants.  Hopefully they'd be restored to her before they got into danger.

The jet set down back in the hidden hanger. You were led to a small building on prison grounds. It's cells were as large as an average living room with a normal bed and a TV inside.

Well, this wasn't too bad.  Diana closed up Larry and put her tools away; no doubt, they'd be taking them now.

They did, but there were no locks on the cell door, just the main door leading outside and bars on the windows.

That wasn't so bad.  They'd have some chances to socialize, at least, which would be SOMETHING to do other than watch TV.  She made a mental note to see if there was a library or something, though.

There was a large common space with tables, chairs, a small library, several board and card games as well as some high tech workout equipment.

Well, that was good.  Hazel wasn't really tired yet-- her mind moved too quickly-- so she went into the common area and started playing with some cards.

Lynx took a seat across from you and watched you.

"...well, it's good to have good company," said Diana.  "Something on your mind?  Or did you want to play?"

"I'm just thinking about things. Like where this is going to to go," Lynx said.

"There are a lot of unknowns," said Diana.  "What were you thinking?"

"I'm hoping they don't expect us to play hit man," Lynx said. "Okay, more of a personal worry. I don't know about anyone else."

"If that happens, if they even ask that, we're in a lot of trouble," said Diana.  "Well, it's one thing if it's 'bring this guy in, and we don't care if he's in one piece,' but it's another if they just aim us at someone and tell us to take him out.  That's bad.  That's the kind of thing that maybe they don't want to keep us around for afterwards."

"I'm pretty sure Trickshot is an assassin," Lynx said.

"Yes, but we aren't," said Diana.  "If they have him do something like that... well, that's their business, but I'd be suspicious if I were him.  There's no call to bring us in on something like that.  Even at my worst, I never actually killed anyone, and I'm on medication now."

"I hear you, I'm here because I was an idiot when I was younger and continued being one," Lynx said. "Spoiled rich girl, looking for thrills."

"...I wanted revenge, on behalf of my mother," said Diana.  "Childish, but I was a child, then, and no one had discovered my intellect and tried to channel it into anything better.  But it was hard to change course, once I'd started."

"Ah, yeah, I hear you there," Lynx said.

"Did you ever get any good contacts in the field?" Diana asked, curious.  "I traded favors with some people for some very useful long-term help..."

"I had a few, mostly with fences," Lynx said.

"Well, neither of us is likely to have much use for them," said Diana.  "But that's fair.  I was just curious... so no teammates or associates or family or whatever?"

She was being indirect about what she was really curious about.  It seemed necessary.

Lynx laughed.

"No, my family disowned me as soon as I was arrested. Most other 'supervillains' are a tad too intense for me."

"Sounds lonely," said Diana.

"It's why I turned to this in the first place," Lynx said. "I wasn't exactly happy growing up."

"...I can relate to that," said Diana.  "I had my own problems.  Being poorly socialized was a big part of it.  Ironic, that I've made more... well, friends, more or less... than I had before I got into trouble."

"The same thing happened to me," Lynx said.

"So, however this goes down-- and we both know it's a bunch of different ways-- what do you say to keeping in contact?" said Diana.

"Sure, sounds good to me," Lynx said.

"...we should probably stick close here, too," said Hazel.  "I don't entirely trust the boys to stay... polite."

"Polite is an interesting way of putting it," Lynx said.

"I'm being diplomatic," said Diana.  "I particularly don't like Trickshot's habit of sneaking up on people.  Petty power games."

"Has Brick hit on you yet?" Lynx asked.

"Not yet," said Diana.  "How about you?"

"Oh yes," Lynx said. "A lovely guy, that one."

"A shame," said Diana.  "Of course, you could tell him that you're taken..."

"Yeah, but sometimes creeps can smell out you're lying," Lynx said.

Diana tentatively reached out a hand towards Lynx.

"...Your call," she said, shyly.

"Oooooh," Lynx said. "Sure, sounds good."

Diana took her hand.

"Tricky to get much alone time here, though," she said.  "Unless you found a way..."

"Not yet, I mean, it looks like we have a curtain on our cells, but I doubt they want much going on behind them," Lynx said.

"...we'll see," said Diana.  "We can at least get a little privacy..."

"Hopefully enough," Lynx said, looking around to see what the others were doing. No one seemed to be paying them attention.

Diana took a look as well.  Better safe than sorry...

The rest were watching the TV.

That was fine.  It would keep them out of trouble... what was on, anyway?

Live footage of a massive fight between the superhero team Legion of Justice and the supervillain team Association of Evil. They were cheering on the villains, of course.

Well, naturally.

"...I guess that's them," she sighed.  "Keeping grudges forever doesn't really help anything, though.  I learned that, one way and another."

"I wouldn't know," Lynx said. "I'm a thief after all."

"Take my word for it," said Diana.  "I did a lot of damage, going after the people who put my mom out of business, but I didn't really gain anything.  I had some rage going against the people who stopped me, but what else were they going to do?  It was time-- long past time-- to let it go."

"Oh sure, I just mean, I was doing it for kicks, not vengeance or anything like that," Lynx said.

"That's probably better than I was," sighed Diana.  "Well, nothing for it but to move forward."

"Hey, the past is the past," Lynx said. "Nothing that can be done about it but move on."

"True enough," said Diana.  "Now, here's hoping the probation board thinks that way... for both of us."

"A few others have kind of ruined that for the rest of us," Lynx said.

"Probably," Diana sighed.  "Still, we can hope that these government types follow through on their end of the deal.  They've got to know that breaking their word would be dangerous for them."

"Yeah, most supervillains are really vengeful," Lynx said.

"...even though it's pointless," Diana sighed.  "Well, hopefully their stick will remind the government to come across with the carrots."

"We can always threaten to reveal what we know. I'm sure it'd be quite the scandal," Lynx said.

"Probably," said Diana, "but they'll probably be fast to shut us down if we try that.  Let's wait a bit, at least."

"Oh sure, that's more the nuclear option," Lynx said.

"...good to remember, though," said Diana.  "We're going to have to keep an eye on these government types.  And our teammates, but for different reasons."

"I agree," Lynx said.

"...I wonder how distracted everyone is with that TV show?" Diana asked, eyeing the curtain.

The fight seemed to be wrapping up and the crowd was groaning with the heroes triumphant.

"...not long enough," Hazel sighed.  "Well, we'll see what they do after the news is over."

The others head over to the card table and began playing cards.

"Shall we join them?" Diana asked.  It might be good to socialize with the team.

"I suppose," Lynx said. "Are you any good at cards?"

"I'm all right," said Diana.  "It's something to do on long nights when you're on the run."

"Okay," Lynx said as she moved over to the table. "Deal us in."

Brick grunted and did so.

"What's the game?" Hazel asked.  She wasn't planning on really trying too hard to win, but she figured she could learn something from watching the other people play.

"Poker," Brick said.

"All right," said Diana.  "What are we using for stakes?"

Poker, unlike some games, needed stakes.  No point if you couldn't bluff a good hand with a raise.

"Turns out we now got a small prison account with fifty bucks a month in them," Brick said.

"So small stakes, then?" said Diana.  "I'm fine with that."

"Yep, one dollar limit," Trickshot said.

"Fine," said Diana.  "I can afford that, at least..."

She didn't plan to risk losing too much money, but they had time to kill, so why not?

(OOC: Give me three rolls, adding you luck ranks or sleight of hand if you're gonna cheat.)

19:29, Today: Witch Hazel rolled 12,23,5 using d20+3,d20+3,d20+3 ((9,20,2)).

After a few hands, you do manage to break even. A few wins and a few loses.

Well, that wasn't bad.  But how were they others playing, or reacting to their wins and losses?

Brick and Hotshot were rather emotional about it, Lynx and Trickshot were much more subdued, though Trickshot was in a creepy way.

Well, that figured.  She preferred the straightforwardness of Brick or Hotshot to Trickshot any day.

"Be interesting to keep a tally," said Diana.  "Just to see how we do."

"I'm up about seven dollars," Trickshot said.

"...not surprised," said Diana.  He was tricky that way.  And might be cheating.  It seemed like him.

"I'm up about two," Lynx said.

"...I'm more or less even," said Diana.

The others were just grumbling.

"So when we get out of here, if they let us out," said Diana, "what do you want to do?"

"I got some big plans," Brick said. "Seems that Hyperion is hiring and he's got some big plans it seems. He pays so much better than most other masterminds."

"Big plans?  Risky, could pay off," said Diana.  "What about you, Hotshot?"

"That sounds pretty good to me, honestly," Hotshot said. "The cops managed to find where I'd been hiding some loot so I'm in need of money."

"Well, fair," said Diana.  "...Do I even want to know, Trickshot?"

"I don't need anymore money, but I'm sure I can find something to keep me busy," Trickshot said.

"Which scares me more than any plan of Hyperion's," Diana admitted.  "I'm still working my plans out.  I'm not as much going for revenge at this point, so we'll see what happens."

"I can agree with that," Lynx said. "Playing it by ear sounds good."

"...and there are certainly a lot of options," she continued.  But she wasn't going to say them in front of the others; she didn't trust them one bit.

"I'm just happy making some bank," Brick said.

"...maybe we should get agents," said Diana.  "They wouldn't let us talk about THIS stuff, but I'll bet we could fill a book with stories about other stuff we did, and it'd sell."

"It's boring doing it the legit way," Hotshot said.

"I'm not at all surprised to hear that," said Diana.  "And that's fair."

"Imagine how big you'd be taking down some A-lister hero," Hotshot said.

Trickshot chuckled.