Virtue is its Own Reward: 2.0

[ECSNorway]

The first lesson ninja learn about guns is that getting shot hurts.

In Kumogakure, they teach this by putting a ten-year-old in a bulletproof vest and shooting her.
I know this because I was the sixth one in my class to experience this little lesson.
Needless to say, this is a popular day to skip class.

I'd spent the day watching activity on the forums, dipping my feet into discussions here and there with mostly-noncommittal gestures, and trying to settle my mind on the big question: of the two people I currently was, who did I want to be? The answer that kept coming to mind was 'both'. When the clone I'd left at the apartment self-dispelled to let me know the cleanup was done, I'd come to the decision: yes, I would try to keep true to both my selves. The next few hours involved a lot of meditating while I tried to sort my memories out, so I could keep things straight and not get confused by remembering the wrong thing in the wrong context.

By the time the clone filling my desk at work poofed out, I knew it was going to take more than a day or so to settle myself on that particular issue. But clearly enough, the job was going to tie me down in ways that weren't going to work out.

That night, I decided to give one of Misao's standard fill-the-purse strategems a try: trolling for drug dealers. My hometown isn't exactly thick with them, we're a small enough city, but I was able to find a couple here and there, along with a few equally unsavory types who took too close an interest in my newly-feminine physique.

Things got interesting on the fourth confrontation of the evening. I had dropped out of nowhere into the face of Mook Number One, laid him out with a punch-kick-jab combo, and dropped Mook Number Two with a leg sweep and the hilt of my wakizashi to his forehead. Which was when Head Mook got the safety off of his gun and gave me a 9mm lobotomy. The last thing I remembered before everything went black was the smirk on his face.

-----

Which, to be honest, was the reason I gutted him when I stepped out of the shadows behind him, while he was still gaping at the poof of smoke where my shadow-clone had been. I used his cellphone to dial 911 - a nice chirpy imitation of his voice and a "Hi, I'm a drug dealer, I got stabbed by one of my boys, come get me!" should get an ambulance and a bunch of cops to his location pretty quickly. Then I vanished into the shadows again and headed for home.

Some capes deal with the gun issue with a layer of super-spandex, a high-tech armored fabric that acted like a full-body vest. Me, I also took the prudent, ninja-like precaution of never being in the line of fire to begin with. That doesn't mean it's a pleasant memory to look back on.

Once I got there, I rather cheerfully considered the wad of cash I'd recovered. About eight grand, by the looks of it. Would go a long way towards paying off my bills and getting to New York, or wherever Sa-chan and Misty ended up agreeing we should meet.

Then I headed for the bathroom, as I released the tight emotional control I'd been maintaining since the shooting, and donated my dinner to the Rochester sewage system.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Sweno]

Virtue is its Own Reward 2.0

----------

(July 9th - 1:10pm)

It took me a few minutes to locate where in San Francisco the robbery was taking place. Even when you are standing on top of buildings looking for flashing
lights, thirty square miles is a lot of city to cover. When I finally found the place 'bee of hay for forty five power street' made much more sense.
Bank of America 445 Powell street. The radio chatter used a lot of abbreviations I wasn't familiar with. I only ended up catching the general gist of
things.

There were three suspects. This was not their first tangle with the police. The police were not happy with them in the least, but they were waiting for swat
and/or some other special team to arrive.

I parked myself on top of a building across the street and settled down to watch what would happen. I was confident that between my stealth and everyone's
attention firmly directed at the bank I could have walked around on the street. But why put myself in the line of fire if I don't have to? The cops had
made an attempt to cordon off the street and get pedestrians out of the way, forming a semicircle of cover with their cars. The officers were all smart enough
to take cover behind their engine blocks, but I had to wonder how much good it would do.

Someone was on a bull horn demanding that they come out with their hands up, but it sounded like a mere formality. No one was expecting this to end peacefully.
I was trying to decide if the robbers were smart or stupid for a daylight robbery. Lunchtime meant a decent amount of traffic on the streets, and hostage
opportunities inside the bank. But it also meant a lot of cops on the streets. My estimation of them fell a few notches when they made their exit from the
bank. Two guys and a girl in spandex, armor, and black ski masks with duffel bags over their shoulders. The first one out the door had the telltale shimmer of
a force field around him as he ignored the cops and ran for a panel van parked in front of the bank. Robber number two stopped long enough to shout something I
couldn't make out at the cops. As he finished his little speech he reached back as if to throw something. By the time his fist finished coming forwards it
was wreathed in flames and a fireball was on it's way. The police that weren't in line of fire took that as the cue to open fire. The police that were
beat feet as their cover quickly became more hazard than help.

Not all of them made it far enough, two were knocked off their feet. One was knocked out into the building I was standing on, of my line of sight. The second
wasn't so lucky. He didn't make it as far and landed like a ragdoll, the back of his jacket burning.

Robber number three, the female, had a sword of some kind in one hand and occasionally seemed to flicker in place as she loaded her bag in the back of the van.
Once that was done she stood on the tailgate and looked towards the sky, not even paying attention as she flickered in place whenever a bullet came to close.
The driver leaned out of the window and pointed at the cop car that was blocking their exit. A bolt of something left his hand and smashed into the car,
spinning it 120º around it's front tires. With their exit now clear sword woman ducked into the back of the van, closing one of the doors behind her. Fire
boy stopped throwing flames around long enough to hop on onto the open half of the tailgate and make a grabbing motion down the street.

Without the fireballs to keeps the police's heads down return fire quickly ramped up. It didn't seem to matter all that much, most of the bullets were
deflected by a familiar shimmering field. The van shot from 0 to 30 in conjunction in less than a second, matching the sudden deceleration of a car that had
been crossing the intersection behind them. I ignored the sound of the crash further down street and kept my focus on van, which was heading north and quickly
picking up speed.

I wouldn't be joining forces with them, they attracted far too much attention to themselves, but it would be useful to know where they hung out. Depending
on their security I might even visit a little karmic justice on them.

I teleported from rooftop to rooftop watching as the van continued to gain speed. Twice cars coming in the other direction had just stopped as the van surged
faster. Looking with a mix of admiration and disbelief as the van caught air when they crossed california. It slewed a bit as the tires touched back down, but
the driver kept it under control. Any cars that were in their way were either avoided or knocked out of the way with a bolt of force. It was easy to see how
they managed to avoid getting caught so far. Quick exits and enough power to punch through any roadblocks guaranteed that couldn't be stopped. All they had
to do was get far enough away to ditch the van, change into their civies, and they were golden.

They turned west onto broadway at close to 70 mph, the van only sticking to the road by some sort of kinetic manipulation. A smile bloomed on my face as I saw
the crest of the hill two blocks ahead. At the speed they were going all it would take is a little nudge, and I wouldn't even have to face the unpleasant
3-on-1 odds later on. I ported ahead to sidewalk corner and readied a force bolt of my own.

The pedestrians were too busy looking at the van barreling up the street to pay attention to me as I elbowed my way into position. My force bolt clipped the
back of the van as it crested the hill, doing no actual damage to the van itself, thanks to the drivers force field, but imparting enough angular momentum to
make all the difference. The van looked rather majestic as it sailed through the air, slowly rotating. That illusion ended 30 feet down the other side of the
hill once the tires met road again. Even as skilled as the driver was, he couldn't do much about landing more than 45º off of straight. The tires squealed
for a dozen feet before the front of the van clipped a car in the oncoming lane. Then things got significantly more erratic.

The van managed to roll over three and a half times before colliding with a parked car and stopping on it's roof.

Pedestrians were still scattering from the scene of this new accident when I ported in. I knew that some of them would be able to see through my stealth in
this bright daylight, but none of them would get a good enough look to ID me. I drew my laser rifle and crouched down to look in the passenger window. Ewww.
Fire boy had buckled himself into the passenger seat at least. But that didn't help him much when the driver had panicked and turned on his personal force
field. Nearly impenetrable bubble plus caving in roof equals one bloody mess.

Speaking of bubble boy, he was coming around. I took sight on his head and waited. He didn't look more than a little shaken up before he turned to check on
his former partner in crime. Then he looked rather green. The personal force field came went offline as he vomited into his ski-mask while hanging upside down.
He immediately started fumbling around his neck and tore off the ski mask. Whatever protective covering he had underneath the mask came off with it as he
coughed and moaned, vomit flowing out of his nose. That looked rather uncomfortable, so I put him out of his misery with a laser bolt through the head.

The 'Zot' of my laser rifle going off resulted in a few uncoordinated thumps and curses from the back of the van. I really didn't want to have to
crawl through the former passenger to find out what was going on back there, so I walked around to the back of the van. A few hard tugs resulted in one of the
rear doors opening. Sword woman was armed and struggling to her feet inside. Standing this close I could see that it was a holding one of those curved japanese
swords, and that the pieces of armor that were affixed to her spandex had a technological bent to them. I also saw that she didn't have her footing at all.
So I happily capitalized on my advantage and shot her in the face.

Or I would have if she hadn't lurched to one side and taken a swing at me. The sword didn't come close, but her continued survival frustrated me. I
took a step back in case her next swing would be more accurate and threw a force bolt at her. At this range there wasn't much chance of missing. She tried
to dodge anyway, lurching back to the other side. Her evasion was only partially successful. The force bolt caught her arm, and spun her around. With already
uncertain footing she made it half way around before her feet got tangled up in the duffle bags and she hit the ground.

I took sight on the back of her head before thinking better of it and using the butt of the rifle instead. Her head bounced off the roof (now the floor) of the
van and she went limp. Taking a moment to pull the duffle bags out from under her, I tossed them, along with my rifle, into pocketspace. I heaved her onto one
shoulder, picked up her sword with my free hand, and ported both of us out of there.

This was not their first time doing this, and I doubted they had spent all of the money they had stolen already. She would provide me with resources, or she
would be them.

-----

Notes: The (so far) nameless robbers are more intelligent than they look. There was a reason they were running around in ski masks and carrying the bags of
money.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[firvulag]

[Tuesday July 7th]
It wasn't until after I'd gotten off the train that I realized that I couldn't really use my bus pass anymore as I didn't match the photo ID anymore.  Still, as I was able to literally vanish in plain sight I could probably avoid most of the problems that might be associated with it.  Especially if I could get the 'jedi mind trick' to work.
Not even two days into having super powers and I was already contemplating using them to scam free rides on the bus.  I consoled my self by reasoning I'd paid for the damn pass already, why shouldn't I get the rest of the month's use out of it.
I wandered across campus to my office, dodging around foot traffic.  Being invisible didn't change my interaction with fellow pedestrians much.  They were still too slow, meandered pointlessly across the sidewalk in an unconscious effort to keep people from passing them, and stopped in large groups in narrow places to have conversations.  I feel like Sam Vimes sometimes, I'm forever having to teach people how to walk.  The difference is most people have no reason to listen to me.  Though that may have changed.
I suppressed a burst of irritation at two girls who had decided a doorway was a great place to chat about something and squeezed past them, taking care not to touch them and break the illusion of my not being there.  Either I was getting better at reigning in the voice at the back of my head, or it didn't consider such slight inconveniences to be worth its time.  I wasn't certain which was the better option really.
Thankfully, at least for today, the building with my office in it is at the far, ass end of the campus and very few people go there on purpose.  There'd been a running joke among those of us who had our offices there that if we saw an attractive woman in the building it meant she was lost and looking for the Social Sciences Research Building, which was hidden behind ours.  Not that the SSRB was a bad thing, it provided the occasional bit of nice, if slightly confused, scenery and you could almost always get twenty bucks for lunch by volunteering a half hour or so for one test or another.
My office was dark when I got there, which meant my office mate hadn't returned from where ever he'd gone.  I turned on the lights and made my way to my desk to get to work.  A couple hours later I'd managed to finish reading a few papers and get some writing of my own done when I realized I was thirsty.
I'd grabbed my mug and was almost to the door when I realized what I was doing.  I knew no one at the cafeteria would care if some strange girl went in and got a cup of hot water for tea.  The place was busy enough that one more random student wouldn't be noticed.  But I couldn't wear a mask there.
I grimaced at the thought and felt the scars on my face pull.  Yeah, one random girl who looks like she'd been half cooked.  I couldn't hide while I was getting the water either, maybe.  I'd felt the what ever it was that hid me fade a bit when I had to interact with other things, and after what had happened in the Museum of Natural History on Monday I so didn't need anyone at Carleton freaking out over some half visible ghost girl.
If I wanted my tea, I'd have to go out there as I was.  Parts of me recoiled in horror at the thought.  I got myself back under control by knocking my head against the large pillar that someone thought would go well in the middle of the office.  As an aside our building is new, and the architect apparently disdained such concepts as hiding important structural members in the walls.
It didn't matter whether I did this now, or later I told myself.  At some point I would have to go out and interact with other people.  Which wasn't something Alicia or my old self had done terribly well.  I'd not responded to the thread I'd started on the forums, and that was relatively anonymous.  Hell, I'd explained Naptha's 'Hide' power as Alicia's desire to hide her disfigurement from the world.  I hadn't even told my parent's about their new daughter yet.
But I'd said I wasn't going to let the vengeance spirit control me, I wasn't going to loose my life a second time the way Alicia had.  And that meant I couldn't just become a complete recluse.  I gathered some of the rage I felt burning at the back of my mind.  I wasn't going to let this stop me, I'd show the world and myself I could get a god damned cup of tea.  Then the nervousness slammed into my gut and I almost missed the door handle.
Yeah, I'd get a cup of tea, and tonight I'd call my parents.  I still didn't know how I was going to explain this, but I had to do it.
--
"Still alive, no atmospheric ignition."
-- Samuel Allison, 16 July 1945, Alamogordo NM

[Terrenceknight]

"These...woods don't look familiar...certainly not the lightly forested area accross the road..What the hell?" These words came out of my mouth
even as I stopped and looked about "The trees..the atmosphere, hell even the sounds of wildlife is different" Takeing in a deep breath inhaleing the
fresh air as I looked over the woods I was in "Hell..I don't hear any traffic, where the hell did ...." My mutterings were cut off as I realized
that I had picked up all 'his' traits "...Fuckme.. I got his directional curse as well? You have GOT to me KIDDING ME!" my scream of
frustration caused flocks of birds to fly off "WHERE THE HELL AM I?" Calming down taking a deep breath I close my eyes and sit down on the soft soil
"Well getting angry isn't going to get me found..." 'WEll..since i'm out here I might as well do a mental catalogue of what I am capeable
of doing, Knowing what he...err I can do on paper..is a little different than actualy doing it"

Looking down at my hands I make them into a small cradle "no..Wait..is that how it works? Yeah..yeah that feels right, now I understand" Even as the
words leave my mouth a sphere about a foot and a half accross of intense blackness encased in red electricty forms with an ominous crackling sound "Just
as I've always mentaly envisioned this..its beautiful..this sphere of hate and rage..people may say emotional energy is a bad source to draw from..but it
works far too well for me..err..him?, Us? whatever..." Pointing a palm out towards a nearby tree I will the sphere towards it, which it did rocketing at
high velocity untill it impacted, blowing out the trunk as it punched through, continueing through another several trees in success untill detonating on a hill
in a small explosion leaving a crater several feet around "....christ..thats as weak as it gets..I'm deffinatly going to have to be cautious and not
use my Ki attacks without first makeing sure I wont cause too much property damage.." closeing my eyes I slowly rise to my feet "ok..Well i guess I
might as well take a little stroll and hope i'll come out in the open and be able to figure out..where the hell I am"

[Logan Darklighter]

The trip out to Ruidoso normally takes around 10 hours or so by car from the Dallas area. Even starting out at after midnight, at an average speed of 300 MPH
I'd be there well before dawn. I was initially busy with learning more about how to maneuver at high speed. But I learned quickly and got to the point
where I could push most of the actual mechanics of it to my subconscious so I didn't have to actually spend any time thinking about it. So once I reached
that point, I was left with time inside my head for other things as I ran.

Things like the implications and possibilities of the "Event". I reviewed my own situation and what little I knew of what had happened overall and I
started to wonder how many others had been affected. (I never once considered the possibility that I was the only one. I don't know why, but even without
direct evidence just after my transformation I was certain there would be many others. It was somewhere between a hunch and a look at the numerical odds.) Many
of them would be heroes. Some of them would try to stay out of sight and deal with their situations and powers as quietly as possible. Some of those people
would be villains. Some of them would be "heroes" who decided that consequences didn't matter anymore.

I mentally cringed at the thought of some Hulk-clone or Dead Pool poseur doing a classic bank robbery.

Or worse. How many "gothic Vampires" would be out there? Oh dear god... it had been late at night and Pocket D had been in full swing... I'd want
to check the news and the net as soon as possible. I needed information, and fast!

Then I thought of something else. Mom would question how I showed up at her place in the morning. How had I gotten out there? No keys, no wallet, no CAR? And
no way could I afford airfare. She wouldn't have heard any news yet. But once she did...

I slowed and came to a stop about 40 miles west of Abilene as I considered whether I should even continue. I had to admit to myself that I hadn't thought
this through and I should.

My friends (those unaffected by this event, at least) would almost all be able to handle it if I told them. Nearly every one of my friends and acquaintances
was a science fiction/anime fan. I like to think most of them wouldn't freak out on me. Or at least, they'd do a quick freak out (like me) and then do
their own version of "that is totally cool!"

Of course the others changed like myself would need no explanation.

But my parents? I needed to consider that more carefully.

Neither of my parents are stupid. They were both in their 70s now and their physical health might be in question to one degree or another, but I considered
myself supremely fortunate that neither of them had lost anything in the grey matter department. They were sharp as tacks, both of them. And they knew about
the game. I'd talked about it enough. Not a lot, because it wasn't what they'd be interested in, but enough that they knew it was a pastime of
mine. There was a good chance they'd figure out something was up even if I didn't tell them anything.

Of course I could lie and say nothing happened to me. That I hadn't been online. But... somehow that left a very bad taste in my mouth.

I turned it over and over in my head. Thought of different ways to approach it. Different ways of showing the proof and breaking it to them as gently yet as
convincingly as I could. Should I spare them the shock now and wait until they'd heard something on the news?

No, they deserved to know. And they deserved to hear it and be able to take it in before they found out from any other source. Right now that decision was mine
to make and I had more options in how to do it.

As time went by my choices would be narrower. I decided I wanted to do this on my own terms. It was my responsibility.

So, having confirmed my destination and with a much better idea of what I was going to do about it once I got there, I set off again.

--------------------

I was careful on my way in. I had to slow down once I got off the flats and into the Southeastern New Mexico mountain range. Even with night vision and a
generous full moon, a gently curving road up the hills was nothing to be run at full speed. Ironically, I found my old in-game speed of slightly more than 90
miles per hour to be the best compromise.

Once I had gotten within a few miles of Ruidoso, I got off-road and leaped up the hills. Aside from a couple of shaky landings here and there, I found this to
be almost as exhilarating as speed running. I'd been slightly wrong before. There -was- a slight bit of
directional control to leaping. Not nearly as much as in-game. I had as much control as a sky-diver, really. But even that was enough, combined with superior
reaction speed, to turn a collision with an unexpected obstacle into a side-step, hop-and-skid landing.

I used my mobility to get above the town along the hills. Once I got close enough to the main drag, I picked out a deserted looking corner store with a loading
area in the back that didn't have direct line of sight to the street. I landed next to the store's dumpster, looked around and confirmed no one could
see me, and *morphed* back to my human guise.

It was nice and cool in the mountain air. I wandered out onto the main road leading through town. It was very quiet. Peaceful. The taillights of a single car
were receding down the east-bound lanes away from me. The illusion of the quiet mountain town was complete. But I knew it was slightly a falsehood. Ruidoso was
a resort town. And this was the tourist season. I'd arrived most likely about 30 minutes before the first of the natives got up to man the breakfast bars
and donut shops. Even so, it was still a more relaxed place than Dallas by far.

I strolled down the streets, savoring the night air. Listening to the sounds of the town starting to wake up.

Unexpectedly I experienced a moment of melancholy. This would be the last night of the normal world. I was standing on the dividing line between the past, and
the world as it would be when it experienced a meta-human "invasion". It would be an exciting time to be alive, to be sure. But there was that old
admonition - the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." Well the times were about to get very interesting indeed.

Perhaps savoring a normal stroll through the nighttime of a sleepy mountain village and visiting my mom before the real insanity started was the best possible
thing I could have done?

--------------------

I waited until the sun was well up above the mountains and my internal time said it was 9:00 AM. Then I walked up to the front door and knocked. After a
minute, the door opened and my mom looked at me in surprise.

"Will?! Well hello! Why didn't you call if you were going to come on up? Come in!"

I gave her a quick hug, saying, "Hey I wanted it to be a surprise."

She asked, "Is your father with you?"

"Nope. I'm on my own."

"Oh? Well come on in! I'm just getting breakfast, are you hungry?"

"No mom, I'm good. But if you've got some orange juice I wouldn't mind some." I said as we walked through the house to the kitchen.

She poured some orange juice for me as she said, "I'm glad you came out, Will, but you should've called. And you must have been driving all
night!"

"Well I haven't slept all night, that's true." Also not really answering the implied question
either, I thought to myself. But she'll know soon enough how I got here.

I let her talk a bit about how things were going with her. Let her set the pace. Did I remember the upcoming anniversary of the moon landings? Oh yes. We both
talked about that for a bit. From there things ranged to politics briefly. It was good to be able to talk about that sort of thing with someone who shared my
beliefs. I was closer to my dad in a lot of ways, but politics was one subject we always wound up disagreeing on.

During a pause, mom looked me up and down and said, "You've lost a lot of weight, it seems. I'm so glad, I was really getting worried. And when
did you start wearing contacts again? You look 10 years younger!"

I reached up to confirm I had no glasses on. Oops. How the hell did I miss THAT?

Oh well, nothing for it. This was the reason I was here, in part, after all.

"Well, mom. I don't need contacts or lenses anymore. At all."

She looked at me in confusion. "Now Will, I know you were between jobs, how could you afford laser surgery?"

I shook my head, "Ah... no mom. No surgery. But there have been some... er... changes. This is going to require some explanation. And, well, I didn't
drive here either." I paused, realizing I was jumping ahead, a bit flustered.

"No. Wait, let me back up..." She looked at me, waiting for me to explain, sensing that I was trying to tell her something serious. "I thought I
knew what to say, but maybe I'd better start at the beginning. You know that game I play? City of Heroes? Well something happened last night..."

[Rev Dark]

When you pick up a weapon there is a tendency to get tunnel vision in regards to
your combat options. To a certain extent this is useful, it is important that you keep some focus on the weapon; as any weapon that you bring to the party is a
weapon that can be taken and repurposed, reoriented, and if you are lucky to survive, successfully removed from whatever orifice it ends up lodged
in.

Where it is not useful is where you focus on it completely and forget that it is not the weapon that is dangerous, it is the mean motor-scooter
using it that is dangerous. That is assuming that the person in question is in fact a mean motor-scooter and not a skateboard with wobbly wheels. Lo though I
walk through the valley of death I shall fear no evil - or heavenly budgie men; for while I am not the meanest motor scooter in the valley, I am in the upper
percentile.

With the numbers reduced I had more tactical options. The two angels were focused on me, which meant that I did not to have to worry as much
about bystanders. I slid away from attacks, maintaining distance rather than closing. On each step I let my lead leg linger for a few moments. They were
angels, looking to kill a fatted calf has precedence with them. One of them took the bait.

Calves, as any rodeo clown will tell you, can move very, very fast. They are also really bad targets in a swordfight. They are tempting though,
especially if the body is hidden behind a shield. You would think that angels would know better than to fall for temptation. To strike a calf you have to
reduce the length of your range, Picture a right angle triangle where the horizontal and vertical sides are of equal length. Now orient that triangle of the
space between you and your opponent with the diagonal pointing towards the calf and the horizontal oriented on the head. Which line is shorter? Exactly. Who
says math can't save your life.

I stepped back as his flaming sword whistled through the space my calf was a half second before. My own strike was parallel to the ground aimed
at the eye/ear line. Bones crunched and the angel dropped as I dragged the blade free. The second one thrust at my side. My beatdown parry on the left came a
fraction of a second too slow.

Driving an inch and a half of flaming steel into my side, just under the ribs.

[ECSNorway]

[[COMMENT] Rev, please stop using such a small font.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Rev Dark]

It appears to be an atrifact from the cut and paste when I move from my wordprocessor to the forums.

[Rev Dark]

There are times that you can dramatically place a check mark next to one of your life's goals. In no particular order; Graduate High School. Check. Got
laid. Check. Scored the winning goal. Check. Second base. Check. First new car. Check. Swam with the dolphins. Check. Then there are the goals that you did not
even know you had, but upon accomplishing them, moved them to the top of your life's goals list and appended a check mark, and perhaps a gold star for
extra emphasis.

Vomit on an angel.

Check.

It had been a very still moment. Angel with burning sword stuck in my side. Me with burning sword stuck in my side. Then I moved, trying to pull away from the
sword. He moved, drawing the sword back for another cut. These two motions were not complimentary, and the blade dragged across my side, the edge widening the
cut. This is where my breakfast decided that it was an ideal time to see the museum. It wasn't a Mr. Creosote stream; like a gastric death ray flashing
across the room. More of a spurt, a mouthful spat out with a bark of reverse peristalsis.

It caught the angel in the face.

Really, I hadn't been aiming; it just worked out that way. Serendipity. Funny serendipity; but serendipity nonetheless. I took the moment to go into shock
as blood and some temporary guests from my colon spilled down my side, soaking into my shirt and shorts. I was going into shock. That was bad.

Then it wasn't.

Something woke up deep in me. It wasn't breakfast. The angel was rubbing that out its eyes. A wash of hot energy flowed through me, coruscating through
every inch of my body. Muscles flexed, nerves thrummed, and the searing pain in side was whisked away faster than a fart in a wind tunnel.

Rock and roll.

[Sofaspud]

I entered the garage -- the Spudcave, as Nene had dubbed it -- and carefully refrained from slamming the door shut with every ounce of strength I possessed.
Instead I shut it gently.

My glowering was interrupted by the full-length mirror mounted on the back of the door. Well, more appropriately, the sign taped above it: "BEFORE YOU
LEAVE: Are you who you think you are?" I didn't recognize the handwriting, but I suspected either MD or Uni. If Ben had done it it would have been
more snarky, and besides, Nene was too short to have hung the sign.

It had an effect, though. The unexpected humor broke my fugue; instead of ranting, raving, and railing at the walls, I just let out a deep, drawn-out sigh and
stepped over to the battered armchair, dropping into it with bone-weary relief.

"Bad day?" MD inquired from where he sat at the workbench, fiddling with the super-laptop Uni had created. He was in his Major Starlight form. I
waved a hand at her in greeting.

"He's just grouchy," Rhea said, before I could say anything. I scowled.

"Everything was fine, until Little Miss Boredom here decided to take a nap," I replied. Tam raised an eyebrow.

"I was tired!" Rhea protested.

"You know," I said thoughtfully, ignoring Rhea sticking her tongue out at me in the back of my head, "I knew intellectually that Lisa was, to
coin a phrase, hawt like the fire of ten million suns."

Tam raised the other eyebrow. "And?" she prompted.

I shrugged. "Let's say that Rhea has a very good memory and very vivid dreams, and leave it at that."

"Oh, you liked it, you know you did," my brainspace invader put in.

"Yes, well, I'd have liked it a lot more if you were the silent type in bed or if it had happened at some other place than where I
work."

"Oh, dear," Tam commented, trying vainly to suppress her laughter. I scowled at her.

"It's not funny, man," I said. "I sit right next to HR. If they'd been in the office, I'd be out of a job right now! As it is,
people think I was surfing porn already." I pitched my voice as close to Rhea's as I could. "'Oh, Lisa, yes! Right there! Yes!'
Feh."

"I don't sound like that," Rhea said. "And you forgot the moaning, anyway."

I dropped my face into my hands and whimpered. "See? See?!"

Tam was laughing too hard to respond. Nene chose that moment to enter, a couple of sodas in her hands. "Say, Brian, do you have another chair we
could... okay, what'd I miss?"

"Me losing my job," I replied.

"Rhea had a nap," Tam said, a smile tugging at her lips. The traitor.

"I was tired," Rhea said. "You'd think I melted a busload of nuns or something."

Nene thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. "Yeah, I don't think I wanna know."

Uni appeared in a flash of light in the corner of the garage, where we'd set up our 'teleporter pad' -- a large square of cardboard taped to a
wooden cargo pallet, with a bulls-eye drawn on it in Magic Marker. On the wall behind it hung another sign: "Don't stand here. Telefragging is bad...
maybe. We don't know. DON'T TEST IT!" I noticed a scrawled line beneath that in a different hand: "Take THAT, Heisenberg!", and
snorted.

"Hey, guys, what'd I miss?" Uni said, stepping down.

I snorted. "Don't ask. Please."

Tam and Nene returned to their Dynasty Warriors game -- on a hodge-podge of monitors that Nene had rigged into one functional whole on the wall, something
which made me wince every time I looked at it -- and Uni dragged over a crate to use as a seat.

"So," I said after a few moments of mindless explosion-watching.

"Hmm?" Nene replied absently, her tongue jammed firmly in the corner of her mouth as her fingers madly tapped buttons.

"Any news from the others?"

"Lots of wierd things on the 'net," Uni replied. "And the media is having a field day."

"You guys think we should try to get in touch, or...?" I let the question trail off.

"I think we should go find the others," Rhea put in.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"I could take some time off," Tam said thoughtfully, not looking away from the screen. "I mean, I just came off holiday, but I could get a few
days."

"I can't," Uni said, shaking her head. "I've used up all my vacation time already this year."

"Leave that to me," Nene said airily, waving a hand in dismissal. The Gundam she was fighting chose that moment to skewer her with a fusillade of
beam spam. "Darnit."

"I've got something like six weeks total at this point," I admitted. "My boss would probably appreciate it if I used some of it now instead
of taking November and December off entirely."

"So..." Tam said, grinning slyly. "Roadtrip to Jersey?"

We all groaned, and Rhea threw Mr. Whiskers at her.

---

(Edit: gah, gender identity issues + pronouns = confusion!)

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Terrenceknight]

Furrowing my brows in thought after going back to my email...I had noticed I got at least a Reply from Sweno..."So..It seems like it certainly just
wasn't me..thats reassuring in itself..yet It worries me that I wonder who or what kind of Villans are -here- now.." I mutter closeing Sweno's
email "Nothing from Spud..maybe he got lucky and was unaffected, but I have this funny feeling he didn't get away scott free..so to speak.." I
sigh scratching my head in confusion as I shut my system down "I need to get outside..I feel couped up in here..." I stopped dead in my tracks after
standing up realizing what I said, and blinked in dumbstruck surprise. "..What the hell?"

I paused to think..and came to realize I really -did- want to go outside..."ok...weird..did I get his mentality to...? I need to find someplace quiet and
think" Looking outside I shake my head slighlty as I slip on my work shoes and make my way outside, almost immideatly feeling more lively as I stepped out
"wow..this feels great!" I exclaim to myself pausing as I realized I had said that too loud getting funny looks from my neighbours
"Ahh..I've been sick the last few days..I'm finally feeling better" The lie seemed to satisfy them, and given my lack of major physical
change they went back to their own buissness *Phew, that was quick thinking, but its true I do feel fantastic and more alive than I've felt ever!* Takeing
a deep breath I relax my nerves and building excitement "I'm...practicly trembeling here with..eagerness" I mumble to myself as I trek away from
the condo..intending to go into the undeveloped land not even two kilometers from my locaion.

"I -know- what I can do....and I know how powerful he is..er I am..or..whatever..I don't know how to refer to what happened...I'm him?...or
He's me?..or what Dammit!..I'm so confused.."

[Sweno]

(July 7th - 9pm)

The afternoon turned out to be more of a disappointment than I had expected. All the emails I sent out earlier bounced back as undeliverable, and there were
far fewer office buildings sitting vacant than I had hoped for.

I had been hoping that I wasn't the only one from the infamous to show up, even if they didn't respond to my message. It looked like I wouldn't be
able to reconnect with old allies. They weren't here, or I didn't know what aliases they were using. And I was in no position to start broadcasting my
presence to the point that they would find me.

The hunt for abandoned office space was almost as bad. Oh sure, there was no shortage of office space for rent (and places that looked like they had been on
the market for several years). But those places were high rent, high traffic, prime commercial real estate. Not exactly the abandoned industrial park I was
hoping for. All of the low cost, no frills, make as much noise as you want, industrial spaces were already occupied. I spent most of the night porting around
various industrial parks. Finding them either occupied, or lacking any buildings that I could conceal my operations in.

I ended up taking over an abandoned radio tower maintenance facility in the Los Altos hills. On the plus side being five miles up a fire trail in the mountains
meant I didn't have to worry that the neighbors would complain about strange lights and noises. On the down side it also meant a lack of power and water.
But since I intended to gut and rebuild the facility from the inside out a lack of power was only a temporary setback.

What was a setback, at least financially, was the money I would have to sink into parts and tools. Building robots can be fast and cheap when you have a fully
functioning machine shop to do it in. Back in the Isles I had an automated production facility that could, given sufficient materials and parts, crank out a
battle drone in half an hour or an assault bot in little over twice that time. But that type of setup was a massive investment in money and resources, far more
than I had currently. Which meant that I was back to building them by hand with whatever parts I could buy beg or steal. The equipment in these buildings would
be a good start, but there were always delicate or precision parts that couldn't be easily made.

The remaining time until dawn was spent mentally sorting the equipment on site into three groups; things that I could repair/refurbish/repurpose, things that
could be broken down for useful parts, and things that would eventually be melted down and reforged. A large percentage fell into the last group, which meant
that I wouldn't be hurting for raw materials once I got a forge up and running. I was tempted to tear down the radio tower for all of it's wonderful
high grade steel, but someone might notice that missing and come looking.

I delayed my departure an hour after dawn by building a dingbot and setting to the task of dismantling (and only dismantling) some of the equipment for parts.
I knew it would run out of power long before I got back here tomorrow night. But whatever work it managed to do was work I didn't have to do. Making sure
the dingbots had very definitive bounds is a lesson I all to well back home. I had set a dingbot to the task of cleaning one of the labs, thinking that I would
come back later in the day and finish up whatever it didn't complete. I came back to discover two of the incomplete projects disassembled and the lab
crawling with a dozen of them. Somewhere in it's little mouse sized brain the dingbot had realized it wouldn't be able to complete the task, so it gone
and fetched some of it's brethren to help. They had cleaned the dirty part of the lab and, lacking any other orders, had proceeded to 'clean' the
rest of the lab, including some works in progress.

Agatha was not pleased, she make sure it was an experience I learned from. None of the dingbots I build were allowed to make more of themselves, and I always
gave them clear boundaries to their work. As long as I was careful they could be invaluable help.

By the time I ported back to the house I was running low on energy. Plugging into the wall made me very tempted to fall asleep again, but I refrained. The UPS
guy might not have a problem dropping off packages to a house on the market. But if the retailer came by they would certainly wonder what was going on if there
were boxes sitting by the front the door. So I had to stay awake and get them out of sight as soon as the delivery person left.

Reading slashdot in the early hours of the morning was not the most productive use of my time, but it connected me a bit with who I used to be. And that made
it worth it.

----------

Note: I know that the ninja trio made it over, but they have been keeping their heads down just as much as (if not more so) than clank has. So clank
doesn't know.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Dragonflight]

July 8th: 2:30 am.

I realized very early Wednesday morning I'd have to be very careful with my strange new abilities. I realized this when the power died due to storm
activity. We'd been getting unseasonably cold and rainy weather for the last few days (making me wonder if what happened to me was related to that or if it
was just coincidence.) I'd just started to go to sleep when the power in the neighborhood died out.

No big deal, right? Except that I sleep with this air pressure machine, without which I'm a total wreck the next day. And the machine was ticking along,
neat as you please even though everything else was off.

I got up and deliberately "turned it off", waiting for the power to properly come back. My roommates have said they can hear the machine at night, so
the last thing I needed was to explain why every appliance on the block wasn't working except for the machine.

While I was thinking, I started asking myself why I was teaching myself these techniques. I mean, I'd pretty much
realized on the first day that doing this could get me arrested. And yet here I was, finding ways to "enhance" my powers, train with the abilities,
and even learn how to fly, of all things. But why was I doing this? Was I intending to use the powers proactively? Or
was I just fighting off boredom by playing with a new toy?

I realized then that I really did need to talk to my sister. I needed an external viewpoint. To know if there was a reason to keep training, or if I should
just try to "move on".

It didn't help that both inherited lifetimes' worth of life experiences and training said I should be training and preparing for the worst. And those
memories painted a picture very hard to ignore...
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.

[Wiregeek]

July 6th, 2009, 4:35am AKDT.

I zombied my way through a day of work, but managed to keep it together. On the way home, though, I very nearly lost it. In a panic, I very nearly
got pulled over. I caught myself in time and managed to pull the full-sized van (8000 pounds of steel and hardware!) down from 90 to a more sedate 70 before I
got into the speed trap. I was coated with sweat by the time I got home, and the pile of armor was still in the bathroom.

I'd left the bowl helmet sitting on top of the pile, and the 'cigar' prop next to it. Seeing them, I went cold, and snorted laughter at myself. The
admittedly minor chuckle popped the panic bubble I was building, and I managed to almost keep my hands from shaking as I hauled the armor out into the back
yard and put it on. The final piece went into place, and...

The big aviator-style glasses that were part of the outfit rezzed up a HUD, and with a 'snap' I felt more than heard, the armor powered up. Instead of
wearing a bunch of metal plates and heavy chainmail, I was encased in the technological cradle of an active suit of power armor. I cautiously moved around a
bit, and everything felt perfect. I stood motionless for a moment, thinking. I had never defined Mag's control set in-game, but I had had a couple of
ideas.. I looked upper-left, and a menu popped down in the HUD. I looked down the menu to 'drunk mode', and puffed on the 'cigar'.

USER INCAPACITATED: CONTROL SENSITIVITY 10%

USER INCAPACITATED: COLLATERAL DAMAGE AVOIDANCE ROUTINE ENGAGED

USER INCAPACITATED: COMBAT JUMPING ENGAGED

USER MESSAGE: PLEASE SEEK MEDICAL ASSISTANCE

I heaved a sigh of relief, and started paging through the menus.. thank god Paragon-me had a good working relationship with
Nene, and thank god she did better documentation and online help facilities than I did...

An hour later I was a thousand feet in the air and rising, blasting up the slope of what I later found was 'Skyscraper Mountain', above Hatcher's
Pass. The flickering blue glow occasionally visible under the bottom edge of the glasses was a reassuring reminder that the armor fields were active, providing
pseudogyroscopic attitude control, inertial dampening, strength enhancement and collision avoidance.. and other stuff that wasn't handled under the
simple 'Super Jumping' toggle. I snagged a spruce on my way up and poled around it. An icicle shot out of my armor and pulverized it, and I slammed
facefirst into the mountainside.

Staring at the rock I had fetched up against, I laughed maniacally as I squatted and did the exaggerated 'Jump' motion that the suit wanted. Again, I
blessed Nene for the 'tutorial' function, swearing to give her a big kiss and a freaking entire cake if I ever met her. I ran out of mountain before I
ran out of jump, and I flew upwards through the evening air. my hometown of Wasilla spread out before me, and at the peak of my jump, I shrugged. I was
probably actually dead anyway, sooo... Altering my glide angle, I missed the mountaintop that was my original target, and plummeted feet first through several
thousand vertical feet of mature spruce, rocky terrain, one extremely surprised moose, and some poor bastard's yard.

Status updates showed all green as I fetched up into a perfect stompy landing in a hayfield, except for 'hp', which was tinged yellow, but rapidly
climbing. I took the knee, and the suit kicked into 'Rest' mode, dosing me with near-straight o2 through the 'cigar', and disabling movement
and defensive fields to regenerate structural ones. The gauge reading 'HP' snapped back to 100%, and the 'Endurance' gauge, which I had figured
out was primarily my blood chemistry and o2 saturation, returned to 100% as well.

The internal chronometer in the suit read '1:15am (GPS)(Cell)', and I bounded into the yard at home again. Letting myself in, I deactivated and shucked
the armor before throwing myself through a shower and into bed.

Tomorrow was going to be AWESOME.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Rev Dark]

Have you noticed that whenever Liam Neeson plays a sword swinging guru in a movie he ends
up with a serious case of the deads. Star Wars. Dead. Batman. Dead, or at least as dead as comic book characters get. Kingdom of Heaven. Dead. I think his speech in
Kingdom of Heaven about the efficacy of a high guard really drove it home for me as to why he keeps dying.



When attacking from on high you do not. I repeat,
do not. Go for the full Hassan. The full Hassan, as in 'Hassan Chop'
from the Bugs Bunny cartoon Ali Baba Bunny. The murder stroke. The helmet
splitter. There are excellent ways to attack from above, but they are done with tight, refined, precise
movements.



No one had instructed the angels in this bit of wisdom.
The omnipotent being putting together the training program did not see it coming. Arms fully extended, blade
away from the body, coming from trailing down the back.



As the sword came in, I did not meet it; I struck at what was holding it. My hands finding their places over the menuki of my favorite katana as it jumped into solid reality; appearing as if plucked from
the air. The blade thrust upwards, parallel to the ground, the razor edge aided by the downward rush of the incoming
stroke; shearing through the paired thin bones of the descending forearms. I stepped to the left, turning the blade and
letting the edge glide in a quarter circle around my opponent's neck, opening the windpipe, carotid artery and jugular vein. As I pivoted away, never turning my back on my opponent, I cut again, down the back from right shoulder to left hip. Severing one wing as I did so. The angel hit the ground a bare second after his sword and
severed hands. The wing took slightly longer, gliding down like a falling leaf; white feathers turning red as they
wicked up blood.



The other three looked at me.



This is the time where the action hero would make a deadpan comic quip. Something like, How many angels can dance on the head of pin? One less now. Give the man a hand - or two hooks. Or a jaunty, if more obscure, 'For Sodom and not standing by while wives and daughters are handed over to ruffians!'



I didn't.



I was trying very hard not to throw up. Not a
little get sick in the mouth. The full version. The driving the porcelain bus,
everything not original equipment is leaving type of throwing up. The Mister Creosote better-get-a-bucket
method.



I didn't.



I would later. I had already noted the location
of the nearest garbage container.



If I survived.



Despite what action films teach you - badly - three on one is very, very poor odds unless
the three in question are complete goobers.



There was a better than even chance that I was about to die; and I hadn't even
located the Mastermind yet.

Fuck.

[Wiregeek]

July 7th, 2009, 4:15am AKDT.
I rolled out of bed and crumpled in a tangle of aching limbs and contusions against my computer desk. While I dearly love being back in the house I grew up in, the bedroom is a lot smaller now that I've graduated from a single to a queen. Muttering and cursing, I folded my bed back into it's couch mode one-handed, trying to massage some of the soreness out of the breast I had squished against my desk on the way off the bed. The soreness quickly faded, and bra and panties swiftly joined skirt, school uniform tie and shirt, and tights in a pile on the bathroom floor as I hopped into the shower.
I was fumbling around looking for my razor when I realized something was amiss. I lifted a leg onto the tub side and stared blearily at it. I knew that the invisible pale blonde stubble there wouldn't really be visible, but it would be hell on comfort in my tights if I left it there during classes today. With a sigh, I angled my leg out of the shower's blast, and foamed up with some shaving goop. Extending a single claw, I gently shaved my leg, grumbling every time I knicked myself in the awkward maneuver.
After the shower, a good toweling and some cocoa butter mosturizer, and I was good to go. The 'gamin mop' hairstyle wasn't the best cut I'd ever had, but it was certainly low maintenance! I pegged a towel around me, and grabbed up a hairbrush and my dirty clothes. Something was still amiss, and I couldn't quite put a finger on it. I yarded the bundle of dirty clothes into the bin, and rummaged around in the dresser for something clean. I couldn't find any uniform shirts, I only had two black ties, there were no skirts at all, and all I could find for underwear was boxers...
I blanched as it finally came clear what was wrong. Back into the bathroom I went, fast enough for the towel to be in danger, and stared at myself in the mirror.
I was a chick. Yesterday I was..  not. For some reason, I was cool with this.
Not terribly cool with missing work, mind you, but I could get around that. This gender thing, on the other hand.. 
With a shrug, I returned to my bedroom and snagged out a set of undies I remembered as 'too small'. This body was quite a bit more slender than my normal. The different hip configuration, at least, meant that a men's size large wouldn't be taking a vacation to ankle-land. Slacks followed the boxers, and a black leather belt got an extra hole added with a claw. The bra was clean enough to make it through the day, though it wrinkled my nose with distaste to do so. The silky blue dress shirt worked nicely, bringing out my eyes and hair, and I was quite pleased with the figure I cut as I brushed out my hair in the mirror.
Once I was put together for the day, dealing with work came next. I wasn't quite sure what was going on, and there was a tiny panicked screaming the the back of my head that wouldn't go away, but losing my job would only make the situation worse. I switched the power bar on for compy, reached behind the amplifier and switched its power bar on, and punched the button on compy's face. Grabbing my vest off of the coatrack, I headed outside. My first smoke of the day settled me and cleared my head a little, and I took a moment to poke at the new additions to my person. I didn't have 'that much' in the breast department, and thankfully, my libido didn't appear to be terribly active. Chuckling to myself, I musingly addressed the morning. "Well, at least it wasn't one of Valles' toons I ended up in!"
With a smirk on my face, I returned to my bedroom and logged into my work email.

Subject:      Online Training Modules
From:       Nick
Date:       Tue, July 7, 2009 5:20 am
To:       Bossman@work.com
Priority:       Normal

Boss,
I'm going to stay home today. I'm feeling kinda pukey. No time off for me, I'll be knocking out those online training modules you've been harassing me about.
Cheers,
Nick.

That taken care of, I kicked back in my chair and pondered. I was starting to get a little worried about how worried I wasn't. The power armor yesterday was one thing (through a moose? WTF!?), at least I'd kept my own body, but how could I explain this? I hesitated to contact my local CoH cohorts..  If something was wrong with me, that could be embarassing, or at worst, land me in a rubber room. If this was more widespread, though, they may need help.. 
I figured the 'board would be my best bet, and I pointed my browser over.

Relief flooded me as I read veiled notes from friends and strangers. I wasn't alone in this, and appeared to be in good company. I dashed off a quick reply, and shut down compy. Dad was gonna be awake soon, and I needed to be out of here beforehand. I snagged my laptop bag, huffing under its unaccustomed weight, and headed for the work van.
Backing out the driveway, slowly and carefully, I pondered my next step. Right now, coffee and some quiet sounded good, so I headed for the local 24 hour greasy spoon.
"Morning miss Mable, I'm gonna need an IV drip and a piggie biscuit please!"
"OK, miss, one bottomless coffee and one bacon burger, coming right up!"
I fired up the laptop, plugged in and grabbed wifi, and began working on the online training modules, tabbing frequently over to the Legendary board.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Sofaspud]

I stared at Rhea's eyes in the mirror, framed by my face with shaving cream lathered on my jowls, and sighed. It wasn't a dream (nightmare), it
wasn't going to go away. At least, not without effort, and time, and patience.

I'm not very good at being patient.

Rhea stuck our tongue out at me, causing me to twitch in surprise and drawing a sharp sting from the razor.

"Dammit, Rhea!" I hissed, wincing and turning to peer at the cut. It wasn't bad, but it burned like fire where the shaving cream touched it.

"Sorry," she said contritely, and sounded like she meant it. Well, she probably did; we'd learned the hard way that we both experienced whatever
our shared nervous system did, and I doubt she'd ever had opportunity to realize what a razor cut on the face felt like before.

She cut loose with the most minor of her healing powers, and the cut vanished instantly. I nodded my thanks and resumed shaving.

If the problem won't solve itself, then you need to solve it, I told myself firmly.

I'd grown up believing that any problem could be solved, that nothing -- nothing! -- was impossible, as long as you believed in yourself and never, ever
gave up. Giving up was a crime, a sin, the worst thing you could do. I blame my mother for this attitude, but perhaps blame is the wrong word. I can't
deny that it is directly responsible for me having a career instead of just a job, having a girlfriend and then a wife instead of being the perpetual
Non-Threatening Male Presence, recovering full use of my arm in the face of professionals claiming it wouldn't happen, and last but not least, retaining my
sanity in the face of this most recent impossibility.

I needed to solve the problem. I wasn't going to be doing that working at cross-purposes to my uninvited guest, and giving up was not an option.

"Rhea?" I said as I scraped at my chin.

"Hmm?"

"You and I have some pretty big issues. I think we need to start over."

"... beg pardon?" I'd startled her, and she was wary now, I could tell; her accent was coming through a little.

I finished scraping at the shaving cream, scrubbed my face with a damp towel, then regarded the mirror with my best professional smile. I'm not the social
type, but I can play one on TV, as the saying goes.

"Hi! I'm Brian, most of my friends call me Spud. And you are?"

"Very creeped out right now," was her response. I grinned.

"That makes two of us." I shook my head. "Okay, serious now. Look, you don't want to be in my head any more than I want to be in yours,
right? So we've got a common goal."

"I suppose...?"

"Well, then," I continued, "we should work together to get there. Instead of fighting each other all the time."

"We were fighting?"

I rolled my (our?) eyes. "You know what I mean."

She pondered that for a few moments, and I kept my mouth shut. Undoubtedly she was running the concept past the other voice in her head, and it was terribly
tempting, but I resisted the urge to snark about Whiskers. Unlike some others, who could say "Well, maybe he really does talk to her?", I knew the
truth. I'd created her, after all.

Not that I'd mentioned that yet, nor did I plan to.

"Okay," she said at last. "I'm not sure what difference it'll make, but Whiskers says you're trying to be nice, so I should do the
same." She took over for a moment, smiling at the mirror. "Hi! I'm Emerald Blast, but you can call me Rhea."

I chuckled. "Nice to meet you. Now that we're on the same team, it should be a lot easier to get our brains untangled."

She giggled -- something I'll never get used to, I don't think; sounding like a sultry Southern girl at times is bad enough, giggling like one is
beyond worse!

"I need to tell my wife about you," I told her.

"I was wondering if you were going to do that," she said. Was that a note of approval in her tone?

"You have to admit it's hard to believe."

She shrugged.

"I don't think my son needs to know, though," I added. "We've got enough issues with him and Julia's ex, we don't need to add
more. Or Dom, for that matter. He couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it."

"Got it," Rhea said. "I keep quiet when they're around. No problem."

Everyone thinks she's a ditz sometimes, and she can be, but there IS a razor-sharp mind under the bubbles. I knew this, but it still came as a bit of a
surprise when she let it show. Ben had said it best, I think, when we were discussing her once. Something about her being as sharp as a tack, she's just
stuck on a different corkboard than everyone else.

---

Dom was at work and our son was in his room, asleep if he knew what was good for him. It was possibly the best time I could ask for to broach the subject.

"Got a minute, hon?"

Julia looked up from her half-reclined reading position on our bed. "Sure. What's up?"

"I've got something I need to tell you."

"Oh, good, I've been wondering when you were going to get around to it," she said, closing her book and setting it on the headboard.

In the back of my head, Rhea's eyes went very wide, even as I gaped.

"You know?!"

"I'm not blind. You've lost weight, you're wearing tinted contacts, your friends have practically moved into our garage, all in the past few
days... is it the redhead? She's cute, but I didn't think redheads were your type..."

I had the sudden image of Rhea clapping her hands firmly over her mouth, as a giggle threatened to erupt from my mouth. I cleared my throat. "It's
not that!" Sure, Nene was cute, but Ben was not my type, not to put too fine a point on it!

"If you're chasing the other one, check her ID first -- I don't think she's legal yet. Tasty, but not legal."

"Will you quit it? I'm being serious here." I sighed. Julia likes to tease.

"Hey," she said, sitting up and leaning forward to put a hand on my arm. "What's wrong?"

Here goes nothing, I thought grimly, and told her the bald truth: that somehow I'd been infused with my City of Heroes character. That she was in
my head all the time. That her powers were real.

That, despite knowing how impossible it was, I wanted to actually go out and do something with them -- fight crime, protect the innocent, save the world --
rather than continue hiding them day after day.

After I finished, Julia was quiet for a bit, staring at me with a thoughtful look.

"Those aren't contacts, then." It was a statement, not a question, but I answered it anyway.

"No."

"I love you, dear, but you're going to have to prove this one." She shrugged. "Sorry, but that's a bit much."

"He's telling the truth," Rhea put in. Julia twitched, startled.

I shrugged. "You know my voice better than anyone," I pointed out. Julia nodded, her eyes wide.

"That's the girl your friend drew for you?" she asked, indicating the framed print on the wall. Even Julia, who wasn't into comic or anime
art, had been impressed by the portrait. I'd need to find a way to properly thank Acyl for it someday, I noted to myself.

I nodded. "Yep. Emerald Blast, or Rhea." Despite the situation, I grinned. "Rhea, this is my wife Julia. Julia, meet Rhea."

I took a step back from the bed and closed my eyes.

Rhea took the hint, and with that gut-wrenching does-it-hurt-or-do-I-like-it sensation that I was slowly getting used to, our body changed.

"Hello!" Rhea chirped brightly, waving the stuffed panda's paw in greeting. To Julia's credit, she didn't faint or anything like that.

Well, I hadn't expected her to. She was made of tougher stuff than that.

"Um... hello, Rhea," Julia managed. Then, hesitantly: "Brian?"

"I'm here," I replied, and grinned at Rhea's discomfort at having my voice emerge from her throat.

Julia rose to her feet and stepped forward, peering closely at our face. "She has your eyes," Julia noted quietly. We nodded.

"This will take a bit of getting used to," Julia said at last. "Can you... can you change back, please? I'd like to talk to my
husband."

"You are," I pointed out, while Rhea looked apologetic and shrugged. "But we can't change back right away. It takes a while."

"Mr. Whiskers has to recharge his batteries first," Rhea clarified.

"That is so odd," Julia said. "Your voices, your eyes... very wierd." Then a startled look crossed her face. "Wait. So she's
with you all the time now?"

I nodded. "Yes...?"

Julia raised an eyebrow at me as her eyes twinkled. "I thought our rule was you'd check with me before taking another girl to bed?"

Rhea laughed. I sighed. It came out very strange.

"I didn't sleep with her," I pointed out.

"Technically, you have," Rhea countered, giggling. "Every night!"

"So have I, it seems. Brian?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Go away for a bit. Plug your ears, or something. Rhea and I are going to have a girl talk."

I whimpered.

"It doesn't work like that," Rhea said, adding, "Believe me, I wish it did. His job is boring!"

"Well, then, pretend," Julia replied. "Rhea? C'mon, I have some cookie dough ice cream in the freezer."

"Ooh, I like her already," Rhea said as my traitorous wife led the way to the kitchen.

---

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Bob Schroeck]

Monday, July 6, 5:02 AM EDT

"Do forgive me for the rude awakening," the penguin said in an exquisitely upper-class British accent, "but I urgently need to speak with you."

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm not terribly swift for the first few minutes after I wake up. Especially not at five in the morning after not nearly enough sleep. I just stared at the penguin while my mental processes tried -- and failed -- to spin up to speed.

(Alistair! Can you hear me? I'm in here!)

Imagine, if you can, a profoundly panicked soprano screeching into your ears at the top of her lungs via a set of earbuds. I don't have to imagine it -- I heard it, or thought I did. Without thinking I clamped my hands over my ears, but it did nothing to block the voice.

"Ah," the penguin said. "I would presume by your pained expression that my charge has just made her presence known."

"Your... charge," I muttered while the screeching continued. Next to me my darling wife continued snoring away, apparently undisturbed by the noise I was hearing. She's a sound sleeper, but really, that soprano should have woken her.

"Miss Raye Eileen Langley. Better known to some in her home world as Magical Princess Evangelia." As though it were a magic word, the sound of the name shut up the person making the high-pitched shrieks.

I stared at the penguin for a long, long moment, partly out of disbelief and partly because I was reveling in the return of silence inside my head. "Which would," I finally said, "make you Alistair, her mascot and adviser."

He somehow managed to look impressed at my perspicacity, which is a rather spectacular feat for a three-foot emperor penguin. "Quite."

I rolled back over onto my back again and stared at the circle of white light cast on the ceiling by my nightstand lamp. "You have got to be kidding me."

* * *

"Look," I tried explaining for the fourth time. "I don't have the time for this. I have to wake my wife up, and we both have to leave for work by six."

After rolling out of bed and just barely avoiding giving a rapidly backpedaling penguin a kick in the head, I had staggered blearily to the living room to continue a conversation I was more than half-convinced was little more than a particularly vivid dream.

Or the hallucination of a mind that had finally cracked under... um. I couldn't think of a sufficient stressor in my recent life experiences to explain a psychotic break, so I returned to the dream hypothesis.

I didn't bother trying to pinch myself -- besides my automatic aversion to acting out the cliche, I've had the (rare) lucid dream, and knew from experience it wouldn't make any difference. Then again, I haven't had a nightmare in 30-some years because I'm very good at recognizing when one was beginning and promptly forcing myself out of sleep. Which is what I tried to do.

It didn't work.

Partly this was because I was, as hard as it was to believe, actually awake. And partly this was because I had a sixteen-year-old girl in my head demanding I relay several thousand words to the penguin who was standing in the middle of my living room.

Correction, the penguin who was hopping up onto our leather couch to settle down in something approximating a sitting position. Was that even possible for a penguin? I had no idea.

I rubbed my eyes and cleared my throat while listening to my newly-acquired inner voice, then addressed the bird. "Okay. Raye wants you to know that she seems to be inside my head, and wants you to call in Sister Psyche or someone she recommends to come and get her out." I sighed. "Miss Langley," I thought as much as said out loud, "this isn't your native timeline. There's no Sister Psyche here." At least she was calming down now, not that I blame her for being a bit... excitable. If I weren't still half-asleep I might be having much the same reaction.

"I'm afraid he's correct, Raye," Alistair added from his perch on the couch. "Furthermore, I have some bad news."

I couldn't help myself. "Gil MacHeath's sudden demotion to solo act?"

At the same time inside my head, Evangelia said, (What bad news?  What could be worse than being stuck inside someone else's head?)

"No." Alistair glared at me. "The unfortunate news is... well, to be quite honest, I'm not sure how to break this to you, Raye, but..." I had once described Alistair as sounding like Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which he did, somewhat. But at this moment I could almost see him looking for a pair of glasses to polish as he tried to frame this news of his. He sighed. "The simple truth is that you are a copy of the original Raye, who remains in Paragon City."

(I'm what?)

"A copy," I offered, not unkindly. "A soul print, if it helps -- a new entity based on the original Evangelia, but separate from her."

"I must say," Alistair offered in my direction, "you, sir, are taking matters quite well. Quite frankly, I was expecting denial and fear."

I shrugged. "I write this kind of stuff for fun and profit. I could probably predict the next few things that will happen based on the way stories like this usually go."

"Bob?" A sleepy-looking Peggy wobbled into the living room, tying the belt of her blue robe. "Who are you talking to?"

"Like that," I added, gesturing with a thumb over my shoulder at my wife. "Practically inevitable."

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[dark seraph]

12/07

Saturday 9:30 AM

Sera sat on the couch drinking a coke, it was nearly a week since the transformation and things were going okay, she was getting the hang of her powers, most
of her friends weren't too freaked by her change and she had finally got in contact with some of the other players from around the world.

She grabbed the remote for the TV and started flipping through the channels, it looked like the news had finally decide that real life heroes were more
important than the death of the King of Pop. She started giggling as she saw things like "hero saves cat from tree" and "unexplained sonic boom
in Texas." she was laughing her arse off at some of them till she heard the newswoman say. "And in local news, we have received footage of a believed
hero in Bendigo."

Sera eye's shot wide open as she proceeded to spray coke over room. On the television was footage from a phone cam of her during one of her Power
test's. There wasn't a good shot of her face, but there didn't need to be, after all, how many white haired elf girls were living in town?
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. This is bad, this is very mind numbingly bad. She ran her fingers through her hair.
I could of sworn I checked the area before I started… how the hell did this happen?

She could feel herself about to panic. Okay, got calm down, need to damage control… okay… how do I do
that. She glanced back at the TV, the Report was now talking to some people to see what the reaction on the street was. And sera's jaw dropped.

There were a hand full of people pointing out the negatives, Fear that the Hero would abuse their powers, but the majority of people interviewed were
fascinated and proud that their Town had a hero living in it. Sera's jaw worked silently as the news woman then
showed... well for lack of a better word, a popularity chart… and she was in the green… well within the green.

Carefully grabbing her phone, she decided to see if she could call Chris… he was gonna want to see this.

[Rev Dark]

I would like to say that the best way to win in a fight is to cheat.



Actually I wouldn't, because the idea of cheating in a fight is inane.



There is no cheating in a fight. For there to be
cheating, there has to be rules in the first place.



Fights. Real fights. Do not have rules. Unless you count don't fucking die as a rule. Even then, it is not much of a rule, or at least the kind that requires some sort of referee.
If you die in a fight, you are your own referee and disputing what you consider an unfair call is problematic.



Speaking of that. There is no fair
either. No clowns. No cotton candy. No
funnel cakes. No rickety rides. On the plus side, no Carnies
either. Or were there? I had a bullshit hypothesis brewing about
that.



Here it is. For those sitting in front of the
screen there was a direct one to one translation. The backside that you were staring at suddenly slamming into your
reality. For some this was no doubt a disturbing event. As it should
be. For some it was an earth shattering event. As it should be. For some, the novelty of having sudden and easy access to a pair of pneumatic super-heroic boobies was such that they still had
not managed to leave the house. Perhaps not as it should be, but no doubt how it was in some cases.



What about others in the room? Where did the
field of whatever happened begin and end? If so, without that key connection, would the defining imprint be based upon
what else was one the screen? Heroes, villains, civilians, thugs and monsters.
Were there non-playing wives and spouses who had gained the powers of Outcasts, Carnival or; I shudder to even consider it; Prometheans.



As I said - it is a hypothesis, to be played out when more data becomes
available.



If I survived.



Three on one, and they were wary now. The first
one had been surprise and superior technique. I still had the one, but not necessarily the other. At least that was
what they thought. They weren't right, but that is what they thought. I had
used one surprise, I had others. I willed the katana away, replacing it with my paired bastard swords. Excalibastard, my favorite fighting sword in my right, it's companion in my left. The
smaller sword doesn't really have a name. It is also a bastard sword, but with a shortened blade; even though it
retains the heavy guard and pommel of the other.



The angels spread out trying to surround me. I
let them, moving to keep all three at the edge of my vision. I waited until the two behind me stepped to leave my line
of sight, then acted. I hurled the shorter blade at the angel in front of me.
Hard. I was not trying for a glorious act of knife throwing prowess. The blade
rotating on its axis to plunge up the quillions into the heavenly henchman. I just chucked three and a half pounds of
steel in a whirling arc. I followed it. The angel ducked, throwing his arms and
blade up to intercept the steel. It struck off his sword and forearm, drawing a pained exclamation. That was too bad. I was hoping he would use his lord's name in vain and suddenly go up
like a feathered firecracker. I was hoping, but I had a backup plan. I always
have a backup plan. I stepped past him, driving a hard horizontal cut into the raised blade and forearm. They were both driven backwards and the edge between them caught the angel in the target I had been aiming for. The forehead. There was a crack of bone breaking and the angel tumbled back.



I pivoted sharply, the thrown blade vanishing from the floor the reappear in my hand.
I pointed one at each angel, halting their advance.



Two against one.



Still not good.



But better than three on one.

[Dragonflight]

(8/7/09 9:30 AM)

Fate wound up calling me just after business hours started Wednesday morning. Actually, I should rephrase that. In one set of memories, Fate is the daughter of
my girlfriend, the precognitive telepath Cassandra. And a very dysfunctional mental basket case. Of course, being screwed over by the Hound indoctrination
program after SWAT Anti-Mutant kills your father can do that to a girl. But I digress.

So it was that I stumbled to the phone and saw my sister was calling from work. I had about two seconds of "oh
shit" before I turned it on. "Hello?"

"So have you seen the news? A guy in tights and a cape saves a kitten from a tree and flies away?"

I blinked. "No cable, remember? I haven't checked the news yet."

I heard a sound of disgust over the phone. "This sounds like the kind of thing you'd be all over, and you're missing it?"

I hesitated for about a moment too long. I've never been able to hide things from my family, and they're pretty good at picking apart my silences.
After a moment, she came back with, "You are involved, aren't you?"

"I checked the time again. "You're kind of at work, right? Shouldn't we save this for later?"

"Stop stalling. Give!"

I sighed and explained the basics about what City of Heroes was, and how it worked. I kept it short because I knew that really wasn't what she wanted to
know. Finally I got to the important part. "The thing is... something happened last Sunday. One of the servers the game is on... the character I was
playing that night was somehow infused into me. Memories, powers, abilities, skills, gender... the whole thing!"

She of course immediately hit on the most important point. "Gender?" Her voice took on a playfully teasing tone. "Were you playing a girl?"

My sigh answered the question and resulted in a really evil laugh on the other end. "I didn't just get the game version though. She was based on a
character I'd played about ten years ago in another local game. And that character was a shapeshifter." I switched forms (and studiously ignored the
pyjama shorts falling to the ground.). "This is Kara," I began. "I created her in both games with the shapeshifting power, either as a power, or
in her bio." I pulled up the shorts and switched back. "It's probably the only reason your eldest brother isn't speaking permanently soprano
now."

She chuckled again, with a knowing tone to it. "So... looked yourself over yet?"

I could feel the heat rising off my face as she made that comment. "Sis!" Her laughter filled the receiver
again. "This is hard enough to deal with without getting into all that."

"Hmmmm," she said with an obvious grin on her face. "But if that's permanent, you're going to have to. You can't get squeamish about this. You have to take care of your new look. Better care than you do your old
look!" She paused for a moment. "Tell you what. Head over to my place after work today. We'll size up your new look and see what she needs."
She got that teasing tone in her voice again. "I'm looking forward to it."

"I'm not," I said softly, prompting another chuckle over the phone. We said our goodbyes and hung up.

I leaned back against the bedroom door and sighed, looking up at the sky. "You've got no sense of proportion,
you know that?" I also glanced around the room, settling on the framed picture of a Kitsune that a friend had given me one year, and gave my personal
quixotic angel a Look. "And you're no better."

The kitsune statue in the photo didn't answer.
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.

[Foxboy]

Monday, July 6, 2009, 6:45 pm EDT-- Fox/Misty at Work

The CNN reports were muddled. China had a series of mysterious "urban wildfires." Scattered, extremely well-organized bank robberies on the West Coast had police baffled. To top it off, there was the report of apparently Superman rescuing a kitten from a tree. I said apparently because Time-Warner, which owns CNN, also owns the Superman trademark and were disputing the gentleman's right to the shield... and then they went back to grieving for Michael Jackson.

After I finished my dinner, I spent the rest of my half hour break browsing the Borders next door, and gently evading male attention. In a couple cases, a smile and saying, "Sorry, I'm underage" would be enough to deter them, but one fellow required me to apply a sleep genjutsu to get away. I absently checked the time on my Arachnos Commdevice and made my way back to finish my shift. However, there was a situation that required delicate handling.

A man was holding a gun on the office personnel and demanding cash. I took a breath and readied my chakra. Normally a Hanagawa, or, by extension, a Hanover, would resolve issues like this with subtle body language, tactile manipulation of shiatsu points and social engineering so that the situation never came up in the first place. However, things were already pear-shaped when I arrived. I worked up an effect like the Bene Gesserit Voice, and Spoke.

"STOP." I put up my hand and just barely avoided saying, "In the name of love!" Luckily, the gunman froze, his eyes rolling madly as his body failed to respond to his commands. I licked my suddenly dry lips and continued. "Put down your weapon." He obeyed.

Keeping an eye on the now disarmed attempted robber, I found the assistant manager and gently suggested (without genjutsu) that he get some strong guys to restrain the robber until the police arrived. I fought down a sense of panic. The police would want to talk to me and my ID did not match my face and I kind of doubted they'd take my doctor's note at face value. How the heck was I going to get out of this one?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Dragonflight]

(Wednesday July 8, 12:30 PM EST)
So the afternoon passed in a blur of dread and anticipation both. I returned to my usual routine: Looking for work, preparing for school, and generally taking care of myself. I'd spent so much time working on the new "superpowers" angle that I'd basically ignored my own needs. So I took care of all that while waiting for end of business day.
While working on that, I pulled out the computer again, and considered it. I knew I had some salvage in the weird dimensional pocket Paragon City techs had somehow bonded to me when I became a registered Hero. Heroine. Whatever. I'm still tripping over that one now and then.
Anyway, I started pulling out other things and considering them. A Nemesis Staff. A Blackwand. A vial of black sand which must be the Sands of Mu. An official card which states that Kara is a Gold card member of Pocket D. The real-world analogue of the Pocket D VIP card, apparently. A Tarot deck with the Major Arcana done up as heroes and villains from the game. I doubted it had any real magic anymore, since it didn't really feel special, if that made any sense. But I had to wonder... If I used it like a normal Tarot deck to fortell the future and reveal hidden mysteries, did it still have enough residual magic for that? I had another deck from way back, and had even worked up a fair patter for school festivals and stuff. I could probably still do it, if I needed to.
Another device, apparently for teleporting to the home base. It was meant to be attached to the computer, but I'd never joined a super group before the Event, so it stayed unused and un-tuned in the pocket. I put it back, since I wasn't likely to find a supergroup in this reality. And even if I did, we didn't have Paragon City's ability to create dimensional pocket superhero bases, much less the hyper-tech to put in them.
Half a dozen Merit rewards, like bills in a money clip. Used for much the same purpose, if I recalled correctly. They were the universal currency of the Vanguard, a top secret organization whose purpose was to protect Earth from alien attack. And they had to be somewhat... flexible... since they took in known criminals as well as heroes for their defense plan. Paying criminals in actual currency would be seen as aiding and abetting terrorism, which was why Vanguard had started issuing their own scrip. It worked, and was more or less overlooked, since the only place it could be spent was the Vanguard base near the mothership, and they had a very restricted list of what it could be spent on.
Another thing I pulled out looked like a palmtop computer. I'd always considered picking one of these things up, but I figured until I actually had a real need for one, it would only be an expensive toy. So I hadn't bothered. Still, looking at it experimentally, I switched it on.
A holographic screen appeared over the computer, surprising me. "What the hell?" I waved my hand through the display, making it waver a few times. "Bloody hell! Cheoptics eat your heart out..." I tapped a quick message into the computer, and pressed Enter.
[Broadcast] Foxfire: Anyone receiving this?
After a long pause, I considered the device in game terms. Broadcast only worked within a city zone. If it was like a CB radio with a text messaging front-end, then the range was probably just Ottawa.
But what about the global channels? A quick check of my global friends list showed an empty list. Crap. Apparently in this world the links were all cut.
I opened the configurable tab, and created a new channel, sifting through comm options. Team, no. Supergroup, no. Global, needed to meet people. Finally I settled on one I usually removed immediately on creating a new character. One just added recently, that used to be monitored in-game by a GM at all times.
Help.
I bit my lip and thought about it for a long moment. If others had tried this, the Help line could be jammed with other users. But at the very least, the Help line stood the best chance of being still active. And who knew? If I ran across any of the other Legendary heroes, maybe I could add them to my globals list again.
Creating a new Help tab, I set it active and waited. No immediate response. No sign of other users online at the moment. Taking a breath, I tapped in another message.
[Help] Foxfire: Is anyone receiving this message?
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.

[Sweno]

(July 8th - 11AM)

The first delivery arrived a little after 11AM, seven large boxes from amazon. I felt a little sorry for the delivery man, the box with the lead-acid batteries was heavy. Not sorry enough to go out and help him with it, but just a little bit. As soon as he had left I had the boxes inside and spread out in the office I used the first night. It was the middle of the day on wednesday, so I wasn't worried about the realtor suddenly stopping by to show the property to anyone.

The radios, batteries, and solar panels were important. But the things that got me humming a happy little tune were the tools. Three of the seven boxes had everything I could justify to myself. Everything from soldering irons and tweezers to wrenches and torx bits. I spent two hours carefully dismantling the emergency band radios for their digital signal processing components and wide band antennas. Such things were beyond my capabilities to produce, at least in anything close to this form factor and power requirements. The wifi cards went under the knife next, acting as a partial surrogate for the radio components.

It was a little after three when I finished the set of fifteen bastardized cards. I got up and walked around the house a bit to shake lose the aches in my servos. Part of me was appalled and frustrated that I couldn't continue to keep working at peak efficiency. The other part of me was amazed that I had just gone all Dr. Frankenstein on high end electronics for the past four hours and all I felt was a little stiffness.

While I was up I checked the front door, sure enough the second set of packages had arrived. Three slightly smaller boxes from newegg, but their contents were just as important. I brought them inside and eagerly unpacked the contents in the office. Mini-pcb boards, processors, memory, compact flash chips, microcontrollers, transformers, and various other kit. I couldn't quite stop myself from quiet maniacal laughter.

***

It was getting dark by the time I finished, and the servos in one hand were developing a cramp, but I couldn't keep the smile off my face. Fifteen dull brown plastic cases were stacked near the desk. They were my first bit of serious work in this world and I was proud of them. Each one was about twice the size of a car battery, had a shiny black solar strip across the top, and a trilobite engraved on the side. Inside each waterproof case was enough processing power and memory to serve two basic functions: first, forming a replacement for the Infamous network with store-and-forward capability; second, monitoring the local police, fire, and ems channels.

They had limited speech to text software onboard (the really good stuff was far too processor intensive for the power requirements that I could afford), and would monitor signals in range for specific keywords. If they found anything an alert would be posted to the Infamous network with it's best guess as to what was being said. I could then instruct that unit to act as a voip bridge and listen in to what was being said. Not ideal, but good enough. Each unit had a range of just under four miles, which meant that I needed six of them to cover San Francisco. The rest were scattered to be scattered around Oakland, Freemont, and San Jose.

Given the geographic distance between them I would end up with Four isolated networks. That wasn't a deal killer, as long as one node in each network had access to wifi I would get an email if something tripped the filters or if someone besides me signed on. Ideally I would be able to setup some sort of larger network using directed antennas or optical lasers, but the power draws for those were too great for the car batteries and solar cells these ran off of. And leaching power from the buildings themselves was a great way to get noticed.

Once the sun had finished setting I tossed all fifteen of the cases into pocketspace and ported my way up to SF. I would make sure I had coverage there first, even if it meant going a little short somewhere else.

***
(July 9th - 1pm)

I was back in the house cleaning up from yesterdays construction and trying to figure out how I would power the base-to-be when I got my first email. I expected it to one of the units complaining about a component failure of some sort. That was not the case.

From: SF_Node_4
To: BubblesAndLaseryDeath@gmail.com
Subject: Verbage alert - "supp?er"

---

SF_Node_4 reporting police_channel_7 has hit against a watchword.
line of interest follows:

Report of a robbery in pro grass at bee of hay for forty five power street. Pass able suppers evolved. Pro seat with caution.

It took me a few seconds before I grokked 'Pass able suppers evolved' to mean 'possible supers involved'. Two seconds after that I was in transit to San Francisco. I didn't know what 'bee of hay for forty five power street' was supposed to mean, but I was betting I would have a better idea once I heard the chatter myself.

-------------
Notes: Yes, Clank has been out of the loop in regards to recent local news. She has a bad habit of monomania, especially when she feels vulnerable.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Wiregeek]

July 7th, 2009, 3:00pm AKDT.

I do my best thinking when I'm busy. While I was chewing on the minutia of cathodic protection of underground pipelines
(in essence, a 'Good Thing'), my subconscious was nibbling and sipping at the recent events, and was starting to return some strange conclusions.

That afternoon, as I took a break from my studies, I sat sipping a cup of strong tea and examining what I'd already figured out while I was training.

Point. Sunday Evening, there was an 'Event', uppercase letters and all, that affected an unknown amount of City of Heroes players.

Point. I appeared to be at least two, possibly more, of my toons.

Point. Physical changes included gender and mass.

Point. At least with me, some emotional context got through. To elucidate, today I was 'in' House Kat, who, while not terribly well developed, was a
college student with an unfortunate catgirling condition. I fingered the absurdly cute little ears I had absentmindedly tucked under a beret that morning.
House Kat didn't have a 'real name' or even much of a personality beyond 'studious' and 'confident', two traits which had bled
through.

Corollary data to point. Mag was essentially me, inside the armor, sans phobias, sans arrogance. I had confirmation of physical similarity, but it was
difficult to say the same about emotional traits.

Available data was pointing towards a rather uncomfortable conclusion. Available data, however, was slim on the ground. Further information was desperately
needed.

As a side note, while Mag was a smoker, House Kat wasn't - I hadn't had a smoke all day yet, nor had I a niccotine craving. Intriguing, to say the
least. A new tab and a few seconds typing cranked up my webmail.

---

[table]