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December 2015 Voidrunner When the big barracuda-like ship didn't follow them, Aquaria croaked in noisy relief before settling down into her seat. As she did so, she realized just how much her relief was mixed by fear. Despite impossible odds and impossible distances, things had come through for Sea Devil and Singularity, for Aquaria and Jessie. It wouldn't be long now before they were back in the Solar System - a concept she only hazily understood but that she knew meant they were close to Earth, and close to a return to the home she and Jessie had been trying to get back to for weeks. Close to trouble. She was acutely aware, twitching in her seat, of all that had happened - of how her pride had sent them to the stars, of how her anger had gotten that Surfacer killed, and of how all the stars of space had seemed to be against them on their journey. She knew, too, that her life in Freedom City was not her own - she was a symbol of the fear and loathing that Surfacers had for her kind, and a criminal to boot. With all that she'd done, what would happen when she returned? Blackstone again? Perhaps Atlantean custody? Or maybe just exile - a banishment to the waters off Freedom's coast where she was an outcast among all who lived beneath the waves. Turning to her still night-catatonic friend, Aquaria took a long breath and released it as a deep, almost subsonic, bellow. Jessie would be home in the world of her birth, surrounded by her people, away from the world that Aquaria had thrust her into. That was what mattered. Through the blood of sacrifice, I gain power, she thought, closing her big goggle eyes. Through the blood of sacrifice, we are free. Up front, the dinky little Terran comet belt station had just hailed the Voidrunner.

March 1, 2016 "Do you do non-humans?" The voice on the shop's phone was like none Rae had heard before - a booming croak that nonetheless was clearly speaking words. "For tattoos." - Outside, Aquaria was largely concealed beneath a gigantic hoodie and sweatpants, ducked low behind Jessie as she spoke into the latter's phone (a replacement they'd gotten upon their return to Terra), just a few doors down from the place that did inking - the tattoo parlor in English. They'd looked the place up on Jessie's computer, but if there was anything they'd learned from their trip to space, you couldn't be too careful! It was late in Riverside, the streets beginning to darken as late afternoon began to shed into evening, and the streets mostly empty in the wake of the hard rain that afternoon. Which made it perfect.

Early December 2015 Wolf 359 Aquaria didn't know much about space - but she could tell the space-house (or space station, as Ruby called it) orbiting the tiny young star was old and busted. The metal plates that made up the walls and the ceiling were obviously corroded, turning green like copper instead of orange like steel around their dark grey edges and the air had the smell of something alien and old burnt away in the ducts, long ago. The humanoids in the station were exotic and strange, even stranger and more exotic than the Surfacers of Freedom City, their hair, clothes, and skin all strange colors and textures - but at least they ate good food, including a delicious flying insect as big as her fist that both she and Bliss had developed a taste for. She spent most of her time in the station's small garden, taking advantage of the high humidity (and even small pond!) to bask in the comforting wetness without her suit. She earned her keep by tending the plants, a skill she'd learned at the home of Jessie's sister and her mate, and did her best to get Jessie to come by and help her. It was less stressful than being on the ship. There had been some sort of dispute over repairs to the Voidrunner (she hadn't really followed the conversation) - and it was a high-stress time on-board for everyone. We just have to make it home, Aquaria assured herself as she ducked down to the bottom of the pond (which was just deep enough for her to completely immerse herself in), the ever-present hum of machinery reminding her that this was no ordinary body of water. And they will have all the gold the ship can carry! Reaching down, she cut a few fronds of pondweed with a knife - the stuff was vile to her, but some of the local people on the station loved it in their stews. In just a day, or less, she'd been assured, the repairs would be done and they'd all go home - but now, everybody pulled their weight, Luckily, she and Jessie were both very strong indeed. - It had been a tough few weeks for the Horizon crew and their Star Knight companion. They'd tracked the fugitives to a remote swampy world, and even found the ion trail of the vessel that had picked them up there, but they'd found no clues about the identity of the vessel they were chasing. Whoever they were, they were fast and good, sticking to high-traffic lanes to blend in (but not the ones still regularly patrolled by the Lor), running their engines so fast they must be risking needing to scrub out their coils, and not staying in any one place long enough to be positively identified by eyewitnesses. If not for the unique energy emitted by Aquaria Innsmouth's suit, which noticeably warped extradimensional space while in hyperdrive, and if not for the further n-dimensional changes caused by the fact that the other passenger was from some other dimension entirely, they'd have lost the scent long ago. But now they'd caught the scent. Station K-7 was old and tired, a collection of habitat domes welded together centuries earlier, with a mostly transient population in the hundreds. It was widely known to be a den of smugglers making the potentially profitable run to Terra now that Lor border patrols weren't what they used to be - or even there at all, most of the time. As the ship approached the station, their sensors jangled with news - their two fugitives were _on that very station_.

Someone wanted an OOC

A few days after the events of Shore of a Cosmic Ocean Aquaria crouched between the front seats of the shuttlecraft, her forelimbs folded in front of her, arms tucked under her body, and back legs folded forward so far her elbows and knees brushed together. It would have been an uncomfortable position for a Surfacer - but then she wasn't a Surfacer. She wasn't sure what she was, not after three sleeps journey through the cold, endless ocean of space, not with the faces of the creature she'd seen die, no, that she'd helped kill, burning in the back of her mind, not with the sight of the burning Spectrum Knight fortress overrun with those Praetorian thugs curling away like the ever-present shadow of a nightmare. She was still in her armor, largely because their hasty flight had meant she'd left her moisturizer back on the planet where they'd started and the glowing energy field it emitted was all that kept her from burning in the cold dry fake air of the shuttlecraft. There was water, but of course they'd needed that to stay alive. She and Jessie had been able to find food from a panel in the wall, silvery meat packets that tasted dry and squishy to her but that Jessie ate without complaint. In a few days they were going to run out if they weren't careful. Aquaria had seen the inside of the ship, once, when Bie Yie had given her a tour. She knew that the front of the ship was where you steered it and she knew where the food was, and the head, and the places to sleep in. But neither she nor Jessie White had the slightest idea how to fly a spaceship; or what the words and lights that the ship had been saying to them meant. Through the windows, she could see something approaching that Jessie had said earlier was a planet, a brown-green ball that was getting bigger and bigger, like they were going to crash right into it. She closed her eyes and began to croak softly. "Oh Father Dagon, Mother Hydra too, listen to me sing your song-" she opened up her eyes and stared out at the pitiless cold black ocean that surrounded them, then closed them again. "oh-oh so far from you. I know you have a plan for me and a crooked pattern for my life, a pattern you made when I was hatched from my egg. I know that you are trying-" the last word was more of a pained bellow, "trying me. Because I was vain and swam too high, the sun of your wrath burned me. I understand that." She thought of Jessie, still in the back compartment, quiet and still as a barnacle. "But Jessie didn't do anything to deserve punishment. She's tried so hard to be a good person. I should have listened to her from the start..." She swallowed hard, an impressive sight as her massive throat bobbed. "Dagon and Hydra, I know she doesn't believe in you - but please, please, take her into your maw if we die, and remember her when you return in your glory." She began to sing then, the names of her tribe and her friends from Project Freedom, the names of Jessie's 'sister' and her mate, of her friends from the DuTemps Building like Kimber and Indira. The names of people she would never see again. Meanwhile, the autopilot spoke again in a dignified male tenor Galstandard (Lor-Van Standard accent) that neither Aquaria nor Jessie could understand, continuing the conversation it had begun with them two and a half standard days earlier. "Autopilot protocol engaged. Fuel supplies critically low Emergency landing course plotted. Touchdown on planetary surface in five minutes."

The OOC

"Okay, so what do you think about this?" Erin rested her back against the front passenger door of the Maserati convertible and studied the binder in her lap. She addressed her question to Trevor's legs, since they were the part sticking out from under the car. "We have the wedding in May, on the grounds here, over by that pond Aquaria's been mucking out. We get a trellis and a little platform built, rent a bunch of chairs, and have a florist do up a whole pile of flowers and cattails and stuff so it looks nice out there. Then we clean out the second floor ballroom, get a serious waxing done on the floor and have the bulbs in the chandeliers replaced, and have a reception in there? Easy, and we don't even have to go anywhere."

September 2015 Target sentient detected. Subspecies - homo aquaticus diaboli. Aquaria was still standing in front of the television when Jessie burst into the living room - her eyes wide and hands clapped over her mouth as she stared at the television - and the broken remains of the cheap porcelain mug that Aquaria had hurled through the screen, breaking glass and cup both. "I'm sorry Jessie, I'm sorry," said Aquaria, waving her hands back and forth. "I didn't mean to scare you-" Subspecies is targeted for extermination by other sentient subspecies on native planet. Subspecies is heavily influenced by worship of beings from other frames of reference. "It was the King of Atlantis and he was talking about how they had broken up an 'infestation' of Deep Ones just because it was near a Surfacer city! And they showed pictures, Jessie, they showed pictures!" She turned to Jessie and clutched at her friend, her hands sticky and throat bulging with frantic emotion. "They were going to-" Target exhibits grief and rage compatible with Spectrum Knight primary mission. Secondary target present with primary target - prepare backup protocols for Berserker-class target. Activating transportation from lunar orbit. "-that whole tribe is going to starve in the deep ocean now!" Jessie remembered Aquaria's stories about the death of her tribe - how thrown from their brackish home into the deep waters of the Caribbean by Surfacer and Atlantean attack, most had slowly succumbed to salt poisoning, or cold, or starvation before finding their way to a Deep One city far below the surface. "And no one's going to care! Not one Surfacers going to do anything! All because Atlanteans told them it's okay! I hate them! I hate them so much!" She buried her face in Jessie's shoulder and began to sob. And over Aquaria's shoulder, Jessie saw a faint light suddenly glow from their kitchen.

Ocean Heights Amusement Park Port Regal, Freedom City, New JerseyMonday. September, 7, 20152:04 PM It was closing day for the Ocean Heights Amusement Park. Labor Day always marked the point in the year where the park would open only to private events. And with that knowledge came special promotions to try and get as many people to visit the waterfront property. 80% off astronomically overpriced food, live concert by local bands, even tickets were at reduced price. The park wasn't operating at a loss by any means, but on this day they were relying on numbers for profit. And it worked. The amusement park was filled to the brim. Mostly families looking for one last big excursion before the school year really got going. It was a restful a day as any for many. But, then again many people weren't at the pier area overlooking centenary narrows when the two Atlantean princess rounded the corner. The larger woman pointing at into the crowd yelling out without warning, "Hold Fiend!" Those with a keen eye could easily forgiven for assuming that the person she was yelling at came from Atlantis based on appearance alone. In fact, it would have likely made the situation less explosive had that been the case. But, Aquaria Innsmouth was no Atlantean.

July 1, 2015 Project Freedom The sunlight streaming in the window woke Ackwareeaa from dreams of the sea. Opening her eyes, Aquaria smacked her green-white lips for a moment, taking stock of the day - before she realized what day it was. "We are getting out today!" She bounded out of her tub at those words, splashing just a few drops of water on the ground as she excitedly hopped around, legs bent and palms flat against the concrete floor of her room. "Woo-hoo!" She wanted to jump into the bathroom and yell to Jessie, but she couldn't hear her friend moving around and didn't want to scare her. Jessie didn't like to be scared. Leaping up onto the wall, she padded along the walls to her closet, carefully picking her way past her many art therapy pictures still stuck to the walls. Once at her her closet, she began sorting through her very small personal wardrobe for what she was going to wear, leaning into the tiny corner with her long, long arms. She needed to look like a Surfacer if she was going to go out among them - today especially! She settled on what she usually did - a white T-shirt that hung oddly on her triangular torso, Capri pants that fit her legs, and...she looked down at the bottom of the closet, where her enemies were waiting for her. A frown crossed her muzzle as she bent down to pick them up, holding one each between fingers and a thumb. They were long by Surfacer standards and bulgy at the ends; and too dry even when she put in the special moisturizing inserts. Shoes. She didn't really understand why Jessie had dubbed these "clown shoes" - her nose was green and white, not red, and she didn't look anything like those costumed Surfacers, but the name had stuck. "I'll put you things on last," she informed the shoes before returning them to her closet corner. Opening the door to her bathroom, she checked the shared clock in there. "It's only six-thirty! Jessie's probably still sleeping," she fretted, wriggling her tongue back and forth in her mouth against all those Ss. "I will get ready first and surprise her. Okay, Aquaria, time to get ready," she told the Deep One in the mirror, experimentally flexing her throat sacs as she spoke, bulging her neck out as big as a Surfacer's closed fist. "I am a good member of society! I am first! I have a job for the Hunter family in North Bay. I am a groundskeeper! I am going to live in the DuTemps Building in Room 437 with my best friend, Jessie White." She raised two thumbs in front of the mirror, then realized her crest was sticking up! Not wanting to embarrass herself, she reached up to begin patting it down. "<I am calm. I am cool,>" she told the face in the mirror. "<I am...speaking Lemurian.>" With an effort, she forced her mouth back to the odd shape of English. "Bre-ek-ek, coax, coax...bleah. I am somebody people want to live near. I am...awesome!" She picked up a towel and wrapped it around her head. "Ooh, look at me, I'm a Surfacer!" she said in a dry, growly voice that was her best imitation of the Surfacer accent. "I wear clothes and eat plants! I My skin is made of sand, I think I need some lotion, don't you! Hee-hee!" She turned and banged on the door to the other room. "Jessie!" she called. "It's this day!"

Atlantis is a cruel, selfish empire that has imposed its will on the other peoples of the Ocean by main force. Intolerant of other gods, they have banned the worship of Dagon and Hydra, and take pleasure in destroying their idols and oppressing their worshipers even in lands far removed from Atlantean power. Greedy for land, they have driven the Deep Ones to the coldest, darkest places in the sea, volcanic crags and undersea valleys where little grows and few fish swim. Ostentatious in their wealth, they parade around in orichalchum finery and live in cities adorned with jewels and precious stones. They live in palaces while Deep Ones have to fight and struggle to survive - and call the Deep Ones monsters when they raid their cities for food! The worst are the royal family, jaded, decadent monarchs who abuse even their own people. Surfacers love royalty so they assume Atlantean royals have to be just like them - but they don't know the truth. Aquaria admits that some Atlanteans do things that appear to be heroic - but of course you'd expect them to want to get in good with the powerful heroes of the Surface. And it's their planet too, so surely they have a natural interest in keeping it safe.

Sea Devil Power Level: 10/11 (200/200PP) Trade-Offs: None as PL 7 Deep One, +3 TOU/-3 DEF, -3 ATK/+3 DMG as a PL 10 Spectrum Knight Unspent Points: 0 In Brief: Deep One adventurer in Spectrum Knight armor, trying to save everybody while finding her own place in the world Alternate Identities: Ackwareeaa In-His-Mouth, Aquaria Innsmouth Identity: Registered Birthplace: An island in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela Occupation: College student, adventurer Affiliations: Jessie White, Project Freedom, Liberty League Family: Unknown - Deep Ones raise their children collectively. Age: Deep One ages translate poorly to human years. Aquaria is at the prime of her adulthood. Gender: Female Ethnicity: None in particular Height: 5'6'' [5'10" in armor] Weight: 140 lbs [180 lbs in armor] Eyes: Black and yellow Hair: None, but she does have a frilly green crest that grows when she is agitated. Description: Aquaria Innsmouth looks like a typical Deep One of the terrestrial variety - her skin is soft, smooth, and damp, colored a pale greenish-white on her belly and front and a mottled greenish-black on her back and rear. Her arms, neck, and sides are covered in black and blue marking identifiable as tattoos [an Arcane Lore check of DC 25 can read that they are Deep One ritual tattoos showing progression into adulthood stopping in late adolescence]. Her big eyes are black and yellow, set high and wide on her face, and her nose and jaw thrust strongly forward. She has webbed fingers and toes, all of which are much longer than the human norm, forcing her to wear big, oversized shoes when she needs to dress Surfacer. She has three fingers and toes on each hand and food. Her arms and legs are very, very long, especially the latter, giving her torso a smaller, rounded appearance. She has a thin crest on her head that, when she is excited, springs up like a Mohawk. When angry or afraid, her throat bulges out like a croaking frog. Her neck is extremely thick, the better to anchor the muscles for the two-foot-long retractable tongue that also give her a lisp when she speaks in English. Aquaria's armor is recognizable [with a DC 15 Galactic Lore check] as armor belonging to the Spectrum Knights, a terrorist organization active across much of Lor and Grue space. It glows an eldritch green while she's using it. Her primary melee weapons are energy tridents (which glow the same color green) that she projects from devices implanted in the palms of her armor. Even those who don't recognize the armor can tell it's something out-of-this-world, especially when they hear the booming bass of Aquaria's voice from within. History: Once the People roamed all the Islands and the seas beyond, singing their songs and dancing beneath the moonlight, leaping high in the air to mock the Sun and swimming as deep as they dared to greet their Dark Brothers in the depths of the seas. Then the Surfacers came, and at first things were good. There were battles, sometimes grim ones, but in the end the Surfacers had the land and the Dark Brothers had the sea, and the People had all that lay between. It was a good life. Then New Surfacers came - hearts as cold as the iron they wielded, and gradually the land of the First Surfacers shrank, and the People's land and sea shrank with it. Then the Pale Ones came from below - enemies of the Dark Brothers who hated all who bore the mark of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra on their bodies. The People fought them, oh yes, but they had spears and bone and muscle against machines of death and pain, and their lands gradually shrank. Gradually the lands of the People shrank over the years, with some fleeing below to join the Dark Brothers in their cities of obsidian glass, but most simply dying of plagues, of swords (and then bullets) from above, and the terrible pressure of the Pale Ones who let nothing live in their sea that did not love their gods or wear their skin. Their culture shrank, their world shrank, and gradually Ocean became a small patch of blue and a few scraps of land, surrounded by enemies all around. When Aquaria Innsmouth was born, her world was dying - the last remnants of the once-mighty People of the Islands having shrunk to a pitiful handful of a few dozen males, females, and spawn. She learned to hunt and fish like her brothers and sisters, and walked on land as soon as her legs were grown. Unlike many of her siblings, she took no mates - the sole survivor of her egg creche, she was widely considered to be cursed, or blessed, by Mother Hydra and Father Dagon. But that was all right with her; when she wasn't hunting to feed her many siblings, it gave her time to explore the ocean, to watch the New Surfacers with great care as they did unknowable, fascinating things on islands full of animals, to feel the sun on her face and dive deep beneath the warm blue waters of the Caribbean. It was a good life, but hard, and when she slept, she murmured prayers to the ancient gods of her people. She was fifteen when the Surfacers came - heavily armed men who attacked for no reason and gave no quarter, freely slaughtering the People.. Hating herself for her cowardice, Aquaria (as the oldest unattached female) hid with the spawn in hidden caves to guard them against Atlantean attack. When she came out, the island was burning - and her people's community was gone, with perhaps a dozen adults left alive after the battle. And so the People began a journey, a long, bitter one, through the waters of the Caribbean and towards the only salvation they knew - a Dark Brother colony near Cuba, lands they knew that were free both of the New Surfacers and the terrible ways of the Pale Ones. The flight wasn't easy - they had to stop and raid Pale One settlements to survive and the Pale Ones rarely gave quarter to their enemies, and the New Surfacers treated them no better when they clashed with their vessels. She learned to hate, there in the dark, hate the Pale Ones for their arrogance, their greed, and their seeming love of murder, more than anything. Aquaria had just entered adulthood and lain her first clutch of fertilized eggs when they finally reached their destination - the Dark Brother city off the coast of the island the New Surfacers called Cuba. It was beautiful. The temples to Dagon and Hydra rose high in their cyclopean splendor, all dark volcanic glass that reached up to the skies, and there was food to eat and nests to sleep in without fear of attack. It was cold for the People, and dark, and the oceans thick above their heads, but the Dark Brothers promised that they would soon be reborn as Dark Brothers themselves - and could gain revenge on the Pale Ones! It wasn't until the prisoners arrived that Aquaria understood the mechanism of her transformation - and the cold heartless nature of the forever war between the Dark Brothers and the Pale Ones. It was a human sacrifice that drove the transformation of People into Dark Brothers, and she watched in mounting horror as the elders of her community gladly submitted to the transformation, even as the screams of the murdered Pale Ones echoed in her ears. Monsters though they were, didn't they deserve to live? How could her joy come from the suffering of others? That night she tried to slip away, taking the roe with her, but she was caught by a Dark Brother patrol and, feeling guilty as sin, fled without the young ones. She was one young hunter-fisher, how could she take care of so many little ones? How could she even take care of herself? She wandered the coast of North America, a solitary hunter, for a long time after that, sticking close to the Surfacers to avoid both Pale One attack and the attack by Dark Brothers she was sure would one day come to take her back to their city. The Surfacers were an endless puzzle - their cities vast and terrifying, their skins a near-infinite variety of colors, their ships big and menacing as they cut their way through the water. She met a few of the People along the way, and a few Dark Brothers not from the Cuban city, but they were all vagabonds too - there was no home here. Finally, a few years ago, she heard of something big happening -a major Dark Brother raid against a Surfacer city. Tired of being alone and hungry, she decided to take her chances and explore there, figuring she could easily blend in with the People and the Dark Brothers on the surface. She arrived in Freedom City just a few weeks after the Deep One raid that accompanied the Archevil Event (as she later learned the news called it). She explored at night for a while, hanging low along the Waterfront, a little surprised to find none of her kind here. Finally, foolishly, she decided to reveal herself to the surfacers. The subsequent Waterfront battle pitted her against the Freedom City police and her hated enemy Nereid - a foul, loathsome Pale One who laughed and called her cruel names as she casually blasted her with the very water that had been her home! That night, caged for the first time in her life, she screamed and clawed at the glass, spitting venom and threats, until finally she passed out from exhaustion. She awoke in Blackstone, where the lonely silence of the air nearly killed her. It was Harriet Wainwright who saved her, the Project Freedom director having heard something of the Deep One female who had fought the police and superheroes without doing any more than property damage and turning out to be the culprit behind a chain of petty thefts. Visiting the prison with a translator, Wainwright gradually won Aquaria's trust (the frequent dips in the unchlorinated pool helped!) and the Deep One opened up about her life. It took the long, slow process of years for Aquaria to gradually open up to life in Project Freedom - first learning English, then learning to read, then finally earning a GED, all the while doing community service work and helping take care of the other residents who needed more help than she did. She did restitution for her crime, including doing enough work to pay back the medical bills for the police officer she'd thrown through the windshield of his car in the fracas at the Waterfront. She made friends - but her best friend of all was Jessie White, a strange, sad girl who was assigned as her suitemate after several got tired of the constant baths and smell produced by the froggy Deep One. An old hand now, she took the girl under her wing, doing her best to show her the ropes while trying to put a smile on that withdrawn face. She usually wasn't successful at the latter, but the two struck up a bond, one tempered by incidents with time-lost Frenchmen on one hand and the constant low-level murmurs of Frog-Face around the kitchens where they worked on the other. They both were monsters in their own way, even if Aquaria didn't really see herself that way and was determined to make sure Jessie didn't see herself that way either. Halfway house or not, it was a good life. Finally, after years of work, and months trying to help Jessie be ready to go, the two young women were freed from their Project Freedom confinement and ready to face the world. Shortly thereafterwards, Aquaria and Jessie were recruited by the Spectrum Knights - a secretive organization of political revolutionaries who revealed themselves to be interstellar terrorists. Now Aquaria and Jessie are on the run again, hunted by criminals and law enforcement alike - and even after they make it home, the choices they made in space will be waiting for them on Earth Powers & Tactics: Outside of her armor, Aquaria relies on stealth and leaping to stay mobile during a fight. She's strong and tough enough to take out baseline humans with a few good kicks (just like the cop she put through car windshields while fighting Nereid). Versus more powerful opponents, she'll try and lure them into the water where her aquatic physiology will give her an advantage. Inside her armor, she'll wade in and strike with her trident, moving unnaturally fast with her three-bladed energy weapon. She’ll stay mobile by fantastically high leaps and even flying. She only rarely uses the lightning blasts from her trident or hurls objects at people, saving those for a last resort. Complications: Frog Felon: Aquaria is a convicted criminal who could potentially go back in Project Freedom, or even to jail, if she gets in trouble with the cops. Frog Fear: Aah! A Deep One! Archevil wasn't that long ago and the general public - not to mention superheroes, have long memories. Frogger: Aquaria is always up for something new - even if it might be a bad idea! Frog Foreigner: Aquaria's eager to learn about Surfacer customs - maybe a little too eager! Frog Family: Aquaria feels a special loyalty to her fellow Deep Ones, except when they do evil stuff! Frog Foes: Aquaria hates and fears Atlanteans. Frog Friends: Jessie White is Aquaria's best friend in the whole wide world. Frog God: Aquaria still worships Father Dagon and Mother Hydra - a difficulty given the reputation those deities have on the surface. Frog Hunger: Aquaria sometimes gets distracted and snatches up a passing bird or other small animal to eat. This is the human equivalent of stress eating. Space Frog: Aquaria barely knows the names of the planets of the Solar System - she knows even less about outer space. Abilities: 14 + 4 + 14 + 0 + 4 + 4 = 40PP STR 30/24 (+10/+7) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30/24 (+10/+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 8 + 8 = 16PP Init: +6 ATK: +4 (+7 Melee) DEF: +7 (+3 Dodge Focus, +4 Base, +2 flat-footed) Grapple: +14/+15/+18/+20/+23 Knockback: -6/-3 Saves: 0 + 5 + 5 = 10PP TOU +13/+7 (+7 Con, +3 Enhanced Con, +3 Protection) FORT +10/+7 (+7 Con, +3 Enhanced Con) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 72R = 18PP Bluff 8 (+10) Climb 3 (+10) Diplomacy 8 (+10) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 8 (+8) Languages 3 (Atlantean, English, Galstandard, Lemurian [Base]) Pilot 1 (+4) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Swim 6 (+13) Feats: 45PP Attack Focus: Melee 3 Dodge Focus 3 Improved Initiative Environmental Adaptation (Underwater) Fearless Luck Sidekick 35 [Singularity] Powers: 1 + 2 + 45 + 8 + 2 + 3 + 10 = 71PP Additional Limb 1 (tongue) [1PP] Comprehend 2 (speak to and comprehend animals; Flaw: Limited to sea creatures) [2PP] Device 11 (55 PP, Aquaria's Armor, PF: Restricted 1 [Deep Ones]) [45PP] Enhanced Feats 3 (Interpose, Move-By Action, Ultimate Save [Toughness]) Enhanced CON 6 (to CON 30/+10) [6DP] Enhanced STR 6 (to STR 30/+10) [6DP] Flight Array 3 (6PP, PFs: Dynamic, Dynamic Alternate Power 1) [9DP] DBE: Flight 0-3 (0-50 MPH/500 FPM) {6} DAP: Super-Strength 0-3 (Effective STR 24/39-39/54, Heavy Load 1500 lbs-3 tons-24 tons) {6} Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9DP] Protection 3 [3DP] Strike 3 (energy trident, PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Extended Reach [5 feet], Improved Crit 2, Mighty, Takedown Attack 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [any energy]) [13DP] Super-Senses 6 (Radio [Enhancements: Accurate [+2], Analytical, Extended (100 ft Notice)], Uncanny Dodge [Radio]) [6DP] 3 + 6 + 6 + 9 + 9 + 3 + 13 + 6 = 55DP Deep One Power 3 (6 PP; PFs: Alternate Power 2) [8PP] BE: Swimming 6 (100 mph / 1,000 feet per Move action) {6/6) AP: Leaping 2 (x5, Running Long Jump 85 ft, Standing Long Jump 45 ft, Vertical Jump 21 feet) {2} + Speed 2 (25 mph / 250 feet per Move action) {2} + Wall-Crawling 1 (half-speed) {2} {2+2+2=6/6} AP: Super-Strength 3 (Effective STR 39, Heavy Load 3 tons) {6/6} Feature 2 (Deep One, Iron Stomach) [2PP] Immunity 3 (breathe normally underwater, cold, high pressure) [3PP] Super-Senses 10 (Auditory [Accurate (+2), Ultra-Hearing], Olfactory [Acute, Tracking 2 (Half Speed)], Visual [Extended, Low-Light Vision, Radius (All Visual, +2)]) [10PP] Drawbacks: (-0) + (-0) = -0PP DC Block ATTACK RANGE SAVE EFFECT Unarmed w/no Powers Touch DC 22 Toughness Damage [Physical] Unarmed w/suit Touch DC 25 Toughness Damage [Physical] Strike Touch DC 28 Toughness Damage [Energy] Totals: Abilities (40) + Combat (16) + Saving Throws (10) + Skills (18) + Feats (45) + Powers (71) - Drawbacks (0) = 200/200 Power Points Jessie White

The clock on the wall chimed gently, ten soft repetitive notes. In the rooms along the taupe hallway, the lights dimmed and went out, leaving just a narrow beam of illumination from the observation window set in each door. Footsteps and voices in the hall were muffled by thick walls and soft shoes, but still perfectly audible to anyone who couldn't help but listen closely. In the third room on the right, Erin lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling where a muted afterglow lingered on the extinguished fluorescent tubes. Eight hours till morning, eight hours in the privacy of darkness, unmoving, unsleeping. She closed her eyes to slits. If they looked in on her and saw her awake, she'd be taken out and assigned some mindless time-occupying task, and she needed to think. She needed this time in the quiet dark to remember who she was. They'd tried to remake her here, gave her a new name and a made-up past, but it didn't change who she was. She was Erin Keeley White, and she was lost in time and space.

December 25, 2014 Freedom City Midnight Manor Late in the evening on Christmas Day, a Deep One sang an eerie song in the Midnight Manor, her body silhouetted by the darkness outside. "BUT I GET UP AGAIN! YOU'RE NEVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN! WOO!" As her song finished and the strains of Tubthumping vanished into the quiet of what was sometimes one of many front parlors in the Hunter mansion, Aquaria leaped in the air and cheered, her smooth, wet skin glistening from the exertion of the vigorous karoake number. "I am awesome!" For their part, Mark and Nina both cheered and applauded - Mark hadn't been at all sure bringing the machine along was the right idea, but luckily Jessie's amphibian friend had practically snatched the karaoke machine up with her tongue and practically begged to go first. (Jessie had, blushingly, commented that Aquaria used to do this a lot before disappearing herself) Aquaria first approached Mark and Nina, since they had been the latest to the party - only arriving after Martha Lucas had turned in early and left her son and his girlfriend free for Christmas. "You guys want a turn? C'mon, don't be chicken!" Between Nina's competitive streak and Mark's natural showmanship, it wasn't long before the couple was standing in front of the computerized board, picking out their song - 500 Miles seeming to be an early favorite. Aquaria bounded over to join Erin and Trevor to watch the show, declaring, "Surface music is great, you can yell so loud when you're singing! And nobody complains!"

The OOC

OOC thread

June 1, 2014 Urgent phone messages were nothing new for Midnight Manor, even those that arrived at an hour of the day where no decent person would be awake. Was there crime afoot in the darkest corners of the city? Or more commonly, a cosmic threat like those that the newest holder of the Midnight legacy and his partner had so often battled? Not today. For once, the late night phone call had been for Erin. "Ms. White? This is Thomas Cleary, I'm the night supervisor here at Project Freedom. I'm calling you because Jessie White has had an incident with another inmate. We've placed her in medical isolation for now - but she's not communicating. we're hoping you may be able to help us figure out what happened."

March 2013 Mark sat alone on the beach, his heavy jacket keeping the chill of a Freedom City spring off his body. He was out of costume today, resting after a long morning with his mother. He knew his mother was sick, knew it in that twisting place inside of him that all the good intentions in the world couldn't fix, and it was a bad feeling. His mom had done some bad stuff, but that had been because she had problems, not because she had a problem. Whatever had happened, Martha Lucas was still his mom. And that was good, because she needed a friend. He skipped stones for a while, his mind wandering as he in fact lost track of why he was on the beach at all. The ocean made him think of Nina these days, his girlfriend having gone back to Socotra for Typhoon's birthday celebration. Nina wasn't exactly a conventional girl, either, but she was still his girl. Maybe he needed to do more things for her....

January 15, 2013 Blackstone Prison With rumors of clandestine Terminus activity circulating through the city, it was only natural that the Freedom League wanted to interrogate their most high-level Terminus prisoner...and only natural that the most experienced expert on the Terminus would be part of the interrogation. Steve was waiting for Gabriel when the latter arrived on Blackstone Island, standing near the outer perimeter fence in a suit and tie and looking as menacing as any of the prisoners inside. "Good morning, Gabriel," said the former drone, his expression hard to read as he faced an imminent reunion with the monster who had destroyed his life. "Thank you for calling me on this case." With a faint smile, he cocked his hand towards the outer gate where the 'blackguards' were watching attentively at the arrival of the famous Gabriel. "They thought I should wait for you to actually go below. It seems I set off the security system." - Down below, in the ultra-high-security wing where the clone of Shadivan Steelgrave was currently sleeping in his cell, the man in the cell opposite was whistling. Miss Americana had been called in to repair a very high security, albeit damaged computer system; the tough, albeit rigid, circuits inside the cell's door control, among the most high-security in the entire facility and a restricted design trusted to only a few super-geniuses, had fractured into pieces like broken glass the night before. Only a backup system had kept the big impervium door blocking his cell from sliding right up and out of the way. "Yeah, 37042 thinks he's funny that way," Officer McInnis was telling Miss Americana, the stocky blonde rolling her eyes with a guard's amused distaste for a persistent prisoner. "Courts say we can't actually stifle him if he's not attacking people with his sonic powers, and he's been in here long enough to know the score. Nothing says we can't put you in solitary, though, does it 37042? " she called, rapping on the impervium with her billy club and making the whistling stop. "No pretty girls like me and Miss A to look at in there!" The only response was a single, defiant wolf whistle and a wordless grumbling that finally lapsed into silence.

Now, while Alex had been genuinely busy - running a corporation, planning a wedding and tackling post-college course work WAS a full workload - she'd put off this particular visit deliberately. Oh, it wasn't the first leg to visit Erin that she had quietly been dreading. No, her available hang-out time had been genuinely eaten into by countless obligations. The second leg, to visit Erin's alter-ego in prison - that was not a visit Alex had ever wanted to take. She had hoped, despite the odds, that one of the other counselors could undo the machinations of Pathos. Really, it would have been better for Singularity herself as Alex's visible appearance was not one that was going to help at all, but so far no one had made any significant headway. Alex wasn't surprised, but she was saddened. She looked not much different than she had at graduation when she knocked on the door of the manor Erin was sharing with her boyfriend. Her bright red hair was pulled back in a simple tail that made her look younger and for once she wasn't dressed for the office. No, it was Old Alex, with her brightly colored clashing sneakers and tank top, a light jacket covering her slim shoulders. The only jewelry she wore was the bright engagement ring and as a nod to adult hood, small hoops in her ears. In her off hand, she held a simple closed portfolio and the smile she gave Erin when the door opened was bright and beaming, despite the faint shadows under her eyes. Alex had been burning the midnight oil a lot lately. "Erin! I'm sorry that it took a necessary errand to get me to come visit but how are you?" Alex started talking the moment the door was open. She'd already knew who was on the other side, of course.

Simultaneously with the moment Young Freedom met Talos... Earth-Prime Detention It all happened shockingly fast. One minute they were all in their cells in this bizarre , soft little freakshow of a world, cooling their heels or raging over their imprisonment, bound by unbreakable snare, nullifying fields, or simply encapsulated in unfamiliar bodies that didn't do exactly what they wanted. A moment later, with a crack of light and noise, the electronic doors on every cell shorted out, and automatically rolled up. Outside the doors, in the corridor that connected them all, stood their fierce, fearless leader of the Young Imperial, a cocky smile on his goateed face, the unconscious body of a young woman face down at his feet, blood leaking from her covered nose and mouth. "GENTLEMEN!" Hex gave a terrible, evil laugh. "It seems that I have...gotten lucky with this one. Bwahahahaha! Come, let us make our escape and return to the land of civilization. Once, that is, we retrieve our other friend. The one who the poor, poor little Lor girl here was keeping sedated."

Empire City, Anti-Earth Singularity woke when the lights rose in her compartment, but she didn't move from her bunk. It was impossible to tell what might be lurking in the brilliant white light that stung and dazzled her eyes. Still motionless on her stomach, she opened her eyes to slits and waited for them to adjust. The voices were quiet for now, which was a welcome relief. When it was quiet and she was alone, she could remember what had happened to her, that her family was dead and her world was dead and she was trapped here in hell. Those were the good days. She could think on those days, make rudimentary plans for escape or for suicide, though nothing had worked out so far. She couldn't remember how many times she'd tried or how long she had been here. There was no time in hell. For now, there were no other people either, so she sat up in her bunk and wiped her face.

In the universe next door, On Anti-Earth, Claremont Academy is known simply as "The Academy." (When you say that name in Empire City, everyone knows what you're talking about.) The students there are petty godlings drunk on power, young superhumans taught to believe that they are the natural masters of humanity and that the unfortunate regular people of Empire City and the world are there as their pawns and slaves. (However, the Academy doesn't actually discriminate against well-trained young killers, as seen in their most famous recent graduate Tyranny Syndicate member Black Bowman.) Cruel students are encouraged in their cruelty by their harsh taskmasters, decency and humanity discouraged by positive example and negative punishment. Compassion for the weak is a terrible embarrassment liable to fetch you a beating, or worse, from older 'cadets' or your teachers, most of them minor Syndicate members bitterly jealous of their usually more powerful students. The bold student can retaliate against a particularly brutal teacher, but falling beneath the watchful gaze of the drunken, lecherous Fletcher Beaumont II would be a mistake for even the most powerful student. Disobeying the orders of those higher in the Syndicate is a crime punishable in variously unpleasant ways. The most famous cadet team at the Academy is the Next-Syn, formerly headed by the Black Bowman himself and now commanded by Bolt, the spoiled, vicious son of Captain Thunderbolt himself. Bolt is the son of the head of the Tyranny Syndicate and plans to succeed his father there someday, hopefully after the older Ray Gardner retires. But there are other cadet teams at the Academy, organized by ambitious young students determined that they will be the next generation of masters of the world. The newest of these teams is the Young Imperials, headed by Hex, aka Mark Mason Lucas. A group of murderers, thieves, and outright bastards, the Young Imperials are a team with spectacular ambition and a whole lot to prove. And they don't care who gets in their way. Hex: Mark Lucas is the son of a slave and the grandson of a slave. Oh, that wasn't how they billed themselves. To hear him tell it, Jimmy Lucas had been an early member of the Praetor's gang, a loyal toady and supplicant who'd risen on the coattails of the Golden Age Syndicate into a position of wealth, power, and esteem. A generation later, Rick Lucas had been the Praetor's right-hand man, acting as his eyes and ears all over the world as the Syndicate broke the back of their world's few heroes and assumed near-total behind the scenes control. Rick was no fool, though, and when Captain Thunderbolt assassinated the Praetor and his people took over, Rick unhesitatingly took an oath of allegiance to the new regime. After all, he had a son to take care of: and this one he planned to acknowledge as his own. Mark hated his father. And he hated his grandfather, too, for the spineless, powerless, weak little men they'd been. The more the boy learned about history, growing up and watching his father bow and scrape to Captain Thunderbolt and his goons, the more he grew to hate his family and the weak nothings that they were. His family's power was the power of favored pets and slaves, nothing but a legacy of shame and disgrace. When he started as a student at the Academy, it wasn't as a cadet: he was in training to be a favored servant, a minion and goon like any other non-powered student who hadn't been training in combat his whole life. Fuming in his disgust, Mark worked, a brooding, spiteful boy whose anger finally exploded out onto the scene the day William Polsky's chest caved in. The other cadets had been gathered around and watching as Polsky abused and heckled the janitor-trainee on the steps of the Doom Room, the training yard where prisoners of the Syndicate were put to use as test subjects and targets for various student activities. Polsky wasn't a bad boy, really, but he was determined to win respect from his peers by picking on a much-despised "zip." And so it happened that Mark gathered up all his rage at the ill fortune of the world, focused in on William Polsky, and stopped the boy's heart dead in its tracks. That was something; when Fletcher Beaumont II personally appeared to welcome Mark into the Academy track...well, that was something else. Mark was a "luck vampire" for lack of a better word, a young man able to suck the good fortune from others and use it for his own nefarious purposes. He used his powers to pass a test; a car crashed nearby. He dropped a tank on agents of LIGHT? A school burned down nearby. Still deeply jealous of the spoiled children of power like Bolt who mocked him when he was nothing but a slave, Mark used his charisma and stolen good luck to build a team of his own; a team that would one day let him sit and rule where his father stood and waited, that will one day let him be served where once his grandfather was a servant. He hasn't spoken to his parents since the day his powers manifested. (Hex's costume is identical to Edge's, with the exception that he is red where Edge is yellow and black where Mark is blue.)