Amelia

It seems like, more often than not, it takes the rednames a few days after the beginning of the month to get a new Active Threads thread set up. But I know that some players like me prefer to keep a personal real-time up-to-date running total from Day One. That's what I'm using this post for. Feel free to add a comment here if you want to do the same. GM: 0 GM posts = 0 IC posts [None] Dirge: 0 IC posts = 0PP [None] Mister Strix: 0 IC posts = 0PP [None] Octoman: 2 IC posts = 1PP It's Me, Daystar (1) Tech Compliance (1) Persephone: 2 IC posts = 1PP, +1PP Guide = 2PP Even The Mere Reports of Such (1) Thy Golden Stair (1)

Persephone When she felt Cheval's hand on her, Persephone reached up without looking. His hand was just starting to leave her skin before her hand grabbed it and forced it back down. She looked up at him and smiled warmly as her hand squeezed his hand around her shoulder. But the smile fell from her face when she glanced back down at the tree stump and the horrors it had shown her flooded back into her thoughts. Now it was the green woman's turn to place her hands on Cheval's arm and back, doing her best to steady him despite the extra thirty pounds he had on her. "Whoa there, Cowboy! Are you alright?" "I remember you mentioning some ruckus with the spirit world on Croczilla Night. Was this anything like that?" "You don't need to tell ME twice, Sugar. This whole setup ALREADY has me more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room fulla rockin' chairs." The green woman waved and smiled weakly at the robot girl. "Hey there, Sweetie! Don't worry, nobody's been waitin' long. Except Speed-Demon, he probably ran a few hundred laps around the place before any of us showed up." She turned the same weak smile at the young man and winked, but as soon as she looked away, the smile crumbled. Persephone couldn't help but try to keep everyone's spirits up in the face of whatever bloody tragedy awaited them, but she knew before she started how futile it would be. "Somethin' mighty awful happened here. We're just trying to figure out what." Persephone let her glance drift slowly and nervously back to the abandoned vehicle. She took a deep breath and then crept toward it. "I don't think this belonged to anyone on the renovation crew. I don't know much about construction workers, but my Momma's done some remodeling here and there, and I don't remember ever seeing one of those boys roll up in something like this. This looks more like something the owner of the house would drive..." She gulped, reached out to pull the already open door wider, and leaned her head in to have a look. The green woman, already tense, screamed and nearly jumped out of her skin when the explosion went off on the lawn behind her. "AHHH! WHAT IN TARNATION...?"

Yeah, I hear ya. I think at least one of the...thirty-seven browser tabs I got open right now is homework. Or at least homework-adjacent. Can't write your papers for you, sorry. Now, if you needed someone to hack into the school's database to change your grade directly...nah, just kidding. (OR AM I?) 10AM, Sunday...I'm usually in bed by then, but I might make an exception. PEACE. P.S.: You'd make a really good nurse.

Octoman Ben pressed the button and...nothing happened. After a few moments of dead air, he leaned in and squinted at his laptop monitor. "...RIGHT." He glanced back up at Heroditus. "So this is probably gonna take a few minutes to compile. Guess I kinda jumped the gun on the whole dramatic unveiling thing." He leaned in closer to the young Atlantean and whispered. "And until it's done, mum's the word, capisce? Like they always say, easier to get forgiveness than permission, eh?" He elbowed Heroditus in the side and winked at him, before tapping a button on his keyboard which brought up a screen-saver (and would demand a password to access the computer again). "No peeking!" Ben sniffed and turned around when he picked up the scent of ozone. He caught some of Micah's speech and the related chatter, enough to put a partial picture together of the conversation he'd been missing. He leaned in to whisper to Heroditus again. "OK, see, your competition not getting everything he needs to do his thing, your winner-take-all, all's fair in love and war type, they'd probably try ta EXPLOIT this little turn of events. But me? Nah. I'm CLASSY. Dig this." He more or less jumped into the middle of the fray, landing next to Leroy, leaning his arm on the young man's shoulder. He held up his other hand to wave off Micah. "Whoa whoa WHOA, everybody CHILL. Now I know 'BLACK HOLE' sounds scary as hell, I seen the same movies as you guys, but correct me if I'm wrong, quantum astrophysics isn't really my jam, you know me, I'm more of the leet-haxor type, but hey, after I burned through Cyber Crimes Netflix suggested Cosmos and I let it play in the background like ya do, and I seem to remember hearing that most of 'em..." He pinched his thumb and index finger together. "...Teeny-TINY little balls o' NUTHIN', and like a DOZEN of 'em go a-ziggin' and a-zaggin' through this here ground we're all standin' on every single DAY without any of us the wiser. I know Prince Akheem here's got a spare Planet Earth in his back pocket, but I don't think that means he's gonna blow up THIS one, ya feel me?" He tapped his palm a couple of times against Leroy's chest.

Status check! I think I'm, if not the most recent post, then one of the most recent ones. So I was probably waiting for others.

@Tiffany Korta Checking in because it's been 9 IC posts (including one GM post) since OctoBen basically flipped the "ON" switch. Does anything come of his attempt to turn the cube of programmable matter into the seat of an artificial intelligence? Does he need to make any rolls?

Reflex save (DC19): 21.

I corrected and revised the 3-sheet build here. I used the Metamorph power feat on the Morph power to give her two "alternate powers" for her entire character sheet. That turned out to be much more simple than trying to make an Alternate Form array. Keep in mind that you can only change forms once per round. Using Metamorph is just like reconfiguring a power array, just with your whole sheet. Each sheet is fairly straightforward. They're all just powerhouse builds, strong and tough and Immune to a lot of things. All three of them are equally strong, equally heavy, have the same Super-Senses, and have most of the same skills and feats (the larger forms have extra Stealth ranks to buy off the size penalty, and the vehicle form gets extra Swim ranks in boat form). But each one has a slightly different flavor to it. The "human" form is, of course, human-sized, but it's super-heavy. The idea is that her larger forms have literally been condensed. So it has Density. Lots of Density. Among other things, that gives her a fair amount of Impervious Toughness, and I added more ranks and gave it the +Reflective extra. Not only does she automatically save against any damage lower than her Impervious rank (at 10, that's basically anything less than a bazooka), but she bounces that damage back. A goon who punches her will probably break his hand, and blades and bullets will shatter when they hit her. The logic is that, unlike the larger forms, everything's packed in tight in her human form, so she doesn't have "crumple zones". It's your choice whether or not she's like a Terminator, with a layer of skin that would get damaged, exposing metal underneath (that could be worth a 1PP Noticeable power drawback), or if her "skin" is some sort of super-tough synthetic that wouldn't even get scratched. She's not as good at grappling in human form, because she doesn't get those Growth size bonuses. The human form is the least mobile. She has almost no movement power, just one rank each of Leaping and Speed (she's a super-strong robot who doesn't get tired), and she's too heavy to swim at all. Being human-sized will let this form get into places that the larger forms couldn't access, but her weight will probably still be an issue. Don't think of this as a bad thing. When a GM messes with you, what they're really doing is giving your character the spotlight. Stuff like Density is a quick and easy way to get plot attention. The giant robot form takes up more space than the human form, isn't any more mobile, and because its body isn't as tightly packed together, it doesn't have the Imperviousness, but since it's bigger, it has a longer reach and it's better at grappling. The vehicle form is just as big and strong as the giant robot form, and it's a lot more mobile, but the lack of hands limits what she can do with her strength. In combat, there isn't much more the vehicle form can do other than move around fast and hit people (just an unarmed attack, no need to complicate it). Most often, you'll probably use the vehicle form to get where you need to be, then change to one of the humanoid forms to actually fight. Or you'll pick someone up while you're in another form, then change into vehicle form so that they're now inside you, and then take off. I tweaked the Vehicular Movement array as well: Ground Movement: The books list all normal cars/motorcycles/etc. at Speed 5 (250MPH). Agents of Freedom provides a new piece of Equipment, a Nitro Boost, which temporarily adds +1 Speed (500MPH), but makes the car harder to control. Torque's ground vehicle form has Speed 6 with perfect control and no time limit, along with 2 ranks of Super-Movement (Sure-Footed) to deal with movement penalties from rough terrain (fancy tires/suspension/etc.). So she's going to win any car chases she gets into. Water Movement: The books give the fastest speedboats Swimming 5 (50MPH). She has Swimming 6 (100MPH). Still not as fast as the fastest torpedoes, which have Swimming 7, but faster than any other aquatic vehicles. So she's also going to win any boat chases. Air Movement: Flight 5 (250MPH) puts her at equal speed with other helicopters, and slower than any jet. So while this mode gives her the greatest mobility, letting her move in three dimensions, any air-chases will be neck-and-neck. Some other tweaks I made: I made the Morph effect Continuous-duration, so if she's KO'd, she stays in whatever form she was in, instead of reverting to her default form. She had one rank invested in enough Int-based skills that it was cheaper for her to just get another point of Int bonus and Jack of All Trades instead, so I made that swap. That +5 Int now gives her +5 in every Craft and Knowledge skill. Robot-brain. I gave her a Disability drawback that took away her olfactory sense, since she's a machine now and she eats inorganic matter. It makes sense conceptually, but really I just needed to squeeze out another point. I gave her Speed of Thought, because her Int bonus is higher than her Dex bonus. I gave her Takedown Attack, so she can beat up whole groups of minions at once. The larger forms get more use out of this, since they have a longer reach, especially the vehicle form which also has the faster movement. I gave her another rank of Luck, because Hero Points are good. She could use a third one, but I couldn't think of anything to drop for it. It's your character, so obviously you should feel free to tweak things as you see fit. Keep in mind, though, that the three sheets should be consistent with each other, and any tweaks to one sheet should make sense in the context of the other two. For example, since she has the same mind and training in all three forms, it wouldn't make sense to give one form a Knowledge skill that the other two didn't have. That sort of thing probably wouldn't get approved.

Let me know if anyone wants to get one last IC post in before I move things forward to the shelter (or if one of you wants to go somewhere else while Strix heads over there).

Mister Strix The man in white growled that caged tiger's growl that Dead Head had heard so many times already it barely phased him anymore. He stormed out of the now-empty cell. "I'll send someone down here with a broom. And a zipper bag. The ashes might come in handy someday. Ritual component, something like that. Probably not infectious like their blood, but still, not something we want someone inhaling. I'm going upstairs to grab a shower and a new uniform." He glanced down at his torn and blood-soaked jumpsuit. "It's safety, not vanity. I should have scrubbed up and thrown this damned thing into the incinerator the second I got home, instead of tracking this crap up and down the house. I'm a walking bio-hazard. We leave for the shelter as soon as I'm done. Horus and the brat are probably there already." He started stomping off, his footsteps as strangely silent as ever, but then he stopped, and looked halfway back over his shoulder. "Thank you." He turned his gaze to the hallway in front of him, his back to Dead Head. "I didn't want to kill them. Too many bodies on my conscience already. Too many ghosts following me everywhere I go. But I would have killed them, if you hadn't been here to save them. Thank you."

GM When Mister Strix first entered Roberto Hernandez's cell, Hernandez growled and hissed as he had with Dead Head. But as Strix got closer, Hernandez sniffed the air, and studied him. And he started laughing. It was a deep, gravelly laugh, like stone scraping against stone, like he was clearing his throat but it couldn't get clear. The laughter was barely stifled when Strix's fingers clamped down around his neck and squeezed. He was still laughing when Strix ripped his head off. Both the head and the body crumbled into ash almost instantly, the destruction radiating out in both directions from what remained of the creature's neck. Those red eyes were still glaring into Strix's black ones and that fanged maw was still laughing as they disintegrated in Strix's hand. Strix felt as though he could still hear the laughter for several moments after Roberto Hernandez's corpse ceased to exist. The essence of the Red Death infection that Dead Head pulled out of the second victim dissipated as quickly as the first had once he'd pulled it out of the mortal's body.

Mister Strix While Dead Head attended to the second infected "patient", the man in white turned around and walked into the other cell where Roberto Hernandez was strapped down. No. Not Hernandez. The thing that killed Hernandez. The evil disgusting thing that's wearing the face of the man it killed so it can go out there into the night and do it again, and again, and again, and it will not stop, it will not stop. Even shielding his eyes behind his cape, he had to fight to walk past the silver bars of the cell, like he was pushing past the incoming tide to walk into the ocean. He reached down with one hand to grab Hernandez's throat, bracing against it for leverage. His other hand closed around the top of Hernandez's head like a mechanical vise. You're a terrible teacher, Johann. But I must admit, I have learned a thing or two. In one fluid motion, Strix yanked hard enough to snap Hernandez's neck in half and tear his head free from his shoulders.

Oh man. Oh wow. This is...a lot like mine, actually! Not, like, the part where it looks like I have a buncha giant worms crawling around inside me, but your deck's shuffled like mine is, and you got some cards missing too. "Alien DNA?" NICE. That's a good one. Makin' just ONE backstory, that's amateur hour. Nah, a real pro makes LAYERS. Anyone pulls back that first layer, there's gotta be somethin' else beneath it, so they THINK they got the truth, and they stop digging. Double-bluff action. I read a lot of detective novels, I know the score. Sure, "alien DNA", I'll play along. Wink wink. Me, I gotta eat (OH MAN DO I GOTTA EAT) and sleep (doesn't matter how much Blue Ox I drink), and even not wearin' clothes, I still get hot. But I don't get cold. Honestly, since I got all mutated, the best night's sleep I've had? Bathtub. Water feels great, nice and cool. I got full-on gills, so I can breathe down there, and I'm squishy, so I can just kinda fold myself up and get my snooze on. Not really practical, though. Figure most people would be grossed out using a shower some sea-monster slept in all night. Getting up early every morning to scrub it down would be a real hassle. The parents would freak out if they caught me doing it back home, and I'm pretty sure the R.A.s here would snitch on me to Summers. Had enough of her busting my balls for one year, no thanks. Could maybe get away with it if I could stay invisible while I'm asleep, but I can't. None of the shapeshifting holds if I'm not awake. That's why they roomed me with Dave. He's the only kid in school who can see what I look like when I wake up in the morning without throwing up, 'cause he looks just as bad. And I like to sleep in. Real night owl, obvs. Real talk, I'm not even sure "souls" are a THING. Some scientists say everything we think of as our "mind" is just, like, a by-product of the stuff our brains do, and stuff like "souls" and "ghosts" that telepaths pick up on are just, like, ECHOES. If THAT's true, then not only is the whole religion thing just a buncha fairy tales, but that would mean that we ARE just our bodies. I dunno. I don't WANT that to be true, especially not with MY body, but I just...I dunno. Most people just don't wanna think about it. But my parents taught me to ASK questions like that, not HIDE from 'em. Their faith is, like, INFORMED faith, not "stick-your-fingers-in-your-ears LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" faith. I got to fight Bankowski once, but it was before he got his powers. I mean, the powers he's got NOW. He had powers THEN too, but different ones. It's a whole THING. That first fight, I don't like it, but I gotta call it a draw. We were neck and neck. Someone else came in and broke the tie, he went to jail, doctors said he was gonna die, it didn't take. Now his poor ex-wife and kids are in Witness Protection. I want a rematch, and I've been keeping an eye out, but I haven't been able to find him yet. I'm busy with school half the time. He's always gone by the time I get there. Try to track him, the trail just DISAPPEARS after a while. Scent doesn't WORK that way. I can tell what kind of sandwich my teacher had for breakfast two days ago and retrace his steps back to the food cart where he bought it, but I can't bloodhound THIS loser. I've tried to crack his ByteCash wallets or DDOS his vlogs or SOMETHING, but his cyber-security's rock-solid. No WAY that meathead can even remember his own passwords, dude's probably got sticky notes taped to his phone, but whoever he's got doing his tech support, they got MAD skills. I've pulled off some righteous cracks before, but I can't even put a dent in this dude's stuff. I promised those kids they'd be safe, and I'm lettin' 'em down. Some superhero, amirite?

Mister Strix The man in white nodded at the zombie. "Agreed." The otherworldly echo returned to his voice. The kid likes you better anyway. That's the problem with becoming a scary guy: You don't get to pick and choose who you scare. His fist clenched around the diamond necklace. "If Pfeffner survived whatever..." He raised an eyebrow. "...Whatever...'Grim'...'Diddle?' ...Whatever he did to him...then he's probably in an ambulance on his way to Bedlam General right now, or he's already there. But that won't last. As soon as his family finds out, he'll get transferred to Beth-El in Stone Ridge, just like Ashley. One-stop shopping. I'll head straight there, return this to her, see if...if there's anything I can do for her...then I'll wait there for you and Loverboy. We need to have a little chat with him. About his extra-curricular activities. And we need to inform him that this," he lifted his fist, causing the thin gold chain to sway beneath it, "Doesn't belong to him anymore. And neither does she."

Octoman Octoman smiled, nodded, tapped his fist against his chest twice in rapid succession, and then held it out to Spectre for a bump. With his other hand, he pointed two fingers at her, then at his own eyes, then at her again. "Real talk?" he asked as he glanced around the room. "I kinda dig the whole AESTHETIC he's got goin' on here. Not, like, the Leisure Suit Larry vibe he's WEARIN', but the crib's pretty tight. Think I'm gonna get some Christmas lights for our room after we get outta here. I don't think the roomie'll mind, he's pretty chill. Unless it turns out he's got, like, some kinda light-vulnerability, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." His tentacles slipped free from his body, stretched out, and started sliding across every surface in the room, searching for openings. "Unless Saturday Night Fever up there made his little dungeon water-tight like a frog's butt-hole, there's gotta be some crack I can slip through. Don't wanna bust up any of these lights, though. The gas inside 'em isn't gonna, like, poison us DIRECTLY, but we can't breathe it either, and it doesn't look like it's got anywhere ta go. So the more of it we let loose floating around in here, the less room there is for the stuff we CAN breathe."

Octoman The white eyes of Octoman's mask squinted until they were practically closed as the toxic gas washed over him. The thousands of suckers lining his tentacles squeezed closed and the tentacles themselves flailed around wildly. He tried to keep his mouth shut as he coughed and gagged. He flinched when he looked up to see the flaming girl launch herself at Soliton. Aw man, she's gonna get fried, and I'm gonna check out like some sad old dude sittin' in the garage with the engine runnin', unless... He glanced frantically around him. Unless... His eyes widened when he looked down and saw a fire hydrant within arm's reach. His eyes grew wide again. IDEA. Octoman looked back up at the smog-boy, smiled, and kicked his foot out to the side, knocking the fire hydrant free from the concrete and unleashing a geyser upon the street. The water rushed up and over the traffic light he'd been swinging from moments ago, and rained back down onto Octoman's head, drenching him instantly. Then he dropped to a crouch, then expelled a burst of air out of the orifices in his hands and feet to launch himself into the air. He breathed deep once he'd cleared the smog-boy's cloud. Having no idea that the fire-girl had already used the dance metaphor, he shouted "MIND IF I CUT IN?!" as his tentacles all lashed out at her, wrapping around her body dozens of times. The water on the tentacles evaporated into steam instantly, and the rubbery skin on the tentacles began to audibly sizzle. "OW OW OW I AM SO ANGRY WITH MYSELF RIGHT NOW!" Octoman's face twisted into a grimace as he heaved his tentacles downward, smashing the teen down onto the ground, directly into the geyser. "Ahhh" he sighed involuntarily as the ice-cold water spraying up from the hole in the street soothed the burnt skin of his coiled pseudopods. "Hey, I'm still usin' it ta put out a fire, so, like, it doesn't count as property damage, right?"

Toughness save against the DC23 Damage Aura: 27. EDIT: I rolled at +8 because I assumed his +2 from Defensive Roll wouldn't count for this.

Octoman "Sad?" Ben laughed. "You mispronounced AWESOME. You know how many people SAW that fight? MID-DAY LUNCH RUSH. Half the CITY saw me get back up after THAT poundin', saw me out there swingin' up and down the streets kickin' ass and takin' names THE NEXT DAY. That fight MADE my rep, Chica." Jab, jab, punch. Duck. Weave. "'More training?' Girl PLEASE, I been doin' this since I was in SECOND GRADE. Besides, dude had powers. Had ta throw him through a couple'a buildings ta soften him up." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, though probably still louder than he thought, and he leaned in closer to Judy. "Weird seein' YOU down here, though. I mean, it's not like you need exercise, right? And I'm kinda surprised you didn't know this stuff already. I woulda figured it'd be, y'know, part of the package? They just worried you'd, like, REBEL or something? Someone's seen too many movies, am I right? And that's comin' from ME!" What're they THINKIN'?! I DAMN SURE never woulda built a robot-girl without teachin' her how ta fight. Not in a post-Doc-Otaku world.

Free Action: Octoman uses Extra Effort for an additional standard action this round. Reaction: Octoman spends a Hero Point to edit the scene and establish that he happens to be standing next to a fire hydrant. Standard Action: Octoman kicks the fire hydrant he's standing next to, dislodging it from the street and turning it into a free-flowing geyser. Assuming you have objects take 10 on Toughness saves like they normally do, "stone" is Toughness 5, so the sidewalk around the hydrant gets a 15, and Octoman's +10 Strength is DC25 damage, so it fails by 10 and is Disabled, which should be enough to put a hole where the hydrant used to be. The hydrant itself is either iron or steel, Toughness 8 or 10, so it only suffers an Injury. Full Action: Octoman attempts to grapple and "throw" the burning kid, as part of a Charge (Leaping for the movement). I put "throw" in quotes because he's grabbing her with his tentacles and, while he's throwing her full-force, he's not planning on actually letting go of her. The tentacles are long enough to keep ahold of her even after she's gone the distance. Since he's Charging, that's +2 to this attack, but -2 Defense until his action next round. He'll also All-Out Attack for another +2 attack / -2 Defense, and Accurate Attack for +2 Attack / -2 Damage. He can do a 125ft vertical jump from a standing start, and his tentacles are elongated to 250ft, so if she's within 375ft of the ground, he should be good. But his tentacles have a range increment of 60ft, so if she's further away than 185ft, he'll take some range penalties. Attack roll: 24. If that hits, then, I assume he'll have to make some kind of saving throw against her fire aura. Grapple check: 40. If he wins the opposed grapple check, then he throws her directly down into the geyser. Presumably, that also means she smacks into the street around the hole, which would be a DC25 Toughness save for her and for the street, from his +10 throwing damage. The street would, as before, fail by 10 and be Disabled, so she'd leave a crater or punch a hole or something, whatever you'd wanna do. The main idea, though, is to try to counter her powers, assuming that's possible. Unless you want to handle it some other way, the usual mechanic is an opposed power check (or a Will save for her, whichever is higher), with the water having whatever effective power rank you see fit to assign it. He's down a Hero Point, he's at Defense +6 (DC16) until his next action, and he'll be Fatigued at the start of his next action.

Octoman Ben didn't seem tired at all. He was barely sweating as he continued to throw punches into the air. Despite the bags under his red-rimmed eyes that he hadn't bothered to airbrush away with his shapeshifting, the proof that he had indeed been awake all night, his reaction time was still lightning-quick and he didn't seem any more distracted than usual. Apparently superhuman stamina was part of the Octoman package. "Oh man, no lies detected. Ragin' Bull here givin' you the straight dope. First super-criminal I ever ran into, you know I flinched when the dude started poundin' my head into the pavement like he was tryin' ta hammer a nail through it. Dude broke my rhythm, yeah, and my face. If I had any bones left, woulda broken those too. I mean, I got better, obvs. But ya gotta feel sorry for the guys who hadta hose my blood off the asphalt. That stuff's thick, and I don't mean the fun kind. Man, you ever notice how a lot of my stories end with me lyin' in the middle of the street in a pool of my own blood? What's up with that? Oh hey, sick tats."

Reflex save: 22.

Persephone "Oh no." The green woman shuddered at the montage of horrors embedded in the tree's memory. God forgive us. "Someone died here." Persephone rose to her feet and turned back to the other Defenders. No, don't say it like that. Don't dance around it. It didn't just happen to them. Someone DID IT to them. She rubbed her eyes and temples, as though the mental images were a spot of grime she could wipe off with her fingers. "Someone was...KILLED here. Recently. And, I think...painfully. We should all be careful. None of us should go anywhere by ourselves. Everyone should stay in sight of at least one other teammate at all times until we get a handle on this. Seems like we have one missing person already. No sense in adding more."

Persephone "I'll see if the plants have anything to say." The green woman slowly meandered across browning grass over to a tree stump, all that remained of a mighty old oak which had once loomed over the front yard. The stump wasn't dead, but it was dying. The cut was clean, definitely made by human hands, but the wood inside had withered. The hurricane had probably snapped the trunk in half, or at least damaged it to the point where it was going to fall if it wasn't cut down instead. Landscapers were probably already scheduled to uproot the stump any day now, so a new, young, whole tree could be planted in its place, a situation more than one resident of this neighborhood could probably sympathize with. Persephone knelt down beside the stump and rested a hand atop it, rubbing it in a circular motion along its rings. "Hey there, Sweetie. Poor thing, you've seen some hard times, haven't you? Got anything to show me?" Using the stump as a focal point to keep herself centered, and as a springboard from which to jump, she pushed outward in all directions with her mind, sifting through the memories of the local flora, searching for anything relevant to the current circumstances.

Octoman As he'd boarded the bus, Ben Wang quickly flipped over so that he was walking on the ceiling. "What up Squaddies! I mean, other than me..." He made his way to the back, greeting each student he passed with the usual grin, pair of finger-guns, and some kind of nickname. "Lara Croft!" "Bowsette!" "Libby!" "Shape o' Water!" "Johnny Cash Junior!" When the driver insisted that he couldn't sit on the ceiling while the vehicle was in motion, he rolled his eyes and dropped down into a seat with a loud sigh. As soon as the bus doors opened, one of Ben's tentacles shot out from the back seats, making a *SPLAT* noise as it stuck to the inner windshield. The tentacle retracted in an instant, yanking Ben to the front of the bus in the blink of an eye and nearly decapitating anyone who'd peeked around their seat to look. He skipped the staircase, bounding out directly onto the ground. "I LOVE THE SMELL OF NATURE IN THE MORNING!" He turned back to the bus and clapped his hands together. "Move it, Peeps! Stuff ta see and things ta do, chop chop, forward march, a-holes an' elbows! We don't wanna miss feedin' time! Squirtle's gonna do a monch, and it's gonna be super-effective! I read on the way here they'll eat whatever you put in front of 'em as long as it's not moving! Veggies, roadkill, even other turtles! You thought they were vegans, turns out they're just lazy!" He turned back toward the zoo, tapped a fist against his chest, and pointed. "Yo, I can relate. I feel ya." He turned back to the bus and stood off to one side of the doors. "Hey, I'm that guy who's always standing next to the helicopter in war movies. 'GO GO GOOO!!!'"