Huckleberry

Rot Consuelo gasps violently for breath as she lies plastered to the beach. "I didn't breath any water Zuki. Didn't breath any water." She gasps several more times with her head up before flopping it down to the sand in utter exhaustion. "So weird, so weird. I didn't know which way was up. Is that normal? Who knows which way I was going . . . . " "¡Dios mio!" Examination reveals that Consuelo is fine, just really shaken up.

So, Ruin gets a 20 for her escape attempt. With Skill Mastery, she will have an automatic 25 for concentration.

Consuelo spent every free moment of the intervening time with her colored pencils. She's bringing along the book she made, try to to help Ashley understand.

So, since in the house rules, escaping is a move action, Ruin should really use her move action to try to escape, then use her standard action to disintegrate . . . if she can pass a DC 20 concentration check - right?

I noticed in the house rules it is suggested to use a DC 20 concentration check to escape using a power. Are you saying now that also applies to damage the person grappling the character with a power?

Alright, Consuelo will help Bernadette keep a hold on Ruin, which I believe will give Multi-Girl a +2 to her Grappling checks. Ruin will forgo grappling and try to area effect disintegrate Multi-Girl . . . which brings up the question: what about the Reflex save for Bernadette? Can she make a reflex save vs an area effect while grappling Ruin? I have a vague recollection of reading something about a character that can move can make a reflex save. So I guess Bernadette could move by either letting go of Ruin or making an opposed strength check to drag her with her? Not sure about the rules here, could use some help. Either way, it would be a rank 8 toughness drain and a rank 8 damage against Bernadette. The Albright employee (whose name is Carnelia) will be running off to try to get more help, which I'll describe IC after the rolls are resolved.

Rot Nothing was making sense to Consuelo. Am I almost to the other end of the pool? Wait, no, I'm in the ocean. Her head hurt. She wanted to breath so bad. No, no! I'm underwater! Just keep swimming! It wasn't just a shadow of a person Mizuki saw near the outcrop. It was a person surrounded in shadows, with eerily glowing green eyes. An aura of violence and cruelty reached out from the shadowy form, and the two green eyes glared like a demon. I'm dying! No, I won't die! I'll destroy this whole bay and reef, if it gets in my way, and everything swimming in it! That dolphin and everything else that swims. That swims . . . wait I know who swims. . . . The green glow disappears from the eyes, and the envelope of shadows dissolves to reveal Consuelo, reaching out to Mizuki. She looks weak, so very, very weak.

Rot "Right back atcha." Consuelo makes finger guns at Quirk in a gesture of mutual admiration. "Give me a jingle next time you feel like torturing Lawrence. Got a couple ideas I've been working up." SNAP Back to reality, the toy reindeer antlers that had somehow managed to stay on Rot's head all day so far finally succumb to her latent disintegration effect. SSSHPROING! Consuelo looks at their sad little remains on the Quad grounds. "Dang it! I miss those things already. Sure wish I coul un-disintegrate stuff. . . ." She looks up at her returned classmates. "Thanks for inviting me to your bumper car party, L-Dog. But next time, can we go somewhere a little bit warmer? My sweater is getting kinda, like, threadbare, you know?" "Mizuki, you're a real pal. I was rooting for you the whole time, by the way." She leans in close and whispers. "Between, like, you an' me, I think Lawrence might have cheated and used his powers. . . . Wait a minute - when did you change into cosplay? . . . Um . . . I mean I, uh, really like your new superhero outfit.. . ."

Rot It might be more than just Mizuki getting used to Rot's creepy aura. Ever since winter break, it seems like she's had it under better control. Sometimes even animals can stand to be around her. Not all the time. Those spooky, corrupted vibes seem to sneak back out whenever she gets upset. "Uh, my sponsor has given me, like, a dozen supersuits that don't disintegrate. None of them, like, float though. And . . . I don't technically have any idea who my sponsor even is . . . . I guess i could give one of my supersuits to, like, some other science guy . . . and maybe they could figure out what this stuff is . . . " And she snaps at the black lycra-like material her two-piece bodysuit is made from. Between the nearby islands surrounding this tiny one and the reef just offshore, the water at the beach is quite calm, and the slope is shallow. Humming to herself, Consuelo wades out a bit, flinching slightly upon entering the water. She splashes the water a bit, then looks back at the beach self-consciously, to see if anyone is watching and/or laughing at her. Confident that no one is explicitly standing there judging her, she sinks down onto her hands and knees and blows some bubbles. She motors around on all fours a bit like that, then goes for dunking her head. Then she pushes around with her feet on the sand, picking her arms up off the ground and relying on the converging hydrodynamic effect of her body in forward motion to keep her trunk in line. She gives a kickoff with her legs and tries a few flailing paddles with her arms. It's . . . neither graceful nor effective, and she gradually sinks over the course of a couple yards, standing up and shaking water out of her hair and blinking her eyes fiercely. She tries about six more times with similar results. "Yeah, that's kinda hard . . . I think I'm gonna take a break and just fly above the water for a bit . . . " Consuelo hovers horizontally about a foot above the water and begins to skim over the surface, looking down through the clear, tropical sea. After she's kept this up for a little while, she calls out. "Hey, there's a ton of colorful fish out here by this reef!" Consuelo takes a deep breath, holds it, and stops flying, to plunk into the water. Below the surface, it's a whole other world. Light is filtered, her dreadlocks start floating around. She can't believe the beautiful variety of shapes and colors of corral. Like a cork, she pops back up through the surface and into the air. "You guys! That was awesome!" She plunks back into the water to take another look. She does that a bunch of times. Bloop. Bloop. Bloop. The last time down, she sees something new. Holy Smokes! A dolphin! She can hear it clicking and chirping while it . . . tortures a small turtle. Hey! What're you doing with that turtle? Consuelo lamely frog-swims towards the dolphin with the little turtle. The dolphin drops the turtle, and Consuelo catches it. She laughs a little, then panics for breath. The turtle nips her a bit as she lets go, popping back up above the surface, sputtering. The dolphin porpoises back up out of the water, and Consuelo splashes at it. She gives chase, ducking down in the water when the dolphin does. The two bounce around out beyond the reef, apparently both having a great time. The dolphin dives down, and Consuelo follows after, using the momentum of her flight to chase it deep underwater. It zigs and zags. Consuelo tries to follow after, but her maneuverability is pretty limited, and she can't really keep up. It goes behind her and, by the time she turns around, she can't see it anymore. Giving up on catching it, she swims towards the surface. Or does she? Huh. Seems like I should be to the surface by now. Can't really see anything down here . . . Consuelo gets a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. Oh crap! Maybe I'm going the wrong way? She turned around and gave a kick and a few clumsy strokes. Oh crap! This doesn't look right either! Consuelo goes into full on panic. Her head starts to feel light, and she gets really confused. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!

Rot After several minutes of sustained pressing, the acceleration button and grips of Consuelo's gaming controller finally give way to the residual disintegration leaking out of her hands. She holds up the busted controller in disgust. "Ya see what I've got to work with here? Ya call this craftsmanship? Quirk, I think you need to fire all the monkeys working in your factory." Her go kart putters to a halt near the other racers. "Hey, why does everyone look so serious? You mad, Lawrence? Can't ya see that Quirk just Miyagi'd us? You know, like, wax on, wax off? He's a benevolent spirit of chaos whose only concern is for your welfare, obviously." She makes a healthy eye roll. She tosses the broken controller down on the ground. "So like, why are you such a prize, L-Dog?" She asks her time controlling classmate. "How come the, uh, guy in the bathrobe wants to trap you?"

A couple more guards have entered the room. Carmen can see them, but they haven't seen the heroes yet. Carmen can take a surprise round (hiding, attacking, etc.). After that, we'll roll for initiative.

The kids make it to the door and back out into the drizzly night. La Puma Negra takes a closer look at the rapidly spinning, hovering object, and wonders aloud why it's so important. "I really couldn't tell ya." Comments Rot. "Without the flashlights those kids were holding, I can't see a thing in here!" Carmen's keen hearing picks up the squeak of the inner door opening again. She sees two men come through the door. They appear to be holding assault rifles with lights below the barrels. They start to play their lights across the warehouse, but they haven't seen the heroes yet.

Rot Consuelo watches as the rest of the racers start to really pull away from her at the end. She looks down at her gaming controller as though it has betrayed her. What the heck is wrong with my acceleration button? "Quirk, I call foul! My controller's rigged." She watches as the Aries, the rearmost of her rapidly diminishing competitors, puts more pavement between them. Frickin' Aries! Who are these jokers Quirk keeps coming up with, anyway? "Grrr!" Dark shadows stream out from Rot towards the target of her ire. He doesn't appear to enjoy it, and slows down considerably, although not enough for Consuelo to catch up.

Well, Rot's not a speedster, so she'll just keep racing dirty. Try to disintegrate Ares. Lol, another nat 20, this time with a total roll of 27. Can't figure out what (if anything) to add for Lawrence's time warp field, so please add that for her drive check after, if necessary. Gets a 21 for her speed check.

Rot "I mean, if my parents were rich, I'd see if they could trace the phone. But they're not. So I think I might have just enough to buy a hoodie at the gift shop. Ooh! Maybe I can find something with an octopus!" Consuelo zips down the hallway to return a few minutes later, properly attired. "Whew! That was a close one! But don't worry - secret identity preserved!"

Rot Affecting breezy nonchalance, but clearly somewhat wiped out from her stunt, Consuelo holds up one finger and replies to Parker. "Right you are, Spaceman! My powers are all about destroying stuff. I simply un-destroyed my delicious spearmint gum." She stops and considers a bit. "All the little tiny, uh, bits of the gum were still, like, out there . . . somewhere. . . . I could like feel them, just barely, if I really held on. So I focused on that feeling of holding on and pushed and pushed, until I called all the tiny pieces of gum back. Then I had my gum again." She blows a little bubble, the kind you can blow with gum not really intended for bubble blowing. "Yup. That's about it." "Holy Smokes, Michael! You've got laser eyes! That's, uh, nice. . . . I wonder how Baz will feel about it? Just to be safe, try to not sprout any antennas!"

Rot "Gah! Ouch! Rah! What the freaking heck? You attack me by giving me a migraine? Of all the super-villain simulations I've had to smack down, you're making a good case for being the most annoying!" Feeling a little woozy, Consuelo shake the last of the phantasmal fire off her head and turns back to her attacker. "Mindfire, for crimes against my head, and for violation of the cosmic laws of fashion, I hereby banish you from the race!" Hungry shadows reach out from Rot towards Mindfire. They swirl around her, obscuring her from view. When the shadows dissipate, the super-villain is just gone - not even a shred of red and black latex is left behind.

Ok, will save for Rot: 23, just barely falling. I'll just keep that.

Rot Warmed now from her recent exit from the New Jersey winter, Consuelo drifts down to the beach. "Holy smokes, Mizuki! You packed all this stuff? It's like a whole theme park down here! I think I'm gonna splash around in the water a little bit. But I'm totally down for a swim lesson whenever you're ready."

Rot "Well I don't have, like, cat-smelling, but I have watched, you know, enough TV to know that with the right resources, we might be able to find the location of the phone that's texting you, Parker. Didn't you say that you're, like, really rich?"

Ruin rolls a 22, which is a natural 20, but I believe still fails by 6, which I think means Multi-Girl pins her. Sorry about the misread on Bernadette's preferred problem-solving approaches. We can do this as a beat-em-up, and have Ruin be more readily KO-able.

Rot "Huh." Consuelo responds to Bernadette's worry about flying. "Ya think the HMO has a rule about no flying higher than ten feet?" She's a little miffed at the idea that people would tell her to keep out of their part of the sky. It's not my fault of people feel all weird just because I fly over their house. It's not like I'm loud or anything. "Don't know why I'm surprised. 'There goes the neighborhood' is practically my middle name." She tosses Bernadette's towel back with a bit of a disintegration hole in it where it hit her head. "Yeah, you're right, Michael. There's probably lots of giant bears on this tiny little island." Consuelo responds to the big guy's defense of his girlfriend's epic hunting skills with mock seriousness. "I'm gonna go take Mizuki up on that offer of a swim lesson. See you guys a little later." And she flies off to the beach, but not too high.

Okay, Rot's driving roll is 15. If she can target both Mindfire and Ares with her disintegration, she will. If not, she'll just target Mindfire. She will use extra effort to increase the rank to 9 and a hero point to recover from fatigue. Well folks, her power check roll is a natural 20, for a total of 29.

Rot "Yeah, sure. Just some chiquitas from Knight High School with a little bit of a bad reputation. Not as bad a mine, but, you know . . . Kitty was their ringleader. Somehow they got powers. Never heard how. I don't know who this Ashley chick is. But, she has, like, issues, obviously."

"That would be awesome. Let's go make some groceries." Without another word, Consuelo opens the door and leaves the apartment. Outside, it's still quite hazy, and visibility and breathing conditions remain bad. Gaining some elevation, Rosalind and Consuelo can identify the source of the smoke. Looks like there was extensive burning at a palette factory. The fire department is still wetting it down. It seems like they have it under control now, apparently with some help. A flying figure can just be seen departing the site and flying back towards the city center, although exactly who it was can't be scrutinized through the residual smoke. Things clear up a bit as the two young heroes make progress toward Georgio's market. With the return to sunny weather, Consuelo's sour mood seems to brighten too. "Maybe I shouldn't have given that money to my mom. But she always has this way of making me feel so guilty. Oh well. So what are we picking up again?" The parking lot to Georgio's is pretty packed. But that's hardly surprising. The place is Freedom City's go-to for Greek specialty foods. Honestly, the place can be pretty hectic, with a couple dozen aggressive shoppers jostling each other in the cramped space. Several shoppers exit, clearly in a hurry. Then several more exit, actually running. Then a few more burst through the main doors running and screaming. But that's not the worst of it. A pale blue ray streaks out of the still open door, striking one of the fleeing patrons and freezing them like a statue! Consuelo looks at Roslind with a grimace. "Aw jeez! exactly what kind of place is this again?"