Raveled

Robin kept up with the looter, smiling nastily. "So the city is invaded," she said, "and you decide to torch your store for the insurance money? Nice. I wonder if I should turn you into the cops now or wait until things calm down, or put you in a nice, safe jail cell right now?"

Dead Head watched the crowd of street people around him as surreptitiously as he could, the stew he'd collected growing cold in front of him. The crowds of homeless grew quickly; apparently this church was well-regarded by Freedom City's transients. The crowd settled into certain groups by rules unknown to the revenant, but by and by an odd family unit settled near him. There were two men, one black and older, the other white and skinny, and a little girl that couldn't've been more than twelve or so. As they say down, the older man said to the girl, "Eat up, Gina. Got to eat all your veggies. S'What Lewis would've wanted."

This lightning bolt picked Ironclad up and flung her across the street, where she slammed into a parked car, driving the roof into the seats. She struggled there, trying to will her limbs to move, but all they did was twitch randomly, her suit and over body overloaded by the electrical assault. The dead man crossed the street slowly and wrapped on huge hand around the heroine's neck. He lifted her into the air and squeezed; under her mask, Ironclad's eyes bugged out as she heard metal grind and compress, and her wind-pipe closed.

Robin gave Nick a bright smile, offering her hand to him. "Glad to hear about a satisfied customer," she said. "Must've been a mail order, though. I don't get down to New Orleans too often." Or ever, she added to herself. The sorceress's attention was briefly diverted when a woman in a get-up similar to her own, only color-inverted, barged through the doors like she owned the place. Robin briefly flashed back to her few dealings with the Fair Folk, and defaulted back to those tactics. Namely, she gave the other woman a cool nod and turned back to Nick. "I'd love to see you there," she said. "What kind of magic do you use?"

August! It's not allowed to be August yet! Robin Cross Thistle and Thyme One Witch. Two Witch, Red Witch, Blue Witch Clandestine Encounter News post The Best Part of Waking Up Ironclad Sparks Flying Unlikely Allies Pt 2 Who Let the Dog Out? News post GM A'Walkin' Amongst the Lillies

As soon as she got the invitation, Robin started flipping through her mental Rolodex looking for someone to watch the shop. It never occurred to her not to go; she'd been waiting for an opportunity like this for awhile. She also didn't waste any time wondering about her wardrobe. If this was going to be a meeting of Powers, then it stood to reason that she'd go in full garb. The sorceress arrived fairly early and paid off the cabbie. She stood there for a moment in her red overcoat, white tee-shirt, and dark slacks, glancing around with her other senses to try and get a feel for the situation. The room was heavily warded to prevent intrusion, so much so that she barely needed the signs pointing the way, and she strode through the buildings of Pyramid Plaza with confidence in her step. As soon as she opened the doors to the room, though, her eyes focused on a side-table laid out with coffee, juices, and finger food. Her stomach growled quietly, reminding her that she was missing lunch for this, and she stepped up to fix herself a sandwich. She was just finishing layering the meats and cheeses when the doors opened again and a young man with a skull painted on his face -- Stars, I hope it's just painted on. -- entered the room. Robin gave him a cautious nod, holding her plate in both hands while her staff stood upright next to her with no apparent aid.

I don't see why Robin would be against this. Would probably depend on the circumstances, though. EDIT: Scratch that. Robin has a reason to talk to the city's mystics. She'll be there.

OOC for this thread.

Not too far from where Dead Head was getting acquainted with Freedom City's invisible population, Robin's VW Bug crept down the streets of Greenbank. The neighborhood was mostly warehouses and loading docks, but there was also more than a few apartment and tenement buildings. Most were run down, and several showed the scars of old fires. Despite the tone of the city around her, the sorceress didn't pay much attention to her surroundings. Rather, she drove with one eye on the road and the other on an odd ornament hanging off her read-view mirror; several threads of nylon rope, tied to a silver eye of Horus charm. As Robin circled the burned-out buildings, the charm swung like metal near a loadstone. After a little weaving and block circling, she determined which building the charm was being attracted to and parked directly in front of the doors, in contravention of all traffic codes. Robin got out of her Bug and studied the building carefully. It was ten stories tall, with most of the top three floors marked by old scorch patterns, and the ground floor windows had been boarded over long ago. Likewise, the front door was boarded over and covered with graffiti. The sorceress grabbed her staff and checked around back though; surely enough there was a metal fire door there, a thin chain from from its inside pushbar outside handle to keep it from closing all the way. Robin eased the door open and slipped inside.

The electricity reached into the sky and wracked Ironclad painfully; the suit's breakers nearly overloaded, and her vision was filled with red and black warnings. She managed to stay aloft, though, which could be seen as an improvement. However, it left her a big, floating target for the dead man's second blast.

Ironclad stayed silent this time. Having a personal life, of any kind, was a problem for her, too. She told herself it was due to all the time she spent patrolling, studying, and working on the suit, but the truth of the matter was that she was more comfortable around machines and technology than she was around people. She had a feeling Dragonfly would understand, maybe all too well. It turned out that the spot on the map was opposite the Boardwalk; the armored heroine pulled her car onto a grassy verge and got out, glancing around. Her HUD painted the radiation over her view of the city, and so she was easily able to follow the trail to an elevator set into the sidewalk. There wasn't any apparent control board, so she redirected her suit's power into strength and ripped it out of the ground. She glanced over at Dragonfly. "Up for some spelunking?"

Ironclad scanned the car without turning her head, noting the name and number. Something was poking the back of her brain though. "Morley." She'd heard the name bandied about by her classmates, most of whom were four or five years older than her. "Do you have a bar?"

Robin breathed a sigh of relief, lightly touching the arm of the Wesley she could see. "This place must be getting to me," she said. "For a minute there I thought you were... well, never mind." She nodded down the boardwalk, farther away from the river. "I think it's coming from over there," she said. "Whoever or whatever is controlling this, they should be over there. So stay close." Robin set off in the direction she had indicated, her staff before her cutting a path through the fog.

The priest nodded. "The police have a lot on their hands, even with the city's heroes helping them. We... just have to tend to the Lord's flock." He smiled warmly and patted Dead Head's should again, before moving on to speak to a group of homeless seated not too far from the revenant.

Aid Action to give Valk a better Att. 1d20+8=9 And it fails miserably. :effort:

Ironclad despaired as the various heroes dealt shattering blows that the alien invaders simply shrugged off. She knew that she was out of her weight class, but at least the other heroes seemed to be holding their own. The armored heroine floated up behind the massive Grue, her armor still shifted for massive physical power, and brought a hammerblow down on its broad back. She wasn't expecting to do much to stop it, but if she could provide Valkyrie with an opening maybe the other heroine could drop the beast.

Communication the power allows a person to, well, communicate with either a single person or a whole group, through some medium. Communication the Feature is identical to the HQ ability; it means that, through the suit, she's tapped into most official communication channels, i.e. police radio, citizen band, et cetera.

Does it now? I was under the impression that it was a recommended house rule, only. Well, that allows some interesting variation.

Rebuilding Ironclad's suit for the final time. Honest. At least until 3E hits, anyway. Some notes to begin with. :arrow: Toughness and Damage shifted Device 12 (Battlesuit; Technology; Hard to Lose; Feat: Accurate; 59 PP) [49 PP] Feature 4 (Technology, computer; Library, communications, computers, holo-projector) [4 PP] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 PP] Super-Senses 5 (Technology magnetic; Radius all vision, darkvision, communication link [with Malcolm Dawes]) [5 PP] Super-Movement 1 (Technology, magnetic; Slow fall) [2 PP] Protection 9 (Technology, armor) [9 PP] Flight 5 (Technology, magnetic; 250 MPH; Feats: Subtle) [11 PP] BE: Blast 9 (Particle Beams; Feats: Ranged Disarm, Alternate Power) [20 PP] AP: Enhanced Strength 19 [19 PP]

Robin shivered slightly as she moved through the fog, feeling its energies slide over her skin and press on her senses. It wasn't a pleasant sensation in the least, but Wesley's hand on hers encouraged her to move forward until she was at the edge of the boardwalk. There, she planted her staff and summoned the winds again, casting her gaze about her and looking for the source of the malevolent magic. Unfortunately, all she saw was Wesley being ripped apart with the fog, spun away into the sky. "Wesley," she screamed, reaching up for his tattered image.

"Boring rarely sets stuff on fire," Ironclad mused aloud. "There's a reason I'm using a metal suit instead of shunting energies into a parallel dimension: it works. It's worked for more than two thousand years." The heroine stopped herself before she started lecturing. "What I'm saying," she finished lamely, "is get something working that protects yourself on the street, and worry about your masterpiece later." She pulled a face behind her mask at the mention of her suit. "It's annoying," she said. "For example, my flight and ranged weapons are on one configuration, but my lifting servos and linear motors are on another. So if I want to fly I can't life anything. That's why we're taking my car, not flying," she added, gesturing vaguely to the vehicle and the traffic. It was flowing at a good pace at the moment; in another few minutes, the heroines should get where they were going.

Just taking 10 on the Notice this time. Result of 21, still.

Robin broke out of her trance with a start, flexing the hand not holding the staff gingerly. "Towards the water," she said, facing that direction herself. "Whatever's causing this, it's down by the shoreline. Let's go," she added, pushing her staff out in front of her. Within moments the windstorm sprang up around her again, pushing back the ominous fog and letting the pair make their way unimpeded. On the edge of the wooden boards now, Robin took a chance and raised her mystical sight again. It was a gamble, seeing as how the evil energies has attacked her directly last time, but she felt the need for haste right now. Who knew how many innocent people were caught up in this fog?

Taking 20 on a Notice check, using her Detect Magic (Tactile). Will take 1 min, result of 31.

Robin glared at the fog coiling around them. "Something's in the fog," she said, her tone terse. "Something evil, I think. I can push it back for a little while, but I think we need to figure out where it's coming from." The sorceress planted her staff on the boardwalk and stretched her hand out, trying to sense where the greatest concentration of magical energy was. "This could take a bit," she added. "Watch my back."