Scuffles

Initiative: 8 because clearly Glow is really on-the-ball here. She can skill mastery both notice and sense motive for a 20 on each.

Hey guys, sorry for slowing down all my threads. I may have fallen off my bike and I may have broken half the bones in my body doing it. I'll be trying to catch up but I'm typing one handed at best and the fingers on that hand don't quite work the way they're supposed to either so it will be slow going.

Glow appeared outwardly fairly calm as the doctor detailed the injuries that Meddows had suffered, but anyone who knew her well would have recognised that she was both inwardly seething and still blaming herself for the incident. That Heraldo might be able to assist with the Officer's recovery buoyed her spirits, and she turned to the doctor as her friend moved to attend the injured man. "There would have been other officers with El Sierpe while he was being transported," she noted. "Were any of them also brought here? If any are able to speak with me I'd like to ask them a few questions while El Heraldo helps with the Captain here. Any help they can give us might help lead to us being able to confront the Serpent and put a stop to all of this."

Kristin laughed. "Now you're just showing off!" she teased as she floated the keys back into Jennifer's hand with a gentle wisp of telekinetic energy. "Alright, let's see..." It took a few minutes for the learner driver to familiarise herself with the car and get everything set up in a way she was comfortable with - mirrors adjusted, seatbelt tight, chair comfortably positioned. All set, she took a deep breath and tentatively started the car rolling. There was a brief jolt of acceleration - the Mercedes was far more powerful than the hatchback her lessons were conducted in - but she quickly dialled back the pressure on the accelerator and smiled as the car started to move more smoothly. "Sorry 'bout that" she grinned as she looked over at Jennifer. "It's a bit different to what I'm used to." It was an extremely cautious exit from the carpark, but the start of the drive was completely uneventful and soon Kristin's knuckles were rather less white on the steering wheel as she headed back towards Claremont.

Glow snapped a glance at Towers as he started to break free of the webbing. With a growl of frustration she turned back towards the bodyguard who still stood. An abrupt lunge brought her into range with such suddenness that he was caught by surprise, but the vicious kick that she followed up with missed wildly as he reeled back out of the way. The teenaged telekinetic cursed as her foot blasted into a shelf full of golfing accessories and scattered balls, tees, markers and score-counting gadgets in all directions. "There's no need for you to go down with your boss!" she told the brute of a man as she regained her balance. "Just go sit in the corner and you'll walk away free once this is finished!"

Kristin waved off Kat's apology. In her opinion being punched in the face in practice was part of the fun. So long as the punch wasn't hard enough to knock her stupid anyway. "Don't worry about it seriously," she assured the younger girl. "There's no incentive to get better if you don't get hit now and then. If you're hitting me hard enough to leave a mark it means I need to be sharp with my barrier-work." Smoothly she lowered herself to sit cross-legged at the edge of the mat where she could watch Kat and Elias spar. A grin crossed her face as she immediately noticed improvement in the boy's movement, but she said nothing more, and instead reached out ever so softly with her telekinesis. There probably wasn't even enough force in the touch for either combatant to notice, because she wasn't trying to push, merely to sense their movements and the presence of Elias' telekinetic web. It was an effort, and she grimaced ever so slightly as the beginnings of a headache started to creep up on her. Developing the telekinetic senses she knew she was capable was definitely a tiresome task.

I have a question. Wasn't there two bodyguards? I'm sure there should be one left. If there is then Glow would like to perform her acrobatic feint trick against the remaining bodyguard. So take 10 for a DC of 25 to not be flat footed. Then she'll try to punch him! But she'll miss. Because she rolled a 10. If it's just Towers left then she's going to pick up a handy piece of sporting equipment to whap him with (improvised weapon!). And still miss because she rolled a ten.

The smile really hadn't left Kristin's face since that kiss, but it grew even broader when Jennifer handed her the keys. "I've started learning in a manual," she answered as she bounced up and down on her toes, then dashed around to the drivers side of the car. "I figured it would be best to learn that way, it's got to be easier to switch to an auto rather than the other way around." The excited learner-driver opened the door and hopped in, then discovered that her feet couldn't reach the pedals. "How long are your legs? geez!" she asked with a laugh while she fumbled with the seat adjusting controls. Finally settled in place she lifted the keys and then stopped cold. "Jennifer," she said in a level tone. "Your car is broken. There's nowhere for the key to go."

Sounds good to me!

Glow winced as the station chief described the injuries of the police who had escorted El Sierpe. Or attempted to escort him. My fault she thought once again. I should have known he was far too dangerous for the Police! "I'm not keen on leaving Mister Cloak here without some support for you guys," she told the station chief. "He's probably not on El Sierpe's Christmas card list now that he's helping us and we've already seen proof that El Sierpe is a pretty dangerous man. I'm going to make a couple of calls and get you some backup in case he decides to take a shot at the station while we're trying to track him down." She glanced at Heraldo, then back at the overweight Policeman. "If you could give Heraldo the details we need to get in contact with Captain Meddows that would be great. I'll be back shortly." With that she stepped outside and left her comrade to gather any useful information the chief might have. A quick burst of telekinesis lifted her to the roof of the station where nobody could overhear her conversation, and for the second time that day the young heroine 'phoned home' to find out whether some backup was available.

Okay, so after her last mistake (leaving El Sierpe in the hands of the police) Kristin isn't overly keen to just leave the lawyer at the station without any superhero cover. However, I think it would be no fun to split Glow and Heraldo up and leave one of them out of the hunt for El Sierpe. Can we hand-wave her phoning the school (again) to get a babysitter sent to the station to make sure nothing goes awry? I'm going to assume it's a reasonable thing to do and make my post to get us moving again. Let me know if it's not and I can edit in the morning! :D

Kristin reeled back from the punch more in surprise than in pain - she hadn't expected that even a clean shot from the tiny teleporter would be able to punch through her defensive barrier with that much force. She recovered her balance quickly and her feet shifted as she got back into a defensive posture. When Kat didn't press the attack immediately she straightened slightly and grinned at the younger girl. "Nice shot," she said with a grin as the green light of her shielding dimmed just a little. "I knew you could hit pretty hard but that was a bit of a surprise. Glad I brought my mouthguard!" Her face definitely felt a little tender where the punch had landed, and she was definitely going to have to ice it later to stop it from swelling up too much but the smile on her opponent's face made the discomfort well worthwhile. She knew it must be annoying to have to hold back in sparring, to only use a fraction of your strength, and while she wasn't really on Kat's level she could certainly take the shots well enough to provide an outlet for her power - and perhaps for her frustrations. "Would you like a turn?" she asked with a glance at Elias. "Or should we go another round? I reckon I'm wearing her down by getting hit here. At least she might leave with sore hands!"

The final arrivals were a couple of minutes behind. Encased in the shimmering light of her telekinesis Glow swooped over a nearby building with Errant - wrapped in a similar field - in tow. She pulled up just above the little group of heroes and lowered the telepath lightly onto his feet, then dropped down next to him. "That's pretty weird," she noted as she looked over at the pixellated building, gave a wave to the bemused police officer manning the crime-scene tape, then turned towards Arcturus, Heraldo and Warp. She greeted them with the ease of familiarity. "Hey guys, Errant needed a ride, hope you don't mind me tagging along as well? What's the go with the Nintendo-building? Some sort of magic?"

I should look in campaign discussion more often! I'd love to find a thread for Glow in this too. Although of course if you have a Young Freedom one planned she might be a part of that?

Kristin regarded Rogue with a flat look. The change of tone from the Tronikian leader was heartening, the mere fact that she had clearly been contemplating genocidal tactics just a few minutes ago made it hard to trust her. With a shrug the telekinetic turned her gaze towards the crates of Ragnarok. "Are we properly equipped to move this stuff though?" she asked with concern. "I mean, it should be safe enough but there could be some pretty awful consequences if something goes wrong." She glanced around her friends as they gathered near the Wonderbus. "I can probably contain the stuff if something happens before we can get it disposed of, but 'probably' is an awful large risk if we're taking it to populated areas..."

Kristin backstepped as Kat went on the offensive, her arms working overtime as she did her best to defend against the onslaught. While she picked off many of the strikes and even avoided some, the sheer volume, accuracy and power of the assault meant that she couldn't possibly stop them all. The force of the blows that rattled against her telekinetic barrier was quite astounding, and she was surprised when some punched through and thudded into her body. A well timed counter-punch forced the diminutive martial artist back and gave Kristin time to reset her defenses. "Have you sparred with Mali yet?" she asked with a smile. "You two are going to get along great!" She stepped forwards to engage again, throwing a combination of punches as she tried to set the tone and put Kat on the back foot.

Yay! Welcome back Supercape! :D

Kristin winced at the Jersey Shore line. That, in her opinion was definitely a step too far in attacking someone's reputation. Amir's theatrics distracted her from the conversation and she turned to regard the fallen man with an amused gaze. "It almost looks like Amir needs the protective gear to come to parties like this," she said with a grin. "I agree that it's pretty ridiculous for playing football though." She was tempted to make a snarky comment about the patience required to support England at cricket, but the arrival of Lord Steam distracted her. She chuckled at his ostentatious entrance to the conversation and her eyes flicked towards Amir as she wondered if it would push him towards even more amusing antics. Despite her reservations about coming to the party it was off to quite an entertaining start, and she wondered if this sort of behavior was commonplace.

Kristin smiled as the testing jab bounced off her telekinetic barrier instead of off her nose. She was pleased that Kat was sensible enough to start out with a test instead of trying to take her head off, but she was also sure that her defenses could withstand far more power than that. "You can hit a bit harder than that if you like," she noted as she circled to her left and then moved forwards behind a couple of jabs that went nowhere near hitting her skilled little opponent. "I'll let you know if you're getting close to breaking through. And a few bruises never hurt anyone anyway." Still moving forwards she flicked out a roundhouse kick at Kat's leg - it was fairly quick, but in the spirit of friendly sparring there wasn't much venom behind it at all.

Kristin wandered into the gym chatting with Mali and paused to look around at the various classes and training sessions in progress. "This place is awesome," she said with a happy smile, then turned to regard the enormous climbing wall. She hadn't had the opportunity to climb at all since her move to Freedom City, and was greatly looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. "Thanks for letting me tag along." The Australian teen was dressed ready for the class - comfortable black cargo pants and a white tank top with her familiar red hoodie over the top - and carried a giant sports bag on her shoulder that made her look tiny. Or perhaps it was just standing next to Mali that made her look tiny. "Come on, let's see if we can find the ... oh, hey that's Jasmine!" Distracted from her original intention to find the instructor for the class she headed over to say hi. "Hey Jasmine! how's it going?" she asked. "This is Mali, my friend from school. She kicks me around the gym there worse than you do at Erik's." She flashed a grin at Mali. "Jasmine takes the same self-defence classes I've been going to sometimes."

Glow A War Torn World (7) High Towers (3) It's a trap! (8) Picking up the spare (12) The Midnight Society Holiday Party (4) The Serpent and the Devil (3)

Kristin was able to relax and enjoy the second kiss a little more than the first - she was still tense when Jennifer leaned down towards her, but the hint of panic that the sudden first kiss had induced was nowhere to be found. "I was a little distracted," she pointed out with a giggle. "It was clearly pure luck. Just like that spare!" She raised her hands dramatically to protest her innocence. "I don't know why you think I had anything to do with it," she said with a completely unconvincing grin. "Did you see a flash of bright green? That happens when I move stuff you know. I clearly didn't have anything to do with it! The evidence is on my side!"

Kristin grinned at Kat's tone as she peeled off her jacket, then dug into her back to retrieve a couple of pairs of padded sparring gloves. "Here try these," she said as she tossed a pair to the pint-sized teleporter. "Means you won't have to hold back quite so much to avoid breaking my jaw. Elias do you want to let us go first? You can pick up some pointers by watching, then we can rotate through so everybody gets a go." Reasonably limber the Australian didn't take too long to complete her stretches, and she donned her own gloves then grabbed a mouthguard from her bag as well. Green light flickered around her as she moved to stand opposite Kat. "I'll use my barriers to absorb your shots so you can hit harder," she explained. "Just hand to hand though, I won't use any telekinesis apart from that." She wasn't holding any illusions about her ability to compete with Kat hand to hand. While her Judo and the training she participated in at Claremont held her in good stead against unpowered opponents she knew full well that meta-humans were a completely different matter. With her defenses in place however she could at least make herself a good training partner. "You ready?" she asked with another smile.

As she attempted to protest her innocence, Kristin was cut off mid-sentence when Jennifer's lips pressed against her own. She let out a startled but muffled sound as she experienced the briefest moment of panic and her hands came up to Jennifer's waist as she almost pushed away. The moment passed - her hands slipped down to the older woman's hips as the tension drained away and she managed to relax enough to enjoy the lingering kiss. After what seemed like an eternity the Australian slowly pulled away and broke off the kiss. "That was... wow.." she breathed softly as she looked up at Jenn. Her racing heart felt fit to leap out of her chest and she looked away as she tried to recover her composure. A grin crossed the teenager's face as she caught sight of the flashing scoreboard. "You know, you sort of jumped the gun a bit there." she pointed out as she looked up at her date again. "You made the spare, so you get another ball! You can't collect on the bet when the game isn't finished!" There was a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she continued. "So you better finish the game and then collect on the bet. Er... again."

Kristin couldn't help but blush bright red at being called part of a 'cute couple'. That everyone seemed to share her disdain for the tabloid media went a long way towards making her feel more comfortable at the party. While she still felt out of place at least everybody was nice enough to help her feel more comfortable. Still not sure if the drink she'd been given was alcoholic or not she managed to deposit it on the tray of a passing waiter and then turned to Agnus and Amir with a smile. "Surely one party isn't worth missing the Superbowl, right?" she asked in amusement. "I mean, the three movies sounds totally fair, but to miss the big game? You must drive a mean bargain! I might have to check out that channel to see if it teaches me any Diva negotiating skills - I could only get Jenn to promise a spa day." She shot a grin at Megan too. "Dating the son of an Earl is pretty much asking for photographers to follow you everywhere, you can hardly complain about that."