Russoboo

Darren chuckled a little more to himself and concentrated on summoning up another volley of crystals. At motion below, however, he perked up and looked away from the serpent. People were setting up lawn chairs and sitting on their porches watching their little air battle; Darren gave a few of them a wave and a shining smile. Without paying too much attention, he let go of the shot he'd been lining up, sending the chunks of diamond wide all around the snake. He dipped a bit lower as he hovered and turned to look at Subito. “Hey Herald, it looks like we're popular. Well, like, I already knew that about me, but you are, too!â€

Darren opened his mouth for a retort to Morgan, but then there was another explosion and the attempt at witticism was aborted. He raised his arms to attempt to shield himself from the blast, but between the water and the layers of crystal, it seemed contained. Darren relaxed, a little, as Edge started in on his explanation. With a look over his shoulder, he saw that students were starting to emerge from the shelter, and he watched them right up until he heard the word Grue. Darren spun in the air, almost losing his balance in the process, and flew over to the captive wearing his face. "Grue? Grue? You had me thinking you were a crazy murderbot, but you're really just an alien spy? That's so much better!" Darren set his jaw and glared down at his mirror image. He wanted to be angrier, but the idea of beating up himself didn't quite sit right, particularly now that it wasn't just a lifeless automaton. Instead, he pointed a finger at the Grue. "You...you are lucky." Darren turned his head to look at Edge. "Who is the Computer God and is he leaving bombs and robots all over the place?"

Darren stared at her, lost for words. The Other Woman shook her head and started to descend the ladder leading down to the museum. Darren paced around the busted hatch once, twice, and then a third time before finally following after. Rather than bother with the ladder, he carefully lowered himself down the channel on a small disc. He stared down past his toes at the head of bouncing blonde hair below him. “Okay, explanation, please.†“It's a shirt and it's magic.†“Details.†The shaft ended in the ceiling of a hallway, which continued in two directions and then split into multiple other corridors. Darren floated down to just above the polished tile while the Other Woman pulled a small flashlight from her belt and clicked it on. A beam of bright light swept over the paintings on the walls, the busts by the corner, and the couple of benches well worn from thousands of patrons. “Like, what does it do? And who are 'they'?†“It doesn't do anything, but it's immune to fire. The act is really more important than the object. As for who they are, well, they're professionals. Looks like security is completely down, even the fail-safe hasn't gone off.†She waved the flashlight around and then began to hurry down the hall. Darren flew after her. They arrived at one of the smaller wings of the museum, one reserved for the traveling exhibits that made the circuit. Signs outside proclaimed it as “Fashion Through the Ages†and one of the double doors separating it from the rest of the museum lay open. As the two approached, O. W. began to slow. The flashlight clicked off as she slipped into the darkness beyond the door. Darren could make out voices from behind the door, but they were muffled. He drew in a breath, decided that he was in far too deep to back out now, and went through the door. Windowless and with the power cut, the exhibit was consumed in darkness. Darren couldn't see O. W. as he moved forward, towards a light coming from around a corner. As he appraoched, the voices grew louder, though he couldn't quite make out what they were saying. He pressed himself against the inside wall and stopped at the corner. His partner in anti-crime was still out of sight and he hoped that she hadn't abandoned him. Darren peeked around the corner. In the middle of the space was a glass case set on a low pedestal. Behind the class was a metal skeleton wearing something red, gold, and glimmering. Darren thought it must have been a tunic, given the way it was cut, though it seemed to be woven with scales rather than with thread. Next to the case were two women. One was dressed in an emerald slip layered with a blue feather coat and had her eyes concealed behind a flat white mask. She had a heavy duty flashlight in her hands, angled to spread light over the case. The other was dressed in a stripe camisole, a skirt of pink lace, and adorned with a number of chunky bangles to match the clearly pointless belt around her waist. She was also in the process of pulling a glass cutter out of her tiny vinyl purse. Darren tried to remember his training, but came up with nothing. Instead, he peeled around the corner and held up his hands, ready to attack. “Stop right there. You're under arrest!â€

"Edgar, huh? I guess, like, I shouldn't be surprised." Darren sighed and spun on his heels. He walked down the street backwards and faced Kat. "Rich and dumb, right? That's totally typecasting. And even if my brother is kind of a jerk and, like, a serious burnout, which is a pun utterly wasted on you, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't throw me under a bus. But, I guess everything turns out alright for him in the end. After everyone else is dead, of course, that's just tragedy for you." His grin faltered and he looked down at the sidewalk. He turned back around and fell into step beside Kat. "I don't know why I'm saying this, but, like, that's the one thing I'm worried about. What if I get stuck in crystal mode? I could, like...out live everyone I know. Or just everyone. Cause, you know..." Darren bit his lip, but the smile couldn't be stopped. "Diamonds are forever."

Blast: Blast (1d20+9=16)

"I can't stop, like, I have a condition, for real for real. You should try to be more sensitive, Heraldo." Darren tittered while he swirled through the air above the serpent. He cast his arms out and another dozen chunks of crystal twinkled into existence. With a theatrical drop of his hand, like a conductor keeping time, the jagged pieces dropped down and punched into the creature's dark hide. Darren opened his mouth again. "Banter gives me better aim, I'm sorry that I can't really pick on, like, a snake made of shadows and hatred, I don't think he'd respond to me as well as you do."

Used Create Object to put another layer of crystal around the solid water sphere.

"Thanks for the save, Tsunami. This jerk is trying to, like, make me look bad!" Darren huffed and floated up over the gorilla monster, which was then doubly trapped. He swerved in the air on his diamond disc and pointed a finger down at the beast. A second coating of crystal appeared in a shell around Tsunami's own sphere of water. As the crystals grew, he continued. "None of the other robots did what, exactly? Have a panic attack and, like, get put in time out by a couple of elementalists? That's cause it probably isn't even a robot or something, duh." Darren waved his hand down towards the shelter. "Now, can I go, like, crystalize my robot counterpart? I'd really like to get that out of the way before he goes off and, you know, kills half the student body."

Another blast! Blast (1d20+9=27)

"I'm sure you had it. Like, you were totally just letting it think it caught you. Psychological warfare!" Darren chuckled and wiggled his fingers in the air. Another dozen crystals rapidly appeared out of motes of dust, then spun to point at the snake. With a flick of his wrist, the crystals went screaming down towards the serpent. The beast whipped and coiled out of the way; the diamonds rushed harmlessly past it. Darren clicked his tongue. "Exactly, this takes skill, all you've gotta do is flail around on it."

"Romeo and Juliet? I guess you could have, like, thrown Hamlet at me, so it could be worse." Darren ran his fingers back through his hair and watched Kat's fingers tapping on the counter. He supposed it was too nice to think that she would foot her own bill after agreeing to chauffeur him around, even if she had the funds to do so. The black card came back out and the transaction was made. When he got hold of the receipt, he crumpled it in his fist and stuffed it into his pocket. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, to have a thankless child." He turned and strode off back to the front door and the street. "No one appreciates the value of some good, neutral input on their little personal crises anymore. Some people, like, really." Darren ducked out the door, laughing like a jackal the whole way.

Darren set his clothes on the counter and let the clerk, a dour women in her midtwenties, sort and scan. He preemptively drew a black credit card from his wallet and set it down in reach, then pointedly looked away from the register and its rapidly climbing price. The first answer he gave Kat was a shrug. "Acting is cool, but I've never really been one for, like, the theatre. More interested in film." The clerk handed Darren a receipt, which he took just long enough to sign without looking at the final total. "Mostly, I do whatever I want, so not very much. I get bored really easily and I'm a lot more of a homebody than I seem." He took back his credit card and a white bag full of overpriced clothes. Darren grinned. "Lately, I've been spending my free time harassing strangers and making them fall for me, but, like, honestly, that's a bit of a bad habit coming back after I thought I'd kicked it. History is a circle and everything."

Darren uses Create Object to drop a 25 x 10 x 5 foot wall at the far end of the trip zone.

"Hold on, finishing up." Darren gave his handiwork a quick once over mostly to catch his breath. He hovered away from the shelter and towards Giang to give the girl a bit of back up. Darren pointed a hand at the monster and considered simply trying to snap a hamster ball around it or maybe tie its feet together, but Edge wanted walls, so Edge was going to get walls. He concentrated on a spot ahead of the monster, at the far border of Giang's water circle, and then the crystal began to burst forth out of nowhere. The diamond marked off the edge of the pool, about a twenty-five foot section. "Does anyone on campus speak alien gorilla?"

Making another blast at the snake: Autofire Blast (1d20+9=17)

"Oooh, you wanted fair. I guess deciding on forfeit is, like, one form of fair, yeah. You could say that. Don't do anything, then." Darren turned and pulled a few pairs of jeans off a display. He unfolded one and checked it against his leg, then folded the whole bundle over one arm. His shopping continued with a quiet whistle of an empty melody, nothing more than noise. He had pushed Kat as far as he could, at least for the moment, and he frankly didn't trust her to make use of his advice in a way that didn't end with Subito mad at him. Darren stuffed his arms with a few more articles of clothing seemingly at random, then shuffled off to a register. He looked over his shoulder. "So, what else do you do, besides go shopping with people you don't know to get dating advice you don't really want?"

"Wow, Herald, trying to wrestle with a snake? Do I, like, really need to point out how bad of an idea that is? I'll omit the innuendo for your sake." Darren flew up and over the tangled mess of man and snakething. He held up his thumb and closed one eye for a moment, lining up his fingertip with the beast's head, then drew his hands back. With a rush, he threw his arms forward and a few dozen white crystals rained down over the monster. Darren laughed. "Like, seriously, don't eat my friends before I'm done with them!"

Attempting a autofire blast against Apep: Autofire Blast (1d20+9=15) Spending a point for reroll: Blast Reroll (1d20+9=29)

"Then don't intrude. Like I said, I don't mean you throw yourself at him or, like, try to intercede. You don't have to get down on one knew or even, like, tell him that you have a crush on him. If you don't want to make it messy, then don't make it messy. Or is that, I don't know, beyond you?" Darren stalked towards Kat and trailed his hand over the clothes nearby as he walked. He stopped in front of her, but only after he was much too close. "You can only be that girl if you try to seduce him. Ergo," Darren brought his nose down to Kat's, "don't seduce him. Not really." And then he spun away again, out of her reach with a giggle. "Here's one that should work, even if you said it to both of them. Like, 'you two are so lucky to have each other'. Doesn't that sound like such a compliment? Don't you know that the best way to lie is to tell the truth?" He gave her a grin. "You can either say what you mean without meaning what you say...or you can stop. I have a feeling that neither is going to be easy for you."

"Then that's probably good, since, like, dating someone doesn't really mean they like you." Darren practically tittered as he rounded his attention to the sky. There it was, a snake made of pure dark, twisting in the air. Subito, of course, shot off after it, so Darren followed close enough that he could take shots at the serpent. "Knowing freedom, half the houses are probably super heroes, too, but whatever." He cast his hands towards the snake and chunks of diamond appeared before him before hurtling at the beast. The crystals warped in mid air and spun into twisted cords. For a moment, they seemed sure to connect, but the snake slipped the bonds. Darren huffed. "I don't know why I bother, sometimes."

"Oh, of course I'm the one with the evil robot duplicate. Like, really, why should I expect anything different?" Adamas fumed as he flew over to the hole the monster had burst out of. He held out his hands and light fully enveloped them, glowing in pale spheres. With a thought, crystal started to erupt from the walls of the shelter. The diamond crawled across the edges of the exposed room and then bridged into a canopy, a second roof to protect the students from falling rubble. He sealed the shelter back up, but continued to grumble. "There better be a course on identifying doppelgangers after this is over."

The Notice check, as requested in chat: Notice (1d20+7=20)

Adamas: Initiative (1d20+2=19) And then a Snare attack against Apep: Snare attack (1d20+9=20)

"I didn't say all that, like, really, don't try to seduce him. That wouldn't work." Darren paused and considered what he'd said with a hum. "Okay, it might work, but, like, it wouldn't work out. Which I assume is more important." He took a few aimless steps around the store and began to sigh at intervals, getting more dramatic with each one. In a smooth movement, he flipped a hat off a shelf, put it on, pulled it off, and let out another sigh of defeat. "Don't be so depressing, like, you're totally cutting yourself off here." Darren tossed the hat back into its place, then gave Kat an instructive finger-wagging. "Wanting love isn't stupid. Wanting to be happy isn't stupid. You might be right in that wanting to, like, interfere with an established relationship is kind of stupid, or at least a little mean and definitely ill-advised, but you can't just let it lie. I mean, you have to do something, even if that something is just get over it and move on. That's different from ignoring the problem."

"Blodeuwedd says that? Sounds like she has a crush on you." Darren snickered and floated around the lawn. He hovered over to the black eggshell of ship that the Hand had arrived in. Darren didn't dare touch it, but he pulled a face at it and moved a little further up, away from the goo seeping into the ground below him. With a flick of his cape, he turned back to Subito. "You can say whatever you like, Herald, I promise you won't hurt my feelings too badly. And what exactly are we looking for here, magic man?"