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Dutemps Building, Château de Martel Early Afternoon, Around Lunchtime Eve leaned back in her office chair and sighed, rubbing her eyes and fighting off an encroaching headache. She needed something to eat, and to see the other ladies of the Castle. She gave herself a gentle mental chiding, reflecting that it was so typical of her to jump straight into to tackling the pile of paperwork tied to the company, the tower and the city projects she had instead of taking some time to reconnect with her friends. "Yeah," she said out loud, padding off toward the kitchen, "Food."

May 2021 After All Bad Bad Nevertheless The good news was that Sea Devil and Singularity had beaten the monster. Whether it was the injury Aquaria had done to it, or the terror Jessie had put in its eyes, Memento Mori had disappeared before it could attack the Project Freedom crews that had arrived on the scene. Singularity had even been talked back to Jessie before she could hurt anyone, thanks to the need to get Aquaria to a hospital and the nearby presence of people she knew well. The Kingston cleanup process was...going to be delayed for some time. Jessie's fast healing meant that she didn't have so much as a bruise by the next morning. There was just one piece of bad news. Aquaria still hadn't woken up. Out of her armor she looked decidedly bedraggled, a downcast look on her broad face, her eyes responding to light and her body to stimuli, but her mind seemingly elsewhere. Eve had found that Aquaria was indeed still in her head, but far away as if in deep sleep, and magical probes by Tarva and others hadn't gotten very much further. They'd taken her home to the castle where she could rest, in the deep wading brackish water pool where she was the most comfortable, but her quietude was alarming. No one else who had been hurt by the creature had stayed down like this. Even going back to the worst injury anyone had heard of Aquaria getting, the in all honesty probably too-violent beating from Nereid that had led to her initial arrest, there was no reason for her to still be unconscious, especially with seemingly no bruises herself, the next day. People had been in and out of the Castle all day, specialists from the League and elsewhere, but nobody had figured anything out yet.

The DuTemps Building July 10th, 2018 10:59 AM Before the sky bled, Temperance was taken in by the city below. Things were tranquil, and she wasn't quite sure where they'd go next. She and Sharl were still happy in their relationship. They weren't necessarily making any moves towards any particular destinations, but they were okay with standing in the middle ground. She had just graduated from college, and while she was putting herself out on the job market, she was still experiencing that difficulty of having a good - but not incredible - GPA and some internship experience. Maybe I'll put my "night work" on the resume and see how many heads explode. There was peace. There was quiet. There was a city below, remembering what was lost and celebrating the victory that had been gained through great sacrifice. She stood on the lip of a castle in the sky, wondering how her life had gotten to this point, and where it might go next. Then the screaming began. In a hundred different voices, from boiling asphalt to sparking power lines. Her phone went off in her hand. A message from her father. THE CITY IS GOING MAD. RUN. Before she could even more, a great red rent was torn in the sky, and a swarm of steel locusts descended. She ran to the lip of the building, struck dumb for half a second, before she got a good look... No. Oh, gods, no. She ran back into the building, reaching for her phone to send out a mass blast to the group. UNDER ATTACK. TERMINUS.

Dutemps Building December 2016 It was unusual for a groups of people who lived in the same location to gather together to throw a Holiday party, but Dutemps wasn’t the most normal of places. First it was a castle high above the skyline of Freedom City, looking like it was from a fairytale or a cartoon but then again so did a lot of Freedom City. And this fairytale castle in the sky was home to an amazing bunch of female misfit heroes. And today they were having a party. One of the smaller halls had been prepared for today’s event with a incredibly well stocked buffet table and a fairly impressive sound system for hopefully a fruitfuls night partying.

CN: Date: Late July, 2016 Location: The Beach, Port Regal The Atlantic might be colder than the sea that Leilani had grown up loving, but the waves held a familiar rhythm and even if the sand was darker, the beach more rocky, working it with Kimo held a certain strange familiarity. It wasn't home - not quite - but it wasn't utterly foreign either. Which, perhaps, made it an appropriate place for a not-quite impromptu celebration of sorts. At least, with having begun to shift her things out of the League headquarters and into the Dutemps building, Leilani had accepted and acknowledged that while her powers remained concerning, they weren't actually out of her control. Her good-natured nephew (Leilani couldn't call him her great-nephew still with a straight face) had been all for an evening of surfing and beach barbecue, not to mention meeting more of the super-hero community and the off-hand invitation had been extended towards the rest of those calling the castle home. Leilani had traded her life-guard swimsuit for an off duty alternate. With a sarong knotted around her waist, she set about setting up the wood with the intent of setting up a proper bon-fire, pausing to wave over the guests she recognized when they arrived. "Kimo, watch yourself, yeah? Gonna put up some bumpers," she paused in her building of the small wood tower to gesture, mounding up the sand and rock to form larger banks to provide at least a little bit of visual privacy from the rest of the stretch of the beach. "Remind me to put that back afterwards." Leilani added in a mutter as she returned her attention to stacking wood.

Content Note: Disturbing Content, Gore September 2016 Freedom Hall The world survived the Terminus Invasion. But only a few people on it survived a Terminus invasion - from the other side. Neither Steve Murdock nor Tarva the Black had so much as looked at each other upon their arrival in Freedom Hall. Rather, they had taken seats on the opposite sides of the conference room's big table, each joined by their closest allies, responding to the one summon in the multiverse that could bring the two of them together under one roof. Freedom Hall and its staff seemed on edge tonight- and no wonder, with all the crises great and small that had come that summer, and with this new crisis no doubt whistling through the super community like an incoming shell. "As you know, the Freedom League occasionally dispatches remote multiversal probes to probe areas of Terminus activity, using Zero Zone technology originally gathered from the Centurion." Daedalus, who Steve knew was no mere man but an ageless immortal (at least in the realities he knew), looked fatigued today, and perhaps some shadow of his age. "That's the source of the data we send to Archetech and the DuTemps Building," he added, with a nod to Ghost Girl and Miss Americana. "Typically the data we recover is largely fluctuating levels of entropic radiation. A multiversal weather report," he added for the benefit of the non-cosmic scholars in the room. "Recently, one of our probes was activated by a significant surge of entropic radiation greater than what was observed during the invasion of 1993. This triggered its internal video function and autonomous exploration unit." - It was Liberty Park. Or had been, once. The city was transformed into abomination. A red, pitiless sky lit by a too-bright, too-blue sun lit a park whose trees had burned and stones been shattered by spiked half-spheres that gleamed with an almost organic oily wetness. The doomforges lay empty now - but there were Omegadrones perched on them, the light, quickly-made ones that could nonethless slice a normal man in half or throttle him alive, like flocks of demonic birds waiting for the kill. The forges themselves were decorated with a scattering of corpses like so many mounted butterflies, the impaled, half-decayed corpses of beings who by the bright colors of their tattered costumes had once been superheroes. Tarva had turned paler and paler as the film played, her eyes staring and hands pressed flat against the table in front of her as if she was about to bolt, while Steve was bolt-upright in his chair and watching the film with an intensity that suggested a gathering storm. "...those drones are dead," he said, his voice a low rumble. And sure enough, one of the drones, one perched at the very edge of the doomforge that must have created it, actually tilted and toppled off as the group watched, hitting the ashy ground below with a tremendous crash. "Is this actually from the Terminus," asked Tarva, her voice tight and close to tears. "Can your probe peer so far?" "No," said Daedalus, shaking his head. "The radiation levels suggest there's been cosmic compaction on a tremendous scale - but this universe has not yet, for the moment, been pulled past the entropic threshold."

November 1, 2015 The DuTemps Building While the machine intelligence briefed the superheroes on relevant global events she'd gathered from observing the planet's news cycle, Tarva, her head on her hand and shoulders slumped as usual to disguise her great height, was in the process of making notes on her yellow legal pad, the heavy black ink of her pen scratching quietly as she worked. NORMAL MOVIE FOR KIMBER - 2001? CLOCKWORK ORANGE? AN ANDALUSIAN DOG? She didn't really understand the appeal of any of the bizarrely sanitized movies that people on Earth-Prime enjoyed watching, but after some consideration (and careful scrutinizing of their plots), she'd selected a few that she thought would make for an enjoyable evening. When Bluebird paused to change topics to recent interstellar news, Tarva nonchalantly put her hand under the table and rested it on Kimber's thigh, giving her lover a warm smile as she locked eyes with her. They'd have an evening all to themselves yet. Nobody's going to come between us, she thought comfortingly. Nobody.

tarva, ghost girl, temperance, crimson tiger, dutemps, wraith, blue fox

Tarva Abilities: 14 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 8 = 32PP Strength 24 (+7) Dexterity 10 (+0) Constitution 20 (+5) Intelligence 10 (+0) Wisdom 10 (+0) Charisma 24/18 (+7/+4) Combat: 4 + 8 = 12PP Initiative: +0 Attack: +4, +8 Horrible Shadows/Melee Grapple: +15, +18 with Super-Strength Defense: +8 (+4 Base, +4 Dodge Focus), +2 Flat-Footed Knockback: -6, -2 against light attacks Saving Throws: 5 + 6 + 8 = 19PP Toughness: +14/+12/+5 (+5 Con, +7 Protection, +2 Force Field), Impervious 10 Fortitude: +10 (+5 Con, +5) Reflex: +6 (+0 Dex, +6) Will: +8 (+0 Wis, +8) Skills: 52R = 13PP Bluff 13 (+15, +20 with Enhanced Charisma, Skill Mastery) Diplomacy 3 (+7, +10 with Enhanced Charisma, Skill Mastery) Gather Information 3 (+7, +10 with Enhanced Charisma, Skill Mastery) Intimidate 13 (+17, +20 with Enhanced Charisma, Skill Mastery) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 10 (+10) Notice 10 (+10) Feats: 12PP Attack Focus (melee) 4 Dodge Focus 4 Ritualist Second Chance (Ritualist checks) Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate) Startle Powers: 4 + 2 + 2 + 33 + 7 + 3 + 5 + 5 + 2 + 3 + 6 + 15 = 92PP Enhanced Attack 2 (to ATK +4) [4PP] Enhanced Feats 2 (Affects Insubstantial 2 [Unarmed]) [2PP] Force Field 2 [2PP] Horrible Shadows Array 15 (30PP, PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Alternate Powers 3) [35PP] BP: Super-Senses 10 (True Sight) {10} + Super-Senses 8 (Terminus Awareness 2 [Mental], Extras: Acute, Analytical, Extended 2 [1000ft Notice Increments], Ranged) [8PP]) {8} {18/30} AP:: Blast 14 (shadowy wave, Feats: Accurate 2) [30PP] Alternate Power: Damage 12 (horde of shadow hounds, Extras: Area - Burst, Selective, Flaw: Action [Full]) [24/30PP] Alternate Power: Strike 7 (shadowy aura, Extras: Aura, Duration 2 - Sustained) [28PP] Silver Tongue Array 3 (6PP, Power Feats: 1 Alternate power) [7PP] Base Power: Enhanced Charisma 6 (to CHA 24/+7) (Tarva’s Presence) [6PP] Alternate Power: Emotion Control 10 (shadowy terror, Extras: Area - Burst, Flaws: Limited - fear only, Range 2 - Touch) [5PP] Flight 1 (shadowy wings, 10 MPH, 100' per round, PF: Subtle) [3PP] Immunity 3 (aging, sleep, starvation and thirst) [3PP] Impervious Toughness 10 (improved shadowy armor, Flaws: Limited against light, magic and holy attacks) [5PP] Protection 7 (shadowy enhancements, Drawbacks: Power Loss [against light attacks, common, minor, -2pp]) [5PP] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2PP] Super-Senses 3 (Detect Magic 3 [Visual]) [3PP] Super-Strength 3 (Tarva’s Might, Heavy load: 3 tons) [6PP] Teleport 4 (400 ft/1 mile, Extra: Portal [+2], Flaw: Medium [Shadows], PFs: Change Direction, Subtle, Turnabout) [15PP] Abilities (32) + Combat (12) + Saving Throws (19) + Skills (13) + Feats (12) + Powers (92) - Drawbacks (0) = 180 Power Points

July 11, 2015 Kimber finished etching the last rune into the surface of the ice with a telekinetically controlled chisel before floating a few meters into the air to survey her work critically. After the better part of two years of preparation and careful work she wasn't going to let the arcane ritual equivalent of a typo ruin everything now, especially now with so many of her friends on the way to help pull off her plan. Indira and Eve were already waiting on the bleachers on the other side of the plexiglass, the latter having been convinced to rent out the indoor ice rink for the day with only a minimum of pleading. Kimber had asked Tarva to head up to the announcer's booth so that she could double check the complex circles of inscribed sigils that made up the first step of the day's undertaking. Satisfied with the results, the poltergeist nodded and turned to her friends, hands on her hips. "Good to go! Just in time, too! Everybody should be getting here pretty soon!"

September 2015 Gruen Tanzer Contacting the two other Terminus survivors living on Earth-Prime had been no easy task - particularly Blue Jay, who unlike Argonaut had never actually exchanged contact information with Harrier except in those days after their abduction by the Curator. But he'd gotten the job done, with a little help from Miss Americana's connections. He hadn't directly discussed with Gina what the meeting was about, but he was supremely confident his genius lover had figured it out. She was very smart, after all - and she'd heard the same things from Sharl Tulink that he had. So he sat alone in a private room in the German restaurant Miss Americana opened, a hot buffet on one side of the room, the seats on the opposite side of the table empty. He'd given both Yves and Tona a message they'd have to respond to - a message that asked them to come meet and talk about the Terminus.

The OOC! To start off with the DuTempts Building crew are already at the ice rink with Kimber any everyone else can begin arriving! Nick, Equinox and Frost should all have a general idea of what Kimber's been working on since she'd have asked them for their professional opinions along the way. I'll leave it to each of you how complete a picture of the final goal you think they'd have. She'd have likewise let Temperance know she needed help with something involving Jotunheim and made a weak attempt to coach the whole thing in technobabble for Citizen's peace of mind. Papercut and Revenant may only know that Kimber asked for their help and that there's a non-zero chance that there's going to be some monster fighting involved. Kimber's friends from True North are stuck dealing with another Igneous (lava men) crisis, which Frost and Blue Fox would certainly know about, if it comes up.

September 2015 It was a fine September morning when Tarva surprised Kimber in her bedroom - or rather, Kimber entered her bedroom and was surprised to find Tarva there. Tarva lay stretched out on her bed, wearing a short black dress that showed off her long, muscular legs. She'd been cutting back on the black in her wardrobe since their return from Thunder Bay and replacing it with acres of creamy-pale skin, sometimes just hidden beneath sheer black hose, other times hidden beneath nothing at all. "Why hello, Kimber," she said, sitting up on the bed and smiling brightly at her. "You're looking lovely this morning." Tarva had certainly been much more affectionate since that visit to the north as well, and her manner with Kimber these days seemed to lack the artifice of times past. Though as ever, it was hard to tell with the shadow-witch from the Terminus. "I've been down in the towers below today, doing necessary things. How was your night?" She folded her hands on her lap, shadow wrapped around them like yarn, looking Kimber up and down with frank interest.

April 20, 2015 It wasn't that Kimber didn't think Eve would have agreed to fly them all out to Thunder Bay if the poltergeist's hometown hadn't also been where their fearless leader had met her girlfriend but it had certainly made pitching the trip easier. She had an errand to run in the woods outside of the city and while she could have probably performed it alone she had little desire to do so. Accepting that she had died and everything that came with it was one thing, actually visiting the resting place of her corporeal remains was something else entirely. The harder sell had been getting Tarva included in the outing. The trick wasn't so much convincing Eve - the Martel heiress wouldn't have let the sorceress work for her in the first place if she hadn't believed Tarva was worth taking a chance upon - as it was negotiating the paperwork involved in transporting an Annihilist defector across national borders. Ultimately while the Freedom League may have had their politely unspoken doubts about just what Eve and her Claremont classmates had done to earn the Furion's regard they couldn't argue that that regard existed and that made her more or less the de facto authority. If she said they'd keep an eye on Tarva in Canada, then an eye would be kept. The flight, meanwhile, gave Kimber an opportunity for a conversation she'd admittedly put off for too long. Floating over to Indira in the spacious cabin, she folded her translucent legs beneath her and cupped her chin in her hands. "Hey, so, I know I've been kinda acting weird since we got back in space. S'okay if we talk?"

April 15, 2015 Liberty Park After over a year in captivity, Tarva had quietly gone into action. She'd taken advantage of a driving rainstorm, one of the heaviest to hit this city in the year she'd lived there, and a rare mystical confluence produced by Seven's battle with Malador in order to slip away from the Dutemps Building's both physical and spiritual security. With a heavy rain jacket on and her face down, she had gone unnoticed by the many proles who walked the wide, nearly empty streets of this city, long enough for her to carefully make her way to her intended destination. She'd seen Liberty Park on a map of Freedom City and decided to make it her own - and as she approached, thanks to the lateness of the hour and the recent driving rains, she was delighted to find the park almost entirely empty. She stripped off her shoes and left them heedlessly by a walking path near the entrance, staring in wide-eyed fascination at the green beauty of the place. There was no smell of poison in the air, no whisper of monsters in the trees - and when she stepped into the grass, the soft blades were damp and cool against her bare feet. It was exactly what she'd wanted. A cool breeze came up, blowing softly against her skin, and in her soul she wanted to weep for the sheer beauty of the park by night. Keeping her hood up against the rain, she walked towards a nearby pond, staring into the water and thinking with fascination about the creatures who must live there! Settling down by the water, she turned and stared east, knowing the sun would be rising in just another hour or so. Plenty of time for her to see the new dawn, the first she had seen in...in an age, and then flee back to the tower like the rat she had become, away from the awesome beauty of this world's star. It was all perfect - except for one thing. She shot a glare up at the artificial lights scattered through the park and muttered a quick spell as the rain continued to die down, smiling as black globes appeared to cover all the lights she could see. Now the park was in the darkness it deserved, despite the glow of the city all around it, and from the curses and exclamations her sensitive hearing could just pick up from around the park, she would not be molested while she waited. She was alone; as she deserved. Taking out her diary, she began to write, letting her sensitive soul spring to glorious umbral life in the words of darkness and regret that lay beneath her skin like her black-tainted blood. The words flowed from her pen like lightning from a bottle - until suddenly she heard the too-heavy footfalls behind her. She leaped to her feet and screamed in horror at the sight of the oncoming Omegadrone, her fear dimmed not at all by the fact that it was not yet wearing its armor. "F-freedrone!" she exclaimed as she shoved her diary behind her back, terror at the fire burning in those cold eyes. "W-what do you want?" Steve's cold voice curdled into a growl as he stared at the Annihilist witch. "I wanted to be free of you, Tarva the Black, but look at you now! Wandering the streets of this city outside of your cage? Casting your spells? Writing who knows what horrible plans?" He turned anger into purpose, turned the urge to grab her by the neck into a surge forward that caught her by the wrist. "Be grateful that it is an ally who holds you captive, woman, or I would surely call the Freedom League and make some suggestions to your confinement." He pulled, and she pulled back, but his strength was far greater than hers. "Mercy! Please, mercy!" Tarva called, "Please, I only wanted to-" Steve came within an inch, a bare inch, of driving his fist against her face - and the thought must have shown on his, because she fell instantly silent. "You beg me for mercy. You beg me. For mercy." Armor erupted across his skin as holo-emitters came to life, transforming him into the armored figure of Caradoc, Tarva briefly crying out in alarm as armor shifted against her skin where his hand gripped her wrist. He didn't speak; instead he began picking her up so that he could fly her directly to the Dutemps Building. The sooner this was done, the better.

Don't freeze me bro

April 1, 2015 Dutemps Castle "They are not your slaves, Tarva." Furion's rage tempered by the coolness of Earth-Prime, Bluebird fixed a level gaze on Tarva, arms crossed over her chest, a face watching Tarva from the latter's personal computer. "They have a world that is theirs, a city that is theirs, and mighty laws and unions to guard them. If you speak to the cleaning staff like that, they will simply quit, and _you_ will have to explain to Blue Fox why you have driven away her handfast vassals." Her big blue eyes narrowed. "Do you think she will like what you said? Do you think she will laugh?" "No. No, she will not." Tarva looked away guiltily, shadows flushing in her cheeks. "I thought it a jest, to play to my-" "Would it have been a joke before, daughter of Nihilor?" asked Bluebird, her usual cheerful voice serious. "...yes," said Tarva, surrounding herself with a protective blanket of shadow. "But a true jest all the same. Please, please message them and tell them my apologies. I try so hard to be of this place, and I fail sometimes, but...I want to. I want to be a daughter of Earth-Prime." Bluebird let out a breath - an affectation for a projected consciousness. "You are a child in the soul, Tarva." It was, despite everything else, a statement of affection. "I will extend apologies. But then it must be _you_ who apologizes, shadow-witch, and takes them back to Blue Fox's bosom." "You are right. I will go write one." Tarva rose to her feet, a look of determination on her face. "I have procured several books on the subject, and with my vast brain I will surely find some..." The swinging doors closed behind her, cutting off her monologue. Bluebird herself made an appearance a few minutes later, in an immaterial holographic form. She looked around the room for a few moments before her eyes settled on one corner. "Ghost Girl." She smiled cheerfully. "Oh, was I not supposed to spy you?"

The Terminus High above the Silver Tree, deep in the cold red space of the Terminus itself, darkness billowed from the nothingness. It formed first into a black crescent that glowed with an impossible black radiance, then from the crescent there swelled a long spear with a pentagram at the tip. From the crescent resolved the figure of a pale-skinned woman, the spear in one hand and the crescent of shadow billowing behind her like a cape - her eyes deep voids of blackness as she looked down at the world of the Furions beneath her. Clutching her weapon, which was Starkiller, the slayer of suns in her hand, she waited in the void until the Furions came for her - and when they surrounded her, weapons glowing, she threw aside Starkiller and declared in a booming voice that resounded even in the true vacuum of the Terminus. "I am Tarva the Terrible! I bring grave tidings from the streets of Nihilor. But I will speak only to the Fleet-Footed!" --- March 1, 2014 As happens more often than you'd think, a swirling dimensional portal opened above the Martel Castle suspended itself a full hundred stories above Freedom City. Out stepped a man, if that was a man, all in black - the darkness of his garb marred by silvery lines that criss-crossed his muscular body in an abstract pattern and by his facemask - a white goat's face like that of Baphomet himself! Wielding a staff that glowed with searing red flame at the tip, he folded his arms expectantly and awaited in cold silence the arrival of his host and her escorts - for this was Scavros the Scarred, darkest and most terrifying of the Furions!

There you go.