ic Hours in the Day [IC]

[Gizmo]

Ackerman, the only member of the group of Overthrow agents actually wearing protective, tinted ski goggles let out a particularly girlish shriek as the electricity from Dragonfly's gauntlet delivered a nasty shock to his system. "Aw, go easy on them, muñequita," Jill called loudly as the glow around her hands turned from virulent green to crackling blue. "It's their first time in a real fight. I mean, I assume." Clenching her fist, the metamagi caused drill shaped force fields to erupt from below the one barking orders, breaking the thick ice into scraping, sliding chunks and taking the fight out of Hahn for the moment.

Undaunted, the lone female of their opponents, presumably Drescher, charged forward, surprisingly surefooted across the snow covered surface, and lashed out as Jill with a pair of dark red nunchaku she'd drawn from her belt along the way. "Who the hell wears a crop top to the arctic?!" the martial artist snarled indignantly, focusing on the offending detail rather than the abrupt and unexplained appearance of the heroes.

"Hey, have you seen these abs?" the acrobatic young woman retorted, barely skipping out of the attack's way. The agents didn't seem to have any superhuman abilities between them, thankfully, but they were clearly well-trained.

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"Not really in a 'go easy' kind of mood,"[/bg] Dragonfly admitted, letting go of Ackerman's arm now that he was, if not out of the fight, at least a significantly smaller threat - for now, anyway. Mentally, she started ticking down how much time people of his weight and build generally took to recover. [bg=#555555]"Should really rethink who they work for if they--hey!"[/bg]

A long blade of neon-blue energy and twisted space formed about an inch off her fist and she swept it out toward Drescher - through Drescher, really, the blade swinging right through the woman's torso without appearing to actually cut anything. [bg=#555555]"Stop that. Damage the abs and I will have to hurt you."[/bg]

[Gizmo]

Recovering his wits, the goggle wearing Ackerman finally managed to draw his high tech looking pistol and squeeze off a volley of red hot darts of light in Dragonfly's general direction, proving at least that he was not the sharpshooter of the group. Somewhat more annoyingly, his inarticulate, high pitched scream continued unabated as he did so.

While Drescher flinched from what her senses must have insisted should have been a fatal blow, Jill took the opportunity to shove a palm into the martial artist's face, taking her down in much the same way as Gross. While the female terrorist didn't crumple quite so immediately, within moments the metahuman's powers had left her attacker unconscious next to her disgruntled squadmate. "Should have listened. My gal is awfully protective of m-urk!"

The acrobat's quip was cut short as beam of red light caught her across her exposed stomach, leaving a blackened line along her side. On the other side of the field of ice, the commanding Overthrow agent stood with his own light pistol raised. Unlike Ackerman, Hahn had taken the time to aim carefully and fire just once, with much more potent affects. While Jill winced in pain and tried to push past it, he wordlessly prepared to fire again.

[Fox]

The fight had almost been fun, up until then - finding SHADOW goons in the arctic had been frustrating, but beating on them (and bantering) had been good for dealing with that frustration. Jill getting hurt changed things somewhat: the immediate concern and outrage killed the fun rather handily, leaving only the frustration and a metric ton of unhappy.

Her change in mood was immediately obvious, even through the suit. She just...stopped in the middle of moving toward Ackerman, head alone turning to focus two glowing eyes on Hahn. And then space wrapped in around her and she disappeared.

Her spatial sword seemed to reappear before she did and seemed just as vengeful, the normally smooth blade spitting and eating at the air as it grew out of his chest, plunged so far into his torso that Dragonfly's armored fist thudded against his back. [bg=#555555]"Should have listened to her. Awfully protective."[/bg]

[Gizmo]

Hahn didn't have time to make a final rejoinder even if he'd been inclined toward banter in the first place. The shock of the ragged spatial blade caused the commanding officer to go rigid with a harsh intake in breath then fall over unconscious without further notice. Not too far away, Ackerman's continuing shriek turned into a stream of sputtering protestations and whimpers before he simply let his light pistol fall to the ground and raised both gloved hands as far into the air as he could in obvious surrender.

"It's okay, nena, I'm okay," Jill called from across the ice, straightening and laying a hand shrouded in warm, blue light along her side. "Nothing I can't handle." True to her word, the blackened line rubbed away on her glove as her metamagi power healed the damage, leaving only a slight discolouration that would fade soon enough and a little tenderness that wouldn't be far behind.

[Fox]

Dragonfly hovered over to her girlfriend before disengaging her wings, breathing a sigh of relief that the hit wasn't as bad as it had first looked. And, at the very least, wasn't bad at all anymore. one of the few things magic does better than science [bg=#555555]"Sorry. Got...frustrated. Not supposed to be anyone here. The whole point,"[/bg] she explained, turning to frown at the terrified Ackerman. [bg=#555555]"Speaking of which. What should we do with them? Probably wanted somewhere, for...something?"[/bg]

[Gizmo]

"I know," Jill replied softly, lowering her voice so it wouldn't carry and offering Dragonfly a small, slightly shaky smile. "Love you too." Refocusing on the Overthrow agents, she threw a force-field bubble around the surrendered agent, who whimpered slightly but didn't protest. Further away from the point they'd first teleported to a white dome could be made out against the snow, a long-term but ultimately disposable structure presumably constructed as an outpost for the duration of whatever specific mission the terrorists had been sent upon. It wasn't a much bigger than a particularly spacious camper trailer, with several arrays of transmission antennae sticking out almost haphazardly all about it's curving surface. They were close enough that had there been any additional members of the team, the would have certainly come running already. "The loud one said they were working for Overthrow, right? I guess we could lock them up and call... somebody? I'm not sure who would be in charge of the North Pole..."

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"Never got the phone number for the Christmas Crusader,"[/bg] Dragonfly pondered. She'd gotten far too used to just zip-tying criminals and sending phone calls to the police; something this far from civilization was...problematic. [bg=#555555]"Would have been useful. ...AEGIS, maybe. Probably have the resources to get them out of here. Eventually. Guess they could send Victory if nothing else."[/bg]

She tilted her head, looking at the bubble'd agent. [bg=#555555]"Might even be tempted to leave heat on in their building after we leave."[/bg]

[Gizmo]

Lifting her other hand, Jill scooped up the three unconscious agents in bubbles of their own, leaving perfectly smooth valleys in the icy surface. "Well, he seemed like more of a 'I'll call you' type anyway," she noted, beginning the hike over to the domed outpost, four shimmering blue spheres trailing in the air behind her like balloons. "But if you trash their comm gear and melt the locks, I guess it's not like they're going anywhere." She assumed they must have at least supplies enough to last them until they could be rounded up by a group like AEGIS.

"I didn't even want to be in Overthrow..." Ackerman moaned quietly. "I wanted to be a dentist..."

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"Mmh,"[/bg] Dragonfly agreed. She flexed her hands, and the plates on her gauntlets pushed apart; a dozen little tools deploying on articulated arms. [bg=#555555]"Good idea. Think I can do that - might even be satisfying."[/bg]

And indeed, by the time it was done she'd calmed down considerably, her frustration settling into a small grump. Dragonfly put the finishing touches on the fused and twisted metal that used to be a door lock and stretched, reflexively trying to put a hand through her hair before remembering that she had a helmet in the way. [bg=#555555]"Not...quite how I planned this. Guess the day's not over? Not quite the same here with idiots nearby, though. Probably going to be loud when they wake up, too."[/bg]

[Gizmo]

"At least the whiny one's not bored any more, I guess," Jill agreed with a shrug, idly inspecting her side before forcing herself to leave it alone. Her powers had healed the minor injury almost immediately but not surprisingly her subconscious was reluctant to believe it. "I don't really want to be around when he comes to and offers his sincere thanks, though, no," she agreed, looking out across the icy field and pursing her lips. "Ugh, it's going to bug me knowing they're in there even if we get out of earshot, too. I don't suppose you had a Plan C?"

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"Didn't think I needed one,"[/bg] Dragonfly admitted, frustratedly slumping. The armor around her lower face opened up on invisible seams, retracting back into the rest of her helmet. "Apparently just villains everywhere. Not like I don't enjoy kicking butt with you - I do - but not supposed to be...that kind of day! Spain, okay - populated. Should have expected crime. Here? No people here."

She raised her hands in a grumpy gesture, shaking her head and looking upward as if expressing her grumpiness to some higher power. "The arctic. To get any less populated, would have to.....go to.......mmmmh."

The hands dropped, the head tilted, and Mara was silent for a moment as she muttered math, still looking upward. "....ever been to space?"

[Gizmo]

Ellie's own chin pulled back reflexively the moment Mara's head tilted just slightly to the side, recognizing the look on her girlfriend's face, practically hearing the gears within shifting into a higher gear. Even so, she was taken off guard by the question. "Space where?" she responded with a small frown before her eyes went wide a moment later. "What, space space? Outer space?" She pointed straight upward rather unnecessarily. "Are you ser- No, what am I saying, of course you are." She knew for a fact that the inventor had been outside the Earth's atmosphere on more than one occasion, not the least of which had involved commandeering a satellite and turning it into a massive laser weapon on Ellie's own behalf. "...really?"

[Fox]

"Only if you want to," Mara hastened to add, bringing her gaze back down from the sky. "Don't have a spaceship or anything waiting - too...not sure, too extravagant? - but could probably get us to the moon, and could...'super-charge' your shield to provide life support. Not that hard, would just need a better battery, and a spatial funnel maybe."

The young woman gestured futilely, glancing back upward. "Shouldn't be anyone up there to bother us, away from the city. Better not be. But up to you - don't want to take you if you're uncomfortable with it."

[Gizmo]

Closing the short distance between them with a single step, Ellie stooped slightly around the awkwardness of Mara's half-retracted helmet to plant a soft peck of a kiss on the engineer's cheek. "That would be amazing," she assured her partner genuinely, the corner of her mouth pulling up into a smile that showed teeth. "Granted, coming back to the spot where we first met is a tough act to follow, but the flipping moon is a pretty good contingency plan on the romance-o-meter." The masked acrobat offered Mara a rueful look. "I know you just wanted to spend the day together without any interruptions. We'll make it happen, promise."

[Fox]

Mara ducked her head a little at the compliment, deploying her suit's array of tools again and assembling something out of pieces she was literally pulling from nowhere...plus one or two that she salvaged right out of her gauntlets, though the battlesuit didn't look or act like it was any worse for the loss. "It's...thanks. Means a lot. And mostly just wanted to spend the day with you, and...am. Still a good day, I think. Just frustrating in parts."

In short order she had a working...something...that she held up to inspect with a critical eye. It looked a fair bit like the armband Ellie already wore, but more bronze than gold and significantly less polished, with a little wire-filled tube coming off one side. "Wish I had more time to make it look better. Solid, reliable, but...mmh. Can't exactly carry around a metal lathe."

[Gizmo]

"Well, you probably could," Ellie noted affixing the new armband on the opposite arm, careful not to disturb any of its components despite the purported solidity of the construction. "Whether you should or not..." she added with a grin, trailing off and making a show of an exaggerated shrug, palms turned upward. She was trying especially hard to draw a smile from the harried inventor with everything they'd had to deal with so far; it was, after all, Mara's birthday even if her girlfriend had ultimately chosen to make it an outing for the both of them.

[Fox]

"Mmh." Mara snorted, but it was in somewhat better humor as she carefully hooked the loose end of the little wire-filled tube into something else on the armband Ellie had donned; as soon as it clicked into place the little device hummed to life. "Could probably weaponize it. The lathe, I mean. Drop it on heads."

"Anyway." The engineer's helmet closed back up, little lights dancing behind the lenses as she sent some very complex instructions back along the link she kept to her warehouse, for relaying to the teleportation rig. There was a pregnant pause as the equipment warmed up a half a planet away, and then the world twisted in on itself...opening back up into a grey, cratered landscape backed by an expanse of shining stars. [bg=#555555]"The moon!"[/bg]

[Gizmo]

"Belongs to Lady Lunar!" an imperious voice rang out to finish Dragonfly's sentence. Floating a few feet off of the rocky surface was an impossibly thin woman with pale skin and practically luminous hair down the length of her considerably height, clad in a shimmering blue robe with an ornate black collar. He pupilless pink eyes glared balefully down at the down at the recently arrive pair as she gestured with emphatic regal authority. "We do not know how you learned of Our plans, peasants," Lady Lunar spat coldly, "but We shall brook no interference from lesser beings!"

The Farsider villain was enough of a shocking distraction that it took a moment to realize that she was speaking normally to them, unlike Dragonfly's use of a short range radio built into Jill's life support arm band. They were in the center of a huge dome of faintly purple light evidently being generated and filled with breathable air by the range of large, fanciful looking machines far to their left. More immediately surrounding them were an even dozen hulking, gorilla-like apes with light blue fur and scowling, tusk-filled mouths. One of the largest roared and beat its chest as though echoing its mistress' sentiment.

Jill responded with a beat of silence followed by profuse swearing.

[Fox]

wait - no - what

Dragonfly's voice was only a syllable behind Ellie's as she took in the situation - even as she remembered to bring her defenses online, force field twisting into being around her profile, Mara was casting rather dark and un-lady-like suspicions on Lunar's paternal lineage and recreational habits relative to her simian henchmen.

[bg=#555555]"38,000,000 square kilometers,[/bg] she said through gritted teeth, but only once she'd run out of kitchen implements to accuse the moon-dwelling villainess of inappropriately misusing. [bg=#555555]"Thirty-eight million square kilometers. Even in half to avoid the dark side, nineteen million square kilometers and we ended up here. Why."[/bg]

[Fox]

Dragonfly's armor lit up on the tail end of her mini-rant, plates around her gauntlets and shoulders lifting apart just enough to let the inner workings shine through as space around her started to warp and flicker. She didn't seem to be aiming at anything in particular, though - the twisted space just built up around her armor and then bled away into nothing.

And then the world broke with an awful skrack!, the fabric of reality badly twisting and crumpling in on itself in a pretty good radius around the heroines who stood safe in the eye of the storm. The effect didn't last long and the faint wisps of smoke trailing out of her suit as the armored plates settled back together spoke of the strain it put on her invention's systems, but Dragonfly was apparently not in the mood to be messing around.

[Gizmo]

"You... you dare?!" Lady Lunar managed to sputter in the face of the off-colour tirade, pink rising in her inhumanly pale face in royal outrage. Before she could continue, the Farsider was forced to throw her hands up, a telekinetic force-field springing into being along with the gesture to defend against the physics rending attack from the armored heroine. While their mistress managed to weather the show of force with merely a strained grunt, the dumbfounded crater apes fared less well, the bulk of them collapsing with injuries where empty air had suddenly decided to become twisted and dangerous.

[Gizmo]

"I'm beginning to think the 'why' is something along the lines of 'the universe is complete and utter blue moon monkey balls'," Jill theorized, simultaneously pulling her elbows into her sides and clenching her fists. As she did, a ring of crackling blue bioelectric construct rippled forth like a boulder being dropped in a still pond, following in the wake of her partner's spatial attack. The final standing crater apes were knocked off of their feet and tossed unconscious to the ground, but the diffused battering force washed over Lady Lunar's protective shield with no effect.

The regal villainess scoffed, lifting one hand imperiously and widening her eyes with psionic concentration. "You would match your pitiful powers against Ours? Fool!" The force field bubble bulged as a column of force rocketed out, smashing into the rocky surface as Jill leapt out of the way, leaving one more crater in the satellite.

[Fox]

Dragonfly dodged a couple of steps to the side as the column of force hit the ground. psychic - telekinetic at least - adjust tactics - need to pay attention to possible mental influence

[bg=#555555]"Know that there's only one of you, right?"[/bg] Dragonfly asked, her voice still sharp with ire. She raised a gauntleted hand, launching a no-frills spatial shockwave Lady Lunar's way to offer Jill a moment of breathing room after she escaped the psionic villain's attack. [bg=#555555]"No more monkeys. Just you, singular. And your craziness. Craziness doesn't really count, though. Won't save you."[/bg]

[Gizmo]

The shockwave rippled across Lady Lunar's telekinetic barrier, causing the visible field to ripple violently and physically forcing the villainous back the span of a pace from where she hung in the air. "P-peasant cretin!" she sputtered, visibly outraged as her fine, snowy eyebrows lifted toward her high brow. "You will hold your tongue before Lady Lunar! We are the true heir of the Royal Family! The true Monarch of the Moon!"

"So it's the royal we, then," Jill thought aloud as she rolled back to her feet after barely avoiding the last attack and spread her hands, bringing a translucent blue force field of her own into place between the heroes and their ranting foe. "Not that that rules out the crazy thing."