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Lost in the Supermarket - IC


angrydurf

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Tuesday July 12th 2016

The Streets at Midtown

Mostly sunny, 84F

 

The sun shone down on the crowds taking advantage of the mild summer day to explore the pedestrian byways of the upscale 'Streets of Midtown' and it's fine bistros and boutiques.  While 'The Streets' were certainly over budget for Leilani they did offer the benefit of being much more open and less crowded than the more populist Millennium Mall, and Kimber knew just the person to bring along to assuage any budgetary concerns.  As the troupe made their way from one shop to the next they could enjoy the dappling of the sun along the tree lined walks, the fragrance of floral vines on the decorative arbors spaced along the brick paths.  The noise of the city was dulled by the architecture and landscaping giving the shops a peaceful suburban feel in the middle of hte towering skyscrapers and busy streets outside the plazas and paths.  The otherwise Idyllic environs made the faint but persistent buzz almost felt more than heard all the more unsettling as it slowly came to the attention of our heroines.

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Wearing a colorful sundress and sandals, Leilani felt more at home in the open air with smaller shops than she ever did in the buildings that still struck her as oversized and ostentatious. "You were right, this is nice," Leilani commented to Kimber as she paused to take in the windows of one store. She'd not purchased anything herself but Leilani had been happy to come along and enjoy the excursion regardless. The inflation of currency over the years she'd spent in stasis made spending money far more difficult. It wasn't helped that whatever small stipend she had, Leilani owed to the league that had rescued her. Making a mental note to talk to Kimo and see about that lifeguarding position, she offered the other women a friendly smile only to pause as she noticed the faint vibrations through her sandals. 

 

"Is... is that normal?" She finally asked, hesitant to call out an oddity when really it might just be yet another strange occurrence due to Freedom City's technology. 

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Kimber tilted her head quizzically in Leilani's direction, her broad brimmed sunhat exaggerating the gesture. "Is what normal?" the phantom asked, peering over the tops of her large, round sunglasses to try and spot what had caught the Hawaiian woman's attention. She was careful on the placement of the white but very much opaque umbrella suspended over her head; any direct sunlight would have turned her scoop necked top and high-waisted, canary yellow shorts an ethereal, translucent blue along with the rest of her. "Oh! There next, definitely!" She pointed to a shop across the street from them, bobbing slightly in excitement before remembering to make sure her feet appeared to be touching the sidewalk. "You have to pick out something from this one, okay? You can always return it if you don't wear it, it's fine!" She looked over to Eve for confirmation, not actually having any idea what sort of policy the upscale boutiques upheld.

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Daphne loved television, well all media really, having been raised since birthing by the Earth’s television broadcasts. But there was something about actually the feel and touch of actual fabrics under her fingers that she couldn’t deny, plus the pleasant psychic hums of humans was quite relaxing. She really didn’t need to buy the clothes either being a shapeshifter, but it was always nice to see what the latest fashions were around so she could use them when necessary.

 

Happily wandering around whistling a happy tune to herself Daphne was more or less oblivious to everything going on around here.

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Eve frowned.

 

"No, that buzzing isn't normal," she said, taking a moment to look around the plaza to see if she could identify the source but it was all around her.  "Everything around us is vibrating," she told Kimber and Daphne since those two seemed to have not noticed anything.  The telepath sighed and shoved her disappointment at a good day ruined aside and got serious.  Still,] she thought.  "It isn't normal but it might be nothing, this city is rather strange."

 

"Can you find the source?" she asked Leilani.  "Shopping will have to wait."

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"Maybe?" Leilani said hesitantly as she glanced down around at the pavement. Her understanding of her powers was more instinctive than much else but it seemed like something she really ought to be able to do. Pausing, and feeling a little foolish, she reached down to slip off her sandals so her bare feet were on the pavement. Closing her eyes, Leilani tried to blot out the noise and sight of the street and just focus on what she could feel. Tarrant had suggested that in order to move the earth, she had to be nascently aware of it, but Leilani hadn't actually tried to hone that - not burning people had seemed higher priority. 

 

As the earth shivered, Leilani realized she could actually feel the ground beneath her feet, the disturbances below where pipes and sewers cut channels through the ground and then below that... 

 

"There's, well, something making tunnels. Big ones, twice as big as a person or so?" Leilani said slowly, taking a few steps as she tried to get a better sense of distance and scale, "One's gonna come up, I think... over there!" She pointed through the crowd, relief and perhaps even a bit of pride in having sussed out the answer upon request. 

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Closing her umbrella and telekinetically guiding it to lean against a nearby building, the colours of Kimber's body and outfit were immediately washed out into shade of translucent blue while she grumbled, "Honestly, no-one here has any manners. Do they know how hard it is to match up everyone's schedules for day out? Oh no, much too busy digging tunnels, tearing up the road. Rude."

 

Her whole form blurred for a moment like the image through an unfocused camera lens then snapped back into sharp relief. Her breezy outfit was replaced with a flowing ankle-length coat, belted at the waist over a cowl necked top and with an ornate ice crystal pattern over the shoulders. She spun something overhead like a baton, the object growing larger while the whistling sound of metal slicing through air grew louder. When she brought the weapon to bear it had revealed itself as a wicked looking scythe, the gently curving shaft faintly luminous and the the blade simultaneously unthinkably black and impossibly reflective.

 

Floating higher into the air and moving toward the spot Leilani had pointed out she called to the other shoppers, "Hi, everyone! Super sorry about this but could we have everyone flee in an orderly fashion? Death walks among you and so on! Thaaaaanks~!"

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Obviously things like this were really, really bad, but they were always also very exciting, as fun as shopping was being a hero was much better. And the new experience of being part of a team, even in the vaguest of senses made things all the much better.

 

Oh wow really? Just give me a second and I’ll see if I can find anything out.

 

Pulling the knitted hat she often wore  a little further down over her head she altered her ears so they could pick up sonar, something she’d thought of whilst watching a fascinating documentary on bat. Then altering her vocal cords to produce the sounds she began to try and build up a picture of where and who were in the tunnels she’d just learned about.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Moments later the first of the mole machines broke the surface sending a plume of dust and shattered concrete into the air, within seconds the plaza was ringed with a half dozen or more of the burrowing transports as the boreheads stopped moving and heavy ramps slammed down spilling forth a small army of bronze statues moving under some unknown power to charge forth in a chaotic mass chasing fleeing citizens and smashing windows and brickwork with equal ease and zeal.

 

Behind the mass of rampaging automatons a group of sub-terrans in oversized leathery long coats hustle back and forth between several of the mole machines assembling them into still larger structures for some likely nefarious purpose.  Whatever their task they seem to be approaching completion with great speed and whatever device they are building the machines into will doubtless tip the scales in the favor of their hidden masters underhanded goals.

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