PROGENITOR: WORM (A Wormquest AU)

[DragonCobolt]

SUSPICION​	TECHNOLOGY​	ECONOMY​	WARFARE​
2​	3​	3​	2​

THE METRIC DATA IS NOT AVALAIBLE TO YOUR CHARACTER UNLESS THEY HAVE SUPERHUMAN (10+) DICE IN MIND.
YOU MAY CHECK THE METRICS, BUT YOU MUST NOT ACT UPON THEM.
IF YOU START DOING MONKEY BEESKNEES, THEN I'LL REMOVE THESE.
BUT THEY'RE NEAT, SO DON'T MAKE ME DO THAT.



THE CURRENT MEMBERS OF THE STONEWALL NINE

TEAM MORALE: Dissolved (1/4), Fraying (1/2), Bad (3/4), Average (x1), Good (x1.5), Excellent (x2), Found Family (x3)
TEAM HEADQUARTERS: Yggdrasil, the World Tree
TEAM ALLIES: NYPD (Grudging), Stan Lee (Eager), Cam Nguyet (Whether You Want Her Or Not), Amanda Sykes, Abe Sykes
TEAM ENEMIES: Don Crawler (Nemesis) [IN JAIL], Glasshead (Nemesis) [IN JAIL], Miss Eyes (Nemisis) [IN JAIL], Zipperneck (Rival) [IN JAIL],
Cam Nguyet (Whether You Want Her Or Not)

TEAM WARDS: Tina Shaw, Amy Sykes, Cassie the Humanoid Force, Sloppy Joe, Aisha Laborn, Camilo Vera, Jill Danning
​

Lily Satō, Head of the Stonewall Nine

Spoiler: Lily's Stats

AGE: 19 (DOB: 1951)
PASSION: Girls [7], Fuck the Cops [4], Superheroing [1]
LOYALTY: Queer Rights [7], Your Friends [5], , A Better World [1]
BASE WILL: 25 | XP: 1

Lily has seen nothing but hassle from New York's finest and is damn sure not going to let them push her around. And now, finally, a queer woman can hit back harder than the patriarchy does.

BODY​	CORD.​	SENSE​	MIND​	CHARM​	COMMAND​
1d+1wd​	6d​	3d​	3d​	2d​	2d​

Lily, before becoming a metahuman, was perceptive and smart, but had the strength and endurance of a sixteen year old girl after a bad cold. Afterwards, she could become incredibly strong if she manipulated the physics of the items she touched, or the clothing she wore to augment herself. Her max press was five tons without any additional effort, a top speed of 40 MPH for running, and a vertical jump of 8 yards. Also, she can dodge bullets.

SKILLS (Broad, Flexible, Influence)
[Any] New Yorker, Japanese-American, Delinquent (B/F/-): 3d
[Any] Being a Lesbian in the 1960s (B/F/-): 3d
[Any] Superhero (B/F/I): 1d
[Coordination] Sneaking (-/-/-): 2d
[Coordination] Lockpicking (-/-/-): 2d
[Mind] Speak Vietnamese (-/-/-): 1d
[Mind] Speak Russia (-/-/-): 1d
[Mind - Hyperskill] Intuitive Physicist (B/-/-): 6hd
[Charm] Voice of the People (-/-/I): 1d
[Command] Stubbornness (-/-/-): 3d

Lily, before becoming a metahuman, was the bad apple of her family. A second generation Japanese immigrant, she doesn't like or respect her parents - if only because she's grimly determined they'd freak out if they found out what she...felt about other women. She's good at sneaking out and has spent more time at Stonewall than she has at school, as her grades will attest. She's got a stubborn attitude and is about ten years early for punk and ten years late for the Beatniks. She makes do.

ARCHETYPE: METAHUMAN
Source: Unknown | Permission: Super
Intrinsics:

Immutable: Barring superhuman assistance, gadgets, or something wildly unexpected, Lily's powers will not change or improve.​

​

Infectious: Lily is either a strong, stable or weak vector (she doesn't know which.) If she's strong, she has a 100% infection rate until she reaches power equilibrium. If she's stable, she has an 80% shot (the joy of being a Tier 3.) If she's weak, she's got a 10% shot. Infection passes when she uses her powers on anything sentient.​

​

POWERS

Not So Little Anymore...
Dice: 1wd

Hyperbody (+4), No Physics (+1), Booster [2] (+2), If/Then [Must Be Wearing Clothes Over The Parts Used] (-1), Obvious (-1)​

Cost per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 20​

By adjusting, in minute and gross ways, the physical properties of either what she carries and her own clothing, Lily effectively has her very own suit of strength enhancing exoskeletal structures. This imparts incredibly precise control to her blows, her athleticism, and her jumping. This isn't a subtle effect - her body emits strange flashes and odd noises as air and light interacts unpredictably with her physics alterations.

Fast as a Thought
Dice: 4d

Hypercoordination (+4), No Physics (+1), Go First [2] (+2), If/Then [Must Be Wearing Clothes Over The Parts Used] (-1), Obvious (-1)​

Cost per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 20​

Just like with her body, but this covers her reflexes as well. She can dodge bullets! ...not that she HAS too. The flashing and eerie hissing makes stealth hard, so she prefers to turn it off when she's sneaking anywhere.

Intuitive Physicist
Dice: 6hd
Hyperskill [[Mind]General Physicist (B/-/-)] (+1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 12
She's intuitively a PHD equipped physicist on par with Albert Einstein. Maybe better, actually. She literally can't NOT know the exact right answer to any physics question. This really helps, considering her powers.

Everything is a Gun
Dice: 8d+1wd
Range: 2,560 Yards | Mass: Knockback = Base Damage + 6 meters | Base Damage: Width in Shock & Killing

Attack (+2), Area [1d] (+1) Spray [1d) (+1), Heightened Capacity [Mass] (+1), Penetration [2] (+2), Power Capacity [Mass] (+2), Speeding Bullet (+2), If/Then [Must Touch an Object] (-1), Obvious (-1)​

Cost Per Die: 9 | Total Cost: 108​

By touching an object (any object, really) and canceling their mass and lateral motion relative to the planet Earth, she can turn anything, from an apple to a doorknob to a manhole cover into a projectile. By touching a lot of objects (I.E, using spray), she can hit as many times as she gets sets. By making sure to touch relatively fragile objects and creating deliberate fracture points, she turns the weapon into a kind of kinetic shotgun (using Area.) People hit by this tend to go flying (using the Power Capacity [Mass]), but she can just use narrow blades if she just wants to do the slicing and slashing. The only problem is if she can't touch things with her skin (it has to be a skin to skin contact) it won't work. Oh. Also, the sonic booms.

No
Dice: 10hd
Range: 512 yards

Defends (+2), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Spray (+1), Obvious (-1), Limited Capacity (-1), If/Then [Must have a Medium to Manipulate] (-1)​

Cost Per Die: 3 | Total Cost: 40​

By glaring at the air around her, she can render it impenetrable to whatever is coming her way. Maybe the air molecules suddenly lose the ability to move at all and become an impenetrable wall that simply bounces a kinetic projectile off, or negating an explosive's ability to undergo chemical interactions that lead to detonations, or making the air molecules ahead of her simply non-conductive to whatever energy blast is heading her way. This is not subtle - producing bright flashes, loud booms, and strange changes in local atmospheric conditions as the interactions become chaotic beyond the immediate radius. The maximum number of people or places she can protect at once is five people, but the more people she tries to protect, the less effective the defense is. It's literally impenetrable when she's just protecting one person, but if she's protecting five at once, a fast shot or lucky hit might get through.

Physical Fuckery
Dice: 5wd

Range: N/A | Mass: N/A | Speed: N/A​

Attacks (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Must Be Related to Repressing a Physical Law] (-1), Locational [Head, R. Arm, L. Arm, Body, R. Leg, L. Leg] (-6)​

Defends (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Must Be Related to Repressing a Physical Law] (-1), Locational [Head, R. Arm, L. Arm, Body, R. Leg, L. Leg] (-6)​

Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Must Be Related to Repressing a Physical Law] (-1), Locational [Head, R. Arm, L. Arm, Body, R. Leg, L. Leg] (-6)​

Cost Per Die: 6 | Total Cost: 120​

Whenever she puts her mind to it, Lily can do something. If it can be done by suppressing a physical property or law, she can do it. Needless to say, once she realizes how her power works, she starts studying the hell of out physics. This is really easy, thanks to her intuitive understanding of physics. However, this power requires her to be able to use every SINGLE iota of her body's contact with the surrounding universe. If she has taken any trauma to any part of her body, then these powers short out. If she gets a chance to refocus, she can reestablish her control...unless the body part in question is too damaged to be used (I.E, filled with any combination of shock or killing damage.) In which case, she simply cannot tap into this ability to manipulate the universe. She simply lacks the holistic connection to the universe.

Seriously, Though, everything?
Dice: 1d
Range: Self Only

Attacks (+2), Attack Quality [10] (+10), Augment (+4), Area [10d] (+10), Booster [10] (+10), Burning (+2), Engulf (+2), Penetration [10] (+10), Radius [5] (+10), If/Then [Augment Only] (-1), If/Then [Cannot Spend Use Augment for anything but "Everything Is a Gun"] (-1), If/Then [Must Be Manipulating Matter On A Scale Permitting The Impacts She Wishes] (-1), Self Only (-3)​

Cost Per Die: 54 | Total Cost: 54​

Hey, what if she touches a mountain face and she negates its inertia and lateral motion for a flash of a second and turns Everest into a five kilometer high rock shotgun? Well, uh...take your pick! Add all of the above! If she uses a chemical tanker, it might explode. If she uproots an oil derrick, it will set things on fire. Anything justifiable in the scene, she can do it. She will have to spend a willpower point to do this. Oh, and be willing to accept the consequences.

Confident as Hell
Dice: N/A
Base Will (+3), Attached [Hyperbody] (-2)
Cost Per Point: 1 | Total Cost: 26
Lifting five tons over her head, running as fast a car, and being aware she doesn't have to be afraid anymore all combine to create a staggering, preposterous level of raw confidence. This is good, cause it makes her good at fighting supervillains and changing the world. The only problem is that if that hyperbody ever goes away...poof. There goes the confidence. Good thing that won't happen! ...right?

​

Andy Richter, Time Thief and Genius Gadgeteer

Spoiler: Powers

Andy's Powers

ANDY HAS 11 BASE WILL.

Hypermind
Dice: 4wd
Hyperbrain (+4), If/Then [Must be within 10 meters of any form if electrical equipment) (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted by wrapping his head in a Faraday cage] (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted with any form of non-physical radar jamming too] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 12

More Hypermind
Dice: 2wd
Hyperbrain (+4) If/Then [Must be within 10 meters of a pretty hefty chunk of computers) (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted by wrapping his head in a Faraday cage] (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted with any form of non-physical radar jamming too] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 8

Even More Hypermind
Dice: 2wd
Hyperbrain (+4) If/Then [Must be within 10 meters of even more computer components) (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted by wrapping his head in a Faraday cage] (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted with any form of non-physical radar jamming too] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 8

Dear God, Sir, How Much More Hypermind Do you Need!?
Dice: 2wd
Hyperbrain (+4) If/Then [Must be within 10 meters of a pretty hefty chunk of computers) (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted by wrapping his head in a Faraday cage] (-1), If/Then [Can be disrupted with any form of non-physical radar jamming too] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 8

When Andy is within ten meters of any kind of electrically conductive material harnessed for human ends – lamp posts and microwaves, toasters and hair driers – he becomes smarter than the smartest human being in the world. If those electrically conductive materials are arranged into a computer of some kind, then he becomes a lot smarter, and he gets more and more smarter the more and more computers are around him. Eventually, he hits the four way tie for smartest monkey on this marble. Unfortunately, unlike some metahumans, Andy's "exocortex" is suspended on physical matter and communicated to him via electromagnetic signals, meaning they can be blocked or removed by his enemies.

Time Snatch
Dice: 2hd
Mass: 2.5 kg or less
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Limited Capacity (-1)
Cost Per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 20

Andy has a fascination with electrical gizmos and computers. But the 1960s was not enough for his subconscious. He is able to reach forward in time into parallel universes and, uh...steal stuff. The stuff can only come from other universes, and he can't do more than 2.5 kilograms at a time, making the stuff he REALLY wants (quantum computers, spaceship engines, laser guns) slightly tricky.

I Can Make Whatever You Want
Dice: 5hd+10d+5wd

Attacks (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), Delayed Effect (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Requires at least 6wd of Hyperbrain to be active] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is only for Technology] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Any Gadget Made Must Have the Manufacturable Extra] (-1), Willpower Investment (-1)
Defends (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), Delayed Effect (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Requires at least 6wd of Hyperbrain to be active] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is only for Technology] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Any Gadget Made Must Have the Manufacturable Extra] (-1), Willpower Investment (-1)
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), Delayed Effect (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Requires at least 6wd of Hyperbrain to be active] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is only for Technology] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Any Gadget Made Must Have the Manufacturable Extra] (-1), Willpower Investment (-1)
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Delayed Effect (-2), Touch Only (-2)
Cost Per Die: 7 | Total Cost: 280

Hokay. So! Andy can make gadgets. He's, in fact, one of the better gadgeters in the world – in part because he doesn't NEED A LABORATORY. He doesn't NEED supplies. Because he just...uh...borrows them from the future. (Note, if he chooses to not borrow things from the future, then he will need a laboratory, but won't get a rebate in points.) The gadgets he makes can be, eventually, learned to be recreated by non-metahumans. Now, it still takes him some time to actually build a gadget! Now, there is one tiny problem: He needs to be smart enough to do any of this, and that means that if he's in a Faraday cage helmet, then he's shit outta luck.

Oh, also, the last useful ability is the ability to deconstruct other people's foci. So, if he finds a gadget in the wild, he can take it apart and gets all the Willpower used to build the device in the first place. This is why gadgteers tend to HATE one another. He can also deconstruct any device he's built to get the willpower he invested in it back.

Base Will
Dice: N/A
Base Will (+3), Attached [Hypermind] (-2)
Cost Per Point: 1 | Total Cost: 14

He's a driven, focused guy.

Sabah Attar, Girl Who's Under Your Skin

Spoiler: Powers

SABAH HAS 8 BASE WILL

Puppets
Dice: 2hd+8d
Range: Touch/5,450 Yards
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Delayed Effect (-2) If/Then [Needs Materials To Make Them From] (-1), If/Then [Can only use hard dice with skin] (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Attached [Telekinesis] (-2)
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 48

By using her telekinesis to sew together, uh, material - don't tell people it's skin, please don't tell people it works best with skin - Sabah is able to make incredibly useful puppets. With a 2x10 result, she can make 10 of them. They last forever and are perfectly loyal to her! ...so long as they're within about three miles. Once beyond that, they act on their own recognizance. She CAN make it with non-skin and she's even pretty good at it, but it is kind of tricky and doesn't always make the best minions. (a 2x1 to 2x3 result produces Rabble, while a 2x4 to 2x6 makes trained minions, and 2x7 to 2x8 makes professionals. 2x10 make Elites.

Matterkinesis
Dice: 9d+1wd
Range: 510 Yards | Mass: 1.28 Tons| Speed: 128 Yards
Attacks (+2), High Capacity [Mass, Range] (+2), Power Capacity [Mass, Range] (+4), Spray [1d] (+1), If/Then [Only Manipulates Unliving Matter] (-1), Limited Capacity (-1)
Defend (+2), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Spray [1d] (+1), If/Then [Only Manipulates Unliving Matter] (-1), Limited Capacity (-1)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), High Capacity [Mass, Range] (+2), Power Capacity [Mass, Range] (+4), Spray [1d] (+1), If/Then [Only Manipulates Unliving Matter] (-1), Limited Capacity (-1)
Cost Per Die: 19 | Total Cost: 247 points

This is the big shebang. Sabah is able to manipulate non-living matter to move it around. She's pretty weak. For...a tier 4, meaning she can "only" lift a 1.2 ton boulder off the ground from a "mere" 510 yards and "barely" throw it at 128 MPH. Guh. What a chump, right? This power can defend, attack, and manipulate matter. The matter that she manipulates tends to "stick" to what it was doing for about an hour - so if she flings a rock upwards at 128 MPH, then it'll keep going straight up at that speed for an hour before falling down.

Specialty Puppets
Dice: 2hd
Range: Touch
Attack (+2), Duration (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only Is Attached to Puppets] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Can Mimic Expert Minion Abilities] (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Defend (+2), Duration (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only Is Attached to Puppets] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Can Mimic Expert Minion Abilities] (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Only Is Attached to Puppets] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Can Mimic Expert Minion Abilities] (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 4

When she makes puppets, the puppets can do stuff that they would reasonably be able to do. If she makes a bunch of ninja costumes, they get the Elite Ability: Stealth, allowing them to do what minions normally cannot (sneak into buildings without being spotted.) She can attach any elite ability she wants to these puppets!

Armed Puppets
Dice: 2hd
Range: Touch
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), Touch Only (-2)
Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 8

...is that a puppet? HE'S GOT A GUN!? BLAM BLAM! If this power is used after the puppet power, then the puppets have guns and can do their damage in S/K damage. The guns look like they're made of felt cloth or bone depending on if Sabah is making them out of which cloth - but no matter how impossible the gun looks, it still can kill.

Immune Puppets
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Puppets] (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is for Immunities Only] (-1), Self Only (-3)
Cost Per Die: 3 | Total Cost: 12

These puppets don't need to breathe, cannot be poisoned by gas, cannot get cancer, radiation, "live" I guess, forever, and are immune to pretty much whatever would kill a normal human other than straight out physical damage.

Self Stitching
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Engulf (+2), No Physics (+1), Self Only (-3)
Cost Per Die: 6 | Total Cost: 24

Sabah hopefully doesn't learn about this for a while. But the instant her own flesh dies, she can control it and can instinctively stitch it back together again. This effects her entire body. At the most extreme case, if she is completely atomized, she will reconstitute herself in approximately sixty seconds. She will not enjoy doing this, but she can do it. Death for Sabah now requires some equally permanent effect or for her to lose her powers.

Touch Up
Dice: 1d
Hypercharm (+4)
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 1d

Like most teens of any gender or sexuality, Sabah has a few hangups about her body. A few wrinkles gone, a bit less sag here and there. Most people won't notice, but they're gone.

Base Will
Points: 1
Base Will (+3)
Cost Per Point: 3 | Total Cost: 1

She's just a bit more confident. Also, I had 3 points to spare

Lisa Wilbourn, Nose Who Knows

Spoiler: Powers

LISA HAS 12 BASE WILL

Become a Foxgirl
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Self Only (-3)
Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 8

Lisa becomes a fox girl!

Elementary
Dice: 5wd
Hyperskill [Broad, Flexible] (+2), No Physics (+1), If/Then [The wild dice must be set to the value of the normal die rolled] (-2)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 20

Why, it's elementary, my dear Watson! This is a broad and flexible skill that covers all manners of detective and investigation sneakery. It has no physics, allowing for preposterous levels of information to be drawn, far beyond what would normally be available from a mere glance. The only problem is that it is somewhat dependent on her own mind (5d.) So, if she rolls a 4, 3, 2, 1 in her normal mind dice, she'd HAVE to get a 5x4 - a fast, but not necessarily correct deduction.

Bang
Dice: 10wd
Hyperskill [Broad] (+1)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 40

She's quite possibly the best shot on the planet with any gun or gun like object. This is a byproduct of her incredibly focused intellect.

Coordinated Like A Fox
Dice: 10wd
Hypercoordination (+4), Attached [Fox Girl] (-2)
Total Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 80

When she is a fox girl, she is able to preform feats of physical coordination that defy imagination. Dodge bullets? She can CATCH bullets. She can shoot bullets WITH HER OWN BULLETS.

Can't Touch This
Dice: 1d
Hyperskill [Narrow] (+0), Interference (+3), Duration(+2), Attached [Fox Girl] (-2)
Total Cost Per Die: 4 | | Total Cost: 3

Remember when I said she can dodge bullets? Say she gets shot at. She rolls a 10x10 using her coordination+ this skill. This now on for the rest of the battle. She can dodge all the bullets forever until the battle is over.

The Nose Knows
Dice: 10wd
Hypersense (+4), Attached [Fox girl] (-2)
Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 80

Her senses are so preposterously attuned to the world around her that she can see in the dark, read by touch, identify targets by smell, differentiate between distinct sounds in a symphony by their subtle differences, and can sense movement up to a quarter of a mile away.

Oh Shit
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), No Physics (+1), Radius [13] (+26), Self Only (-3), Uncontrolled (-2), Attached [Fox Girl] (-2)
Cost Per Die: 26 | Total Cost: 104

This is a power no one knows she has. Because it's not really a power exactly. It's a combination of her incredible senses and her deductive reasoning. Here's how it works. If anything catastrophic happens within 12 hours - the death of a loved one, a natural disaster, a space station knocked out of orbit and smashed into the ground - and it happens somewhere within 50 miles around Lisa, this power triggers. The game resets to that point with her waking up from a prophetic dream put together by her subconscious, aware of exactly what she did during that day. Once she realizes this power exists (and, also, the 50 mile limit to when it triggers) she is going to be INCREDIBLY CLINGY.

Base Will
Points: 5
Base Will (+3)
Cost Per Die: 3 | Total Cost: 15

She's confident, like most of you, because she has superpowers.

Theo Anders, Arm of the Resistance

Spoiler: Powers

THEO HAS 7 BASE WILL

Limb Field
Dice: 8+2wd
Hyperbody (+4), Booster [+8], No Physics (+1), On Sight (+1), Endless (+3), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Radius [1] (+2), Spray [1] (+1), If/Then [Only for arms] (-1), If/Then [Requires Local Materials] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 20 | Total Cost: 320

So! Everything within a 3 mile range can be touched by Theo by manifesting an arm made of local materials (air, if nothing's there, but he can also use cloth, bits of stone, metal, anything that he can use to reach through.) This does mean it doesn't work in a vacuum, but it can work in an extremely thin atmosphere or with local dirt if he was, say, on the Moon. Anywho, he can make as many arms as he want (for example, if there were twenty people in a ten yard radius, he could make 20 arms to grab each of them by the scruff of their necks.) What is more, he can use this power through screens to cheat the distance. If he sees someone on TV, he can manifest an arm there and pants them! Cool!

Anywho, these arms can lift 1.28 trillion tons, last forever unless he is killed or runs out of willpower. They can throw a 1.6 ton object nearly a tenth of a mile. They can punch someone so hard that they'll go flying 48 yards BEFORE you figure for any extra damage. And did I mention they defy the laws of physics - so, he can pick up a building without spilling the coffee cups inside? Cool!

Tougher Than He Looks
Dice: 3hd
Defends (+2), Endless (+3), Hardened Armor (+2), Armored Defense (-2)
Cost Per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 30

He's tougher than he looks. He has 3 levels of Light Armor, which reduces shock damage to 1, then converts 3 levels of killing damage to shock. So, if he was thrown into a wall for 5s/2k like poor Ned, he'd take 1s/2k, then the 2k would be turned to shock, so that's a total of 3s - a bad bruise, not a potentially life threatening spine snap.

Rachel Lindt, Houndmistress Extraordinaire

Spoiler: Powers

RACHEL HAS 9 BASE WILL

Pet Their Heads And They Wag their Tails
Dice: 2hd+2d
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Touch Only (-2)
Hypermind (+4), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), If/Then [Does Not Provide Hard Dice To Canines] (-1)
Points Per Die: 5 | Total Cost: 30

When Rachel pets a dog, the dog wags their tail! Also, she can now talk to this dog, forever, at any time, using normal conversational English. She can also understand the dog's response. Oh! Also, the dog gets +1d to its mind as hypermind, bumping it from an animalistic 0d to a human level 2d. Good dog! Who's a good pupper?

Make My Doggy GROW!
Dice: 3hd+6d+2wd
Range: 5,120 yards
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), On Sight (+1), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Obvious (-1)
Hyperbody (+4), Booster [2] (+2) Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Hypercoordination (+4), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Defends (+2), Duration (+2), Armored Defense (-2), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Defends (+2), Duration (+2), Interference (+3), Armored Defense (-2), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Attacks (+2), Penetration [5] (+5), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make My Doggy Grow] (-2)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Engulf (+2), Attached [Pet their heads] (-2), Attached [Make my Doggy Grow] (-2), Self Only (-3)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Attached [Pet their Heads] (-2), Attached [Make my Doggy Grow] (-2)
Points Per Die: 13 | 260

If a dog that Rachel has petted is within range - or even just visible through a screen, or...she can talk to it over a phone (note to self: Invent radio collars for her dogs that she can work through), she can make the doggy GROW! This only lasts for a short time, but the dog will become much larger, much tougher, and much stronger and much faster. Basically, they get +3hd+6d+2wd to their Body, their Coordination, AND they'll get (effectively) 5 levels of light and hardened armor and +5 health levels on each area, making each dog a literal walking tank! ...also, they get laser eye vision. Which can cut through tank armor. Cause, you know. They're dogs.

...the dogs can also fly. At 640 MPH.

Cause they're dogs.

Power Collar
Dice: 2hd
Range: Touch
Useful (+2), Permanent (+4), Attached [Pet Their Heads] (-2), Always On (-1), Automatic (-1), Touch Only (-2)
Point Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 4

The dogs, once she pets them, cannot gain dark energy powers despite being sentient. It's an instinctive byproduct of Rachel's will to both connect with dogs and 'keep them safe' - wild, uncontrolled dark energy powers spreading unchecked through the doggy population terrifies her subconscious. And so, her subconscious makes sure to lock that off.

Healing Touch
Dice: 2hd
Range: Touch
Useful (+2), Useful Quality [5] (+5) Engulf (+2), Touch Only (-2)
Points Per Die: 7 | Total Cost: 28

Though terrified at first this power only works on Dogs, Rachel is relieved to learn it actually can work on just about anything. She touches them, and they glow a little, and then heal 7s/7k to every single part of their body instantly. No muss, no fuss. It, sadly, cannot bring people back to life unless she pushes herself (she will have to permanently burn 1 Base Will to do so.)

Base Will
Total Points: +2
Base Will (+3)
Point per Will: 3 | Total Cost: 6

She's determined. Not as much as others, but enough.

Marsha P. Johnson, The Queen of Stonewall

Spoiler: Powers

MARSHA HAS 11 BASE WILL

Flower Power
Dice: 9d+1wd
Attacks (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [All Effects are Plant Themed] (-1)
Defends (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [All Effects are Plant Themed] (-1)
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [All Effects are Plant Themed] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 21 | Total Cost: 273

A powerful and incredibly flexible ability, Marsha is able to create and utilize plant growths (most people think she can only do flowers, but she can do trees, she can do vines, she can do thorns, oh boy.) These plants often defy physics and understanding - if she wants, she can make a thorn that can cut through tank steel, or a tree that can grow powerfully enough to uproot a building, or an apple that, when eaten, can cure sickness. While her power isn't as "rawly" strong as some other abilities - if she got into a tree V arm wrestling contest with Theo, Theo would win - her powers are so staggeringly flexible that she is an amazing asset. However, her powers do need to be "formatted" - meaning that if she isn't prepped for combat or defense, she is terrible vulnerable.

Queen of Stonewall
Dice: 8hd
Defend (+2), Endless (+3), Radius [3] (+6), Delayed Effect (-2), If/Then [Only Works in an building she owns and operates and has become in, some metaphorical and metaphysical sense, hers] (-1), No Physical Effect (-1), Exhausted (-3)
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 64

So long as the Queen is in her domain, no harm shall come to any who are there. This power is an endless effect centered on her, radiating out approximately 40 yards (meaning an exceptionally large building won't be entirely protected.) The effect is entirely psychological - people simply cannot bring themselves to harm anyone while in the field - this includes her allies, she can't shut it down for them.

Beauty Without Compare
Dice: +4d
Hypercharm (+4), Obvious (-1)
Cost Per Die: 3 | Total Cost: 12

She is luminous, with total of 7 dice in Charm.

Fabulous Performer
Dice: +1d
Hyperskill (Broad, Flexible)
Cost Per Die: 1d | Total Cost: 1

This is a mild improvement, but it was all I could think to spend her last point on. Sue me!

Tori Heflin, The Telekinetic Smuggler

Spoiler: Powers

TORI HAS 8 BASE WILL

Invisible Telekinesis
Dice: 3d+1wd
Attacks (+2), Booster (+4), High Capacity [Mass] (+2), Non-Physical (+2), Power Capacity [Mass] (+2), Subtle (+1), Spray [1d] (+1), Locational [head] (-1)
Defends (+2), Controlled Effect (+1), Duration (+2), Interference (+3), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Radius [1] (+2), Subtle (+1), Locational [head] (-1)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Booster (+4), High Capacity [Mass, Speed] (+2), Power Capacity [Mass, Speed] (+4), Subtle (+1), Locational [head] (-1),
Useful (+2), Booster (+4), Engulf (+2), High Capacity [Mass] (+1), Power Capacity [Mass] (+2) Attached [Telekinesis] (-2),
Cost Per Die: 45 | Total Cost: 315

By focusing, Tori is able to create telekinetic fields. Unlike many, these fields are completely, one hundred percent invisible. She can protect people in bubbles (selectively, if she wants!) bout 10 yards wide, so long as they are within about 80 yards of her. Her attacks are incredibly narrow stabs that then balloon in the target - they can only be dodged, not resisted with armor (hence the 'non-physical' extra.) If she's feeling exceptionally vindictive, she can just grab your heart and punch it as hard as she can from within your ribcage too. Her max range for her TK attacks is 800,000 yards. That's 450 miles! It can send people flying pretty goddamn far too.

Next, she can pick up and carry stuff. Anything within 450 miles, and her max weight is 2,000 tons. Not as stupidly huge as some people, but nothing to shake a stick at. What is really amazing, though...is this.

Anything she picks up - anything at all - becomes invisible TOO. This includes her own self, if she's using TK to fly. This includes the ENTIRE PARTY if she's carrying everyone. This includes jets. This includes buildings. Anything she grabs, she can turn invisible!

Adaption
Dice: 4hd
Useful (+2), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect For Immunities Only] (-1), Self Only (-3)
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 32

Thanks to telekinesis, she can also breathe in space. With telekinesis.

Base Will
Points: 1
Cost Per Point: 3 | Total Cost: 3

You know the drill by now. Powers, better will, had points hanging.

Brian Laborn, The Power in Obscurity

Spoiler: Powers

BRIAN HAS 7 BASE WILL

Grueclouds
Dice: 9hd
Attack (+2), Daze (+1), Duration (+2), Radius (1) (+2), Non-Physical (+2), Spray [1d] (+1), Limited Damage (shock) (-1), Limited Width (-1)
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), Radius (+1), Attached [Dazing Cloud] (-2), Automatic (-1)
Cost Per Die: 10 | Total Cost: 180

When activated, this power is a bit slow and sluggish - effectively going off last on every round. However, you have to know it is coming, and this requires a Resistance roll of Sense+Perception to spot where Brian is looking (he just need to glare to do it.) If the resistance roll fails, then you get hit with 5x10 attack in a 10 yard radius. Due to limited width and limited damage, this only does 1 shock to the head. ...it also removes FIVE DICE from their next turn. If a character has no dice, they can't do shit. This happens each round they're in the cloud, so if they're completely debilitated, they take 1 shock to the head every round until the cloud is dispersed or they slowly and painfully die. Since, 1 shock per 6 seconds for an hour is going to kill you. Even better, the cloud also gets a 4x10 useful effect that obscures visibility, chokes out EM frequencies, and negates all but the best dark energy perceptions. That's what the useful is, the jamming field.

Power Thief
Dice: 1d+2wd
Attacks (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Endless (+3), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Is For Mimicking Powers Only] (-1), If/Then [Target Must have been exposed to the Gruecloud at all! Ever!] (-1)
Defends (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Endless (+3), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Is For Mimicking Powers Only] (-1), If/Then [Target Must have been exposed to the Gruecloud at all! Ever!] (-1)
Useful (+2), Variable Effect (+4), Endless (+3), If/Then [For Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect Is For Mimicking Powers Only] (-1), If/Then [Target Must have been exposed to the Gruecloud at all! Ever!] (-1)
Cost Per Die: 18 | Total Cost: 162

If a target has been exposed to the dark energy cloud that Brian can produce, Brian can replicate that power. In himself. Now, usually, it will be a great deal weaker, and it may require expending some willpower, but he can do it. What's more, as he hits more people (or more people volunteer for the admittedly unpleasant whammy), his power catalogue just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

Ghost Recall
Dice: 2hd
Useful (+2), Duration (+2), If/Then [Subject must have been exposed to the Gruecloud] (-1), No Physical Effect (-1)
Cost Per Die: 2 | Total Cost: 8

Powers aren't the only thing that Brian can copy. He can also recreate the memories and personality of a person in a ghostly, shimmering cloud of darkness roughly in the shape of the person. Their personality-clone cannot form new memories and only exists for a short time, but has pretty accurate information. If you can convince them to give it up. Is this ethical? Anyway, that's Brian's power set!

Brian's Library

Spoiler: List

• Every Single Power From the Stonewall Nine
• THE EYEBALL POWER SUITE (note, as this is multiple powers, it would take Brian a total of 5 rounds and 81 WP to make one permanent eye with each of these powers. However, he doesn't need to make an eye with every part. He can just have an eyeball that flies for 18, or an eyeball that can access the Eyeball Zone for 18 WP (18 to make it, 0 to make the Zone) Fortunately, due to Permanence, each of these WP expenditures does last forever. Or, uh...until the eyeball is squished...

Eye Eye, Sir!
Dice: 1d+2wd
Defends [Evasion] (+0)
Useful [Exists] (+0), Permanent (+4), Touch Only (-2)
Points Per Die: 2 | Cost: 18

By focusing, an eyeball grows inside of Brian's body, then pops out. It's gross.

Why Is It So Tough, It's An Eyeball!?
Dice: 1d+2wd
Useful [Health Boxes] (+0), Permanent (+4), Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2)
Willpower Cost: 2 | Cost: 18

When he creates the Eyeballs (which, as a note, he currently cannot), Brian can only give them 3 extra health levels, making them much smaller.

Eyebeam
Dice: 1d+2wd
Attacks [Eyebeam] (+0), Spray [5d] (+5), Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2)
Willpower Cost: 3 | Cost: 27

The Eyes have laser beams. Because they're eyes. Brian's eyes will have a total of 6d+2wd, rather than 9d+1wd.

Eyeflight
Dice: 1d+2wd
Defends (+0), Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2)
Useful (+0), Permanent (+4) Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2)
Willpower Cost: 2 | Cost: 18

The Eyes have it! ...flight, that is. Brian's can soar along at a mere 10 MPH. They are slightly better at dodging though.

Into the Zone
Dice: 1d+2wd
Useful [Traps Target In Horrifying Nightmare Dimension] (+0), Endless (+3), Traumatic (+1), Attached [Eye Eye, Ma'am!] (-2), Touch Only (-2)
Willpower Cost: 0 | Cost:0

Brian's eyes, like Miss Eye's eyes, have access...TO THE EYEBALL ZONE.

Your Attack, Foreseen
Dice: 1d+2wd
Hyperskill [Dodge] (+0)
Willpower Cost Per Die: 0 | Cost: 0

Formatting his power this way does let Brian dodge better.

Mistress of All Eyes See
Dice: 4hd
Hyperskill [Tactics] (+0), Power Capacity [Range] (+2), Booster [5] (+5), No Physics (+1), If/Then [Can Only Command Eyes] (-1)
Points Per Die: 7 | Cost: 63

For a staggering 63 GODDAMN willpower, Brian can get the STAGGERING ABILITY to command Eyeballs with his mind at a range. AMAZING!!!!!

Spoiler: Yiggy - Team HQ

GADGET ONE: The Gaia Engine

Useful [Gravity Control] (Mass: 500,000,000 tons| Range: 200,000,000 meters| Speed: 50,000,000,000 meters per round [74 times the speed of light])
Dice: 2hd
Useful (Free, Gadget) | Duration (+2), Booster [10] (+10), Power Quality [Mass, Range] (+4), High Capacity [Mass, Range] (+2), No Physics (+1), If/Then [Requires Metamaterials Produced by Lily to Function] (-1), Foci [Fragile, Bulky, Crew x4, Manufacturable] (-5), Obvious (-1), Slow (-2)
Cost Per Die: 10 | Total Cost: 40 WP (1 Base Will To Free Up)

Costing 40 WP from your pool (representing the metamaterials that you provided to construct it), the Gaia Engine is a remarkable device. Requiring the attendance of sixteen trained professionals - among the first hires that Andy ever made - the Gaia Engine is capable of gravitational manipulation at an obscene scale and speed, with ludicrous precision. How absurd? Well, from orbit, you can snatch up the entirety of Manhattan - island and all - and rip it into space and then fling it towards Alpha Centauri at 74 times light speed without damaging a single thing on it, nor causing it damage when it lands on Charon. Cool! You officially can't bitch about me spending 40 of your WP on this fucking thing, you goddamn maniacs!

The duration is approximately a day, so once per day, the crew have to make sure the gravity field that keeps Yiggy in the air is 'reupped.'

GADGET TWO: The Aegis
Defense [Gravity Shield]
Dice: 5hd
Defends (Free, Gadget), Endless (+3), Interference (+3), Attached [Gravity Manipulation] (-2), Foci [Bulky, Manufacturable] (+0),
Cost Per Die: 4 | Total Cost: 40 WP (1 Base Will to Free Up)

Feeding off the Gaia Engine, the Aegis is an attached chunk of material that projects a defensive field around the entirety of the Yiggy's superstructure. Incoming weaponry, unless it goes faster than 5x10, is simply swatted away. This includes beams of light, the rays of the sun, solar flares, and other nasty things.

GADGET THREE: Room Service
Useful [Room Service]
Dice: 3d+1wd
Useful (Free, Gadget), Endless (+3), Variable Effect (+4), Attached [Gaia Engine] (-2), If/Then [Variable Effect Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect is for Room Service Only] (-1), If/Then [Variable Effect only applies within the Yiggy's superstructure] (-1), If/Then [Room Service must be Requested] (-1), Foci [Bulky, Manufacturable] (+0)
Cost Per Die: 1 | Total Cost: 7 WP (1 Base Will To Free Up)

Also feeding off the Gaia Engine's powers, Room Service is simple as hell. You ask for tea, earl gray, hot. Then the fucking tea shows up! This also covers very attractive P-zombies that look like dead celebrities, medical aid, giving you lucid dreams, creating illusions, playing movies, and translating languages.

Here's some basic rules for gadgeteer who want to make powers

---

GADGEETING RULES FOR GADGETEERS

STEP ONE
Decide what power does. All powers can either ATTACK, DEFEND, or be USEFUL. Each thing costs (+2)

Example: I want to make a ray gun that can also heal people. It Attacks [Ray Gun] (+2) and is Useful [Heals People] (+2)

STEP TWO
Apply modifiers for extras and flaws to each power capacity. The full list is found in the Wild Talent's core rulebook. Add them all up into a total cost per die. The minimum point value is always 0 (you can't get extra for going below your maximum.)

Example: This ray gun can fire very fast. It has +3 Spray. This ray gun heals all of you! It has Engulf (+2). Both attack and useful has the Foci (-1) with the Fragile (-1) and Accessible (-1) flaws. This means it costs 2+3-3+2+2-3 for a total of 3 points per die.

STEPTHREE
Count up how much it costs based on how many dice. If it has hard dice, the hard dice are "base cost x2" and if it has wiggle dice, then they cost "base cost x4."

Example: This ray gun has 5d+1wd. It costs (5x3)+(3x4) for a total of 27 willpower.

STEP FOUR
Use your gadget. The gadget can then be taken apart to regain your willpower back. If you want to, you can burn 1 base will to make it a gadget that exists permanently (freeing up those dice for later.) If the gadget has the Manufacturable extra, then it can be made a common, household device that anyone can buy for a cost of 1/2 the willpower it costs to make in base will, taking 1 month per base will spent to make it ready for manufacturing.

Example: Pretend the raygun has manufacturable (even though it doesn't.) It costs 14 Base Will to make it buyable at any street corner, and takes a year and change for the final designs to be completed. Once done, the inventor gets the 5d+1wd that they put into the gadget back into their gadgeteering dice pool.

---

HOW TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE WITH YOUR INFLUENCE SKILLS

There's a big old table from the Kerberos Club book! Here it is!

Spoiler: The Big Old Table from the Kerberos Club Book

 

[DragonCobolt]

CW: Implied body horror, gore


Alpha Centauri C-2
Alpha Centauri
February 9th
1971


Toiler Bui Bich Phuong hummed to herself as she held the sampler in her hands, angled it, then fired off the scan-pitons through the narrow tube and into the regolith of the largest moon of the most habitable planet in the nearest solar system to her home. It was a song written by an obscure member of the IEG's propaganda burau and it was just the most infectious earworm. She tapped her foot on the ground as she knelt down and checked that the scan piton was buried in deep, then tapped her radio.

"Thinker Nyugen, are you getting a full readout here?" she asked.

Thinker Nyugen, who was still in orbit around Alpha Centauri C-2 hundreds of kilometers above her head, sounded pleased as he responded: "Yes, we are. Excellent work, Toiler. Thank you so much."

"You call this toil?" Phuong muttered to herself as she lifted her eyes and out at the moon she stood on. It was so different from the moon where she had been trained - the surface was almost uniformly dark for reasons that no one had been able to figure out yet. Different material compositions of the planetary ejecta that had formed it? It was an ancient capture of a planetary core that had been vomited out of a world destroyed by some ancient impact? The things that they did know about the Alpha Centauri system was eclipsed by how much they didn't know - and it was merely one of several solar systems that had been checked out by the various joint exploration teams of the United Nations Extrasolar Exploration Council - which held the three largest superpowers on the planet together and forced them to...

Well.

Not work together.

Yes, the exploration rocket that Thinker Nyugen and the rest of the science staff had used to fly to this moon, and the probes they had sprinkled throughout the system had all been brought on the American starship Yggdrasil...but that didn't mean that they were doing anything but sharing data. For Phoung, the Americans were still just another gang of imperialists that she and her fellow warriors had kicked out of Vietnam, metahumans or no metahumans. The only reason why she didn't say that to more imperialist's faces was that...well...

Phoung was well suited to the Toiler class. She might not have been so well suited if she knew that the earworm she had been humming had been designed specifically for people exactly like her - those who preferred doing rather than thinking, working with their hands, and doing jobs well rather than doing them fast or easily. The earworm, and her education in the state run schools, and the musical anthem that played every morning when she woke and every evening when she slept, all of it combined together to reinforce inside her mind a deep, abiding satisfaction with her place in society. It was a satisfaction that already existed...but no human was ever one hundred percent happy with anything in their life. There were always tiny cracks, tiny holes, that doubt and uncertainty or...just existential ennui could slip into.

Toiler Bui Bich Phuong didn't even know those holes had been there to be spackled over. She didn't know to miss them now.

And unless she was removed from the warm embrace of Progressive Harmony, she'd never know.

If Toiler Bui Bich Phuong had been asked, she would be honestly not sure how to feel about the fact her life was now being sculpted, subtly and overtly, by a million tiny syntergenic modeling.

If she had been a Risker, she might have responded to the insinuation with a punch to the jaw.

If she had been a Artist, she'd have maybe been shaken. Artists had lots of holes in their minds - places that they could interrogate and explore, to create the art that made Progressive Harmony function. After all, no matter how smart Nugent Cam was...she wasn't able to do all that work by herself, not for millions of people across three solar systems now.

If she had been a Thinker, she could have immediately pointed out that the only difference between the subtle and overt indoctrination of Progressive Harmony and the subtle and overt indoctrination of capitalism or American imperialism or white supremacy was that at least her web of comforting fictions and quiet lies were all built to make her happier, healthier, and better.

But Bui Bich Phuong was a Toiler, not a Thinker, and had she been asked, she wouldn't have been able to mount a great defense for her civilization beyond the basic meat and potatoes of 'I love my job' and 'I sleep contentedly' and 'no one is dropping bombs on me anymore.'

However, it wasn't the philosophical stuff that saved Bui Bich Phuong.

It was simple practicalities.

"I'm heading back up to the ship, prep the shuttle bay," Phuong said into her radio.

The only noise she got back was screaming. Not the scream of static, nor the scream of human beings in anger or even pain or fear - all things that Phuong had heard far, far, far too often.

No.

It was the screaming of hysteria. The screaming of the deranged. There were words mixed in among the vocalizations, and they were unmistakably Vietnamese - and she recognized the voices as Thinker Nyugen and the rest of the science staff. She adjusted her dial, her mind skittering away from the truth and towards the comforting fiction of hoping that her radio was just messed up. She switched the dial. "Thinker Nyugen, please, come in! Duc? Duc!"

She heard something...

Like...

Ripping. Tearing.

Wet noises. Choking noises. The pattering sound of liquid. A choked laugh. A slurred nonsense - like someone...

Someone who...

The only possibility that came to Phuong's mind was one that made her recoil from concious thought.

That had been the sound of Thinker Nyuget ripping out his own tongue.

The screaming was getting more distorted - and as the sounds began to fade, one by one, Phuong's terror transformed from something confused and fuzzy to cold...and solid, like a chunk of ice in her stomach. She looked down at the sensor piton she had fired into the black lunar soil - and saw her shadow, resting along it. The problem, though, was that her shadow ...had a double. Something faintly humanoid, standing, where none had been standing before.

Right behind her.

Phuong started to hum. She couldn't help herself. The notes sounded frail and warbling in her ears. Her heart hammered and her blood felt as if it was the same temperature as the void beyond her vac-suit.

Phuong began to turn. Her heel rasped on the dust.

She didn't want to see.

Her humming grew higher pitched. Out of tune.

She turned.

She saw.

Toiler Bui Bich Phuong screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed.

***
​

New York City
New York
February 11th
1971


You drummed your fingers on the counter and watched the microwave as it microwaved the popcorn.

Can I front for this?

You pursed your lips, then closed your eyes. The popping inside of the microwave was getting louder by the second.

"You have that look again," Rachel says from where she's lounging among her dogs, her eyes closed.

"I do not have a look," you say, turning to face your girlfriend.

"Yeah you do," she says.

If you have a look, it's on you, not me, don't look at me.

"Shut up Filly," you say.

"It's the shut up Filly look," Rachel said.

Hey, it's not like I wanna be here, Filly said.

It was the second month of you housing the fictional duplicate of your brain that a mad scientist had built to try and influence the minds of the free world through syntergenic hijacking of popular comic books and JESUS CHRSIT, that was a fucking sentence you had just thought. And you were pretty close to killing her. She was just...the most...annoying person you had ever met in your entire life - and the fact she was based on you was just salt in the fucking wound.

You know I can hear that, right? Filly said, her voice snide.

"That's just it, you're always so SNIDE!"

Oh, and you're a bountiful overflowing fountain of peaches and light and honest emotions.
"At least I don't boss you around!" You say, thrusting your finger up at your forehead.

I don't boss, i give SUGGESTIONS.

"They're not suggestions! They're orders with deniability!"

Rachel giggled.

"What?!" you say, looking at her.

"Nothing," she says, scrolling through her newspapers on her com. "Just, uh..." She paused. "Filly's a lot like you, you know. It's...it's just kinda funny."

You feel Filly's annoyance as she and you both glare, through your eyes, at Rachel. She taps her com off.

"We can have Buzzy take her back to the Noosphere," she says. "Give you a break for a bit."

...I guess... Filly says. Last time i went to the Noosphere, it wasn't that bad.

"Oh, yeah, you got to visit the collective unconsciousness of four billion people!" you say. "Not that bad, wow. Cool."

It's not as fun as it sounds!

Rachel stood up, pushing herself to her feet. "And then we can take a vacation and celebrate."

You blink at her.

Celebrate what? Filly asks.

[Hey, you rang?] the not-quite-voice of Buzzy came into your mind like a faint buzzing throughout the entire apartment. "Uh, yeah. Filly...needs...we need a break, can you take her to a nice part of the Noosphere?"

[Sure thing! We're off to Barsoom, baby!]

Fuckin' Sweet!

The faint sensation of another in your mind faded away and you saw that Rachel was giving you a smile, her eyes not meeting yours. She was looking down at her hands, and her smile was getting wider and wider and wider.

"What?" you ask.

"...it's the 11th," she says.

"Of..."

"February," she adds.

CLICK. The thought slamming home is an almost physical blow.

"OH!" you exclaim.

You had just remembered what day it was. It was February 11th, 1971. The moment your relationship had officially started...had been on February 11th, 1969. Normally, this would be where you'd think 'where had all the time gone?' but in 1969, humanity had barely landed on the moon, living puppets couldn't vote, one of the senators from Texas hadn't been a living dark-energy sustained replicating ghost of Lyndon B. Johnson, and the war had still been raging in Vietnam. Now, the Vietnamese were one of America's allies in the exploration of three solar systems. The news footage on your TV had color camera footage captured from the surface of Tau Ceti's habitable planet, for god's sake...

Rachel, though, was lifting her gaze to you. You had to say something!

---
It's your FUCKING ANNIVSARY!
[ ] "Lets go to Atlantis! They have restaurants now!"
[ ] "Paris! Paris is romantic!"
[ ] "Fuck the Earth. Lets go to...Mars! There's a castle on Mars, it's romantic!"
[ ] Write In

 

[ThatGazzer]

[X] "Lets go to Atlantis! They have restaurants now!"

I do want to check up on things there!

 

[Torgamous]

[X] "Paris! Paris is romantic!"

We're apparently visiting Atlantis and other planets fairly regularly. Paris, maybe not so much.

 

[Parzival95]

The only possibility that came to Phuong made her

The screaming was getting more distorted - and as the

Click to shrink...

Noticed an error here, it cuts off.

Can I write in:

[X] "Fuck the Earth. Lets go to...Titan, the view of Saturn over the water is beautiful!"

Can we just say that in the space boom solar tourism is thing now? Hotels on Titan would be rad.

 

[DragonCobolt]

Sure, though remember, it has only been half a year.

 

[Parzival95]

Ah, the view of Saturn over the water on Titan would still be awesome even if it's a big tent with Lily making the local area habitable.

 

[Torgamous]

Ah, the view of Saturn over the water on Titan would still be awesome even if it's a big tent with Lily making the local area habitable.

Click to shrink...

Sure, but sights like that are our day job.

 

[DragonCobolt]

Also, I fixed the missing bit! Can you tell I love Event Horizon?

 

[CyberFemme]

Also, I fixed the missing bit! Can you tell I love Event Horizon?

Click to shrink...

>Reads Alpha Centauri Interlude
>>Internal Screaming

Thanks, I hate it.

[X] "Paris! Paris is romantic!"

Not speaking the language will be fun, and the possibility of running into Jack Grimes is too good to pass up given the scare we gave him back at the beginning.

 

[Theaxofwar]

[X] "Paris! Paris is romantic!"

 

[DragonCobolt]

Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Mar 3, 2022 at 12:12 PM, finished with 9 posts and 5 votes.

• ---

  3 people have voted

  [X] "Paris! Paris is romantic!"

  • Torgamous
  • CyberFemme
  • Theaxofwar

  1 people have voted

  [X] "Lets go to Atlantis! They have restaurants now!"

  • ThatGazzer

  1 people have voted

  [X] "Fuck the Earth. Lets go to...Titan, the view of Saturn over the water is beautiful!"

  • Parzival95

...hehe...

gay paris...

hehe...

cause...you're gay...

 

[CyberFemme]

Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Mar 3, 2022 at 12:12 PM, finished with 9 posts and 5 votes.

• ---

  3 people have voted

  [X] "Paris! Paris is romantic!"

  • Torgamous
  • CyberFemme
  • Theaxofwar

  1 people have voted

  [X] "Lets go to Atlantis! They have restaurants now!"

  • ThatGazzer

  1 people have voted

  [X] "Fuck the Earth. Lets go to...Titan, the view of Saturn over the water is beautiful!"

  • Parzival95

...hehe...

gay paris...

hehe...

cause...you're gay...

Click to shrink...

You have to write it phonetically: gay paree.

 

[DragonCobolt]

"Paris!" you say, immediately. "Paris is romantic!"

Rachel nods. "We don't speak French."

"That sounds like a problem for the French," you say, grinning as you take her hand and then kiss her knuckles. Rachel smiles, then looks aside.

"...costumes?"

Rachel bites her lip.

***
​

Paris is beautiful. The buildings have all been rebuilt since the War - which is more than twenty years over now, and yet, it's still the first thing that comes into your brain when you walk around Europe. Well...that and how pretty the girls were. You managed to not be too obvious about watching three girls in short skirts and bicycles skidding along the road. Most of the cars that are purring along are electric, using the new lithium ion batteries that can be mass produced when you have easy access to infinite lithium.

"Do you know how rare lithium is, on a galactic level?" you ask, adjusting your witchy hat as you and Rachel walk, hand in hand, along the sidewalk. The Parisians are doing their best to pretend like two gay superheroes arriving out of thin air with a crack of displaced air is just normal.

"Hm?" Rachel looks at you.

"Lithium," you jerk your thumb at one of the cars that putters by - its a curious combination of old and new. It looks like it had been built in the 1950s and repaired several times, with the hood popped up and the engine replaced by a mechanic with more enthusiasm than sense. Other cars are more modern looking and less hacked together, and they purr as well. You also notice that it's not fire hydrants you're walking past: They're recharging stations. You stop by one and eye it with a frown as you try and figure out how it had been built. But the station looks as if it is smoothly merged with the ground. You rub a black gloved finger along the lack of a seam, then look up at Rachel.

"I don't fucking believe it," you say.

"Is this still about the Lithium, Morgan?" Rachel asks.

Your cheek heats. Uh. Okay, this might become a problem in the future, but...when it was Rachel calling you Morgana Le Fay and you were in a skintight outfit, and...she was...being so pretty and...

It...

Brain.

Brain dumb horny! Lily make scissor now!

Rachel laughed, quietly, then leaned down, whispering in your ear. "You okay, la Fey?"

"S-Shut up, Huntress," you say, standing up. "A-As I was saying, uh. Lithium. It only forms at obscene temperatures, in supernova. It's rare. Like gold." You smile. "But unlike gold, we can make batteries out of it. But, uh, like gold, Carlos Moses..." you say the name with as much eyerolling and hand-jerking-off gestures as you can, even as your cape sweeps out behind you in the gusty day - it was a bit chilly, but you didn't mind. You had Rachel. "Can pull lithium out of thin air. And those charging stations. I bet someone designed them for him, then he just made them throughout Pairs. Fuck, he made them throughout France, I bet. They have nuclear reactors, they have an entirely independent power grid, why not cut off as much oil from their economy as possible. I'm rambling? Am I rambling?"

Rachel smiles, looking away. "It's cute."

You flush. How is it you can be dating a girl for years and she still completely annihilates your braincells?

You and she find a café with a waiter who immediately recognizes both of you as you walk by and calls out in accented English. "Morgana Le Fay and the Huntress? In Paris? ...should I be worried?"

"No, we're just looking for a place to have a nice lunch," you say, smiling.

The waiter gestures to the tables - and before you know it, you're seated and already have bread laid out.

"Free of charge," the owner of the café, a middle-to-old aged man who is missing his left arm, says as he comes out with the waiter to fawn over you two. You blush.

"We have money, you know," you say.

"You metahumans have done so much for the world, it would balk!" he says, holding up his arm to his chest, then spreading it wide, in a gesture so dramatic it nearly knocks off your hat. "You have saved us, brought us the stars, ended the wars, clean air!" He is bubbling over with excitement and you flush and smile at him, shyly.

"H-Hey, I...thanks," you say. Then...you're not sure how to say this without sounding like a bitch. So you just point at your elbow. "You, uh, want...uh, some help with that?"

"Huh?"

"Your arm?" you ask, blushing, while Rachel covers her mouth with her hand. "I know a lot of healers - you could get your arm back."

The man blinks at you. His mouth opens. His brow furrows. He blinks again, and stammers. "Je ne sais pas comment penser à ça..." he says, sounding as if he's wondering - which is better than him sounding furious and pissed off. You blush.

"N-Nevermind, forget about it, just...think, if...you want, you can...okay..." you grab the menu, then cover your face with it as the waiter and the manager step away, both of them moving like men who had been struck in the head by basballs. Or baseball bats. As you hid behind your menu, Rachel chuckles. "Was that ableist?" you whisper, then peek around the corner.

"As in...bigoted against people without arms?" Rachel asks.

"Yeah, disabled activists are big on it," you say. "Remember that protest, back in...69 that we were at, pushing for an American disability act, where we met all those queers in wheelchairs?"

Rachel nods.

"Like, is it ableist to use dark energy powers to fix a missing arm?" you ask.

Rachel shrugs. "I dunno. Ask a disabled person."

You put your hands over your face. "Auuuugh!"

"I figure, though, at worst? You were just being rude. Like...it's not like you were offering to fix him being gay by fiddling with his brain," Rachel says, looking down at her menu, frowning. "Um..." She pauses. "I, uh..."

You frown. Rachel's normally pretty blunt. To hear her hesitate about stuff like this makes your stomach do a slow flip. Thus far, the biggest thing she ever hesitated about in your life...well, you don't even want to think about it. And not just because of the existences of a number of high powered telepaths in the world. You lower the menu, and see that Rachel's fumbling with something in her hands. Is that a com?

"Um..." She blushes, then slams the something down and shoves it at you so hard that the frilly tablecloth crumple up and you look at it.

It's a box.

That's not a box, the thought tries to form but it shorts out.

It's a box with a hinge on it. About an inch by an inch by an inch. Black felt.

That's a- the thought shorts out again, sparking away between your ears like an engine trying to turn over and failing.

"I...um...I had a speech and...like...should have waited, but, I...I can't sit through the whole brunch without, so, just open it!"

The box is not heavy.

You open it and for some reason, your hands are shaking.

The ring is a glittering, gold ring with a tiny diamond on it.

"...I...um...Sykes made it...I asked, so, it's not a conflict diamond or...will you, okay!?"

Oh.

---
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh

[ ] Uhhhhhhhh
[ ] UHHHHHHHH
[ ] Buhhh?
[ ] Yes, yes, yes, YES!?

 

[notbirdofprey]

[X] Yes, yes, yes, YES!?

 

[CyberFemme]

Oh myyyyyyy.

 

[ThatGazzer]

[X] Yes, yes, yes, YES!?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[Parzival95]

[X] Yes, yes, yes, YES!?

DC is totally gonna turn this into a tragedy, calling it now!

 

[10ebbor10]

[X] Put the universe in timeout to avoid overthinking and stammering.
-[X] Then overthink the fact that you put the universe in timeout.

 

[CyberFemme]

I don't really have strong feelings on the matter, Lily and Rachel's relationship never really hooked me, but I don't dislike the idea. I'll abstain from this one.

 

[Lord Ultimus]

[X] Yes, yes, yes, YES!?

 

[Torgamous]

[X] Buhhh?

I...um...Sykes made it...

Click to shrink...

Very cute, and some extra delayed-release meaningfulness if Lily ever discovers that Amanda is her mom.

 

[Theaxofwar]

[X] Yes, yes, yes, YES!?

 

[pantherasapiens]

[q] Fly to Mars
- [q] Half an hour of incoherent screaming
-- [q] SYKES KNEW ABOUT THIS BEFORE I DID?!?!?!

[X] [X] Yes, yes, yes, YES!?

 

[CyberFemme]

 

[DragonCobolt]

Time seemed to stop as you blinked down at the ring. Your mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. "I...y...yes! Yes! YES!" You squealed, then sprang to your feet, grabbing onto Rachel with both hands, swinging yourself onto her lap. Kissing her was the best way you could think to respond after yes - and the moment is long and warm and breathless - you break your lips contact for just long enough to breathe out an excited little sigh, to draw just enough air to keep going, to hear Rachel laughing softly, her eyes closed. People are staring, but you don't particularly care.

"Uh..."

You ignored the waiter.

You had a...fiancée...

Fiancée.

The word didn't even feel real in your head.

Fiancée to kiss...

To hold.

You and Rachel left the scandalized café dwellers to walk, hand in hand, through one of Paris' many parks. You found the solid gold statue of 'Carlos Moses' and took turns posing before it and snapping pictures on your coms. You petted a dog that someone had let off the leash, and visited the Eifel Tower, and learned the amusing detail that the little tables set out around it were the favorite place for famous author Guy de Maupassant to eat - because, apparently, he hated the ugly things guts and found the Tower was the only place in Paris where he could eat his lunch without having to see it.

The sun hung overhead as you and Rachel both laid on your back in the park, the faint jingling sounds of bike bells and the chatter of other people filling your ears. You sighed, quietly, and said: "I..."

"Hmm?"

Rachel was currently half buried in stray dogs. Her hand was stroking their heads, one by one, and she looked as if she could stare at you forever without ever getting bored. The weight of her regard feels almost like a blanket. You flush and realize that you don't have the words it could take to possibly express what it is you wanted to express.

So, instead, you say.

"...who else knows?"

Rachel blinks. "Huh?"

"Uh...w-who do we have to tell, I mean."

Rachel's cheeks start to heat slightly.

"What?" you ask, then sit up, looking at her. Rachel purses her lips. Then you slowly pull out your com. You flip it open. You dial Andy, purely because he's at the top of your contacts. The phone rings as Rachel mumbles into the fur of a huge Dalmatian that she's petting.

"Hey," Andy says, his voice studiously neutral. "Hows...it...going?"

He knew.

"You ratfink," you whisper.

It sounded like the entire Stonewall Nine burst out cheering at once, making the com's speakers go crackling. The congratulations start coming in faster than you can possibly keep up with, the babble overlapping. You heard Marsha in there, and Lisa, and definitely Tessa, but everyone else is drowned out. While Andy...or...maybe Beta try and get things under control, you slowly look over at Rachel, who shrugs, sitting up and sliding the Dalmatian down to her lap.

"I...um...was trying to be circumspect about it. I asked Amanda to make the ring and she asked me why, and...well, she was visiting the Yiggy, then Lisa heard-"

"Of course."

"-so, Lisa ran off and told everyone else-"

"Mmhmm."

"-and we all agreed to keep it sec-"

You flipped the com shut, then leaned in, and kissed her.

***
​

The party at the Yiggy is great.

Beta and Tessa are both showing off their newly programmed/grown taste receptors - they both were claiming that they could taste subtleties in various foods beyond the capacity of even moderately perceptive metahumans like Brian when he was using his power to emulate Lisa's hypersenses. This led to Beta chugging down an entire ghost pepper that Amanda, looking faintly concerned, manifested out of thin air, while Marsha grew several more complex, even spicer fruits from her garden and offered them out to Tessa.

"Water! WATER!" Tessa choked out, clutching at her throat, her gleaming, synthetic tongue lolling out of her mouth, while laughter exploded throughout the garden space - and you? You were noticing that Sabah was sitting off in a corner, looking wistfully out the window.

"Hey," you say, stepping over to her.

Sabah glanced over.

"Oh, uh, hey," she says, trying to smile but the light in it doesn't reach your eyes.

"Uh..." you bite your lip, remembering the wild, crazy, intense crush you'd had on her. You felt the faint...flickers of it. But not as intensely anymore. BUt suddenly, you got hit with an intense sense of all the choices you'd made and how they'd brought you here - and here was...magical and amazing. It was a here with friends who could fly, and a home that floated above New York City like a glittering, living star of green life, and a future that was looking more and more promising by the second.

But it was also a here where...

Where you'd kinda let Sabah become...a friend.

That felt...

You weren't sure how to explain how it felt. You looked away, blushing. "You okay?" you ask.

"Yeah," Sabah says, then looks out the window. "It's my parents. They're...still...not talking to me."

"Oh," you say.

Wow.

Aren't you the biggest, most self centered queen bitch of the universe? You pushed that stabby feeling into the box and sat next to Sabah, still holding a red cup full of some spiked punch, and trying to act like a good friend for once. "Yeah, I, uh, I heard about that. Want...me to talk to them or something?" You ask, blushing. Sabah chuckles, quietly, then leans back against you, unselfconscious as she looks out of the window, at the glittering lights of New York City.

"It's not what you think," she says. "Coming out to them? They...were shocked, yeah, but they rolled with it better than I expected."

"Oh," you say, nonplussed. Her parents were pretty conservative, if you remembered right. They were Zoroastrians, which...you...honestly, had no idea what they believed or even worshiped and Sabah had never really talked about it. "What are they not talking to you about then?"

"The Puppets," she says, her voice growing harsh, her hands clenching slightly. "They...I...they say that I'm playing at being Ahura Mazda, creating false life to serve my whims, and that it's vile and evil a-and..." She looks out. "And then there are those Shavians and the Turf Warriors and...and it hit me, I...they're people. We got them the vote. And I'm making them without...asking for permission, sometimes, with specific functions in mind. Like they're cogs in a big machine, and, and, and...and!" She turns to face you, grabbing onto your thigh with her hands. "And we've been doing that for years! There are tens of thousands of them now!"

"You're...scared your parents are right," you say, quietly.

Sabah looks away, blushing, her lovely, dark features growing shadowed as she ducks her head forward. Letting her hair - which she's let grow long and straight - hang before her face.

"...I...sorry, this...this is your party, I...I shouldn't dump it on you," she says, sounding miserable - her body floating into the air as she takes hold of herself with her TK. You grab her hand.

"Hey, Sabah, wait," you say, seriously.

---
Philisophy...
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