Divine Right Chicago: On the Storm's Edge

[Nina]

The Deezy slug cracked the sound barrier with a clap that shook the island and rattle those nearby, actually knocking Temple off her feet to slide in the sand almost three meters away dazed.

 

Still even at the speed at which the slug flew the beast reacted, crouching, and turning so its armor hardened back would take the hit. That turn placed Brigit right in the path and she leapt from the monsters onto the surf washed reef in front of the thing.

 

The slug hit the beast sending a spray of armored scales as it buried itself into the thing who howled in pain and swiped its clawed hand at Brigit catching her unaware her back to the behemoth. The impact flung the young Nova out into the middle of the lagoon much as Apex’s punch had just a short time ago. She hit the water and sank like a rock.

 

Then something unexpected happened the monster stood straight and puffed out its chest and there was a pulse or blast of some sort of unseen unfelt …energy which radiated out from it catching all of the Lagoon and rolling over the Nova’s standing against it!

 

Spoiler

All Nova's need to make a defense roll using their best resilience attribute. post them in the combat thread thank you

 

[Nina]

It was clearly visible to the Nova's, like a rippling heat-mirage on a flat desert rolling toward them. Sean reacted fast and pushed herself away with a gravity pulse that shot her back about a hundred meters, everyone else was caught as the ripple passed through them and beyond by about twenty meters when it just as suddenly collapses back to the creature.

 

The Nova's felt nothing as the wave passed the first time but the when it passed back a sense of sudden weariness hit them, not enough to cause them to stop what they were doing but it was noticeable.

 

As the energy wave passed Brigit she shook it off dived to the lagoon floor and kicked off and like a missile, shot from the lagoon to sail through the air. She couldn't leap like grace but her legs were powerful enough to cover the distance to the reef where the beast still stood reared back like some sort of preening  cat! She landed a few meters away and began to charge her fist drawn back energy crackling along her arm concentrating at her fist, as she concentrated all her might into an blow she hoped would end this!

 

Spoiler

Ok the energy wave sapped some of your quantum points in an area leech attack. Deezy losses 3 points, Ryan 4, Brigit 5, Grace 3. Sean used a stunt to move a range band away from where she was which took her out of the Leech's range so she losses nothing. 

 

Brigit lept to the reef and takes her tuen firing up her quantum fist of fury which she will be able to use next round.

 

 

 

[Asarasa]

The energy wave retracted into the preening Kaiju and Sean flew in behind it, intending to dive down into the lagoon after Brigit, when the brawny Chicagoan breached the surface of the water to land on the reef. Brigit's fist began to glow with incandescent energy and Sean nodded to herself, exquisite lips curving up in a fierce grin of determination.

 

She'd seen the blows Brigit had weathered unscathed from Grace, and now the giant creature. Time for some external force work for her instead of against her.

Long rose-gold hair streaming out behind her like a gleaming tail, the curvaceous Nova altered her trajectory, swooping wide around the giant, rearing monster, skimming so low and fast above the water she left a spuming wake. Sean slowed as she came up behind Brigit, water droplets in the air fracturing the light in a prismatic display. 

 

Brigit felt a feathery touch between her mountainously muscular shoulders as she was released from the unconscious shackles of gravity. "I got you, babe," said Sean's sweet, sultry soprano, breath a caress on her ear. Brigit rose up into the air, Sean pressed close behind her, as the pair corkscrewed around and above the beast in a blurring helix, Brigit's fist like a star rising up in the sky. "Just say when."

 

Spoiler

Gravitokinesis Roll - 8d10
Spending 3 Momentum
11d10
!roll 11d10t7ie10

 

Asarasa Roll: [10, 9, 8, 8, 7, 7, 4, 4, 4, 2, 2], [1] Result: 6 successes

Applying all successes to a  Stunt to aid Brigit's Attack (modified Feint)

Beast's defense of 3, means +3 enhancement to Brigit's Attack

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Asarasa

[Nina]

Temple grunted as she rolled over and sat up, dazed, with ears ringing, from the sonic blast that knocked her down. She watched eyes wide as Seaan, that gorgeous woman with the really big boobs and a waist that Temple could put her small hands around with her fingers touching, fly fast by out toward where the other new girl, who looked like she spent way too much time at the gym but was still too damn pretty, had jumped out of the water and was running toward the monster her fists crackling with weird energy.

 

It wasn't fair, all of these Nova Stormers were too damn pretty and she was still just plain ugly Temple. She tamped down her resentment and  concentrated on the monster to see if she she could get back the link she had been forming when Grace knocked her down...

[Exile_Jeane]

"You okay, Temple?" the blonde juggernaut offered as she crouched to pick up her third slug, concern dancing in her eyes. Not for herself or her temporary team, strange as that draining feeling was, "Brace this time if you can."

 

She had every confidence in them and every confidence in herself. Monster slaying was how she had cut her teeth on this business, and here away from any source of permanent collateral damage, she was happy to express herself. Around went her arm, and with a thunderous crack, her third shot went out, ready to carve another crater in monstrous flesh.

 

Spoiler

Third strike he's out? Athletics+Might to smite the beastie.

Exile_Jeane Roll: [10, 9, 7, 6, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1] Three Successes

One exploding die...

Roll: [1] Nope. Three successes total.

 

[Nina]

Temple slid through the pain and agony, not from the damage but from the hunger. Her fists were clenched at her side her vision tunneling she vaguely heard Grace ask if she were alright then the gorgeous blond Nova wound up like an all-star pitcher and hurled the third slug. The world slowed to imperceptible time, Temple saw the other two unbelievable women as they made their attack on the creature, she saw the crackling energy , saw, and felt Ryan opening a new portal this one with lethal intent.

Temple was overwhelmed with loss and sorrow and most of all fear.

 

The slug, like the others, broke the sound barrier as it left Apex’s hand, Temple clenched her fists tighter and invisible arms dug into the sand anchoring her in place as the shockwave rolled over her again. Another Invisible arm reached out and grasped the slug  and with another clap of thunder as it shed it’s kinetic energy it stopped hanging in midair a few yards away from the monster.

 

<STOP!!!!!!>

 

The command was heard by everyone on the island, not by ears but by their minds. Ever ybaseline with five miles stopped in mid action as if a switch had been turned off. The Novas felt the mental command and while the effects were not as complete they nonetheless had their attention diverted. Even the monster was affected, it's head swiveling toward the beach it's clawed hands dropping to its side.

 

<Your’re hurting him, he is just…hungry he doesn’t wn tohurrr…>

 

This new thought that was not their own was clear and concise and meant for the Novas only but as the thought came to its end it became incomprehensible.

The slug fell into the lagoon and Grace dropped to Temples side where the young girl now lay blood coming from her nose, ears, and eyes.

 

Spoiler

Temples Psi Roll  maxing  and spending Momentum to get to 19 dice

!roll 19d10t7ie10

Dice Maiden
BOT
 — 06/01/2021
nina_blain Roll: [10, 10, 10, 9, 9, 8, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1], [8, 7, 3] Result: 10

 

I had made this roll on Tuesday Asa can verify

 

The round abruptly ends resetting to Ryan 

 

[Shameless]

Ryan heard the command, and was compelled to do as it said, stopping his preparations and he then recognized the voice, it was Temple's.   He looked down to the beach where she lay, where Grace was at her side.   He looked up at the titanic creature they'd been attacking, that he'd moments before been planning to kill in what could only be considered a particularly painful and sudden fashion, and nodded.  If Temple could make them all stop, and make it stop, then maybe it could be like them as well.  

He pulled out his phone and called his own office.   "This is the office of Ryan Hawke, may I ask who is calling?"  came a very pleasant female voice.   "Aika,  this is Ryan, I need you to call down to Sam's seafood, buy 3 whole tuna, the biggest they have, then have them send you a picture of them, which you will send to me.   Have everyone stand back at least two meters from the fish once it's done.   Pay whatever it costs, but I need it, right now."   Ryan's tone brooked no argument, and as soon as he hung up, she went into action.    

He rose into the sky, so that he was in front of the creature/nova they'd been attacking.   "I'm getting you something to eat, so remain calm and be patient, Don't harm us, and we won't harm you."   He had no idea if it could comprehend his words, but the fact was, Temple's command had worked on it too, so he was taking a chance.

 

[SalmonMax]

Deezy grimaced and rubbed her temples. "There's a whole ocean full of food out that way," she complained petulantly. "Why come to SHORE looking for FOOD when...ugh...okay, note to self. Psychic shouting in my head makes me a little crabby! Right."

 

She went to Temple and hunkered down, her moment of sourness ebbing into concern.

 

"Jeez, you really did it to yourself there, didn't you? Okay...okay. Check breathing...stop bleeding...get her to a hospital."

 

The inventor leaned down and put her hand up to Temple's nose and mouth. When she felt the weak puff of exhalation, she nodded. Gauze padding and bandages were deceptively tricky to create unless an equivalent material was already at hand. In this case she cheated and turned her shirt into a croptop; repurposing the cloth fibers into a denser, more elastic weave that would put pressure on Temple's bleeding orifices while helping prevent infection.

[Nina]

At Deezy's touch, Temple opened her eyes and focused on Deezy. Deezy was a bit taken aback at the mega bloodshot eyes, it was as if almost every capillary had burst. Temple reached up and tapped Deezy's chest.

 

"Not fissh." she muttered still tapping The older girls chest, then closed her eyes and convulsed slightly.

[SalmonMax]

"Ryan!" Deezy called out, "Stop ordering fish! That's not what the big guy is hankering for, apparently!"

 

She leaned over Temple and said, "Hey...uh...can you tell us what he wants? I mean, if you're actually unconscious don't worry about it...obviously health first and everything, but since you're the only one who can actually communicate with him, it'd be handy if we knew what would calm him down. Salad bar, or...Chinese takeout? Pizza? You name it, we'll have a helicopter land a big ol' order right here."

[Nina]

Temple convulsed again and opened her eyes, they weren't blood shot any more. She moved her head then tapped Deezy's chest again, "Your power, the energy, he cant regenerate it himself. He is scared and he is not a monster."

 

She pulls her self into a sitting position using Dezzy and Grace for bracing. "I'm drained, i cant help him now he needs your nova power stuff."

 

[Asarasa]

It should have wince-inducing at the least, but Sean merely arched an elegant brow as the girl's mental shout thundered through their heads, the wind rushing past their ears slowing, then stopping as Sean slowed them to a halt in the air a ways up and to the side of the monstrous creature. Man?

 

She and Brigit had changed physically very noticeably with eruption into novas. Sean had even lost her gender, her sexuality shifting, and found it nothing but amazing and wondrous so far. But this poor sod. Had he been but a person once before the tempest of quantum fire roared through him and turned him into this... thing? Temple seemed to imply at least a remnant of the man was still inside the creature.

 

Sean glanced back and down to the figures on the sand. Her keen hearing could make out what Deezy was saying, but Temple's reply wasn't quite as clear.

 

"Can you hear what the girl said to Deezy?" Sean asked, lips close to Brigit's ear.

"She said he's scared and not a monster and needs our energy," Brigit said.

Both of them glanced at Brigit's hand, glowing with the same bluish energy that suffused the entirety of their irises and pupils and was beginning to engulf their sclera.

"Willing to see if we can help?"

Brigit gave a firm nod and a solid, "Yes."

Shifting so instead of a light touch on Brigit's back, Sean was beside her, linking a sleek arm around Brigit's thickly muscled one, Sean flew/fell them towards where Ryan floated in the air before the... the what? The victim?

"Easy there, Big Man. You gave us a scare there at first, and seems like we did there same for you, but we're going to try and help you out now, okay?" Sean reiterated Ryan's intent. Her melodious voice was like honey and twilight washing over the gigantic figure, as she tried to infuse him with her own ineffable poise and composure, sunlight refracting through her gravitic shield giving her an almost dawn-like aurora. "Just give us a bit, and we'll get you what you need to ease the terrible hunger that's gnawing at you."
 

Spoiler

Power Maxing!

!roll 4d10t7ie10

Asarasa Roll: [9, 8, 4, 3] Result: 2 successes

4 quantum pool, +1 Flux, +1 Flux for another success. +1 Quantum Rating, +1 Mega-Presence, adding Calming Composure Mega-Composure Edge (reduce Emotional Atmosphere by one dot per dot of Mega-Composure)

Using Instant Influence to improve Big Guy's attitude towards Sean by 4

 

Presence + Empathy = 7d10, trying to calm Big Guy
!roll 7d10t7ie10

Asarasa Roll: [10, 8, 7, 6, 6, 5, 3], [4] Result: 3 successes, Mega-Presence 5 (Scale 6?)

 

[Shameless]

Ryan called Aika back and said "Cancel what I said last, evidently we don't need it after all."   "Ryan, what..."

"Aika, I don't have alot of time, when we're done and everyone's safe I'll explain.   If you can, don't buy the fish, if you already have closed the deal, fine, I'll handle it when I get back."  He hung up again, and his secretary let out an exasperated sigh.  Truth was, she hadn't actually got to anyone who could make such a sale yet, and had been put on hold, still waiting.  She just hung up and ended both calls, wondering just what her boss had gotten himself into.

Ryan dropped down' not touching the ground, near Deezy, grace and Temple.   "So it needs our energy?"   He didn't think it was a good idea to deed it all their power, that would leave them defenseless.  Still it came down to how much he trusted Temple.

"Alright.   Let's do it.  It seems to have stopped at the least, and we did say we'd help it out.   Do we just stand here and let it do what it did earlier?"

[Nina]

The monster stood slightly swaying mesmerized by Sean's soothing words. Brigit watched as Ryan, without a word abruptly flew off toward the beach, she turned her attention back to the creature the girl on the beach said was suffering and glanced at her fist.

 

The power was still there crackling waiting to be released, the same fist she had just about clobbered the thing with. “I hope this is a mistake,” she mutters and extends her fist to touch, not hit the being before them.

 

The creature looks down at the touch, and tenses but then it moans. Brigit's fist crackles more and the energy seems to flow into the monster the same crackling blue lightning running along its skin. It throws back its head and lets out a howling wail, Brigit pulls her fist away and staggers back into Sean's arms, “Jesus I feel drained.”

 

Before them the monster shimmies and seems to start to shrink. Smaller and smaller it gets and its form begins to flow the scales disappear into dark skin, spines and horns on its head merge and form hair. In moments Sean and Brigit are standing before a chubby naked boy of no more than ten or so years, dark skin and hair, clearly an islander. The boy sits on the coral and begins to weep. He speaks words between his gasping sobs, but neither women understand the language.

[Asarasa]

"You did amazing, Brige. I got you," Sean said, hands looping around Brigit's taut waist and resting her chin on a broad shoulder, supporting the improbably muscular yet still shapely woman more with gravitic manipulation than her svelte arms. Sean brought the two of them down to the reef with the boy. Giving Brigit a coy squeeze, her long nails grazing the hard abdominals beneath the wetsuit, Sean let her go to swan over to the distraught boy and sat down beside him.

 

As a man, she hadn't been an overtly physically affectionate person. As a fantasy woman, she was quite different. But as changed as she was in body and in some ways, mind, she couldn't imagine what the boy had gone through. She could understand how isolating it must've been for him though, especially at his age. The idea of being so isolated now made her want to shudder. She hadn't been particularly comfortable around children before, but sympathy welled up strong beneath her chest.

Sean slipped an arm around the boy's shaking shoulder and pulled him into hug. The boy melted instantly into the embrace, tear-stained face pressed to her breasts. Sean's vibrant violet eyes tightened in empathy, slim fingers brushing the boy's silky black hair in comfort, humming a wordless lullaby.

"I'm so sorry, hun. I don't understand you, but we'll find you someone who can, okay?" Sean murmurred, urging the boy to his feet.

The boy didn't seem to understand her words any better than she did his, but he reacted well enough to the tone of her dulcet voice, climbing to his feet, though he didn't release his tight hold on Sean's hand, as though dreading the idea of losing human contact again. Sean smiled down at him, keeping her fingers firm about his. "I won't leave you, but let's see if we can find someone you can talk to, and maybe get you some clothes, okay?"

Big, doleful brown eyes looked up at her with incomprehension. Sean tossed her head, flipping her long rose-gold hair over her shoulder and wiggling the fingers of her free hand, for dramatic effect rather than necessity. A dawn-hued circle swirled open before them, it's twin appearing on the island before Grace, Ryan, Deezy, and the girl that had stopped them from making a huge mistake.

 

"This way, little guy. One step, then another. Promise, it won't hurt."

She knew the boy didn't understand, but you can communicate a fair bit with tone and inflection. Tentatively, the boy followed, half hiding behind Sean's tall, hourglass figure, and in five steps, they were on the sandy beach of the island proper.

"Think you can do your magic and whip up the little guy something to wear, Deezy?" Sean asked the flighty super-genius. "And tell me the best place to find someone who can talk his language."

 

Her luminous eyes went from Deezy to the girl she was tending to. She couldn't but be aware that it had been her mental command that had rung in all in their minds. She didn't even know the girl's name. Young woman, really. I only look a year or two older myself. Her smile was sincere and grateful and unconsciously fascinating. "I'm Sean and I can't thank you enough for your, hmm, insight into the situation and intercession. And I'm sure the boy does, too."

Sean spun on her heel and went down on knee to bring herself close to eye level with the boy, keeping herself between him and the others for whatever modesty she could provide. She tapped her collarbone with a pair of finger. "Sean. I'm Sean. Sean." She tapped his chest likewise, raising her brows expectantly. "You? Name?" She glance over a shapely shoulder back at Temple. "Don't want to be a bother - you've already done so much - but can you help translate with your psychic stuff?"

[Shameless]

Ryan smiled as the boy followed Sean, babbling, he didn't understand the language, but he knew with a bit of time, he would.   "Just keep him talking abit longer Sean.   One of my abilities is to comprehend and be able to speak any language I'm exposed to for long enough."   It was an admission he knew only Deezy actually knew about him before, he was rather private with what he could do.

He sighed.  'Thank you both for acting so quickly to help him.   We'll see what we can do about any injuries we inflicted on him, in our ignorance."  He didn't feel good about that, but they'd all reacted to him as if he was a threat.  Thankfully, Temple had stopped them all from making a major mistake.

He looked back down to Temple.   "You saved his life.  Thank you for that."

[Nina]

Temple sighed with frustration, she had tried so hard to keep her powers a secret, they knew she could teleport but the rest had been her and Davian’s secret. Now it was in the open. She wondered if she should have just let them blast the kid or maybe she could just make them forget… no that wouldn.t be right.

She looked at the woman named Sean and resisted the temptation to go in and find her secrets and at Ryan, “I can translate.”

 

She crouched down level with the boy. “Hi, I’m Temple this is Sean and Ryan, and that’s Apex, that ones is Deezy, and…”

 

“Brigit”

 

“…Brigit. What is your name.”

 

Temple had been mindspeaking while she talked so that the boy would at least think she was speaking his language. He spoke back rapid fire in his native tongue.

“His name is Konami,” she listena s he told his tale from his little boy perspective and she translated as he went.

 

“When the storm came his family and everyone else thought it was just a monsoon, he still does, and they just took shelter as best they could. The storm destroyed everything on the island, and everyone was swept out to see. The last he saw of his parents they were clinging to part of their homes roof. Soon after he lost his hold on the beam he was hanging on to and sank. The water dragged him down deeper and deep and as it did he begane to change. Eventually he ended up in the form we saw and he has been like that eversince. He needed the energy to survive and he has several ways to gather it but he can’t make it himself.”

 

Temple looks at Deezy, “I guess he means he doesn’t recharge.”

 

“Why did he throw the ship at us,” asked Grace.

 

Temple repeated the question and mindspoke him again. He started yammering and Temple translated. “He was too heavy to swim at that size so he had to run on the seafloor He felt the power flash and needed the energyfood so he ran toward it. He came over a ridge and ran into the boat it hurt him and knocked him down it made him angry so he threw it. He didn’t know there were people about. He is very sorry, he didn’t mean to hurt anyone and He wants to go home to his family now."

[SalmonMax]

"Doesn't recharge," Deezy muses. "Yeah, I can see how that'd be a problem. But at the same time, you'd think once he ran out he'd just change back. Instead he changed back when he was GIVEN energy. And it's not like most Stormers NEED power...they might not have any superhuman abilities without it, but...no, no, there's clearly something else going on here. Konami must have some kind of very rare or unique brain structures compared to most Stormers."

 

She looked at Temple. "We may be able to help him, if he'll let us. If we work out why his powers are so unusual, I'm sure we can come up with some kind of treatment or action plan to help manage them. He wouldn't necessarily have to come back with us right now...we could take him home, then do work there. Maybe Ryan can warp him to a lab if and when we need to...except, hey if his parents are gone, where's he going to stay now?"

[Exile_Jeane]

So monster into child and child into victim of an unusual trigger event. This sat poorly with Grace, and if there was some kind of more regulated legal structure for Novas, she suspected this child would get tossed into a metal box and dissected with the rest of the monsters. 

 

"If you can figure out how to help him stay human when he wants to without sucking us dry constantly," she qualified, one finger raised as she thought out loud, "We might be able to take him with us.  Chicago has a lake just in a case, and I'm certain Ms. Gayle can make the arrangements to settle him long enough to figure out something long term. If you two don't mind."

 

The blonde juggernaut offered the last comment to her new teammates, glad they were physically in one piece from that brawl.  

[Shameless]

Ryan had continued to listen as people spoke though his focus was on the boy, so he could converse with him properly.    "We'll have to try bringing him to the home he remembers first.   He may or may not have a parent or legal guardian.   Despite how things were and are, I'll not take him from home without giving them a say.  He wants to go home, and we'll try that for him first."  

Ryan looked to Deezy.   "I know it's a stretch, but if anyone can make something, perhaps a small device that can absorb ambient energies, I'd imagine Solar energy as the most abundant, and convert it into the energies he needs to remain as he is.  I know it's probably you.   If he has no parents, or guardian, then we can bring him back here.   It's secluded enough that the danger to others is minimal, but not so much that there'll be no one for him to interact with.   The other issue I see is that we'll have to have at least one person who can converse with him present, should we come back here."

[Nina]

Through Temple’s telepathy and Deezy’s computer wizardry they slowly put together the name and fate of Konami’s home. He had been from one of the smaller islands in the Pacific which had been all but destroyed by the Storm. The island was no longer inhabited and survivors were unknown as the number of refugees in the region was in the hundreds of thousands. It was decided to take him back to Houston for the time being, where the full resources of NovaStorm could be utilized. It was safer for everyone if the boy, with such power, be in a place where he could be looked after with care.

 

Grace, Sean, and Brigit, thanked the NovaStorm heroes and bid them farewell and returned to Chicago, while the rest of the group warped back to Houston.

 

Spoiler

This ends this segment of the story. I will be starting new threads that branch off from there in the following days. as of now you are all under the must maxout to advance rule so I expect you to keep track of the abilities you are maxing  to help with this I will create a separate thread like the xp thread where each of you can post you advancement track. I will make a template for you to follow.