[STORY THREAD] Manifest Destiny

[SalmonMax]

The Alien image looked around at the bulkheads, doors, and walls before looking back at Deezy, “We are not a product of the vessel you occupy. We are a simulacra projected from a distant location. You may refer to us as Ix.”

 

It glided toward the crewmen and gave what Dezzy though was its best impression of a smile to them, Dezzy thought it didn’t help, just made the alien look more like a walking shark.

 

“There is no need to fear, we mean you no harm.” This last statement the simulacra said was addressed  to the workers who continue to stare in horror. “Please continue your operation. I find it fascinating.”

 

Deezy awarded herself a little medal for guessing the situation, even though it was definitely in the 'participation award' difficulty range.

 

"It's all right, guys," she assured the workers. "Looks like the landlords are okay with our renovations."

 

She gestured at Ix to follow her as she moved somewhere that the apparition wouldn't keep scaring people.

 

"So Ix...it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm guessing the station's signal reached you from when we first got in and started messing around with it, and you're here to find out what's going on? We'd like to have cordial relations with you, if at all possible. What's the situation here?"

[SalmonMax]

Beckett knocked  and after a minute when Ren didn’t answer the door, she let herself in. She had finally excepted the key after balking at sharing the house with her friend, her best friend, something she deep down really really had wanted to do, but had been too afraid of fucking things up with Renata, of letting her feelings show…

 

Beckett shook her head, best not to think those things this late, and entered the house and stopped frozen in the foyer. A few feet away, Renata was standing half facing away holding a miniature sun in her hand.

 

“Renata…?”

 

It took effort to pull herself back from that whirling, glowing abyss in her hand. It's entirely possible only Beckett's voice could have done it. Or more precisely, the uncertainty...the fear...in her voice.

 

She hauled herself back, mentally, from the power and the promise in the sphere and looked back over her shoulder at Beckett. The light of the orb reflected wildly in her eyes, making them look like they were glowing. Fitful flares and flashes from it pulsed over her face and hair and clothes.

 

"...hey...Beckett," Renata managed to say. "...this probably...needs a little explanation."

[Asarasa]

Sean weathered Brigit's anger with a composed equanimity, only arching an elegant brow, though it stung that her girlfriend accused her of only caring now that other enhanced persons would be in danger. Moreso that, in a sense, it was partially true. Sean didn't personally know any soldiers or other people directly involved in the fighting in the Ukraine.

She was acquainted, and in some cases, more, with many of the Novas that had signed on with the Canadian government. In many cases, they had signed on at her request. And with that, she couldn't help but feel some responsibility for them. But it wasn't the main reason for feeling the sting of the accusation. Normal people didn't stand a chance against Novas, especially Novas of their caliber. She wanted to keep the fighting on somewhat of an even footing. She didn't want this devolving into a war fought by proxy by the way of enhanced people. 

Let the nations themselves take a stand finally and commit themselves, if they wanted to brewing war come to an end.

"Luv, I don't want to go to war, I don't want any of us to go to war," Sean affirmed firmly. "And if we go over there and stomp the war into the ground, we won't be coming back any time soon. I don't think that would end it anyway and we'll end up stuck there to keep things from flaring back up. I love Chicago - in large part because of you, Bri - and the life we're making here. I'm proud of what we've done, even if there's more work to do. If we do go over there, I want to come back as soon as possible."

Few people could say 'no' to her face. With a smile, a wink, an arch of her back, or a few sultry words, she could persuade almost anyone of almost anything. But bureaucracy was made of paper as much as people - even if the paper was mostly digital - and paper was less susceptible to her wiles. She wasn't far behind Brigit in her frustration in the slow pace of getting the permits, clearances, and whatnot for the new islands and converting uninhabited buildings.

"But people are fighting and dying over there, some for what they believe in, some because they have been ordered to. And you're right, Brigit, those who are benefitting most from the resistance being waged far from their borders aren't doing enough. That doesn't mean we should or must act on their behalf, but I want to give those who are doing the actual fighting an even chance. So I'm willing to go over there in a limited capacity, to counter any top tier Novas the Russians commit to the field."

Sean shared a glance with Grace before turning her lambent lavender eyes back on Brigit, crossing her arms once more and recrossing her legs. Brigit's commitment to her city was more than admirable - it was one of the things she loved about her - but Hell, it could be frustrating sometimes. "Things haven't been decided yet, hon. Maybe we won't be needed. Maybe we won't all be needed, and one or two us can stay here in Chicago, while the others go to the Ukraine to back down any Russian Novas. Just, keep an open mind about the idea. We all have our strengths, and while any one of us are in the upper percentile in terms of sheer power, still, together, we're stronger than the sum of our parts."

[Nina]

Cu and Ryan

 

Cu tilted its head, “Several months still. Our ship can only travel faster than light for short intervals, and while between hops we cruise at near light speed, there is only so much space one can cross at such slow speeds.  That is the reason Ix and myself projected ahead, so we can begin direct observation.”

 

Ix and Deezy

 

Ix watched as the crew, still glancing warily at the alien apparition, went back to work. Finally, it turned back to Deezy, “My opposite, Cu, and myself are here to observe the damage done by the Dryn and to judge what should be done for the benefit of the greater galaxies.”

 

Ix looks around at the workers again then at Deezy, “We do not seek ‘relations’. Your presence on this  culling world has complicated matters.

 

Renata and Beckett

 

Beckett stared at Ren, then at the star in her hand, then back at Ren. She did this three or four times, not saying anything her mouth moving wordlessly. Then she put her hands on her hips and glared at Renata, “You think!?!”

 

The Chicago Three

Brigit’s face softened as she looked at her lover’s eyes, the Quantum-fire in her own eyes died down and her fists unclenched. “I’m sorry its just all of this shit after two years. Look I know what’s going on over there is bad and I feel for them, but it really isn’t…” 

 

 

An X-ray Laser created by a 50 megaton fusion reaction focused through a Hyper Gravitic lens creates a beam of invisible light that moves at 299 792 458 meters a second. That equates to one hell of a massive kinetic punch when it connects with something tangible…like a building.

 

The whole floor of the building exploded. The beam struck the apartment that was listed as Brigit’s vaporizing her entire apartment and most of that third of the floor instantly. The kinetic wave continued  at fifty meters a second ripping through the rest of the floor with an intense wave of heat following, igniting anything and everything flammable.

 

Sean’s apartment took up the corner directly to the north of Brigit’s and Grace’s was at the opposite corner of the building. The floors above were offices and a gym and other workout spaces for the girls. They hadn’t installed the pool on the roof yet, but they had been planning to. Below them were the offices of Karen’s business. Aside form the girls no one else occupied the building after hours, not since Karen bought the building.

 

In three seconds, the floor they lived on would be gone. Two seconds after that the floors above would collapse onto them and five seconds after that the rest of the building would crash in on itself.

 

Spoiler

The girls have three seconds to act. the rest of you post as normal.

 

 

[Exile_Jeane]

*The Chicago Three*

 

Grace had fought to survive, to move, to kill against quantum threats bigger and meaner than herself on more occasions than she cared to think about, and when that crescendo of explosive violence erupted, that allowed her to navigate and process the Flight-Fright-Freeze response just a heartbeat or two faster than her teammates.

 

The window of her kitchen lay ahead of her. Brigit stood between her and the window. Sean was on the wrong side of the kitchen island. And if the destruction was as bad as it was sounding, getting greedy was a fast road to being buried under her own apartment building. Reptile brain logic it was then.

 

In a blur of motion, the blonde juggernaut hit Brigit like a ton of bricks, wrapping one arm around the bulkier woman. Quantum-charged muscles made it easy in Brigit's stunned state, and the window beyond was even less of an obstacle. She pumped energy into her legs, bright gold flooding her veins in a web of light as they hurled outward into the open air. Flying in a chaotic downward arc like so much more debris, Grace waited until it felt like she was going more *down* and tossed her teammate blindly *up* with all the strength her bad leverage could muster. Hopefully Brigit's flight would spare her a harsh...

 

Thud!

 

Grace slammed against a building with all the force of her blind momentum, leaving a vertical crater surrounded by a garden of shattered windows before bouncing off and down at another sharp angle towards the streets below.

 

Spoiler

Quantum Leap to get Grace and Brigit somewhere outside the building.

Strength+Athletics to get Brigit Airborne

Exile_Jeane Request: [9d10] Roll: [10, 9, 8, 8, 7, 6, 4, 2, 1] 5 successes + whatever scale 5 gets me.

Damage from impacts TBD, lol.

  

[SalmonMax]

"Culling world, right, so you're one of those aliens," Deezy remarked. Her brain shifted gears. "And you don't seek relations, that's pretty bad news. You may want to reconsider that stance. I get that stimulating sentience in emerging ecologies then genociding them for the psychic war-juice in their minds was kind of your thing, but...we're a little past our due-date, you know?"

 

She smiled. "Look, you may not have wanted this, but done is done. We've evolved way past the limits you intended. We're a people now. We'd make much better friends than enemies."

 

Even as she talked, she mentally opened a radio channel to Ryan. With her mouth she talked amiably with Ix. With her mind, she sent another voice to Ryan.

 

"Hey Ryan. Do you have a space ghost named Cu there with you? What's your status?"

 

No sooner than that missive went out than Deezy attempted to connect with a communication satellite so she could transmit to the cell network on Earth...a phone call going out to the number Temple had given her. They three had been at the terraformer complex. They three would likely be the ones the aliens would be most interested in. And Temple was different as well...closer to the aliens than she and Ryan. Had they approached her differently?

[Shameless]

Ryan nodded.   Actual travel through space he knew generally took far longer than his way did.   For him, it was instantaneous, and as yet, he'd really not pushed himself to his limits in terms of just how far he could go.  A small part of him was glad for that, who knows what sort of doomsday warning he'd have activated showing up in another system monitored by the Dryn especially given the reaction the system had when began activating his powers.
 

"Well that should be long enough to prepare a proper welcome."  It wasn't said as a threat, just in the way of someone being told relatives would be coming by at future date, and that they'd of course be ready for them.

That was when he heard Deezy's voice on his comlink.   Quickly he picked it up and answered her.

"Yeah, I do, they seem pretty personable.  Nothing huge to report, save that they're on their way here.   According to them, we should expect their arrival in several months.  Everything alright on your end?"

Edited August 31, 2022 by Shameless

[Nina]

Earth and in Orbit - Deezy, Ryan, Temple, and visitors

 

Temple turned over blinking the sleep from her eyes. Unlike her Nova associates she and most other psions needed sleep, even if not as much as the normal humans who still made up the majority of earths population. The phone on her night stand was still buzzing with an incoming text. Who the fuck would be texting her at this hour? She reached over, annoyance forming in her emotion center. She swiped the screen and read the words…

 

<Temple, it's Deezy. Have you been approached by extraterrestrials? I'm being totally serious. Call me. (number)>

 

Temple sat up her mind racing searching her vast memory… Shit!

 

Temple sent her thought out towards Deezy, searching for her. She wasn’t on earth. Dammit the satellite she wasn't supposed to know about.

 

Temple brushed her mind against Deezy’s a gentle knock, She would have to be careful and not give anything away lest she upset her own carefully crafted plans…

 

<Deezy? It is me Temple and no I have not been approached by anyone. What is going on?”>

[SalmonMax]

Deezy effectively divided her attention between three sources of input. The radio communication from Ryan, the mental contact from Temple, and her own senses there in the space station with Ix. For a mind as fast and efficient as hers, it was not difficult. Not yet at least.

 

"Yeah, I do, they seem pretty personable.  Nothing huge to report, save that they're on their way here.   According to them, we should expect their arrival in several months.  Everything alright on your end?"

 

- "I have Ix here, and they're more clinically curious. Doesn't seem interested in asking a lot of questions. Collecting data. They're not trying to be threatening, but the implications of what they're saying don't seem great for us. Several months is good though...that gives us a little time to prepare. I think we're going to have to convince them we're on their level before they'll pause and listen to us."

 

Then...

 

<Deezy? It is me Temple and no I have not been approached by anyone. What is going on?”>

 

Her response was rapid-fire, bursts of thoughts of complexity and speed that Temple had to work to follow.

 

<"Hm, okay that's interesting. Maybe they don't think you're a threat. Ryan and I have been contacted by a pair of alien beings, projecting a sort of immaterial presence from what is apparently a very long ways off. But they're on their way. These are the guys that built the terraforming and energy collection machine we wrecked, and since they went to some trouble to find me and Ryan, I thought they might have contacted you as well. Keep me in the loop if they do, okay? At the moment they seem to be deciding what to do about the current situation on Earth...what with humanity having survived this long and evolved...but they don't seem inclined to involve us in that decision, so we have to prepare for the possibility that we won't like what they come up with. Fortunately, we have a little time. Unfortunately, they have a huge head start.">

 

There was a pause; a mental inhalation of breath one might say...then slower and more conversationally, she added, <"So that was my day. How are you doing?">

 

[Nina]

Earth and in Orbit - Deezy, Ryan, Temple, and visitors

 

<Well it is 2:30 in the morning, I was sleeping, but that’s ok this is important. Deezy don’t jump to conclusions as to who they are. And don’t think that just because they seem nice that they are.

 

Do you need me there, wherever you are?>

 

Temples thoughts were instantaneous and with Deezy's hyper-intelligence it took only nano seconds to process.

**********

Ix seemingly noticed nothing as telepathic messages flashed across space, the alien simply shook its head in response to Deezy's spoken words, "No, you mistake us. We are not a culling species. This world belonged to the Dryn. We merely monitored in secret. At the time we were at war with the Dryn so we gathered inforation to aid us in defense. The Dryn are responsible for what has been done to this world."

 

************

Cu nodded in seeming agreement to Ryan's words. "Yes, that is another reason for our projection. We determined that your species have not had open contact with another and we wish to give you time to prepare. Even a civilization predisposed to encounter foreign life are often thrown into chaos when it occurs suddenly without warning."

[SalmonMax]

"Ahhh....well then I owe you an apology," Deezy replied with a sheepish chuckle. "I leaped before I looked there! So...you built the space stations? Or was that another faction? You said you were judging what should be done...what options are you weighing here?"

 

Meanwhile she updated Ryan and Temple at the same time.

 

<"Oops, yeah, little update...the terraformers were the Dryn, that's not these guys. Imma slow my roll and just talk to this Ix for a bit I think. Even so, Temple's right that we shouldn't just assume this is going to go our way. Ryan, we're going to need to kick our plans for the inner and outer solar system up a notch.">

 

Then, just to Temple on the heels of that, <"Sorry to wake you up. I think we're good for now. They seem to just be observing. The whole thing's being recorded...can't be sure they'll show up...but I can share my memory sometime.">

[Shameless]

Ryan looked to Cu, and nodded. "I can safely say that were you appearing to nearly anyone else, the response wouldn't be so calm.  Still, It's my hope that we can have an amicable meeting and that resolves well for everyone involved."   He offered Cu a real smile.  "I do admit, I am thrilled to actually be conversing with someone from an alien species.  Much has been written of such a meeting in our culture. "

He answered Deezy.  "You know I'm good to go on my end on that score."

 

[Asarasa]

The Chicago 3

Sean didn't have Brigit's sheer physical speed and agility, nor Grace's expansive experience with quantum threats. What she did have was inhuman self-possession and self-assurance. She never panicked or freaked out. She almost always felt what she wanted to feel and revealed what she wanted to reveal. With senses sharper than any human and the ability to process all that information on both a conscious and subconscious level, she also had a powerful intuition.

So, if she couldn't move superhumanly fast, at times, it seemed she almost acted precognitively. As Grace tackled Brigit through the window, Sean stood up with deceptive languor, her perfect and unmistakable hourglass silhouette snapping into sharper focus as her gravitic shield bloomed into existence, protecting her with an infinitesimally thin pseudo-event horizon. Lavender eyes flared with incandescence instantly filling with blue-white fire.

She could feel micro-vibrations through the heels of her integrated boots before they grew into explosive concussive force, the faint but growing increase in ambient temperature, the change in air pressure. Everything screamed danger at her, a threat on a scale she hadn't personally felt before. One she couldn't stop in its tracks... but might be able to redirect, at least partially.

Centerpoint was one of the few Novas known to be able to form portals, wormholes. While she was able to open them endlessly, effortlessly, she wasn't nearly as adept and versatile with them as Ryan Hawke. To envelop the unknown, amorphous but very present danger, she would have to strain her gifts. Raspberry lips parted as though for a kiss, nipples tightened and skin tingled as she inhaled smoothly and deeply, stretching her powers with an inrush of forced energy.

She was well aware of the layout of the building, having helped designing the renovations. Inside Brigit's apartment, close to the corner nearest the short cross-shaped hallway that separated the four apartments, a small ring of gold and magenta flared into existence, growing bigger. But not enough, it needed to be bigger, more extensive. Sean exhaled, slow and calm despite the cataclysm barrelling towards her. The portal grew wider, faster and faster, its glowing edge becoming fainter, more ephemeral and indistinct, then completely invisible as the vaguely oblong portal passed through walls, floors, ceilings, to swallow the onrushing kinetic force, heat, and shrapnel-like debris.

Over Lake Michigan, parallel to the rolling green-grey waves, a mirror the first portal opened near the center of the wide curve of the newly formed archipelago, its opening facing the sky. Inside the rollicking building, Centerpoint stood tall and proud and serene, an hand extended before her as though to caress a lover, belying the effort and focus needed to form and maintain a wormhole capable enough to prevent a building from collapsing under the assault of an unknown and near unfathomable force.

Sean was glad she had moved Keesha to her island house.

 

Spoiler

Maxing Out Gravitokinesis

Asarasa Request: [5d10t7e10] Roll: [10, 10, 9, 3, 2], [9, 2] Result: 4 Successes

5 Quantum spent, +1 Flux. 

1 success to increase Gravitokinesis by 1, 3 successes to add 3 Power Tags to Gravitokinesis, which allows Centerpoint to add 4  Power Tags to her Gravitational Collapse (Warp) Technique.

Adding Impose, Range (Short), Scale +1 (Size Scale 3 total, roughly the size of a small building, and Subtle (no other Power Tag really applies, using it a means to let the portal phase through solid objects without impediment or damaging them).

If a roll is required to see how well the Warp works, here it is (Warp is currently at 4 dots due to increasing Gravitokinesis to 6 through maxing out. When you Max out, you can increase a power or whatever by 1 over the limit, beyond that you have to uses successes to increase the prerequisites to increase the power more):

Asarasa Request: [9d10t7e10] Roll: [10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 3, 1, 1], [9] Result: 5 successes

Gravitic Shield (Quantum Field) is currently granting her Scale 6 Armor

Quantum Pool: 30/35

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Asarasa

[Nina]

An X-ray Laser created by a 50 megaton fusion reaction focused through a Hyper Gravitic lens creates a beam of invisible light that moves at 299 792 458 meters a second. That equates to one hell of a massive kinetic punch when it connects with something tangible…like a building.

 

The whole floor of the building exploded. The beam struck the apartment that was listed as Brigit’s vaporizing her entire apartment and most of that third of the floor instantly. The kinetic wave continued  at fifty meters a second ripping through the rest of the floor with an intense wave of heat following, igniting anything and everything flammable.

 

Sean’s apartment took up the corner directly to the north of Brigit’s and Grace’s was at the opposite corner of the building. The floors above were offices and a gym and other workout spaces for the girls. They hadn’t installed the pool on the roof yet, but they had been planning to. Below them were the offices of Karen’s business. Aside from the girls, no one else occupied the building after hours, not since Karen bought the building.

 

In three seconds, the floor they lived on would be gone. Two seconds after that the floors above would collapse onto them and five seconds after that the rest of the building would crash in on itself.

 

At least that is what was supposed to happen, but when dealing with Omega Level Enhanced Novas, plans tend to go awry.  

 

The Bomb used to create the laser was acquired from Russia and was from the old Soviet Union. It was heavily modified before being set into the Gravitic Amplifier. The Amplifier fired first, focusing the Earth's Gravity field into a series of lenses which would guide the massive X-Ray pulse and compress the energy into a Laser form. It would also encompass the Bomb in a reducing Gravity sphere, much like a Magnetic bottle, which would further tamp the nuclear reaction as well as shunt the largest portion of energy back into the earths gravity field nullifying most of the explosive damage to the local environment. This took about three nano-seconds, then the bomb detonated.

 

Now even with the aforementioned Gravitic wizardry it was still at its heart a nuclear bomb and as such the energies release for even the briefest second were terrifying. The blast and temperatures was shunted away but the force acting at ground zero was still that of close to a ton of chemical explosive, more than enough to mostly vaporize the machine that held the bomb and most of its secrets. But, because the mechanism was underwater, the flash of radiation and the electromagnetic pulse had  most of it energy absorbed by the ground and was thus even more localized.

 

But it was visible.

 

Several Satellites tasked to detect just such occurrences picked up the odd nuclear incident. Some Satellites registered it as an explosion while others simple labeled it a ‘Release’ of radioactive, Others as a EMP Event, some were unsure. Regardless what the sats called it they all reported it.

 

Chicago went dark just as the beam hit Brigit’s apartment.

 

On the Black Knight, a general alarm sounded

 

Apex grabbed dauntless and lept, and CenterPoint taxed her powers to their breaking point. The energy and debris were swept into the warp Portal and jettisoned far out over the lake where only a few ships plying their trade were witness to an incredible light show. The building stood.

 

Dauntless tossed away as Apex Landed, never touched ground she flared bright and twisted catching herself and float a couple of meters off the ground her enhanced vision scanning.

 

“I can see the trail of the beam it lead east out of the city! I am going after them!” Cried dauntless as she rocketed away following the ionized trail left leading right back to the origin of the bomb!

 

 

 

On Board the Black Knight, The crew gathered in the main control room Deezy arrived and gave Ryan a concerned look. Behind her the two alien Simulacra hovered.

 

The Station was tied into the DOD network which is where their information was coming from.

 

“Conflicting reports of a nuclear even of some sort near Chicago.” The senior technican said.

 

“Fermi,” asked one of the scientist?

 

“No. it was centered to the east at Yellow Lake in  Berrien County.”

 

“Can you get a picture?”

 

“No sir I’m checking all the feeds. Something is screwing up every visual> Some kind of distortion.”

 

Cu floats forward, “May I?”

 

Everyone had been focused on the screens and hadn’t noticed the aliens. Now they did.

[Shameless]

Aboard the Station

 

Ryan was almost at a loss, he knew Sean, Brigit and Grace lived close by, so his thoughts turned to his friends, as he was about to use a portal down to check on them.  When Cu moved forward, however, he stopped, curious as to what the Alien Projection was about to do.  As others panicked regarding this, Ryan only nodded his assent, perhaps overstepping his authority, but he had a feeling any semblance of control they had was just that.  That the Projections had far more control than Humanity would.

"Yes, go ahead."   Dangerous words , but Ryan felt a little trust warranted.

In moments, the Knight's sensors activated in full, providing realtime data on the surface below, as well as multiple camera views.   He was honestly abit surprised there wasn't some sort of full on 3D hologram, but perhaps they'd disabled that in their tinkering.    The screen changing to a view of an anomaly above what had been a lake, about thirty miles east of Chicago.   From what he could read, it was a continuing Gravitic anomaly, so he figured that was likely Sean's doing.  Further adjustments showed the lakebed below, because all the nearby water had been completely evaporated.    There was damage, but if the reports of a nuclear bomb going off were accurate, then they'd gotten lucky, because the results were far worse than this.

"I hope you can shut that down safely."  He said quietly, his gaze rising to meet Deezy's, though it was unclear if he meant her, or Sean himself.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Shameless

[Exile_Jeane]

*The Chicago 3*

 

Grace pulled herself out of the impact crater she'd carved into the street on impact in time to see Centerpoint's geyser of redirected light roar skyward from over the lake, a Yggdrasil over a suddenly-dark city. She wasn't hurt because of course she wasn't, but her ears still rung and world still spun from her short, dizzying turn as a dodge ball. The blonde juggernaut had almost forgotten how rough uncontrolled leaps could be, her first blind leaps after her elevation. 

 

Brigit's words, said far above, were lost, as Grace's brain caught up on the situation. The pitch black city. The first notes of panic as night owl Chicago-ites began to trickle towards her crater. The fading glow of colossal blast. The distorted outline of her home, neatly missing a corner where Centerpoint's power failed to completely protect the structure. That last observation stuttered her thoughts as anger, riding the tide of adrenaline past all her self-control.

 

Her home.

 

The one she shared with Konami.

 

Who she wouldn't have been able to save if Centerpoint had been any less amazing.

 

And she had been very clear what she would do if anyone threatened him. That was The Rules of Civilization. State your position and emphasize the consequences for breaching it in bad faith. Invite anyone to talk about it. Most importantly: Follow Through. And you wouldn't be the bad guy, the barbarian, the brute monster. Whoever had done this had no realistic way of knowing her child wouldn't be here. Whoever had done this had aimed this at Konami's life with no insurance there wouldn't be collateral damage other than the Chicago 3. Whoever had done this had earned their way all the way up to the (thankfully very-very-very short) list of people she wouldn't hesitate to hit at full strength. 

 

Grace shook where she stood crouched. Her fists clenched. Her heart thundered in her ears. A gold glow flushed through her veins, prestage to motherly ultraviolence. Eufiber flowed over her flesh into it's combat configuration. 

 

Apex looked up as she heard the faint sound of Centerpoint drifting down, grey eyes like thunderstorms. "Find who did this and drop me on them so they can learn exactly how fucked they are," she all but growled.

[Asarasa]

The Chicago 3

By the time Centerpoint's booted feet touched the cracked asphalt, her metallic rose-gold hair had unspooled into thick, glistening waves to her hips, her exertions having prevented her from maintaining the minute mental effort it took to restrain her regenerative abilities. Her gravitic exertions had taken their toll in other ways as well. Her eyes were widely dilated, showing only a thin ring of incandescent violet around pools of black. One long, shapely leg almost buckled before she caught herself, and her prominent chest rose and fell with her deep breaths.

Sean looked more like she was recovering from a very exuberant sexual encounter than straining her gravitic mastery to it limits to redirect the power of nuclear event. In truth, to her, it hadn't felt much different.

She waved a staying hand as she straightened up, eyes following the fading motes of brilliant energy from Brigit's flight. "No portals, Grace, not at the moment," Sean said, her hand waving in a vague manner. "Feels... hmm, loose. Not sure if I can form one, or if I do, how big it'll get or if I'll be able to close it again."

She tossed her head, then sashayed around behind Grace, her slender fingers grazing the shorter woman's hips. With her heels, Centerpoint had a head on Apex. "We're going after Brigit directly."

In a sensation she had grown experienced to, Grace felt gravity's hold completely release her. An instant later, Apex and Centerpoint were 'falling' into the sky, and flying after Dauntless, only the latter's fading glowing trail allowing the former to follow her passage.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Asarasa

[Nina]

Brigit was angry. No, Brigit was pissed. Not that someone had tried to kill her and her friends but that someone had not cared about collateral damage.  That thought made her stop her head-long driv toward the origin of the blast, the trail was too easy to follow. But the city was in darkness and she knew that the wolves would be out soon and they would be hungry.

 

“Shit!”

She about faced and touched the raised pad on her glove with her thumb to activate her throat mic and earpiece. “Sean, Grace if you’re following me stop. We need to stay in the city. Without power there is going to be looting. God this pisses me off but who ever did this will have to wait. I’m on my way back.”

 

Aboard the Black Knight…

 

Cu tilted it’s head, “this is odd” it touch some controls and one of the screens switched to a figure hurtling through the night wreathed in Quantum fire. The figure stopped in mid air and Cu zoomed in revealing Brigit.  “It is broadcasting a signal.”

“…following me stop. We need to stay in the city. Without power there is going to be looting. God this pisses me off but who ever did this will have to wait. I’m on my way back.”

 

“That is Dauntless, she is one of our friends, she protects Chicago the city there,” explained Ryan.

 

“It was on trajectory toward the origin of the blast but now is heading back to the city," said Cu adjusting the visuals to make them clearer

 

Ix simple stood/floated in the back an alien scowl on it's alien face.

 

[Exile_Jeane]

"If that's the way you feel, go back then," Grace monotoned in reply over the coms, borne aloft in Centerpoint's gravity bubble, "Give us the coordinates and we'll make sure there's no repeat attempt. Right, Sean?"

 

Deafening silence from the gorgeous gravokinetic.

 

Grace's expression could have carved rock even without superpowers, "Fine then. Give *me* the coordinates, drop me off, and I'll make my own way there if that's the way you two feel about it." 

[Shameless]

"Alright then."  Ryan said quietly.   They needed to act, and he first called up Deezy.  "I need you to make some Radiation suits for you and me, something durable but with as much freedom of movement as you can.   I'm assuming you want to go downside and investigate the anomaly.   I'm going to call Colonel Grant, get us clearance to do so."

When she assented, he closed the connection, and quickly brought up one to Colonel Grant.   When he answered, Ryan got to the point.   "Deezy and I are getting ready to head down to the anomaly.   I was hoping you could get our being there squared away.   A clearance or what have you so we can cut through red tape and get to the bottom of this.  Oh, and as it is radioactive, we'll need access to a decontamination facility as well."  
 

Grant answered quickly  "I'll get on it and get back with you shortly."
 

He closed the channel and sighed, then looked to Cu.   "I'm going to be going down to help with the investigation, do you need anything else from me before I go?"

[Asarasa]

The Chicago 3

With the power needed for the blast knocking out Chicago's energy grid, who ever was responsible wasn't an immediate threat. Opportunists and looters would be the next most widespread threat to the people of Chicago at the moment. It didn't surprise Sean that Brigit would more concerned about them. Sean could probably convince Brigit otherwise, but there would be an undercurrent of resentment, an unsaid accusation that they were more concerned about themselves - the obvious target - rather than the people of Chicago, who were relatively defenseless in comparison. 

Which didn't mean Sean didn't understand how Grace felt. Sean might have kept the apartment in the building, but she had her own, private house on her own, personal island in the Chicago Archipelago. Grace didn't, and more, she had a child, who by happenstance more than anything else, hadn't been in their apartment when it was attacked. Sean might have been a woman for over two years now, and was even capable of bearing a child, but as yet, hadn't felt the faintest urge to be a mother, but she could well understand a mother's rage.

Grace wanted blood, and Sean couldn't blame her.

Sean activated her own throat mic. "Hold up, Bri, we'll join you," Sean said, a faint frown flitting across her fetching lips as she and Grace continued after Brigit. She was the most powerful gravity manipulator on the planet she was aware of, but she couldn't do everything. She could make someone fly, but she hadn't yet figured out how to let someone else direct their own flight. "We're the most mobile, we'll work on crowd control. Whoever struck at us probably can't do it again anytime soon, but let's not let the trail go cold. Show Grace where the trail leads and let her go after it. If she needs back up, she can call us in."

If Centerpoint and Dauntless were the most mobile, Apex was arguably the toughest of the Chicago 3. If anyone could endure whatever whoever tried to obliterate them could dish out, it was Grace.

Sean's hair, long once more and loose, whipped behind her like a rose-gold flag in a gale, as she glanced at Grace flying beside her in the darkness broken only by starlight, her lambent lavender eyes slightly narrowed. "Fair?"

Grace gave a curt nod of agreement. "Fair."

Edited November 23, 2022 by Asarasa

[Nina]

The Chicago 3

 

Silence weighed over the COMM line and it stayed quiet for the several seconds it took Brigit to come into sight and blast past them. As she flew by Brigit flipped over and fired her quantum blast back past them and said coldly "That way you can't miss it." before flipping back and putting on a burst of speed that would have her back in the city in seconds.

 

[Exile_Jeane]

'Good luck,' Grace mouthed at her gorgeous teammate, eyes following Brigit's exit wordlessly, not so lost in her anger over the attack as to be completely blinded as to the trouble she and Sean had borrowed opposing the pugilist's all-consuming devotion to her city. But that was future Grace's problem and present Grace wanted to send an Apex-sized message to the people who struck at her and her own. She'd ended up in more piles of rubble surrounded by bodies than she wanted to think about at the hands of Enchidna's spawn, and she wasn't about to start that pattern up again.

 

Sean dropped her off close to the obvious source, one short quantum leap from a dried-out lakebed. Bone dry, an expanse of hard mud with a relatively small crater. No sign of material tools or conveniently punchable welcome party of hostiles.

 

The wind rustling through her hair and waist cape, Grace let her herself exhale now that she was alone, fists relaxing away from immediate quantum-fueled retaliation. Of course, they'd run once they missed. Monsters rarely had the courage to stand their ground when their traps went awry. But they'd be watching, the blonde juggernaut bet herself, if only to see how to try again. A smart foe would and she wasn't prepared to risk her family, friends, and associates betting her foes weren't smart. She stepped forward through the ruined lake, eyes scanning for something, anything, trusting to her unnatural durability to endure any ambush or lingering traps that might bring welcome release to the roiling fury in her gut. As she did so, she turned her comms to a frequency provided by Agent Carson, speaking strictly louder required for the benefit of any lurking listeners. Let them come while she waited for back up.

 

"This is Apex. I'm at the source of the blast. There don't seem to be any of the cowards responsible here right now but..," she narrated, relaying what she was seeing.     

[Asarasa]

Sean sighed at Brigit's curtness, but didn't hesitate at following her blast with Grace in tow. Once she caught sight of the baked and cracked lakebed, Sean floated Grace gently to the ground, with the exhortation to call if she needed help. Then the curvaceous beauty flew up and flipped over in a graceful, blurringly swift Immelmann Turn. As she flew through the sky and gained altitude, the colour of her bodysuit shifted from black to the classic, almost luminous white of her original Centerpoint uniform, the circle on her chest flowing from white to black. It was much more visible than her alternate black uniform.

The stars of the night sky where bright with Chicago so dark, the skyline nearly invisible from the extensive black out. Nearly the only lights still alive were from vehicles so far below, making glimmering, speckled streams of the streets of the city. This high up, it was almost eerily silent, though the wind was strong. With the vantage and the gloom, it was easily to spot the incandescent corona surrounding a thickly built figure zipping through the sky faster than a jet.

Sean took a deep breath of the thinner air, then dove after Brigit, tightening the strength of the gravitic field around her, pouring on the speed to catch up to her girlfriend, a faint pink and purple penumbra beginning to form about her due to the powerful gravitic distortion.

Just the appearance of two of the Chicago 3 would curtail a fair number of opportunistic looters. But with Brigit's evident anger, Sean was concerned by how... explosively Brigit might react if she caught someone taking advantage of blackout caused by an attack aimed at them.

[SalmonMax]

"I need you to make some Radiation suits for you and me, something durable but with as much freedom of movement as you can.   I'm assuming you want to go downside and investigate the anomaly.   I'm going to call Colonel Grant, get us clearance to do so."

 

"There is only so much even I can do to make radiation resistant wear easy to move in," Deezy notes as she spins through designs in her head. "Maybe with some kind of metamaterial that reacts to gamma rays you could...oh oh, accordion folding around the joints for semirigid plates..."

 

A month of R&D played out in her brain within the span of a brisk conversation, and with a blur of waste heat and light, the suits manifested out of thin air. Made of silvery, thick fabric with a soft and padded underlayer, the suits were fairly heavy but the weight was distributed in ways that made it relatively easy to move in. The joints around the knees and elbows had a distinctive crinkle built into them, letting the relatively stiff fabric bend fairly easily. There was no getting around certain design elements; very few things stopped high energy ionizing radiation while still being wearable. With Deezy not having to 'manufacture' this material in a conventional way though, the lead could be interwoven through the fabric itself rather than being a separate layer, which meant it was effectively thinner and more mobile without losing protective value. The breathing apparatus was shielded as well, with leadlined tanks of highly compressed air connected to the helmet via similarly protected ducts rather than flexible tubes. Without knowing how contaminated the area was, relying on outside air...even filtered...was just too risky. On board diagnostic tools could measure internal versus external air pressure, maintaining a constant overpressure inside that would ensure leaks didn't let contaminated air inside. Temperature regulation was trickier...there were radiators in the shoes and out the back, but radiating heat was an inefficient way of dissipating it. Without permitting the exchange of material though...well, it would hopefully be enough.

 

She offered Ryan his suit, then started pulling her own on over her clothes. Donning the suit was relatively easy, but still took a few minutes to make sure the seals were working.

 

"Okay," she said, "There's a control on the left wrist that'll turn the HUD on and off. It gives basic system feedback like seal status and air supply, as well as information about external temperature and radiation count. The suits will probably start getting warm to wear if we're in them too long, or if it's too warm outside where we're going...there's a thermal flush, but it has to break seals to use it so...just be aware of that."

 

"Other than all THAT...lets go!"

 

There's the sound of ripping air, a momentary inrush of wind before the wormhole stabilizes to Ryan's will; only letting through what he permits. Without much further fanfare, Deezy passed through the event horizon and Ryan followed.