Time has passed The Quill Initiative is in the news! Supporting younger / newer super-hero teams, through a support staff at a command center in the Quill Compound -- most of the @Ponies. The HHL is ... recruiting? Assessing potential members? "Halcyon's Got Talent"? Love Letters! There are Love Letters ! Harry It's been a couple weeks since you got the base opened up for the team and your folks dropped the bomb about wanting you to think about joining the HHL. Apparently so they could retire. With Grandma Swift setting you up with the Twilight Grove, it feels a little like the family (and everyone else) is ... looking at you, waiting for you to _do_ something - step up. Take what you've done and be... even more. Against your better judgement, you've been trying to do just that. [Danger: 2!] The press isn't ready for the new and improved Mercury. You're too young, too rash, too cocky, and dating all the wrong people. Idiots. Too bad you can't stop listening to them. Give "The Internet" influence over you and take Angry. Andi's and the Irregulators have been way more active since the Quill Initiative got going (dammit, Jason), and it's been nice to team up with them - show them the ropes a little bit? Maybe. Who on the Irregulators resents you showing up on 'their' missions 'all the time', even though it's made their team look really good in the press? --> Andi is upset at him. Showing up in the middle of the fight, when they have under control, then grabbing all the camera time. (Taking advice from Jason.) Summer Really, with the mind you have, keeping track of everything in your life SHOULD be easy. Should. Tough choices to make: are you focusing more your personal life or your shiny new superheroing, with some great support from the Ponies in the Quill Initiative. Both? Hah... Yeah... that'd be nice. Personal life. "tell us how you open up to someone close to you, revealing your superhero identity and all the pressure you're under, and clear a condition." --> Nono! [Mundane: 9!] No one close to you (whom you did NOT confide in) suspects your real identity. Charade Loyal minions of your father are coming out of the woodwork, and it's everything your hyper brain can do to keep them out of trouble and out of your line of sight in the middle of classes. * Parker is well-pleased by the way you've stepped up since the new living arrangements have taken effect. Take two Respect from her. * You've attracted the attention of the HHL, or least a nominal member in it - Tatanka - what were you talking about on television that set you apart as more than a simple teen hero? Tell us, gain 1 respect from him, and gain the attention of the League. Last few weeks for super-heroics ... HHL is on the ropes. Nobody escaped unscathed. Quiet. Between the Quill Initiative surge of superheroics ... been a glut of superhero actions and Tiger Beat reporting. Hot teen heroics all over. HHL is trying to beef back up ... rumored that they will be looking for members. Is the Menagerie the feeder team to the HHL, given that Harry is being courted, and no JHHL folk have gone up to the big leagues for a while. The Menagerie is the home town favorite; CNN is favoring the JHHL. Jason Quill teams -- "Quill Qids" Irregulators are still prominent. Not known as Quill Qids. Harry spending time with that. Qids -- Jason is a prominent former Menagerie member. Harry? Link -- is this why he's not active these days? Is Jason joining? With his Qids? How do you join the Menagerie? Calls going into Jason. Jason is contacting the members as he fields these called. Messages to Streak about HHL hiring. Alycia Date with Jason. Saturday. Jason (as the new conduit of talent to the HHL) has a target on his chest, and somebody decides to make a target of *him*. Jason can defend himself, but playing on the downlow. Charade is there. And Adam. Professor Midnight and the Late Shift. Alycia's dealing with it well, esp. the minons. Adam shows up. Carving blasts to separate folk. Midnight is about to ... Oh great, magic. Adam lands. Portal into his hat. Adam flies after. Alycia dispatches the minions. Camera crews! Charade! Are crime rates in the area up because of the increased activity of new super-heroes? --> it's important that what we do isn't just beating up bad guys, but finding ways to address the economic imbalances and social injustices that create these problems. Economic injustice! (kicks thug making comments) ["Charade, the mic was cut 30 seconds ago" (Points gun.) "Live. Mic. Now."] (Tatanka is impressed.) So ... * take Guilty for consorting with your father's minions and keeping it a secret. * lose influence [none] over Daph from being too busy to hang out with her after school and talk about Marion. Feeling like she overshared. (Doing more professional than personal.) Ghost Girl The World Wounds are damnable, cursed, stubborn things, and you're not at all comfortable with the cost required to close one [Savior: 5!] On a miss, you've closed nearly every wound along the eastern seaboard, but at what cost? Take a Powerful Blow. [Powerful Blow: 13!] --> Remove self from situation. Just sinks into the ground, isolating from the team. Adam Eh. Nothing much has changed, really. Everything is awesome. You and Mom and Jordan get ready for school most mornings, just in time to meet Dad coming in from the night shift, then you fly Jordan to her school and head directly to Gardner. Classes are going great. * Did you get them an interview with the HHL yet? --> Yes! Hoping its going very well. * How have those Concordance kids been working out as part of the new Quill Initiative? Tell us a little more about them and how you helped being a student mentor for them when they came to Gardner last month. --> They're new. It's taking time. A bit more training and it will go great. Everything is going awesome. Summer Roommate thing has been ... good? Summer took conditions from the movie-in because Alycia made her cry. Leo will never lie. Alycia did actually roll a C&S roll! Full hit! Conversations in passing between Alycia and Leslie. Summer is still in transition into the team. Waiting for Nono tell tell about her plans, as a proxy to see if "they" will accept her. Because 17. Blintzkrieg -- late close (again!) ... boss wants her to become shift supervisor. And she's seeing on TV a superhero thing that she could have handled, but others handled not as well. Close -- Nono is there. Bag full of gummi worms. After half an hour of Summer not reacting to Nono's bubbly. She's chatting about the Quill Init -- friends are doing stuff at QF ... Maury, Duskshine doing costuming, maybe getting Applehack doing mechanic stuff, ... but no call on a top chemistry student. Summer wants to take Nono to Jason for a job interview. Shows her Radiance's new costume. Nono likes it, but more stylized cutie marks? ... penny drops. ... "You're ... a superhero? ARE YOU LINK?" Trying to figure out ... this is going to be your costume. "This is SO AWESOME!" Who knows? Does Leo know? No? The Ponies? The Quill Foundation? I will never tell anybody. I won't even write fanfic about this! Pietro is tapping on the window. Summer points to the Closed sign. He texts. "Have you seen Charlotte she's not responding to my texts." [Gee, I wonder why.] Summer shrugs. Pietro scowls, mopes off stage left. Nono, I think you're safe. [Potential for confiding the secret identity to someone.] Harry Coming up the steps of school. Thinking about dinner last night at the house -- Mom, Dad, Chase. News on TV -- Mercury with assist from the Irregulators -- Dad is giving him attaboys. Not out there with the old crew ... you know you've got a chance to be the face of the best team out there! [Andi was not happy. We had this. YOu have a team of your own. Two teams! Why ...?] Been out there every day, flying the cape, hero material, bud! [Shift labels: +Superior, -Mundane] Resists. [Reject: 10!] --> Labels self-shifted: --> Goes to the Glade, out of phone/comm connection. Go off and sulk like Achilles. On the TV ... the Electrobeast is manifesting at the docks ... Look, there's a threat and there goes our boy! ... I'm going to the Grove. Stays the night. Eats many, many cookies. Fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies. Label shifts --> Going up the steps the next morning. Andi is there, with Telekinesian. She looks uncomfortable. Those chocolate chip cookies are a heavy ball in his gut. Sorry, forgot the chem homework. Rrrg. Listen, I just want to ... Excuse me, have either of you two seen Charlotte? (It's Pietro. Dressed ... normally.) She's not responding to any of my texts, for a couple of days. But he was before, so I don't think it's what your faces are saying. Sorry, did I interrupt something, cut into a moment? I haven't seen Charlotte. And everyone's okay with that. Have you tried talking into the shadows? WHAT?! That works? If you hear from her, can you just let me know ... that everythings ... okay> Emoseys up the stair. Alycia Lunch. Jason sidles up. She's eating rabbit food. Complaining. But there are oreos in teh vending machine. I'm hoping this meal doesnt get interrupted. Hell of a speech. Honest answer. I expected as much. ... Qids ... tshirts ... proceeds? Charity and for operations of the Qids. ... I need your help. With some funding. Really! I need some sort of gainful employment for three people. Highly motivated. Not someplace with access to secure systems. Would have selected the warehouse, but you demonstrated that's problematic. Yeah, that would be a bad idea. ... Even our bathrooms are bluetooth! You'd be amazed what someone can do in your bathroom. ... I recently acquired franchise ownership of a small FedEx office across town that you may be familiar. I assume that will be safe. It should be. Will they be okay in uniform? They will definitely look good in uniform. No questions ... for 24 hours. That should be just enough time. For ... Alycia smiles at him. Adam See Jason and Alycia smiling at each other. Nice how things are working out. Pietro taps his shoulder. After the dance, Charlotte and I were texting a lot, but she just ... stopped. Shes usually doing her own thing. But yu seem to be her friend. We should check up on her. Should we suit up? Oh, you have a suit? Sigh. Meet me out front. Suited up! Off to the cemetery! Pietro is doing subtle brags about his suit, his tech, having fought a super-villain. Land in the cemetery. Go to Charlotte's headstone. Adam calls to Charlotte. No response. Call into shadows by the crypts. Nada. Throwing power into voice. [Freak: 6!] Space-time cracks open and dumps them into it. "I think we're on an adventure now!" "AAAUUUUGGHHH!!" Harry After Pietro headed off from the steps ... Andi - sulks off. Harry catches her - I'm sorry for butting into your guys' battles. Thank you. It's ... not ... it's .. I like doing stuff with you, but it feels like you don't know where you want to be, so you just show up. What's going on? ... base ... folks ... I'll back your play, wherever you want to be. But ... what's going on? What do you want? Parents are ... You're acting like they want you to be a lawyer. Grown up with expectation I'll be a hero, and join the HHL, and now it's hear and I feel like I haven't had a chance to be me. So trying to figure out how I want to help people. Okay! That's ... okay! I can help with that. Or not punch you for being constantly weird. Talk! Later! Absolutely. Come here and hold my hand, dork. [So ... nobody knows about Summer as Radiance.] Alycia Parker shows up at Study Hall. Catches her as she's about to go into the room. About three hours ago, Adam disappeared off satellite coverage from the cemetery. He doesn't have any teleportation ability. He's just vanished. Monitoring him by satellite? He's detectable from space. We have to tune him out. Will pass on to the team. Anything you need, any resources we can provide ... Thank you for the intel Sorry it took so long. Nods. Observational data that is interesting, not surprising. And that she's coming to me with this. Personally. Go in. The Team Alycia - Has anyone seen Charlotte lately? Leo - Adam can take care of himself. Summer - Has someone tries to ask for her via shadow? Harry - what about those Concordence folks? They're his people. [Alycia Superior: 11!] It's accurate for Harry to have said that. Because it's wrong because Adam is not a Concordance person. But he is. And ...and ... conflicting facts. Cognitive dissonance. She can handle it with another mental process ... but irritating. Interference. He's a Concordance agent vs He has nothing to do with them. He's just an ambassador to them. To Harry: Adam is a Concordance agent? [Provoke: 7!] [Answer honestly!] Which truth would make Harry mark a condition? Concordance Agent! Harry: Yes, he is. (Ouch! Seriously disconcerting.) Asks Leo. Adam is the Worf of Concordance Agents. Everything they ought to be and everything they're not. (Ouch.) Anyone not find that easy to answer? Summer: conversations with Leo and Otto ... Rook meeting with Jason. Let's flip for it. Any of us can actually make a coin Is this in our mind, or actual probability. Summer flips a coin. It keeps landing on its edge. Alycia. "Well, fuck." Post Game! Alycia - Closer - Harry! (helped) --> potential Summer - Image of Self (Nono conversation) Harry - Further - --> Alycia loses influence Charlotte - pleads the fifth Adam - "Image" "of" "Self"
