Framing A Moose

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Blackbird Hangar
Skills: Pyrokinesis, (RR: Tai Chi)

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"I think you'll find that I'm quite the multitasker," Iris replied to Beth as she watched the goth girl's shadowy tendrils wrap around the monkeys on top of her, forcefully yanking them off. As soon as her hands were free from the monkeys, she began patting the floor next to her, until she eventually found the half-smoked joint that had been knocked away from her. As she shuffled back up onto her feet, she took another huff and looked towards Beth, giving her a thankful nod. "Thanks for-" she began as she got back up on her feet, only to be interrupted by another small group of monkeys yanking her to the ground. There was something different about these ones, though, something Iris only noticed as she saw light glinting off something in their hands.

"They have fucking knives now?!" she exclaimed, doing her best to avoid getting stabbed. Her efforts weren't entirely successful, and she let out a shrill screech as she watched a knife slice into her shoulder like a birthday cake, followed by a sharp pain sliding into her leg. "God, what kind of maniac would give monkeys knives?!...Right, a trickster god would." Then, out of nowhere, she felt the monkeys get roughly pulled from on top of her, causing her to blink in confusion. She quickly scrambled up to her feet, grimacing as she put weight on her injured limb. When she was upright, she caught sight of Mary just as a monkey plunged a knife into her chest. It caused Iris to gasp. She quickly scanned the area, looking for anyone she could help. The X-Men seemed to be worse for ware, with many having grievous wounds.

Gods, she wished that she had an ability that could help them instead of the inherently destructive fire she was cursed with. She wished she could heal people like Ed and Klara, or at least do something she could control. Her eyes finally fell upon Mira, covered in monkeys. Guin's words from minutes before filled her head once more, this time in memory. She wished she could say that saving the girl was an act of pure altruism, that saving the woman who had hurt her was the truest form of good. But in actuality, she felt like she somehow had to make it up to Mira, that saving her would mend their friendship, the friendship that Iris had somehow ruined. Her eyes flicked over to Upsilon, standing unshaken amid the crowd of monkeys.

"Upsilon, get the knives out of their hands!" Iris commanded. Even from how far away he was from her, she could see him furrow his bare, burned-up brow. He looked confused. "Please?" she added. With that, he disappeared and reappeared next to Mira, holding out his hand and causing the knives being held by the monkeys to burn bright blue. Within seconds, the knives clattered to the floor. Upsilon seemed eager to help Mira, likely for the sake of how capable she was at bringing out the negative emotions that Iris so often hid behind a mischievous grin and a joint. Iris stumbled backwards, trying to avoid the monkeys as best she could. Hearing the Goddess of Lies sounding as though she had a plan, Iris stumbled passed her, taking up a position in front of Annie and Ed, tossing the stub of her doobie to the ground and raising her arms to defend the pair.

"Ed, this guy, he's a wizard! But he's also dealing with a stab wound. Quick, tell me that none of the X-Men are injured so I can tell you how wrong you are!" she called out to Runa, speaking quickly.

Roll Request

Iris would like to use her tai chi to protect Ed and Annie from any monkeys that might come their way.

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: In the Van
Skills: Radio Wave Manipulation

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As Waverley sat in the back, eyes clenched tightly shut, whimpering with her head slumped against the plush car seat, she could feel the drilling in her head begin to lessen. After a few seconds, it seemed to fade entirely. She kept still for a few seconds after it had, before eventually letting her eyes groggily flutter back open. She blinked the bleariness out of her eyes, and repositioned herself, sitting up straight. But when she went to rub her eyes with her hand, she was unable to, finding it still tangled up in her boss' hair. She could feel heat rising to her cheeks, embarrassment flooding her face.

"Er, shit, sorry," she quickly apologized, reaching her other hand over, struggling for a few moments to untangle herself from Veil's chaotic hair. She eventually managed it, withdrawing her hands with a bashful look, folding them back onto her lap. Once most of the embarrassment had subsided, her eyes shifted away from Veil and instead to Jack. He was hard to read, at least on the surface. But maybe there was another way to get info. Her eyes narrowed, and she reached out her mind. Within a few seconds, even though her eyes were facing forward, she wasn't looking at Jack, or Callie, or anything, instead in a trance. Finding Jack's phone wasn't hard, not when she knew exactly where he was. Dissecting it for information did end up being a bit of difficult. She spent a minute or so on it, but finally broke her trance with a shake of her head. All she managed to get was a search for a donut place and a website for brain teasers. Brain teasers for geniuses, to be specific. Hardly incriminating evidence, though knowing he considered himself a 'genius' was enough to fuel her suspicions. She let out a quiet sigh, keeping her eyes glued to the pair up front. "Headache's gone. Must've been a passing thing."

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: Base of Mount Othrys
Skills: Sing, Musical Mystiokinesis, Creativity

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"The Hunters of-" Waverley began, putting two and two together. But before she could finish, she let out a sharp yelp as she felt the arrow glide across her cheek, tearing it open. Her body contorted in on herself, her arms lowering from their raised position and covering her cheek, putting pressure on the wound. Her eyes squeezed shut, before flicking them back up, wide and confused. As her eyes flitted across the group of women, looking for a reason, any palpable reason they had to shoot her. She'd been the only one to do as they asked. She'd done her best to be friendly. So why the fuck did they just shoot her? She was the only one who actually listened to them. She let out a cross between a hiss and a sigh, turning her gaze back to the praetors.

She knew what was coming: a fight. The archer ladies had attacked one of their own, which, if she knew anything, meant that her own friends would have to fight back. But when she made eye contact with Madalyne, she was surprised to hear the girl scold her. No fight broke out, which she found more disappointing than she cared to admit. So she wasn't worth fighting for. That's what her dear praetors decided. Her annoyance shifted to concern and anxiousness when she shifted her gaze over to Nancy. She knew the girl had a temper, but she also knew that she was loyal. Waverley did her best to decipher which one was going to win out behind her eyes. When she finally spoke, Waverley cocked up an eyebrow in surprise

"Meter? What do you mean by that? And why are you glaring at me like I'm a dirty sewer rat?" Waverley asked puzzled, her brow furrowed, before her eyes widened with surprise and her jaw dropped. She reached her hand to her mouth, thinking inward for a moment, finding that all the statements she felt could make it to the tip of her tongue happened to rhyme. She continued to look shocked for a good few seconds, before breaking out into a grin, the tension caused by the whole situation seemingly draining from her bloody face. "Oh man, this is totally rad. For a second there I thought you were actually mad!" As the group began to move on, Waverley reached down and picked her weapons back up, sliding them back into her belt. When she walked, she fell back in line with her fellow fivers.

"So our dear Nancy wants to start a prank war? It's one she'll lose, that's for sure!" Waverley cheerfully exclaimed in a singsong voice to Emily and Marco. She tended to believe in the best in people, so rather than seeing Nancy's curse as a misguided attempt to squash her into submission, she saw it as something more playful: a joke, one she'd no doubt reciprocate. After speaking her rhyme with a soft rhythm, she felt the stinging of her cheek dull. She reached a thumb to it, wiping away some of the blood, feeling that the wound had turned to a scab. When they filed into the camp, Waverley took up a position awkwardly near the back of the group, only poking her head forward when Nancy referred to one of the archers as 'Lady Diana,' who she immediately looked towards.

"Lady Diana? I'm sorry, I've never seen your face before...Except on the heart-shaped poster Nancy hangs on her door. Believe me, I really meant no disrespect. I legit thought you were some all-female special units sect. I'm new, see, I don't know all there is to know, so forgive me if my divine etiquette is only so-so." A playful smirk flickered on the corner of her mouth as she apologized, mostly for Nancy's benefit. Her eyes scanned the group as she spoke, hoping her whimsical rhymes would impress the terrifying women. At first, she had no such luck, but by the time she ended, she saw a few of the huntresses break out into smiles.

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Blackbird Hangar
Skills:

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"Uh, wasn't planning on it. Mainly because I do, in fact, understand nothing of what is happening here," she replied when Neil warned her against contradicting the goth girl. She watched, slowly nodding, as the others fought the woman, taking a more supervisor-like role as Runa and Lance fought amongst each other. She brought her cigarette to her lips, breathing in the smoke as she listened to Annie gave her the rundown on who the goth was and why they were fighting her. "Asgardian? Ah...so we just...we fight gods now, that's a thing we do." She nodded her head, though she seemed more tired than shocked or afraid. Her voice had a certain doneness to it, as if she were saying 'this is my life now.' After a second, as Runa crumbled to the ground, something behind Iris' eyes seemed to click, and she raised an eyebrow. ”Wait, did she just get into a fight with Beth about who was the gothier goth, and then proceed to call us children?” She followed behind Annie as she walked over to Edus, standing a few feet away from the two. She looked to Mary when she asked her question.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm awesome, I'm cool. Never been better," Iris responded, widening her smile just a little too wide to be genuine. She broke off from Annie and Ed, beginning her way over to the board. But when she felt Mira's gaze burning into her, seeing the girl out the corner of her eye, she froze up. The way she stood there was unlike Iris. Almost child-like. Now admittedly, Iris was often childish, but not like this. She stood tense, shoulders shrugged up around her neck, looking stuck in a flinch. She didn't look at Mira, not even when she spoke.

"I'm sorry, Mir...for making you...do that to me," she mumbled out. She knew how this little dance was supposed to go, though she hadn't needed to do it for a long time. She'd done it with her dad all those years ago, before her mother swept her away to Oregan. All she had to do was apologize to Mira for making her hurt her, let that stew for a while, and eventually everything would be normal again. She stood still for a few seconds, before taking another huff of her cigarette and letting her body relax. She continued forward, scooping up the dice, and tossing them onto the board. She continued to medicate even as words began to appear on the bubble thing.

This will not be an easy mission,
monkeys slow the expedition.

Iris read the riddle aloud, before raising her head. This riddle was pretty clear, so she scanned the room for monkeys. At first, there were none, but after a few seconds, monkeys began to poor from the cracks and crevices of the room, spilling into the hangar. As they did, three dropped from somewhere above Iris, and knocked her to the ground, beginning to pull at her long blonde hair. She dropped her joint, beginning to try to knock the array of monkeys off of her. Oddly enough, though, it was just an absurd enough happenstance to cause the tension her body had been filled with upon seeing Mira to completely disappear.

"You made me drop my weed, you adorable sacks of shit!" she explained, cackling with a much more real grin as she continued to try to knock the monkeys off.

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: Outside Jack's Office
Skills: Perception

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When Waverley's mind shifted back from the semi-meditative daze that allowed her to surf the airwaves more effectively, it took a second to adjust to the physical world. But as she did, like someone running backwards into a sword, she felt a sharp pain pierce her brain. It caused a surprised gasp to slip between her teeth as she slumped down to her knees. After squeezing shut for a second, her eyes flickered about, trying to see any obvious foes that might be the culprit. When she saw none, her eyes landed back on Jack. At first, it was simply because he was right in front of her, and her eyes needed somewhere to go. But as she gazed up at his face, her eyebrows pulled together.

Something was off. She wasn't sure if it was the way his surprised expression took over his face just a second earlier than the others, or perhaps the way his mouth hung just a little too open in shock. Perhaps it was an amalgam of barely noticeable tells and twitches that cultivated in her mind as a general feeling of suspicion. His surprise was fake, that's all she knew. Somehow, she wasn't sure how, but somehow he knew the cause of the pulsing pain rippling through her brain. Her mind was so clouded by both pain and wariness that she didn't register Spark Plug's question until it was punctuated by Veil scooping her up off the ground.

"Huh?...Oh, I'm...I'm fine," she mumbled, though the words sounded far away as they passed her lips. She was a motionless lump as Veil held her, slumping like an old rope bridge between her arms. The only movement her body made by itself was in her arm, reaching up and grabbing onto Veil's shoulder. Or, at least, she'd tried to grab Veil's shoulder, but instead her fingers got tangled up mostly in her unkempt hair. It helped; gripping onto something, anything, helped keep her mind off the pain a little, and she kept it there even as Veil buckled her in. Her head at first rested back against the headrest, her eyes clenched shut, her face painted with an agonized expression. But after she heard Veil tell Jack to sit shotgun, her eyes flicked open. She flopped to the side, leaning against Veil, and she began to lightly tug Veil's hair downward, trying to pull her head closer so she could talk quietly to her without having to worry about being overheard. "V-Veil, th-there's still something wrong with Jack. Y-you have to keep an eye on him. He's...he's hiding something, I just know it," she whispered, her voice raspy, scared.

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: On the Trail
Skills: Being Adorably and Affably Awkward

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Waverley flinched at the way Nancy said 'mortal', as if she were scraping dog shit off her heel. It still confused Waverley; they could die, right? So weren't they mortals too? And even if she was just talking about humans, that was still condemning half their genetic makeup. But she stayed silent, simply following Madalyne, taking up the rear in their little lineup. She squinted as the strange camp came into view, cautiously picking up her pace, making her way up through the group, thinking that there was a good chance it was just some forest-dwelling vagabonds. As the group's resident hobo musician, she figured that, if it were a such a camp of vagabond campers, it might be useful to have her on hand. She stopped dead in her tracks a few feet behind Nancy as women wielding bows immerged from the brush, arrows pointed at the group. Waverley immediately shot her hands into the air as one of the women spoke. When Nancy replied, Waverley worriedly furrowed her eyebrows.

"Nancy, just do what they say. You do not wanna go up against an armed lesbian. Trust me, I rode with Dykes on Bikes for a month. I know what I'm talking about," Waverley whispered, though she seemed to immediately contradict her claim by pulling her baton from her belt and her emergency gun from its holster, tossing them both to the ground. For a second she just looked at Nancy confused, unsure why this feminist special units team would know anything about the Twelfth Legion, but she shook her head, figuring it wasn't an important question to ask. So she cautiously stepped forward, arms still up. It admittedly helped her confidence as she stepped up that she had a seemingly indestructible guitar covering most of her abdomen

"Uh...hello ladies," Waverley awkwardly began, mentally cursing Marco for getting the word 'ladies' stuck on the surface of her head. "Sorry about my friend, she's, uh, a little proud. Can we, like, start over? Maybe without the weapons pointed at us?...I'm Waverley Watts, and...uh...a fun fact about me is that I'm very bad at coming up with icebreaker fun facts while my life is being threatened...now this is the part where you introduce yourselves and give us a fun fact about you..."

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Hallway Outside Hangar -> Blackbird Hangar
Skills:

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Iris' head popped up from it's position lazily resting on her shoulder when a loud thud sounded from one of the hall's walls, the sound of something slamming into the other side of it. It caused Iris to let out a sigh. It sounded like the team was in another little fight, which meant her break was over, a fact only solidified when she heard a banging on the door in front of her, followed by Annie's voice. It caused a small smirk to creep onto her lips. Of course the X-Men's resident fluffball was the one coming to check on her. That girl couldn't do anything wrong if she tried, at least in Iris' book. It was enough to get Iris back onto her feet. She took a deep breath, the shakiness practically gone at this point, and she wiped her eyes one more time. They remained red, but with her weed cigarette held between her thumb and finger, she had plausible deniability. She looked to Upsilon, standing by the door, and she gave him a nod.

"Chin up, smile on, let's fucking go, my dude," she said, forcing her lips back into her trademark dopy grin. She opened the door just enough for her to slide through, and promptly shut it again when she was out. The last thing she needed was for anyone to see the charred hallway and start asking questions. She gave Annie a nod. "Yeah, I'm all good, just taking my vitamin C, if you know what I'm saying," she assured her fellow blonde, holding up her lit doobie so there was no doubt just what she was saying. She absentmindedly tugged at the charred ends of her sleeves as she turned her eyes to the scene in front of her, namely the new person, dressed all in black and wielding some sort of fancy antique stick with a little hula-hoop at the top. Waverley looked at her, lips pursed with confusion.

"Okay, sooo, two questions...who is she, and what does a hot goth chick have to do with the jungle?" she asked, using the end of her cigarette to point at Runa. Having come in late, she'd just missed the entire briefing, and had no clue what was going on.

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: Outside Jack's Office
Skills: Perception, Radio Wave Interpretation

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Waverley tensed up when Veil explained that Max had done as she asked. She was conflicted; none of her thought putting Sunshine's life in Max's hands was a good idea, but at the same time, Veil had more experience under her belt than she did. So she remained silent. Her eyes narrowed as Jack began to speak. She was largely a woman of mundane talents, but she had sharp eyes, eyes that took in every twitch that came with Jack's stuttering voice, capturing every which way his eyes shifted as he spoke. It was hard to trust the man who shoved a chloroform rag into her face, but at the same time...she was a naturally trusting person. Even after everything she'd been through, she always chose to look for the best in people, a trait that usually ended up being more of a weakness than a strength. She wanted to believe the man who slept in the room next to her wasn't a psychopath - so she did. She finally let out a deep sigh, dropping her gaze from Jack.

"But what fuck would Emma Frost want with Sunshine?" she mused, her eyes flitting down the sidewalk, eventually looking up to Veil, as if she might be able to answer it despite the fact that she'd just asked it herself. The revelation only caused her protectiveness over Sunshine to spike. As soon as they were reunited with the girl, Waverley wasn't going to let her out of her sight. Her attention was then pulled to Callie, and the woman's worries of purifiers and police were enough to remind Waverley of her job as the Mutant Underground alarm system. She stretched her mind outward, drawing in nearby radio waves in search of any signs of hostiles in the area. Instead, her mind was immediately swamped with a voice that sounded like it'd be most at home saying a slur. And it did, a few times; the man speaking was going on about the ungodly mutants, talking about them as though they were the shit under the heel of God. She recognized the voice: the evangelical Reverend Stryker, a title that the Christian girl felt he didn't deserve. She didn't like the feeling of hearing his voice in her skull, but she had a hard time shutting it out. She wildly shook her head, before hitting the side of her head, the way one would bonk a broken car radio. After a few slaps to her temple, the voice was replaced by static.

"That was...violating," Waverley mumbled, letting out an audible gag. She then took a deep breath, recollecting herself, and she tried again. Her mind scanned the invisible waves that filled the city, but she didn't find anything else of note. So she looked back to her two companions. "I don't hear any signs of anyone we should be scared of, other than Stryker polluting the airwaves with one of his sermons."

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: On the Trail
Skills:

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"Right...Training..." Waverley mumbled, followed by a nervous chuckle. While she was better trained in fighting than the average civilian, she was nowhere near as combatively skilled as the others in their little posse, or even most Camp Jupiter campers. She didn't consider herself a pacifist, but she never really liked fighting, which might come as a surprise for a girl whose head had been crammed full of fantasy stories growing up. It was why a baton swung from her hip in place of a sword. So, needless to say, she visibly cringed when Nancy painted the visceral image in her mind of blowing up the Pit Scorpion.

"Yeah, let's just hope it doesn't come down to that," she said, her face still twisted up in light disgust. The screwed up eyebrows popped up in surprise, however, when Niah suddenly took to the skies from beside her, and she flinched away a little. Despite being ten months into her stay at Camp Jupiter, she still hadn't quite adjusted to all the weird supernatural stuff her fellow campers could do. She squinted up at the sky, watching the oathbinder sail up the mountain through the air. As soon as she got back, Waverley beamed up at her. "Dude, you've gotta let me try that armor sometime! I've always wanted to know what flying would feel like," she exclaimed, though her excitement was dampened by Niah's explanation of what she saw. "Smoke? How much? Like, campfire smoke, or forest fire smoke?"

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Blackbird Hangar -> Hallway Outside Hangar
Skills:

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After her conflagratory breakdown, Iris let herself fall backwards, taking a seat on the floor, leaning back against the wall. The metal of both was still warm, but it didn't burn her; she'd come to learn that the heat from her fire didn't cause her pain, even it went through something else first. A hand dug into her pocket, and she pulled out a small rectangle of paper and her tiny plastic bag of weed. She sprinkled it across the paper in a line, before rolling it up into a cigarette. She'd done it so many times that it came automatically, without a single thought put into it. She took the cigarette and held it up, looking at Upsilon expectantly. He'd never lit any for her before. They calmed her down, and he preferred her riled up. But she thought perhaps that allowing herself to release the blaze she always worked so hard to keep in would be a good bonding experience for them. She thought wrong.

"Yeah, I suppose I should've seen that coming," Iris said with a sigh, instead pulling her own lighter and lighting the tip. She brought it to her lips and took a deep breath in, keeping it in her lungs for a few seconds, before letting it out. It blended with the small streams of her own smoke that continued to trickle out her nostrils. "Why am I still here? No one wants me here. Not Mira, not Pietro, not Beth. Not a fucking soul. So why am I sticking around?" Iris asked Upsilon, despite knowing that the creature wouldn't be capable of giving a comforting or even audible response. As she expected, Upsilon only turned his head down the hall. Iris followed his gaze, getting an eyeful of the long hallway scorched by her temper tantrum. She let out a dry laugh, amused, but lacking the cheerful, mischievous quality it usually held. "Right. It's fireproof."