Framing A Moose

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: Outside the Glitter Factory
Skills: Internet Skills, Perception

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"She is?" Waverley replied back to Zarina, stressing the is. She'd assumed the girl was an orphan, so hearing her refer to her mom in present tense threw her off. Suddenly bringing the girl into their little group sounded a whole lot more like kidnapping than adopting. But when James asked for a plan and Jack gave his vague answer, she decided to push her concerns to the back of her mind until they were back at home. Perhaps it was because of her immediate objection to putting Jack in charge of his earlier victim's retrieval or perhaps it was her insecurities brought on by Zari's ability to do everything she was used to doing faster, but whatever it might've been, it put her in overdrive. As they moved through the line, she stared down at her phone, typing away at a speed that could rival Negasonic.

"Well, Z and I - Is it alright if I call you Z?- We looked through the cameras, and we didn't see Sunshine or Max. So if they're here, they're gonna be somewhere that the cameras aren't looking. That leaves us with the bathrooms, the dressing rooms, and, erm...the special...entertainment rooms." Her quick, almost cool planning voice dimmed down into an awkward finish as she seemed visibly uncomfortable with the idea of going to any sort of special show room. "We should check out those spots, and if they're not there, then they either left, or were never here. We should probably look into the bathrooms first, since they're more likely to be there than the...alternatives," she suggested as they neared the entrance.

Waverley wasn't all that surprised when she got waved through the front doors - she knew that, due to her oddly contradictory soft-punk aesthetic, she looked older than she actually was - but she was surprised that Zarina was let in too. The girl looked as young as she was, so it seemed what Casper said had turned out to be true. Ironic, Waverley realized, as he was the only one to be stopped. Waverley slowed down a few feet into the building, slowly sidestepping over to Callie, whose sleeve she began to lightly pull.

"Pst, think you could make the bouncers a little more...lenient?" she suggested in a hushed voice. Even though Callie's empathic ability was more subtle than most of their powers, she didn't want anyone to overhear and put two and two together. Most of the patrons were likely intoxicated in one way or another, but she didn't want to underestimate the observational skills of the Glitter Factory's somewhat sketchy clientele.

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: Senate House -> Maddy's Villa
Skills: Mystiokinesis, Singing

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"...Right?" Waverley quietly repeated when Madalyne didn't immediately answer her question. She could feel the praetor beginning to shiver in her hand. As the musician lifted her head to look up into Maddy's eyes, she saw her as she'd never seen her before - not as a leader, not as a teacher, not even as a , but as a teenage girl scared for her life. And with that, Madalyne yanked her arm from Waverley's grasp, dropped her weapons, and faded from sight. Waverley payed little attention as the war meeting continued, interrupted by the presence of the Greeks' divine Skype call. She softly hummed a tune, one she'd found in the past to be particularly good for tracking people down. At first, she tried to focus on the remnants of magic that Mads had left behind with her teleportation spell, hoping to perhaps use it to follow her. Unfortunately, the probatio's lack of more grounded knowledge of magic squandered this plan. So, as she continued to hum, she stretched the her capabilities outwards, towards the rest of camp, until she eventually felt the praetor's presence. She opened her eyes to inform either Nancy or Niah, but the former seemed to be in her own trance-like state, while the latter had slipped into the role of strategist. Waverley turned to Emily and Marco.

"You two and Niah should figure stuff out with Team Toga. I'm gonna go make sure Mads is alright," Waves suggested, before quickly pacing towards the door. Before she could get to it, though, she found her path blocked by the statue guy, Terminus. "Oh, uh, yeah, sure," she quickly pulled her baton and revolver from her belt, before tossing them onto the ground in front of him. It felt like she'd thrown her weapons to the floor more times than she'd actually drawn them, though she didn't see that as a bad thing. She sidestepped Terminus, running past him and out the senate house. She charged through the city, her guitar making it a bit awkward to do so. Eventually, she found herself in front of Mads' villa. She had to force her anti-authority mind away from thinking about the fact that Nancy and Madalyne got to sleep there while the rest of the campers got the barracks; that wasn't important right now. She quickly marched up to the villa entrance. She rested her hands on her knees for a split second, regaining her breath, before standing back up straight and banging her fist against the door.

"Mads? You in there?...Actually, I kinda know you're in there, since, like, magic and stuff..." she began, sounding a little awkward, before letting out a sigh. "Listen...I know you said you wanted to be alone, but, if I've learned anything over the years, it's that when someone says they need to be alone, that's when they need a friend the most. So...would you please open the door?"

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Stark Tower
Skills:

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"I mean, if you wanna get technical, we could die really fast at any given moment..." Iris pointed out, before letting out a deep sigh. When Mira hopped into action, pacing toward where Iris had nodded, the blonde girl followed quickly behind. Despite it being a pretty standard scolding, Mira, likely without knowing, managed to strike a bit of a chord with Iris. It wasn't her fault she had to be happy all the time. Mira had seen a bit of what happened when she wasn't happy, so Iris assumed she'd get it at least a little bit. As for why she stuck around...well, there were a couple reasons, though none of them made her feel particularly upbeat. "I'll tell you what; if you learn how to be fun, maybe I'll learn how to be serious. Sound fair..." Iris' words trailed off as they found themselves in front of a the small singing toy. Iris' head tilted to the side in confusion, just in time for the thing to blow up in front of them, launching all around it backwards.

Iris' senses were hazy for a time as she laid there on the ground, unsure of what had just happened. But the confusion quickly subsided, leaving only a loud ringing in her ears and light pain all across her body. She let out a groan as she got up onto her hands and knees, immediately looking around to make sure that no one else was seriously hurt. Luckily, no one was. At that point she felt a hand grab onto her arm and help hoist her up. It was Beth, and she mouthed something that Iris didn't quite catch.

"WHAT?" Iris shouted, though her voice was muffled in her ears. It was then that her sudden state of deafness hit her, and she let out snort of laughter, looking over to Mira as Beth helped her to her feet as well. "EY, AT LEAST NOW YOU DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME!" It was then that her amusement was interrupted as Guin's voice invaded their minds, sounding pained and distressed. Iris' grin faded, as she quickly spun to the others. "YOU HEARD HER...I ASSUME. LET'S GO!" With that, she began to march away, towards the other side of the island.

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: Outside the Glitter Factory
Skills: Internet Skills, Pop Culture Knowledge

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"Your mom made that with you? That's so cool...I think my sister would be jealous. Our mom did not get all the techy stuff she obsessed over," she commented, wanting the aloof, socially inept girl to feel more at home with their little troupe. She then turned her gaze over to Mr. Eyeball, raising her eyebrows as the thing beeped away at her, staying silent until Zari chirped up with a basic translation. "Ah, well I'm sorry if I came across as rude, Mr. Eyeball. I look forward to working with you." She then turned towards the front and lifted her chin a bit when Jack glanced back to her and Zari, commenting on their youth.

"I think I can pass as at least a year or two older, especially if my ink is on display," she commented, pulling the zipper of her hoodie down and shrugging it off. She had to adjust the collar of her shirt a bit to make sure that the roses that decorated her chest were partially visible, slipping out of the car, leaving her jacket on her seat. She followed along with the group, her eyes snapping to the gifts Casper mentioned as she gave a quick nod. "On it," she asserted, letting the others lead her along as she typed away at her phone, searching for the birthday boy. But as far as a name went, she only got one answer.

"It looks like it's for some rich college kid who everyone just calls...Hot Daga? Hey Cas, do you know a Hot Daga?" she asked, looking up, hoping that Casper's past experiences might've gotten him close to the birthday boy. She saw Callie step away from the group to ask a partygoer who the party was for, so perhaps she'd come back with something a little more useful than 'Big Daga'.

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Stark Tower
Skills: People Reading

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"But...ocean...and waterweaving love goddess," Iris stuttered, making an exaggerated pouty face as she reiterated the contingency plan for if the fire got out of hand. But as she looked at Mary, the woman's phobia, all too understandable to Iris, came back to her memory, and she let out a sigh, flipping her lighter closed. "Fine...but it would've worked," she mumbled, a bit disappointed that her second ever idea was rejected (her first ever idea being a granola bar wrapped in bacon, which had been brought on by a particularly strong high). Her overdone pouting was quickly replaced with a smug grin as Mary paired her with Mira.

"Kill each other? I'll have you know I have nothing but affection for this little grunchbug. It's her who wants to pull a Tell-Tale Heart and shove my corpse under the floorboards," Iris pointed out, innocently putting a shocked hand over her chest. She watched as the others began marching away, leaving her, Mira, and Ed. When Mira offered for Ed to tag along, Iris combed her hand through her hair, grinning at the proposition. "Oh, yeah! We could be the Mira of IrisEd...wait, am I not allowed to make Harry Potter references anymore? The internet told me JK Rowling is bad now. Doesn't matter right now, come on!" She exclaimed as Mira began running away, giving Ed's arm a tug to follow as she walked after Mira.

"Hey Mir, how about you and me play a little game? I give you full permission to mute me for however long you want whenever you want, buuuuuut for every second you do, I get to spend a second trying to squeeze that negative energy out of you with the power of hugs whenever I want," Iris suggested as they investigated, her eyes scanning the crowd as she spoke. After she was finished, she thought she caught glimpse of someone Loki-like, but he quickly disappeared back into the ground. Still, she nodded in the direction the person disappeared to, saying, "I think I might've seen him go that way."

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: Mutant Underground - Dining Room
Skills: Perception, Radio Wave Manipulation

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"Uh..." Waverley mumbled, clearly a bit taken aback by the young girl's hostility at her attempted verbal welcome package. Her smile wavered for only a second, before it widened. "Believe me, I'm worried about myself too. If there's anything I have in excess, it's worry," she commented, before her eyes turned over to the eyeball. Now that it had a name, she seemed to be looking at it with the gaze one might cast at a puppy rather than a piece of machinery. Such is the power of names, though the adorable beeping didn't hurt either. "And I'm sorry to you, Mr. Eyeball...y'know, he's kinda cute. Is it okay if I pet him? I know the rule with service animals is not to disturb them while they're working, but I'm not really sure the etiquette for service robots..."

"Oh, you really don't have to do that. Birthdays are not a priority right now. Honestly, as long as we get Sunshine back before I have to spend a night alone in that creepy-as-shit room of ours, I'll consider my birthday wish granted," she commented, looking back down at her phone as she took in the new info on the Glitter Factory she found. As she poked around the internet to see what she could find, she responded to Casper, sounding a little distracted as she did her research. "Uh...no, I never got one. Did I skip an orientation or something? Is there a Mutant Underground goodie bag I missed out on?" As she asked the question, she made a mental bullet point list of what she found out about the club. It was a pretty lax place, run by an rich man with seemingly too much time on his hands. There were two particular pieces of information she found potentially useful, two faces to be exact. After a short mental search, Waves managed to find Jack's phone number, which she quickly added to her contact and used to send him two pictures, each depicting a man.

"Just texted you a shapeshifting cheat sheet for the club. The first guy is Christian Frost, the owner. If he's not there, you might be able to change into him and use his influence to our advantage. And the second picture is, well...Chris Evans, obviously. Frost has a thing for him, so if he is there, you can turn into him and do some schmoozing. Just in case we need to get out of trouble or anything. Now onto the cam-" she was cut off midspeech by Zari piping up, saying she'd already hacked into the security system. She was surprised, but also a little disappointed. She'd always been the one for most of their tech-related stuff. She didn't want to be rendered obsolete now that there was a girl there with a more diverse and useful version of her own power. She didn't want to just be Sound Girl, that hardly seemed useful in anything other than a fight. Still, she did her best not to let her disappointment show, not wanting to make the kid feel bad because of her own insecurities.

"Uh, wow...good job. You should meet my sister, she's a hacker too. You two might make a good duo, if you could get passed her superiority complex...or maybe you'd just dox each other into oblivion, who knows," Waverley said, leaning over to look at the phone the girl held. She lightly pulled the phone out of her hands, taking a closer look at it as she flipped through the cameras, searching for the familiar blonde mop of hair she was used to waking up to. But after a thorough search, she came up with nothing, and returned the phone to Zarina. "Searched the place, couldn't find them. Hey Zari, do you think you can set the cameras on a loop? I'd do it, but seeing as you're already in, it might be easier for you to."

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: Mount Othrys -> Senate House
Skills: Mystiokinesis, Singing

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"Yeah, no problem. I mean, what are friends for if not fending off werewolves with musical instruments?" Waverley responded to Emily, still strumming away, funneling every scrap of magical energy that came back to her into maintaining the portal with Madalyne. Her eyes darted between the wolves and her fiver friends as they quickly pulled themselves together, being the first to hop through to the other side. Waverley herself shuffled backwards towards it at a slow pace, though her speed picked up as she felt Niah grab onto her, pulling her towards the portal. They were quickly joined by Madalyne dragging Nancy behind her, and grabbing hold of Waverley as well once she got to her. With that, the four of them leapt through the portal together.

Waverley fell face-first onto the cold, hard marble. One disadvantage of having an unbreakable guitar, Waverley discovered as she carened into the ground, was that landing on it was not unlike landing on a small pile of bricks. It slammed into her stomach, causing her to let out a pained grunt as her lungs were robbed of their breath. She slowly crawled up back onto her feet, coughing as she slowly regained her breath. She wouldn't be surprised if she found a guitar-shaped bruise on her stomach the following day. Her eyes first scanned the massive hall they were in, which earned an expression of confusion from the girl, especially upon seeing the rows of bigwigs in togas.

"What is this place? The executive bathroom?" Waverley asked quietly. She'd never had any reason to be in the senate house, though now that she was there, she thought about perhaps changing that; the place seemed like it had good acoustics, and she could picture herself strumming on her guitar in the dead of night atop the rows of the weird marble benches. Her eyes eventually landed on Mads, or rather, her arm, covered in a sleeve that was just beginning to soak up some of the blood that it was trying to hide.

"You're hurt." She quickly stepped towards her praetor, gently grabbing hold of her wrist and pushing the sleeve up. She grimaced when she saw the injury, looking back up to Madalyne's face with sympathy. She then turned her attention back down to the wound and put a hand over it. When she began to sing, her voice was soft, quiet, not wanting to disturb the room of rather serious-looking folks and the older woman who immediately asked Mads and Nancy to take her place.

"I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of SoHo in the rain
He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fooks
For to get a big dish of beef chow mein
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London
Ah-hooo
Ah-hooo, werewolves of London"

Waverley found that with the short time between jumping through the portal and beginning to heal Mads, some of her energy had come back to her; she could almost picture a mana bar hanging at the edge of her peripheral vision, slowly refilling every free second. At first, her throat hitched, not used to singing such an upbeat, energetic song practically under her breath, but eventually she got into the rhythm, and the gaping wound began to stitch itself back together, until the only thing that remained was a prominent scar. She found herself much more satisfied with her job healing up the wound than she had been with her killing of the pit scorpion, oddly enough. After it was done, she let go of Madalyne's wrist, peering back up at her.

"Sorry if the song choice was a little insensitive...it's a good thing that stuff about werewolf bites being contagious is just bullshit...right?" In her time at Camp Jupiter, she'd learned a lot about how legends can often be distorted by time, and that the human account isn't always an accurate one. She hoped such was the case here.

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: Mutant Underground - Dining Room
Skills: (RR: Internet Skills)

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"Would they be able to get into a strip club?" Waverley pondered, flashing a glance over to Casper. His party boy past might be able to come in handy, figuring out if the pair of teens would be able to get in. "Sunshine's eighteen, and Max doesn't strike me as much older. If they serve alcohol, they probably won't let anyone younger than 21 in. Hell, I probably won't even be able to get in, being ninetee-...wait, what's the date?" Her thoughts were derailed as she pulled her phone out of her pocket, clicking it to open up the lock screen.

"Oh man, I missed my birthday...doesn't matter, I still won't be able to get in." There was a certain innocent sorrow to her voice at the realization, but she quickly shoved it away as she looked back up to find Callie and Jack were already making their way out towards the garage. She quickly got up, her chair squeaking as it scooted out, and followed behind them. When they crawled into the car, Waverley took up the seat right behind Callie.

"Hard to plan for something when we don't know exactly what to expect. That said, I can see about getting into the club's security cameras before we go inside. If Sunshine's there, she should stick out like a sore thumb; I don't think she has anything that'd resemble clubbing attire," she plotted, before her attention was pulled instead to the green-haired girl. She sighed, having hoped that the child would stay behind, safe and cozy in the hideout. She pulled out her phone, beginning to type, but as she did, she spoke."Zari, right? Welcome to the Mutant Underground, in case nobody’s formally said it. Couple things: First of all, we're gonna have to try to be stealthy. So you might not want to carry that...robot head thing out in the open. Or the floating eyeball. Second, if we do need to fight, we fight to incapacitate, not to kill. Third...please don't die."

Roll Request

Two rolls please: One using Waverley's internet skill to find out general info on the club, and then one to specifically find a picture of the owner and some info about them.

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Stark Tower
Skills: N/A

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Iris was oddly chipper as the group touched down on Liberty Island to face the God of Mischief. The place had been on her list of sights to see during her time in New York. Despite disliking the city, she felt compelled to explore it, for the new experiences if nothing else. She'd even once attempted to borrow the Blackbird to fly out there, only for her attempts to be foiled by her utter lack of knowledge of how the high-tech plane worked. So as they got out of the aircraft, she had a skip in her step, more reminiscent of a tourist than a warrior.

"Does it feel weird to anyone else? Us having a plan, I mean? It's like...wearing shoes while walking on grass," she pondered aloud, her eyes immediately gazing up at the massive statue that was the island's main attraction. She listened to the extended plan, though, even if it looked like her attention was elsewhere, a fact made evident when she took a large step towards Mira at the mention of teams. She hoped that prodding the girl with this little nonverbal olive branch would help her figure out whether she was still mad at Iris. Without saying anything to Mira, Iris turned her gaze down to Mary and spoke up.

"Hey, so, I knooooow I said fire was never the answer, but..." she began, her hand fishing into her pocket to grab something. She brought out a lighter, which she flicked open, causing the small flame to dance in place. "If we start a little fire, we'll be able to start evacuating people faster without raising suspicion. A little arson goes a long way. Plus, we're surrounded by a big old ocean, so if it gets out of control, our lovely love goddess will be able to put it out no problem!"

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: Mount Othrys
Skills: Musical Mystiokinesis, Combative Magic, Guitar, Stick Combat (RR: Musical Mystiokinesis)

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Waverley's body went stiff as howls filled the crumbling castle, her head whipping about to see where they could possibly be coming from. It didn't exactly sooth her when upwards of a dozen werewolves crept out from the shadows, looking ready to kill. Having been a musician for quite some time, Waverley didn't often get debilitating stage fright, but she'd also never played for an audience that wanted to rip her throat out as badly as these humanoid wolves seemed to (except for perhaps in some of the smaller, more conservative towns she'd been forced to travel through on a few occasions). As the canines descended on the group, Waverley felt herself freeze up, her hand hovering over the strings of her guitar. Right up until, a few seconds later, Madalyne grabbed hold of it.

"Wha- AGH!" Waverley only had a split second to be confused before she felt Maddy sap her of...something, something she couldn't quite pin a name to. She felt herself grow dizzy, and a cloud of what felt like writer's block on steroids polluted her mind. It was like some of the essence of her creative inspiration was being drawn out of her. A few things that sat in the backburner of her mind - concepts for chord progressions, half-baked melodies, unwritten lyrics - seemed to fade away into nothingness. She bent over a bit, hands going to her head, trying to shake the haze away. She managed it after a few seconds, aided in her descent back to earth by the loud sound of...Christmas music? She looked up, seeing Nancy belting the famous holiday tune out, causing a few of the wolves to start bleeding from their ears.

"It's...it's the middle of June my dude," she said, but her attention was immediately torn off of Nancy's unconventional battle hymn as a number of beasts managed to pin down three of their teammates, including both of her fellow fivers. She let out a deep sigh, and began to play along with Nancy's singing, pouring some of her remaining magic into the song and wishing for the release of her friends. As she strummed, the pile of dust and rubble behind her caused by Atlas' first attempted attack began to quake, shifting as it began to levitate in the air. It compressed, stretching into a long cylinder, becoming something of a serpent of crushed stone. It flew threw the air, crashing into the werewolf on top of Madalyne and throwing it back, before doing the same to the one on Marco.

But before it could get to Emily, Waverley felt her magical energy wavering. She tried to keep the Onix-like snake together, but she couldn't manage it. As it slipped from her magical grasp, it lost shape, crumbling back to the ground as nothing more than an array of broken rocks. She let out of a huff. But she didn't have time to rest, not with Em still under the werewolf. With her magic dwindling, Waverley instead slipped her guitar off her shoulder and grabbed it by the neck, running at the beast. As she got into range of it, she swung her instrument into its side, shoving it off her friend.

"Men can be such dogs!" she joked, slipping the guitar strap back over her shoulder. There was always time for puns. She wasn't sure how much magic she had left in her, but as she saw the portal flicker, she knew she had to try to help Madalyne in her efforts. She continued to play, this time pushing her influence to the portal in hopes of helping it stay up. She had no intention of going through the portal before everyone else was through, even at Madalyne's command.

Roll Request

Waverley will be doing her best to aid Madalyne in her endeavor of keeping the portal open