Framing A Moose

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: The Labyrinth
Skills:

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As soon as Emily stepped through the crack that opened into the labyrinth, she'd feel a scrawny arm hook around her shoulders and pull her into a tight half hug. It only lasted a second before it loosened, though Waverley's arm continued to rest limply on the girl's shoulder in a more casual manner. A beaming grin was spread across her lips, seemingly already relaxed a little just by Em's presence.

"Ey, look who finally decided to join the party!" Waverley exclaimed, her chipper attitude shining through despite the circumstances. She kept her arm where it was even as she glanced over to Ariadn, hoping it would help bring comfort to not only Emily, but also herself. "Shit, there are god laws? I mean, that makes sense, stop the bad ones from, y'know, tearing shit up, but still...does that mean there are cop gods?" As soon as Waverley said that awful phrase, she shivered with disgust and horror. "Oh God, there better not be cop gods. That sounds like a fucking nightmare." She began to saunter behind Ariadne as the goddess lead the way through the labyrinth, trying her best to ignore the sounds of war going off above them. To help with this, she shot a glance over to the younger probatio. "That's cool, axes are cool...any, like, superpowers? Probably not the technical term for it, but you know what I'm talking about."

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: The Mutant Underground -> the Crumbling Tunnels of the Sewers
Skills: Radio Wave Manipulation, Soundwave Manipulation, Pop Culture Knowledge

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Waves kept her eyes shut, waiting for Callie's confirmation that she'd give Professor X's phone a ring and the familiar feeling of radio waves emitting from the phone, but instead she felt something else, something...unexpected: a call coming in. Her eyes popped open in surprise, her eyebrows furrowing together as Callie answered it. Waverley practically jumped when Callie briskly walked passed her, handing off the phone like a baton in a relay race of bad news. She stiffened, quickly pulled the phone up to her ear, trying to piece together what was happening with the little bits of context she had. Obviously something was happening with the others, and it didn't sound good.

"Uh, hi, Waves here. We're gonna get to you, don't worry. Just stay on the line little while longer while I figure out where you are," as she spoke, her eyes drifted closed, letting the radio waves take her mind in the direction of Andy's phone. She quickly discovered that the other end of the call was somewhere far away, but also simultaneously...upstairs? "Uh..." as if to answer her unspoken question, James' voice rang out through the underground, shouting out even more bad news. She held onto the feeling of Andy's phone as she quickly ran up the stairs, in case they needed to find them once they were through the portal. She sprinted down the hall to James and Casper's room, where inside she saw a glowing fantastical portal. Without a moments hesitation, she leapt through, stumbling as her feet found purchase upon ground much more uneven than that of the headquarters she was leaving behind. What awaited her there was not what she'd expected: none of Veil's group was there, only James, Cas, Echo, and a glowing blue man with a mass of tentacles erupting from his stomach. Waverley had to do a double take when she saw that. It was Ben, she recognized him from his brief introduction in the van earlier, but with the slimy appendages reaching up and holding the ceiling aloft, she quickly recognized him from elsewhere.

"You're- shit, you were that superhero kid from that one super group! Cas never mentioned that!" Waverley exclaimed, unable to hold back her surprise at the realization. She quickly shook her head, shoving the revelation out of her head as she instead brought her mind back to the matter at hand. The rubble had separated them from the others, a fact made evident by Jack's voice ringing out from past one wall of rubble and by the feeling of Andy's phone just beyond another. Just as she was about to launch into motion, her eyes caught sight of a weeping Echo, a sight that caused her heart to sink. Part of her wanted to comfort him just as he so often did for her, but she stopped herself from doing so. It was more important to make sure everyone was safe. She was sure he'd understand. She quickly pointed her finger northeastward, looking to the others with a serious crease in her brow.

"Andy and the others are that way," she called out, before bringing Callie's phone, which she held onto with pale knuckles, back up to her lips. "We're in the tunnel...southwest from you I think. Ben and I are gonna do our best to minimize any further damage, and I think the others are gonna try to get you out safely," she explained to Andy, letting her mental grasp on the girl's phone lessen as she stepped up next to the apparition of Ben and turned her attention upward. She could feel the rumbling within the crumbling concrete, the waves ringing through them, quickening their destruction. She lifted her hand, gritting her teeth as she used her abilities to dampen those waves.

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: The Labyrinth
Skills:

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"Alright, Ariadne it is," Waverley chirped with a small smile, giving a nod of approval at the introduction. Her body seemed much more relaxed, her anxiety likely calmed by the Goddess' soothing demeanor. Her nervous smile gave way to a more at ease smirk as her gaze shifted downward to her guitar, one of her hands plucking at the strings one at a time and the other twisting the knobs on the head accordingly to make sure it was tuned and ready for any fight yet to come. But at the mention of giants, Waverley furrowed her eyebrows and lifted her head back up to look at Ariadne.

"Uh, pardon?" Waverley asked, her head tilted to the side a touch. She wasn't aware of the divinely proclaimed rule of defeating giants, and as such was confused by the Goddess' statement. "I'm not really sure what we can do to help that you can't. Aren't y'all, like, supremely powerful or something?"

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: The Mutant Underground
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Waverley's small, skeptic frown shifted into a soft smile as Echo placed a gentle hand upon her bony shoulder and offered his words of reassurance. She gave a small nod, muttering a quiet, "Thank you," before watching the young man slip away after Max. She turned her attention back toward Sunshine, Zarina, and now Callie just as the youngest among them spat with hostility in her voice at the oldest. Waverley furrowed her brow in concern, watching Zarina storm away, feeling a little sorry for the girl. She shifted her eyes to look at Callie, chewing down on her bottom lip a little in thought.

"Actually...maybe Sunshine could find it. It sounds kinda farfetched, but it might work. A bomb that releases disease-causing smoke...I mean, disease-causing smoke is kinda Sunshine's whole deal. It's worth a shot, if she's up for it," Waverley suggested giving a little shrug to Sunshine, as if to offer the idea to her to do with it what she will. She then looked back to Callie with a small smile. "I, for one, do not mind being the Underground's glorified phone. Kinda why I joined, actually. I'll see if I can connect to the Professor's phone," she volunteered cheerily, before quickly letting her eyes fall shut.

She allowed her mind to stretch out of her skull, g along the waves that she'd come to recognize as a sort of second language. She did her best to bring to mind the path the waves had taken when they first tried calling him, but having not committed them to memory, she got lost rather quickly. She returned to her starting point and tried a few more times, but it was only a matter of seconds before she lost any traces of it again. She let out a deep sigh, keeping her eyes closed even as she reached out tried to tap Callie, only to find she wasn't where she'd previously been standing.

"Uh, Callie? You still there? If you are, can you call him again? Having some waves to ride'll be easier than just winging it."

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: The Labyrinth
Skills:

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"Oh, uh, nifty, that's convenient," Waverley mumbled with a gulp, relaxing a little at the fact that she wasn't about to be eaten by some sort of cave siren. She quickly tensed back up, however, when the woman's gaze pierced through her. Up to that moment, it'd seemed impossible to Waverley for a god to hold a physical form. And while the eyes of this being weren't enough to wipe away all beliefs of some force of greater good that prevailed in her vision of the universe, there was a palpable divinity in them that made Waverley, for the first time since coming to New Rome, believe that perhaps their gods were real, and were gods. At least this one was. It was normal for Waverley to feel things in the form of unwritten songs, and this goddess caused a chorus to ring out inside her. She gulped.

"Uh, nice to meet ya, Ariadne. Should I be more formal? Ms. Ariadne? That feels weird, 'cause that'd be like calling me Ms. Waver- Sorry, I'm rambling," Waverley went on for a couple seconds, before clearing her throat and doing an awkward little curtsy. She quickly straightened up, scratching the back of her head as she let out a nervous chuckle. "Uh, I can't speak for my friends here, but I'd be willing to try. I'm not much of a warrior, mind you, but I can do my best," she gestured towards Em and the other legionnaire who'd stumbled into the labyrinth.

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: The Mutant Underground
Skills:

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Waverley winced a little bit when Sunshine mentioned Magik. It wasn't a subject she wanted to touch with a ten foot pole. Not because she felt awkward or uncomfortable about it, but because she knew that it was a conversational path that wouldn't lean anywhere good. Waverley would bring Magik back for Sunshine if she could, Erg too. But she knew she couldn't, and, even with the wide array of oddities Waverley had witnessed since stepping into the world of the Mutant Underground, she still wasn't convinced that resurrection was an option.

"Right then, I guess we'll go ahead and leave the paranormal investigation to the Bill Murr-" Waverley began to reply to Sunshine's disinterest in the ghost, before trailing off as she caught sight of a familiar thin figure step into her vision. Her eyes flicked to him: Max. She was usually able to mostly ignore the boy when he lazed about their headquarters, but the way he walked now held...purpose. It sent a chill up her spine and caused her to go stiff. She followed him with her eyes, watching as he approached a mess of rubble that was scattered about the Underground. She watched as he stopped, his hands glowing with arcane energy, her body rigid in preparation to stop him on the off chance this was some nefarious scheme. She was so focused on him that she practically leapt out of her skin when the voice of Echo spoke up beside her.

"Shit dude, you can't sneak up on people like that," Waverley exclaimed despite the fact that Echo had done everything in his power to slip seamlessly into their conversation. She let out a huff and shot one more glance over at Max, finding that the only evil deed he was doing was cleaning. She turned her attention back to Echo, not stepping away from Sunshine and Zarina, but lowering her voice when she spoke in case they wanted to continue talking without her. "Wow, that sounds like...a lot. Um...I could try? That's a lot of space to cover, and it'd be super hard to feel everything the soundwaves bounced against. Especially since I don't even know what the bomb feels like. It'd be like trying to find Waldo without ever being told what Waldo looks like."

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: The Labyrinth
Skills:

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Almost as soon as the guitar strings stopped vibrating under her short, chewed up fingernails, her body, recently relaxed from her music, went tense upon hearing Emily's voice ring out behind her. She'd thought she was alone, or at least no longer in the company of people who really knew her.

"Oh, uh, like I said, that was all just...off the top of my head, so it's not gonna win any Grammy's," she said with an awkward chuckle, scratching the back of her head. For a moment, more than the madness or the monster-filled maze, Waverley was scared that her music had reached Emily's ears before it was ready. But it didn't take long for her to realize how ridiculous that was, at which point a small smirk spread across her lips, and a huff of amusement exited her nose. She reached down and laid her hand upon Emily's vine, finding comfort at its touch. "Thanks for staying, Em...and, uh, sorry for holding you back from the...war," she said. The voices were gone, a fact she attributed more to Emily than herself. And for a moment, she was relaxed. That is until she felt a body bump against her back as another legionnaire was shoved into the labyrinth.

"Hey, hey, you oka-" Waverley began to ask, before she was interrupted by a smooth, elegant voice cutting through the silence. Waverley's eyes shot wide open as she spun around to look at the source. It was...a woman? A beautiful woman with deep black hair and none of the beastly feature Waverley was expecting to find on something that lived in the labyrinth. She stepped out in front of her fellow legionnaire, putting herself between them and the stranger stepping out of darkness. Waverley's brow was furrowed, and her lips were curved down in uncertainty. "You're...you're awfully pretty for a monster. Is this, like, a siren situation? Where you lure us in with a false sense of security and then eat our skin?" she asked, her voice trembling. She didn't know the history of most of the gods, let alone what they looked like, so she didn't let her guard down.

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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Iris Rivers

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Location: Spaaaaaace!!!!
Skills:

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Despite her rather meager entertainment supply that consisted of a small stack of books (mostly on poetry and philosophy), a journal, and a rather hefty amount of weed, Iris was loving the long trip through space. She found tranquility in it, in the complete and utter silence of the universe, even if she was separated from it by the soft humming of the ship and the sounds of her friends.

She spent most of her time meditating; for hours at a time, she'd sit silent and cross-legged, letting her mind melt into the emptiness outside. She found that the way the absence of the universe cradled them helped her to better become one with it. She was doing just that, outside the cockpit in the more spacious bit of the ship, sitting across from the fighting Annie and not too far from the reading Ed. She'd been like that for roughly an hour and a half when her eyes finally peeled open, staring past Annie's frenzying fists out at the starry abyss of space.

"She's so beautiful," she quietly said, a small grin spreading across her lips. She'd said it every day of their trip at least once, usually more than that. She'd come to refer to space as a she, and if anyone had it in them to ask why, she'd launch into a deep philosophical discussion on the subject, one that'd either end in the inquirer walking away, or Iris getting so high she'd forget what she was talking about. Eventually, after about a minute of staring out at space, her eyes flicked over to Annie. "Man, you really showed that air."

The Gifted - Concluded

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Location: The Mutant Underground
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"Real? Holy shit, that's wild! So we're talking more 'those Scooby Doo live action movies where the monsters are actually real' level shit. Wait, should've prefaced that with spoiler alert, sorry," Waverley rambled, watching as Sunshine began to devour the waffle held out in front of her. More than any speaking of specters, it was Sunshine's dispassionate manner with which she ate that worried Waves. It was so unlike her. She contemplated asking about it, but what exactly would she say? 'Hey, I noticed you were eating weird, what's up with that?' No, that was weird, especially after Sunshine made it perfectly clear that she didn't need a caretaker at the moment. So instead, she let the matter lie for the moment, instead focusing on what Sunshine had gone through back on that island. She contemplated asking Casper to help, but she quickly came to the conclusion that, despite his power, the height of his paranormal knowledge would likely be half-remembered (likely inaccurate) factoids he picked up while binging Buzzfeed Unsolved high as a kite. But who else would be able to help? Just as the thought came to mind, Z popped in, offering answers on a silver platter.

"Er...well, you're a Valkyrie, right Z? Or, rather, a Valkyrie-in-training, I guess. Which means you probably deal with the souls of the dead a lot. So maybe you can help us figure out what the deal was with this ghost Sunshine saw on her trip," Waverley suggested. She had plenty of questions she wanted to ask Zarina, but she wanted to keep her focus on Sunshine. While she was trying to keep herself from being too mushy or overprotective, she also didn't want to divert her attention away from her roommate just yet. She looked back over to Sunshine. "If you don't mind going into the full story, that is."

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω

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Location: The Fucking Labyrinth, Apparently
Skills:

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Waverley's lungs collapsed in a deep sigh as the Sphinx withdrew from its circling prowl around her trembling body. She could feel her whole body relax, her head leaning back as the monster slinked away. The silence left by the Sphinx only lasted a second, as it was quickly replaced by an array of hushed whispers. At first, they were unclear enough that Waves assumed it was the rest of the fifth cohort just outside. But it didn't take long for them to sharpen, becoming clear.

"Lovely..." she mumbled, the voices dripping into her mind. She shot a quick glance over to Demi as he told her to stay, giving him a small nod, both of affirmation and gratitude. As her friends began to peel away, she began chewing on her lip. She backed up into the invisible force field blocking her from the sewers, before using it to slowly slip onto the ground, plopping down on the cold hard stone and crossing her legs. She found the voices...not comforting, that wouldn't be right. They were awful, but they were awful in a way that was familiar. She had more experience with voices whispering cruelties to her than she did with sphinxes spouting out riddles. Her fingers began to gently stroke the strings of her guitar, making a quiet melody. "Yeah, you're right...no one wants me here. Or anywhere, really...do you mind if I play you a song, disembodied voices of madness? Don't judge, I haven't workshopped it at all. In fact, you'll be the first people - people? - to ever hear it, so...don't be too critical," she said into the empty labyrinth. She took a deep breath in, and her idle picking turned into strumming.

"Don't wanna be a Roman,
Just wanna go home again
Not that I could find it even if I tried

I'm just a vagabond
Take back your magic wand
I didn't know what it cost when I applied."

She started out slow, almost shy despite her lack of an audience. But as she played, she fell into her groove, the groove that always fell into when she played, and her strumming became more assured, fast, passionate, as did her voice. It wasn't the tidy, packaged voice you find in studios. It was raw, emotional, but beautiful nonetheless.

"I wanna go back to the tracks, that's where I wanna be
But I went and left them behind me, behind me, behind me

Wanna turn around, but I don't
Could look behind me but I won't
Because I fear, all I have here
Will slip away and disappear

Wanna turn around, but I can't
Could look behind me but I shan't
Because I know, I'll sink below
Away from any home I might one day know."

Waverley's melody continued for a few moments after her voice stopped, but it too eventually ended. Once her little indie punk tune was over, she took deep breaths, a bead of sweat surfacing on the temple of her head as she leaned back against the barrier. "Like I said, it's a work in progress, so don't be too harsh."

Held Roll

Waves is doing her best to use the power of music to keep the madness at bay, with her musical empathy ability, as well her guitar skill and her singing skill. If that's necessary.