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Made minor changes given the new equipment/powers ruling, marked in violet (Added a second weapon and removed Energy Drain).

Let me know if the powers are out of whack or if there are too many.
Sign me up if there's still room.
@The Jest

Avelyn didn’t need to be told twice to take a break. She knew the security guards were blindsided by their ability to counteract their plans, and a smug smirk crossed her face when the local commander called a retreat to regroup and restrategize. With that out of the way, Alan mostly burned out and the gang about to evacuate, she quietly started singing a song to help block out such a large volume of thoughts from her mind.

“The night was icy cold, I stood alone
Waiting for an army foot patrol
When at last they came within my sight
I squeezed the trigger of my Armalite
Oh mama, oh mama, comfort me
I know these awful things have got to be
But when the war for freedom has been won
I promise you I'll put away my gun.”

It took a while for the cacophony of confused and angry thoughts to become a background hum, quiet enough to leave her hidey hole and start making her way back to the ship. She took a step forward and found herself face to face with a stack of four officers about five paces away from her. Fortunately, though they had obviously been approaching her position with a clear goal and weapons at low ready, their heads were turned toward a side street, their attention drawn by a noise she only now noticed. It was a car. Was it about to crash? No- Well, yes, but actually no.

The car skidded to a stop beside her, the four poor bastards a little slow on their feet and now laying on the ground cursing and clutching their various broken bones. She’d never met the driver in person, but she remembered his face and name from the debriefing of their run at Plenty.

“What is that unholy noise? It sounds worse than Rau’ve food tastes!” Avelyn groaned as she crouched beside Joey, “We need to talk about your music preferences. Get back in the car, I’ll make some room.” Careful to stand beside one of the tires in case one of the cops was feeling smart and decided to shoot under the car, she formed a sideways-accelerating gravity field from about knee-height down underneath the largest concentration of people shooting at them, causing most of them to fall ass over kettle in perfect unison. Once they were down, she changed the direction by 45° upwards, reduced the height and increased power, thus throwing their dropped weapons away save for those who thought to wear their slings. With the amount of hate being thrown their way - however she sympathized given Joey’s wanton disregard for the ‘poor fucking infantry’ - now significantly reduced, she felt confident enough to leave cover once he was back in the driver’s seat, grabbing the corner of the roll cage and using it as a pivot point to get into the passenger seat with a gravity-assisted jump.

“Drive, I’ll clear the way. Straight from here and then the third left.” she ordered as she started sweeping the street ahead with Gravity Manipulation to clear a path, throwing security officers around like ragdolls to get them to stop shooting and get then into places they couldn’t get run over. Resigned to the headache that was to come, she opened her mind to the thoughts of others again, judging limited precognition and knowing what the nutter behind the wheel was going to do a worthy tradeoff for a few hours of discomfort.
The shitstorm caught her in the cargo bay again. Ever since their big purchase, that was where she spent most of her time except one intelligence-gathering outing and the occasional supply run. Once she’d even fallen asleep sat upright on a box with an Fe-C diagram in her hand. Good thing no one found her there, or at least she thought so. Unfortunately, loud music and a particularly stubborn piece of material meant she only noticed the alert from Flame after a few minutes.

‘I didn’t do it!’ she sent back as she hurried back to her cabin to grab some essentials before making her way toward the… “Holy fuck they weren’t kidding.” She mouthed when she exited the ship and saw the problem of the day. The rogue’s brain kicked into overdrive, drawing upon memories of the Bazaar’s every back alley and service passage to get to the problem, arriving slightly winded more or less in sync with the first wave of first responders. “On site. Hold your breath, human torch.” she checked in on comms and raised two of the fire extinguishers above Alan with her magic before crushing them, dumping their contents on Alan all at once. “Someone make sure he can breathe when you get to him, but cooling this down is beyond my abilities.”

There was, however, something she could do. She retreated back into the dark alleyway and leaned against the wall. She didn’t want to bust her ass on the pavement if she did this wrong. Slowly, she stopped keeping other people’s thoughts out, and with the majority of civilians doing the smart thing and going in the opposite direction of the magical inferno at best speed, she felt confident she could walk around without the risk of her brain going ‘NOPE!’ from being overtaxed, left the alley again and made her way toward the largest group of Bazaar Security ground units. Shielding herself from their view in a shop entrance about a dozen meters from them, Avelyn started picking out tactically relevant information about the security forces’ plans and passing it over to the rest of the team via Omni-tool and the psychic link.
Amy’s reaction to the coffee wasn’t what Avelyn expected, and she was briefly worried Amy didn’t know what coffee was and her species were allergic to it. No, of course not, it wouldn’t be that fast and the team mom’s reaction made it quite clear where the problem lay, and the steam coming from the cup dissipated entirely as Avelyn further cooled it. “You’re going to reconsider that statement once you actually get to know us.” She laughed when Amy called them ‘The most amazing people she’d ever met’, “Or after today, depending on how it goes down there. Keep the seats warm for us up here, eh?” she gave the struggling Zvezd an encouraging pat on the back, purposefully avoiding touching any exposed skin and jogged off to meet up with Tarak and Trajan.



Going in under aliases was a prudent call. As her home was far away from any fighting for the entirety of the war, there was still a good chance her parents were both up and about, and Avelyn didn’t doubt for a second that as soon as the Ascendancy uncovered the identity of any member of their party, they wouldn’t hesitate to target their families where possible to make them either break or come at them angry and stupid. Not if she had anything to say about it. Avelyn didn’t plan more than 24 hours ahead, but she’d be damned if she let the Ascendancy torpedo the one long-term plan she had. And having a pre-made false identity carried the added bonus of not having to invoke the name and service number of her fallen friend from the war like she planned to, even if no one was aware of her demise as far as she knew.

Not that long later, ‘Aveline Laverrier’ stepped into the Circle’s mess hall and let her mind wander, collecting stray thoughts and conversations both yet unspoken and too far away for normal human ears to ear, separating the decent people that could be found in the lower ranks and conscripts from the human garbage that was most of the core-worlders and officer’s corps, finding that the latter were in an overwhelming majority here. Of course it would be so. On the bright side, if push came to shove, she wouldn’t have to bother too much with identifying the target and deciding whether to disable or kill.

“Nothing like a Meal Refusing to Exit to start the day.” She said as she caught herself before she could snatch the MRE from across the hall. No point letting them know what they could do in advance. Instead she reached over the table to grab it, bracing against Trajan’s shoulder as if for support, then shifting her hand to an exposed part of his skin and sending everything she gathered about the troops here to him in a manner similar to how she passed a message to Amy earlier, that way he’d know what she wanted him to know without littering his brain with someone else’s memories. As Tarak was sadly out of reach and covered head to toe, he’d have to be told later. With that, she sunk into the meal, while still keeping tabs on the thoughts of everyone in a 15 meter radius and conversations of almost everyone in the room, her ears boosting distant conversations to audible levels.

The triage of incoming information was usually the hardest part of an intelligence job, and she was doubly thankful for the small miracle the spell meant to affect the memories of others worked on her own ability to remember things, as anything she didn’t focus on now would always be accessible to her later. And using the magic and techniques taught to her by the Ascendancy against the Ascendancy was such a beautiful display of irony that the thought of it brought a smile to her lips despite her efforts to remain stone-faced.
I guess it can only get better? Or it'll be the boss round...
“No comms blackout and straight-up bossing them around? Oh, today will be great.” Avelyn rubbed her hands together. In an ideal case, she wouldn’t have to hurt a fly, and she would get to enjoy harmlessly screwing with people’s heads for a bit. Of course, it wouldn’t be like that. What were these ‘ideal conditions’, where could one find them and how much did a lifetime subscription cost? But if push came to shove, she was happy to have Tarak on hand to hide behind. As for Trajan… she didn’t really know what he did, a side effect of her private rule to stay out of friends’ heads, but at least she’d know after today. “Think it’s worth a try to see if we can scam some extra equipment from them while they think we’re on their side?”

Thud.

What the-?

She turned her head toward the source of the sound, quiet enough for the tiny computers in her ears to decide she’d be better off hearing it in case it was threatening, just in time to see their favorite bundle of joy recover from… headbutting the wall? Avelyn suppressed a snicker at the thought of the artificial computer in her head - arguably smarter than the biochemical one - confusing that with a distant gunshot or explosion. There was something amiss though, and Avelyn thought she knew how to fix it. With the briefing concluded, she took a minute to make her way to the galley. Mug, sugar, water, spoon and the star of the show - coffee. Instead of bothering with the kettle, she heated the life bringing mixture with Pyrokinesis on her way back to save time, tapping Amy on her shoulder once she found her. “You look like you haven’t slept much, neighbor.” She rapidly cooled the still boiling liquid to a drinkable temperature and floated the mug over to Amy, keeping it suspended in front of her with the spoon seemingly stirring its contents by itself, “Worked for a freighter pilot, can’t hurt a freedom fighter.” She joked as she fondly recalled her father basically living on coffee whenever the demand for water rose in one of the many systems serviced by the ice hauling company he worked for.
Another engagement where all Avelyn had to do was wait it out. This rebellion stuff really was easy. When word came that the fight was over, she moved the scrap bundles aside, hoping the captain wouldn’t mind the scorch marks on the floor and went to see how the boarding team had fared. Rather well it seemed, and they even managed to convince Kherol of all people they were still with the Ascendancy, or so it seemed. Subterfuge certainly got her seal of approval.

As did the battle plan, given that it was based on it. “Oh, this is good. We can show up, say nothing, look dangerous, grab Realist and scram. Perfect spook behavior and they won’t even question any lack of uniforms or standardized equipment. And if they don’t like it, intimidation is a thing.” Avelyn rubbed her hands, seemingly looking at another easy run and - unlike the last time - well rested and dressed for the job, and she even managed to pop into Millard’s office for a checkup and to warn him of the tech in her ears and eyes to make it easier for him if it came down to piecing her back together after something went awry. “Now, how much could go wrong?” She was somewhat familiar with this sort of work, having received some training on handling dissent should some soldiers oppose the ‘righteous cause’ masse. “If the blackout fails, I don’t mind talking holes in their heads to keep them distracted and hopefully friendly while the rest of you find our tin man.” Avelyn offered, feeling confident she could string together a line of believable enough bullshit to answer any probing questions the local mooks might have, “And if not, well, been a while since I maimed a bastard who actually deserved it.” she shrugged, leaning against the wall near the door and quietly humming a happy tune.
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