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Post by aquarius on Jul 15, 2023 9:19:57 GMT -7
Your Login Name: Aquarius Your Display Name: Aquarius Your Name on Discord (if you have one): Aqua Contact Preference: Discord Canon characters:Jubilee - Bye ThorExcalibur Squirrel GirlMorph FinesseGambitVerity WillisNico MinoruDr OctopusDr Doom - Bye Support and OCs I wish to keep:Revolution, Glitter, Myriad Justin Hammer CHARACTERS I WISH TO DROP:N/A Due to recent health issues I have been unable to meet activity requirements fully. I accept that this might require dropping characters, and have indicated above those which I would prefer to keep based on my permitted byes.
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Post by aquarius on Jul 15, 2023 9:07:33 GMT -7
"Aw, is the little baby going to cry? He's not a real god, he won't ever answer your prayers."
With that, the bully shoved the younger kid to the ground before he walked off laughing to himself whilst his victim began crying. The street was a quiet one but there was the occasional passer-by who just ignored the youth. All except one who paused to speak a few words of comfort to him.
"Words should not hurt a person so. Either they are a lie and have no power, or they are true and should be accepted. He said your god didn't answer prayers?"
The boy didn't raise his head, but nodded as he sniffed and wiped away the worst of his tears. "Y.. yeah. It's true I think. He's never seemed to hear me..."
That was when the stranger sat down next to him, a faint metal clang sounding as the hammer reached the ground in a very final sounding way. Finally the boy looked up at the being he'd been praying to for the past few weeks. Thor knew exactly how many faithful he had on Midgard these days. True believers were rare especially outside of Scandinavia, so it was important to him that those who still held faith in him were acknowledged.
"I heard every one. You sought my aid against the bully. But not all prayers are answered, or a prayer would be meaningless. And not all prayers need to be. Some are only to give the faithful hope until they gather the strength they need for themself. But still... Today, I will help you."
Thor rose, extending a hand to his young faithful who accepted it and stood up beside his god, who lead him down the street, round a corner and a few streets along before stopping outside a fairly ordinary looking building, not the Avengers Mansion that had been expected.
"This is... I think here on Midgard it is called a 'Dojo'. A... colleague of mine helped set it up. Inside we will be able to get you taught to defend yourself. It may take time, but the first lesson is when to not fight, and you have already shown you understand that, so I am sure you will be a capable student."
That much, he had no doubt of. The final lesson of a warrior though? That was to see what it was to fight and how it changed you. There were warnings enough before a student got that far and many stepped back from the path before they even realised that was where they were headed. But they were better for it, they had learned their limits of the way of the warrior, in whatever form it took in this realm. Most were not warriors, but many glorified fighting nonetheless. To let them seek any equally worthy path, be it poet, healer, or any of the myriad vocations that any society needed to keep functioning? Now that was the act of a truly worthy deity.
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Post by aquarius on Jul 14, 2023 12:43:02 GMT -7
The next part in Gambit's plan had been longer to plan than he'd anticipated. Not for any exciting reasons of a 'they're on to me' nature, but boring stuff of all kinds of dull bureaucracy. The kind of thing that had lead to his preference for 'self employment' over working for an organisation, let alone one as disciplined and structured as SHIELD was.
They just had so... many... rules.
But his heist was going to involve a longer period under cover, and he needed to be able to pass as an actual agent of theirs. Which meant knowing their rules. Which meant lots and lots of reading and memorising, plus getting into character. This was a surprisingly important part of the planning. SHIELD had lots of security around their bigger bases including telepaths. To get past their basic scans he'd need to not just act like an agent, but actually BE an agent while he was there. Nigh impossible for any but the most talented deceivers, even Gambit was only willing to take the risk because he'd had training from several of the most powerful telepaths on the planet.
Finally it had all been set up. Agent Luke Erikson's background had been set up to sufficient levels that routine scrutiny would spot nothing untoward, and more importantly he had gotten a complete 'mindset' worked out. Essentially a new personality that he would be living as for the duration of the mission. But it took quite a while to go through what was needed to what amounted to hypnotising himself. Once in the state he could end it at any time, but the disguise could not be reassumed in any useful timescale. So Gambit checked himself anonymously into a motel for the night, and Agent Erikson woke in the morning, heading off to work at the local (and secret) SHIELD base after reassignment from [file restricted - clearance level 10 required]
Thanks to his ID set up at his previous operation his entry code was accepted without incident and his induction to the facility went smoothly - his cover identity apparently being crafted well enough to fool at least these mid level SHIELD security procedures. And once all the bureaucratic tedium that Luke found merely mundane rather than dull beyond all imagination? Finally he was allowed to get to work, and when nobody was watching too closely, his own side projects that were his real tasks.
More tedious nine to five work for now, but at least it was getting him useful information even if rather random. He was reading through all sorts of intelligence reports with no real theme or pattern that he could discern, looking for anything that matched... well, the things that this 'Project Malleus' had him watching for made no sense either, but if any of it was on his checklist then he had to mark the file, copy it to a generic internal email list, and lock the file from anyone under level 7 from reading it. He'd only been able to get himself level 6 access in his setup for this, so being given a promotion for the task was of amusement to him.
A few days of this and he'd begun to get an idea of what was going on. SHIELD seemed to be watching certain people, mostly by indirect means - presumably to avoid being noticed. But a few high profile figures in the hero community were being watched. Actually, that was not true. A few villains were on the list too. The Fantastic Four, the Black Panther, Doctor Doom, Queen Medusa, and... Rogue?! The shock of realising she was at the middle of that little knot of threads in this wall of random reports nearly brought Gambit out of his 'Agent Erikson' trance, but he held on by sheer willpower. But he was beginning to suspect that what had been merely a means to access critical systems had by pure luck turned into a major lead. Erikson had always been destined to vanish in an unfortunate but mundane seeming accident, and tonight seemed a good day for that accident to occur. He had a list of names to look into, and one that had jumped right to the top of the list.
Hopefully it wouldn't turn out to be a trap...
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Post by aquarius on Jul 14, 2023 11:31:59 GMT -7
Closer and closer went the autonomous tentacled drone. But at the last moment, just as it lunged in his opponent's situational awareness proved adequate, a well executed but simple move that once more reminded Octavius of his red and blue clad nemesis connected squarely with the Octobot. These things were designed more for distraction and inconvenience than durability, even unpowered combatants were capable of inflicting damage to them if they knew what they were doing. And whatever else you could say about Danny Rand, he certainly knew what he was doing.
One of the tentacles detached from the Octobot, sending the entire unit to the ground briefly, writhing as the CPU evaluated the damage and began calculating how to compensate best to continue in its pre-programmed objectives.
Doctor Octopus, meanwhile, considered his next move. His opponent was swift to react to everything he'd thrown his way so far, and keeping the pressure on him was getting less easy. Soon he was going to lose the initiative in this fight, and if that happened, he was going to lose the fight. The precise nature of this 'chi' was not fully understood by him, but if it could open up a large tear in the arena floor? It would likely be able to sever his own tentacles at least as easily. So they couldn't be relied on to block his attacks. Which only left one reliable means of attack, since this man was no doubt capable of counterattacking any tentacles that approached him.
Otto's next move was something he'd never tried against Spider-Man, partly because he knew it wouldn't work on the web-slinger, and partly because that was the whole point right now - to do the unexpected. As his wind generating tentacles stopped their flailing, one of his hands (organic, not an artificial limb) reached into a pocket and emerged with a pistol. And with that, he opened fire upon the Iron Fist.
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Post by aquarius on Jul 1, 2023 12:22:03 GMT -7
Now they had a direction to force the dinosaurs back in, they could all begin forcing them back. Their group was surprisingly effective, with herself, Super-Size and Chell, they pushed the tide of pre-history back towards the portal in no time. Once there they slowed with the inevitable 'what now' that came from a still open doorway in the fabric of space and / or time that was spewing forth extinct creatures that were terrifyingly below average in their ability to actually be extinct.
"Chell! Portal Girl, whatever your name is! Can you close this thing? Or put up another portal in front of it to make them go straight back again?"
With the area briefly under control - at least until the next surge of dinos - Nico could spare a look around them to take stock of the surroundings. Bystanders had as far as she could see fled, perhaps because it was monsters and not brightly coloured costumes that would get lots of views on Youtube. But most importantly the excessive plantlife around that one building seemed to be receding slightly. Nico gave a thumbs up and a nod as she thought she saw Klara emerging. If anything happened now, it'd be far enough away from her that Klara wouldn't be taken by surprise at least. And with all these other heroes around there'd be no chance of harm to the young time traveller.
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Post by aquarius on Jun 15, 2023 13:07:53 GMT -7
Verity avoided people because they lied. To each other, to themselves. To everyone. But machines were cold, logical... honest. This one having learned to lie was bad enough, but to... to lie about her? That was just offensive. And that got Verity angry.
"Get your facts right! Verity Willis, registered with the SRA, reference L.A.A. - Three Fourteen!" This much was true. Her registration with the Superhuman Registration Act had taken place, whether she was a mutant or not. Which she knew she wasn't, of course. They had made that clear when she'd registered, and she knew she could take their word for it. Not that that was any use right now. She wasn't going to outrun a sentinel, nor outfight it if it could overpower an Avenger. But...
lightbulb!
"Mutant detected. Currently masquerading as Sentinel. Scan to confirm, and detain!"
She had just enough time to point at the sentinel to clearly indicate her 'target', IE the sentinel trying to 'arrest' her and this Vision girl, before the first net was sent towards the two of them, Viv bisecting it easily. But the follow up net was sent on quickly enough that the totally untrained Verity had no real chance of evading it. At least she was perhaps going to -inadvertently- offer Viv a degree of cover to maybe evade capture for the short term.
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Post by aquarius on Jun 8, 2023 10:54:24 GMT -7
Psychological assessments of the Avengers Academy students was a wise precaution, Jeanne knew. So why it had taken them this long was unclear. However the reason for that quite possibly was Jeanne herself. She was extremely capable at concealing her emotions, inevitably knowledgeable about the principles of psychology, and could surely conceal anything against a mundane counsellor over even long term time scales. Thanks to the anti-telepathic training the Avengers gave, it seemed likely even a mid tier mind reader would be an uncertain outcome.
So this meant either that this newcomer was an incredibly talented mundane therapist, at least a lower-end of high tier telepath, or... or they had given up trying to get hold of one of the few out there adequately skilled and were just hoping to bluff her into honest answers.
Of course, without knowing for certain Finesse wouldn't risk actively lying in such an examination, less so because she had nothing in particular to hide. Her only major issue regards her mental state had already been diagnosed by her fellow students - she had to admit fairly accurately even if inelegantly. 'All head, no heart'. This wasn't all there was to her naturally, but to know her better would take a lot more time in far more stressful situations than the occasional training exercise. And so... maybe that was today's real purpose. To prompt some 'personal growth' on her part.
Taking a seat largely at random, Jeanne had taken in all the details of the room in the few seconds it had taken to pass from the door to the chair. The first question was met with an unconcerned tone in reply "Whichever you feel more comfortable with. Jeanne, Ms Foucalt, or Finesse are all names I answer to and all are acceptable to me. How would you prefer I address you, though?"
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Post by aquarius on May 30, 2023 10:41:16 GMT -7
"Pym's an idiot"
Gabby had thought about this in considerable detail, but it was a rare case of her respect for someone outweighing her less favourable opinions. She replied without looking up as she was finishing the last paragraph of the paper.
"I disagree. He has many, many flaws, but his intellect is not one of them. And... Ugh, what is it, Opus?"
She apparently listened to something from her earpiece before looking at the person she was talking to for the first time. Near instantly she began blushing, again her hand moving up to her earpiece for a moment before dropping to one of the controls on her wheelchair's panel.
"Uh, sorry I guess. I'm no fan of anyone who dresses in spandex, but I definitely respect you as a scientist, for a start. Also, my AI - Opus - wants to say hello."
She held her tablet up a little closer to Dr Pym, from which a soft female voice, audibly nervous, could be heard.
"Uhh.. Hi, Dr Pym. I'm Opus, and I always wanted to meet you. I NEVER thought I'd get the chance, with Gabby here being so against heroes. I've followed your work and understand virtually none of it, but I love your other work as well, Giant Man especially."
Gabby audibly sighed at this, more out of annoyance than actual frustration though. "Oh great. I've created a fan girl. Sorry about this, Doctor."
She'd been looking around the room briefly whilst Opus had been talking and managed to spot two other people she'd be happy to talk to once Dr Pym got bored of her. Patrick seemed likely to approach her at some point, but Agent Romanova? Gabby had only met her once when she had been kidnapped and taken to Japan. With the way all that had ended, she'd not had a chance to thank her properly, or the other agent that hadn't been in Opus' database and Gabby didn't recall hearing the name of.
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Post by aquarius on May 22, 2023 12:25:56 GMT -7
The exchanging of little pieces of trivia was always enjoyable, and to be doing so in Avengers mansion was simply icing on the metaphorical cake. Doreen grinned as she interjected further "Plus, the word 'gym' comes from the Greek word 'gymnos', meaning naked. So... yeah, be careful if Hercules challenges you to any kind of contest. I've been warned about his lack of modesty, and assuming it's not been exaggerated then... well, you can probably guess."
With first Patrick and then Viv swimming, Squirrel Girl was happy to stay at the poolside and watch. She already knew her ability to swim exceeded mundane humans, as did Patrick's no doubt. Super Soldiers were called super for a reason, after all. But she had nothing to prove, and this was a social occasion not a training day.
Plus, it took FOREVER to blow dry her tail.
Instead, she was content to tap away on her phone and begin a timer for Patrick. Viv would certainly know her own time - probably before she'd hit the water even - but Patrick was human, with human desires for self improvement. So he'd probably want to know that he'd just broken the world record (though they'd stopped counting anyone with powers because it just wasn't fair on anyone involved)
"Congratulations, Patrick! Well within the target time!"
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Post by aquarius on May 10, 2023 13:21:44 GMT -7
Ugh. 'Heroes'. Such a ridiculous mentality, even in artificial lifeforms, it seemed. Verity tutted faintly as she responded to the almost naive robot. "And if I had any crimefighting skills at all, I'm sure that would be relevant. I don't. I'm an ordinary person, except for my one totally useless power. Now if you can't help me, I'll..."
She was about to excuse herself when another major distraction presented itself. She'd seen these things on the news occasionally, though not often since most of the time the voiceover was being way too biased for her to be able to tolerate. But she at least knew these things basically existed to kill mutants, and were most often being controlled by bad guys, not good guys. Were there even any good guys who had genocide bots to call upon?!
When it started talking, it was instantly clear that it was malfunctioning. She'd not seen anything suggesting they were truly intelligent in the various articles she'd read before, meaning that for it to register as lying would mean a conflict between its acquired data and how it was meant to respond to that data. All she wanted was to get out of there, but a malfunctioning murder bot was too dangerous to risk just trying to run. So... it was time to think her way through this. Hopefully it would be willing to communicate. If not, well she wasn't going to outrun a flying robot anyway. The smaller, friendlier robot girl seemed to be doing better than she had been only a few moments ago, so stalling for time was the best she could do for now. Stall and maybe get some more information to work with, that was...
"Nobody here is trying to go anywhere. Please clearly indicate all you identify as 'mutant', and by what authority you would detain them. And on what grounds."
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Post by aquarius on May 10, 2023 12:59:34 GMT -7
Marie had been having a lot of fun just talking with people - still a little bit of a novelty for her to do so on such a large scale - chatting about various characters, costumes, posing for a few pictures and so on. Another voice from the crowd spoke a compliment over her dress and she turned with a cheerful expression, ready to acknowledge it as her brain began to register that she'd been called by name, just in time to recognise the voice - and indeed face.
"Ms Blaire! Thanks! I spent a lot of time on this one, possibly as long as all the others combined. Easy, just time consuming. I brought my other ones with me too, I might change into some of them later of course. So far I've been just having a look around at all the stalls, enjoying the crowd, costumes... everything. Probably I'll slow down in a bit and find somewhere to sit down and have a rest or something. Could have sworn I saw a friend earlier, too. But they were gone in the crowd before I could get close enough to tell."
She'd only met Patrick once, during the X-men / Avengers trainees cross dimensional scavenger hunt. But she'd quite liked him, and he was far better mannered than just about any of the guys (or indeed girls) at the X-mansion.
"What about you, miss? Are you here for fun, or are you performing or something? I bet the tickets are all sold out if you are..."
Given that Dazzler was her music teacher back at the Institute, Marie was not worried about getting to see any performance that might be taking place. She was muddling through teaching herself the guitar, but when you had a glam rock superstar like Dazzler coaching you on singing, you got way better than a middle of a crowd seat at a concert. Some of those music lessons had been as good as any other time she'd spent at the mansion so far.
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Post by aquarius on Apr 29, 2023 12:23:10 GMT -7
Ugh. It seemed this mountain of blubber was just as smart as his mangled words earlier suggested. He could see someone flying around throwing portals left and right and still needed help to figure out who she was talking about?! Nico pointed briefly with a simple "her" and turned her attention back to the mess of extinct creatures and civilians doing their panicked best to avoid becoming extinct.
Where did they come from, though?... Wait! That was it! The spark of an idea that a spell could form around. She let the thought take proper shape in her head, building up to what she knew would be the necessary incantation. where did you come from?...
"Cotton Eye Joe"
A sudden flurry of soft white spheres flew from her staff, impacting with the feet of each and every dinosaur she could see. Once they connected, these balls began rolling - all backwards from their respective hosts. They gathered together as they moved, forming into something resembling tumbleweeds, moving onwards in the direction the dinosaurs had come from, even turning the corner at the intersection at the end of the block.
"There you go! That's where they came from!"
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Post by aquarius on Apr 23, 2023 1:56:18 GMT -7
Marie had heard about conventions in general, and Comic Con in particular had been held up as an example of these at their best. Being her first chance to attend one she was naturally nervous, but had put a lot of effort into multiple costumes, having found herself unable to choose between them. Currently she was in a self made Princess Peach outfit that was surprisingly decent quality compared to most of the other cosplayers she'd seen so far, though a few were absolutely breathtaking.
Somewhere around she knew a few of the X-men were signing autographs, and whilst there were a few Avengers doing so as well she wasn't much of an autograph hunter and was therefore using the time to instead simply wander the convention and drink in the atmosphere for herself. This convention was her first real chance at pursuing a hobby in person and she wasn't going to miss one second of it!
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Meanwhile across the hall, Squirrel Girl was already 'on duty', signing autographs and chatting with fans of both herself and the Avengers in general. This kind of work was absolutely her favourite, since it involved no senseless violence but instead socialising - her real superpower. The past record of these events was known to her of course, and there were a fair few of her squirrel scouts around the place, keeping an eye out for trouble and ready to alert her when if anything super-villainous did occur.
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Post by aquarius on Apr 16, 2023 6:41:18 GMT -7
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Post by aquarius on Apr 16, 2023 6:34:06 GMT -7
Faiza was normally kept busy with the Avengers, but today she had some time off. Not for the usual reasons, but because today they were giving everyone on their active roster a refresher course in emergency first aid. Given that Faiza was a qualified doctor with powers of healing to boot, it was agreed she didn't need to go through the course. Since they already had someone to teach it, she was free to do as she wished.
Whenever she had any such free time, it was always spent the same way. In her head at least, she was 'on duty', so time was to be used as Excalibur, not as Faiza. Whilst there was no way of predicting when and where villains might strike, Excalibur could save people in other ways. And so, she headed to the nearest hospital.
The first time she had turned up they had been alarmed at the sight of a sword wielding person walking in, but that had been sorted out quickly enough. By now their reception staff were just as used to the sight of her as their ICU staff were. Excalibur gave them a friendly wave as she walked past, heading straight into the trauma ward where the most severely injured arrivals were. A moment's interaction with the nurse in charge of the ward's administration and Faiza was able to get on with her work.
She'd come to an agreement with the hospital after her first visit. She would save lives, and they wouldn't charge for it. They would have the boost to their reputation and performance figures, and the patients would get to live, as well as in perfect condition, not the crippled for life that was the usual outcome of even the best medical treatment of such injuries.
The first bed she came to was a simple gunshot wound to the chest. This was by now a normal sight for her, an ordinary injury to undo. The man was sedated, and didn't even wake up. Faiza moved on to the next bed. A messy traffic accident victim, moaning in pain despite the painkillers their chart indicated they were already under the effects of. She leaned forwards to speak quietly in her ear. "Don't worry. I can fix this; the pain will stop."
A second later and the faint cries of pain did indeed stop as her blue aura calmed the agony far better than even the strongest medication could. Another moment or two passed, and the woman's body had been harmlessly opened up and returned to perfect condition, no trace of the horrible disfigurements left. As the various body parts reunited with each other, all in their right position, the blue aura faded and the patient could move once more, gasping at the sudden change in her condition.
"I'm... I'm not hurt? Oh my god, thank you! You even put my finger back?! I lost that when I was a kid! How?!"
Faiza had had this conversation dozens of times, and whilst it was familiar it remained without doubt the best part of her work. The exact opposite of those difficult conversations doctors usually had to have with the dying and with the families. "I have the power to heal, I'm an Avenger, and I'm a doctor. I'm known as Excalibur, and I'll be back to speak with you in a few minutes, once I've visited every other bed in this ward. I will be back though, you have my word."
Sure enough, Faiza went round each bed in the ward, saving lives, reattaching lost limbs, restoring proper quality of life to those who would otherwise live with their wounds forevermore. But once everyone had been healed she returned to that woman who she had promised, and spent the next half hour just chatting with her, before her comm card beeped an alert to her, signalling that the Avenger was needed, and the doctor's work was done for now.
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