[MM3]Sunstormers IC

[Neo-Paladin]

((True, but trying to save a life always takes priority))

Jun is strapped to a gurney and carefully taken into the back of the ambulance, which quickly speeds away.

[Tony Jones]

Khemis is much more interested in making sure the victim is looked after properly than checking the work of the police, so when is becomes clear that the paramedics are treating him rather than doing anything nefarious, she carefully slithers back up the roof then extends herself across and onto the roof of the ambulance, still invisible in the darkness, and flattens herself across its roof, a little back from the edges and not blocking its flashing lights or siren.

So when the ambulance speeds away, she is hidden on top of it. Hopefully it is actually going to a hospital.

From her vantage point on top of the ambulance, she also keeps a look out for anyone who may be in hiding and observing what is going on. For example, the shooter. With her Darkvision, they gain no advantage from hiding in the darkness...

OOC: Khemis checking for lurkers: 1d20+8 26

[Neo-Paladin]

The ambulance is headed for the nearest hospital, fortunately. Seems as if they are really trying to save the poor guy's life.
However, as Khemis looks around for anything nefarious...she sees the black-clad woman sitting on the roof of a car going in the opposite direction....waving at her!

[Tony Jones]

OOC: When you say 'opposite direction' is this the woman heading for the crime scene? Or just going past it? Or in some random direction because the ambulance may have turned any number of corners since leaving there?

Khemis pulls out her phone and texts Deborah (as the only one of the other three whose number she has). *Just seen that darkness woman again, waving at me from the roof of a car going in the opposite direction! Think she might be trolling me!*

[kenmadragon]

"Sunny, give me a lift?" Deborah asks. "Back to the park will be fine."

Sunny

"Yeah...Best not chance being arrested for trying to save a life..." Sunny nodded, backing off from Sweaty-Guy's form as Khemis took over keeping him together. Glancing down at his stained gloves, Sunny grimaced slightly under the mask before shaking his hands slightly. Yet another feeling he would never forget. Time would let him be able to put it behind him so he didn't remember it all so often, but he wouldn't be able to forget.

Taking Deborah into his arms was simple, though a tad awkward - the only way Sunny knew how to hold a grown woman aloft with a smidgen of decency was basically a princess-carry. After all, a fireman's carry wasn't appropriate, nor was lifting her under his arm like a sack of potatoes, and he wasn't about to trust her to hold onto him in mid-air if he carrier her on his back - no proper neck-support. So, princess carry it was, despite the flush that threatened to swell across his face from how embarrassing it was. He really needed to get more used to stuff like this, Sunny reminded himself, considering he'd caught that police-officer earlier that day in a similar manner when she was falling.

Then again, Deborah was surprisingly pretty, Sunny quietly noted in the brief moment he lifted off the ground with Deborah in his arms. He idly wondered whether she had had her body transformed by the Sunstorm to be that pretty, like he had, or if she'd been pretty before it.

In no time at all, Sunny was hovering over the roofs with Deborah, focusing slightly upon his ears to hear the sirens as they approached and peering out through the glare of the city lights to track the approach of the ambulances. "Just need to make sure..." he mumbled quietly, uncaring if Deborah heard, needing to be certain that Sweaty Guy was still alive when the paramedics got to work with helping him in ways Sunny couldn't, loading him onto the ambulance so he could get proper treatment at the hospital.

After a minute of just hovering in the darkness of the night's sky, back against the wind to keep Deborah from suffering the brunt of that biting chill, Sunny realized that he hadn't left until the ambulance was speeding away. Also that he still had a (very attractive) woman in his arms who he had been ignoring. One who had asked for a lift back to the park. Right. Damn.

"Sorry," Sunny apologized softly, fairly embarrassed with himself. "I just... I had to be sure Sweaty-Guy was okay when they loaded him into the ambulance. He's one of us, yanno? And I just..." He paused for a moment, staring out over the city's roofs, the glare of downtown's lights contrasting with the dance of the wider ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond mere visible colors. And in the vast distances beyond the reach of the skyscrapers, the swatches of black that stretched around the city. And from the sky, he could see the illumination of distant stars whose radiation allowed him to see so clearly in the evenings as if the sun was still casting its rays across the city. He looked back at Deborah, regaining some measure of self-assurance. "Back to the park, then? Would you prefer the super-speed or the scenic route? The city's quite different from the air, you know."

OOC: Sorry about the lack of posting lately - got super busy at work last couple weeks with some folks leaving the team and others getting hired on that needed to be trained up to speed and stuff, and I didn't realize this had actually been updating lately after losing the habit of checking while Neo-Paladin was out. Gonna get back up to speed with these updates now!

[Neo-Paladin]

((In the opposite direction of the ambulance, but not clearly towards the crime scene

[Tony Jones]

Khemis watches as the car the woman is on recedes into the distance. She does note down its licence plate just in case.

She remains on top of the ambulance until it arrives at the hospital, and watches closely as he is taken inside. She does not follow as she couldn't stay hidden and would definitely arouse suspicion. Instead, she slinks down off its roof on the side most away from any lights and into the shadows, remaining invisible in the darkness the whole time.

Assuming nothing out of the ordinary happens while the victim goes in and she slinks away, she gets out her phone and texts the Deborah again. *Victim safely arrived at [name of hospital]. Where are you? I'll come back and join you. Or take a lift if one is available! *

[jmucchiello]

Deborah smiled at Sunny's hopefully slight discomfort in how he carried her. She was also glad it was cold and she had worn pants to the meeting. "Thanks. Your concern for... oh, his name is Albert Jun. I forgot mention it in earlier. Yes, your concern is certainly appropriate. The scenic route seems better since it is rather cold tonight. In fact, perhaps you can drop me off at my building. Let's just circle around the harbor that way and I'll point out the building. Then you can make another circle and then a burst of speed perhaps to throw off anyone who might have spotted you."

She points out a high rise condominium tower in The Loop overlooking the lake, specifying which terrace was hers as they pass by once.

[kenmadragon]

The "scenic route" involved flying at an elevation exclusive to the penthouses of many of Chicago's taller buildings, at a speed more suitable to an automobile, and which allowed Sunny the time to soak in the night air. He hadn't had his powers terribly long, but after the few times he'd gone flying like this (usually trying to spot trouble to be stopped), Sunny had grown to appreciate the beauty of the city, despite all that was happening to it and around the world in the wake of the Sunstorm.

That he had someone to accompany him on this lazy (from the perspective of someone who'd broken the sound-barrier when pushing himself) flight was all the better... even if his thoughts dwelt heavily on the Sunstormer who had been shot... who he'd not been able to save in time. Sweaty-guy... or rather, Albert Jun, according to Deborah.

Now that he thought about it...

"Say, how did you know his name?" Sunny asked as they flew through the city towards where Deborah pointed her home was. He recognized the neighborhood from her general directions - swanky condo tower in The Loop, right in the heart of the city but overlooking Lake Michigan. Seems that Deborah was rich, or living with her rich-parents. Either way, he was aiming to circle around it for a while to disguise the fact he was dropping Deborah off at the top of her building, giving him time to ask a rather pressing question. "He was out cold when we got there. Did you know him before hand?"

[jmucchiello]

"No, I tried to read his thoughts to see if he saw his attacker," Deborah says. "He didn't." After a pause, "I can kind of fly, but not even this fast. This is much better. I usually can look at the harbor from this height from my terrace but being able to see all around the city from any location, you are lucky." Her phone buzzes in her pocket but she doesn't want to take it out this high up.

[kenmadragon]

"Is that how you knew my name? From my thoughts?" Sunny asked, a wry smirk crossing his face behind the mask. "I never introduced myself as 'Sunny', you know. That's my childhood nickname, the one I got used to calling myself in my head." The paragon-type hero paused for a moment, trying to determine whether the complicated feeling welling up within him was anger/indignation at having his thoughts be read so easily and casually, or worry that this psychic, Deborah, might be caught for using her powers to invade other's minds if she was slipped up with others who might take a greater offense.

"Need to be careful about things like that..." He ended up saying, both to Deborah and to himself. "But yes... this is quite nice. Not just the view, I mean, but flying in general. It's... freeing, in a way. Ever since finding out I could fly, I've tried to fly each and every day, just because I can."

Sunny glanced at Deborah, still secure in his arms and shielded against the winds by his own carefully-positioned body. He had circled them around The Loop a few times and was now over Lake Michigan, ready to dart faster towards Deborah's terrace (that was apparently a penthouse condo?). It really was a pity, now that he thought about it, that she couldn't experience flight the way he could. "You know, I wouldn't mind doing this again. Flying with you, I mean. Even if it's just to help you get better at using your own 'kind of flight' powers. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to teach you something about your powers you never thought of before."

[jmucchiello]

(ooc: I thought you introduced yourself. Deborah never read a PC's mind but Helen's. But we can roll with it.)

Deborah is obviously ashamed when Sunny mentions he didn't say his name. "Did I? I didn't mean to. It is sometime hard not to 'hear' things but I've been trying not to read other people's minds as you are correct that would be at a minimum rude. I'm sorry if I wasn't as careful as I thought."

She does point out a penthouse terrace on E Monroe St. facing the harbor area as being her terrace.

"You fly so effortlessly. I need to concentrate or I fall. If you could help me with that it would be fantastic. I certainly wouldn't mind doing this again. It is very freeing. It's like there's only us here and the city is just a really big model that we can see from any side we wish."

[kenmadragon]

(OOC: Nah, only Khemis got a "name" from him when they met prior to game-start, and he gave a false one as a joke: "Peter Kent". Figured Deb calling him Sunny was just a minor slip-up, but thought it was good role-play for Deborah to slip up like that. She's still new to the telepath thing, and it gives Sunny a bit more incentive to open up to someone - she already knows his name, after all.)

"It's something to work on," Sunny agreed. For the both of them, he thought quietly. He needed to learn how to guard his thoughts somehow (despite how impossible the task sounded) if only to retain privacy in silence but also in case Deborah wasn't the only telepath around. But for Deborah, the problem wasn't just with keeping herself from reading minds unintentionally. It was with remembering what she learned from people's words/actions, and what she learned from their minds. "I don't know if you plan to be like Khemis, or if you want to keep your powers a secret. Either way, slip-ups like that can be dangerous for you. For all of us."

Sunny sighed, but there was still a smile on his face, hidden by the mask yet apparent in his voice and mannerisms. "I guess we're all still learning how to handle these strange new circumstances. Helping each other out — that's just the best way I know how to do it. So, yeah! I'd love to help you learn how to handle your powers. Or to just fly, if you want, that is. Up to you, really, you know." He cleared his throat, feeling a little embarrassed by the sudden ramble of enthusiasm. "Right, so, I think that's enough random circling to throw off any onlookers, best get you home, miss."

Spotting the penthouse terrace Deborah said to drop her off at, Sunny realized that she lived very close to Millennium Park. No wonder she'd picked it as the meeting point - it was both recognizable and close to home. "We're going to accelerate and then decelerate very rapidly to conceal where I'm dropping you off, so I recommend you hold tight and close your eyes." he advised as he adjusted to double-check that Deborah was safely cradled in his arms, head braced against him, and idly noted the windspeed so he could angle himself accordingly.

[jmucchiello]

"I don't know if I'll ever be ready to be like Khemis. She's very brave," Deborah says. "I just hope I have the choice to remain anonymous if I so choose. Events like today's make me worry about the future." After Sunny mentions he's going to go faster, she says, "I'll try not to yell 'wheeeeee' in your ear."

[kenmadragon]

"Go ahead, I won't mind. Did pretty much just that on my first few flights," Sunny laughed, though he too still worried about the future, and his ability to maintain a secret identity. "Still, brace yourself."

Accelerating wouldn't feel much different from what Sunny had already been doing while flying around - just faster and more wind rushing around the two of 'em. The sudden deceleration, though, that's where Sunny was more careful about ensuring Deborah was still safely secure against his chest and not getting whipped about by him putting on the brakes right as they reached Deborah's apartment.

...Deborah seriously swanky apartment, with it's own terrace and everything. Wow, when she told him she lived in this condo tower, Sunny was expecting someplace nice, but the reality surpassed the expectations. Made him feel a little bit self-conscious about the state of his own apartment (plain and lived-in), considering how neat and well-decorated her home seemed to be from what little he could see through the glass windows and doors.

"Well, we're here," Sunny said, a little awkwardly while floating over the railing and descending until he was hovering mere inches above the terrace floor. "Nice place. You alright? Deceleration didn't give your head a spin?"