[MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Tony Jones
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Tony Jones »

"Because you seem too pleased and amused by all this, by what Harold did, to make me think your motivations are entirely benevolent," replies Khemis with a sigh. "At best you are maybe a troll of some kind."

"But you seem to want chaos and trouble between Sunstormers and normal people. To stir Sunstormers into causing trouble and violence. Are they all you mean when you say 'people', or is it all humans?"

"You have not hurt me personally, but it's not all about me. It's about hurting the world, about hurting society, all of that. All of us being in it together, whether Sunstormer or not. It may not be perfect, but bringing it all down in fire is not the way to go!"
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Shadowmask wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:37 pm Helen suppressed the feeling of revulsion and the urge to vomit as she stared at the strange fungus. She made the sign of the cross over her chest and reluctantly moved closer to Dupont's door.

Unless this spread of mold was fairly recent, there was no way in hell that no one didn't notice it before.

Great, now I'm pest control. Should call headquarters in for a SWAT team armed either with bug spray or flamethrowers.

Avoiding the growths as much as she could, Helen carefully knocked on the part of the door that isn't infected.

"Hello? Police. Everything okay in there?" she said crisply, showing her badge at the peephole.
" What do you want?" comes the response after a moment's pause. The voice sounds deep, raspy and somewhat mumbled as if the person had a speech impediment.
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Tony Jones wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 11:07 pm "Because you seem too pleased and amused by all this, by what Harold did, to make me think your motivations are entirely benevolent," replies Khemis with a sigh. "At best you are maybe a troll of some kind."

"But you seem to want chaos and trouble between Sunstormers and normal people. To stir Sunstormers into causing trouble and violence. Are they all you mean when you say 'people', or is it all humans?"

"You have not hurt me personally, but it's not all about me. It's about hurting the world, about hurting society, all of that. All of us being in it together, whether Sunstormer or not. It may not be perfect, but bringing it all down in fire is not the way to go!"
" So, from your...spirited speech, I guess you do not want my help, then?" Nemesis asks, shrugging. " The choice is yours. But note that things are rarely so clear-cut."
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Shadowmask
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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"You have a mushroom colony literally growing outside your door and you're asking me what i want? I know rent control is a thing and all but does the super know about this? If you don't want to open the door, it's your prerogative. But it is just probable cause for me to come back with a warrant. You're gonna open the door or not?" Helen answered in a patient tone, though admittedly it was rather hard being exactly calm and patient given the creepy growing stuff around the doorway.
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Shadowmask wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 4:11 pm "You have a mushroom colony literally growing outside your door and you're asking me what i want? I know rent control is a thing and all but does the super know about this? If you don't want to open the door, it's your prerogative. But it is just probable cause for me to come back with a warrant. You're gonna open the door or not?" Helen answered in a patient tone, though admittedly it was rather hard being exactly calm and patient given the creepy growing stuff around the doorway.
" They're not mushrooms", comes the response. " And not a health risk. I'm a 'stormer and can control them. See?"
On cue, the thing on the doorframe wilts away to nothing within seconds.
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Tony Jones
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Neo-Paladin wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 8:42 am "So, from your...spirited speech, I guess you do not want my help, then?" Nemesis asks, shrugging. "The choice is yours. But note that things are rarely so clear-cut."
"I'm sure they're not!" replies Khemis. "And thanks, but no thanks for the offer of help..."
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Tony Jones wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 7:30 pm
Neo-Paladin wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 8:42 am "So, from your...spirited speech, I guess you do not want my help, then?" Nemesis asks, shrugging. "The choice is yours. But note that things are rarely so clear-cut."
"I'm sure they're not!" replies Khemis. "And thanks, but no thanks for the offer of help..."
Nemesis shrugs. " Your choice. You do not mind me staying around to watch you work, do you?"
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Shadowmask
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Helen was not entirely reassured by the sudden disappearance of the growths. Why didn't he react to this sooner?

"Okay, so your power is based on instinct or reflex, like muscles or something? Must be a pain when you're sleeping or consciously occupied otherwise it will grow unchecked. So like, your neighbors have to remind you every five minutes whenever they need to get through the hallway? And why am i even having a conversation in front of a closed door? Are you gonna open or not?"
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by kenmadragon »

Neo-Paladin wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 8:52 am //You all okay?
Tony Jones wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 9:36 am OOC: I'm waiting for Sunny and Nemesis to respond!
OOC: Sorry, been a weird week. Totally thought I had already done this! Remembered writing up a whole post about it... but it's not here and I can't for the life of me remember whether I actually typed it out or just dreamed that I had... :oops:

jmucchiello wrote: Sat Jan 21, 2023 3:48 pm Deborah mutes the phone and says to Sunny. "I know you doubt Nemesis is a real person. But, that flip would be signs of serious mental instability if she isn't engaging with an actual separate person. She obviously went from speaking to us to speaking with someone else. It doesn't help if we can't hear the answer."
Sunny had a complicated expression on his face as Deborah voiced his thoughts rather succinctly. "We all have problems, Deborah. Our bodies, our minds, they were all modified by the Sunstorm to give us our new abilities. You now have the ability to reach into people's minds and could violate the privacy of their minds by accident when these changes were new, remember? My body was altered in ways I still don't understand, and sure, I love my new gifts, but I'm also terrified that if I go home to my folks, my mom wouldn't be able to recognize me. Khemis... her body went through changes too, but hers made her visibly inhuman, unable to interact with normal people without having to cover herself. Our abilities already mark us as 'Other' in the eyes of baseline humanity. Hers, more so than ours." In all honesty, he felt sorry for Khemis. No matter how elated he was about his powers, Sunny couldn't deny that they also caused him problems that would never have existed in a world before the Sunstorm. It felt as if he had drawn from the super-power lottery and gotten an excellent draw... but Khemis had gotten the short-straw. Her body may have been durable and stretchy and able to warp light around herself in weird ways, but it also couldn't pass as human in the slightest. The color and texture was all wrong. Even her figure was ever so slightly off, with the tendril-hair that didn't move like hair should, and the bend of her joints that articulated with a fluidity unseen in homo sapiens. While wearing a burqa, this was all unnoticeable, but without it...

"Given Khemis' religious background and beliefs, living in a place as hypocritical as modern America, is it wrong to think that this 'Nemesis' might actually be a figment of her own creation? An enigmatic figure that exists in darkness that can be blamed for the chaos and persecution she may face in the future, or see in the world around her? An explanation to make sense of the senseless? A figure to represent darkness so that she knows how to choose the light?"

Shaking his head wearily, Sunny sighed. "But. I suppose I can give her the benefit of the doubt. With my eyes, I can see in energy wavelengths that normal eyes cannot. Over the last month, that ability has developed somewhat, even when I don't focus my power upon my senses. There's this... cosmic radiation in the world, something like stellar energy, but not. And it concentrates around Sunstormers, and is leftover by our powers. I don't think any mundane technology would be able to pick it up -- the radiation is incredibly subtle... but I can see it. And if I focus, I might be able to tell who the energy belongs to. Maybe, if Khemis is right and this 'Nemesis' does exist... Maybe I'll be able to spot some trace of energy around Khemis that doesn't belong to her."

And so Sunny did. He focused his powers upon his eyes and ears, straining them to see into the unseen, to perceive the world of energy all around him, in wavelengths that went beyond human perception to understand colors that could not be seen with the naked eye but were understood by his senses as pure understanding and realization. And there it was, the background radiation of stars that had pervaded the world since Sunny had opened his eyes to it, knowing that was the power of the Sunstorm -- the cosmic flow of energy that every Sunstormer seemed to carry with them internally like the emanation of a mighty star. And each Sunstormer had a feeling to that energy that seemed almost unique, as far as Sunny could tell (though his experience was fairly limited in this regard).

Sunny could not see Khemis. Somehow, she just blended into her own cloud of radiation, making her position indistinct to his eyes. He could tell she was somewhere in a massive cloud of invisible power that existed because Khemis existed, just the same as Sunny and Deborah existed. She was speaking to someone and he could hear her, even from as far away as she was despite the phone being muted. And she was talking to someone. The sound of Khemis' voice was being projected, but he couldn't tell from where. So he tried to look around, see what she was talking at.

He expected her to be talking to nothing. He almost missed it.

But... there was something there. A wisp of energy, hovering right on the edges of the cloud of energy that Khemis seemed to give off that distorted light ever so subtly that she could not be seen by even Sunny's eyes. It was... strange. And unique. It was there, the power of the empyreal sun, a fragment leftover by that global calamity, and it was right next to Khemis... but it did not belong to her.

"Sonnuva..." Sunny swore under breath, feeling a shiver run down his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck and across his arms rising in horrified realization. It was an echo, not a true presence. It was small, tiny compared to the presence of Khemis herself, and felt more like an emanation reaching out across the ether -- a tendril of power that was stretching out to touch the world from some other realm of existence, or a cup-and-string speaker whose tether traversed through dimensions unseen. It was a power of the Sunstorm, he knew for certain, and it was real. He was seeing it with his own eyes, and if Sunny doubted them, then he himself was hallucinating too!

"...I take it back. There's something there, and I... I have no goddamn clue what the hell it is, but there's definitely something there. It's... I..." he stammered, struggling to explain what he was seeing, what he was feeling from the sight of that wisp of energy. "What the hell is that?"
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Tony Jones
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Neo-Paladin wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 8:46 am Nemesis shrugs. "Your choice. You do not mind me staying around to watch you work, do you?"
Khemis rolls her eyes. "I'm not sure I could even notice if you did if you chose to hide it from me! But no, carry on if you like!"
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Tony Jones wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 7:41 pm
Neo-Paladin wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 8:46 am Nemesis shrugs. "Your choice. You do not mind me staying around to watch you work, do you?"
Khemis rolls her eyes. "I'm not sure I could even notice if you did if you chose to hide it from me! But no, carry on if you like!"
Nemesis steps back, but remains present...
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

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Shadowmask wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 4:00 pm Helen was not entirely reassured by the sudden disappearance of the growths. Why didn't he react to this sooner?

"Okay, so your power is based on instinct or reflex, like muscles or something? Must be a pain when you're sleeping or consciously occupied otherwise it will grow unchecked. So like, your neighbors have to remind you every five minutes whenever they need to get through the hallway? And why am i even having a conversation in front of a closed door? Are you gonna open or not?"
" Not a reflex. I just like to know what's going on out there. These things are my senses. I am in full control, believe me. Now...what do you want? I didn't commit any crimes so I doubt you'd get a warrant. Last time I checked, being a 'stormer isn't illegal. So either tell me why you're here or fuck off!"
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by jmucchiello »

"So, she isn't crazy, you're saying?" Deborah says. She unmutes the phone. "Good. What do we do with that information? She knows we are here, why we are here, and can guess what we are up to. Unless we are planning to abandon our plans, this mystery person doesn't matter."
Last edited by jmucchiello on Tue Feb 07, 2023 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Tony Jones
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by Tony Jones »

OOC: Has Deborah left the phone muted or can Khemis hear this? And what Sunny said?
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Re: [MM3]Sunstormers IC

Post by jmucchiello »

OOC: Muted for the first sentence. Updated above.
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