I got out of bed for this? (Featuring Lisa Quentin)

[Cannonshop]

(warning: Third Person POV to follow.)

Inside...

Cindy Quentin glared at Doug every time she looked at him.  Moira found herself in a difficult position.  She didn't blame O'Ryan for her jail time-the 'deal' offered by the ATF had been riven with flaws and he'd done his sworn duty revealing every single one of them.  Her lawyer had been behind that, exploiting her momentary ignorance and emotional upset to save her husband at her expense.

O'Ryan was just like a machine, in her eyes-input, output.  garbage in, garbage out.  The hint of a soul he was showing tonight? she attributed that to his having hit a limit.

but even Moira could see that Cindy wanted nothing so much, as to open Doug O'Ryan from throat to crotch like a steer in the slaughter house.

"Uh, Cindy? can you come help me out in the kitchen for a moment?" Moira asked.

"Sure." Cindy got up, looking like an older, redder-haired version of Lisa, unlike Margot, who looked nothing like either of them except in the eyes.

once in the kitchen, away from the living room, Moira turned to her.

"Look, I don't like having the man who sent me to prison here either." Moira said, "but damned if you can't be civil, ma'am, we need him."

Cindy sighed, "I'm aware.  I'm also aware of what that man cost Lisa...and I guess I hate him more than either one of you."

"you were close?"

"With Nicole? hardly. she was thirteen when I was born." Cindy said, "Margot was closer to her than I was...hell, I was five when she fell in with Morgause's little cult in Oregon."

"and Lisa?"

"I guess in a way, I replaced her mom for most of her life." Cindy stated,  "Mom was getting sick a lot, and Dad...well, he was getting sick a lot too, so for  a while there, I was more like her big sister than her aunt, and then more like her mom than her mother was."

"hard to raise kids from a cell, I suppose."

"Yeah." Cindy said, "I tried.  I got her to stop dealing dope in her sophmore year, I wasn't as successful with Nikki though...and she went to prison, dad was on his way out and mom was gone, so I guess..." Cindy shrugged.  "I know it's not fair.  as Margot would say, 'not christian', but we're allying with the enemy against a bigger enemy.  Moira, you have kids?"

"Not directly. Phoebe's probably the closest I've come-Hector didn't want kids, and I'm kind of glad the way things worked out." Moira confessed, "I imagine it was hard on you both."

"When I was Seventeen, Lisa...well, she was eleven, and I get a call from the school." Cindy takes a cup of hot cider from Moira, and blows on it.  "Lisa had been having a hard year that year.  It wasn't a secret where her mom was, and some of the kids at school, they can be pretty savage.  she was bleeding in the principal's office, and the kids who did it to her? they were in the Nurse's office, with bruises.  they'd tried to force a smaller boy, one of the few who were her friends, to eat a piece of horse manure, and she'd intervened.  put a seventh grader on his knees and bruised up two townie girls pretty badly, and one of them pulled out a two inch strip of her scalp...and she was in the principal's office being disciplined for bullying while the kids who did that to her? were getting lollipops from the school nurse."

"What happened?"

"I raised merry hell and leveraged every nasty rumour about my family I grew up with, scared Mister Figgins so badly he took a month sabbattical and transferred to another district." Cindy said quietly.  "My family, Miss Slohcin, have a reputation back home, and i've had to live it down my whole life, and so has Lisa.  we're not exactly 'the right kind of folks' according to some...and some of that, is because of the O'Ryans."

Cindy laughed a little, "Of course, things change, I run a business outside of town, my own daughter's on the honor roll and my son is popular at school with everyone, but that's years of working to get rid of the family's reputation...and now, I'm reminded of all that by being in the room with that man..." she sipped her cup, waiting.

"will it work?" Moira asked.

"You got deputized, Moira, you tell me?"  Cindy shrugged, "We'll make it work out...but I don't see this peace as something permanent.  Even if Doug is as straight as they come, he's got a whole mob of relatives who aren't straight, just rich, and power-hungry."

"can you be civil then? I don't need a bad example being set for Phoebe."

"I can be civil." Cindy acknowledged. 

[Cannonshop]

[more third person stuff, sorry guys...]

***

"So...Judah? that's not your birth name is it?" Doug asked.

"No. Not my birth name." Judah said, "It's good enough though, since it's the name my bank account and W-2 are filed under."

"You're...'Mister Wizard', wow, we all thought you'd be older." O'Ryan said, "Hard to believe you're still a teenager."

"Yeah, well, I actually do have some training in relevant fields." Judah admitted, "I've even gotten some experience down south before coming to Washington State."

"Vigilante work?"

"Hero work." Judah said, "I worked with a sherriff's department, dealing with some crises they couldn't, even arranged a few arrests of gang members, but never tried to arrest anyone myself."

"So you're an investigator?"

"I do some, heck, sir, I do most of the investigation.  Find the targets, support the team in taking them down.  Petra does some of it too."

"and you're...?"

"Countermeasure." Petra said, "And yes, I'm very camera-shy, and won't make headlines with speeches."

"I don't want deputies that do. That's the Governor's thing, trotting out Monroe like a trained circus monkey when he should be allowed to do his damn job.  I swear, half MY job has been keeping the cronies in Olympia from making him a damn cereal box.  If I'd known how much of this job was politicking, I probably wouldn't have run."

"You've run three times, sir." Judah observed.

"Yeah, because without the politicking, the Department would have turned into something out of your worst nightmares..if it even worked at all.  My first year in office I fired eleven State Attorneys and disciplined fifteen others.  my second term, I got to prosecute four more of my own staff because of what they were doing on the side."

"Yikes."

"Scary, isn't it?  Power attracts corrupt people, just like it corrupts honest people." O'Ryan lectured, "it starts with a compromise-'oh, we can let this one go to get a bigger fish', or 'we can just not tell anyone that wiretap was before the warrant'...and before you know it, you're dirty, you become a threat to the public you're sworn to protect."

"Moira's case."

"I was overruled by a senior federal attorney, seems Hector was a confidential informant for the FBI and they wanted to protect him, but the ATF still wanted a skin to hang on the wall because of budget reviews. it was enough to sour me on Federal service entirely, I ran for office almost as soon as I could register to get some kind of control over the cases I handled."

"Would you have done it differently?" Petra asked.

"If I'd been lead on the case? hells yes. I wouldn't have let Throckmorton offer that plea-deal to her in the first place, and the FBI could get their intel on the russian mob from a prison cell.  I hated that case."

"You argued it pretty strongly for someone who hated it." Judah said, "I've seen clips."

"I won't ask you where you got those...but it's the job, when you take it, you're obligated to fight hard for client, even when you find the case...objectionable.  Moira's going to need a good lawyer, Phoebe Keene is still a ward of the state, and she's a felon. If she wants to keep custody when this is over, the girl's going to have to go to school, and the home will have to be shown to be stable."

"Do you have someone in mind?" Judah asked, reading the man as an absolutist that Webb would have approved of.

"Feenie. I've lost cases to that man, even slam-dunk cases. he's an animal in the courtroom and he does his homework...but he's not cheap."

"You had to compromise your principles tonight." Judah observed.

"Yes, yes I did. and I'm terrified of compromising them more." O'Ryan told him, "but it's this, or sacrifice them entirely and collaboration with the invaders...I guess I have my price worked out now."

"It's a good price." Judah encouraged, "It's good and high.  it takes an alien invasion to get you to back off even a little, that's a good price."

"Well...we'll see." Doug admitted.  "It may be too cheap a price at twice the cost."

[Cannonshop]

[now, back to Lisa's point of view...]

They're being civil when i come back in.  Paul was a good shoulder to cry on, and it's a little weird that I feel better now that it's out.

geez, Paul...Why does he do that?

They're being civil, when it felt like there was about to be a screaming match when I walked outside.

"We've got a plan?" I ask.

"We have the start of a plan." Judah answers.

"Good...something to get out in the air then." and I plant my feet shoulder width apart.  "We all swore an oath today, but some of us...and some of the people who are going to be on the other side, swore a variation of that oath before.  to defend, and uphold the Constitution of the United States against enemies both foreign and domestic."

"We have both foreign, and domestic enemies." Judah puts it together.

"Right.  We will have to deal with both, but we can do that the same way a small child eats an elephant."

"One bite at a time?" Phoebe asks.

"Exactly, one bite at a time...but first, how're we going to eat the first Elephant, Judah? because by my count, there are two."

"Three." Moira says, "There's the Alien Elephant, there's the State Elephant, and then, there's the Federal Elephant."

"We'll come to that if we survive the first two."  Aunt Cindy states.

"Alright, so...allocation of assets."  Judah says, "We've got a rough text for the challenge to the Wolf Clan, Paul, I need you to review it and see if we've missed any key details that a Clanner lawyer might wiggle out of...and there's the actual fight.  Do we know where we want to hold it?"

"If you choose the location, they can choose the method." Paul interjects.

"I guess that's a consideration."  I note, "We let them choose methods, they might insist on using that warship in orbit."

"I think I might have a way to deal with that." Phoebe says, "with a little time..."

"We don't have time.  is there a way to neutralize it?"

"Will be unlikely to be necessary, Lisa." Paul says, "It would be gross dishonor to bid a warship against someone without the ability to fight in space, a bid like that could unseat Star Colonel Katya Kerensky, as it would be an admission that Clan Wolf warriors are insufficient to face...one two, three..four...five opponents on the ground without so much as a battlemech between them."

"Five?"

"You do NOT seriously expect me to sit this out!" Paul scoffed.

"You don't have powers."

"I can fix that." Phoebe said.

we all look at her.

"Seriously, I can fix that." she says, "I've got two prototypes in work, it's not a walking tank, but it's decent armor and one of them has real guns...at least, as real as we can manage on the scale we saw during the landings."

"Will it fit?" I ask.

"I can make it fit, the added volume will actually help with some of the problems I've run into.  The Mark Four suit's a little too big for me anyway-and I could make it smaller, but...then I can't fit the goodies."

"okay, so five of us, that leaves everyoen else..."

"to start dealing with eating the rest of the elephant." Margot states, "Sis, did you bring the rifles?"

"I did." Cindy said, "They're even cleaned and the ammunition's good, I tested a batch before packing up."

"I-"

"It's small unit stuff, Lisa." Margot tells me as if I'm a kid.  "We're going to secure certain...persons for future prosecution, and to deny the enemy assets."

"it's been years, Margot.  Hell, I'm not sure-"

"It's a war, they sided with the enemy." Doug speaks up, "it's a war...god.  I'll help. It's been decades since I marched but once upon a time I was a half-decent Ell-Tee in the national guard, and some of the vets you brought in can sharpen me up-we're in this, we're in it."

"objective: We're going to stop the conquest of our home." I state, "Typically unsupported Guerillas lose fights like this, do we have a strategy to win this?"

[Cannonshop]

It's an election year.  I don't know who suggested it, but the Governor's re-election campaign is holding rallies in spite of everything...notably attended only by the press, the Wolves, and a few of her diehards.

it's a good place to issue a challenge, and we're running out of time.  Baba Yaga said ten days, we've burned up seven so far.

Details, however, are important.  Ernest is with me and so is Paul in his 'brand new mechsuit'.

he barely had time to learn how it works before strapping in.

Judah's outside Safeco field, monitoring things with Phoebe, and Petra's somewhere ahead of us as we walk up to the ticket door.

"Three please."

yes, I just said that.  Here's what the minimum-wage ticket guy is looking at:

Me, in a garish, red-white-and-blue uncle sam suit minus the powdered wig and fake beard, carrying a swagger stick, while Paul looks like the love child of a gorilla and a 1972 volkswagen beetle, and Ernie's wearing a cheap looking leather bomber jacket that was last fashionable with Top gun.

and I'm laying down the ticket price in dollar bills.

Dude takes the money without a word, and gives us our tickets.

we walk in, getting looks from vendors and Safeco staffers, and then, hairy-eyeball from a pair of Elementals in armor at the general admission entrance.

"Hi Fellas!" I give 'em a big, wide grin, then tip my john-lennon-style sunglasses, "Are we being good citizens today?"

This gets them leveling their laser-arms at me, and I'm pretty sure they're calling for instructions.

"I'll save you the trouble, boys and girls..boys? girls? so hard to tell in those armored shells...Hi.  I'm Lisa, take me to your leader.  Auntie Columbia wants to have a chat with the bitch in chief."

[Euphonium]

OK, that's this universe's Iron Man and Captain America but I don't know Marvel well enough to place Ernie 

[monbvol]

There are a couple I can think of that are possibles but I'm not sure.

Wolverine liked his leather jackets from what I remember but not super sure if he liked bomber style.

Jubilee I remember in the cartoon was presented with leather jackets as part of her getup.

Almost certainly forgetting others from Marvel.

If DC is on the table well, there's way too many possibilities there.

[BATTLEMASTER]

Ernie as Gambit?

[LightGuard]

Ernie as Gambit?

Makes the most sense with his plasma, though by the same token Jubilee's power set is closest.

[idea weenie]

Makes the most sense with his plasma, though by the same token Jubilee's power set is closest.

If Ernie is tossing plasma directly from his hands, Jubilee is the best match.  IIRC Gambit energizes objects and throws those objects

From the 1980s cartoon Jubilee normally wore red shades, yellow jacket, pink/red shirt, blue shorts, blue boots

[LightGuard]

From the 1980s cartoon Jubilee normally wore red shades, yellow jacket, pink/red shirt, blue shorts, blue boots

I still remember. My eyes still bleed thinking about it.

[Cannonshop]

Theater. It's amazing what you can get people to do, if you apply enough raw gumption mixed with a loud enough presentation.

"That...is the silliest uniform I have ever seen-and I have seen what Cloud Cobras wear."  Katya Kerensky meets me right on stage, like she's been expecting this.

Well, maybe she has?  We're playing their playbook, maybe they expected this?

"It' not a uniform." I tell her, "It's a costume.  Big difference, I'm no longer active service in the United States Marine Corps, I won't disgrace that uniform for this, as we have a law, passed constitutionally, in the United States, called Posse Comitatus, it states that the military may not be used for domestic enforcement...but I also have a deputization from the Washington State Department of Justice, under a constitutionally passed law.  Do you recognize the common thread here, Ma'am?"

I point at Governor Gregory, "We swore an oath, and it didn't end when our service terms ended.  To uphold and defend the constitution.  Constitutionally, the President can not surrender a sovereign state, and under Washington's constitution, neither can a sitting executive."  I level my eyes up at Katya, "Your land claim is illegitimate.  even with a collaborator who dumped out her honor and broke her oaths of office backing you, even with men who've forgotten their oaths to the nation as a whole going supine and giving you what you claim to want, it is illegitimate.  There is no treaty, no agreement has been signed, nothing ratified in the United States Senate, you are just invaders, and you should go."

"Who will make us?"

"I will.  If I fail, others will follow."  I tell her, "This isn't just about land, it's not just about laws, or even lives.  this is about America bitch, you can surrender, you can leave, or I can force the issue and make you wish you had."

"And what claim do you have to standing to make this challenge?" Katya looks a little less arrogant, a little craftier.

"I'm just the next one in the chute, you proved you can catch our officials with their pants down, but you just don't seem to understand why those officials walk softly when it comes to the people of this state, and this nation.  Thomas Jefferson said 'The roots of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants'.  I'm willing to bleed, are you?  I challenge your clan to a trial of refusal, and to that end, I will state, Myself, and a handful of others, against your best, wherever you want it, with whatever gear you want to bring, and when it's over, you'll make reparations to the families of the people you killed, you will hand over your prisoners you have taken, in good health, and you will leave after repairing the damage you have done."

[BATTLEMASTER]

I hope it doesn't become space combat.  Sure, Lisa is invincible on Terra, but I'm not sure she can survive in a vacuum.  Maybe she can drown?

[Cannonshop]

"You can not hope to defeat us alone, even with your...notable durability, Miss Quentin."  Katya said, "it is simply not possible-you lack the numbers."

"I'm off my meds, what's it to you if I lose?" I ask her, "The way I see it, you lose if I win, and if you think that's impossible? you lose nothing, not even a chance at a shot at someone tougher.  Captain Republic maybe, or maybe the Canadians, I already know Baba Yaga spanked your asses.  It was even on youtube.  Your whole dogma is based on superiority, and I'm bush-league, but you have to beat the bush league contenders before you get to claim that title of baddest ass on the block...so, where are we doing this?"

"What forces are you bringing?" Katya's tone is like an instructor admonishing a student.  "You alone would be diverting-but hardly worthy-we have defeated an army here."

"My army?  Tinsmith, Plasmord, The Adjutant here-he's in the armor, Countermeasure, and Brujallero, aka 'Mister Wizard'.  Your pet politician here can give you files on three of them, Plasmord's new and probably going to get a better name once the paperwork clears, and you don't need to know anything about The Adjutant unless or until you've actually won, except that he knows your moves and we filled out his immigration papers last night.  He'll probably get expedited citizenship when it's over, but what should really stick in your craw, Star Colonel, is that he recognized he had a choice, and he chose our side over yours."

"Ah...a defector. Lovely."  Katya actually looked satisfied with this-they're playing some kind of game, and I don't understand the rules.  "I will include our own defector, Warrior Fillip, known as The Seahawk will be included in our bid."

"that's it?" I ask.  "That's your counter? a football player??"

should I have expected anything different?  She's light on this because she isn't taking it seriously.

I have to shake her somehow. make this serious.  "So you killed Monroe?"

"He refuses to adapt." she tells me, "Along with the eco-terrorist."

"I'll take 'em off your hands right now." I tell her, "Or you can hand them over after we've handed you your asses."

dammit, Monroe's an ****** and he's been a constant pain in my ass since I was six, but he's our ******, and I think Cindy might appreciate getting him back...

"I will commit one full battle cluster." she seems to have decided, "We will conduct the trial on the Yakima Proving Range in forty eight hours."

"Bargained and done." I tell her.  "thank you for your time, Star Colonel, I'll see myself out."

"LISA!! One thing for you to consider, do you know what your government was poisoning you with?"

"Pretty sure I do, Star Colonel...I've been clearer the last six days than I've been in my entire life.  It doesn't change anything.  Governments change, America Endures.  I will not see another situation where we let our leaders bargain our future to newcomers bringing beads and plague-blankets.  The precedent is a shameful one, and I will not permit that to happen again.  I'll see you on tuesday, bring your lunch money and a sack lunch." 

They actually let us walk out. Okay, Baba, see? I'm doing something about the problem, don't send the storms.

***

Ernie speaks first, "You said that was a dumb name."  we're walking out past concessions, and the Elementals are letting us just walk away.

"I was grasping, I also said it wasn't finalized." I tell him,   "When it's over, you can pick something cool sounding okay?"

"I'm kinda worried about The Seahawk, he can do some serious damage with real weapons, and they'll probably give them to him."

"Judah will have a plan." I state, "I'm more worried about what a 'full battle cluster' looks like for the fight, she picked Yakima because it's pretty safe bet they'll use their idea of military grade firepower...and it suggests she thinks the US Government isn't going to interfere.  It's not a good thing, if they're already looking east across the Cascades."

[BATTLEMASTER]

I'm not sure I understand the batchall here. The location was chosen by the Star Colonel, but what about the method of combat?     It seems like that was glazed over unless there's something I'm missing.  It went from location to bidding forces, initiated by the Clan.

[Cannonshop]

I'm not sure I understand the batchall here. The location was chosen by the Star Colonel, but what about the method of combat?     It seems like that was glazed over unless there's something I'm missing.  It went from location to bidding forces, initiated by the Clan.

With superpowers being innate, you don't bid unaugmented (when you don't have them).

[Cannonshop]

"people are going to start asking whose side you're on, Lisa."  Aunt Cindy's driving.  It's nice being able to sit in the passenger seat while someone else-who isn't a maniac, is driving.

"Side?"

"You hit a lot of divisive political notes-brought up native rights, brought up the expected flag-waving, managed to do both of them at the same time..."  she turns us onto 2 eastbound out of Lake Stevens. 

"I'm not part of that." I tell her, "******, I'm a mental patient, I'm not even allowed to vote."

she reaches down and turns on the radio to...the radio.

for the next ten minutes I listen to KUOW as two professors argue whether I'm a virtuous leftist, or a raving fascist.

I reach for the knob to turn it off.  "That's not...wow. for real?"

"it's for real." she tells me,  "gotta remember, Lisa, there are people whose whole life is that schtick, and you interrupted the rally of a sitting governor, dressed up like a female Uncle SAM...and got away with it."

"Only, not really, right?"

"Right.  You remember when you told me you wanted to keep a low profile for...like...ever?  right after you came back and right before you disappeared into Portland?"

"yeah..."

"Well, congratulations, you're a public figure now, and it's political, which means people are going to start mentally assigning whether you're part of their politics, or part of their enemy's politics."

"Huh."

I didn't think about it.  I could've used anything, I could've used bondage gear and it lays out in front of me mentally-they'd still be arguing the same things, only with creepy sex-fetish overtones.

which mental image isn't helped as one of the radio guests starts openly speculating whether I'm a Lesbian because of course they will, they're pundits and they need to sound important to themselves.

she mercifully turns it to a music station, without saying a word.

"You did that to me for a reason." I'm not ready to be quiet yet.

"As many fights as I get into with Margot, she's right.  You need a filter with the public.  You'll need to make speeches, win or lose, and people are going to be on you for a while, win or lose...and if you don't have answers for them, they're going to make up their own and you might not like those answers."

"I'll worry about it if I win the fight."  I tell my aunt, trying to sound brave.  "I can't deal with this stuff on top of that stuff."

[Cannonshop]

[perspective change-Third Person...]

"You do expect to hold victory, Star Colonel, Quiaff?"

"I bid what I bid, she declined to bid down." Katya sighed, "I expect to win, aff...and I already regret it."

"Regret?"

"Our honorable foes submitted dossier files on their...team.  The submission was unorthodox, but it was within the realm of approved methods."

she waved a hand, and the repurposed Compact Disc reader sent information to the command post's displays.

images appeared.

"Phoebe Keene, should be in a sibko, has killed more enemies than the rest combined.  Technology and powered armor designer.  a child."

a second image, "Judah Lees, the 'Mister Wizard', has unspecified mental capabilities, he would be just old enough to face his first trial of position, another child."

Third Image, "Ernest Palmer, son of an industrial magnate in the computer industry, still in high school, tested low average scores, able to generate plasma hot enough to melt endosteel through the armor plating."

the blank image is a crudely drawn happy face.  "Petra Cheron, note they do not include an image of her, 'Countermeasure' has been involved in no less than seven known incidents, and nobody knows what she looks like, a stealth operator whom claims to have infiltrated our command center twice without being detected."

the fifth image.  "Star Commander Paul, bloodline Kerensky, one of ours, ristar, tested out to Star Commander and on his first serious deployment, missing in Aberdeen...and he joined her..."

and the final image, Lisa in her Marine Dress Blues, right out of MCRD bootcamp.  "Lisa Quentin. Age 26, veteran of operations in the current series of wars, former Prisoner of War, discharged due to mental and psychological damage, punches through armor with her bare hands and apparently lacked this ability before her capture in late 2004.  attempted suicide twice on record."

"Four children, a bondsman, and a lunatic, this is what has you concerned?"

"I am not an idiot." Katya stated, "Testing on Monroe and the others captured by our forces demonstrates that 'supers' have abilities that defy logic, physics, and common sense...and these happen to be one normal..we think he remains normal...and five supremely unstable personalities with abilities our scientists can not properly determine the origin of, limits of, or suitable countermeasures for."

"And yet, you will go through with this."

"Aff, and yet, we will proceed, because Paul told them how to proceed, how to approach, how to couch the challenge with some semblance of honor, we will proceed because having them in a predictable location at a predictable time to fight an honorable trial is safer and surer than letting them drift in the wind to attack at their leisure, and because we may be able to take the survivors in, and do something with them, find a way to make that strength, those abilities part of the Clan."

"but to what end?"
 
she frowned, "Because our universe, it is gone, and we live here now...and if we can not adapt, if we can not harvest and harness that power, we will not live here for very long.  we need a secure base, we need to gain a handle on these 'super powers' and we need to form them to the benefit of Wolf Clan."

[Euphonium]

Because my knowledge of Clan terminonoly is rusty I paid a visit to Sarna and got this:

A Cluster is a Clan military formation typically consisting of between three to five Binaries and/or Trinaries, with an average of four to five Trinaries.

I doubt Clan Wolf has brought vehicles so Lisa and co are looking at facing a force of 60 to 75 points of 'mechs amd elementals plus one turned super.

It doesn't sound like they can kill Lisa, but maybe they can bury her under a sufficient mass of metal that she can't punch her way out of in useful time.

We've no feel yet for how Tinsmith & Paul's suits compare to Clan gear.

Countermeasure may be effectively untargetable but what damage can she do?

Ernie has firepower but no known ability to take a hit at this level.

Mr Wizard doesn't sound like a fighter from what we've seen of him.

It will be interesting to see what our heroes' plan for using their respective talents is.

[Cannonshop]

[now, back to Lisa! in Eastern Washington...]

"...will prefer single combat."  Paul stated, "You have one ranged attacker, massed fire is imprecise and in a trial, considered dezgra, so you can expect to face the battle cluster in one-on-one combats, serially, for each of you."

"Attrition by exhaustion." I'm thinking this idea was dumber and dumber.  "it's going to take a while."

"Aff..I mean yes, it will.  The Clan will choose single combats because it is efficient, and because the targets are...small." he tells me.  "I believe you can expect an emphasis on the Infantry forces, our definition of single combat is by point.  Five Elementals in armor is two vehicles is two aerofighters is one battlemech."

"So more like successive skirmishing, then, we've got six people with varying powers, they'll what?"

"for you, five elementals is a light workout." He noted, "For me? a bit more than I bit off during my Trial of Position-and I had a Battlemech at the time.  I can estimate that specific 'points' within a star will be detailed to deal with each of us in turn."

"small unit versus superior numbers then...and they have mobility."  Judah observes, "I think I've wargamed similar scenarios playing Battledroids at Gary's in Everett."

"Gary's?"

"Place is gone now, used to be the cultural hub of comics, wargaming and RPG's for everyone north of Lynnwood and south of Bellingham.  we didn't include the Superheroes supplemental in those games, but playing mercs against the Knights of the Sword or Galedon Shogunate usually involves taking smaller numbers of weaker units with a few special abilities.  At least these guys don't have Grav Tanks or Bolos backing them up the way that the major factions in the Battledroids game do.  Most Knights players will hit you with successive waves of their cheap stuff to soften you up, then bring out the big units once you've taken enough damage.  That looks like the strategy the Clan will use, if they're as conservative as you're saying, Paul.  what we don't have..."

Judah frowned, "is popcorn units."

"Popcorn?"

"Units that act as ablative armor, units to soak fire and damage and keep our main units from getting exha...oh..ooh.hmmm...PHOEBE!!!"

"What!!"

"How many drones can you fabricate?"

"What kind?  I'm on limited resources here, Judah!"

"Make as many as you can of whatever you can, it doesn't have to be super-effective, it just has to be noisy and visible!"

"MATERIALS!!!"

"Lisa...I need to take my technology expert shopping, is there a junkyard within a couple of hours of here?"

[DOC_Agren]

RIP Art Bell

I wonder what Coast to Coast would have been like in a world with public Super Powers

[Elmoth]

PLace countermeasure a pair of feet from Ernie and they make a good team.

[Cannonshop]

there was, in fact, a junkyard within a few miles-it used to not be a junkyard, but it's where they put the debris from the battle for Fort Lewis.

Phoebe started with a bag of black sand, only not sand, if you get my meaning.

"It's not nanotech." she told me while she set up a laptop with a low-frequency radio transmitter.  "Nano requires massive equpment to use.  These are...just handy, like having extra hands. I normally fab up a batch to make suit-repairs in the field, but they're programmable, so..."

she puts up a series of tesla coils and plugs them into a generator.

the sand gets moving.

"you invented this?" I ask her.

"Nope, Alice sent me the plans a few months ago." Phoebe tells me.

"Who's alice?"

"My on-line friend."  Phoebe shrugs.  "She sometimes helps me figure out stuff I hear from the computers, helps me turn the letters into words.  I had an idea that if radio is electromagnetic spectrum, and electricity is elecromagnetic spectrum, and I can build a generator for moving electricity as a lightning bolt, I should be able to build something that can convert RF into power.  She found a guy who could do that wayyy back in the 1920s, named Tesla, and she sent me some of his notes, they said 'Classified'."

"So your little tiny robots are powered by radio frequency? and controlled the same way?" I ask

"Duh.  they're like having extra fingers.  I'll use them to make slightly bigger remotes, and those to make bigger ones, and those we'll use to make our drones...it's going to take a few hours, you can go do something fun Lisa, watching me isn't. I've got ironclad testimony that watching me work makes people stressed out."

[Cannonshop]

Judah's picked our spot, and he's laying down a mix of agricultural iron supplement-using a riding lawn-mower with a hopper attachment.

"What's this for?" I ask him.

"the 'wizard' part of the handle isn't just for being good at low-end chemistry." he tells me.  "Runes and ritual magic are less of a drain when I have time to prep, and I doubt our opposition has much familiarity with what they call 'occult practice', I should recover before the fight if I meter this right."

"and if you don't?"

"Then I guess the EMTs are going to have an interesting morning." He shrugs, "It's easier here, more time to prepare, and I'm not doing a working designed to strip an area of manna like I had to use on that Herne."

"Okay, this isn't the first time you brought that up, what is a 'herne'?"

"Named colloquially for a Fae enforcer, Herne, the hunter, leader of the Wild Hunt, pursuit of a target unto the target's death, only when you treat it like what it is, you realize it's a ritual construct that draws extra power from its victims, while enslaving an echo of their consciousness as part of the Hunt.  someone over in Wales put the first one together before the Romans showed, and it requires some pretty nasty ingredients-including human sacrifice.  Someone here in the U.S. sent one of them after me last year after we shut down a sex trafficking ring in Bellevue, I had to lure it into an area, and keep it there until all the manna burned out of the vicinity in a zone big enough the Herne and it's hunt couldn't just step outside the ritual, it put me in intensive care for two weeks before I was healthy enough to be rescued...now there's a spot outside Woodinville where cell phones don't work, it's about a hundred yards across and the asphalt melted."

"This won't do that?"

"Nope." he shook his head, and picked up a bag to refill the hopper.  "It won't do that.  The dead zones will recover, they always do-the technique I used was first used in the Atlantean-Lemurian conflict as a means to shut down the sorceror-kings and their constructs.  What we're doing here, is just some basic manipulation of weakly interacting massive particles to shift the advantage in the ground game, a few illusions, and something to mess with minor probabilities-shift luck in our favor, I'll probably be too sick to play in the actual fight, but the rituals will work fine."

"Why does it make you sick?" I ask him, trying to grasp his brand of insane.

"Because it uses life force.  Atlantean and Lemurian rituals and arcane methods use a lot of life force...um, 'Bioelectric energy'  Since I refuse to tap into another person and kill them for juice, it comes out of me directly, and there's the backlash because reality doesn't like it when you lie to it."

"Backlash..you mean?"

"I mean backlash.  some of the powered practicioners elsewhere? they aren't just axe-crazy mass murderers, they need to do that to make their powers work, and it's addictive to have that much power.  They're like junkies, they need the 'hit' spending a life gives them.  Petra and I met rescuing a bus-load of would-be sacrifices headed for a small coven operating out of Tacoma-the same year Webb let me off the payroll.  See, they were doing the collecting down at the Gorge during a Summer of Rock tour."

"Oh jesus...how many?"

"They had eighteen kids between fifteen and seventeen in cages in a grayhound bus, three mercenaries with gear and guns, and two practicioners...we managed to get the hostages out, petra killed the mercenaries and we captured one of the practicioners.  she was using it to stay 'young and attractive' and really, didn't have a lot of grounding on combatant magic, we interrogated the bitch, dropped her off outside a sherriff's office with a compulsion tied into her head-she spilled everything they'd been doing, and wouldn't stop, even under direction from her lawyers."

"And the kids?"

"Went home." Judah shrugged, "I mean, it's obvious, right?  some of those kids had travelled from as far as ohio.  but it cost me using that juice, I was laid down for a month in the back of Petra's camper while we headed north to avoid...questions."

He finishes with the hopper, and I give him a bottle of discount-store 'sports drink' (59 cents for the half liter).  "You know who'd be great for this though?"

"Who?"

"There's a Vigilante in the southwest, Slaughtermatic, he'd be fantastic for a fight like this one...only problem is, he only focuses on powered criminals.  the guy is a mover.  Steps between shadows or through mirrors, reflective surfaces, I saw him once go after El Perrito by moving through chrome bumpers and shop windows-that was when I was in Nevada.  he'd be perfect for this fight."

"So why isn't he here?"

Judah frowned thoughtfully, "First guess?"

"sure."

"He's going after the cape who killed the President.  there were enough 'innocents' on Air Force One if you only count the flight crew to get under his skin. by contrast, Slotty would tell me 'they're normals' about the Clanners."

[Euphonium]

"Why does it make you sick?" I ask him, trying to grasp his brand of insane.

"Because it uses life force.  Atlantean and Lemurian rituals and arcane methods use a lot of life force...um, 'Bioelectric energy'  Since I refuse to tap into another person and kill them for juice, it comes out of me directly, and there's the backlash because reality doesn't like it when you lie to it."

i wonder how this brand of power use would mesh with an undying sacrifice...

[JA Baker]

i wonder how this brand of power use would mesh with an undying sacrifice...

Something tells me that trying to "rules lawyer" Eldrich Abominations might be a Bad Idea(TM)

[Euphonium]

Something tells me that trying to "rules lawyer" Eldrich Abominations might be a Bad Idea(TM)

But it could be interesting to watch from a safe distance...

...like the next solar system...

[Sir Chaos]

i wonder how this brand of power use would mesh with an undying sacrifice...

Good luck trying to cut Lisa´s throat for the blood sacrifice, I guess.

[Cannonshop]

Imagine game-day. Imagine a field chosen for being barren and unpopulated, safe to discharge the worst weapons mankind has...now imagine a gathering of thousands of people streaming into that field.

It turns out, we needed crowd control to keep the observers back.

at the first battle of Bull Run, in 1861, the opening shots of the American Civil war, civilians from the surrounding area made a day of it, going to the edges of the battlefield with picnic lunches.  Isn't that horrible?  People were so keen to see other people die, they showed up to spectate.

I sometimes wonder if humanity deserves to keep existing, and it's shit like this that makes me wonder.

Lucky for us, Valerie, my cousin, put the wrong coordinates on youtube and facebook, and that bought enough time for our army of supporters to put up fencing and talk some of the better organized groups into setting up safety bunkers-but it hemmed us in.  The Clanners know exactly where to hit, because it's the area fenced off with men carrying rifles to keep the onlookers back.


we're down to a five mile by five mile piece of the impact range.  Past that point, and civilians get hurt.

I swear this is to someone's nasty little plan.

I just don't know whose.

"Well, I wasn't going to be hiding much anyway."  The joke outfit's not a joke anymore.  Val's shown me facebook pages, and Myspace accounts, and Youtube broadcasters calling me 'Aunty Columbia', and a couple of deviantart pages including someone's attempt at 'dirty peectures' of me in the costume.

"Try this."  Phoebe's back from her shopping, and we're lucky the news choppers are being nice, because she's got her drones emplacing in our zone of defense, but somehow, she found time to make me part of an outfit.  Maybe it'll be tough enough, but our thirteen year old tech genius apparently approves of the style.

"um..."

"It's armored and self-repairing." she tells me, "you said back in Marysville that it's embarrassing to have your clothes shot off-well, it will help for a little while, maybe."

it better, it weighs twenty pounds at least.

"I didn't bring you anything." I tease her.

she grins up at me, and flashes the badge O'Ryan gave her, "You got me this, we're legit, that makes Judah and Petra happy, they're my friends so that makes me happy...besides, I made a costume for Ernie."

Oh, I have got to see this...

"cowboy, really?" I ask when I look him over.

"what's wrong with a duster, and a hat??" he asks.

"nothing. it looks good on you kid."  I dust his lapels off.  "Feel ready for this?" I ask him.

"Do I have to answer? I'm ready to shit my pants." he tells me.

"Stick to your partners, stick to the rear, you're fire support, do what Lees tells you, you'll be fine." I lie.

we're so screwed.

the Clanners don't make us wait too long.  The first group arrives in one of the ball-shaped rocket ships...

[georgiaboy]

Wonder how the Blood Magi's would feel, walking through an industrial meat slaughter house? Even if they only get .01% of the energy than from a human death, that's still a lot of energy.

[Cannonshop]

[Warning, third person POV ahead.]

She couldn't explain it to anyone but alice.  Alice understood, because they shared it-the feeling, the way machines would speak.  Phoebe never met Alice in "real", their interaction online was as close as she would ever get, she was certain-and it was richer and deeper than having to interact in meatspace, trapped in five senses.

The machines approaching called to her.  they called for violence, for vigorous motion and conclusion.  she shifted in the mark IV suit, letting her senses spread out across the networked drones, listening to Judah's orders with the fragment of weak flesh that was Phoebe when she wasn't The Armor.

coherent light and  missiles flew from the invaders.  The missiles were simple minds, she could sense their desperation, their ambition, their purpose.

she waved a hand, sending signals through wires buried in the dirt, bouncing signals from razor wire and concertina, her first wave of drones spun into action, simple devices with their own purpose.

the missiles arced into the active drones, instead of into the defensive position.

a beam of coherent light from one of the suits struck her chest, exciting her with the absorbed energies, dispersing and containing them in conduits.  she leapt at the first group, as her surviving drones crowded in on them.

Bullets struck her armor, jolting the kinetic sinks buried in the plating, feeding the capacitors on her back, giving her more energy to the flexible layers even as outer layers sheathed off.

it was glee and pleasure-motion unfettered, no declining energy here, her reserves were being topped up by their weapons fire even as she closed at speed, and what speed-both leg extenders were fully out, their electromagnetics making the perfect shock-absorbers, driving the mechanisms harder than she ever had the power before to do.

Her first foe, throwing fire at her, feeding the layers that were made to conduct and structure heat into electrical charge, just below the first layer of kinetic sinking and distorted quartz, it fed her answering shot.

the railgun was one of Alice's suggestions, but again, it ate too much power for day-to-day use, and it was too dangerous to bystanders to use regularly, but there's no bystanders here.

Phoebe could play here.  the quarter ounce of steel slug spat out of the railgun at speeds that shifted her whole suit to the side in the first shot.

the answering laser fire fried an outer layer on her right arm, forcing a shunting of power from that surface to other points in her suit.

from the outside, Phoebe didn't know that her armor-which had ferrofluid based layers as added protection and looked a bit like a mix of science fiction armor and renaissance dandy's wear, was glowing at the edges of the outer plates-the ones that hadn't been outright destroyed by the Clan Elementals' collected laser, flamer, and machine-gun fire.

She whirled, letting a chain loose from the mount on her left wrist, the weighted grapple electrified with the waste energies generated by so much firepower being pumped into the thirsty layers of the armor's structure.

"Phoebe, FALL BACK!!!" intruded into her ecstacy, and she bounded backward, a leap that landed her already in motion at fifty miles an hour.

a check behind her, she realized the five suited warriors, so much like Samas Aran in the games, were not in shape to keep playing-and it occurred to her that her fun had come at the expense of making someone hurt.

and that made her feel...kind of sad.  Not really sad.  Not like the memory she didn't want to look at did.

but kind of sad in a way she hadn't felt when she killed actual criminals.

part of her wondered why she should feel sad.  she shunted that part, and the sadness, into storage and instead, analyzed Judah's orders.

Giving the Clanners a moment to remove their wounded.  It made sense, if this is a game, the other players need a chance to re-spawn, and nobody likes a spawncamping douche.

to Phoebe, it was obviously a game, after all, it had artificial rules that limited what the players were allowed to do...

she paused and bounced to the side, as a shot from one of the Battlemechs lanced into a low hill under her feet.  "Good Game Guys!" sportsmanship is very important after all.

this, the good sportsmanship, did not stop her from feeling that machine's...nervous system.

you don't need that much ammo.

she helpfully dumped the 'mech's ammunition for the pilot at 150 meters distance with a simple gesture and act of will.

it was a good thing do do, after all, that ammo could have exploded once Judah cut loose with the weird stuff, and one should never be a poor sportsman.