Aberrant: Children of Quantum Fire - Bodies in Motion

[Karren Gaunt]

'Thanks, Butch. For that comment and the complement about my hair earlier,' she commented over the link to her sibling, Alex's little confession having cleared her head.

She fully swiveled her chair around and fixed Alex with a Look, quantum godling or no, "In that case, Sister, all the more important to see what you can do and what you can dodge before you go out to encounter Motherhunters equipted with expensive tricks that *can* kill you and Warren and Pip dead in one hit. Survival is learning what you can do in a controled setting before encountering the real thing after all, yes?"

The young metamorph didn't break eye contact with Alex, mentally sending to the ones in the Danger Room below, 'Whenever you're ready, Pip. We'll start off with your ground speed and cornering on a flat surface. Just run as fast as you can without falling off the course marked.'

[SalmonMax]

Alex rolled her eyes. Once again she found herself being lectured by someone who had no idea what they were talking about. But now, with the pressure of performing finally off, she had to admit it was kind of cute. Like a 2 year old demanding that her mom follow the same safety rules she had to. The thought of a baby Cora glaring up at her with big, oh-so-serious eyes as she lectured her with a high, piping voice broke Alex's irritation and brought out a grin, then a giggle.

You'll understand when you're immortal, hun.

"Okay, Cor. Just let me know when you're ready to start me. And throw the book at me, okay? Everything maxed. Don't hold back."

After a second she added, "On second thought, I should go last. The danger room will probably need extensive repairs and redesign after I'm done."

(OOC Note - The italics is not broadcast over the link. It's just something she's thinking to herself. )

[Courier]

Getting the joke instantly, Warren exchanged a glance with Alex and struggled not to giggle too. She knew. He knew. She knew he knew and so forth.

Warren said, "...sure. Same for me, go all out. I won't hurt anything though. So, Pip is first?"

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline sighed and turned her chair around. Whatever. Don't remember that baselines had had Divis Mal hanging their heads for several decades and probably come up with a weapon or five to deal with him. Weapons that'd work perfectly fine on one of them. A small chance, but a chance none the less.

"Fine. But no peeking at the system during your go or while I set it up like you did on your way here, Alex," her chorus responded nuetrally, hiding her frustration, "and yes, it's Pip's turn. We got here first and she needs this more than either of you."

[Maia]

Maia stood there waiting for Pip to go into motion, to better guage her newfound speed. "Whatever's going on up there has them all a little worked up."

She recognized Alex's signature, but like the others it too was massive compared to what she remembered.

[Butch_Cole]

Butch threw a sidelong glance at Warren and Alex, watching them share their private joke. Alex's eye roll was pretty much the norm for her. At times Butch tried to imagine what it was like being so far beyond the intelligence level of everyone else and felt bad for Alex. He was glad that she kept her comments to herself and only rolled her eyes, but the shared moment with Warren bothered him.

When Cora turned around in her chair, Butch put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and squeezed once gently before removing it again.

"Understood, Cora," Butch said. "Y'all got here first, so y'all go first."

Glancing at the monitor, Butch watched Pip get ready to try out some of her new abilities. He looked back at Alex and Warren. The private joke made him even more irritated. Sure, they were probably thrilled with their new abilities, so why should he begrudge them that. Still, it was annoying that nothing had happened for him and the others yet. The faster they all reached the next level the better. Their enemies would have to really watch out then. For now though, Butch had to be content with the slow progress he had made on his own. He flexed his hand into a fist once, and tried to control his anger with the slow progress nature made.

If one more of his siblings apotheosized before he did though, well, Butch wasn't quite sure how he'd react...

[Toby Lupin]

Perhaps it was a bit too soon for Butch to be thinking that. Darrik supposed that he had a good basic sense of his effects on people under calm control by now, and he could explore his abilities in the training room. An intangible figure pushing his way through the way behind the others, Darrik came through the wall and solidified himself.

"Seems I'm not the only one with a vested interested in training." He remarked with a quite vibrant voice as he observed his fellow siblings, and they had their own reactions. "And Alex," he added to his brainy sister- "Congratulations. The new looks suits you."

The young teenage male had been alluring a day before. Now his looks were impossibly transcendent, as if his appearance had optimized to a degree impossible in beauty. Of course, considering Apotheosis there was likely more under the surface, which included the simply likable charm and intense influence that he was holding back.

Click to reveal..

Tactful in use to control the Mega-Socials.

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany had taken the suggestion to stretch. And while she knew what stretches to do, she didn't work out often and was less than graceful in their execution. After repeating a few times in forgetful anxiety, Pip nodded.

Completely focused on her terror of this room, Pip didn't notice anyone arriving in the control room out of sight. That there were apotheosizes nodes up there wasn't even on her radar. Still shaking just a bit from nerves, Epiphany took a deep breath.

This was not something she wanted to do. So far as she could tell, Apotheosis hadn't hardened her body or made her invulnerable. Pip wasn't stronger and she could easily take damage, as her bruised shoulder attested. What ever changes the others might go through, for Epiphany, most of her alterations were mental. That was, of course, ignoring the insane 'likable' quality she seemed to have picked up. But she couldn't think of a use for that beyond distracting crowds of people into chasing her down and fawning over her. The prospect of which was almost paralyzingly horrifying.

But she had made one obvious physical change, she was faster. She was much faster. But knowing she was faster hadn't helped control the speed. So she agreed to train, despite her better judgement. Pip just hoped she was fast enough to dodge those stupid paint-balls, those things left welts that were not pleasant.

Finally getting herself psyched up for the course, Epiphany gave Maia a wry grin and then ran. Holding back didn't even enter her mind, she wanted to be through the course before any of those stupid robots could target her.

[Karren Gaunt]

Click to reveal..

I believe you told me Pip has mega dex three, no enhanced movement, and hyper movement 2, LL. But feel free to PM me if I'm wrong and I'll edit this.

And around and around Pip went. No traps, no tricks, no robots with their welt-raising paintballs. Not yet. This was observation and reassurance, a gentle smile gracing Coraline's lips as she filtered out the chaos of the control room and the 'oh god, another case of random Apothesis, please let him not have another god complex about it' arrival of Darrik, her fingers tapping together in time to Epiphany's blurred footfalls. She was helping her sister and nothing else mattered although Butch did rate a nod and a quick 'Come sit down next to me and help me with something' over the link.

Good, good. A solid 1000 kilometers an hour footspeed with decent cornering on the curved ends of the track. But the ground was easy. A mere two, two and half if the ground was rough, dimensions to process at once.

"Good run, Pip," she called out over the speakers, "But next we test you in the air. See those numbers I'm projecting on the walls in random squares? Those are your targets. Tag them, in order, as fast as you can without banging into the walls hard enough to break the wall *or* you. We're looking for three-dimensional control and precsion."

[SalmonMax]

Alexandra looked around and lifted an eyebrow. Her lips quirked in a smile.

"You too." She gestured at Coraline at the controls. "Cor's putting Pip through her paces. Come see the fun. Though she's being VERY velvet-gloved about the whole thing. I may have to make some robots of my own in there if she doesn't pick up the pace a bit."

Her grin was playful though, suggesting she was joking. Mostly at least.

[Butch_Cole]

Butch pulled a chair up alongside Cora, thankful for the invitation though he was unsure of what he could help her with. Frankly, it was worth it to sit down and not have to look at Darrik, who walked through the wall a moment ago. Darrik had always been quite handsome, but now he was something else entirely. Now he was something beyond any scale that Butch could have imagined.

So, now Darrik had apotheosized, too...

Butch struggled to control his anger as he sat there. Sitting next to him, Cora could feel the temperature rise in the area right around him. While he was always normally a few degrees warmer than normal human body temperature, now you could really tell. This was something Butch had inherited from his father, and it seemed most noticeable when Butch was agitated.

Butch was definitely agitated.

First it was Pip, who totally lost her shit, freaked out about the Teragen and scientists and the past, and changed into a nova who could turn everyone into simpering puddles of mushy-gushy we-love-you-and-would-do-anything-for-you types. Oh, and now she was faster and had to worry about brushing her fur or something. Then it was Warren, who apparently tossed himself into a star and found...well, Butch wasn't entirely sure. Didn't he mention something about talking to himself but another different self from the future or something like that the other day? Whatever. Alex just up and redesigned herself <snap> like that, drew up some blueprints or supersmart cave drawings, and spent some time in a magic shiny pod-thing. She came out totally gorgeous and was made of protocells or whatever she called them and could finish a submarine in five minutes AND make its powerlines superconducting. None of the others really knew it, or maybe they just thought he was a dumb ol' hick from the sticks, but Butch actually understood a good chunk of what Alex had said and he knew how freakin' awesome it was to completely alter the molecular structure of a material to make it superconducting. Now Darrik walks through the wall after doing god-knows-what to or with god-knows-who and has turned into probably the most handsome dude on the planet...ever. That after going out and having a grand old time partying it up Phoenix Room style while the rest of them sat around here on the island waiting to hear what happened in the meeting with DeVries. Not even a damn invitation to any of the others to go party in Ibiza...the jerk... All that and he gets to Apotheosize, too!

What the hell would Butch have to do to change?! Damn it, he was getting left behind and he didn't like it at all!

Sitting there, he smacked himself in the thigh, and took a deep breath. The chair shook under him.

It took all of his self-control not to shout out something unintelligible and utterly frustrated. Something like BLARGH!!! Thankfully, he still had a bit of self-control. On the monitor he watched as Pip finished up her run.

"So, what can I do to help?" he said softly to Cora.

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline could read her family well enough to know that Butch was upset but not about what precisely. And here wasn't the place or the time to have that conversation. So she returned the reaffirming squeeze she had been gifted earlier and gave him a 'talk later?' glance from the corner of her eye before she brought up another window on the screen.

It was a Danger Room program, labeled 'Phantasm Difficulty', a veritable bullet hell of flying paintballs that would saturate the air with randomized patterns of non-lethal ordinance with just enough space between shots for a human-sized figure to avoid getting turned into an impressionist painting as the floor rippled beneath them in constant waves of rising and lowering tiles and the lights flickered between pitch black and blinding intensity. There were a total of six attempts on the program, only two of which ended up with a positive score. Barely.

'Make this amazing for your poor, dumb weak sister, please?' she commented with a smile over the link, 'Preferably on the fly after they make their way into the room and aren't peaking over our shoulders. They'll still win, but maybe we'll make them burn a little juice defeating Alex's 'jungle gym' without ignoring the objective of the exercise.'

[LydaLynn]

Pip slowed to a stop as Cora spoke. Fly? In here? Swallowing hard, Epiphany looked over the layout and spotted each of the numbers. Some of them were REALLY close to walls.

So far as Pip was concerned, being fast enough to run away was the extent of what she wanted from these new powers. Well, that and the ability to get out into space on her own. Much as she liked it here, sometimes she missed the silence of the void.

But Epiphany had to grant that she might have to fly rescue, or escape from somewhere with obstacles to avoid. So far Cora had refrained from throwing anything too nasty at her, but Pip wasn't sure how long that would last. And if something were to start when she was flying . . . Her wings were delicate, and big. The whole thing was terrifying.

Trying to suppress her nerves, Pip limbered up her wings. Stretching them out and flexing them a few times, she tried to calm her mind with the simple activity. This was going to be fun . . . not at all.

[Maia]

There was a distinct tearing sound, and Maia was once again in the air. Brilliant white-feathered wings had sprout from her shoulder blades, and were now stretched out, still keeping her aloft though she wasn't moving. Her Wings were a quasiphysical representation of quantum power, there yet not. They looked Real but served no purpose, simply how her ability to fly manifest.

"Dammit there goes another one. I'm gonna learn to wear backless shirts in here." Maia waited for Epiphany to join her in the air, idly flying around, her wings flapping far slower than they would need to be to keep her aloft.

[Butch_Cole]

Butch sat with his arms crossed. When Cora returned the squeeze he gave her earlier, Butch looked up and smiled. It was a small smile, but one which showed his appreciation. There was too much to talk about now, and he wasn't really sure if he'd be able to fully articulate his frustrations. Plus he didn't really want to in front of everyone. What could he say? Sorry, I'm just pissed that Darrik was the next one to apotheosize. Why the hell are the rest of us so slow?

Instead, he merely nodded at Cora acknowledging her glance. They would talk later if they got a chance. He continued to watch the two girls in the Danger Room on the monitors in front of him, secretly hoping that they would hurry up so that he could get in there and wreck something...

[LydaLynn]

Seeing Maia tear her shirt brought a smile to Pip's face and allowed her to relax somewhat. Something as mundane as her foster sister's propensity to lose her clothes helped take her out of the fear and into the fun. With a friendly nod of companionship, she flexed her wings, the great downbeat creating a crack of sound and a rush of air as she gained altitude.

Epiphany looked at the numbers, even if it wasn't fun, she did need to train. So she took off, heading for number one. Soon her wings were struggling to keep up with her speed and Pip suddenly realized that her wings were no longer needed to keep herself airborne and were actually slowing her down. Keeping them half furled to aid in aerodynamics and maneuverability, Pip stopped flapping.

Quickly picking up speed, she managed to mostly avoid the walls . . . mostly. A few rebounds at high speed had her wincing and holding her shoulder, but Pip kept going, if a bit more slowly and cautiously, getting the hang of speed in the air. This was actually exhilarating. She could almost, almost forget she was in the danger room, training. The adrenalin coursing through her body kept Epiphany from noticing the odd way her arm hung from her shoulder, the rapidly expanding bruise and the side of her wing that was crumpled distressingly. Between her fear, her excitement, and her desire to get past her anxiety, Pip was flying through the pain. She knew it was there, but she was keeping it locked away and not paying attention to just how much she was hurting.

Click to reveal..

Compartmentalized Mind isn't always a good thing.

[Maia]

Maia noticed the odd changes in Epiphany's flight, and shook her head. The Impacts at that speed were hurting her, and she still kept going. Knowing she couldn't match the speed, something she admitted to her chagrin, She called out again.

"Epiphany, STOP!" Too late she realized Epiphany might do this by hitting the wall, again.

[LydaLynn]

Startled, Pip pulled up sharply. Luckly she had been flying low towards the number eleven and managed not to impact the ceiling as she noticed it approach. Her aerial loop would have been amusing to watch if it wasn't so obviously filled with clumsy panic.

Finally managing to right herself in the middle of the room, at a stop, Epiphany turned to Maia. Blinking, "Ah, yeah?" The feathers on the wing that had hit the wall were broken or lose, a few having already littered the floor.

It was harder to ignore the pain when she was still, but Pip gritted her teeth and waited for Maia. Instinctively, her wings stretched out to flap and keep her in place, it was then Epiphany noticed something was wrong. She could feel the odd grinding of bones and the stop in the normally fluid movement of her feathered appendages. Looking over, Maia could see the sudden green palor of Pip's face under her skin. The sick look of fear and the sudden flood of pain as realization it. She barely managed to land without another crash. But, stoic as always, Pip didn't make a sound as she slowly crumbled to her knees.

[Karren Gaunt]

Murphy had a Law, and it appeared to be applying itself with a vengance.

Coraline had gone pale at the disaster her carefully planned stage one had become in less than a dozen heartbeats worth of time, abandoning her chair and quite literally rattling every loose object in the control room with her exit as she spiraled down the stairs and out into the Danger Room proper. She got there in time to catch her sister's head and neck before they hit the ground. Her thoughts flared over the net with raw, self directed 'how could I be so stupid?' anger that made her message almost uninteliable now and threw couresy out the window.

'Warren. Butch. Warp. Medbay. Now.'

[Maia]

Maia was a heartbeat slower, and found herself envious of Cora's speed. She shunt it away, better to deal with Epiphany's situation.

"At first it wasn't bad, but as you got faster, you hurt yourself more and more. I had to get you to stop."

She looked at Cora and nodded. "She'll be allright Cora."

She regretted not stopping her sooner, but she'd been happy to see her training, not even realizing how much damage she'd been doing to herself.

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany feeling the anger and mortified that she had so ruined Cora's plans and day, knowing that was why her sister was angry, cringed. Looking over at Maia's words, she noticed the regret on her face, and again misunderstood. It would have been better if they had done this without her. They could have been having fun and she had ruined it all.

Sinking into herself, Pip turned her face away, hiding from their justified disappointment in her. In a small voice, forgetting that she wasn't suppose to apologize, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

[SalmonMax]

"Everyone just relax," Alexandra advised. She was coming down from the control room...following Coraline at a much more sedate pace. "She's not hurt that bad. We'll have her back to fighting weight in a jiff. How about it, Pip? You okay? You were pretty hard on yourself in there."

[Maia]

Maia looked at Epiphany and shook her head. "You've nothing to apologize for. You're the one who's hurt, sister. I'm mad at myself for letting you hurt yourself like this." The amount of damage she'd actually managed to do to heself made Maia cringe. "I should have stopped after the first one."

She looked at Alex and sighed. It seemed to always be like this. A second glance, and Maia sighed. Alex had gotten some major upgrades as well it seemed. She wondered who would be next, and silently hoped that nobody did anything stupid in pursuit of it.

[Butch_Cole]

No need to waste time. I'll fix her right there. Butch sent over the network.

He wasn't nearly as fast as Cora, but Butch could move pretty quick when he needed to. The innerButch was talking in the background, but it didn't have a voice or speak in a language that anyone else could understand. The lumps of glandular tissue on top of his kidneys were ready and dumped adrenaline into his blood stream. His muscles tensed, loosened, contracted, expanded. His lungs maximized oxygen intake. He ran down to the Danger Room, brushing past anyone who got in his way as gently as he could.

When he reached his sisters, Butch looked down at Pip and did a quick assessment of the situation. Sometimes Pip's...moments could get on a body's nerves, and his were kind of frayed at the moment. There were times when he wanted to grab her and shake her and tell her to toughen up and quit falling apart all the damn time. If it came down to it and they were in a life or death situation, could he trust that she wouldn't collapse from the pressure? No. Best not to think like that.

This looked closer to the bad end of the injury spectrum.

"First, enough with the apologizing, lil' soldier. Puddles of apologies don't do much good. Then again, puddles of broken bones don't do much better," Butch said, squatting down next to Pip. He put his arm around her shoulder, and reached innerButch. He opened his own energy to his sister's and tried to reach the unhurtPip inside. He felt the connection and then the juice drain that said something was working.

It could have been faster. It should have been faster. Butch felt guilty about his somewhat negative thoughts about Pip before. She couldn't help it after all. Could she? Why couldn't she? Now that she was...the next level, why not?

He felt the connection come to a halt just before she was perfectly healed.

Butch pulled away. There wasn't anything else he could do right now.

"You'll have to make do with a few minor bruises," Butch said, lifting Pip up off the ground. "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, huh, Pip?"

Butch forced himself to smile. Really, he wanted to get out of there, ashamed of his thoughts and embarrassed at the...imperfect nature of his power...

[LydaLynn]

A bit overwhelmed by everyone, Pip concentrated on keeping her 'wonder' reigned in. The last thing she needed would be if she topped her useless-puddle state with the must-love-me state. "I'm okay, I'm . . . " She paused as Butch worked his magic.

"Thank you, Butch, that's much better. I . . . I really appreciate it. Even if sometimes I wish I could go back to before the 'stronger'. I hate this, but I'm glad you all are here to help. I'm not much use right now, but I hope I can be there to help when you all have your time with this apotheosis. For all that everyone's so excited about it, it really isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Sighing and wincing ever so slightly, Epiphany gets up. She grimaces at the state of her feathers, "I . . . I sorry to worry everyone all the time. I don't mean to be such a klutz. I . . . I'm gonna stop apologizing now." The look of chagrin, doesn't leave with the end of the apologies.

Turning to Cora and Maia, "For now . . . maybe I'll just take a break. I think I'm gonna go soak in a hot spring for a bit and try not to move too much. But . . . thank you for inviting me, even if I . . . no, I'll be good."

Taking a few steps towards the exit, Pip turns back. "You know I love you all, right?"

[Toby Lupin]

"Of course," Darrik being behind the others wasn't immediately noticed but then he had the same concern as the others. "Just don't keep running from every mistake you make. If you don't have physical staying power, so be it. But if you keep retreating like this, you're going to lack the fortitude of the mind and will when it counts. Sometimes, hanging in there is better practice than you think."

[SalmonMax]

"It's not you loving us that worries me," Alex noted. "It's how you feel about yourself."

She stepped forward and held out a hand. "Come on, I'll walk you over to the infirmary before you do anything else, and figure out how far you've got left to recover"

[Courier]

Warren hovered in the background, uncertain what to do but ready to act if he could be useful. It was times like this he wished he'd picked up his mother's powers as well as her aberrations.

Originally Posted By: SalmonMax

"It's not you loving us that worries me," Alex noted. "It's how you feel about yourself."

She stepped forward and held out a hand. "Come on, I'll walk you over to the infirmary before you do anything else, and figure out how far you've got left to recover"

Alex verbalized what was bothering him. Pip not becoming a physical god was fine, presumably she was a giant on a psychic plane. Pip being bothered by her powers was less than fine.

Warren opened a gate to the infirmary and said with concern, "I'll make it a short walk."

Darrik had a point but darn it, he was worried.

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline had hung at the back of the group after releasing her body-blurring defiance of gravity with a faint sparkle of quantum. Some flying expert she had turned out to be. Who knows what might have happened if she had added the paintball shooting robots, flares, and computer-timed awareness pitfalls?

"It more than okay, Pip. Hasn't Uncle Shen told all of us there are no bad students, just bad teachers? So this one's my fault. Do what you need to recover and we'll try again at an apropriate level now that we know what not to do, okay?" her chorus came as close to monotoning as it could before she looked at Alex, "Pip said she wanted to go the hot springs. She wants to go there, let her and Butch can check in to give her a second round of healing later."

[LydaLynn]

Being fussed over made Pip both uncomfortable and comforted. She didn't explore that too deeply, but she did blush a bit under her fur. "I . . . I'm not trying to run away, not this time. I feel fine, Butch did an amazing job. Thank you again. I just wanted to soak for a bit, get my muscles to relax. But if you're worried I'll go to the infirmary first. I . . . "

Epiphany stopped, biting her lip, obvious to everyone stifling another apology. A deep breath, "I'm fine, really. I don't hate me. I just . . . sometimes I worry. We all have so much power, but for most of you there isn't this moral issue that comes with it. I have to struggle constantly trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong. Honestly, most of it seems so very wrong. I don't know how you all don't see that. This network I can keep for us is great, useful and can be a wonderful protection and boon. But the other . . . I rape people's minds. No matter how much you sugar coat it, that's my power. To violate something that should be more personal and sacred than anything in this world. That's what my powers do. And I have to live with everyone I've ever done that to for the rest of my life. I get to know exactly how they feel about it because they're in here telling me." A finger tapping on the side of her skull illustrates her point.

Pip shakes her head, "How I feel about me won't change by coming in here to fly in circles. But maybe that will keep me from crashing into walls and requiring Butch to pick up the pieces. So for that, I'll come here. And I'll slow down and pay attention to my body next time. I might have the memories of multiple life times locked up in my brain, but that doesn't mean I know everything. I live, I learn, I do better next time. Now if you'd all stop staring at me like I'm some poor starving kitten in need of a bonnet and some milk, I'd appreciate it. This isn't me running away, but I don't think I can handle all of you trying to tell me how awesome my powers are right now." Turning, Epiphany steps through Warren's warp to the infirmary, hoping most of them go back to training instead of following her here. She takes a moment while she is still alone to dash the suspicious moisture that was starting to pool in the corners of her eyes.

[Courier]

Warren sent a quick thought to Pip he hoped would help, Something to consider: We need you; Not in spite of your ethical qualms and issues, but because of them.

[Butch_Cole]

Butch watched Pip walk through Warren's warp gate. He would check up on her later and try to heal her again if she needed it. Tapping his healing ability so soon after he had just used it just wasn't an option unfortunately.

When he learned of this limitation, his father was still alive and they were on the run. A motherhunter managed to track them to a dairy farm just outside of Buffalo. Green skin. That's what Butch remembered about this particular motherhunter. And he spat acid or something corrosive like that. Massive, weirdly veined muscles, too. His dad took a hell of a beating, but eventually he overcame and killed the motherhunter, but not before collapsing. Johnny Hellfire was incoherent, bleeding from multiple deep wounds, flesh smelling disturbingly...cooked by the acid, and young Butch focused as best he could, but could only manage to close one or two of the deepest cuts. There was still a lot of blood and his father was in no shape to move. Butch tossed him into a beat-up old pick-up truck they'd stolen and tore out of there. Terrified at the prospect of being unable to fix his dad, every few minutes, he'd reach over and try to heal him, but it just didn't do any good. All it managed to do was cause him to swerve the truck into oncoming traffic or almost off the road. His dad held on, but it took a good few hours before Butch was able to return his dad to consciousness. From that, he learned that there was some lag time between his uses of his healing powers.

All those years on the run and all the fights...all those motherhunters and then the megasyndicate enforcers and triad thugs...all those times his father had to protect him from people out to get them... He wanted to scream. He wanted to make the bastards pay. Whoever the hell those bastards might be, they'd pay and pay again...

"I tell you what," Butch said. "But I feel like smashing something. Anyone else still want to run through some Danger Room programs with me?"

[Maia]

Maia nodded after Epiphany left. "I could handle that Butch. I'm definitely in the mood to break things now." Her anger at how injured she'd allowed Epiphany to become was there for everyone to see, and there was a good chance Maia would end up nude after whatever training program she ran next.

The air seemed to crackle and vibrate as her muscles tensed and relaxed.

[Courier]

Maia was going to cut loose, which was always interesting, but Warren was still more worried about Pip than Maia being naked. It took an effort for Warren to shift his focus to his other siblings. His unapotheosisized sibs.

Warren said, "Wild idea time. What do you think about induced Apotheosis? My Sun Dive was by far the most intense experience I've ever had, and the sun is this massive ball of nuclear quantum. Anyone feel up to a supervised swim?"

[SalmonMax]

Alex winced. "That just screams 'bad idea' to me. You could just as easily died on that dive. And look at the body count for baselines jumping off buildings to see if their node pops before they hit the ground. Spoiler...not often."

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "It'll happen in its own time. It's not a race where you get a prize for first place."

[Courier]

Warren shrugged at getting shot down by Alex (yet again) then thought outloud, "We could cheat. I could look 'forward' on that..." Warren obviously struggled to translate a term into English then settled on, "...timeline. See if it would work out."

Before Alex pointed it out he acknowledged with a smile, "Not that I'd be using a power I don't fully understand to look into an event I don't fully understand with which would release a huge amount of quantum which might obscure matters."

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline counted to ten.

Then she counted to twenty.

That did the trick. She no longer felt like tackling her older brother in a rush of sprouting limbs and altering flesh and showing him just how few of his new gifts probably functioned in a grapple. Alex earned herself more than a few points shooting down the idea so Coraline didn't have to after her earlier display.

"Pass, Warren, but... thank you for offering," she managed, "I... think I'm going to go take a swim around the island. Never been into destruction testing, even here."

[Toby Lupin]

Darrik shrugged. "I'm staying here. I think there are a few things I have actually suited to combat now... best to test them out."

[Maia]

"It will come in its own time. Cheating never ends well Warren, and in this I don't think the odds are on our side here."

She nodded. "Thanks though. I do enjoy the view of Earth from space, and maybe later I'll take you up on a little peace and quiet out there, but right now that's not what I'm in the mood for."

She looked at Darrik and smiled playfully. "So now you're a lover and a fighter?"

[Toby Lupin]

Darrik grinned as he focused mentally on the quantum shadows cast by Maia's signature, then made his mirror her's somewhat. Suddenly, he bulked out, muscles growing in strength in a matter of moments, but his eufiber adjusted to the sudden change. "Indeed I am, wouldn't you say?"

Click to reveal..

Quantum Imprinted on Maia for 3 dots of Strength and 2 M-Strength. Strength 5, M-Str 2.