My Superhero Island RP Thread.

Cat Starling

"Smart guy. Got it," Cat nodded in understanding to Ironclad, regarding Devon for a few moments longer before glancing at Alex instead. "Both of them look... smart- what the ''hell...?"

She squinted suspiciously at Devon's... very creepy reaction to Alex solving the puzzle, and was considering an intervention before they were all thankfully interrupted by an announcement. Eager to get that uncomfortable interaction out of her mind, she turned to face Armada and Chimera, listening to them attentively.

"Safe and reputable areas? Oh boy. I'm guessing NYC's still not the best place to vacation," she huffed. "Guess that's what the island's for, anyways. Nevermind. Let's get this over with. I don't want to even think about anti-metahuman dumbasses..."

She promptly stepped towards the Gate, walking through without a second thought. If she hadn't done, she probably would've been tempted to stay behind out of unease. But as much as she was tentative regarding the potential dangers, she also desperately wanted to see the Big Apple again. So that won out in the end for her.

Cain Adamson

Cain made a mildly amused grunt at Devon's reaction to Alex working with the puzzle, then turned away so that none could see him scowling to himself. It was clear what pattern was going on here between these two young men, even if it was rather one-sided at the moment. One didn't need super-intellect to guess what was going on. Alex was an adult, sure, but Cain had to fight the urge to take Devon aside to ask him about his intentions towards one of his students.

At once, he could probably guess the solution not due to any observation of the dots blinking on the cube, but rather on the expression on Devon's face. This was one of the principles of cold reading—a carnival seer's trick—and one of the patterns being left out of consideration. Scientific experiments were based on changing one factor at a time, and the fact that Devon was invested in the solving of the puzzle was interfering in the proper evaluation of the results. Wyethi society failed to consider such things, such was the vaunting of its intellect, and it would surely lead to evil. Cain shook his head. His prestidigitation would not be welcome, and what use was a prophet if nobody wanted to listen?

Instead, he turned away towards the portal and walked a distance towards it across the field. He blew the tin whistle he had hanging around his neck and started gesturing for the class to start gathering around him. "Alright, everyone, it's time. Form up behind me in a line. Once there, I'll bring up the rear," he said. "Remember to be alert, tell a chaperone if you notice anything wrong, et cetera. With that said, I hope that we can have fun once we're on the other side. I haven't visited New York in an age."

Edited by JumpingFruit on Nov 11th 2023 at 5:14:50 AM

Mari — Chilling

Mari spent the last few minutes blissfully oblivious. She'd made countless doodles and notes, fidgeting and giggling in the branches as everyone introduced themselves. She didn't have the first clue what was going on, but perhaps it was better not to. All these strange people swarming the streets scared to death. The thought of walking the city streets as she was now made her blood run cold. Better to stay in the trees than confront such a reality.

But reality had other plans. She was so lost in her little word she barely heard her father's whistle. She yelped, flailing her arms in panic. She fell back, plummeting towards the grand, landing in front of the others in a heap. She was stunned and dazed, but wasn't hurt.

"C-C o M i N g..."

Jack

"Finally!" Jack stood up and dusted himself off. "I scouted out a cafe I want to go to near the portal on my phone, anyone-" He was suddenly interrupted when a teenage girl fell out of the tree next to him and landed with a painful-sounding thud.

"Holy- are you alright?!" He asked, eyes filled with concern as he stood over her. He glanced up at the tree, back down at tree-girl, noticed her mothiness, glanced back at Lea with a questioning look, before his gaze settled back on Mari, holding out a hand to help her up.

Jackie was idly pondering just slipping out of the group on the other side of the portal and exploring New York while everyone was being good little heroes at the UN when Mari fell out of the tree, the sound shaking Jackie out of her thoughts and back into focus.

"Damn, way to make an entrance girl. Well moths and goths and I guess the others, guess we're walking."

With a little wave Jackie did a little waggle to settle her backpack again and headed for the portal.

Lea heard the announcement and then the whistle. She began packing up her sketchbook. Then she heard Mari drop from the tree, turning to help her she'd take one step towards her. Then she'd freeze her words stopping before she could even ask Mari if she was alright as Jack already jumped to the occassion.

In turn when Jack glanced at Lea he'd see her standing there with her mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air, that lasted a few seconds as she'd seemingly got out of whatever that was fairly quickly "e-excuse me.. you got it handled."

Lea would slowly move for a few moments trudging a in shame off towards Cain "Mr. Cain? Could I....." She'd correct herself" could you go with me to a shop in NC please?" Lea didn't mention it, but he knew her well enough to know she's just asking him to go with her and talk to the cashier instead of her.

Cain Adamson

Lea didn't have to trudge that far towards Cain, because as soon as Mari fell out of the tree, he was suddenly right there though he could not out-speed gravity itself. "You alright, girl?" he'd ask, before helping Mari onto her feet. "Good climbing technique, just be more aware of your surroundings next time, yes? Your old man's going to worry about you otherwise."

"Art store? Why not. I heard New York has expanded since I was there last, though I'm not sure if it ever stopped expanding," Cain muttered at Lea's question, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "We could make an excursion out of it, I suppose, see what catches our eyes. I could get back into painting myself, really."

Edited by JumpingFruit on Nov 14th 2023 at 1:16:19 AM

Mari

"Y-yes, of course sir..."

Before she could stumble further she caught herself. She'd almost forgotten he was her father. She could barely believe it herself. Half the things he told she wasn't sure she could believe. But there wasn't much else she could do. A good girl was supposed to obey their father and follow their teachings as best they could. Even if they didn't make sense. But it wasn't her place to question.

"...f-father. I do suppose I was clumsy! I shall do my very best to be careful..."

She carefully fell to her feet. It was only then she knew she stuck out like a sore thumb. She skittered around Cain, crouching down, huddling against his back. She shouldn't have been so skittish. She knew she was a monster, father told her so! Most people were supposed to be scared of monsters. But she couldn't help but be self-conscious. What if they didn't want to talk to her? What if they were so scared they ran way? What if they hated her? She could live with a lot of things, but wasn't sure she could live with that.

She poked her head out from where they sat. As soon as they spotted Jack they crouched back down, quivering in fear.

"I-I'm not certain as to who it is y-you are referring to, b-but whoever it is, I am sure they're g-grateful for your c-concern! E-even if they may not deserve it. I-am positive they are... 's-super-duper...'!"

Edited by kkhohoho on Nov 15th 2023 at 9:59:37 AM

Alex

"An interesting puzzle, though it doesn't seem that complicated." Alex said, as he continued focusing on it. "Sort of like a Rubik's cube, I think; there's probably some pattern to it that you can make use of once you understand it."

Any further pondering was cut off by the announcement that the gate was open. Blinking at the interruption, Alex rose to his feet and offered the cube back to Devon. "I'll have to solve it some other time, it seems."

Privately, Alex had made note of Devon's odd reactions. Attraction to a fellow intellectual? Or was he anxious for whatever secret lay inside the box to be revealed? Like the cube, it was something to explore later.

For now, he made to follow after the old man into the portal, so as to get the field trip underway.

Cain Adamson

Cain crouched down as Mari hid, unzipping the front of his jacket and holding out one side of it as a screen so his daughter could get some privacy. "...Right. Okay. Let's take some time here so you can breathe, you don't have to worry about anything else at the moment," he suggested, not unkindly, using his body to shield Mari from any more prying gazes. "Sit for a while, calm down from that fall, and when you're in a better state of mind, we can talk about the whistle or what else I did to startle you, alright? And next time I'll know how to get your attention in a way that won't make you feel scared or unsafe. Do you want to do some counting exercises with me, or just hold my hand and breathe?" He did not make any move to touch the distressed moth-girl, though he did rest the hand he wasn't using to spread his jacket on his bent knee so she could reach for it if she wanted to.

Lifting his head from the makeshift shelter of his jacket and his torso, Cain's gaze made it clear to everyone else that he needed a bit of space with his daughter. He looked towards the scene with the Wyethi puzzle, and though he wanted to try it out next to see if he still had his edge in old age, there were more pressing concerns at the moment. His daughter clearly needed him.

Edited by JumpingFruit on Nov 14th 2023 at 1:17:18 AM

Mari

She wasn't sure what to say. She didn't hate her father. If she didn't know better she'd have thought him a blood sucking fiend, but he was better than what she expected. But she didn't think he'd be so comforting. Her old father was the model of parenthood, but she had wished he wasn't so strict. Cain was far less rigid in contrast.

"T-thank you... f-father... but I'm quite alright! I was but startled. I imagine I was lost in my own little word! All those silly stories and notions. I know it's scant more than idle fancy, but such lurid wonders take my breath away..."

Lea came back shortly after Cain got to them, her face was a show of embarassement, thankfully no one would be able to see it under her hoodie and the strange darkness that filled it.

Who wouldn't be embarassed from walking away from someone then loosing the place they were going towards only to return back to the place they just tried to leave from.

Lea watched Mari walking and moving with some curiousity, only for two antenae to poke out from under the hood they were starkly pale white. "Hello, I'm Lea."

Cain Adamson

"Well, I mean, you'll have an even better view if you ride on my back, and you'll be safer too, because I wouldn't let you fall like you did back there," Cain offered good-naturedly, crouching down farther and gesturing as if to tell Mari to get on. He seemed more like an especially indulgent grandfather as he did so. How long had it been since anyone had offered a piggyback ride to Mari? The poor child, he thought to himself. "I don't think your fantasies are silly. Who's been to a new strange place and hasn't been at least transfixed by everything they're seeing and hearing? Besides, I wouldn't want you to lose that unique spark of yours, now would I?"

Edited by JumpingFruit on Nov 15th 2023 at 6:58:08 AM

New York City

Devon followed Alex through the portal like a lovestruck puppy, trying to make it not quite so obvious what his opinion of Alex was - and failing due to trying too hard to make it less obvious. He got a distinctly intellectual feeling from him, a dynamic thought pattern, a way of handling things...all of which had Devon wondering. He hadn't gotten it back home at the time - why people were so eager to find their Escholom. But so long alone had Devon realizing - he hoped Alex would...

"Heh, look at him thirsting there..." Ironclad chuckled to himself...and promptly followed close behind Cat Sterling. Not even catching the irony in his words and his deeds.

Before long, the group were present at the road - the path headed both toward the bustling city and toward the United Nations building. Killgore stood by the students and Cain.

There were no hints of any Anti-Metahuman goings on in force - the most they would be able to see was an older man in a logo t-shirt and shabby pants, waving a sign with "Human World - Human Future" emblazoned on it. The logo on his shirt was a large, prominent skull with a "Q" on the forehead. A closer look would show that the older man had disheveled, greasy grey hair and a thick beard.

That basic skull logo belonged in theory to the supposed hero Gunsmoke. He'd always been more of a brutal figure than most heroes, but even at his worst he didn't endorse the kinds of bigotry those who appropriated his logo did. They often added such things as those Q images to the logo.

By the side of the older man was someone who was probably his son. The son seemed...distant, staring off into space. Not there in the least. His curly, light brown hair, green eyes, and pretty boy sort of handsome facial features looked attractive...but there was something even from a distance off about him.

Armada spoke, glancing over the group as she and Chimera looked toward the UN Building, "We're going to be in there negotiating the path to recognition. Feel free to enjoy New York. Restaurants, diners, arcades and more. Just...again, don't go running off too far."

Glancing over briefly at the older man doing his protest, Armada stated to the field trippers, "And no picking fights. We don't need "old man assaulted by metahuman visiting youth" in the news."

Jack

Jack grinned as he admired the steel-and-glass monoliths dotted around him, taking special note of the texture and geometry. Skyscrapers were some of his favorite things to make illusions of (if on a smaller scale). He made a bit of a collection of it, in fact.

He glanced over to the single protesting man and his son. His grin disappeared, but only before he thought about it for a moment and a smirk started to grow from one corner of his mouth. He rubbed his chin as he stared at the sign. A moment later he started to raise his hand as if to create an illusion.

He stopped himself. He probably shouldn't- the man would realize, eventually, and he was the only one here that could've done it. I mean, he could picture the articles now: "METAHUMAN HARASSES INNOCENT PROTESTOR AND ADBRIGES THEIR FREEDOM OF SPEECH."

More importantly, however, why would Jack draw attention to himself by raising his hand to do it? I mean, surely the man would expect some sort of funny business and Jack raising his hand at the greasy protestor would probably make him panic.

He snapped, hand innocently sitting at his side as the sign's bigotry melted away. It now read "Duck World - Duck Future" and the symbol on his shirt was replaced by cartoony art of the waterfowl. Jack chuckled to himself. Maybe if he stopped staring so intently at the metahuman group, or if his son started to care, he'd realize what he was now preaching.

For some reason he doubted either of those would happen anytime soon.

He turned to the posse of fellow metahumans, not mentioning "I scouted out a nice-looking diner online. Anyone want to come with and grab some proper lunch?"

Cain Adamson

Cain saw the man with his son, though something a chill down his spine at the look in the boy's eyes. Something was deeply wrong here, he could feel it, but until more evidence showed up to justify acting, it wasn't worth it to interject himself into the proceedings. It was probably best to get the kids out of here before they decided to do any worse than pranking protestors. "Alright, children, listen to me," he said. "We should probably stay together, eat, then sort ourselves into groups to go our separate ways."

"Does anyone have suggestions for a restaurant, or do we vote once we walk around New York a bit to get our bearings?" he asked, taking out a notepad. He was ready to record the suggestions and results, in either case. "Those who have been here before in recent memory, speak up. I haven't been here myself since Lady Liberty was built."

Edited by JumpingFruit on Nov 19th 2023 at 3:58:57 AM

Alex

Okay, definitely attraction. Alex noted, observing how Devon followed him. Personally, he'd never believed in love at first sight, but evidently something about him had set Devon off. A wyethi thing, maybe?

Putting that aside for now, Alex frowned at the bigoted signs, glancing briefly towards Jack as they suddenly changed. Fairly obvious, to the observant, but bigots were not usually the kind to pay attention or think critically.

"I could go for a bite. I've never been to New York, so I'll defer to the group's judgment on where we eat." Alex said, rubbing his bracelet. "I have heard the pizza here is good, though."

Ragast Firenze

"Well, yeah. The city has its ups and downs, but there's always the food." Ragast laughs. "There's a bunch places to eat, but heck, I could go for pizza as well." he yawns. He steps through the portal as relooks around at the bustling city, walking down the road to the UN building. "Well that's not very nice." he says mildly towards the older protester, and looking at the son with some sadness. "I hope he isn't wronging that boy." he mutters darkly.

New York, New York! The monolithic and almost oppressive architecture, the faint smell of desperation and the less faint smell of gasoline, the bigot who had chosen to park himself directly in front of the arrival area! Jackie sardonically remarked to herself that they don't make places like this back home as she checked Google Maps.

"Yo. Anyone wanna come with me to this like, speakeasy magic shop a couple blocks over? I want to laugh at the fake stuff and maybe buy some shiny rocks for my goblin-esque dorm decor..."

Without really waiting for either a response or an update on the matter of the bigot and his supposed son, Jackie turned on her heel to begin following the route Maps had set for her.

Mari

Mari kept her mouth shut. She hopped onto her father's back, eyes closing shut as he stepped through the portal. She'd stepped through these once before, but it didn't stop being scary.

After about a minute, she opened them back up, staring at the city's wonders in awe. Enormous towers skyscrapers reached towards the heavens, fancy cars and shops beckoning, threatening to lead her astray. If she wasn't so scared she'd have started exploring, gobbling up sweets and crawling along walls, eager to take it all in.

But it wasn't to be. As soon as she saw the older man's shirt she ducked her head, shrinking from view. Even as the words faded, they didn't fade from memory. She wanted so badly to believe them, to be part of them. But one look at herself put such notions to rest. She didn't say a word, staring down in self-pity.

Cain Adamson

"We have two votes for pizza, two votes for pizza, can I get any more concurrences here? More votes for New York's famous dollar pizza—or so I've heard," Cain rattled off like an auction house MC with a brief show of flair before noticing that Jackie was heading off on her own. "Come on, Jackie, get back here. You heard what I said. It can be dangerous out here, don't separate before you're given the go-ahead, please."

And noticing that Mari was feeling rather put off by the man's sign, Cain suppressed a scowl for the sake of the children and made a show of being unbothered while taking off his outer coat and draping it over Mari's shoulders so she could hide in it if she wanted to, and it was a rather large garment, too. It smelled like exotic spices and fresh baked bread, with a hint of tea and honey from his preferred perfume. "Steady on there, girl. Steady."

Edited by JumpingFruit on Nov 26th 2023 at 4:28:10 AM

Jackie froze up as she was addressed. She didn't walk back, she didn't even turn. There was rare emotion in her voice; a terse anger.

"I am twenty years old, Cain. I know that doesn't mean much in immortal vampire bible world but in New York that's a perfectly ordinary age. And I can defend myself, if it even came to that. So maybe stop talking down to me like I'm one of your adopts, I already have parents."

With her piece said, she simply continued to stand there. She was waiting to see if anyone would join her...

Jack

Jack frowned at Cain. "... yeah, I've gotta agree with Jackie. I don't think anyone put you in charge of this trip."

He didn't actually know who Cain was, and decided to ignore Jackie's description of him and it's troubling implications. He looked over to the wannabe witch and shrugged. "I'll come. I'm not really all that hungry anyways and it'll be funny." He could probably also get a laugh out of his mother if he brought back a souvenir.

New York City - Diana

"Took you long enough!"

It wasn't the most conventional way to say "hello", but anyone who recognised that voice would know Diana Ngozi Adebayo, a.k.a. "the Gene Genie", didn't do conventional. Sure enough, there she was, hanging around the streets of New York City in an ensemble that would have looked more befitting of a laboratory environment, were it not for its eye-catching sea green colouration.

The last anyone had seen of Diana, she was walking straight into the ocean, rambling about how much she hated the idea of being cooped in place for days as they waited for the portal to New York to be set up. One person had murmured about how nobody would ever see her again. Several days later, here she was to prove the doubter wrong.

"See? Told you I'd be here on time. And I got a nice swim out of it, too. I say I win this round." She giggles to herself, blissfully unaware of any tensions that might currently be bubbling among the party.

Edited by DubhKafkaesque on Dec 1st 2023 at 1:31:31 PM

With Armada and Chimera headed off to the UN building, this left Killgore there to try and mediate the situation.

Groaning at being left in this kind of role but...well, thankfully it at least wasn't Fuzzy Kissinger over there in such a spot. He didn't want the kids to come back from a field trip talking like war hawks. Though the least he could say about Chimera was he was no armchair guy...

Interceding into the circumstances, he stated, "We're in a safe enough place. If those two want to go running off on their own, they're free to...with certain understandings." He turned to look at them, the demon looking stern, "Don't get yourselves into trouble, don't follow...I dunno, a fox and a cat on to an island or something."

He then glanced at the others.

Seeing that Ironclad was following behind Cat - and making snarky remarks about Dev being thirsty! Hah! Well, he wasn't gonna burst the boy's bubble. Then they were joined by Diana, and Killgore stated, "Ah, excellent, I was expecting you somehow but taking that route was something else. Come on, everyone. I know a pretty good restaurant near here! Saved it back when Myrkaan the Darklord cut deals with every low grade supervillain in New York to soup em all up."