DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Alternate Reality PHX: Phoenix Reform Academy Boys common room

Lamar

“Can’t help it, one of my parents was a supervillain. Congenital predisposition to believing I’m the one in the right.”

Ben

<Fade for Night 1>

Lamar

Lamar re-entered, seeming pensive. It seemed an age since they’d last been in here, though in truth it was a much shorter span.

In the room, perhaps unsurprisingly, he sees Norton leaning back on the couch watching television. Of course, he’s supposed to be there. The fridge opening on its own and a drink floating across the room perhaps also implies other presences less expected.

Norton speaks.

“Hey, chameleon. Engaging in more deep philosophy?”

Lamar

He grinned back at the larger kid.

"Can if you like, Doc. Seems things have changed a bit since our last such discussion. Want a coke?"

He gravitated towards the fridge, taking a moment to gauge if the floating drink seemed like it was moving as if held, prompting a friendly nod in the approximate direction of the holder, or if it was moving as if pulled by some power or other, in which case a friendly nod towards the apparent destination.

“Yeah.” He nods. “I’ll take one.”

The head of Blake swam into view momentarily.

“Hey shifter- how’s tricks? Just checking out how the other half lives.”

Lamar

"Hey there, Blake. Pretty quiet here at the moment, though I'll admit I share your curiosity. Bit harder for me to get away with it without crossing a line, though."

Lamar grabbed a couple of cans before heading back towards Norton, handing one over.

"So, any new news that either of you have heard?"

Blake

“Curious thing, I often hear things. Do you know that Cyclone seems to have vanished? No one has seem him in a long while. Also there has been activity at the old haunt of Singularity.”

She pauses.

“I still have contacts. Nothing above street level but street level can know things.”

Meanwhile Norton looks quite disturbed.

Lamar

"Big bads shifting about. Something big in the offing, not that that was a mystery. How'd you get the information despite being in here?"

He gave Norton a questioning look. Something on his mind, clearly, but best let him volunteer it.

Blake:

“ I may be a ‘broken god’, shifty, but what I am good at I am very good at. I can’t really turn it off, but when I turn it on and really concentrate on it, there’s no one anywhere who is going to know if I’m there … or if I am not. I hear things. I know people. They didn’t capture me, I came here on my own after little D was taken. Had to make sure she was alright. Introduced myself to the staff and I stick around. Don’t know that I’m smart, but I think I’m street smart anyway.”

Norton looks at Lamar.

“You do know who,Singularity was, yes?”

Lamar

"The cause of the Black Hole of Ottawa and a dozen other disasters across the big north. Before our time, but had a whole bunch of henchpeople who never got tracked down." He nodded to Norton.

Interesting. If Blake could sneak in, who else could? At what point had the staff known?

Blake

“Actually I’m pretty sure Grey knows when I come and go. She found me the first time and I think I’m not fooling her. Can’t hide my presence from her. I’m pretty glad she’s not a villain. Anyway I’m going to keep coming back here because they’re being pretty good to little D. And it’s not like I could abandon her, right?””

Norton

“Also the father to three daughters, one going by Alchemy, one by Nyx, and the other by the much more prosaic’Mariel’. Three granddaughters as well. Cadence, Anne and Carmen. Although two of them went by different names with their mothers …”

Lamar

A brief nod to Blake as they answered the unvoiced concerns. "True enough. Thought occurs it's not just information you could sneak in and out, and given the nature of this place I'd be very surprised if that wasn't in their thoughts."

To Norton, he nodded. "Somehow I suspect it's probably not Mariel or the kids raiding the old haunt."

Norton:

“No indeed. I think she probably has everything and more she ever wants of that place. This was their house. Right here, where you are. You did know that? If you want to be melodramatic where I think Blake is talking about would have been his … lair. You would think Eidolon would have stripped anything worth having from there long ago. So why would someone be going there? Just simple questions. From simple me.”

Blake:

“Oh, Grey has had a long talk with me. Believe me, I have no interest in being on the bad side of that one. And yes. The “lair”. Abandoned as it is.”

Lamar

"Well stocked boltholes and caches are useful things to have. Even for Eidolon, there'd be no substitutes for having built the place in terms of knowing where all the secrets were, or inheriting knowledge from the builder. Perhaps something keyed to a certain hard to replicate power set." He addressed them both.

Norton

“I’m pretty sure that singularity could not be deader. I think that they scraped up what was left of him in a paper bag. After sifting out the dirt. Or so I’ve been told. Dad saw it but didn’t stick around for the aftermath. It’s my understanding that he was phased right into the ground. Remind me to never make our host upset.”

Blake.

“I’d think that would kinda make doin’ anything a bit hard.”

Lamar

"Which leaves inheritance. Both of information, and of adjacent power sets. Yes, we know Singularity is dead. We also know who isn't."

Norton:

“If I am to believe what father said, Mariel herself was sixteen when she … did her thing. The other two were younger. How much would thirteen and fourteen year old girls know about those things?”

Blake:

“Hell, Little D is something like ten and Norton I honestly would call her smarter than you, or me. I’m street smart. Maybe they’re just … that way?”

Lamar

"We're powered, Norton. I bet you could give someone twice as old studying medicine half his life a run for his money. We've got a couple powered individuals, two and three years Mariel's junior when she did what she did, who learned enough from their father to be on the same moral trajectory and stay on it all their lives. How much would they know? It's a good question, a serious question."

Blake:

“I mean that was ages ago. What could be left?”

Norton:

“Anyway, there isn’t anything WE can do about it, right?”

Lamar

"Another good pair of questions, since there's one of us in this discussion who could go take a look-see undetected."

The person in question pauses a long time. Maybe. But if one of THEM is thee, do I want to stick my forehead in front of the effing gun? Nyx is el pollo loco. Cracked. A believer in the power of the divine with her as the divine. Actually saw her once, when she was visiting. Couldn’t see her face for the mask, but she looked at me and those eyes drill through your head like diamond bits.”

Lamar

"Fair point. Still an option, if we're sure she isn't there. If she is, though? Useful information to pass up to those who can do something."

She pauses a long time.

“Look, short stuff. I’m not a good guy, I’m a flawed coward who likes to know things. Norton here … I can’t speak for him. But …”

Lamar

"Hah, join the club. How many good guys without flaws under this roof, do you reckon?"