(Untitled)

[aim_blind]

Abandoning people in their house after they've offered you hospitality is incredibly rude, especially if the person in question is disabled and unable to follow. Leah was upset and bitter for at least fifteen minutes

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[selflesslight]

Val doesn't play with the radio Steve gave her that often, but that isn't the same as never. She's picked up a thing or two.

Right now, she's humming to herself as she fiddles with the dials, looking for a frequency that seems to be in use. Not that she's sure how she'd tell, unless somebody was talking on it right then.

[aim_blind]

There's an 'empty' sound that comes with an open channel that's distinguishable from static if you have the ear. Leah's set up a monitor for most of her frequencies - although she's going to have to send someone back to destroy that looped SOS she set up in Frankfurt, 'cause that's still there.

When Valerie hits one of the frequencies Leah keeps open, she's informed in her ear by a beep and a click, and she speaks first.

"Hi!"

[selflesslight]

"Hi yourself! Uh, I'm Val. Who're you?"

[aim_blind]

Leah's in what's becoming her home now. There's no need to give out real names.

"Innovator. I'm in Metropolis."

[selflesslight]

"Nice name. You think that up yourself?"

This is Val's somewhat brash and idiosyncratic way of asking if it's a codename, i.e. of the superhero variety.

"Me, I'm at the Cooper farm."

[aim_blind]

"Nope," Leah answers, "Codenames I think up myself are way catchier. This was handed to me by Lightning Bolt.

"Cooper Hollow, huh? You know Oracle?"

[selflesslight]

"We're a Hollow now? Yeah, I met her once. She's the chick with the airplane."

As opposed to the dude with the airplane, who is Val's brother.

[aim_blind]

"When a name sticks, run with it," advises the Innovator.

"She's good people, is O. Runs a smooth operation."

[selflesslight]

"Yeah, she's all right. I was gonna get her crew in on a takedown once-- there was this storm god running around fucking everybody's shit up last year-- but he went poof before we could get it off the ground."

And in Val's highly... specialized memory, it was her takedown and everybody else was just invited along.

[aim_blind]

"Sounds like it woulda been a blast," Leah says, sympathetically. "Not that I don't approve of havoc causing storm gods getting their arses out of here."

[selflesslight]

"Yeah. The one I'm in on right now is less a blast and more just fucking gross. Some asshole decided it'd be a great idea to build a church out of people, so I got together with Luce-- Lucy Cooper-- and some buddies of hers, and we went and ripped the place down around his ears. Turns out he got away, so we're waiting on him building another one or doing something else obvious and annoying, and then we're gonna track him down and kick his ass."

Can you tell it's been weighing on her? You can tell, can't you.

[aim_blind]

Leah can tell.

Can Val tell that she's now walking swiftly through a series of rooms?

"What was the guy like?" she's suddenly very business like.

[selflesslight]

She can tell there's a change, but she can't quite place the specifics.

"Uh, never saw him, just his creepy minions. The aesthetic of the whole place was kinda... Giger or Cronenberg, all 'look at me I'm so edgy I make buildings out of human flesh'. And the way it was all built up, plus the minions having some seriously fucked body mods, I'm pretty sure either he or somebody on his crew has a... what d'you fucking call it, biokinesis power. Manipulation of living or sorta-living or used-to-be-living things. Maybe more than one of 'em-- it was a big fuckin' church."

[aim_blind]

"Biokinesis'd do that," Leah says, making her way upstairs to her study, sitting and wiring her glove up to her computer.

"Hydrokinesis, too. Or just some sort of fucked up mad scientist. If this was my world I could come up with a list of five potentials like that, and that's just known villains.

"Biokinesis is fucking dangerous to go up against, though. Who's on the team?"

[selflesslight]

"Me, Luce, her friend Rachel. I've got a couple people who might want in, too, but there's nobody organizing this thing officially so fuck knows who'll show up when we finally move out."

[aim_blind]

Which isn't exactly helpful.

"You guys paras? Special skills?"

Yes, she is typing all this up. Why'd you ask?