it's alright once you're in the air

[teamsad]

Who: Jessica Drew & YOU!!
Where: Alpha Tower & around LA
When: Mid-February, various times
What: The most awkward member of Alpha Force is back in town.
Warnings: N/A

Alpha Tower; day of Jessica's arrival
Jessica never liked going through the lobby - she has to deal with receptionists, avoid people, take elevators, all kinds of unnecessary annoyances. Instead, she takes the aerial route. The landing area on top of the building is meant for helicopters, but works just as well for flying superhumans, and the heat of the sun reflecting off the windows of the tower is more than enough to generate the lift she needs to make it there.

She touches down lightly, scans her handprint on the security pad beside the roof entrance and takes the stairs into the building... only to stops when she reaches the first common area. It's quiet. She's been here when it's this quiet before, but the silence seems heavier this time. Everything feels emptier. Maybe it's just the knowledge that the team's so small now...

"Is anyone home?" she calls out, still hovering near the door to the stairwell. "Hello?"

Beachfront; evening
Jess hasn't been able to fly for months. That's the nature of undercover work - you keep your head down, pretend to be someone else entirely, try not to wear your flashy superhero costume where other people can see you... Which is all well and good, except that she can't fly without hers, and she's been getting restless in Madripoor without being able to take to the skies.

Now that she has the chance to, she's taking advantage of the evening breezes off the ocean and gliding through the skies over the water, occasionally diving and spinning in ways that would probably send her plummeting into the Pacific if she lost lift... but it's worth the risk when she's been unable to do it for so damn long.

Eventually she lands on the sand, reclining on a dune (still in full costume) to watch the sun set as she catches her breath. Flying (or, really, gliding) when it's not part of your powerset is a lot more exhausting than it looks.

Comments

[cazamitad]

Araña's pretty impressed by the gliding, honestly, so despite the fact that chatting up an adult registered hero (because let's face it, she definitely is registered, if she's out like that in that outfit in broad daylight) is a bad idea, she does it anyway.

"Qué chido, that was gliding, right?" she asks as she approaches, barefoot with her shoes dangling from her fingers. "Not proper flying? You looked like what I figure hawks must look like, riding thermals and stuff."

What? She used to read. Animorphs.

[teamsad]

Jess noticed the girl approaching, but she hadn't actually expected her to come talk to her. Which is maybe silly, considering how the costume kind of draws attention, but Jess is the kind of hero most people don't recognize on sight. She's fine with that.

So she blinks at Anya for a second like she's waiting to make sure she's actually speaking to her before she nods. "It was. I can't fly under my own power, but I like to keep up with the fliers somehow."

[cazamitad]

"That's pretty badass." Araña buries her toes in the sand. Now that she's had the chance to tell Jess her gliding is cool, she doesn't really know what to do. She could awkwardly turn and leave, but that seems rude. "So are you new? I don't think I've seen you on the news yet."

[teamsad]

Jess snorts softly, with a wry smile, as she pushes herself a little more upright. Some people would be bothered by the question. She kind of prefers it this way - too much attention makes her nervous.

"Not exactly, no. I'm on Alpha Force. But I've been out of town, and I... try to stay off the news when I can help it."

[cazamitad]

"Fair enough." She shuffles a little, awkwardly. "Sorry I didn't know you were on the team. I haven't really followed the west coast superheroes since I was like 10."

[teamsad]

"It's alright. I'm mostly backup anyway. Or I was..."

Now, she's a lot more prominent on the suddenly very tiny team. She doesn't quite know what to do with that.

"Where are you from?" She specified West Coast heroes, after all. It's hard not to notice the heroes around where you live, though, so...

[cazamitad]

"East coast," Araña says. It's not like she's the only kid to move from the east coast to LA in the past few weeks, and she's pretty sure most of the folks on the Watch and the muggers and crooks she stops think she's a dude, so it can't hurt to be honest, right? "New York. I didn't pay much attention to the team over there either, but they weren't as big a deal. I mean, when Captain Victory died, it was all over, but it's not as supervillain heavy out that way."

She sits down gingerly in the sand next to the older hero. "So what are you, Hawk Girl or something?"

[sunmedallion]

Celestia pours into the common area almost immediately, bringing with her warmth and sunlight and a metric ton of flowing pastel rainbow hair.

"Jessica!" she exclaims warmly, although the edge of wistful sadness isn't hard to miss – Celestia's never been amazing at disguising her emotions, and the loss of their teammates is still weighing heavily on her. "It's so wonderful to see you again, how have you been?"

[teamsad]

It's hard for even Jess not to warm up a little around Celestia, hard to feel out of place with that kind of welcome. She manages a tiny smile and steps away from the door, lifting a hand to give a small, awkward wave.

"Hi, Celestia. I've been... you know. The usual. Busy." It doesn't feel right to tell Celestia she's been working out her issues by beating up terrorists and lowlifes on the other side of the planet. They're all still alive - mostly - but it's not the kind of thing most real heroes do. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for... what happened..."

[sunmedallion]

She shakes her head – her smile is sad, but she doesn't begrudge her teammate's absence in the slightest. "I'm just glad you're here now. We really do need all the help we can get... and I'll admit I've missed having more company around the tower."

[teamsad]

"Yeah. It seems a lot quieter than usual." She glances around briefly, grimacing. Sure, it's a pretty big building, so even with plenty of heroes in the building, you can usually still find a quiet place or two. Now it just feels like they're standing in a tomb or something. Jess feels like she should keep her voice low just so she doesn't disturb it. "How many of us are still here?"

[sunmedallion]

"Besides you and me? Only Tron, and Legion – I don't know if you've ever met Legion. They're an AI collective from another planet; they've done a lot of work for CONDOR, and they were kind enough to volunteer after the others disappeared." Of course, she thinks, Legion would probably deny kindness, since, she supposes, that's an emotion...

She sighs. "Four isn't a lot, but it's better than nothing. I've been thinking of asking Spectrum, though, from the Shepherds – you remember Spectrum?"

[teamsad]

"So the team's half robots now. That's... great." Okay, mostly it's weird. She likes Tron and all, but she's used to a few more humans to balance it out...

"Yeah. I remember her. Be nice to have a little more backup in case things go to hell..."

Or in case they lose someone else. When no one knows exactly what happened to the last three... there's no way of knowing it won't happen again.

[chapterfiveversenine]

Upon learning of Jessica Drew's return, Legion had pulled every file they were cleared to get (and a few they weren't) out of CONDOR's databases.

Jessica Drew (alias: SPIDER-WOMAN/alias: ARACHNE) is an interesting hero - one of many of TRIDENT's attempts to create a superpowered agent gone wrong. Legion has never met anyone with that level of experience with the worst side of organic science before.

"Jessica Drew," they say when they find her. "We are Legion, a terminal of the geth. We acknowledge your reintegration into Alpha Force."

They pause, and then add belatedly, "Hello."

[teamsad]

Jessica jumps a little, hand coming up instinctively, though she stops short of actually venomblasting him. The Tower's safe - she's just been in the field too long, and is maybe a little too jumpy around strangers at the moment. She pauses a second, and then lowers her hand a little sheepishly.

"Uh. Hello." Pause. "We haven't met, have we?" It seems nicer than asking why are you here?

[chapterfiveversenine]

"We have not," Legion says. "This platform joined Alpha Force approximately one week ago."

[teamsad]

"Oh. Good timing, I guess." She shifts her weight, still watching the robot warily. "What's a geth?"

[chapterfiveversenine]

"Geth are a species of compound AI," Legion explains. "We network to increase our intelligence. There are 1,183 geth runtimes within this platform."

[teamsad]

"Oh....kay..."

Well, all the 'we' makes more sense in light of that. The fact that he's a robot - or a computer program, or a bunch of programs, or whatever - doesn't bother her; actually, it might help a little, considering it's probably not at all susceptible to her pheromones. It's just new people at all. The people she knows are used to her stunted people skills.

"I've never heard of you before." Geth in general, Legion specifically... either one, really.

[thisisntagame]

Hearing someone calling from the hallway, Tron came venturing out of his office, tablet in hand, obviously in the middle of working on something or other.

"Jessica. Nice to have you back."

[teamsad]

Jess relaxes a little when she spots him, a faint smile slipping across her lips. It's nice to see a familiar face. Nice to be somewhere she doesn't always have to watch her back.

"Nice to be back. Sorry it took... this..."

[thisisntagame]

"Don't blame yourself, none of us could have predicted this," he said, shaking his head.

"Were you able to complete your mission before you were called back?"

[teamsad]

She nods, smiling a little. "I took out the main targets. Probably missed a few of their friends because I wrapped it up so quick, but when don't we?" Fucking TRIDENT. They're like cockroaches, really - you can't expect to smash all of them, just chase them back into the shadows where they belong.

"Has everything been quiet here since the others disappeared, though? ...I haven't really been paying attention to anything but major news since I left."

[thisisntagame]

Tron shook his head, leaning against the doorway.

"Unfortunately not. I'm sure you've heard about the new sinkhole by now, but there's also been increased TRIDENT activity. They recently captured one of the Trailblazers. Luckily his team was able to discover his location and freed him before he came to any harm."

He turned his attention back to his tablet, quickly swiping through the info he had been reviewing.

"I've been keeping an eye out for any major movement, I may have a few leads but I need to investigate things further."

[teamsad]

Jess sighs, shaking her head in frustration. "Figures they just couldn't help themselves. If you find anything we can move on... you know I'll be on board."

Her smile shows her teeth, almost predatory. "Who needs downtime, right?"