"I didn't!" Bex explained with a smile.  "My friend made the door.  Really, I don't do anything.  I'm just, like... I guess I'm like, um, the camera in a Marvel film!  I don't do anything but I get to watch and make friends with everyone, and that makes me happy!"  She settled in and considered the other part of Danielle's question.

"Well, we're... in my imagination," she admitted, after a moment.  "This is where all my friends are from.  So I asked if we could have a clubhouse, and Plidinous Vogue suggested he could offer up the Office, so... we're here now!"  Her smile was bright, and she wiggled into her bean bag.

"You're all free to come in and out and stuff.  I don't know if Pliddy can open the portal while I'm asleep, though, so... I'll have to find out!"

Whistler pulled a little face when she saw how tense the boys looked coming in, as if to say, 'What could be sinister about bean bags?' Not that the mechanics of translocation were forefront in her mind at that moment, of course, nor the full implications of what Becca's had done.

That is, until Becca spelled it out. She got a slow-turn from Dani, her face painted with wide-eyed realization and absolute delight. "Thaaaat's what you meant, Karl," she finally struck on, and pointed between him and Becca. "Her imaginary friends. Well, in the loosest sense of the word; those kale chips weren't imagined, although they were garlicky and delicious. Nor was the Chef, that sweet little duck with the bowtie or– anyway, yes, quite real but hailing from your imagination." Danielle smiled like she'd just discovered chocolate. "That's got to be the neatest thing I've heard so far, and I say that knowing at least two of the people in this room can fly.

How exactly did your Pliddy friend conjure this place? Can we meet him, too?" She added at the end, sitting forward with her knees against her chest like an excited little kid.

Lucas's discomfort about his bulk got a sympathetic frown from Danielle. "Can't switch off the steely complexion, I take it?"

Karl shrugged. "I guess 'imagination friends' might be more accurate? If other people can see them, interact with them, eat their kale chips and so on I think 'imaginary doesn't quite fit."

"Pretty amazing whatever you call it."

Lucas shifts uncomfortably on what now might be Becca's actual neurons. "I can switch it off or change it. Each change though changes my abilities. This one is most useful for getting around and for......other things." Holding up his hand he lets several sparks fly - lightning crackles between his fingers for several seconds before it flickers and dies.

Becca shook her head.  "See, you've already kind of met Pliddy," Bex explained, looking over at Karl with a slightly apologetic look.  "This building is inside of his tummy.  We can't go outside to meet him 'cause he flies too fast."  Still, the compliments made Becca blush, and she shook her head.  "You're all actual superheroes.  Like in the movies.  I'm just a yoga Tiktok person who wants to make the world a lil' more smiley, ya know?  Saving a plane and jumping out of a plane and not dying and being made of metal, that's the cool stuff.  That's why Karl's gotta be the leader of the Chicago Crime Patrol!"

"Terrible name, sprout, terrible."  From one of the rooms, a two foot tall cat wearing thick glasses, suspenders, a two-color collared shirt (with starched collar, of course), pleated pinstripe pants, and wingtips shimmied his way in to the group.  He had a cup of coffee with 'PURRFORMANCE REVIEWER' written on it.  "He's already calling himself Atlas, so let's workshop around that.  Metro spawns from the Greek for mother.  Ah... whistling isn't particularly Grecian, so that theme won't work.  Let's tug on this string a little.  The Titans of Chicago, perhaps?  Or-- no, titans were evil."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:20, Tue 25 Jan 2022.

Danielle shrugged off the specifics of Becca's friends, whatever they were. All she knew was that the duck had been the cutest thing ever, with the possible exception of Becca herself. "Pretty amazing is right," she agreed with a grin.

Metro's display reminded Danielle of a movie she'd desperately wanted to work on a couple of years prior - soft pseudo-reboot of a superhero franchise, major tonal shift that had gone really well, pretty significant haircut early on. Unfortunately, they hadn't had much for a stunt performer of her build, complexion and, at the time, limited experience. But boy, had she liked watching it. "Ha, Lord of Thunder," she grinned, pointing to Metro's hands. "I would show my own tricks off, but I don't want to burn the building down, especially if it's in Daydreamer's brain."

Ah, but it wasn't just in her brain, as Becca soon revealed! "Huh." Dani blurted quietly. "In his tummy. Wow. Thank him for making it so hospitable down here, then. Or thank you for imagining his insides this way? However it works, this is really nice." Dani squeezed the sides of the bean bag chair, quite satisfied with her lazy posture.

And then Becca went all sweet again, and all Danielle could do was blush. "That's the dream," came a relatively quiet answer when Becca called them superheroes.

Anything else she might have wanted to say was totally overwhelmed by the latest anthropomorphic critter, who had Dani gaping happily with his widdle glasses and his tiny coffee and, of course, the wingtips.

"Titans sounds badass but..." A great deal of excited, meaningless pointing and smiling at the cat replaced words. "Look at the kitty! And his little pants! Are you Plidinous Vogue? Are we in your fluffy tum-tum?!"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:34, Tue 25 Jan 2022.

Man, I really wish Steph were here. She'd be loving at least some of this.

OK, to be fair, I'm loving some of this too, especially the less I think about it.

"I think making the world happier is a pretty worthy goal, and I think you're off to a good start Daydreamer. However you manage this, it's all kind of secondary really. People need your positivity, your example. With the big problems, that can do a lot more than somebody flying, or something like that."

And then another friend came in, like...Steve Urkel as a cat or something.

"Uh, hi. Again, I don't know what we could really do as a team, so a name seems kind of premature anyway. But maybe as examples? Help where we can, how we can, maybe inspire others and you know, 'pay it forward' type of things, snowball good deeds. So if we do, maybe something like that, play off of example, inspiration, like 'Icons', 'Paragons', something like that."

After his mini-speech/digression Karl's attention was drawn to Metro, who sat just silently staring towards Tabbypedia Jones or whatever the cat's name would end up being.

"You OK Metro?"

Metro shook himself and nodded his head after a moment, "I am fine. I do object to calling the Titans evil, but having an argument about the morality of most likely mythological figures isn't really why we are here." Metro nods his head, "That depends on what we all can do. I can grant people increased speed, can move across the city far faster then a normal person myself, and that is just the beginning. Karl here can fly and has superhuman strength, Daydreamer has her friends who have quite a few capabilities. I am not sure what Whistler is exactly capable of, but if she is immune or resistant to fire damage we would have the makings of a great search and rescue team for fires. That is simply off the top of my head. Also, do you think we are the only people like us? I am fairly certain that I could if I truly wished to break into a bank vault and rip out safety deposit boxes and be gone before the police could arrive and even if they did get there, they would need something bigger then a pistol to stop me. So, how long before someone does exactly that? We live in the city of Holmes, Capone, Dillinger, and Gacy. Chicago is many things, but a city of peaceful citizens it is not. So, imagine the Latin Kings for example having two or three people like us. Then the Gangster Disciples have a couple. A nice little superhuman gang war happens next. So, if we are organized and ready we might be able to intervene before it goes completely out of control."

"I like your meowxy, Karl.  Paragons of Chicago.  You could franchise that, sprout.  I like it."  The cat saluted with his cup of coffee and looked to Metro.  "I'm just a meowketing executive, but Metro sounds like he's got the right idea.  Superpowered friends mean superpowered enemies.  Sprout, I know what you wanna say, but you can't just friend your way outta people having different priorities."

"Okay, but, consider, what if instead of that, we could?"

The cat shook his head.  "Preparing a sorta group together of mutual assistance just makes sense.  I don't leave the Neverwas, but I gotta ask you fine folks--do me a favor?  Keep her outta trouble, wouldya?"  Turning around to look at Dani, the cat gave another little salute.  "The name's Business Cat.  The only thing in my tummy is bourbon and tiny pieces of cat kibble vaguely in the shape of fishies.  Tuna flavored.  I ask Sprout here to deliver it."

"You are too stinking cute, and so are you," Dani informed Business Cat and Becca, pointing at the furry financier when he corrected her about his tum full of crunchies and quality booze but, allegedly, no pocket dimension office buildings, then at the teenager who dreamed him up. She really wanted to meet Pliddy at some point, though.

Whistler stood up from the bean bag and began pacing as thoughts bubbled. "And you also make a really good point. We should totally market ourselves! You know, get some word of mouth, make people excited that we're out there and build a popularity, ideally one that exempts us from property damage. I mean... Karl, your name is on TV. Anything you so much as hip-check on the way to save a cat from a tree - no offense, BC - is going to land you in small claims court.

"And that doesn't begin to cover the charges for vigilantism we could end up with, or police mistaking us for the criminals and freaking right out with guns in their hands. Fun as it is outrunning danger, it puts a lot of people in harm's way, you know? I can shrug off a .45, Atlas probably can, Metro's made of metal, but Daydreamer and normal folks?" Whistler waggled her hand in the air in the universal gesture of 'Ehhhhhhhhhh.'

"Oh, and as for what I can do? Kind of a long list, but think human space heater. And flamethrower. And jet engine." She glanced up at the ceiling evasively, and dropped into sotto voce. "And I can heat parts of my body up so much that it melts through anything I touch, but diamonds are too expensive just to make sure 'anything' is accurate..." Dani sneered, recalling the exorbitant costs she and her friend Monica had been faced with just for the tungsten test.

Then a lightbulb went off in her head.

"Funny you mention it, the gangs already have - branding - Paragons of their own. I met one who called himself Vague, seemed like a nice enough guy until he wanted my help 'dealing with' a whole house of people who ran opposite his group. I backed out when I realized he had permanent intentions and he left when told him I wouldn't let him hurt anyone, but..." She shrugged. "It's really just a matter of time until other Paragons start cropping up and don't want to go feet-first into the superhero life like we do."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 03:42, Thu 27 Jan 2022.

"Yeah" Karl sighed regretfully. "There are going to be people who decide to use the power to do bad things, or people who already do them who just get a boost. Like I guess that guy Whistler met.

"I don't want to end up as a cop, but I guess sometimes it'll take one of us to stop one of us. Or, I guess a handful of us to stop one of us would make it easier. Yeah, us able to call each other in at least makes sense." Karl went ahead and gave out his number to whoever there didn't have it already. Even if they didn't have service hopefully they could still enter contacts at least.

"I've been wanting to set up something official, like with the city for them to call me in when I could help, but haven't gotten far yet. Volunteer, not taking orders or holding down regular hours, just help out when needed under their umbrella. Liability umbrellas too. Maybe with more we can make that happen faster, or maybe Mr. Mailbox has something in the works with reaching out to everyone through the parks.

"For the record, I don't know about the whole bulletproof thing, and don't really want to experiment with getting shot to find out. I haven't really had a chance yet to really test the limits of what I do know about much less check for other things."

This might go on for a while.

"Hey...just to be sure Daydreamer, Business Cat...this isn't like someplace that runs on different time is it? I have plans later I don't want to miss from some dimensional anomaly."

Lucas nods his head at regardless of what else it is being called he has dubbed Catbergh, "Glad you agree?"</in a slightly questioning tone. Lifting his hand to stare at it for a few moments, <seagreen>"I think I could probably survive a gunshot. Maybe a single one. My skin is a fairly thin layer of what I believe to be stainless steel." His eyes brighten the glow within them growing stronger then fading back to it's resting state, "Perhaps you need to ask for some Good Samaritan laws to be passed. Otherwise, yes if you go rescue a cat form a tree you are going to be sued for so much and for so long your grandchildren are going to owe money."

"For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction," Bex confirmed with a nod.  "So it just makes sense that, if we're here, there'll be others!  So we gotta find 'em and hug 'em and that way we'll be hugged equally!"

"Not ending up as an arm of the police makes sense.  I'm no cattorney at paw or anything, but limiting the liability while pursuing vigilantism will be tough.  Certainly worth looking into agreements with local prosecutors to ensure that, should a suit be brought, it can be dismissed."

To Karl's question about time, Bex shook her head.  "Some of my friends wanted to play a prank on you but I think that's mean.  Time works just the same here as out there.  You won't be late, unless you spend too much time in here, but that's true of anywhere.  Like, if you spent too much time in the library!"

The question of bulletproofness went right over Bex's head, and so she contented herself with batting a ball of yarn over at Business Cat, who kicked it back at her without missing a beat.

"Best way to limit liability is not to be identified, eh?" Whistler tapped the domino mask over her eyes, which hid precious little about her appearance. "That ship has sailed for Karl, sounds like it's at least leaving port for Daydreamer, but at least two of us are keeping it under the proverbial hat."

Dani recorded Karl's number in a cheap little burner phone, and then slapped her forehead. "Crap, I forgot to leave my note. I'll swing back by the park before I head to my mom's, no big deal."

Daydreamer's pure wholesome energy and shared yarn batting with Business Cat made Danielle smile big at both of them. "Hugs are a great first option, kiddo. We'll just, you know, keep rocket punching them into a wall in the ol' back pocket...

"Wait, have you guys really not tested out your own durability? First thing I did once I stopped jet-boosting myself across rooms, although that was a test in and of itself. Made it up to shotgun slugs, those left a mean bruise and broke the skin sometimes." She was totally matter-of-fact about it, as if letting someone fire a shotgun at her  just to see if she'd survive it wasn't absolute lunacy.

"Ok, thanks." Karl nodded to Becca's answer.

He shook his head at Whistler's question. "It's only been a few days for me. I haven't had a chance to test much of anything yet, but I'm getting more comfortable with the flying at least, and navigating around town. I didn't really plan to get shot at" or stung by bees "or stabbed, or whatever so I hadn't even planned on testing for that. Huh."

After a second,

"Wait, you didn't start with guns, right?"

Lucas shrugs "I did test it, but I both don't have easy access to a gun and testing your durability seems like the kind it is fine until you find your limit. Then it is blood and bones, or possibly in my case hydraulic fluid and metallic shards. Shotguns would probably shred me in this form."

"I tested my flexibility!  Because it's important to know your limits in yoga, so you don't accidentally hurt yourself!"  Bex smiled brightly, while Business Cat continued playing with the ball of yarn.

"Plidinous Vogue can open the portal as needed, but he can't travel through time.  Still, Rebecca has made it clear that this shall be open to you.  Just--"  He looked over at the daydreamer.  "Let's keep the doors around the office closed."

"I think this is a pretty cool clubhouse, right?  And we can figure out how we wanna, like... team up and do stuff!  Maybe a telegram group or something?  I'll make sure there's food here, too.  Chef Rumblesteak loves to cook!  He's a four star Michelin chef and everything!"

"I started by hitting the ground at about sixty miles an hour, fire coming out of me like a rocket launch to slow the freefall, with a burning parachute coming down on top of me," Dani shrugged. "Once you walk that off, knives and pistols don't seem that extreme, you know? Anyway, I've broken probably half the bones in my body between hobbies and work, so you could say I'm tough to dissuade. If either of you want to test your limits, I've got a pal who helped me learn mine.

"I'll admit, I've been meaning to get back into yoga. What's your screen name, Dreamer? I'll add your TikToks to my wakeup routine. And hell yeah, this is an awesome clubhouse! We should start a group text as soon as we're back in a service area, and maybe you can teach us how to ask Pliddy to open the door?" She gave the bright, joyful teen a big smile, and then cast a glance at Business Cat.

"Closed? Why, do you have important con-fur-ence calls? Big merger coming up with Halibut-on?" The grin on Whistler's face went so far beyond shit-eating that it defied description.

"Ok, let's avoid you and shotguns. Let's try to avoid anyone and shotguns if we can help it." Karl agreed, a little bothered by what Metro was saying about himself, that his metal transformation went deeper. He didn't have time to think if it was more or less disturbing than turning into bees.

"Well it's private, that can be a plus definitely when we need that." he nodded about the office/clubhouse.

"Holy cra-!" Karl started at Whistler's explanation. "You...erupted or something in the middle of a jump? OK, fair enough, unplanned tests still count I guess. Geez." Similar to his own experience, but on fire and not able to control her fall nearly as much. But she seemed to take it well, at least now. He both grinned and rolled his eyes at her cat/fish jokes, then chuckled at how much she obviously looked like she was appreciating her own humor.

"OK, this was good. Good to see you two again, nice to meet you Whistler, BC. Anyone need anything else right now? If not I think I'll step back out, then maybe go ahead and get a head start on Christmas Eve."

"Not from me. Ms. Whistler, I have a card for you." Lucas pats down his jacket and then reaches into it to pull out a card with a hand written number on it and stands somewhat awkwardly to hand it to her. "It is my burner number if you need to contact me. Daydreamer already has the number and can use it at any time."

Business Cat clicked his tongue and shot a clawed finger over at Dani.  "Exactly, Whistler.  This was a great meeting, but let's wrap it up and get the meeting notes published to the company slack.  Look, great talk everyone, really love the energy we're bringing to this environmeownt.  Sprout, give my love to Luna."

Getting up and stretching, Bex gave Business Cat a thumbs up.  "Will do!  Nice seeing you again!"  Turning to Dani, Bex beamed.  "I'm Daydreamer05!" she explained.  "You can always private message me, same as everyone else!  I'm really happy to help however I can."  To the question of getting Plidinous Vogue to open the portal, Bex didn't answer.  Whether it was an accident or intentional was anyone's guess.

"Thanks again, everyone.  Have an awesome day!  I'm gonna catch an uber!"  Cheerfully, Bex headed for the doors to the outside world, still represented by a pair of off-brand Trader Joe's sliding glass doors.

"I love Business Cat," Dani confided to Karl, Becca and Lucas as they were shooed out of the office by the formal feline financier. She took Metro's card and grinned. "Great! I'll shoot you a text off my own burner when we're outside so you'll have my number, too. I'll send one to Atlas, as well, and one of you guys send me Daydreamer's? Easy-peasy, all linked up and ready for super shit."

Dani headed for the doors after Becca, tossing everyone a little two-fingered salute. "It was great to meet you all! Metro, Atlas, offer stands: If you ever want to find out how bulletproof or fireproof you are, I'm your girl! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!"

Outside the Trader Joe doors, as long as things hadn't taken an unexpected turn, Dani put her folded note into the strange pillar slot and then headed away from the crowd, sending the quick 'It's Whistler!' texts as she had promised while she walked. With her other, nicer cell phone, she also found Daydreamer05 on TikTok and hit 'follow.'

Stepping outside to the real world, Lucas became determined to never do that again. "Have a good Christmas and New Year. I am still not going to shoot myself with a shotgun. At least not in this form. I have a Chrsitmas meal of my own to eat. We can meet again soon. Maybe first week of the new year?" Glancing around, Lucas began to head out and away.

"Great. Good deal." Karl left the office-stomach with the others, re-emerging in the park.

"Definitely, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to all." It sounded like everyone had somewhere to go, presumably others to be with tomorrow. He finished exchanging whatever info was needed.

"I'll probably take you up on that sometime Whistler, but starting a lot slower than you did. Another concept to wrap my head around. Nice meeting you, good seeing the rest of you again." He thought of offering Becca a ride but figured her 'uber' was probably the teleporting gnome.

He pulled out his phone to confirm Whistler's text and to see if he had any other messages coming through after the time in the Stomach Zone.

Hanging out for another minute while others departed, if no one else approached him Karl would take off, head home, text Steph and get ready for heading over to his Dad's for Christmas Eve.

The gathered crowd films the quartet from a healthy distance as they emerge from the strange doors and go their separate ways.

Move back to individual threads.