Lucas shrugs, "My powers....mmmmmm...." Lucas' eyes narrow in thought and he turns his head to stare outside of the park. "Construction sites. I might be able to do something similar after visiting enough construction sites. Currently, my abilities are mostly limited to altering my own form. My ability to share speed though leads me to the conclusion that I could eventually find a way to replicate this. Though I have never tried to find such a form."

Bex's eyes somehow got wider when Metro expanded on his ability.  "Ohmigosh.  You're, like... a chameleon!  With your skin, but instead of colors, it's... construction... sites?"  Her steam ran out as she got to thinking about it, but Bex nodded to herself.  Turning her back to Metro and Karl, Bex entered into a huddle with the assembled figments.

"So he could've been an owl before he touched a construction site.  That would make sense."

"Ahar, 'tis as Madame Guzman suggests.  Metro be an eidolon, a reflection o' the city itself."

"That cat's a classy chassis, dig.  Listen to his tale, nightingale: he learns new powers from visiting parts of the city.  That betty on the horn had it right."

"Quack."

With a nod, the huddle broke up and Bex turned back to Metro and Karl.  "That's super cool, Metro!  I have to coolest friends!  Karl can fly and save lives and stuff and Metro can turn into a crane!"  Jimmy the Fish raised a finger, but even Roger Duckington just shook his head.  You could bring a Bex to water, but she had to choose to drink.

"O...K" Karl responded to Metro's musings, not really following what he was talking about.

Becca's figments seeming to understand things more than she did made his head hurt. How could they understand what she couldn't? Ugh.

"OK. Well I kind of expected some more activity around these things to be honest. Let's keep each other in the loop if we hear back." Karl said with a shrug.

Lucas' smooth metallic face crinkled and his eyes narrowed in the suggestion of a pained frown, "I don't think I could become a crane......" His voice trails off into an uncertain pained question.

"That makes sense!  And maybe the people filming us will post and people will know that we hang out here!  That would be pretty cool!"

Bex turned and looked from Metro to Karl.  "Are either of you hungry?  I can get some snacks."

One part of the crowd surrounding the colorful collection of personalities was a short-haired woman in a double-breasted leather jacket, jeans, and heavy boots. While they spoke, she took a domino mask from her pocket, already tacky with spirit gum, and affixed it over her eyes.

A sharp whistling filled the air around Danielle as heat was expelled through repurposed cutting torch nozzles affixed on her jacket elbows, and then Dani was off the ground, propelled by gouts of blue-white flame from the soles of her shoes that sent her up and over the crowd of onlookers. They cut out just as quickly, and Dani dropped down loudly on her feet amidst the unusual bunch of critters, people, and... Robots? Cyborgs? Metal folks. The landing was a bit shaky, but she got her balance back quick enough. Clearly she had a little practice.

"Hi!" Dani greeted them cheerfully, and held up a folded note. "Can I give this to you directly, or does it have to go in the pillar? I figure, since I've caught whichever one of you made it while you're here..." The masked woman grinned. "Cut out the middle-rock, right?"

"I'm OK, I guess I could just -" Karl started to respond to Becca's question/invitation when the rocket-propelled woman landed amid their group.

"Uh, hey." Karl, standing in his gym-workout gear with no regard for the cold looked at the new arrival, then over to 'Jimmy the Fish', Becca's anthropomorphic bovine friend in the greaser outfit plus jetpack but decided against asking if they knew each other.

He shook his head. "No, none of us put them up. Just curious. She" indicating Becca "and I already added notes, though I dropped mine in elsewhere. I'm Karl, this is...Daydreamer" again indicating Becca, the blonde teen in the pink nurse's outfit "Metro" the man with the metal head "and Daydreamer's friends."

Lucas whirled at the sound of flames and for just a moment soft almost invisible purple-white electricity arced around his fingertips before dying out. Dropping his hands to his sides, he nods with a slight smile, "Hello. Nice to meet another unique person in the city."

"Kerblerble," came a response from behind the new woman.  Bex gasped, wide eyed and excited, and waved to the fiery femme while Chef Rumblesteak towered behind her.  His "kerblerble" was the "kerblerble" of Babel, packed with intense meaning and great nuance.  For it was not simply "kerblerble" that was understood by those who heard him--but instead, they realized:

A fine day to you, chilly though it may be!  Salutations and greetings of fortitude and peace.  As Mr. Brennan and Mr. Metro have said, fair stranger, it was not our design to have these pillars erected.  Oh ho, not at all!  For these are the work of some other soul, a spirit perhaps possessed of a unique flare and affinity for the earth.  Much as you seem to whistle as a tea kettle upon a gas stovetop, so too would this unknown sculptor be at ease with the earth.  Please, be merry!  And enjoy this, the gift I have brought at Miss Gershwin's request: fried kale chips.  A healthy snack.

Chef Rumblesteak was a felt puppet in the shape of a man, complete with a chef's had and oven mitts.  Set into his stomach was an oven.  Held between his hands, a tray of freshly fried kale chips.  He was tall, with a mustache and eyebrows sufficiently bushy to cover his eyes--assuming he had eyes.

"Chef Rumblesteak!  Aw yes, kale chips!  You gotta have some, Karl, they're so good!  And hi new friend!  These guys are all my friends!  You're gonna be my friend too!  Kale chip?"

Whistler rolled her note back into her palm, and looked just a little bit put-out. She kept a smile on, though, as Karl and Metro made their hellos. "Right, everyone knows the Chicago Superman by now, but it's nice to meet you, Mr. Brennan. Just as nice to meet you, Metro, and you, Daydreamer! I'm Whistler, on account of the," Danielle's high-pitched whine of heat began again and ended demonstratively. "I thought about the Amazing Missus Teapot, but that's such a mou--"

There wasn't a lot that could make Danielle Archer jump out of her skin, but a muppet colossus whispering linguistic tesseracts came close. The whistling sound perked up before Rumblesteak finished his one-word salutation, and then quieted again as understanding filled Dani's mind and she turned to face the Herculean chef. Daydreamer's cheerful greeting and offering of snackage only compounded the strangeness, but all of it was just making Dani's skin tingle in the best way.

"...I don't think I've ever had a kale chip. Thank you!" Dani nodded, bubbling right back up into a proper smile as she took one of the crispy greens from Rumblesteak's pan with her fingertips and cronched it in one bite. "Wow, that's actually really good. Compliments to you, Mr. Rumblesteak." Dani held out a finger towards the adorable duckie walking around to pet its widdle noggin, and turned her attention back to the group at-large.

"Nice jacket," She pointed to the cow-man, mentally comparing his greaser look to her uptown biker thing. "And I love your costume, Daydreamer! Do you have healing powers, as well as leading your..." Danielle considered the motley assemblage of famous plane-saver, the shy metal man who almost zapped her, the adorable critters, the jetpack-equipped cow-man with a fabulous pompadour, and now Chef Rumblesteak, who spoke the language of lost Eden. As Karl and then Becca had put it, they were, all of them, her friends. "Superhero team, I'm guessing? You guys put this together fast, I only met my first superperson who wasn't me a couple of days ago. I think Super Friends is copyrighted, but I'm sure you can get 'friends' in there somewhere. Daydreamer's Friends, Friends of Chicago, something like that.

"Could I have another chip, please?"
This message was lightly edited by the player at 01:08, Wed 12 Jan 2022.

The part Karl had been worried about as soon as Becca mentioned snacks had arrived.

The part called Chef Rumblesteak.

The friendly yet mind-twisting felt gourmet, the kerblerbler of chaos with a light brain reduction.

He wanted to go, but also to meet the newcomer. So he'd stay a little and hope there wasn't too much more Rumblesteakese.

"Hi, ah, 'Whistler', pleased to meet you too. Everyone else has these fancy aliases, so I've been starting to get 'Atlas' going. But feel free to still call me Karl of course."

Karl gave a small shake of the head to the offer of a kale chip the puppet produced. With Becca around the snack might suddenly turn into Dr. Kaledare, DDS when someone tried to eat it. "Thank you, but I just ate, and then holiday meals coming up."

"I think we're still a bit off from a formal group. I have had a number of people with powers reach out to me over the past few days, but this here" Karl made a circle with his finger, indicating those immediately present "is most of them.

"I do want to get something together to help where I can, but it's only been a few days and I haven't really seen much yet, at least in time. I'm guessing from your...accessories you've been...'whistling' for a while now?"

Lucas shies away from eating anything that Daydreamer has had a hand in producing. "Metal, kale doesn't really go well with my internals." Holding up a hand to wave away any chips aimed his way. Wincing slightly at the name 'Atlas' he shrugs slightly. "We are just meeting and talking right now. I am personally working on securing and updating a possible meeting area." Lucas takes a side step to look at Whistler's equipment, "It is very impressive that you were able to put so much together so quickly though."

"Kerberble," came the Chef's response to Danielle.

But of course you may, new friend!  The kale chips are for all, an enjoyable snack that is healthful and pleasant!  But please, Mr. Rumblesteak was my father.  You can call me Chef.

Bex shook her head to the question.  "I'm incognito as Nurse Joy today," she explained, leaning in to stage whisper to Danielle.  "Honestly, the only power I have is the power of friendship.  I'm really lucky to have so many incredible friends!  And friendship comes in lots of colors and lots of costumes!  And I'm not a leader, so... I don't think they'd ever name something after me.  I think Karl's more likely to be the leader, 'cause he's handsome and he has a really pretty girlfriend."  She nodded for emphasis and leaned back.  Wooly Jumper moved over to wiggle into Bex.

Roger continued his sarcastic flapping of his wings to maintain a gentle arc.  He remained oriented the same way, but he started to do loop-de-loops around Danielle.  Once more, he stated: "quack."  It was the English word, spoken properly, from the bowtied duck.

Jimmy gave a quick "thanks, Jane, you're the cat's pajamas" while Rebecca considered Karl's comments and Metro's.  Whistler had a lot of cool gear!  "They're right!  You've got really cool stuff, Whistler!  Do you like tea?  I bet you like tea.  And if we ever need somewhere to meet, I totally know where we can go!"  Bex beamed at Metro, Karl, and Whistler in turn, happy to finally have something worthwhile to contribute.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 20:29, Fri 14 Jan 2022.

"Atlas, weight of the world on your shoulders? It fits, I can see it," Dani nodded, considering the name choice. It definitely had chutzpah, and it fit the Chicago Superman style. To the Chef, Danielle could only offer a thumbs-up as she monched another kale chip.

"A few months whistling, yeah! Jumped out of a plane and didn't need the parachute to survive, surprised me as much as anyone else. Been whistling ever since, although I haven't gotten to put it much to use yet. If you guys are making a super-team, I'm super-down; riding around on my bike looking for muggers really isn't working!" Her chuckle was warm as the rosy tone of her cheeks.

At Lucas and Becca's comments, Danielle held out her arms. "My equi-- Oh, the nozzles? Ah, they're nothing, really. Just a bit of metal I took off some cutting torches at my friend Moni's garage and secured on. The mask is from Amazon." If they had meant the way jets came out of her shoes for that flying leap before, Dani clearly didn't cotton on to that.

And then there was Daydreamer/Nurse Joy. Danielle was barely resisting the urge to grab the tiny blonde and give her a big hug. "Your Nurseliness, you may be the sweetest and most precious person I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Please, never change," Dani cooed, continuing to pet Roger's head when he deigned to allow it. Rebecca was too damn cute and clearly younger than Danielle had first guesstimated, so some level of protectiveness was already bubbling up inside her. "I do like tea. Coffee, too, but tea is so much more versatile. And hey, if you have a place you'd like to share, I'm happy to take this conversation way from the, um..."

Dani turned to the army of looky-loos. "The folks trying to enjoy their day in the park."

Several dozen people are gathered around the strange group, albeit at a distance, recording everything with their phones.

"That really shouldn't be the..." Karl started a little exasperated before remembering who he was talking to and proceeded more calmly responding to Beccca's compliment and suggestion "Thank you, but that's probably not the best way to choose a leader. Not that we really need one at this point anyway, not that there's any real formal 'we' yet in any case."

'Whistler' fell out of a plane? Was she...no, she said a few months. And jumped, not fell. Skydiving accident-that-wasn't?

"Wow, good timing with the, ah, whistling. I know what that feels like, and that seems to be fairly common, at least based on a small sample size. Danger, a sudden adrenaline surge triggering or waking up...something. Glad you're OK."

Muggers? "I don't know if a formal team is really needed. Not like we've been swamped individually. But maybe. At least a network of people in similar situations, who can understand better what's going on, help each other deal with it, share tips and info.

"I do want to get some kind of connection, arrangement with emergency services. Fires, accidents, that sort of thing. I think I could help in situations like that if I knew about them, where to go. Get to people on higher floors quickly, move rubble, get to people on a capsized boat fast, things like that. You could all do that sort of thing to. Metro with your sharing speed could evacuate an area fast, Whistler could do higher areas, Daydreamer and her friends have a lot of options." And Stephanie could find people trapped in a collapse, among other things.

Lucas glances around gathering crowd uneasily, "I do disagree on the team thing. At least in part, perhaps a collective or a formal arrangement might be a better term then team. As ever if we wish to continue this we can move somewhere more isolated? I can as stated grant a fairly nice boost if we relocate."

"It's decided then!"  Near some of the stone pillars, a door appeared.  It was a sliding glass door, like what you might expect attached to a Trader Joe's.  The glass was opaque, but there was a little rubber welcome back in front and a scanner at the top.  Bex gestured to it and beamed, before heading in.  The doors opened, and she hopped in.  The figments made their way in behind her, a little parade of happy dreamizens.  Despite there being nothing attached to the doors, Becca disappeared as she entered, leaving the doors open in case anyone decided to join her through the mysterious portal.

Anything Dani might have wanted to say in reply to Karl's thoughtful insights as to the mechanics of saving people, or Lucas's sensible desire to get out of sight - not that thoughtful or sensible had ever gotten close enough to Danielle Archer to ask her the time of day - was utterly quashed by the supermarket automatic doors. And then Nurse Joydreamer and her cadre of the odd and adorable vanished into it.

"We're sure she didn't make the pillars?" Whistler asked the other two super-people, a bewildered, delighted smile eking up her cheeks. We're sure she's not God? Dani's subconscious added, although she did not voice it. All that mattered to her in that moment was this: It was something new.

"Nothing ventured, eh boys?" Danielle shrugged to the pair, and gave the crowd a red carpet wave as she strolled to the doors and carried on through after the tiny blonde and her circus.

Oh geez. Karl thought, looking at the materialized doors, wondering what weirdness might lie through them.

Steph would never forgive me if I didn't see so I could tell her about it.

"Ok, here we go." Karl said mostly to himself, took a breath and walked through the doors to the unknown...or a local coffee shop.

But it might be a coffee shop he wasn't familiar with...yeah, still not scary.

Lucas watched the three go and sighed looking around at the crowd. "This is stupid and insane." Before he went forward and through the door, before politely closing it behind him.

What terrors could exist in the land beyond the doors?!

No cell service.  That was pretty much the greatest of all the terrors.

Beyond the doors was... what appeared to be an office building floor.  It may've been modeled off of The Office, come to think of it.  Everything was cheerful and mundane.  There were an abundance of bean bags, that was a little unusual, but otherwise it was just an office building.  There were a series of doors leading out from the main area, but Bex bounced her way over and settled into one of the bigger bean bags.  Her nurse's outfit was gone--now she was just in a tank top and yoga pants, and looked eminently comfortable.  As always, her friendship bracelet remained around her wrist.

There was a quiet "ding" and other stereotypical noises that came with being in an office, but the four of them were the only four apparently present.

"We can hang out here whenever!" Bex explained with a smile.

A web startup-style office space. Not what Dani had expected.

But then... What had she expected? What could one really expect when walking through sliding doors that led nowhere? More pink, she answered herself. I expected more pink. But even Daydreamer/Nurse Joy had become significantly less pink on the way through, somehow.

"Nice!" Whistler decided, smiling widely. she strolled towards the beanbags and unzipped her jacket, laying it down beside the beanbag and showing off her athletic, tattooed build and the tanktop she was wearing underneath. She plonked down comfortably onto an available smushchair and stuck her feet out, crossed at the ankles. If anyone was looking close, they might have noticed that the bottoms of her boots had metal-rings cutouts in the soles. They appeared to contain no machinery, just an empty cavity with bare feet on the other side.

"So... Where are we, exactly? And how did you make the door here?" She asked Daydreamer casually, utterly unperturbed.

Not what he expected, but nothing bad. Perhaps Becca's conception of a 'grownup' space, but a cool grownup space, hence the beanbags. He bet the breakroom had a gizmo that made cappucchino instead of an old stained drip coffeepot.

Karl noted the absence of Buccaneer Shoecannon/the nurse outfit and Becca's other friends seemed to have disappeared in the transition as well. He gave a beanbag what he hoped was a casual look checking for big googly eyes or something that might indicate it was a 'friend' and not just a regular retro-chic seat. Not finding anything suspicious Karl settled in to one as well.

"Yeah, thanks. A little more privacy can be nice." Though it did keep latecomers from joining the party. But today wouldn't be the last chance, and Karl knew he himself was easy to find if recent history was any guide.

At Whistler's question he opened a pouch to retrieve his phone while Becca answered. As expected no service, no GPS so he slid it back away.

Lucas inspected the office with interest before moving to a beanbag and touching it with a toe and then crouching down on his heels to feel it. Glancing at the now very different looking Becca and Whistler as he tested the bag, As As I am now I weight quite a bit more then a normal human. Not sure if this will work for me. Still....." Lucas settles down carefully into the bean bag chair - sinking for more deeply then a normal human of his build should.