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The Usual Suspects table is secured and they are joined by Shelia today.

"Hey," Matt say to Sheila, being for once one of the first to arrive. He sits down next to Sheila.

He remembers that Colin wanted to get ahold of Rory's stuff the other day, and finds the occasion to be just as good as any. "Uh... okay, this is going to sound weird, but is there any chance Colin - y'know, the zappy guy? - and I could come over later and look at Rory's stuff? See, he's sorta a medium, kinda, you know, with visions and stuff? I don't know if he'll actually be able to do anything, but he might be able to figure out something, maybe even get a hint as to what exactly happened to him. If you don't want to that's okay, it's probably a long shot anyway..."

"I suppose.  We should probably do it when my folks aren't around.  How about Friday night, I can get them to go out or soemthing and you guys can come over then."


OOC: By this time of day rumor mill has spread the word about the big fight between four guys and a kid that sounds a lot like Kel and the other fight which sounds like Donnie and some crazy guy on Superman.  Lots of crashing through walls and ninja kung fu action stuff.  The fight that sounds like Donnie was in it didn't have much in the way of witnesses because everyone was flat on the floor in terror.

"Yea, that'd be great, thanks. I'll tell Colin. Sorry for, y'know, bothering you like this, but I hope that Colin and his crazy powers will hopefully help..."

Matt tried looking for Kel and Donnie previously to hear what the commotion was about, but then he decided that since there was no news of any hospitalizations or them being sent home he guessed the usual table was the best way to get the scoop, as always.

[Not sure where they are, exactly, but Sylvia would be off trying to find them and  make sure they're okay.  Relatively okay.  Not in a coma.]

As normal, Megan entered the lunchroom with the other members of the cheerleading squad, the girls making their way to their normal table.  Passing near the “Usual Suspects” table, the blond cheerleader noted that Sylvia and most of the others usually there were missing.  With the rumors going around about Kel getting into a fight with some boys during homeroom and another attack on another boy around the same time, it could be they were off checking on Kel or trying to get information for the school paper.  But over all, she really didn’t care at this point.  Given the other girl’s reluctance to put any effort into trying to get to know any of the others on the team, Megan had given up on trying to include her.

She really could not understand why Sylvia liked sitting with those other students.  Most of them seemed like jerks.  When she had gone over yesterday to say hello and get introduced, most had not even offered her any sort of greeting at all.  One, T.J. she thought Sylvia had introduced him as, had not even bothered to look at her or offer any sort of greeting.  Another, Donnie she recalled, had stared briefly (not an uncommon reaction), but then had not offered further greeting. 

Even Colin, who had been to see her in her hospital room after the incident at the lab and wanted to warn her for some reason the day the incident had happened with Fern about people developing powers and such, had failed to acknowledge her presence when she had said hello to him.  She figured he had only been nice before because he wanted to get a story about what had happened at the lab.  She even was wondering about the rumor that was going around about him and a Junior, Jane Spofford.  Till yesterday, she would not have believed it about Colin, now she was not so sure, though she had no idea why a Junior would want to date a Freshman boy, particularly one that was rather scrawny like Colin. 

She rather hoped that Kel was the reason Sylvia sat there, even though he had his rebel-without-a-cause attitude going on, at least Kel was friendlier, and a bit cute.  There was a rumor going around about Kel as well, that he was one of the weird ninjas or whatever that had been beating up on bullies in the school.  Megan remembered what she had seen that first night she had gone out as Velocity at Kel’s house.  He sure knew how to fight, but how did that explain why guys dressed like Ninjas were attacking him? 

Wondering why she was even bothering to think about the boys Sylvia choose to spend time with, Megan focused back on what the other girls were talking about.  She was feeling pretty good about what she had managed to accomplish last night, even if she had gotten a bit roughed up by the last imposter.  But the police had a good lead into the Speed Freaks group, and they knew she had nothing to do with it.  Hopefully they would have some information on how she might be able to help Katie, for that was what mattered most to her at the moment.  When Lucy asked her if the news regarding her mom possibly working at the Wayne Foundation was true, Megan shook her head.  “Oh, its totally true.  I was there when the guy that is the head of the Wayne Foundation brought it up.  Was at this charity dinner my dad was the key note speaker at in the city Tuesday night.  The head of the foundation is an old friend of my mom’s from college.”

Kel arrives, as if everything is completely normal, sits down, gives a slight bit of a yawn, and takes out his sandwich.  He begins eating, he seems great, and is even humming some little tune to himself.

Donnie and Colin walk into the lunchroom together, and Donnie is moving a bit slowly and favoring his side. They approach the lunchtable and sit. He looks earnestly at Sylvia. "Were you near Mr. Engle's 1st period english class? I saw Pip again, but I thought you weren't there. I am so confused."

"Hey guys, what the heck happened? More witches?" Matt realizes too late that he said 'witches' out loud sitting next to the uninitiated Sheila.

Kel shrugs, "Just some jerks hopped up on superman.  Though, there were like four of them, and they tried to corner me, so it does seem more like an attack rather than just random violence."

Sylvia, who'd opened her mouth to ask Kel what had happened when he came to sit, whips her head around when she hears Donnie's voice.  She completely ignores his question, having been too worried to think about where she was in first period.  First period?  That was like hours of anguish away.  Who cares where she was first period?  "Are you okay?  What happened?  Are you all right?  Who was it?"  And can she do anything about it?  No, but nevertheless she moves to a seat near Donnie and looks him over for obvious trauma.

Kel's forgotten, probably because Sylvia assumes he kicked ass and took names and didn't even break a sweat.

OOC: Note, Kel looks like he's been in a fight and Donnie looks like someone tried to put his face through a door.

Kel pats off some of the cement dust from his coat, and tries to straighten out his hair when Sylvia asks him, "None the worse for wear.  It was a ridiculous fight against four guys, they were pretty tough, and I don't have a clue who they were...just ya know, like...guys."  He makes abstract hand gestures trying to show their size and shape.

"Ow. Yeah, some kid caught me in the hall and walloped me with a baseball bat after I was called out of the room by some false PA announcement. I am just bruised, thankfully. We had an unexpected protector help us. Remember the UFG that caught Kel at the Janush party? A girl, who totally leaped in and saved my ass. She like, controls wind and stuff. It was awesome. But yeah, I saw Pip again, and he bit the dude and poisoned him, just like in my stories! I thought it might have been you at first, but you never read my stories, so you wouldn't know that, right? God I am so confused and happy and wierded out. "

Donnie finally stops for a breath.

UFG?  Pip?  What?  And here's Kel trying to describe their attackers through a game of charades.  Sylvia, having had her own brush with death last night, scowls.  It's a strange look on her doll-like face, but she's mad as hell, and she's not gonna take it anymore.  "Dammit, this wasn't random.  Did the principal catch them?"

"Well, they got the guy that attacked me. Hopefully the Superman has worn off, or the campus Keystone cops will have a handful after Pip's poison wears off. Pip! it was Pip! He was really there!

 Will I have to go to court or something? I think they were bewitched or something. Maybe it was magic about the PA Announcements too. I dunno."

"Pip?  Are you serious?  Like, really, Pip?"  In a world full of superheroes, and vampires, and werewolves, and ghosts, and demons, Sylvia finds it hard to believe in dragons.  Wouldn't humanity have been turned into steak tartare by now if dragons existed?  She tries to put what Donnie's said into terms that make sense to her.  "You're casting illusions now?  Poisonous illusions?"

"I don't know. He was REAL! He was exactly as I imagined him and he bit the bat-wielding dude an the shoulder, giving him a dose of the ole nausea poison he has in my stories. He was protecting me. He appeared when I went into the room, thinking the bat-swinger was after Colin. Colin saw him too and he disappeared before the security dudes came into the room. He appeared when I went into the room, thinking the bat-swinger was after Colin."

Donnie grins painfully and reaches out to Sylvia's hands, clasping them. "I am going to try and see if I can call him after school. Maybe I made him appear, with my mesing around with magic or something." He then realizes what he is doing and releases her hands, blushing.

Sylvia realizes, too, and while her gaze falls to her seized and then abandoned hands, she hears, in her imagination (or at least she hopes that's her imagination), her sister repeating what she said the night before, something about how she's stringing boys along.  Her eyes sweep around the faces at the table, wondering if they're watching with silent disapproval, and she sort of folds her arms around her waist where they're out of harm's way and not doing any . . . stringing.  "Tonight," she tells the others, "the Banners are coming over to my house.  If you want to talk to them, now's your chance.  My mom might know what to do about the witches, too."

Donnie leans back, clearing his throat. "Your mom knows about witches? I was wondering, since you had all those herby ingredients I needed. That's cool. Maybe we can get ahead of these bitches. Oh hey! There's the girl from our class that saved me from getting my head caved in. Colin grabbed her books for her. Be right back." Donnie and Colin gather some books and head towards Samantha.

Temporal sanfu.  You guys gave her her books right after the class met up that morning.  They sent you all to the lunchroom for a headcount and when she came in that's when you gave her her stuff back.  Ignore this if the books you gather are not hers.

As Megan and the other girls discuss various things Cleo goes to hand her iPod to Kansas so she can hear this song by a new local group.  As she does there is a slight breeze and the iPod is gone.  "Dammitt."  Cleo yells and begins to look around.  Megan catches sight of someone entering the lunch room and for some reason they get knocked down, like someone bumped into them at very high speed.

"Go report it to the principal cleo."  Lisa says, "that's like the hundreth time that's happened.  They need to ban those people from the school if they're gonna do that kind of crap."  Several of the girls nod and make noises of agreement.  Cleo leaves to go report the theft to the principal.

D'oh!

OOC: Ignore the books part then. Donnie goes to tell her of the meeting and hand her the numbers. Let's pretend I split up the two discussions, yah?

Megan had just been about to start off after whomever had taken Cleo’s iPod when she stopped herself, having only flinched as far as anyone else could tell.  Whomever it was, they were very fast, much faster than the Speed Freaks last night, probably even faster than Megan was herself.  That did not mean she liked them running around the school stealing stuff any less.

When Lisa mentioned banning students that had powers, Megan could not help but remember the discussion she had heard at the charity dinner regarding trying to pass the paranormal registration legislation once more.  Lisa’s dad was a lawyer as well, Megan was surprised Lisa did not consider just how problematic and unconstitutional it would likely be to try and ban students from school solely on the basis of their possessing paranormal abilities.  But she remained quite, her expression one of anger like the other girls present.  Something had to be done about this thief, but something that did not require her to use her powers, or at least not so much that it would be noticed that she had. 

Samantha seems a little bit uncomfortable when Donnie comes over to her table.  He probably realizes its because she doesn't want her friends to know about her powers. 

When he hands her the piece of paper with the phone numbers on it,  she scans it briefly then sticks it in her backpack.  "I'll try to make it to your meeting if my parents say its all right.  My mom will probably want her or my dad to drive me over since they don't know any of you guys.  Is that okay?"

As Donnie gives Sammy the phone numbers, Colin turns to Sylvia and the others.
"It's my fault. It's all my fault. They attacked my friends just to get at me. If it wasn't for that girl... I don't know what would have happened to Donnie today. They must be stopped before someone gets seriously hurt or worse."

Sylvia nods.  She's not fooling around anymore.  No more of this little-kid, Scooby-Doo nonsense.  "We'll get them."  She looks at Matt and Kel, the vanguard.  "What do you guys think?  What should we do?"

Kel smiles, "Isn't it obvious?"  He looks at the others and then states plainly, "A good-old fashioned witch-hunt.  For real this time though, we can't fight them on their terms, we're going to have to get them where they can't pull the kind of shit they did the other day."

"Knowledge is the key. Before anything else, we should find out who they are, and how they do what they do. What kind of books they read, what kind of herbs or tools they use. The stuff they buy at the magic shop. Their powers, because each is gonna be different. The more we know about them, the more likely it is we find a way to take the power away from them. It's for their good too. They can't keep using magic to hurt and boss people around. Magic has a ferocious sense of karma and poetic justice."

Kel nods in agreement, "Good point, we went in blind last time, can't do it again."  He then looks at Colin and says, "I think more importantly, we're going to have to protect our identities."

GREG: "So, there was a fake call for you guys to go to the office during home room huh?"  Greg asks, leaning back and tapping his pencil to his nose.  "I'll be right back."  He gets up and exits the lunch room.

DAVE: "I take it there is another trip to the magic shop in our near future then?"

"Yes, Dave. Maybe not today, but soon definitely. As soon as we put together a plan, I'd say. If you'll be so kind to bring us there this time too, I'll add it to the huge list of things we already owe you."

DAVE: "No problem.  It's nice to have a reason to do stuff, well, a good reason anyway."

SHELIA: "Oh, Colin, Matt says you wanted to come over and look through some of Rory's stuff.  I was thinking maybe Friday night, I want to get my folks out of the house so they don't get wind of this.  I'd rather not have them asking too many questions, ya'know?"

Colin turns to Shelia.
"Yeah, I know." remembering of he had to dodge his mom's questions two evening ago. Knowing would have only made her feel really bad. Not knowing made her feel bad too, but not so much, he hopes.
"Shelia, I can't make you any promises, but I feel like I owe it Rory that if we have a chance to get a lead on... I owe him to do whatever I can to make sure he finds justice."

SHELIA: "That's sweet Colin.  I'll make sure to get my folks out of the house Friday then, you guys can come over and look around."

About this time Greg returns with a few sheets of paper.  He hands one to Colin and tosses the other two in the middle of the table, they're all copies of the same thing.  "This is a copy of all the students marked tardy for not being in Home Room.  My friend in the office highlighted all the names of the repeat offenders.  Eliminate the guys that attacked you two and that should leave a short suspect list for some of the witches.  They had to be near your rooms to do the voodoo for the announcement, so they couldn't have been in their home room."

Examining the list there are two that seem to fit the logic.  Sukie Ridgement and Alexandra Medford, both Sophmores.

"Where do these two live?" Sylvia asks Greg.

"I think we should talk about plans after we hear what Sylvia's mom has to say tonight. We need to get informed."

"Dunno.  I could find out though."

Dave picks up the list and looks at the two names.  "Let me put some people on this.  These girls will hang out with the others, and it should only take a couple of days to figure out who they all are.  None of us will be involved so they shouldn't suspect a thing."

"You two really are superheroes, you know this, right?" Colin says to Dave and Greg.

"Donnie is right. Let's get together all the info we can get. Hopefully we'l know what to do then."

Megan had been sitting there thinking about the mysterious thief (or thieves?) running loose in the school, while staying involved in the discussions of the other cheerleaders.  As an idea came to mind, she looked up at the clock and then stood up.  “Geez, I almost completely forgot something I need to do before class.  I need to be going, I’ll see you all at practice.”  She then makes her way out of the cafeteria and starts to make her way down the hallway. 

Whomever was behind these thefts, they seemed to have struck everywhere in the school and who knew where they were right now or even if they were looking for another theft.  But she figured she might as well try to bait them.  Reaching into her bag, she began to take out her iPod and then “accidentally” dropped it.  As it feel to the ground, she waited a brief moment, hoping to draw the thief and put out her right foot in the hope of tripping them as they went for the iPod.

OOC: Need a Fate Roll from Megan.

OCC fate roll, lucky number 13 http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=685137

Megan bends down slowly to pick up her iPod.  There is not breeze and it's still there when she gets there.

"Are you alright?"  a voice from behind her asks.  With a glance she recognizes it as Logan Darklighter.

Well, so much for that idea.  Megan thought as she picked up her iPod, only to look up to see Logan Darklighter standing above her.  She recalled Lucy, another girl on the squad had tried to get his attentions early in the year. 

She gave him an embarrassed smile as she stood back up. “Oh, I’m fine, just clumsy I guess.”

"As slow as you were bending down I thought you might have hurt your back, not entirely uncommon for a cheerleader."  He extends a hand, "Logan Darklighter, you're Megan Howell right?"

“Oh, no, just annoyed with my clumsiness really.”  Megan replies in response to the comment about possibly being injured as a cheerleader.  She shakes his hand when he extends it.  “Yep, that’s me.  Nice to meet you Logan, I have heard a bit about you.”  She adds with a smile.

"Well, if you're okay then I'll be on my way.  You take care, and the squad is really looking good this season, you guys are doing a great job."  With that Logan turns and heads down the hall.

EDIT: Changed food this season to good this season.  DO NOT READ ANYTHING INTO THAT!

“Thanks, good to know we have some fans.”  Megan replies cheerfully as Logan heads off.  Putting her iPod back in her bag, she is a bit disappointed, but not particularly surprised that her little attempt to draw out the thief had failed.  She figured she might try again, but then wondered if there might not be another way to get at them as well.  Running the thought over in her head, she started back towards her locker to get her books for her next set of classes.

T.J looks at the names makes a popping sound with his lips and writes them down in his note-pad. "Well, the sooner we see banner the better. Because we've got an odd sortie of heroes and villains here." He shrugs to hismelf and puts away the note-pad. "Hey, y'know that new hero, Velocity, maybe we should try to contact her she seems to be fairly experience. After all she did take out those copy-cats with similar powers to her."

Greg looks over at TJ.  "Yeah, Velocity.  Let me check my roladex for her number"  He wags his fingers as though doing just that.  "Hmm, don't seem to have it here.  Maybe in my other life, the one where I'm married to Morgan Fairchild, yeah, that's the ticket."

Dave reaches over and flicks Greg's ear saying as he does, "Filling in for Sarah while she's sick."

T.J smiles lightly and shrugs. "Just saying that if we get the chance we should try it. It's improbable, but these days that doesn't really seem to matter much."

Donnie looks over at Colin. "How is Sarah doing? Was she zapped by the bitch coven or is she really just sick?"

"She felt better, but she was still rather sick yesterday. I don't know if they did something to her, but it looked like when she will feel all right again she is definitely going to do something to them. They messed with the wrong girl."

He munches on his lunch, thoughtful for a moment.

"It looks like Velocity is mostly out at night. We ought to think of her yesterday, we could have left some notes where she usually patrols. Maybe I could ask Chris if someone at the PCD knows how to contact her. It's not like they have a Velocity-signal or something like that, though."

Kel perks up a bit at the mention of Velocity.  He was having trouble getting the hero out of his head, with all the news flying around about her, and the fact that she was hot, it was more than difficult to push her off his mind.  When they're discussing trying to get a hold of her, he says, "Wouldn't it be better if one of us tried to meet her in person, rather than the hope of getting her with a note?  I mean, how many posters, and pieces of paper, and whatever other random things are stuck up around this town, let alone parts of Chicago?"

"That was just what I would have done if the thought came up yesterday. How would you propose we meet her in time to invite her tonight?"

This reminds Colin to get a hold of Calvin, by phone or in person, and to insist until he promises he'll be there. He also decides to make sure Seth knows about it, so he can give him some room to decide to come or not.

"You know what, we should try to talk with Rob. I'm afraid he feels alone and depressed, and I think he should know what we found out about the witches. Maybe mention their names to him and see if he knows them. Would you like to come with me?"

DAVE: "Might want to give Rob some room for a while.  He's a little pissed off.  The more he thinks about it the more he resents what happened, and he's sort of been trying to move on."

GREG: "Yeah, he's not really been too cheery about the whole thing.  The last person he wants to talk to is probably colin right now."

Kel responds to Colin, "I figure we should take a little while to gather our information, and formulate a plan.  They're probably expecting us to strike back quickly, if we come in on say Friday or Saturday, hell even Sunday but fully prepared with a well thought out plan, and even more people with powers, we might be able to catch them off guard.  Especially if we try to organize it when they least expect it, last time we contacted them in a safe and pretty public setting where they can manipulate people, but if we catch them at a private place and in full force it will be very different."  He then looks Colin in the eye and says, "As much as I want to get up right now and go punch one of them in the face, it's not going to help us.  We need to make a time when we can knock 'em down, and then kick them while they're on the ground."

"Not to mention I'd appreciate it if no one posted my phone number and address on a telephone pole.  My social life doesn't need the help."

"But... " Colin tries to think of something and then he lowers his head in defeat.

I can't fix everything, can I? Lately it actually looks like I'm just a magnet for trouble. I'm not helping anyone. Where do I go wrong?

"If you see him, please tell him I'm really sorry for what happened to him. I may not be able to undo the trouble I caused, but I'll try to make sure it won't happen again."


"I don't think I ever hated anyone so much. They... they just disgust me. I don't even want revenge. I just want to find a quick way to stop them, and get them out of my life."


"That wasn't what I had in mind, but it doesn't matter anymore. If you're interested in meeting Velocity the only way I see is contacting her through the PCD. And even if they help, they may not reach her in time, or she could simply not be interested."

Kel nods, "A good point."  He then starts thinking and then says, "We could try to catch her on her route, I mean, it's worth a shot.  Though, I definitely suggest trying to get her through the PCD."  Kel sits in thought.

Greg gets up and gathers his stuff.  "I gotta get some more script stuff done.  I'll catch you guys later."

Dave waits for him to get a few feet away and shoots a spitwad at the back of his head, scoring a hit.  Greg flashes him the finger and Dave laughs, "Thanks, I love you too."  Putting his match-grade spit wad shooter away Dave looks at the group, "I'm gonna see if Sarah is good enough to travel tonight.  She should get a chance to meet this Banner guy.  If she's sick I'll wrap her in cellophane for the trip"

Megan hears her name and looks to see one of the Usual Suspects coming towards her.  Greg she thinks was the name, he was the one that had stared at her the other day when she was at the table.  He was a Sophmore, and fairly cute.  the girls in the drama club all seemed to think he was pretty dreamy, at least that was the locker room chat.

"Hi.  First, don't take this the wrong way.  It's not a threat or anything, and if it's a misunderstanding that's fine and you have my apologies, but just don't say anything right away."

He hands her a folded piece of paper.  "Don't read this until after I leave."  He leans his head back in an effort to organize his thoughts.  He exhales deeply and looks right into her eyes.  "There is an actual science that studies the motion of people.  Kinestics I think, or something like that.  Pople move according to various things, like personality or physical condition.  It's really a lot of things that combine to determine how a person moves.  I'm a filmaker, and I study motion and people so that's why I was interested in the science.  When you came to the table the other day I realized there were telltale things about the way you move, things I'd seen on a copy of some video.  So, that's the frame of reference for this."  He taps the note in her hand.  "Take it easy."  With that he turns and heads off down the hall.

The note reads;

As Megan spotted Gerg coming towards her, she wondered if there was a full moon or something that all these cute, but somewhat odd older guys were all seemed to be swarming around her today (well, not that Greg was really that much older or anything).  As he started speaking, she gave him an odd look, wondering just what the heck he was talking about.  She took the note, still wondering just what in the world was going on. 

But as he began explaining about Kinestics, she felt a slight chill run down her spin.  When he finished, she simply replied, “Thanks, I’ll take a look,” not quite sure what else to say as he turned away and started off.  Glancing around she noticed that no one had really seemed to pay much attention to the interaction, but she still didn’t want to take a chance.  Closing the note in the palm of her hand she continued on to her locker and took out her books for the afternoon.  She then opened the note and read it.

She barely had read the first line when she looked back up and around, just to make sure no one was watching.  Finishing the rest of the note as superspeed reading, she crumpled it up and put it in her bag.  The “Usual Suspects”  is that what they call themselves?  She wondered.  Wasn’t that a movie or something.  And who the heck is David Banner anyway?  But she really was less than happy to know that someone had managed to see through her disguise, even if it was with a method that very few likely could duplicate.  What was this meeting about?  Hadn’t most of those that would be there all but ignored her yesterday when she had come by to say hi?  And Witches?  Well, given I fought a couple of prostitutes pumped up on some drug that gave them superspeed last night, I guess some teenage witches running around isn’t too far fetched. 

Closing her locker, she started for her first class of the afternoon, not exactly sure if she would go to this meeting or not.

Matt's been quiet as usual, though this time he seems slightly peeved, only some times whispering things like 'taser' 'tentacles' and 'best plan ever!' He perks up a lot at hearing that they're finally meeting with the Hulk, which he just can't for the life of him understand why they didn't do earlier, and, like, at least once per day. Oh well.