Nice marble flooring, tasteful wood paneling and generically pleasant landscapes on the walls, line of counters with velvet ropes sectioning off the lines- Seems to be a bank, yeah.

Though from the way all the customers and most of the staff are huddled with their heads down against a wall being watched over by a man in a black cowboy hat with matching boots and a scarf tied around his face like a mask and a shiny revolver-looking gun in each hand, it seems to be a bank in the process of being robbed.

OOPS THERE GOES THE MASQUERADE.

On the other hand, this kind of thing has to happen all the time, right? (Ack, her 'Somebody Else's Problem' field has totally not survived the sudden teleport. When the masquerade police or whoever show up, Ruby is so blaming this on Pretty Bubble Sorceress Acacia.) And maybe she can bluff her way out of this? Turn her field back on, everyone assumes they hallucinated the sudden tiger surrounded by dissipating bubbles? 

...Though, also, robbing a bank is so embarrassingly cliché...

"Oops," says the tiger, before her brain can catch up with her mouth.

Cowboy Man spins around and spots her!

"What the..." Then he remembers what his instructions were in case of heroes appearing unexpectedly. The bubble tiger doesn't sound familiar but he's not taking any chances. "Boss! We gotta problem!" he shouts, before bringing up his guns and firing at the Sudden Tiger. Rather than bullets, the revolvers spit little blue packets of angrily humming sparks.

Oh huh she didn't think there were any masc magical girls, like it's real tough apparently to roll even pink yoga pants. Weird. 

Also: breaking the masquerade is so definitely not her fault! She was attacked first officer, she swears. (She thinks, as she starts mentally putting together her defense.)

Anyways - she lazily raises a paw, like a cat batting away a fly, and swats aside the angry humming sparks. (They flare like embers.)

Then - biiig showy stretch, and baring her teeth in a parody of a grin. "Is it my turn now?" she rumbles - almost purrs - voice low and dramatically threatening. (If she's going to participate in breaking the masquerade, she's going to do it in style.)

"Boss!" he yelps. "It's a fucking tiger!"

From the back where vault is a woman in a dark suit and a snake mask emerges. She is steering one of the bank employees by the scruff of the neck, presumably having coerced her into opening the vault, by the sack of cash she holds in her other hand. "Kid," she growls, "I swear to god, I left for three- what the hell, why is there a tiger?"

The hostage is not very happy about any of these events. Unlike Outlaw Kid, Ellie knows for certain that there are no transforming tigers or even tiger-themed heroes in the city. Nor villains. Could be a new hero, but the smart bet is this is another villain. Which is great. Just what her day needed, really.

Oh that hostage girl is cute. Rescuing pretty girls usually isn't her style (she prefers being the reason they need rescuing, all else being equal), but she can make an exception or two without losing her groove.

She finishes her stretch idly. "No need to be rude," she drawls. "To start, I'm a 'she,' not an 'it.' And to finish..."

The fucking tiger turns into a tiger-shaped mass of shadow and embers, that blows towards and envelops both robbers before they can react - she's moving idly in her view, which means that a cape would need to be a speedster to keep up with her - burning ash coats them and their weapons; cloying, thick - she's now pretty sure that both robbers are in their human form, possibly partially shifted for those guns - possibly with meguca support though she hasn't heard of anyone using human minions lately - any ordinary weapons crumble into ash, but she's not actually expecting that to work on the guns - 

- And perfectly normal human hands pull the hostage girl back, breaking the 'boss's wrist in the process - she's wrapped in a protective swirl of flame - 

- And the tiger pounces on the guy with guns from behind. 

Guy with guns doesn't have a whole lot going for him after his guns flaked into ash! Which is not really to say he was well-prepared to be mauled by a tiger before that happened, but who among us is? Not this soft squishy bag of wet meat.

She only mauls him a little. He'll be fine with medical attention, even if it isn't very prompt. Probably. Maybe. Anyways she's pretty sure he only has a broken bone or two and a couple bruises. 

She spins to bat at the boss lady next - aiming to knock her down and away from the cute hostage girl (and the random other hostages Ruby doesn't care as much about who're over by the wall). 

How does Ruby feel about a faceful of acid? Because that's what boss lady is spitting at her.

Lol. Lmao, even. 

The acid catches on (magical) fire and burns away harmlessly before it can touch her (or anything else), and now rude acid boss lady has an amused tiger standing on her chest! 

"Spitting acid?" the tiger drawls. "How boring." Slooow paw flex. 

"What are-" she grunts, "Boring? Get off!"

Get off? Well, not with this goon, she's not. 

"Boooring!" she declares, then goes ahead and coats the boring boss lady's mouth with sticky ash. No spitting or mouthing off for her! (Ruby is nice and makes sure she can still breathe.)

Ack gack pffbbth!

what the fuck

Eh, boss lady isn't worth more of her time. Ruby considers for a moment - boss lady seems to be responding to magic like a normal human, which is weird - then shrugs and uses an illusion to knock her unconscious. 

She hops off boss lady after that, sends cowboy idiot a glance to make sure he isn't getting any bright ideas, then concentrates on her heat-sense for a moment to figure out if there's anyone lurking who might be another enemy. (She licks any ash - and/ or blood - off her paws while she does this.)

Looks like she's accounted for everyone in the building.

Nice! 

She'll saunter over to cute hostage girl, then. "Seems that's the last of them," she rumbles. 

"Uh. Yeah. Now what?"

"Well..." She curls closer. "Depends on if you'd like to get a coffee with me." Purring rumble. 

"...Didn't know tigers drank coffee."

Heh. "This one does."

What the hell.

"You know what, sure."

"Yes!" Tigerly wiggle!

She wraps them in a faint cloud of flame - gives everyone else the vague impression they've vanished entirely - 

Then: cute girl time! (She actually looks incredibly normal, like a college student ready to go to class - a very peppy college student, but. She's wearing a black skater dress printed with skulls wearing rainbow flower crowns, a red fanny pack in lieu of a belt, knee high rainbow socks, black running shoes with a glowing fiber optic inlay that's slowly circling between colors, several bracelets and a rainbow beaded choker... And no mask whatsoever.)

"Any recommendations?" she asks. "I'm not actually sure which city this is..."

"Unless you want to meet the local heroes, probably not the Starbucks across the street. Uh, is everyone going to see us leaving...?"

"Nah, they can't see us already - probably'll think we teleported out or something. And Starbucks gets boring - chains, y'know."

How the fuck do this tigergirl's powers work, this makes no sense.

"Right. There's uh, a bakery? That we'd have to take the bus to get to. I don't know if you- do buses."

"I do busses! And I won't even need a bus pass or whatever."

Let's go catch a bus, then. Does tigergirl's illusion also cover them walking out the front door?

Yep! She's not an amateur.

"What's your name by the way?"

"Ellie. What's yours?"

"Burning Ruby Tiger Decima, when I'm being all tigery. But a pretty girl like you can call me Ruby."

"That's... creative."

"Well, I am an artist."

"Better than Lady Venom and the Outlaw Kid, I'll give you that much."

" - Who?" Those super do not sound like magical girl names. They're way too lame, for one.

"They were the ones you fought inside."

Unsure frown. "Fighting them was weird... Uh, hey, where is this, and like, do you know anything about those two - ?"

"This is Philadelphia. Those two were small time villains. Kid is Lady Venom's latest sidekick, for the last four months or so. She tends to kinda chew through them."

Four months is - but the masquerade's been intact, she would've heard if there were powered assholes running around Philly - 

"...So I was fighting a magical girl - Pretty Bubble Sorceress Alicia - and she used some kind of teleport spell on me, and, uh, normal looking humans spitting acid and calling themselves stupid things like Lady Venom is not a feature of the Philadelphia I'm used to. Like I think that would've hit the news?"

"...I kind of hate that this is my top guess, but parallel worlds exist and two is a weird number of them to be, so it stands to reason that you're from one of those. Where apparently capes call themselves things like 'Pretty Bubble Sorceress'."

"Capes?"

"People with powers. Parahumans."

"It's 'magical girl' or 'monster' where I'm from - nowadays people sometimes use 'meguca' for the generic even though that's totally biased towards magical girls as default."

Snrk. "I think a lot of capes would be upset if they had to be magical girls."

"Magical girl powers turning people into girls is actually a weirdly common complaint!"

"If you don't have to be a girl to start, I can imagine so."

"Nah, though most are."

"Powers work in all kind of ways, I guess."

"So they're pretty well known here?"

"Sure, people recognize them. Not as much as the heroes, but villains don't tend to have professional PR teams."

"There's a Masquerade where I'm from - so like, powers are a secret from the general populace. And I have no idea how that's enforced."

"Seems like it would be difficult. Capes have secret identities, but they've been popping up since the eighties."

" - Meguca date way farther back than that."

"Active masquerade's even weirder, then. The first recorded parahuman buzzed a whole cruise ship in the middle of the ocean."

"People who intend to break it - or who're really reckless with power use - tend to mysteriously vanish, so, yeah, there's some kind of magic masquerade secret police."

"Spooky."

"Getting to actually stretch my legs in this world will be super fun."

"Yeah? What's that gonna look like?"

"Hmmm... I'll need to do some information gathering before I decide for sure."

Ellie nods. "That's fair. As long as your decision doesn't involve me getting dead."

"I promise it won't. It'd be a waste of a pretty girl."

"Good to know that's my primary value."

"First thing to draw my attention! Though I'm coming to like your mind."

"Uh huh."

She decides to take the hint. 

"Anyways - I honestly don't entirely know where to start on the information gathering... Heroes and villains - is this like, superhero genre?"

"Genre isn't a word people usually apply to life, but yeah, more or less. You trigger, you get a power, you dress up in a costume and go out at night to either cause or prevent problems."

"Well then. I've always wanted to be a supervillain."

"I guess Philly's not the worst town to start on that ambition."

"And if those two are at all typical, then this place desperately needs an infusion of style."

"Their costumes were more on the low budget end."

"Who else is around?"

"Do you want to start with heroes or other villains?" Ellie pulls out her phone to look up reference photos.

Hmmm... "On the one hand, it's good to know my competition... On the other, any respectable supervillain needs a nemesis, so I should scope out the heroes for candidates sooner or later..."

"So... heroes?"

"At least an overview."

"All right. So that'd be the local branch of the Protectorate, pretty much. Fortunately they've got lots of nice pictures," including one showing the whole team as the top banner on their website, so she can pull that up and show it to Ruby. "In the plate armor with the sword is Chevalier, he's the leader. He can combine multiple objects and pick and choose which properties get shown. Mainly uses that to make his armor and sword ridiculously more versatile than you'd think- the sword has a gun in it, for example. His second in command is Rime," tight blue outfit with fur trim, "she throws ice crystals that explode, and she can control the shape of what the ice grows into."

"Atlas," a beefy linebacker type who has what look like chiseled shoulderpads in his costume, "can grow out those plates on his shoulders, use them as shields or bludgeons. Hologram is the one with the excessively shiny armor, he's a tinker with a specialty in hard light projections. Flexor," tall skinny man in a shiny yellow bodysuit, "can extend any of his limbs out like twenty feet and bend them like they're boneless."

"Then last is Incandesce, the newest member." A blonde who wears a visor with flame decorations, her suit has a daringly low neckline which she is posed to show off to best advantage. "She gets stronger and faster the hotter she is, and has some low-tier pyrokinesis to go along with that."

Interested hum. "Incandesce is definitely hot, and given my own fire themed powers, and her clear sense of style..." (Ruby approves strongly of flame decorations and also cleavage.) "Think she'd be down for a nemesis?"

"It's not like I know her personally, but the image she projects is very into the, uh, game of it all? Cops and robbers sort of thing, photo ops to help kittens out of trees or whatever."

"I'll give her a try, then."

"Try not to burn my city down while you're at it."

"I'm not an amateur."

"You're not from around here, either."

"My home town's just as flammable!"

"So maybe you want to experiment somewhere other than there."

"Nah; I got a lot of that out of my system over the ocean or up in high atmo."

"Really?"

"I'd be an embarrassment as a monster if I couldn't fly!"

"How many powers do you have?"

"Turning into a tiger, fire, and anything thematic for those - though I need to practice the magic, and the more of a stretch the theme is the harder it gets. - Plus general being extremely magic, like the flight's something every meguca gets. So is transforming healing any wounds you have."

"Capes are usually a lot more limited than that."

"Then maybe I'll help liven things up!"

"One way or another, I'm sure."

"Oh, this is our stop."

Baked goods, here she comes!

She is planning on paying, right?

Well, she's got cash from her world, which hopefully doesn't register as counterfeit here? And she's got a credit card, which she can probably convince the system works. (This should even deposit money correctly! She's unsure if her little trick will also result in her account being charged, or if it'll just conjure numbers from the ether...)

Let's stick to cash, at least at places Ellie likes.

Cash it is! (Which fortunately doesn't get flagged as odd.)

And Ellie assumes Ruby will be covering her order as well.

Does that make this a date? (She's fine with covering Ellie's order either way, of course. Gotta keep your consultants well supplied with baked goods.)

It makes this an appreciation of Ellie being intelligent enough not to try turning Ruby in.

She'll add in extra coffee, then. 

That'll do.

One of many benefits to helping her out. 

Fair trade.

Good! 

She has questions about the local villains, next. 

Unfortunately there's not a single online hub for villains like there is for heroes. Ellie is in a Facebook group for villain sightings, however, so she does have pictures, however piecemeal. There are usually a couple small-timers like Lady Venom floating around, but Ellie is pretty sure Ruby will consider them all equally boring. As far as big organizations go, there are really only two in Philly: the mafia, and the Witch Riders, a biker gang.

The mafia is... the mafia. They do the same organized crime racket stuff, just now their enforcers are superpowered. Lots of villain capes wind up in their orbit just because they're so entrenched. Their current headliners are Blink, Skip, and Somnus. Blink is a teleporter, short range and line of sight limited but he can do a lot of hops very quickly. 'Blink and you'll miss it' is an appropriate reference. Skip is- kinda weird, no one has a good explanation for how their power actually works. Basically, they seem to choose whether or not they get hit by anything. Shoot a gun at them and you'll find the bullet in the wall behind them, throw a punch and their body is just half an inch out of reach, that sort of thing. Wide area effects seem to be their weak point. Somnus has sleeping gas for breath. Usually he wears a gas mask and tosses grenades he filled up earlier, but if pressed he can and will knock out an entire battlefield.

The Witch Riders are probably more interesting. They're an offshoot of the Warlocks, another biker gang. The current leader, Charybdis, apparently took offense to the Warlocks' white-supremacist, male-only ethos when she triggered back in the mid-nineties. The first couple years of her career were spent driving the Warlocks out of town entirely. The Witch Riders took over their place in the ecosystem, making some loose alliances with other lower-level gangs against the mafia and becoming more or less the opposing pole for the underworld to orient around. Charybdis herself is a hydrokinetic who makes tentacles of water to attack and defend, and drives around on a custom motorcycle designed to look like a sea monster. Her second-in-command is Salle, who makes forcefield cages of varying size, from just big enough for a person up to the width of a street.

The Witch Riders sound pretty interesting (and fire versus water could be nicely thematic) - Ruby might allow them to stick around - but the mafia...

Nothing says boring like highly organized crime. 

That'll be a project. They haven't lasted this long for no reason.

She'll need to understand more about the legal system's handling of superpowered criminals, for one, and how bad corruption is, for two, and then for three what would happen if, let's say just theoretically, every local member suffered a tragic and bizarre tiger related accident... Or, more realistically, simply vanished. 

Everyone else in the city would probably band together against Ruby, if that last one happened. Bounty on her head. Might even get the Triumvirate involved.

And if it couldn't be traced back to her? 

Mass panic and witch-hunts.

Ugh, annoying. 

What about a citizen's arrest with evidence pinned to their clothes? 

That'd be basically vigilantism, which is... a little controversial. Depends how solid the evidence is, but the mafia does have deep roots.

Ellie is not as versed in this aspect of cape life.

She's done some maneuvering in the shadows before - but it's different when you're both members of a secret society, and no one else knows magic exists. 

She'll have to do a lot of digging and prep work and ugh, though she might be able to get the capes to attack her and at least get a self defense argument up... And she can always provide - alternative forms of employment. 

Alternative employment?

Start her own gang - a cooler one, and one the mafia can't fuck with (on pain of tigery doom).

Ah. The traditional route.

But better. More supervillain, less mob.

Of course, of course.

And if stealing their business and their potential 'associates' out from under them gets them to attack her - well, at that point she's just acting in self defense. 

Ellie's pretty sure that's how cycles of violence and revenge get started.

And worrying too much about that's how they get left in power. 

Perks of having ridiculous powers, she guesses.

She's going to want some calibration on what the most ridiculous local powers are, but - yeah. Her magic's pretty ridiculous.

The strongest heroes are widely agreed to be the Triumvirate- Alexandria, Legend, and Eidolon. Alexandria is the exemplar of what's been termed the 'Alexandria package': flight, super strength, and nigh-invulnerability. Legend's powerset is themed around lasers. He can attack by creating blasts, controlling their strength, speed and direction, and fly by partially converting himself into a laser. Eidolon has the ability to use a suite of three powers at once, and can change them based on the needs of the task before him. He's the most versatile of the Triumvirate.

Hmmm... What - range of things can powers do?

That is a very broad question and Ellie is not really sure how to answer it other than by, like, scrolling through lists of capes. There's not really any kind of underlying rules to predict powers that people have found? The PRT has a classification scheme but, and Ellie will bang this drum until she dies, it is descriptive not proscriptive and was originally intended to be a shorthand for what sorts of tactics are likely to be effective when engaging a given parahuman.

Might be helpful if she's getting into fights with capes...

Sure. She just wanted to get that out there because no one ever remembers that part. The modern system has twelve categories: Mover, Shaker, Brute, Breaker, Master, Tinker, Blaster, Thinker, Striker, Changer, Trump, Stranger. (There's a little rhyme that lists them off in that order.) The names are mostly straightforwardly descriptive of what the power does. Movers have enhanced speed or ability to get around. Shaker powers affect an area. Brutes are more durable and/or stronger than baseline. Breakers have a power that lets them shift into another state, like turning their limbs into water or whatever. Masters can control people or minions. Tinkers build weird exotech things that aren't possible for normal people to create. Blasters have ranged attacks. Thinker powers are for information gathering, something like clairvoyance. Strikers are the touch-based counterpart to Blasters. Changers can change their appearance. Trump powers are like meta-powers, they interact with other powers in some way. Strangers are stealth powers or things that are good for infiltration.

The Tinker category is weird, and she's not really sure about the Trump category (usually the best you can do is prevent a meguca from transforming, which cuts most of them off from their powers, but once they've transformed you pretty much just have to slug it out), and mind control or minion powers are hard to learn and harder to use, but yeah all the rest of those sound like things she's familiar with meguca doing. 

Advantage to her, then.

A pretty strong one! 

Ruby hardly needs it, if her power is as broad as she claims.

The strong don't last for much time unless they're also smart, and getting taken by surprise has been the downfall of plenty of the most powerful meguca in history. 

Fair.

Also why she's asking all these questions. 

Not just simple curiosity?

It is a fascinating subject! But she's more curious about things like the base mechanics and history of powers, not so much how to fight them. 

Ellie is more versed in those than fighting, to be honest.

Ruby's all ears! 

Then she can be treated to an impromptu lecture on the history of parahuman history, from Scion's first sighting to the founding of the Protectorate, the beginnings of the field of parahuman studies, Vikare's death, the emergence of the Endbringers... And she can very easily be sidetracked into a more expansive digression.

Ruby's definitely encouraging the sidetracking! This is fascinating. 

Might need more coffee. Or lunch even, Ellie can keep going well into the afternoon.

She's got cash to spare. 

Supervillainy seems well-remunerated.

ATMs in her world are pretty vulnerable to magic. 

Yeah, that'd do it.

If ATMs here are designed to be hardened to superpowers, though, she might need to think up something else...

Not so much hardened, though the newer generation models have some of that too, but they've got cameras and monitoring software with algorithms that trigger if the usage patterns go too far outside expected parameters.

She can get past ordinary cameras - but, yeah, she might have to be careful to only skim a bit of cash at a time, at least if she doesn't want the heroes knowing she's doing this. On the other hand, if she physically breaks the machine open rather than tricking it into giving her its cash, she can at least get any cash currently in it. 

As long as it doesn't have a flash-trap. Burns the cash up if the safe box is opened improperly.

Fire's her thing, so should be doable to check for - and possibly just flat out disable. 

Just don't burn the city down.

"I don't lose control of fire, trust me."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Might start out with another city, too; usually I'll bounce around some. And that'll be a good test of my ability to go unnoticed - I'll fly somewhere and see if anyone tries to Intercept me. - Maybe not reliable long term, but it'll help if I need cash before I get settled. Back home I've got a list of wealthy accounts whose owners I swear never check their bank statements..."

"Just make sure you're back in time for the next bank robbery. An afternoon out is much better than one filling out witness statements."

Giggle! "I'll be quick."

"Though, speaking of - are you gonna get in trouble for not sticking around to give a statement?"

"Ugh. Maybe. Depends how well my boss can bullshit the PRT."

"I can pretend I kidnapped you... But that might just make more paperwork."

"Yeah. If I give them some info about you, they'll probably get off my back."

"As long as it's flattering, I'm okay with that."

"I'll make sure they're impressed."

"Thanks!"

"And give them your full name, since they'd come up with something boring otherwise."

"Can't have that."

"Least I can do, really."

"I still appreciate it!"

"You're welcome."

Hum. "So the PRT are like police?"

"The legal situation is, uh, more complicated than that, but basically yes? Police for parahumans. Well, more like SWAT, but they do handle arrest and short-term confinement."

"How bad are they at coordinating with normal police?"

"Mostly pretty okay? Depends on the region a little bit, local personalities and whatever but- normal police mostly don't want to get involved fighting a parahuman."

Hmmm...

She's got a couple other questions about law enforcement - and about laws around the use of powers. 

Sure, Ellie knows some things. The laws are nominally about protecting industries from being monopolized or some Thinker crashing the stock market every other week or public safety. Simplifying heavily, it's illegal to use powers to make money. And if you're not in the Protectorate, it's illegal to use your powers at all.

So... Your options are 'be a cop' or 'do crime'? Okay that's even fucking stupider than the War on Drugs, or hell even Prohibition, and those were really fucking stupid. Like if you criminalize not being a cop, then your cops are about to be really fucking outnumbered.

Yeah, that might have something to do with how there's only one Protectorate and a whole bunch of gangs in town.

It doesn't fit her grand supervillain aesthetic but she is totally gonna put 'A. C. A. B.' in giant letters over her awesome supervillain lair's entrance. That's how fucking stupid those laws are.

"Yeah, if I get a chance, I'm so putting that on blast. Apparently being a cool supervillain who provides an alternate option for powered people - capes? - and doesn't do lame stuff like gangs do is gonna be a public service! Fucking idiot politicians, seriously - ugh, I wanna be a doctor, damn it, not a fucking, 'fix your stupid laws you idiot' advocate."

"Such a terrible burden you bear. I salute your sacrifices for the greater good."

She sticks her tongue out. 

Ellie nods solemnly in acknowledgement.

"You're not making fun of me, are you?"

"Who, me? Perish the thought."

"Excuse you, supervillaining is a very serious business!"

"Which is why I'm giving it the respect it deserves."

Rudest cape consultant! 

One gets what one pays for.

Will Ellie be nicer if Ruby gets her fancier baked goods? 

It's a distinct possibility!

She'll need to learn more about the offerings in the city, then! Or figure out if she can drop off radar enough to take Ellie on a real outing somewhere more exotic...

Start with the pastries. Work up from there.

Fiiine.

Smile!

Yeah, even with the teasing she can't help but smile back. 

Anything else she wants to know today?

Hmmm... She thinks that's all her questions for now on cape matters. 

All right.

Just to be clear, Ellie still doesn't feel they're at the stage where she'll invite Ruby to spend the night at her place.

Awww. But, fair enough. 

Ellie trusts Ruby will be able to manage.

She'll need to find someone else to crash with, probably... Though she can also skip sleep if she really feels like it. 

That must be convenient.

It has its uses! 

Especially if she's going for med school. Ellie hears that schedule gets demanding.

Yeah, it's already pretty essential in her pre-med program. 

Not gonna lie, Ellie's a bit jealous.

Maybe her big supervillain goal should be eliminating the scourge of mandatory sleep. 

It'd certainly be big enough.

And grandly dramatic enough! 

Not necessarily very villainous, though.

A lot of mad scientist supervillain goals aren't evil in and of themselves! It's the 'mad science' part that makes it supervillainy.

Ah. Fair enough, then.

All in the presentation! 

Heh.

Though it sounds like Ruby should be letting Ellie go soon - ?

Yeah, she had some errands to run today before going home.

"Have fun."

"You too. Feel free to look me up sometime. This was nice, overall."

"Was for me too!"

"See you around, then."

"See you!"

Ellie will take her leave, drifting off into the city.

She'll go exploring, then - in the guise of a totally normal human tourist, at least at first. 

There's plenty of normal human tourist things to do in a city this size! And if she stays in the downtown-ish region, there's a reasonable chance she can see one of the Protectorate heroes on a meet-and-greet leg of their patrol. If she'd rather find a villain, then she'd probably have to do some abnormal tourist activities.

Running into a Protectorate hero sounds more interesting, right now. 

As luck would have it, she does happen across a hero pausing to hand out autographs next to a park.

Ooo pretty! And from that costume... Looks like this might be Incandesce.

Ruby, being a supervillain of good taste and also a lesbian, will get in line for an autograph. (Unfortunately, this dress only has a bit of cleavage, though it shows off her deltoids and biceps very well... Ruby's never been one to let a little thing like magic imply to her that she can skip hitting the gym, because it's very important to look like she can - literally - pick girls up.)

Looks like she's about Ruby's age, when she gets to the front of the line.

"Hello there," Incandesce says. "And who should I make this out to?"

"Ruby," she says. "Just that - though I wouldn't mind if you added something like 'cute girl.'" Flirtatious smile. 

To a cute girl
called Ruby,
Incandesce

Giggle. "Not as cute as you are, though."

"Why thank you!" She leans in to whisper conspiratorially. "Though between you and me, I'm going more for 'hot' than 'cute'." She taps demonstratively at her flame visor.

"Why not both?"

"Tricky, but maybe I can manage it.," she laughs. "Maybe next time you can give me some advice?" (Ruby's pushing up on the maximum time anyone's talked to Incandesce while she's been signing.)

She steps aside and lets the next person up. "I'll look forward to it."

She gets one more smile before Incandesce goes back to the business of public relations.

She hangs around the shops after that - window shops at first, gets an idea of clothing prices here, what shops are available... If there's any places with maps of the area, or a local attractions/ business directory (even just for tourists). If there's any nice hotels downtown, too; she can stay in a motel if she has to, but she'd rather not. Any restaurants or coffee shops that look like a good place to take a date (or a consultant being paid in coffee and baked goods).

And, also, she keeps an eye on Incandesce out of the corner of her eye, as her window shopping and information gathering - and one spot of actual shopping, she really goes need at least enough clothing to change into tomorrow morning, plus trying out one of the coffee shops - 'coincidentally' keeps her in the same broad area. 

The hero doesn't seem to notice her, occupied as she is with her other business. Incandesce does a good job of looking like a hero, at least, always friendly and polite, stopping to pass a friendly hello with anyone who seems interested, holding doors, helping kids cross the street, flagging down a taxi for an old lady.

Once she's no longer tied up with autographs or old ladies needing help, Ruby mosies on over to Incandesce. 

"Can I help- Oh, it's the cute one. Hi!"

"And you're the hottest hero." She laughs. "Hi yourself."

"How's your evening going? No crimes to report, I hope?"

"None so far! And I've mostly just been shopping," she raises the bag with her new clothing demonstratively, "And trying to figure out where a good hotel is around here."

"From out of town, huh. Well, you can't go wrong with the Grand."

"Yeah; I'm from a bit farther south." Light shrug. "And that definitely sounds like a fancy enough hotel."

"I used to stay there with my family when I was a wee lass. Incandesce-approved!"

She laughs. "Then I'll definitely give it a shot."

"So, what brings you to our fair city?"

"Just travel. Though I might stay for the pretty girls."

"Just sightseeing?"

"Depends on what I see!"

"Well, I won't mind if you keep watching me."

"You're the best sight so far."

She preens. "I do make this costume look good, don't I."

"Absolutely stunning - and hot."

She makes a little flare of flame burst from each of her shoulders.

Giggle! 

Can she touch them? 

Incandesce would prefer that she not!

"Careful," she says, snuffing them out. "Don't want to hurt yourself."

"Maybe not in public."

She winks. "You would not believe how many training sessions about liability I've had to sit through as a pyrokinetic."

"Informed consent goes a long way!"

"I'm told it's still 'bad for our image' to let people burn themselves in public."

"What about in private?"

"That would be a different story, if the situation ever arose."

"It could happen."

"Stranger things have, Miss Ruby. Though usually not during working hours."

"Later, though?"

"I'm off shift at eight."

"Perfect."

"Let me give you my number so you can text when you have a room..."

"Thanks." She writes it down, and makes a mental note to at least get a burner phone before eight. 

Wink. "Looking forward to it."

"See you then."

Well, Incandesce has a patrol to continue.

Ruby will let her go! 

Later!

Later!

After letting Incandesce go on her way, Ruby heads to somewhere she can buy a prepaid SIM card first - hopefully she won't actually need a full burner phone, since she does have a phone and can hopefully use magic to smooth over any operating system incompatibilities.

After that... She's going to need a hotel room... Hm, can she turn some of her cash into a prepaid debit card? Fancy hotel might not be impressed with being paid cash for a night. 

SIM and prepaid debit card can both be obtained without issue at a corner store.

And to the hotel! Ruby will get a small suite with a single queen bed, facing away from the street so it's a bit more private and quiet - and, also, high enough that it'll be easier for her to sneak out by flying.

Fortunately there is such a room available. And within her budget even for a night.

Cool - though she's going to need more money before long...

She puts her new clothes in the room, texts Incandesce the room number and, since it's nowhere near eight yet, heads to the library to do some research of her own. 

kk ill b there when im off!!

the mask will be staying on tho >;)

makes sense lol

see you cutie

<3

She goes to answer! (She's still in her day clothes.)

Incandesce is in street clothes, but as promised her visor is still affixed.

"Hey there."

"Hey hottie." She steps aside to let Incandesce in. 

Smirk. "Nice place you've got."

"It came well recommended."

Bounce bounce.

"How did you want to start?"

Hum... "Up to you." Though she does step much closer. 

"You look like the kind of girl who'd be fun to kiss."

"Hmmm, and your mask does leave your lips free..." She steps close enough their chests are just barely brushing, head tilted down. 

Kiss!

Kiss!!! Very pushy, intense kiss, in fact.

"Oh, so it's gonna be like that, huh?" she giggles.

"Unless you object." Kiss!

"Sounds like fun."

Sounds like permission for even more pushy kisses!

Maybe they should take this to the bed?

Sounds good! 

She pushes Incandesce back and onto the bed, straddling her before she can get herself situated, grabbing her hair to pull her in for another kiss. "Mmm," she murmurs. "I seem to recall something about only letting people burn themselves in private?"

"You're wearing too many clothes. Don't wanna set off the smoke alarm~"

Excess clothes can be fixed! Nice and slowly, of course, giving her audience a good chance to appreciate every inch of skin being revealed.

Audience: is very appreciative.

Does she stay still and watch like a good girl? 

Not wiggling is hard!

Ruby might need to pin her down better, so she can get undressed in peace...

Quite possibly.

Luckily her thighs are up to the job. (This involves shifting her position forward a little bit.)

A new and exciting vantage point!

Something for her to enjoy while Ruby finishes undressing.

Incandesce does very much enjoy it.

Excellent! 

And, once she's done: "Any other safety measures you want, cutie?"

"That seems good enough to get started."

Excellent! 

Ruby has ideas on where to start...

Well then. Started they shall get.

(Ruby may notice that Incandesce's entire body heats up when she does her pyrokinesis thing, ramping more and more over time.)

Very convenient then that Ruby is currently straddling her - enough heat gets her very wiggly and pressing down on Incandesce. (Incandesce might notice that not only is she not bothered psychologically by the heat - definitely a masochist - but she isn't having a lot of the subtle indicators of burns or overheating being a medical issue that Incandesce has been repeatedly warned to watch out for. She gets flushed and lightly sweaty and no worse, no matter where or how much heat Incandesce applies.)

She's keeping things at a safe level for playing, so that's not too surprising. Convenient, though. Means they can keep going longer.

And Ruby has a lot of stamina - and rewards Incandesce for good behavior, of course. 

Yeah, this was a great decision.

Ruby definitely agrees.

An excellent use of the evening.

Mmmhmmm.

Much as she'd prefer not to, though, Incandesce should leave before morning.

Sad! Though she'll have Ruby's number if she wants to meet up again. 

She will keep it handy.

"See you around."

"Bye bye, cutie Ruby." And she shows herself out.

She spends some time taking a cat nap - not strictly necessary, but very nice - before seriously settling in to figure out how to make some money. There's ATMs, of course - ones in other cities - and she doesn't exactly have the qualifications for a competitively paying job...

Robbing ATMs is currently of uncertain benefit to her, though. It'd be good to have alternate income streams - once she establishes herself as a supervillain, those should be easy to come by... Hmmm, of other crimes, there's always robbing jewelry shops, or just flat out forging things to sell - pawn shops tend to be pretty suspicious, though, and she bets that'll be worse here. But if she can get ahold of the raw materials, her powers do actually lend themselves decently well to jewelry making, allowing her to launder stolen jewelry without much issue...

There's also always legitimately selling her art, but that's boring and would require some time to get established anyways...

Hmmm.

She heads to the library. What does the internet have to say about ways to make money with powers - ? Surely there's something technically legal (other than being a cop) even if just in other countries - and Ruby's fast enough that even the other side of the world isn't a horrible commute away. As long as their currency exchanges to USD, she'll be fine. (And obviously there's a whole host of ways to make money illegally, but she isn't in the mood to tie herself to an existing gang, which cuts off a lot of the usual means.) Bounties, maybe? One off 'consultations' somewhere with money but no real rule of law? 

(She isn't entirely familiar with this computer style or how the NSA works in a world with parahumans, but she does do what she can to make herself harder to track, just in case her searches trip any red flags. Won't be the first time she's ended up on a watchlist, though, and she'll be doing her supervillain debut soon enough anyways.)

Seems like other countries are less restrictive than the US in terms of economic application for parahuman powers in most ways- NEPEA-5 doesn't have universal analogues. The Protectorate is also not a universal institution, most everywhere else has their own smaller, more localized groups with their own norms and historical context. Some regions, either through a lack of existing state capacity or unlucky triggers have devolved into outright warlordism, and there's certainly no shortage of mercenary work to be had there. (She won't be able to sign up over the public internet, but if she's not afraid of watchlists she can put enough together to figure out where to go.) There are also bounty contracts floating around, though most of the truly well-paid ones are well-paid because the targets are too dangerous or too slippery for the official heroes or anyone else to have already taken out, and not for lack of trying.

Ugh, worse prospects than in her world. (Some magical girls - who run more aggressively law-minded than monsters - make serious bank working their way through 'most wanted/ reward for information leading to capture' lists.)

Some of those dangerous bounties might also be a good way to make her official introduction, though, especially if she wants to make it clear she's playing by her rules and not the stupid ones here - as long as she follows up with something sufficiently grandly supervillainous, so no one thinks she's a hero or anything gross. However, despite Ellie's general first impression of her, Ruby isn't actually stupidly reckless, just stupidly overpowered and aware of it. She doesn't know yet how her magic will interact with the local powers; if power nullifiers work on her, that would be really bad. 

'Slippery' might be a good bet, though - at least a good test of her magic versus their powers, given how shaky her scrying and all is compared to a lot of magical girls and other monsters. Looks like Strangers, mostly, or people able to nullify Thinker powers somehow, or powerful Thinkers themselves... Or crime lords with said capes on staff, a lot like the local mafia but with governments that actually want them arrested or, better yet, dead. 

Also, putting together enough to figure out where to go for the less official bounties is much easier when you have magic - she needs a lot less than a typical person to get a good heading. 

The question becomes, then, how far afield does she wish to travel?

Hmmm... Just about everywhere on the planet is within a couple hours even if she doesn't push herself. She doesn't super feel like spending all day on this - but like, that pretty much just rules out... This isn't too far from her usual reference point, so off the top of her head - southern Africa, Australia, southeast Asia, and like all the islands right around there would take too long for a first jaunt, unless there's a really tempting bounty out there. (She's assuming, of course, that she can daytrip this - if that looks unlikely, she might as well go farther afield.) That leaves the whole rest of the planet, though. 

There's a South American cartel that might fit the bill. After some years of relatively low-level activities, they're aggressively expanding their territory, ramping up distribution of a seemingly Tinker-made drug and certain global actors, governmental and otherwise, would prefer that neither the drug nor the cartel behind it become an endemic problem.

Largest bounties on the leader and the possible Tinker in question (if they exist), then, with... Looks like a small general bounty for 'information leading to arrest' for each of the other major figures in the cartel... She'll have to be careful about evidence for everyone but the leader, maybe the Tinker, if she wants the full payout... Cartel leader's 'dead or alive' but not the Tinker, what do you wanna bet shadowy government figures are gonna vanish that guy... Killing the cartel leader will also let her collect from that 'otherwise' crowd. (She double checks self defense laws in the area - looks like she probably wouldn't get in much trouble even if she did kill other cartel members, at least, as long as they're trying to shoot her first - but she then wouldn't get paid for them.)

Workable, and gathering and turning over evidence might let her get a small trickle of funds going as arrests play out. 

She makes extra sure no one's currently watching her, then leans back in her chair and spins up a scry in flames dancing before her. She's got the drug lord's picture, normally that'd be enough to go on especially since she's so helpfully gotten a name and rough location, too - does this guy have anything stopping her from finding him? (Getting 'looking glass' images is tough for her, but she can conjure up shapes in the flame in three dimensions. She won't be able to read anything, but she'll be able to identify people and architecture and all.) (If she finds him in the scry, she should then also be able to anchor a finding spell, get some distance and heading information.)

Looks like he's currently in a bunker-type space, conferring with some henchminions.

Simple enough... She gets the best location fix she can, then goes looking for defenses, hints of who his capes are...

Doesn't seem like there's much of that available online. Speculation is he's got at least two or three Brute-types, plus a teleporter and plausibly a Thinker that can spot incoming threats.

Bet the teleporter's near him for evac purposes... That plus the Thinker might be what makes him so slippery. She isn't worried about the brutes, but chasing this guy around would be a pain. 

So she needs to kill him - without destroying the body past recognition - before he can run, or take out his possible teleporter and Thinker first. She's not fast enough to get to his hideout before he could react - so, if the Thinker sees her coming, then he'll definitely have a chance to run. But he isn't running yet...

She shrugs and spins up the best notice-me-not spells she can - getting past precog is a pain, her theme lends itself well to manipulating light or heat, or to 'being like smoke,' and being a tiger lends itself well to hiding before an ambush, though she's uncertain if she can get that to cover her while she's moving... It'd be iffy against another monster, at least. 

But - hmmm, if she can thin herself out enough as a smoke tiger, that might work, and that'd allow faster movement too... Would also shield her from a wider variety of attempts to spot her...

That decided, she gets a motel for the day/ night, leaves her stuff there - 

Then turns into a tiger, becomes smoke and flame - and thins herself out until she's nothing more than a wisp. She flows under the door and out into the sky, picking up speed rapidly once she hits cloud level, continuing to rise and arcing south. 

Her goal is an area near her target, where she'll be able to do further scrying just to confirm he hasn't run. Right now, though, she's focused on speed and subtlety - and on paying attention to see if anyone tries to intercept her as she flies over. 

Her journey south is apparently uninterrupted.

And has her target gone anywhere? 

He is now in a different bunker-like location. There don't seem to be any doors on this one.

So they did sense her coming... Does his new place have any ventilation? 

Indeed it does! Little tiny six inch vents.

Enough for smoke. But since he saw her coming earlier...

She tightens her notice-me-not protections as much as she can, focuses on stalking - on being the predator following the prey, suspected but never seen - 

She turns to smoke, and she heads for her target. 

She can slip through through the surface vents and weave through the filters easily enough.

And it's not until she's in the room, coiling up for her strike, that the cartel boss gives a jerk and begins shouting panicked instructions for his henchmen to take battle positions.

She's already pouncing, an apparition of smoke and flame - 

And, unlike local capes, she doesn't have to obey anything as silly as the Manton limit. A fire burns under his skin even before she reaches him, taking sudden physical form, teeth aiming for his neck. 

He dies, horribly.

The henchmen would like to return her the favor, if she doesn't mind.