Welcome to Gaia! ::

((I'm seriously tempted to make some Psychonauts references to "Goggolor" here.))

There was none, waterfall that is. Instead as Joy looked out before her a perfect model replica of Tokyo stood in the distance. It would probably take her a moment to realize that no, it wasn't her distance or vantage that made the sprawling metropolis seem somewhat small but something far more fulfilling. In exact 1/65th scale the world lay before her. Rolling mountains that sloped into semi-urban outcroppings and then finally into the city limits. There was a wail of sirens from an age long ago. Maybe she'd recognize them as the wails of an air raid but it was more or less universal that people should go underground. If she scanned the horizon smoke would billow here and there, signs of a much less innocent pass time than meditation.

~~~

LoQuinn stared down the creature. They circled each other like a pair of ancient greco-roman wrestlers. This wasn't a power exercise and for that very reason alone LoQuinn had removed his piercings. His opponent was a full sized realization of old day Godzilla with a few modifications. Pretty much he'd been given a natural look, reptilian rather than rubber foam. His nuclear breath had also been removed since LoQuinn had requested a somewhat fair fight. He found himself very glad that with a few minor tweaks he'd come up with a veritable playground. Scale change and monster aside this was the same holo-program.

The monster lunged. LoQuinn quickly sidestepped behind a building and took one of it's side walls out with his boot. The people who were still running from the giant menaces were effectively too small to make noise. LoQuinn wasn't sure if they're 3/4in voices would even register to his ears anymore. I wonder if 1/50th scale would get me the desired effect.

Deft hands caught the monstrously mutated iguana's tail and yanked to the side freeing the creature somewhat from it's wedged position inside a sky-scraper. Even though LoQuinn was ginormous he wasn't the biggest thing around. He could thank modern engineering for that. Could they program an estimate for what the future might hold? Fighting a space monster in the year 3000 would certainly be something he'd talk to one of the programmers about setting up.

His inner musings however were cut rather short by an interloper. It took him a moment to realize that she wasn't part of the program. After all she wasn't wearing a costume or anything in particular to tell him she really belonged here and she was a little big to be the Fifty-Foot Woman. Realizing that she was either: a) someone in charge of maintenance and witnessing him most likely violating some rule, or b) watching him do what amounted to playing with dolls, he decided to play it cool and pretend it was a training exercise.

He gave a final tug and used the pull to propel himself into a standing drop kick. His feet connected square with it's spine and as Godzilla slammed full force into the crumbling structure it had just left. An audible pop and the Terror of Tokyo slumped to the ground paralyzed if not dead. Needless to say it was overkill as opposed to say closing the file and having it vanish into pixelated oblivion.

"H-hello," he said meekly before going on the attack. "Do you have a reason for interrupting my training session?"

Ah, so she was an interrogator as well. It made sense that the curious creatures seemed to attract each other. Like to like and all that jazz. His mood lightened considerably seeing as how her questions were about as shotgunned as they came. Not judging his peculiar sense of taste or scolding for misuse of technology certainly helped.

"Nah, don't worry about it. This is uh," he decided to discard plausibile deniability "a blend of combat training and recreation. Okay, more recreation than training. I'm an earth evolved. I specialize in solid stone, concrete's not really my thing but..." He waved his hand and several city blocks groaned as though under stress for an instant before doing a mix of both exploding and imploding. Dust and debris began to drift away in the wind. "... I make do with what I can. Anyway I come here maybe a few times a month to blow off some steam and relive old monster movies. Some people have Hawaii, I have wanton destruction of mini-metropolises." he laughed hearing the words come out of his own mouth.

Oh yeah LoQuinn, they're really going to give you your superhero license now.

LoQuinn readjusted his goggles and gave the girl a once over. "So uh, what exactly is your malfunction?"

Heh, she was smiling. It meant he was almost definitely in the clear about the whole thing. It was nice to see another Sci-fi buff inside this otherwise somewhat stuffy and bureaucratic base of operations. Central hubs tended to have a lot of cogs though, or that's what LoQuinn thought made sense. Truth be told he had little to no knowledge over how the systems actually worked. Something regarding light projections and some sort of sensory feedback. It was highly unlikely that he'd ever really figure out how these devices actually worked.

With a shrug he pulled up a visible command window. With a few beeps of the control panel time seemed to pause around them. He was pretty sure that if he kept the sim running either the Japanese Navy or Air Forces would be interrupting them shortly. He didn't need S/S missiles interrupting his conversation. "Uh, guess so. I'm not terribly sure how it works on the whole but the control panel isn't too hard to operate." That said he closed the 2d panel and continued.

"Meh, you'd be surprised," he said in an undertone. The concept of having no collateral property damage was something LoQuinn didn't think was possible. "Well... All things considered, no. They're just projections as well." He rubbed the back of his neck "Don't think me twisted but stepping on them kinda adds to the ambiance of it all." His mind flashed briefly to just how many mini-Japanese he'd probably just killed by his demonstration. Pixels he reminded himself.

"Yeah, I meant your power. Sounds pretty normal actually, the whole limited use and confusion. Everyone starts the same way, well pretty much. Give it some time and work with it every day the same as any other muscle. Hell if you ask they'll probably even give you a trainer."

He took an honest moment to think on just how long it had been for him. "Years. When I was old enough to start showing symptoms I got some focus training. My family thought I was a seismic evolved at first. Turned out I was just tuning fork sensitive to unstable bedrock. Since then I've been working on control of more and more mass."

"So, who is this Ace?" LoQuinn said, quickly changing the subject off of him and his life story. He didn't really remember names so much as faces and the last time he'd really been outside his own bubble of influence for social interaction was ages ago at some holiday mixer.

LoQuinn gave an understanding grunt. Before he came here this was somewhere in the realm of plausible fantasy for him. His net surfing abilities were par, and what he knew of computer coding could maybe fill a shoebox. He was almost tempted to suggest a tutorial program but he was pretty sure that if she'd notice the next time she booted a room up. They took about a half hour to complete but were a nice start for beginners and if she didn't want advanced lessons she wouldn't be forced to continue.

Yeah, bugs. Little screaming bugs that cower in their offices and subways just hoping that you don't take the roof over their heads. LoQuinn wondered if it was the telltale beginnings of a god complex but he couldn't wait until he could test some of the chaos response programs he was slowly working on. The next time he came here he'd have to see about locks. If she didn't think him twisted right now he doubted there would be a great deal of change when there were audible voices and a score sheet grafted into the skyline. LoQuinn figured he'd be able to plug in a kill count and damage assessment with a little more tweaking. Though he was unsure as to if the computer would be able to accurately calculate damage totals in a tangible dollar amount.

The fact that LoQuinn had never really considered his current activities as a government agent as a job suddenly became apparent to him. It was just who he was. They gave him a general where, when and who and he took it from there. He had never quite made the connection that his room, board and spending money (meager, but he'd always been frugal) were coming straight from Uncle Sam.

"Ah, I see. Well, if nothing else you could always ask around if the big cheese would be willing to send someone your way. He's a little tight fisted about resources but he's a good guy and I'm pretty sure they do some, forgive the term, charity work to non-supers. Maybe a check up or something so they can give you some exercises to practice."

LoQuinn wasn't quite sure whether or not he blushed at her interest in his powers. Most people fell into two categories: a) they outright feared the earth freak in front of them, b) expected that since he was an earth evolved that he could make all of mother nature stand on it's head at his very whim. It was nice to see someone impressed.

"Oh right, pleasantries, gotcha." he said thinking that perhaps since neither had really introduced themselves that they were beyond them. "I'm LoQuinn, I have people call me The Graveler."

The young evolved nodded thoughtfully at her statement. Yeah, that made sense. If she was out in public and brushed some evolved and made a scene then both their covers would be blown. This part of the country was a bit more open minded about some things but really, resentment still ran pretty deep in even 'open' environments. Despite years of bouncing the concept around his head LoQuinn could never really say for sure whether or not it was fear or jealousy that people felt. Was it the unexplainable condition or the fact that they too couldn't bench press a semi-truck or spark fires with their mind? Maybe it had more to do with not knowing what a walking weapon was really capable of.

LoQuinn was quite thankful she didn't seem to expect anything more from him (much as she refused to partake in name dropping LoQuinn had been chided earlier by others for 'show boating' his powers). The last thing he needed right now was someone else thinking of him as a snob. He remembered a set of twins... dropping the vague happenstance from his mind he cycled back to what was happening here and now.

With a slight crawl of his skin and a barely stifled cringe LoQuinn suffered through Joy's attempt at humor. He had tried hard to suppress the occasional rock or mineral joke and through practice most of his puns has ceased to leave the annals of his brain. It was all a manner of conditioning, because no one, no one would be willing to listen if that's all he ever said. It was all he could do to recover and catch the rest of what she was saying, he counted that as her mulligan.

"It's actually more of a transitional name. I came up with it while walking through the woods actually. About all I was ever able to manipulate at first was the sort of stones you might find in a driveway. Once I get to being a full Super I'm going probably going to update it. People tend to leave off the 'the'. Irks me to no end."

Maybe when she had a title she'd understand. That was, if she ever got one. But she mentioned her brother and as far as supernames went it wasn't the worst he'd ever heard.

"I know a lot of Evolveds tend to go two ways. They either call themselves Rank and Super Adjective, or base it off their powers. For instance you've got Captain Tremendous and Photon." He held his hands in front of him as if the names had weight of their own. "Personally I like Photon better. Short, sweet and mentions he does something with photons and light. Only downside is that you fight someone with half a brain and they've got you somewhat figured."

LoQuinn shifted his hands in favor of 'Captain Tremendous'. "Problem with the whole rank/adjective though is if you fall from grace or you age. No one ever cares about Cap when he isn't being tremendous." He lowered his hands. "Just some words to think on if you come up with a name." He wondered if he'd really intended to give a lecture. It felt more suited for a classroom than a damaged cityscape set on pause.