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"Alpha Sentinels, Deploy!"
All her life she's heard those words, and until recently, they meant sitting helplessly and worrying about her mother, Miss March. Today, while they still most likely mean sitting, she's anything but helpless. As the team heads into battle she turns to watch the screens. A floor below, in the Alpha Control situation room, a team of operations support personnel springs into action, and she's spent enough time in that room growing up to know exactly how each of them takes their coffee. The SLJ analysts in Alpha Control drink as much coffee as any other three SLJ divisions put together, but that's not surprising- being perpetually understaffed and on-call 24 hours a day is a way of life in Alpha Control. Stress is perpetual in a job where the fate of the world may well rest on your ability to accurately estimate an alien warship's hull integrity. Sometimes she wonders if her mother really appreciates how good those guys are. She's watched them work, she's learned how to analyze a situation, and she does her best to help out. Director Pope has always allowed her to be a part of the team, in any way she can. A spectator, but not helpless. No, not now, not ever again. She can help. She captures stills from the video, runs them through the various databases. The computer sorts the results for her. Nothing from Tobin's, nothing on wikimonsters, and a handful of weak guesses from xeno.net. The analysts have security hacks, traffic camera overrides, satellite visuals, watching the conflict from a dozen different angles. She watches Will land a blow between its eyes. The thing is significantly more damage resistant than it should be- not strictly biological. Something catches her eye, a question forms in her mind. Which direction did it come from? The entire trail of destruction is less than two block long. Variant and Foil got there first, but before that... Either it fell out of the sky, or it was summoned. She watches it move. There's a delay in every reaction, it's taking orders. No, it's struggling. Controlled. Summoned? Why there? She pulls up an overlay of the city. Something that size, it would have to be controlled from somewhere nearby, probably less than a mile. Where was it heading? Before Will got there, it looks like it was making a beeline for Electrum Road. The financial district. Why? She keeps digging, she has to find something to help her friends, to prove herself, to be part of the team. She spent her entire childhood watching the team on monitors in Alpha Control, she spent her teen years training non-stop in the hope that she would become one, and then her mom pulled some strings and had her appointed to the team without a formal audition. She's got a lot to prove, and she's ready to go to work.
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Intuition
 Detective: standard (rank 1)
Three buildings, she calls up the floor plans for each. She hears her mom barking orders, burning through ammo, unleashing coordinated hell. The first building doesn't work, the monster would be out of sight for too long between windows. The next is a bank. If arcane summoners had broken into the top floor and started performing a ritual, the SLJ would've known about it. The final building, it doesn't feel right. She checks again. The final building is an office building, the corner offices are all tiny, not enough room for a cabal of necromancers to stand in a circle. She's missed something. She goes back and checks the other two... the satellite images don't show anyone, but she checks anyway. One of the two is a hospital, Care-flight Heliport on the top floor, foot traffic would be too unpredictable to risk using. The other one... East Gilbert Ave hovercraft parking garage, top six levels currently closed for construction. Open view, plenty of space, almost exactly halfway between the monster and its destination. She shouts into the desk microphone.
"Mom I've found them, I'm taking Callum! Sage, meet me at these coordinates!"
Speed of Sound
 Super Speed: superior (rank 2)
She makes it down stairs, over the threshold, and into midtown traffic in under two seconds. There is a light lunch crowd for a Monday but she's still moving faster than anything else on the street. The traffic cameras flash as she outpaces the KPD floating point units, and she frowns as she realizes she has just made extra work for the guys in Alpha Control. No time to slow down. She takes the next intersection in a single leap, letting momentum carry her above the moving cars. Five blocks, and all the lights ahead of her turn red as the SLJ protocol finally kicks in. She can hear Spectrum swearing over the com, he's got it pinned, but he can't hold it. Miss March launches an offensive barrage that would destroy most armies, but Allison knows that tactic- frontal assault designed only to draw the thing's attention, to get it away from her teammates. Her team leader calls for options. She knows what Director Pope is planning, it's a solid tactic even if it does deflate the Alpha's collective ego a bit.
"Mom, get it to move as far south as possible. Separate it from its controllers. Sage and I will work on the other end to break the bond."
Going Vertical
 Leaping: standard (rank 1)
She hits Gilbert Avenue at an easy 200mph, and accelerates from there- the street's pedestrians and motorists conspicuously form a corridor as Doc Raven's psychic suggestion clears a path for her. She glances up at the building, and sees Sage waiting atop the garage. Cocky bastard. The blur of her body rockets upward, expertly turning midair, she crouches atop a street light for a fraction of a second, giving Sage the signal, then up again, six floors this time, to a window ledge, six more to a painter's scaffold, another eight straight up and then she kicks hard, forcing her body straight out away from the building in a powerful arc. This is the trust part- the maneuver is known as the "Fast Lane," and although she doesn't care for him very much, it requires her to put her safety in his hands. Alone in the blue she twists expertly, and then falls feet first, five floors, ten, fifteen... the blur of the world wraps around her, twists in on itself, and in a flash she's gone, and ten feet below where she disappears, concerned motorists flinch for an impact that doesn't come. Instead she reappears, twenty five stories high, traveling sideways like a bullet, straight for the garage window, the momentum from her free-fall preserved through the teleport. The window never had a chance.
Faster Than You
 Reaction Speed: superior (rank 2)
The glass gives beneath her feet and she shields her face instinctively. She's had her eyes closed, a trick her mother taught her; outside is very bright, it is going to be much darker in the garage, and her eyes will adjust much more quickly this way. Her mind goes into overdrive as she opens her eyes and assesses the space. She recognizes the symbol on their robes- The Null Synod- anarcho-communist runepriests, wannabes with more power than brains. Poorly organized, but they will shoot to kill. She spins and kicks her legs out, spending her momentum against the nearest cultist as the shattering glass peppers the assembled circle of summoners. The force of her impact knocks the cultist into a concrete mooring block, and she's up and moving before the rest can recover. Her objective is to clear the space by the window so Sage can teleport in safely. She catches a second cultist with a drop-kick before one of them starts shouting obvious orders- "get her" or something similar- and she grins as she remembers Blind Mike telling her that an unprepared leader will always be the first one to panic.
SLJ Martial Arts Training
 Martial Arts: superior (rank 2)
One of the cultists begins an incantation, but she's already covered the distance- her knuckles drive home in the soft spot just above the collar bone, no more talking for you. She plants a kick to the back of his head, just to make sure, and two more are already charging her, their hands and eyes glowing with unnatural enhancement. She vaults forward, catching them off-guard, explosively fast, and grimly aware of their danger. She wraps up the wrist of the nearer of the two, spinning with him, executing a basic Judo roll, then pinning his arm in an Aikido joint lock while striking hard and fast with an adapted Savate kick to the kneecap of the other assailant. She drops to her knees and twists the wrist at precisely the right time, a dirty Krav Maga technique that launches one attacker into the another- designed for opponents with knives, but useful against opponents using withering-palm necromancy. Instinctively they both raise their hands to cushion the impact. She doesn't take time to cringe at their screams.
Bullet Time
 Combat Supremacy: superior (rank 2)
A thunderbolt announces the arrival of Callum Sage, her arcane ally. Immediately he goes into macho mode and singles out the cult leader, whose body is convulsing against the unrestrained dark energy. A bolt of jet erupts from the cult leader's chest, and even as she twists out of the line of fire, she watches Sage bend the attack away from her, using his own arcane ability to force the spell back into the cult leader. Spectrum starts shouting over the radio. One of the cultists in the corner reacts unexpectedly, pulling a revolver from his robes, and leveling it at Sage. Shit. She's a blur of motion, but even with her speed there is no time for anything but instinct. Her body is not quite there when the barrel flashes- gritting her teeth she thrusts her hand forward, into the line of fire. She feels the burning kinetic energy as the back of her hand slams into the bullet, pushing it just enough to knock it harmlessly off course. The cultist with the revolver looks at her, wide-eyed, and squeezes off another round. Allison is prepared for this one: she stands her ground and smacks the bullet out of the air. She clenches her fist- the skin on her hand is already beginning to blister- and stares down her attacker. He cocks the hammer for another shot, but a pillar of chain-lightning arcs through him before he can fire. The world is quiet for a minute, the only sounds are Sage's heavy breathing and steam rising from a dozen bodies, none of which are moving. What a mess. Finally, her mom's emergency beacon pops on, and she reports in. Threat neutralized. She turns her right hand over, revealing her bruised and blistering knuckles. Sage speaks.
"Hey... um... thanks."
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