Owner	Pose
Jonathan Sims	Now that the angels have arrived in force, Grand Central Station is even more abuzz with activity, as teams go out to scout or find survivors, and preparations are made to defend the other sites of the Star. Jon's asked Phoebe to meet him in the relative calm of the small room he uses as an office, and he's standing over a map of New York with his Archivist's bracer over Grand Central and a vial of soil over Battery Park.     Just now he's marking the locations of possible sites with tiny salt packets, referring to the online map Meggan made, frowning thoughtfully as he looks it over. He actually looks pretty okay, given everything, wearing the black fatigues he's been dressed in for the past week or two, and like he might /actually/ be getting sleep. What a thought, right?
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe arrives. She's been reminded that as far as the Public goes, she's Balm, and keeping her hood up and her domino about has added some level of mystery to her person -- and helps when she hasn't really had the time or wherewithal to do anything about the soot and ashes on her face. She's wearing her Bat-armor, similar enough to Red Robin's, and she breathes out as she rolls her shoulder as she makes her way in, and then tugs down her hood, and takes off her domino, tucking it away in its pocket next to her left ear.     "Hey--" she begins, and she looks at the salt packets. And she purses her lips.     "... should I put in an order of pushpins, or are we going with a theme here with the packets?" she asks, eyebrows rising up.
Jonathan Sims	"They're easy to move around and they don't damage the table," Jon says, straightening with a shrug. "I'm sure Meggan will have the information on what sites the angels are looking for soon enough, but getting a feel for where it /might/ be lets us get a head start on planning."     He hesitates a moment, then says, "How... are you? After... well, I watched Terry's footage from the battle. That fight with Michael was... pretty intense. Are you alright?" No amount of power or authority is likely to change the concerned expression he gets when he's worried about people.
Phoebe Beacon	"How about minis? I know someone who's geeky enough to make them." Phoebe suggests, and she taps her breastplate a moment -- Tim Drake design. The one man she trusts over all others, and she takes a deep breath.     "Well. Feeling pretty solid after near oblitteration and being rabbit-holed through a glitter dimension?" she replies, rubbing the back of her head.     "It was terrifying. A year ago if you had told me I would have to be broken out of imprisonment, kill my cousin, be trained in magic by a man who didn't exist and then have to rescue my partially-legally adopted dad out of a door in Heaven by fighting St. Michael? I probably would have asked how long you've been outta Arkham." Phoebe comments back to Jon.     "... I don't think they'll let me get the drop on them again."     She leans her hip against the desk, and she looks over the packets. "I'm using the Outsiders computer to crunch some numbers for calculating the circles to drop on the other ones to see if we can be in and out quicker."
Jonathan Sims	Jon chews on his lip for a moment, then goes to sit down, gesturing for Phoebe to sit as well, if she wants. "I'm in much the same boat. I might not have asked how long you'd been out of Arkham--I've heard some pretty astounding things from my patients. But /me/? Doing all... this?" He gestures at the map. "I'm the /therapist/ for the superheroes, not the one... running around doing heroics. It still doesn't feel... real." He frowns and shakes his head.     "It shouldn't take me so long, next time. It should've occured to me to use whatever was at hand to stabilize the spell. I doubt it'll be water every time, but... I'll figure it out. This is all just flash and bang anyway, even if it keeps the angels busy."     He drums his fingers on the table. "Which brings me to... ahh... I don't think I've told you directly but... I know things get around. The... thing I'm actually supposed to do, at some point." He pulls his mouth to one side in an irritated grimace. "Fated to die, martyring for the cause, and all of that. Given the close call on Saturday, I think we need to start making plans."
Phoebe Beacon	"They do get around. It's been mentioned a couple of times." Phoebe replies gently as she sits, and the brings her elbows up to rest on the table, and she cradles her chin in her hands as she looks over at Jon, though it's not boredom that's in her eyes. Worry, though. Fear. Compassion and empathy.     "People don't exactly have a lot of faith when the rumor is that the field commander is going to die. Gaea wasn't about to let you die the other day. You've still got the geas to contend with until it is your time to perish for the cause."     She taps herself down, and then she pulls out a tablet, and sets it down, looking at its screen, and she takes a deep breath.     "So, what's the plan looking like?"
Jonathan Sims	Jon sighs. "I know... /gods/, I know. This wasn't /my/ idea. Nor was it Gaea's, so far as I can tell. According to Her, /Uriel/ is the one who plotted for Her Champion to die. Git." He wrinkles his nose. "But I think it... well, I've been thinking about why that would even... help, you know? Why set all this up, set /me/ up, just for me to die? Particularly with Gaea hinting that She wants me to find a way to come back."     He taps his fingers on the table, slowly. "I'm /thinking/ that maybe whatever's broken in the universe is something to do with the mechanisms of death. I mean, what distinguishes a mortal from anything else? From an angel, say?" He taps at his chest, over his heart. "The soul. The bit I judge, when I take statements. Taking the statement of something without a soul... /feels/ different. So... I figure whatever we need to fix is something that we can only get at in the lands of the dead, and that's why someone has to die."     He frowns. "...I'm also thinking that it might be best to plan for people to come and /help/ with that. I'm not keen on getting down there and forgetting what I'm supposed to do, or fixing it and not coming back. Besides, maybe I can't fix it myself at all--maybe I'm just a... key to unlock the doors, as it were."
Phoebe Beacon	"Well, yeah, there's probably a lot fundementally broken with death at the moment. That's... how I met the Other One, you know. Helped fight a Death-lower-case-gee-god." Phoebe points out, and she leans back a moment. She considers her words very carefully, and she looks at Jon. There was an unusual agedness, exhaustion in her dark eyes.     "You want to go down to the Afterlife and take others with you?" she asks, steeping her fingers a moment and refraining from grasping her right side, and she tilts her head back in thought, and presses her lips together as she thinks.     "I know there is a gate that opened in the Met, in the room with the temple. I was able to open it using Themysciran, but I might be able to use Khemet to open it again. But tethering off someone who is literally going to the afterlife the normal way..." Phoebe rubs at her left writst, the one with the white tattoo and magic circle on it that doesn't belong to her.     "I mean, in theory, can be done. Tether your memories to someone you love. Somewhere you love. Something you love. It preserves your memory -- ghosts with unfinished business and all. or actually split your soul to the different parts and chain them together, but that's purely just thought on my part and I'm not clever enough to pull that off, I don't think..." she pauses, adn then waves a hand "unimportant though because if Gaea wills it, can't She just... you know... bring you back, or is that against the rules of the game?"
Jonathan Sims	"If it were that simple, I wouldn't be worried about dying," Jon says quietly. "I don't /want/ to. Gods, I don't /want/ to. But where I come from, you solve the problem you have in front of you, not the one you wish you had. Figuring that out, how to come back, it's... part of my role in the game. Proving I can do it, maybe?" He shrugs. "Tethers, though... I've been working on tethers, that sounds about right, to be certain I don't... forget." He looks at Phoebe firmly, like he's fixing it in his memory. "So... I'm /going/ to figure this out, and come back. We have to get Chas back to Geraldine, right?" He smiles, briefly.     "I've been looking into things like the Ra and Osiris stories... figuring out how /they/ came back. And that's part of why... I want to talk to Lydia, too, actually. She got her magic back, did you hear?" He frowns. "Got it back from drinking that Seraph on Saturday, but she's connected to Isis. I think she might be able to help with this. My thought is that whenever I die, whoever else is willing and might be able to help with the business of fixing the imbalance so we can go tell Michael to back off, can go to the Underworld by another route. Which means gates, I'd think, yes."
Phoebe Beacon	"Well. At least we know that with Isis on our side, if there's any missing pieces it can be accounted for." Phoebe replies dryly, her head still cradled on one palm as she considers. "Let me worry about getting Chas back. You worry about getting yourself back. Order of Operations. Already difficult to find good help these days." Phoebe replies.     "I hadn't heard. Mostly because I've been trying to figure out where the next s trike is going to be, how to surprise and harvest the Angels we bring down, and how satisfying it was to knock Michael upside his stupid Fabio head." looks back to Jon.     "Well, who are you considering bringing with you to try and fix the mess on the other side?" she asks, and she frowns.     "I don't think I could open the gate without knowing more about it. It was a fluke that I opened it last time, and I'm not... exactly well versed with the other side yet." she admits, and she rubs her right side.
Jonathan Sims	"Lydia already said she'd storm the Gates of Duat to get me back," Jon says with a smirk. "You, if you're willing. Whoever else will go. I imagine that's important, the... emotional component?" He rubs at the back of his neck. "I /just/ though of this, I... well, I'd been resisting the idea of asking for direct help. It's a big lift, you know? 'Hey, go into the lands of the dead to help me fix the universe.'"     He hesitates, then adds, "Part of the question, too, is... who stays back here to be sure things are safe and settled for however long this takes. You brought up a good point at the first meeting of the JLD--I'm turning myself over to Michael at some point, I'm /dying/, we have to be sure we have leadership in place while I'm gone. And in case I don't come back."
Phoebe Beacon	"Then I can't go, not without someone we can both agree on here." Phoebe states, sounding so much older than her almost-eighteen years. She gives a soft snort. "Bring Martin to the gates. Tell them he's your emotional support human." she draws her fingers up again, and she purses her lips.     "What happens to the Archivist Powers when you're killed for our cause?"
Jonathan Sims	Jon shakes his head. "Martin's staying here, with Agnes, once she's safe. I... need them here to anchor me. To come back to. And I won't risk leaving her alone. But you're right, either way. We need to fill that spot and make sure things will be stable."     He sighs. "But the Archive is the main damn problem I'm having. Do you think we could... ward that, somehow? Keep it from just passing on immediately? Not much use coming back from the dead if it still leaves us with a teenaged Archivist, but I'm not... all that warding and such, that's not my forte at all."
Phoebe Beacon	"Yeah, being a teenaged host for unspeakable power pretty much ruins your highschool years." comes Phoebe's very dry reply, and she considers the options, and she looks to her wrist again.     "What if we could trick it to temporarily sending it to a more or less direct descendant? Sort of... an artificial one, attached to someone else's conciousness. Someone we know would be able to handle it for a few days to a week, maybe." she considers a moment. "It'd be messy. Not sure if I could pull such a thing off on my own... we'd have to trick it into making sure it thought y ou were alive. Can such a thing even be *done*?"
Jonathan Sims	"What... make the Archive think an artificial mental construct is the next Archivist...?" Jon blinks slowly. "That... actually might work. It's mostly an astral construct itself, after all. The memories of my ancestors, the shades that talk to me... it's not their /souls/ attached to the Archive, it's the mental impressions. The /ba/, or a copy of it. And... I've known people who have multiple astral impressions, multiple /ba/ and /ren/. Ahh, Moon Knight does, actually, though I wouldn't remotely volunteer him for this. I just mean... I think it's feasible."     He gets up, suddenly, and goes to a corner to pull things out of a duffel bag. A notebook and a pen. He sits back down and starts writing. "Okay. So... people to go into the Underworld. Figure out a gate or other means of getting down there. Make sure I have tethers to come back up. And... an artificial mental construct to attach the Archive to for a week or so. Someone willing to hold said mental construct." He chews on his lip.
Phoebe Beacon	"... I'll need to ask John how he made his construct, that it was able to fool everything into thinking it was the real thing -- even a necromancer wasn't able to tell the difference." she considers a moment, and she bites her lower lip. "Though we're going to need a necromancer to actually construct it, and Zee won't do it. It's anathema to her." she bites her thumb a moment, and then realizes at the taste that it's still an ash-covered glove.     Ugggh.     "Making just a mental construct I don't know about, but what about a technological one? Brainscans, fuel a network with you, biotechnology, maybe Martian?" Phoebe spitballs ideas as she wrinkles her nose.     "... if it's purely mental, we'll need someone with enough smarts to hold it up and enough willpower to keep it separate from themselves. And they'd be removed from action until you got back."
Jonathan Sims	Jon frowns as he keeps taking notes. "I'll see what SHIELD might have, or... maybe I'll ask the Titans? Donna's talking about mocking up AI to try to force the angels into certain forms, maybe they'll have the right technology to be able to help with this. And the Outsiders, of course... Red Robin or Miss Martian might have ideas." Using codenames /just/ in case.     He rubs at his face. "Every time I check something off the list, three other things get added. Such is life, I guess. I also /just/ got access to a cache of documents that describe a lot more about how the Archive works, so I'll go over those and see if I can find any indication of what would work best." He frowns. "No. No, I'll have Martin and Cael go over them, because I can't do everything myself. Maybe if I remind myself of that often enough I'll start remembering."
Phoebe Beacon	"Yeah, that doesn't work in my experience. You just end up double-checking their work so that you know it works. Bad habit." Phoebe murmurs to herself, and she steeples her fingers a moment. She takes a breath in, and she looks to Jon.     "What help do you think Lady Death can give us?"
Jonathan Sims	Jon huffs out a long breath and frowns. "That... is an excellent question. I need to speak to her anyway--I /think/ the angels might be targeting her Sanctuary in Hell's Kitchen, and she ought to know. I'd rather be working /with/ her if we can... but she doesn't like me much." He shrugs.     "But... she /might/ just be able to help with this, along with, well... everything else. Maybe if she's got targets to help us defend..." He frowns. "Not that I /love/ the idea of fighting alongside an undead army, but she's also the one who told me about the impending fated death, so maybe she can help. I'll definitely talk to her."
Phoebe Beacon	"Make it a date. I'll go with you. I at least amused her when I stepped between her and J-- The Other One. Back when I was way, way less able to take on anything huge. Might be educational." Phoebe remarks quietly, and then she looks to Jon.     "... we'll find a way to bring you back. I was able to be brought back from the other side."     She might not be able to do it the same way, though, and she breathes out before she gets a beep of an alert.     "... incoming medical alert." she states, and she goes to stand, withdrawing her domino again, and looking to Jon.     "We're going to make it work."