<div class="floatleft">(http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5499ff2ce4b0b85c868a2158/t/556fb05ae4b01eeb36c217a6/1433383003661/)</div><hr/><strong>Name:</strong>Arthur Curry/Orin (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=239229.msg11802466#msg11802466)<br/><strong>Affiliation:</strong>The Atlantean Empire.<br/><strong>Time:</strong>Saturday the 17th of October 2015, 22:02<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Gotham Clock Tower, Central Gotham<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>M'gann.<br/><strong>Theme Music:</strong>Starvation - Thomas Bergersen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnGaCAHhGfo)<br/><br/><hr/><hr/><strong>Summary:</strong>After taking a moment to appreciate M'gann's hug, he follows her abrupt departure as best he can to the doors beside the Clocktower, where he questions M'gann about their destination and who she was conversing with at the end of their previous discussion.<br/><hr/><hr/><br/>Perhaps Orin should have been ready for it, given his direct window into M'gann's head and therefore her emotions, but the speed of her pleased, excited hug startled him somewhat, leaving his ribs to be almost crushed with the force of her sudden contact. Not literally, of course - while stronger than almost anybody else on Earth, M'gann didn't possess the raw physical strength required to crack his ribs in a single hug - but the force of the embrace would easily have broken a normal human - and even some lesser Superhumans - in half with little difficulty. He could handle it, but he might need to remind M'gann to be a little more careful in future when excited. Not everybody was as durable as him. Still, it was good to see that she wasn't embarrassed by his presence, at the very least; from what he gathered of human society, having an older family member attending an important social event in a teenage females life was often seen as the height of embarrassment for the young lady in question, especially if her friends were involved. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't know how much Earth human culture had influenced her, so had deemed it prudent to request permission first...and her enthusiasm was genuine. Apparently, human society hadn't influenced her so much that his presence was distasteful for her. He was grateful for that much, at the very least. He smiled at her, and nodded; it would be wonderful to see M'gann doing something that she enjoyed, no matter what it was, but if she performed at a specific venue he could easily take a much needed day off and make a night of it...depending on where it was, he may even ask Kori if she wanted to join him. They'd spent precious little time together over the past few years, and it was going to take him a while to catch up properly especially with his busy schedule...but he wasn't about to lose contact again. Even Kings required Confidantes, after all, perhaps moreso than ordinary people.<br/><br/>He didn't get a chance to respond to her happiness, however, as soon she disentangled herself from his thoroughly compressed sides and drifted off the edge of the building, apparently suddenly distracted by something in the tower she initially came from; was there trouble, or had the actual owners of the tower returned from wherever they had gone - he thought that M'gann had said that they had left to get some kind of nourishment - and M'gann was communicating with them? If they weren't telepaths, then they were communicating in response to a channel that M'gann had directly opened, which would explain why he didn't detect their messages; he would be able to hear a telepaths reply communication because it would be broadcast back at M'gann, but ordinary humans? They would just think louder, and hope that the original Telepath would pick it up. He could probably hear those thoughts if he listened for them, but with the amount of humans down below and around in the buildings? Only somebody specifically listening for a thought or chain would hear them. So, he would just trust M'gann; apparently, they had been invited into the tower. He presumed that, at least, since if it was anything bad, she would have told him, and she was heading back to the tower which suggested that she had a way for him to get in without triggering whatever security systems she had been worried about previously. He stood up slowly, stretching his arms out a little as he grasped his trident and - after she belatedly gave him the instructions on how to enter the hideout - followed her towards the tower not so much by his external senses but by following the pull of their telepathic connection. She flew straight through obstacles and he had to jump around them, but he managed to keep pace with her lazy, relaxed speed until she peeled off to enter the tower proper, and he had to drop down onto street level from the rooftops, landing with a heavy<em>thud.</em><br/><br/>Now alone - honestly, he wasn't sure what he was looking for, even with the instructions; all she had said was "there's a doorway to a basement in a side street, go through that" - he made his way down the alley until he eventually arrived at a nondescript looking pair of doors set into the ground next to the large clock-tower that they had been sitting near, and - to Orin's eyes, at least - looked recently moved, though they appeared to be held fast in place at that moment in time. They looked to lead straight down into the ground; a basement or underlevel of some kind, perhaps? Well, they certainly fit the description of the entrance to the lair...he reached out and rapped on the doors sharply with the butt of his trident, cautiously looking for traps of some kind. He assumed that any safeguards would be switched off for the moment, lest they accidentally attack him, but you could never be too sure. He doubted that he was moving into danger, of course - M'gann would have warned him if that were the case - but he still needed to be careful, just in case. He<em>intensely</em>hated being ignorant. Being ignorant meant not knowing something. And not knowing something inherently meant being unprepared....and Orin despised being unprepared for anything. In a war, being unprepared meant getting killed...and he didn't fancy getting killed because he walked into an unknown location without knowing the risks. And if he died on the surface, Atlantis might take offence. And that? That would most certainly be bad, for everybody involved.<br/><br/>Still...he had to enter their hideout somehow, and he reckoned he could take most of whatever they could dish out. At least, he hoped so. He stuck his trident between the boards of the door and slowly pried them open, ready at any moment to leap out of the way of an attack or a trap, but as the doors creaked open, nothing was forthcoming. He peered into the darkness, his night vision granting him an accurate look at the room below - a decently sized room, apparently connected to the rest of the abandoned building by some network of corridors and whatnot, and apparently empty with another, sturdier looking door at the far end - and at least an idea of where possible traps could be located. He descended the small flight of stairs slowly, pulling the doors round behind him, and ventured across the room, ready to leap out of the way or defend himself with fury at every step, his Trident pulsing a little as it created a small personal shield around him as he walked. Better safe than sorry, after all. He did, however, reach the opposite door easily and without incident. It looked to be a large metal door, conspicuously out of place in a building such as this, and obviously set into the wall connected to the tower where M'gann claimed that the secret hideout was. It obviously opened, but when Orin pushed against it, it didn't budge; locked, probably, as would be sensible given its status as the door to a<em>secret hideout.</em>He could probably rip the door from its hinges with ridiculous ease - if he could lift up a cruse liner, then he could punch through a door - but that might send the wrong message. Instead, he rapped the butt of his trident against it sharply and clearly four times, as if knocking. A door like that had to have a security camera built in, or at least an audio bug, so he spoke into the room, clearly identifying himself; it's what he would want somebody to do if they were entering<em>his</em>secret base of operations, after all. "My name is Orin, King of Atlantis and an ex-member of the Justice League." He wasn't a founding member, true, but he was with them when they defeated Darkseid the first time which was realy technically only the second time that they had formed...so while he didn't qualify as an "original" member, he was most certainly<em>a</em>member. "I am friend to the woman M'gann, and I request leave to enter your sanctuary." Always be diplomatic...he is a King, yes, but has no jurisdiction on land and certainly no right to<em>demand</em>entrance to their secret base. Besides, manners will go a long way to forming a decent working relationship with them, and if they helped M'gann...then they're deserving of his gratitude, at the very least. And gratitude is not shown through abrasive, aggressive commands. Whether they're worthy of respect, he will find out...but they are at least deserving of basic manners, for now.