Avenger Assembled

You're sweet. Feeling adventurous, and figuring there was no tracing her from here, Ashley took an image of herself sticking her tongue out for the camera, the back of the bar's seat behind her, and sent it off to Fa'Rua. I don't get a lot of them, but I can only be undercover for so long before I go f*cking crazy. Days off mean I can go drink adult beverages, use adult language, and maybe have adult relations - though that hasn't happened in a long time. She knew that new relationships didn't like hearing a lot about exes (though picking up a guy for a one-night stand only made him an ex in crazytown), so she changed it up a little. If you were here, I wouldn't even think about teenagers.

It's always some bullshit with those old bastards in suits. "You're too little, they won't take you seriously. You're too pretty..." I'm biracial, so I get "You're not Asian enough" or "you're too Asian", which is a whole other @(#ing piece of #($I. She considered a moment, smiled lazily, and said, Pretty good though. Girl I'm watching is safe with her church group, so it's my day off. She added a smiley to go with that, and said, Maybe a _little_ drunk? And then another smiley. Here I thought I'd have to drink alone...

Judy tensed slightly, which made Ashley tense slightly too. It wasn't that she was afraid of Heroditus all of a sudden, but in her experience Danica was a pretty good judge of character. And if the tortoise girl didn't like the cut of Heroditus's jib, maybe she had good reason to. "He seems like a nice boy," she murmured softly to Danica, taking a step back so she could talk to her smaller friend in a hushed voice. Ashley, for her part, was between Heroditus, Judy, and Danica, a subtle move that nonethless had indeed taken place. "Yeah, there's a club where people go to other dimensions and watch birds. Just an excuse to get crapped on a billion times if you ask me," she said with an eye-roll and a snort. "So you're from Atlantis, huh? You tight with the prince?"

Watchdog/Daystar Power Level: 14 (built as PL 10; 209/217PP) Trade-Offs: None TOU/DEF, +3ATK/-3DMG ranged, +1ATK/-1DMG Melee Unspent Power Points: 8 In Brief: Teenage sidekick turned Secret Service Agent pretending to be a teenage vigilante. Alternate Identity: Ashley Tran, Special Agent (United States Secret Service) Identity: Secret? Ish? Depends on who you ask. Birthplace: New Orleans, USA Occupation: Secret Service Agent, Superhero, Bodyguard Affiliations: Her charge, Jaycee Cahill Family: Phillip Tran [father, deceased], Mary Arbour-George [mother, living], William George [stepfather, living] Mary (1994), Cecilia (1997), Agnes (2001) and Phillipa (2003) [sisters, living] Age: 27 (DoB: April 1992) Gender: Female Ethnicity: Eurasian Height: 5'6" Weight: 145 lbs Eyes: Black Hair: Black, dyed pink at the tips Physical Description: Ashley is short and round-faced, with big eyes and a smile that makes it easy for her to pass as sixteen - not that she's doing a lot of smiling these days. She's grown her jet-black hair out for this mission and dyed the tips pink, another way to help herself pass as someone a decade younger than her actual age. She has the muscular build of a born athlete, with the clear physical power many martial artists develop. When not wearing her helmet, she sticks close to "Judy" and doesn't say much except when directly addressed or speaking to her 'sister', keeping most of her face hidden behind dark sunglasses and a near-perpetual scowl. She speaks English with no particular accent, though her French and Vietnamese have Louisiana and American accents, respectively. She usually dresses like a teenage girl trying to look like a punk, or at least push the dress code - leather jackets, dark T-shirts, and denim skirts or pants. In costume as Watchdog, she wears a grey armored outfit with a bright red snarling dog's face over the chest. Over that she wears a black and grey leather jacket with metal studs on the shoulders - and covering her head a modified motorcycle helmet painted the same red as her chest symbol. She wears fingerless black gloves on both hands while in combat. Her jacket comes with a hood that she usually keeps pulled up, the better to strike a more intimidating profile. At her lleft hip is a silvered pistol. Watchdog is, if anything, a sourer presence than Ashley - her helmet-muffled voice sounding tinny and artificial. Character History: Phillip Tran fled what had once been South Vietnam with his parents in the late 1970s, his family traveling through the Phillippines and Guam before their arrival in the mainland United States. They settled in New Orleans, with its heat, its French language, and its Catholic population. (His father had served in the South Vietnamese army and his mother was Hoa, an ethnic Chinese minority disliked by the new regime - they had ample reason to leave the country.) The Trans were determined that their son, only a small boy when they fled the country, would remember the nation of his birth and so taught him language, culture, and customs. When Philip was a young man, he did what his father had and joined the military - at eighteen, he enlisted in the US Army in 1989. Phillip served his adopted homeland well, fighting in Operation Desert Storm before returning to New Orleans East to marry his high school sweetheart Mary Arbour in 1991. They were a mixed couple, but Mary was a good Catholic and fluent in French - the Trans had no complaints. They settled in New Orleans East, where Phillip's military service got him a job with the NOPD, patrolling the neighborhood where he'd grown up. Phillip and Mary became the parents of five girls [(Ashley (1992), Mary (1994), Cecilia (1997), Agnes (2001) and Phillipa (2003)] and did their best to balance both worlds - Ashley grew up hearing English, Vietnamese, and French spoken in the household and in both school and afterschool programs, worshiping at the local Vietnamese Catholic Church, and was honestly very happy. Her father doted on her and passed on his deep love of his adopted homeland, its people, and his chosen career - law enforcement. Ashley loved her father and the neighborhood where she grew up - but unlike her father, she hoped to use service to others as a way up and out. Her way out, influenced by her dad's love for Clint Eastwood movies, was from an early age the United States Secret Service. Protecting the President, the symbol of American freedom, seemed like the coolest job in the world - she read about the long hours and thankless conditions, but she appreciated the need for sacrifice to get what you want. And what she wanted was the Secret Service and the Presidential Protective Detail. It would take years of training and study, especially since fate and genetics had given her a small frame that would make a lifetime of physical activity difficult. But she had the drive and the commitment to make it happen. But life had some curves to throw her way first. Ashley was thirteen when Katrina hit - thirteen when her father died. It was all very sad - a beloved local cop killed by a looter in the frantic days just after the hurricane, four little girls and one very pregnant widow left behind. She didn't believe it - despite what the outside media said, there weren't that many looters around, especially not in their relatively isolated neighborhood, and even those looters wouldn't shoot a police officer in the back for no reason anyone had ever been able to find. It didn't add up. But nobody wanted to hear it - especially not her grieving mother. A few months after her father's death, a month after her baby sister was born, her mother married one of her father's former partners - an Anglo man who was himself eager to get out of the damaged city. They moved to Lafayette, where her stepfather found a job as a campus police officer for the University of Louisiana - and Ashley made plans to get the hell out of town. When Ashley's powers first appeared on the Fourth of July, 2006, when Lady Liberty's appearance at the Lafayette, LA Fourth of July festivities ended with a certain teenager firing beams of golden light from her eyes and singing the National Anthem (an utterly mortifying experience that she is forever grateful took place just before the widespread adoption of the smartphone), Mary George almost didn't let her daughter go to Claremont even after the League helped keep the news of the "Copycat" out of the national news, and after the arrival of kindly headmaster Duncan Summers - not until it was made clear to her that the school was safe and that her daughter would be protected. When Ashley found out what the school was _really_ for, it wasn't hard for her to figure out what she wanted to do - she wanted to find the man who had killed her father! First came two years of hard training and discipline, learning everything she'd need to learn to be a superhero. What was a social life when there was work to be done? Maybe she studied too hard, and pushed her body to its breaking point - but what else was there to do? She had to find justice, even if no one else wanted to - or could. Ashley George's first time on patrol with the Raven changed her life. It was 2008 and she was sixteen, in her second year at Claremont Academy and honestly not sure if she wanted to be a superhero. She didn't have the flashy powers of many of her classmates, the first Next-Gen students like Bolt or Megastar, she wasn't a particularly outstanding student (though she did work hard, spending hours in the library every night), nor was she particularly happy in Freedom City, so far from her home in New Orleans. But the Raven saw something in Ashley she didn't see in herself - and so it was that 'Copycat' joined the Raven on patrol as an occasional sidekick. People who kept a close eye on Raven around the start of the current decade will remember Copycat in her full-face mask and cat-ears, the black and navy blue costume that she burned years ago. But never mind that. Ashley enjoyed adventuring alongside the famous hero, especially once she gained enough control over her energy-draining abilities to use them in the field - but truthfully she appreciated the private lessons more. She learned the Raven's "style-less" style of goju hand-to-hand fighting, learning how to take down men half again her size in hand-to-hand combat. She learned how to work a room and how to control a crowd with her voice and her eyes, letting darkness, mystery, and the occasional violent beating distract from the fact that she was just a petite girl whose superpowers generally didn't do much to make her bulletproof (except when she was fighting psychopaths who could punch through steel doors!) She learned other things too - Raven was Amerasian too and had also lost a parent to crime. Maybe it was their similarities that had drawn Raven to her - Raven wasn't much for talking. The problem was, after her senior year, Ashley wasn't one for listening - at least, not to Raven. Ashley George's break with superheroing began the spring of 2010; the day she caught the man who, ten years earlier, had murdered her father. On the one hand, it was incredibly satisfying. Raven and Copycat found the killer of her father in the spring of 2010, the culmination of two years of investigative work by the duo (both remotely and on-scene) that finally cracked after a lucky break. He made the mistake of fighting back when Raven crashed through his apartment door and Copycat through his window, and Copycat had the great pleasure of kicking him in the knee until he collapsed, then beating him into unconsciousness with the butt of his own shotgun. Ashley still lets herself go back to that moment when she needs something to get her blood pumping. On the other hand, it wasn't so satisfying at all. Paul Dubois was a drug dealer and a criminal, a man who had turned to marketing zombie powder and Zoom to impressionable young people in Ashley's old neighborhood. He was a bad man and taking him down was a great thing. But he'd turned to crime as a way of paying for his own addiction to zombie powder, a downward spiral that earned him a death sentence in the spring of 2012 when he was convicted of murdering Phillip Tran, an NOPD officer who had come across him cleaning out one of his drug stashes while the storm hit. It was hard to ignore how superhumans had made him worse rather than better, how a man who might have been able to turn his life around had only sunk further into the muck because of the gods and monsters of the world. She and Raven started arguing more after that, arguing about superheroes and supervillains, about how much good the former actually did when they weren't stopping world-ending threats. In the end, it was no one great thing that drove apart hero and sidekick, no great crisis that either of the two born 'fixers' could have solved. When Raven kept Copycat at arms length, endless tests and trials and secret drills only taught Ashley that her mentor valued her costumed identity more than her real self - when Raven kept Copycat close, the hidden reality of the superhero world showed her the underbelly of the gods and heroes - the dimensional vibrations where supers had gone to war with humans rather than protecting them, the criminals turned heroes who laughed at justice for their crimes, the Grue and other monsters hiding among innocent people, the codenames and secret identities and the endless secrets kept from a general public that supposedly couldn't "handle the truth". When Copycat left the Raven's side after graduation, it was not on good terms - and she didn't look back. She had better things to do. When Ashley graduated from Claremont Academy in 2010, she had her diploma and her associate's degree both - having taken advantage of the school's early college program during her time as the "workaholic wallflower." After two more years, she had her bachelor's degree in criminal justice (and a minor in political science) from Our Lady of Holy Cross College. After a lifetime of repression, college had been a breath of fresh air - she'd gotten drunk for the first time and smoked weed while she was at it and had her first real boyfriend - at least until he found out she was serious about not wanting to stay in New Orleans and that she wasn't interested in getting married right now. She had plans. First came three years (2012-2015) as a New Orleans police officer, wearing the star and crescent badge her father had died wearing, defending the New Orleans East neighborhood where she'd grown up. (Beyond her family ties, it's the largest American police force that doesn't ask questions about superpowers or vigilantism when you join - a legacy of the post-Katrina recruitment drives.) Eurasian and female, she was part of a tiny minority on the force - but she'd already been through much worse than anything the boys in blue could throw at her. She enjoyed the work, enjoyed patrolling the streets and keeping people safe, but nothing about being back in her old neighborhood changed her mind about her desire to move out of it. Her mother, sisters, and step-brothers were settling in fine in Lafayette; there was nothing for her here but ghosts. The laws dealing with superbeings and federal employment are complex - something Ashley knew even before she filled out her application to join the Secret Service. She had the grades, she had the physical training, and she certainly had the experience. She had to be careful about how she wrote about that last thing (given that Copycat had much more training in criminal justice than Ashley George could ever admit to having) - but her three years at the NOPD, her fluent command of French and Vietnamese, along with glowing recommendation letters from her former supervisor, turned out to be just enough to make the grade. She was young (at 23, just past the minimum age) and not powerfully built - but she had what the federal government was looking for. Of course, she _also_ had the meta-gene. With so many witnesses to her accidentally stealing Lady Liberty's powers as a teenager, and the extensive battery of first physical, then psychological tests she had to undergo once she admitted to having superpowers on a federal employment form, there was no hiding who she was. But she'd thought this through, and she made her case time and time again. Despite her powers she was all-too-human; and those powers could be tremendously useful as a government agent - she could shut down the powers of an attacking metahuman with a touch, and detect the hostile intentions of many different types of beings even before they attacked. Easy to overlook (albeit often mistaken for a teenager thanks to her youth, slight build, and rounded features), she could blend right into a group of agents until she had to go into action. The hard part was avoiding AEGIS. After the mandatory ten week AEGIS training course for metahumans working for the federal government, almost all of them wind up working for AEGIS in some capacity or another - but Ashley wasn't interested. Working with AEGIS would put her too close to the worst parts of the life she left behind, with its codenames and its secrets, and she wanted the best parts instead - the bravery, and the courage, and the principles, to risk your life for another because it was the right thing to do. As the first superhuman agent of the Secret Service, her promotions were fast-tracked - within certain limits. She was in her mid-twenties (and had only been an agent for a year and a half) when she was assigned to the White House, but only to manage the file room in the basement. She liked it there, only called 'upstairs' when the President was meeting with superhumans of some character or another (usually the members of the Dream Team), where she usually stood discreetly off to one side in her sunglasses and dark, conservative clothing, making sure that President Cahill (a man popular with his detail) stayed safe. She wasn't actually part of the Protective Detail - but it was still pretty damn good. Then came D-Day. On March 15, 2018, there was an incident at the White House. The general public is aware that all the radios and other electronic gadgets near the White House went dead, some of them permanently, for a good hour and a half. The Secret Service, Capitol Police, and other law enforcement agencies in Washington went on high alert that afternoon and the whole city went into lockdown for 24 hours. The general public believes that the incident was the result of a terrorist attack by robotic members of the Foundry - an attack foiled by the Secret Service. This is a lie. What really happened was that Jaycee Cahill nearly set the White House on fire. 'Sick in bed' with agonizing migraines, she was the source of the sudden 'radio black hole' that made it appear that every radio and other wireless signal in the White House had gone dead. In the process of being evacuated from the terrorist attack along with her mother and younger sister, it was she who generated an EMP powerful enough to keep Marine One from flying - and then in a sudden burst of microwave energy, emit a pulse powerful enough to nearly kill her family and Secret Service detail as their internal temperatures raised to dangerously high levels. It was Agent Ashley George, running at full speed across the White House lawn even as the grass began to smolder around the frightened teen (who had run, hands to the side of her head, from the landing pad on the South Lawn), who saved the day, grabbing Jaycee by her pressure points and holding her as she drained the energy that powered the teen's radiation. She saved the First Family, she saved her fellow agents, and she probably stopped the irradiation of a significant number of White House staff and tourists. And it was Agent Tran who was on point for the news of what had followed - about Jaycee's powers couldn't be turned off or suppressed, about how she needed to learn how to use them or she would die - and so would a hell of a lot of other people if she stayed in the White House. So what could they do? Could they really tell the world that the President's daughter had power enough, theoretically, to fry an entire city - power that had come from alien DNA that blood tests found in the President and his three daughters? There had to be another way. Ashley's not sure if this was the right way, though. She was desperately improvising when she reached out to Claremont on behalf of the Cahills, desperately improvising when she suggested a plan to both the President and to the former Raven - and it worked. Judy and Ashley Smith are refugees as far as anyone knows, from a world where the heroes failed and the Grue are everywhere, and the former is getting trained to be a hero while the latter watches her back. But how many lies is she going to tell? Have her efforts to save Judy only corrupted her? Has she served the country she loves so much - or has she made it worse? When she looks at herself in the mirror, she doesn't know who she is anymore... Complications: Agent: Ashley is technically a sworn law enforcement officer, but doesn't act as such while wearing her costume except for her duties to protect Jaycee Cahill. This is a complicated situation. Break: Ashley's complicated relationship with the Raven remains both a sore point and a point of pride. Copycat: Ashley isn't hiding her superpowers but she is keeping them to herself; she'll use them as a second resort rather than a first unless she needs to save a life. Duty: Ashley George is responsible for the life and well-being of the First Daughter, Jaycee Cahill. This is her highest priority - whatever she or Jaycee thinks about this. Enemy: Baron Samedi's drug empire indirectly killed Ashley's father. Given the chance, she'll go for him - minus her duty to Jaycee. Forget-Me-Not: Ashley's powers, coupled with her undercover status, make it easy for her own identity to slip away. Lies: Ashley lied about how she'd developed her powers when she joined the Secret Service. Nobody Knows The Troubles I've Seen: Watchdog's personality is of necessity not very nice - she has to play the part of the gritty, unlikable vigilante as a way of making sure no one pays too much attention to her. Patriot: Ashley George loves the United States of America and all it stands for. Secret: Ashley George is a 27 year old Secret Service agent, not a teenager from an alternate universe! Something Gay No Doubt: Ashley is still wrestling with this. Split Personality: Ashley's powers occasionally result in her copying certain mental traits of those whose powers she steals - this annoyance is one of the reasons she doesn't do it very often. We Get The Job Done: Ashley is the biracial daughter of a first-generation immigrant. Who's That Girl: Ashley is losing track of who she is. Abilities: 6 + 6 + 8 + 0 + 4 + 4 = 28PP STR 16 (+3) DEX 16 (+3) CON 18 (+4) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 14 + 16 = 30PP Init: +7 Attack: +7 (+11 w/Armory, +11 Melee, +13 w/Power Thief) Defense: +10 (+2 Dodge Focus, +4 flat-footed) Grapple: +13 Knockback: -5/-2 Saves: 5 + 6 + 7 = 18PP TOU +10/4 (+4 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +9 (+4 Con, +5) REF +9 (+3 Dex, +6) WILL +9 (+2 Wis, +7) Skills: 96r=24PP Acrobatics 2 (+5) Bluff 13 (+15) Skill Mastery Climb 2 (+5) Concentration 3 (+5) Craft (Mechanical) 4 (+4) Demolitions 4 (+4) Drive 2 (+5) Gather Info 5 (+7) Intimidate 13 (+15) Skill Mastery Investigate 5 (+5) Knowledge (Galactic Lore) 4 (+4) Languages 3 (English [base], French, Lor, Vietnamese) Medicine 3 (+5) Notice 8 (+10) Skill Mastery Search 5 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Skill Mastery Stealth 7 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Swim 1 (+4) Feats: 53PP Attack Focus (Melee) 4 Challenge 2 (Fast Feint, Fast Startle) Dodge Focus 2 Equipment 15 [From Reward] Evasion Improved Initiative Interpose Luck 4 Move-By Action Power Attack Sidekick 30 [Daystar] Skill Mastery (Bluff, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle Quick-Draw [Draw] Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Toughness) Well--Informed Equipment: [75EP] The Dawg (STR 45 SPD 6 DEF 9 TOU 10 Size: Huge, Features: Alarm 1 [DC 20], Communications, Computer, Hidden Compartments, Navigation System, Remote Control, Powers: Impervious Toughness 10, Immunity 9 (Life Support), Super-Senses 4 (Radar), Teleport 10 (Flaw: Anchor [Area 51]) [59EP] Description: The Dawg looks like a decade-old Cadillac DeVille that's been modified by an experienced street mechanic into a fearsome road machine, perfect for a badass vigilante. The front of the car is modified to look like a snarling dog with headlights for eyes and snarling teeth around the grille, while the sound of its specially modified engine sounds distinctly like the growl of a large pitbull. It's fast and tough, easily capable of chasing down almost anything on the road - including metahumans! It's also completely bulletproof, with an internal life support system, built-in communicator and satellite phone, 'storage compartments' and an almost unbeatable onboard GPS. A close look reveals even more modifications - 5-inch armored doors, and "bulletproof glass so thick it blocks out parts of the light spectrum." run-flat tires, and a 454-cubic-inch engine.Confirmed accessories include "an integrated 10-disc CD changer, a foldaway desktop and reclining rear seats with massaging, adaptive cushions." It weighs about 14,000 pounds. The teleporting built into the car is a recent feature - and not Ashley's favorite! She'll only use it in an extreme emergency, as sending the car to a major Air Force base is a bit of a giveaway... Personal Equipment: 16EP Grapple Gun: Speed 2 + Super-Movement 4 (Slow-Fall, Stop Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2): 10EP Masterwork Handcuffs: 1EP Masterwork Cellphone (2): 2EP Masterwork Rebreather (2): 2EP Remote for Dawg: 1EP Powers: 29 + 1 + 24 + 2 = 56PP Device 7 (Armory, 35PP, Flaw: Hard to Lose, PF: Subtle [Concealable]) [29PP] Feature 1 (AV Pickup) [1PP] Not Exactly Standard Issue 10.5 (21 points; PFs: Alternate Power 5) [26PP] BE: Blast 10 (assorted explosives; Extra: Area [General, Burst, 5-50-ft.-radius]; Flaws: Action [Full], Unreliable [5 uses]; PFs: Progression [Reverse Area] 9, Triggered 2, Variable Descriptor [anesthetic gas, cold, concussive force, fire, shrapnel]; Drawback: Reduced Range [5 100-ft. increments]) {21/21} AP: Blast 9 (laser pistols; PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit) {21/21} AP: Damage 6 (really good tonfas; Extra: Secondary Effect; PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Mighty, Variable Descriptor 2 [any technological]) {21/21} AP: Snare 9 (really good cuffs, Extra: Transparent, Flaw: Range [Touch], PFs: Improved Crit 2, Tether) {21/21} AP: Stun 9 (really good pepper spray, PFs: Extended Reach 1, Improved Crit, Variable Descriptor 1 [any chemical]) {21/21} Protection 6 (really good Kevlar) [6DP] Super-Senses 2 (Infravision [Tracking 1 [half-speed], Radio) [2DP] 1+26+6+2=35PP Immunity 1 (Daystar’s Powers) [1PP] Container 4.2 (Power Thief, PFs: Accurate, Subtle [Psionic]) [24PP] Drain Wisdom 7 (Extras: Linked [Mimic], Sleep [+0], PF: Slow Fade 1 [1 minute]) {8} + Mimic 7 (35PP, All Powers At Once, Flaws: Saving Throw [Will], Tainted) {14} Super-Senses 2 (Danger Sense [Mental], Uncanny Dodge [Mental]) [2PP] DC Table Unarmed DC 19 Bruised/Injured Blast DC 24 Bruised/Injured Damage DC24 Bruised/Injured Snare DC 19 Entangled/Bound Stun DC 19 Dazed/Stunned Drain/Mimic DC 17 Drained/Mimiced TOTALS abilities 28 + combat 30 + saves 18 + skills 24 + feats 53 + powers 56 = 209/217PP

APPROVED

The subsequent delay was noticeable but not terribly long as such delays went. F*ck, they're even in space? That sucks. Ashley considered her options as she leaned back against the bar's patched vinyl bench - and decided she was sober enough for this conversation on her Saturday off. It actually did suck to think that even the space people gave women crap, but she supposed some things were goddamn universal. Too bad they didn't blow up with their homeworld...hmm, better keep that thought to myself. She didn't ask if Fa'Rua had tried going to Lor Resources or something, instead she said, They're a bunch of insecure pindicks. She typed back. Hope you piss on their graves.

Well that seems dangerous, thought Woodsman. What if one of you turns out to be a vampire, or a shapeshifter, or what if you just go crazy someday and start murdering people for fun? If you know what I am, that makes it easier for you to hunt me down and kill me. On the other hand, if they thought he was a vampire or something, they'd probably bring a lot more overwhelming force if they ever did come his way. As the conversation went on, he reached behind him and pulled out a utilitarian-looking hatchet - with its metal head and wooden shaft, it could have belonged to anybody. "Just a Woodsman," he said from behind his mask, metal going shink shink shink as he quietly sharpened the blade.

We're open, @Heritage!

Wadjet "...okay, but this had better not be a sex thing, vampire man." Wadjet pulled off her glove, slowly, revealing skin several shades darker than what either of her companions had had when she was alive. Squeezing one fingertip, she neatly pricked out several drops of her blood after quickly looking over Strix's equipment, obviously experienced with field medical kits if not this particular act. When a small vial was full, she handed it over expectantly.

"I could see you because my eyes are very large," croaked Aquaria cheerfully in a voice that echoed deep into the infrasonics. "I can see behind my back." She didn't seem adverse to Nick's approach, and indeed was not - he was the boy who had asked (through the other student) about her voice. "Do you ever worry about that?" she asked Lulu. "What will happen when the dead god comes. I call him the dead god because my friend said I should not keep talking about him in public."

Later that night, as the glow faded and she became herself again, Ashley sat at her desk and wrote a few lines in her notebook. Today I realized the President of the United States and his wife have emotionally neglected their daughter and that I'm the only person who can do something about that. And I think I have a girlfriend in space. WHAT THE HELL DO I DO NOW? She looked down at the words, tore out the page, then methodically shredded it into pieces with her fingers, then did the same with the next couple of pages underneath that. It was a good night. But she wasn't getting to sleep any time soon.

"Certainly," said Judy warmly. "Ah'm sorry if I scared you before," she said as Nick took a seat. "Ah heard you have electromagnetic powers and Ah thought, 'Hey, Ah wonder if Ah can talk to him like my phone.' It was just a one-time thing and it won't happen again - believe me, I know being poked and prodded isn't fun." She went into a spiel for Nick, going out of her way to face him and speak distinctly. "My powers are based around radio. I absorb radio waves at the frequency of about one meter, and then I can emit them on my own. Sort of like being a radio and a microwave oven all at once." She smiled tightly at that, the look not quite reaching her eyes, and went on, "Ah came today because Ah can technically talk to computers, but Ah don't know any programming languages or anything, so all I can do is turn my phone on and off - and sometimes it just melts. What about you?"

Wadjet threw open the larder door and declared in a tone of deep frustration, "We wouldn't be here talking about it, would we? Priest goes wrong, gotta be something bad. Lots of people already want his head on a plate." There, Mama, who says I don't pay attention to the priest's lesson?

Sounds good to me, let's roll! Woodsman being invited means he doesn't have to snoop. (He wouldn't have said no to the mayor's face, he just would have had no comment)

Ashley shifted in her bed, considering her options, then had two thoughts one after the other. Geez, I can't do this with Judy right there in the next bed. and Wait, is that the only reason? She considered a moment, then dug around in her photos before coming up with what was (as it happened) the only image she had kept on her personal phone from costume tests for Watchdog. This is great, but I don't quite have the privacy I want for this. ? Here's something I owe you, though...

"That is a sad story. I am sorry those things happened to you," croaked Aquaria sympathetically, though it was mostly in the abstract because of the distress it seemed to cause the young woman. She had very little frame of reference for understanding the story and its implications. She considered telling the girl about how Deep Ones had no fathers the way Surface-Men did, but she figured that conversation would be difficult right now. "When my friend was at the other Claremont, the ones with those powers put bad thoughts in her head and they made her kill many people. But people from this one put good thoughts in her head and she is better now. Her father-but-not-her-father lives in Seattle. We visited there once. The children called me the Christmas Frog." It was obviously a happy memory, and Aquaria hopped up on the table so she could crouch comfortably while looking Lulu in the eye. "The Christmas Frog is a frog who delivers presents at Christmas. I still have the hat." She sipped from her water and said, "Do you believe those tales that you told? About the dead god who will return and take his vengeance? I know many here do."

Still looking rattled from the near-miss with Octoman, Judy looked up at Rebound and smiled a beauty queen's smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "You're welcome to join us if you want," she added in a faint but detectable Southern drawl that gradually evened out as she finished calming down. "Ah'm Judy Smith," she added, "and this is mah sister Ashley." She folded her hands in front of her, then said, "Ah'm here because Ah wanted to experiment with my powers on some technology that Ah could fry without it hurting anybody, and Ashley's always looking for more gear to practice with." For her part, having mostly dismissed the boys, Ashley was scrutinizing the tech for a moment to make absolutely sure this woman wasn't a contemporary - no, if anything, she looked even younger than Ashley's true age. The scowl that crossed her face wasn't feigned at all as that thought sunk in. "Charmed." "You're Rebound, right?" asked Judy curiously. "Ah didn't know you were one of the tech guys."

Fast-Forward Fast-Forward had had a lot of time to think about what he was going to say when the mouthy speedster showed up. He was going to call her an idiot, and too slow, and say whatever it took to keep that bag of crazy away from his family and the nice people they were fighting crime with. When she showed up like hell on wheels, which now that he thought about it was a better name than Roadkill, he was going to throw in something about being a stupid coward too. He turned and ran right off the roof, only slowing down a trifle when he saw the woman bounce right off Paige's telekinetic protection. Well Hologram always had been able to handle herself! And then he stepped right off the f*cking roof. F*ck! he thought to Paige, sounding more angry than afraid at what a microsecond's carelessness had cost him, tiles crumbling under his feet with a clatter as a bit of wood weakened by the earlier battle gave way beneath his feet, sending him tumbling away from any surfaces solid enough to slow his descent. Gonna sue this gadget lady! he thought on the way down, skipping from falling fragment to falling fragment as he stopped himself from breaking his ankle but still wasn't able to do anything else as he came to a messy, but still upright landing, just a few feet away from Hologram and Roadkill. "Ugh," he said out loud, then turned casually to the crazy lady nearby. "Listen, you're really bringing down the professionalism of the whole operation, honey. Does your ma even know you're out this late?"

Fast-Forward Fast-Forward is going to try and distract Roadkill from injuring his wife by punching her in the face. He will take a full action to make a charge attack. That'll give him +2 to his next melee attack and leave him at -2 Defense. He'll also All-Out Attack for +2, further dropping his defense. Damage 10 (velocity punch, Extras: Autofire, Penetrating [6], Secondary Effect, PFs: Accurate 2) {38/38} 22 Well that's disappointing. ugh, I'll spend the HP he got for watching a bad guy try and hit his wife, right? http://orokos.com/roll/760828 = 26 Well, that's disappointing. Ah well, can't win all the die rolls. I'll get an IC post up.

Judy didn't have a lot of experience with places like this, which made sense for someone who'd grown up in a post-apocalyptic hellscape - and someone who'd grown up with bodyguards her whole life for that matter. But she loved it; the music, the smiles on people's faces, the wash of heat and light in their every movement - it was beautiful. She stuck close to Corinne as they moved through the crowd, enjoying the chance to hide her light in her friend's bubble for a little while. For her part, Ashley did have experience with places like this - some, anyway. She hadn't been the type to come out to clubs when she was a teenager, and the places she went to now on those rare days when she could had a considerably harder edge than this lemonade and fizzy bubbles place. Not that she really minded the soft edges here; nor the presence of other adults. Even though only a few of them were the rest of her Secret Service team.

My gut for this one is "whatever's necessary to provide complications" - same as any other job. Someone in the city government. If they want it - but then you have to figure out how many of them know why they're there. As much as is interesting! I'd assume they'd obviously be in trouble if they did that sort of thing in _costume_... as it is, since their ID is still secretish, it's not going to be widely-known that Person Lady at the protest is actually Superwoman.

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I'd love to see things get started that I don't have to direct! Woodsman is not gonna sign it.

Watchdog 3.1 Abilities: 6 + 6 + 8 + 0 + 4 + 4 = 28PP STR 16 (+3) DEX 16 (+3) CON 18 (+4) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 14 + 16 = 30PP Init: +7 Attack: +7 (+11 w/Armory, +11 Melee, +13 w/Power Thief) Defense: +10 (+2 Dodge Focus, +4 flat-footed) Grapple: +13 Knockback: -5/-2 Saves: 4 + 5 + 6 = 15PP TOU +10/4 (+4 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +8 (+4 Con, +4) REF +8 (+3 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 84r=21PP Acrobatics 2 (+5) Bluff 13 (+15, SM) Climb 2 (+5) Concentration 3 (+5) Craft (Mechanical) 4 (+4) Demolitions 4 (+4) Drive 2 (+5) Gather Info 3 (+5) Intimidate 13 (+15, SM) Investigate 4 (+4) Languages 2 (French, Vietnamese, Base: English) Medicine 3 (+5) Notice 9 (+11, SM) Search 3 (+3) Sense Motive 9 (+11, SM) Stealth 7 (+10) Swim 1 (+4) Feats: 47PP Attack Focus (Melee) 4 Challenge 2 (Fast Feint, Fast Startle) Dodge Focus 2 Evasion Improved Initiative Interpose Luck 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Sidekick 27 [Daystar] Skill Mastery (Bluff, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle Quick-Draw [Draw] Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Toughness) Powers: 29 + 1 + 24 + 2 = 56PP Device 7 (Armory, 35PP, Flaw: Hard to Lose, PF: Subtle [Concealable]) [29PP] Feature 1 (AV Pickup) [1PP] Not Exactly Standard Issue 10.5 (21 points; PFs: Alternate Power 5) [26PP] BE: Blast 10 (assorted explosives; Extra: Area [General, Burst, 5-50-ft.-radius]; Flaws: Action [Full], Unreliable [5 uses]; PFs: Progression [Reverse Area] 9, Triggered 2, Variable Descriptor [anesthetic gas, cold, concussive force, fire, shrapnel]; Drawback: Reduced Range [5 100-ft. increments]) {21/21} AP: Blast 9 (laser pistols; PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit) {21/21} AP: Damage 6 (really good tonfas; Extra: Secondary Effect; PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Mighty, Variable Descriptor 2 [any technological]) {21/21} AP: Snare 9 (really good cuffs, Extra: Transparent, Flaw: Range [Touch], PFs: Improved Crit 2, Tether) {21/21} AP: Stun 9 (really good pepper spray, PFs: Extended Reach 1, Improved Crit, Variable Descriptor 1 [any chemical]) {21/21} Protection 6 (really good Kevlar) [6DP] Super-Senses 2 (Infravision [Tracking 1 [half-speed], Radio) [2DP] 1+26+6+2=35PP Immunity 1 (Daystar’s Powers) [1PP] Container 4.2 (Power Thief, PFs: Accurate, Subtle [Psionic]) [24PP] Drain Wisdom 7 (Extras: Linked [Mimic], Sleep [+0], PF: Slow Fade 1 [1 minute]) {8} + Mimic 7 (35PP, All Powers At Once, Flaws: Saving Throw [Will], Tainted) {14} Super-Senses 2 (Danger Sense [Mental], Uncanny Dodge [Mental]) [2PP] costs abilities 28 + combat 30 + saves 15 + skills 21/84 + feats 47 + powers 56 = 197PP

October 12, 2019 Earth-B-Vacant-19 As they stepped through the portal into the other dimension, the first thing Daystar noticed was that it was quiet - with only the familiar background hum of her radio bracelets sounding in her ears, and the distant whisper of the radio transmitter in the nearby basecamp. The second thing was how everything looked. A lifetime in Oklahoma, then DC, had not prepared her for the fall splendor of Earth-Vacant-B ("not quite Sanctuary but with a lot more nature!"), a world frequently visited by Claremont students looking for their first taste of extra-dimensional adventure. This was a world where humans had never been evolved, one where whales filled the oceans, animals the vast forests of North America, and birds the skies. Fall here was chillier than back home, she supposed, though it wasn't really an issue for her - she slipped her hands in the pockets of her light windbreaker as she looked up at the vast forest of gold and red. "Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this," she quoted under her breath, smiling in awe as she looked all around. For her part, Watchdog wasn't nearly so blown away by all the scenery - maybe because she'd been here ten years ago and had gotten crapped on by a whole lot of birds. "Let's keep moving," she murmured from inside her mask as they headed out into the center of the small encampment, where Mr. Jorgensen was waiting for them. Jorgensen was the school's new biology teacher, a smiling, easy-going guy who students sometimes took too much advantage of. He wore a plaid flannel shirt and jeans to greet the students as they stepped through the gateway, his thick beard adding to the impression of "hipster outdoorsman." "Hello everyone!" he called with a wave. "Keep moving and drop your stuff in the designated areas." This wasn't quite the rugged outdoor life of survival training; Claremont's small basecamp had places for tents, firepits dug, and even a generator and radio transmitter installed by previous generations of students. They'd been careful, though - outside of the small encampment here by the edge of the South River, there was little sign any humans had ever been here. And indeed, hardly any had...