Avenger Assembled

Not trusting Comrade Frost is a completely sensible complication. Especially since he's going so early! Probably through trickery. 25

Honey badger don't give a damn - let me know when you want initiative, @Supercape =D

Technically the choice now was in the lady's hands - but Frost was pretty sure he was going to have to start freezing people soon whatever happened. Still, a little diplomacy never hurt anyone. "You will like this new world. Children live where once they died, and there is food for every mouth. Come away from these thieves, and see what men have made together." Most of what he was saying about the present was a lie, but there was more truth to it than in his youth.

Okay: Cobalt Templar: 24 - 4 HP Sea Devil: 23 Singularity: 22 Omegadrones: 19 Foreshadow: 17 Giant Robot: 17 Okay, @KnightDisciple you're up!

APPROVED

This will be archived for inactivity soon, @chubbyninja28 .

If what you want is someone whose superpower is invulnerability, you should use this sheet or an edited version thereof: https://www.freedomplaybypost.com/topic/5825-trollthumpers-cave/?page=5&tab=comments#comment-184430

Geron - I would drop the Immunity and just give him lots of Impervious and high saves - that's _much_ more points-effective and will let you have a much more competent character.

Glad to have you back, @Tarrakhash! Okay, let's do initiative. http://orokos.com/roll/651939 = Wadjet goes on 25 http://orokos.com/roll/651941 = various thugs will go on 13. You're up!

When none of his compatriots spoke, Comrade Frost took this opportunity to consider the situation carefully. After all, he had plenty of experience with this sort of thing. Language. Hm. It was not uncommon for the truly ancient to be above mortal language through means magical or telepathic; such things were common enough albeit still beyond Dimitri personally. "My lady," he said suddenly, "I am Dimitri, this is Klara, and this is Joseph. These men seek to drain you of your long life like mosquitoes draining the blood of a cow - and they have means to do it." As he spoke, the temperature in their space dropped again. "What would you have us do in your name?"

Run, hide, and never look back. They hit the street as an explosion tore at their backs, heat and light searing the back of Mark's neck. A hard landing on the streets of Nihilor would normally have attracted attention, but the fireball and collapsing building at their backs seemed to distract both the crowd of proles and the Omegadrones scattered on the streets. The shelter of a nearby alley kept them from further prying eyes; and kept them from looking too closely at the horrors around them. Remember what they told us. If you look into the well, you will never look out again. The latter seemed to be Psyche's problem, who was still with them but had gone largely quiet. When she signaled she was all right, Mark focused on the larger problem. There were dead bodies with them in the alley, face down and unidentifiable, and Mark made himself not look. Behind them, the building that the crashing beast-thing had struck burned, its top floors partially collapsed and flames belching from the rest. There were no emergency services on Nihilor, of course, at least not down here in the ghettos built by the survivors of endless fallen worlds and their children, but something else strange was happening. The building hadn't been empty; it was clearly occupied - but many of the occupants weren't fleeing. Even as some streamed out the doors or went for the windows, there was a chanting coming from the building, an eerie song that seemed to welcome death. From the soft, subsonic thrumming of Midnight's device, they were closer now to the portal device - both in the "y" axis and the "z"...

All right, @Avenger Assembled, @Electra and @KnightDisciple, it's initiative time! Lots of different things to do here. The Giant Robot goes on 17 The Omegadrones (using field battle rules) go on 19 Sea Devil goes on 23

The droid, now fully-armed and operational, strode towards Cobalt Templar, its steps making deep, booming noises that shook the ground beneath his feet - indeed, that rang the field they stood on like a gong, the muddy, torn-up earth of what had once been a power plant's well-maintained green running like water in places. The machinery hereabouts, most of it horribly modified by cancerous technological growths that ran all the way up the sides of the cooling tower, was coming to life too, singing with an unearthly song that matched the vibrations of the giant robot's steps. Horribly organic, the droid advanced, its metallic flesh more like an insect's exoskeleton on closer inspection, a black fluid leaking from its joints with the vitality of some foul inner ichor as each step showed things moving and twitching and _pulsing_ inside it that were not metal at all. Aquaria had been in fights before, sometimes fights for her life, and she'd been part of battles too. But this was something else. The hordes of mechanical monsters closing in on her weren't angry, weren't hungry, weren't afraid - they just kept coming and coming with all the cold, remorseless precision of insects defending their nest. She struck out with her trident, with her limbs, and slew them in great numbers; but there was always another one, its hands reaching for her, its sizzling black blade stabbing at her armored body with an energy that made all her senses scream with alarm at the violation of all the laws of gods and men - it was terrible. And she knew, for all her leaps and bounds and strikes, that she couldn't hold out forever. They really _were_ like a bunch of crabs. Too stupid to know they were dying; too many to hold back for too long. She turned and saw Singularity amidst her own carnage, the elder sign on her shield glowing with its own eldritch power - What will you do, Water-Bearer? What will you do when they take her? When they strip the flesh from her? Ignoring the voice from her trident, which was not helping her concentrate one bit, Sea Devil leaped over to Singularity's side and the two females stood back to back, tearing drones apart together. Aquaria had her eye on the giant robot, for all that the sheer horror of it was hard for her to focus on, - but suddenly heard another voice, no, voices! "Jessie!" she bellowed, pointing a damaged building with a cluster of drones outside it. "There are Surface-Men there!" Aquaria heard her trident again as Singularity turned to look. What will you do? And Aquaria knew the answer. Anything.

"This dimension is beneath the realms of the sea gods and the gods of darkness," Tarva was speaking into a microphone provided by Bluebird that provided a link to the field agents, Kimber close at hand as she spoke. "Incomplete in its own way," she said, reciting with an odd detachment like one describing the weather or the prospects for a good harvest - describing natural conditions completely out of one's control. "And thus worthy of colonization. I doubt it extends even as far as the Terran solar system. With the way behind us shut, you and your heirs will be able to live here in peace for centuries." That got her a hiss from Bluebird, and Tarva sighed softly. "Any native life forms should be well within your capacity to deal with."

Anna was talking a mile a minute in the back of the cab, something Nicola was used to by now. "That's where the Centurion fought the Crime League back in '68!" she expostulated at one point as they headed past what looked like an old bank building since converted into apartments, smoothly editing details so that the cab driver wouldn't think anything of their conversation. She looked old enough to have seen such a fight, if not actually participated in it. "They almost got 'im, too! Clock Queen was hittin' him from behind every time he turned his head, and then Madame Zero was coming in with her freeze ray-but of course he got away, and wasn't that a lucky thing for the good people of the town." She put an arm around Nicola and smiled at her. "But enough about old times for now. This is supposed to be a new place, right? I am gonna show you _all_ the best sights in this town..."

"By Ammit's dung, I am in no mood, fool!" declared Lady Horus as she advanced on the nurse, her ankh blasting with celestial fire and her voice adopting the "mirrored" two-in-one tone that it did when she was suitably wrathful. "Bring me to Ramona Blackmore!" Anna wasn't thinking about Ramona Blackmore though, not really - she was thinking about how Bryant had died in one of these places, too sick and too old to go home, and she was thinking about how one day her powers would be gone and she'd be just another frail, helpless old woman in a place not too different from this, and she was imagining drawing back her fist and punching her interlocutor through the wall with great force. it was a good thing that she was a good guy now. - Wadjet studied the scene for a moment, having been largely silent on the way in. "Guards here soon," she commented to Arrowhawk before turning and heading for the pre-made opening in the door, her weapon at the ready.

Frost spread his hands in Sin's direction and shrugged, an elegant Well what can you do? statement without any words. "Yes, by all means, let us hear woman's words." This was, he supposed, rather hypocritical of him given the things he'd done in the old days when the government he'd served had favored wanton cruelty - but he was in many ways a hypocrite. Eugh. This poor Duke fellow. Wonder what Sin will sew inside his mouth when they are done. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he commented, "Come now, you would not keep lady waiting, would you?" he asked the Duke with exaggerated cheerfulness. "Unless you think she cannot _be_ awakened, in which case matter is of course entirely different..."

If you want to post what you have, we'd be happy to help.

First Family Watchdog and Pulse Day 3 An undisclosed location "Ah'm sorry I asked if you were gay." Ashley looked into the nervous face of the teenage First Daughter, Jaycee twisting her long dark hair around her finger as she spoke, and considered that this was a conversation that neither her time as a superhero nor her time as a Secret Service agent had prepared her for. "It's all right. We're going to be spending a lot of time together in the near future, so questions like that are perfectly normal." She gave Jaycee a small, professional smile. "I'm not gay-" but oh, hadn't a lot of boys assumed she was! Especially the boys who were supposed to be full-grown men. "but pretending to be is a good way to stop a lot of awkward questions." Extemporizing, she sipped her tea - Vietnamese lotus, something she'd introduced Jaycee to that week as a way of keeping her from dwelling on what was happening in Freedom City. "Claremont has, ah, a lot of teenagers from all over the world, most of whom are away from home for the first time, some of them far from home. People date a lot; and if the boys think I like girls, they won't be asking me out much." Jaycee sighed, took her finger out of her hair, and absently fingered the small gold cross she wore around her neck. "Do you think Ah could date there?" she asked her bodyguard. They were alone in the small kitchenette, her older sister having gone to ground at the Secret Service facility in Muskogee, her younger sister with their mom in the infirmary, her father trying to help save the world. That, at least, was a question Ashley had thought about how to answer. "I'm your bodyguard, Jaycee, not your parent," she said simply. "I can't tell you what to do. But I can tell you this." She gave Jaycee a flat, level look. "My job means that I will be risking my life for you, every day of the week, as long as I'm on duty and you're at Claremont. That's my job if you're being smart, that's my job if you're not being smart. But if you make smart choices, my job is a lot easier - and a lot safer." She smiled again, trying to soften the words. "If you do get a boyfriend, you have to explain it to your parents, not me." "Fair enough," said Jaycee, smiling back. Ashley had noticed how Jaycee, always quieter and more withdrawn than her siblings, had been noticeably silent during their time in the facility. That smile was a good smile. "Ah probably wouldn't want to date anybody there, Ah mean, Ah'd have to lie to them the whole time and that's not very Christian, not if it's somebody you're courting." "Mmm," Ashley said noncommittally, taking a moment to sip her tea. Her background wasn't that far from the First Daughter's, albeit Catholic vs. Protestant - but even agreeing could be potentially hazardous to her professional health. "Well, the important thing is that whatever you do, you don't try and dodge me or the other agents. Whatever you do with yourself while you're at Claremont, you need to keep your detail close at hand." Stealthier than most of her fellow agents, Ashley could probably have just followed her protectee around - but that sort of thing didn't breed trust either. "We're not going to tattle on you if you do something your parents wouldn't approve of." The list of that was fairly long, even if you ignored the security situation. "Ah promise," said Jaycee, "cross mah heart and hope to die." She actually did the first, then smiled. "Ah was thinking about getting a tattoo..." Ashley smiled, glad to see her protectee so relaxed. "Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." She hesitated a moment, then undid her left sleeve buttons, pushing the black material of her jacket and the white material of her shirt. Jaycee's eyes widened as she took in what Ashley's long sleeves usually hid. "That's the Sacred Heart of Mary," she said, pointing to a red heart pierced with knives, getting a nod from the Sunday school-trained Jaycee. "This is my father's name in Vietnamese characters, and this is..." She felt her cheeks flush as her fingers touched the short name up by her elbow. "Who's Tyler?" There were a lot of answers to that, but only one was appropriate under these circumstances. "A jerk," Ashley said firmly. "which is why you should think hard about tattoos." And be sober when you get them, she added, definitely a comment she wasn't ready to make in front of Jaycee. "You never know how things are going to change." "Ah guess not," said Jaycee, shifting a little. She turned her head and looked towards the underground situation room; and it occurred to Ashley, not for the first time, that her ward could probably hear what was going on in there. "Ah think Ah'm ready for a nap," she said, "Mama'll be there all afternoon with the troops, and Jaydee'll be right there with her." Jaydee was notably the most social of the Cahill girls, something that was a source of stress for Ashley's colleagues when they considered that she was just a few years away from dating herself. "Could you, ah, help me?" "Okay," said Ashley, just a little uncertainly. She followed Jaycee back to the room she was sharing with her sister, nodding at Agent Harrison at the door, then sat down next to the bed as Jaycee threw herself down on it, fully-dressed. Just don't get used to this, kid, she thought as she reached down and put her hand on what her old yoga teacher would have called her crown chakra, the top of her head. She concentrated, reached out - and saw Jaycee tense slightly before the girl dropped abruptly into a sleep that would be untroubled by radio dreams. Used to this by now, after several weeks of practice, Ashley leaned back in the bedside chair, shaking her head. If only we were all so lucky. Omegadrone numbers growing. Situation in Freedom City growing more dangerous...

Sea Devil had hung back during the fight both on the instructions of Midnight and because she wasn't at all sure which of these she was supposed to hit! She could tell Jessie by scent clearly enough, and her sister from here, but many of the others were either bizarrely close to what she knew or bizarrely away. Either way, it was unsettling, and she didn't relax until the bad Erin was subdued - at least until she saw the tension in her Surfacer allies. As the others scanned the perimeter, the goggled Erin and the one like Midnight taking out devices that matched Trevor's, Sea Devil studied the bound Erin - who she realized was trying to say something through her gag. Aquaria hopped closer, but could hear nothing clearly - when nobody stopped her, she hopped closer still and pulled the gag out of the bound Erin's mouth, her trident at the ready in case Erin tried to bamboozle her. Extra-dimensonal fiend she might have been, Erin wasn't above spitting in disgust. "Look at you!" she called to the others, loathing thick on her face. "Every last one of you! And the ones back at the Manor, and the ones in Seattle!" She spat again, but it didn't seem to be because Cowboy Erin's sock had gone in her mouth this time. "I can't believe I'm like this across every goddamned corner of the multiverse." She looked at the others, then back at Erin - the one from here. "You are her. The one they wanted." There were devices on the bridge pilings, down below the surface of the water, where they couldn't be seen directly - devices drawing a substantial amount of energy from extradimensional sources and storing it for some unknown purpose - energy that had grown substantially in the last few minutes. "I hope you're all taking a good look, girls," Erin was saying to her counterparts, her eyes bloodshot. "When they take you and they rape your world to death, you need to know it's her goddamned-." Sea Devil hastily stuffed the sock back in the other Erin's mouth, tying it tight behind her head this time. "Sorry!" she croaked, hopping away from the red-faced and furious Erin.

Frost laughed politely. "Really now - does the great Doctor Zui turn to Kantor's base methods?" This actually sounded rather different than Overshadow's methods, but anything that made it sound like Frost wasn't paying attention was a sound stratagem at this point. "No, that was impolite, forgive me - but really, how would you solve problem of infant sharks?" For the Duke's benefit, and honestly for that of his companions, he added, "Infant sharks eat each other in mother's belly and only one or two are born - would more than one Zui _share_ what it is to be the Doctor?"

Cape, I've been thinking about this for a couple of days, and I'd like to go back a step: I was under the impression that the characters had successfully flown out of melee range of their attackers - that's what I was trying to describe with Lady Horus grabbing Wadjet and flying out of the immediate scene with her. Wadjet certainly isn't climbing at this point. I feel like it maybe needs an edit?

Aquaria blinked when the Surface-man donned the symbol of Omega from his empowerment - but he still seemed to be on their side as the battle began so she let that bide. He was a mighty creature; but she was mighty too, and so was Singularity. When he tore open the hole in the ground, she leaped up after him, her trident at the ready - Foreshadow following just behind them to begin his own quest. Let the clever, quick one do his sneaking while the big, loud ones did their fighting - it was a clever enough plan, especially if it did let them save all the world. Within seconds of her feet touching the ground, she had killed her first Omegadrone by means of kicking its head off. She'd expected the feel of metal breaking, a resounding sensation she knew from training with the Liberty League, but instead the sensation was a mixture of organic and inorganic, wet liquid things gushing out as the now-headless creature fell at the feet of its fellows. In an instant, she reconsidered the situation - and the armies of Destruction around her, and looming overhead with their great bulk. Not like machines. Like crabs. Aquaria struck her trident against the ground, butt-first, and bellowed, "I EAT CRABS!" before plunging bodily into the affray. And meanwhile above her, and above all of them, something stirred - the great vast bulk of that Terminus wardroid that loomed over the burning remains of the plant was beginning to come alive, black lights flickering along its length snapping to life that burned with a strange shadow-not-light that was deeply unpleasant to look at. Luckily, Aquaria didn't need to look to fight!

Sounds good, @Tarrakhash, looking forward to seeing you on the 13th! Have fun!

"Wadjet, thee and the daughter of the dead take Morley - Crawley is mine." And with that, Lady Horus was gone. Up close her famous teleportation was rather subtler than the flight she summoned with her glowing ankh; in fact, she seemed to simply take a running step before vanishing with such finality that not even her running feet made a sound. Left alone with Arrowhawk, Wadjet shrugged and cracked open her paintball gun, sliding what looked like a harpoon and line into the weapon before clacking it shut again. "Your kind of people. You lead."