Avenger Assembled

"Ah jeez, did I-" murmured Anna, before cutting herself off as she stepped inside. She made sure the door was firmly shut behind her, conscious of her heart beating rapidly in her chest as it closed. She wondered suddenly if Nicola could hear it. They hadn't spent a lot of time discussing their respective powers; back when they were still here. "Guess it is before ten. Hey listen, if this is a bad time, I can come back," she said, clutching a paper-wrapped package to her chest. "But I've been thinking about, uh, all the time you gave Espy'n me, letting us live in your place and all, and I wanted to give you something. You know, for yer trouble..." Inside the package was a book, a well-used hardback missing its dust jacket that said Babyloniaca of Iamblichus. "I read, uh, all the books in the library, and that was one of the better ones. Guy wrote about some interesting stuff." She squeezed Nicola's hand as she handed it over, maybe holding it a little longer than necessary. Inside the book was a bookmark, marking a section that read "And Berenice ruled as queen of Egypt, and took Mesopotamia for her bride." "Sooo," said Anna, having moved away while Nicola was looking inside the book. "You still...livin' here, huh? Saw what you did to those Yardie boys down by the shipyard; good work with that."

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While Goggles Erin went to work, occasionally sending Jessie outside to retrieve something from the large mech-suit she'd arrived in, other Erins arrived on the scene - after all, they all knew a distress call when they heard it. There was some muttering from the group as it became clear exactly who, or what, Erin was working on. It was, of all of them, the cowboy Wander who spoke up about this. "Wait a minute...you had this happen here too, didn't you? And in all of your other worlds?", she asked, seeming to be demanding something of the others. "Those blasted space robots came and they turned good people into those infernal machines! If she's one of them, maybe she's the one behind this! I bet they'd love a lot of robots like us across the cot-danged multiverse!" "That doesn't seem likely," opined the white-haired Erin. "Even on my world, the Curator's never had a particular grudge against me - and this was never his style anyway." "Still, we should at least come out with any other secrets," opined the Erin in blue and white. "Anyone else holding something back they'd like to share with the rest of the class?" A few chimed in at that, though most were confirming guesses Trevor and Erin had already made. The Erin in red ruled as queen of the 72nd Realm of Asmodai "but we'll have elections any day now, really,", the Erin in blue and white was part of Typhoon's personal bodyguard on Socotra, Aaron was "uh, definitely a guy," the Erin with the big eyes and greenish skin had been partially transformed during the Archevil attack (she spat on the ground at his name), Swander was just "trying to make some sense out of all this nonsense!" When the group fell silent, the Erin in red stopped and stared at the Erin who'd spoken first. " I think it's a little hypocritical of you to stay silent now, don't you think? Trust me - confession is good for the soul." "What in the goddamned hell are you talking about?" Everyone was getting tense now, with the partial exception of Goggles Erin, who was doing her best to stay focused on her work despite whatever intimate revelation she was about to make. "It's not mah fault!" she finally growled. "And it don't got nothin' to do with rippin' out hearts - not like this, anyway!" As Socotra-Erin snapped open her scimitar-tipped bat, the cowboy Erin finally said, "I ain't exactly a human being no more. But you ain't gonna stand there and judge me, cause you don't know what I goddamned went through on that trail." Her voice was a low growl; with a tone like Erin's when she was angry, but with a deeper rumble behind it. "I ain't never killed nobody that didn't deserve it, and if you girls wanna scrap about that, we'll scrap."

Don't forget Defensive Roll is +2 Toughness per rank by our house rules. Immunity 1 (Elven Meditation; Immunity (Aging, Sleep, Thirst/Starvation) Flaws: Limited: Must meditate for an hour each day for it to work) 1 PP (Racial Skill) - this...doesn't seem right, mechanically? I'd say dig up 2 PP to boost that, or just put half rank on some of them.

Ah, what changes did you make, @Avorez?

Nice! APPROVED

Good luck, KD. So sorry to hear that.

Summer 2018 Outside the foundry. Anna hesitated a moment before knocking, picked up her commlink, and spoke into it all of a sudden - "You ain't back there watchin' me go about my business, are ya?" After a moment's pause, her sidekick's voice came back, sounding amused. "Business?" "Ah...damn kids!" Anna muttered before she tucked the commlink back into the pocket of her black skirt and knocked on Nicola's front door. It had been a couple of months since Anna and Esperanza had permanently moved out of Nicola's headquarters, out to the facility at Belcher College that the two of them had renovated into a headquarters for Lady Horus and her sidekick Wadjet. They hadn't seen much of each other since. Anna shifted where she stood, running her hand up through her short blonde hair, and then knocked again.

Frost froze for a moment, then turned back to his coffeemaker. The cup he turned around with was already gone lukewarm, its steaming heat having faded in his icy grip even as he turned around. He put the drink to his lips and felt it begin to chill, curious about Black Mamba's reaction. A deep game this American plays! But that must be a lie...mustn't it?

"An excellent idea," said Frost. He looked at his two companions, doing the math in his head. "Well if we're doing огромный монстр, I am the smallest one of us which I suppose makes me the damsel in distress. So I run at the gates, shrieking like a woman about how the gigantic monsters have come for our souls, and while they are dealing with the madness I slip behind them and strike from the rear - but that may be too involved. What was your plan, Voin Zhenschina?"

"Hm." Frost made no particular comment in response to Black Mamba's words at first, simply looking from him to the League staffer and back again to check mutual reactions. "I can provide some information along those lines." Immortality was not a condition he could personally recommend, but then no one ever really asked. "And your wife and children, they know your work?"

"She's due to be born in about one year," agreed Norris, keeping pace with all of them without seeming to run. It was a bit like a video game NPC in a game that wasn't programmed quite right - turn your head away from him for a moment, and he'd show up again in about the same proximity. "Her mother is Abigail Stonagal, the society heiress and TV star." Corinne knew the name - the Stonagals had money in oilfield services and had had several mutually profitable dealings with her father. Will knew the name too; Abby Stonagal's reality show _Life With Abby_ had only lasted a season and a half but she'd done just well enough to make it onto _other_ people's shows. Both had met Abby (who was a few years older than them) a few times; she was a kind enough soul but always surrounded by managers and paparazzi. "Her mother is supposed to meet her father at this year's Westwinter Dog show." Norris swallowed, then admitted, "But, ah, the, ah, the problem is that history has begun to undergo some light unraveling and the odds of Abigail meeting her daughter's father there are growing less and less likely. You see, Pablo Jodi is, ah, on the catering staff at Westwinter this year..."

"Agh!" said the man, looking away until Cherish was fully-dressed. "I am _so_ sorry, I don't know why your privacy sensors weren't triggered, I must not have set this thing right..." He reached down and began fiddling with what looked like an old-fashioned leather-strapped wristwatch on his left wrist. "I am here because I need your help - the fate of your future depends on it. That's where I'm from; from the Freedom City of the year 2525." He coughed, then went on, "I'm sorry, again, I'm really more of a physicist than a historian, but there wasn't time to summon a specialist. Anyway, I'm here to tell you that the good news is that the future is wonderful. Peace, plenty, comfort and freedom; we have all these things in abundance. Or we _should_, anyway..." For Grim's benefit, he went on, "The future as I know it depends on the birth of...well, of on a great number of people, but perhaps the most important of them this decade is named Michelle Jodi. She's due to be born around one year from now and it's her scientific developments in the late 21st century that make progress possible. She's the inventor of the remote temporal viewer, you see, the ancestor of the technology I'm using today. Reliable predictions of future events mean that...well, that everything gets better!" He smiled. "Corrupt politicians lose elections, policy decisions are made correctly; it's a stepping stone to a better tomorrow. Many better tomorrows! Say, those aren't _real_ dogs, are they?" he asked. "They're not like the 21st century ones in pictures at all..."

Summer 2018 It's a fine summer evening in 2018, and three young superheroes are out doing their thing. When suddenly, wherever they are, they're not alone. Comparing notes later, this is all happening simultaneously on one exciting Thursday night, but of course none of them know this at the time. That simultaneity is quite a feat, given that it's the same guy talking to all four of them, even though it doesn't look it at the time. "Start again. Right," the guy in the Egyptian headdress and linen skirt continues as he appears behind Thoughtspeed. "I don't have much time, so let's make it brief." The guy with the calaca face paint and black body suit continues as he speaks to Grim, "I am Yves Norris. I'm from your future. Well, one of your futures, but let's not go into that just at the moment. We don't have the time. Well, you do, but I don't." The guy in what Sīxiǎng is pretty sure is a WWII-era Nationalist army uniform goes on, "My energy supplies are limited, and you must be aware that time travel uses energy exponentially proportional to duration and distance. Basic application of Jodi's Law. Not that you would know about Jodi, because she hasn't been born yet, which is why I'm here. This may not make much sense to you, I suppose." The guy in the Santa Claus costume blinked, studied Zenith, then said "Wait, this is the wrong costume for this time of year, isn't it? Sorry! But really - there's no time to fix it now..."

"Yeah." Anna looked down at her drink and tossed down the rest. "The good old days. I'll call you when we know what we're doin' here." Maybe they weren't friends, but they wanted the same thing - and she'd been on the wrong side of the law long enough to know that was good enough. For now. When Slate looked around again, he was alone at the bar. Time passed. (Montage Theme: https://youtu.be/eJlN9jdQFSc?t=16 ) Lady Horus had her own ways of interrogating witnesses; sometimes she played it nice, sometimes she played it hard. The friendlier witnesses like the factory workers, the office staff, and the bus station staff got a friendly blonde goddess with a ready smile and a Shakespearean vocabulary, the better to find out if they could tell her what she wanted to know. The unfriendlier ones, or the dumber ones, or the ones she just didn't like - they got the wrath of the Sunhawk, sometimes a couple dozen feet up. Still better than how Clock Queen woulda asked 'em. Anna knew better than to ask her protege about the results of her lab tests on the stuff they'd gathered from the crime scene - she had her answer when she didn't hear a damn thing. Esperanza's anger tended to manifest itself in cold, quiet fury like a banked fire; and the best way to get anything out of her was to let the fire burn itself out. So she didn't comment beyond making sure there was food on the table and that Esperanza had her space, even if she didn't know why Wadjet was spending all her time reading the library's books on psychology. Whether she was interrogating skells in dark alleys, or running out for cheeseburgers for her sidekick, she kept her eyes open for the Hammer of Justice. No sign of him - so far.

Gather Info: Lady Horus: 22, Wadjet 14 Knowledge (Physical Sciences): Wadjet: 10 Knowledge (Life Sciences): 6 Knowledge (Behavioral Sciences): 21 They're looking for information on Who the dead woman is The circumstances of her death, physical and otherwise Clues for a likely suspect, individually or group-wise.

"You gotta mellow out, brother," said Third Eye to Eldritch, putting an arm around Eldritch's shoulders. He'd privately confided to Hypno-Hippie that he was worried about Eldritch, who'd transcended the human frame but not the human soul - a way the group talked about beings who had left behind traditional human appearances but not quite traditional human foibles. Third Eye himself was an older man these days, though by all account his power was still the same. With his bandanna, greying-white ponytails, and tie-dyed fashion sense, he looked a little bit like his favorite musician, Willy Nelson, albeit with a few more tattoos. "Doing our thing in Freedom City's like trying to bribe your kids with candy when they eat honey at every meal. This city's a place where gods walk the street and monsters shop at the grocery store. The people here are gonna need a little more than just a song and dance from some groovy out-of-towners before they open their eyes." He pointed to the mystic tattoo over his brow chakra, the one that (when he concentrated) allowed him access to tremendous power. "Think of it like Jesus or the Centurion, man. They didn't just go out and say 'Look at me, I'm better than everyone else,' they went out and did things for other people. And that's what you gotta do, man, you gotta do things for other people besides just laying down some righteous justice on people trying to cancel our good vibes. I know you're a true believer, big guy, but you gotta think like the wise ones. Anybody can fight for herself or her best buddy, but it takes someone with real dharmic enlightenment to go out there and fight for their enemy." "We used to have a really great free clinic in this city, but the Man came in and shut it down about thirty years ago and nobody's ever had the right alignment to come in and fix it back up." This was not the first time either of them had heard this story. He sighed. "Maybe we'll get some new members today, and that's cool if we do, man, but this isn't, like, where we end. This is where we _begin_, man, and we're gonna be planting the seeds of something really beautiful." He smiled warmly, then added wryly "But I'm just some old guy with, like, opinions. You guys are the generation that's gonna see those flowers grow. I'm a little envious." - Outside, Comrade Frost had joined the third Scarab and the young speedster he didn't know, having extinguished his cigarette on his palm after reading some of the brochures. "Quite a show, eh?" he commented cheerfully, a chilly presence on the warm spring day. "Comrade Frost, a pleasure to know you both. I wonder if they will be looking for any heretics in the audience!" "

Frost was quiet for a moment, considering the man's words and attitude. When he next spoke, his voice had lost some of its arrogance - and distinctly, most of his comic-opera Russian accent. "None of that has been said. And there are those who operate with the League with their names obscured even to us. But if we will open a door for you, you must open a door for us. What can you tell the League about who and what you are?"

Hey all. Electra is having her gallbladder out tomorrow, so we'll be a bit busy over the weekend.

It was a busy night, especially for heroes who had already been busy with their own interdimensional crises. But when did crime, or even disaster, ever really take a break? After first stopping to produce a room full of emergency supplies right out of a high-end camping store, Mark disappeared with Aquaria for a good long while, reappearing after a while with Aquaria and Jessie both, the latter carrying a bright metal shield on her back adorned with what looked like an off-center, five-pointed star. After that he temporarily made his goodbyes, reassuring Erin and Trevor that he'd be back after he had a chance to sleep and check in with Nina and Richie. By the time Mark disappeared, there were about thirty Erins around the mansion. And more kept arriving. An Erin with dark, kinky hair and a vaguely Egyptian costume; an Erin with truck-sized power armor that she parked on the lawn (where the two Redbirds conversed), an Erin in a translucent helmet with a large, high-tech blaster at her side that turned out to contain a blue ring of power, and even an unsettled Erin with the green skin and big staring eyes of a Deep One hybrid, who stared widely but didn't seem interested in saying much. Aquaria and Jessie were checking the defenses on the lawn, anyway. That night the house was full of people who only slept when they wanted to and who habitually drank large amounts of coffee. The house was full of wakeful, watchful people; with the little girl and the teenager upstairs one of their prime guarding targets, but by no means the only one. They collectively talked tactics; it seemed likely that there was not a power in the dimensions that could fight this many versions of Erin White at once; was this a plan to herd them all together for some terrible purpose (or even a large bomb)? But what could pass the wards of a hellqueen, a Furion machine intelligence, and more? The next morning, while many of the Wanders were at breakfast, a private signal alerted the Erin and Trevor who lived in this dimension that there was an emergency. When they reached the rear access gate they'd been looking for, they found one of Erin's counterparts with her heart torn out. With her blue-streaked hair and her nigh-familiar costume, she could nearly have been Erin's twin if you ignored the concavity in her chest that leaked bright red fluid, puddling on her costume and down onto the grass where she was sitting, leaking past where her hands were pressed together over the gaping wound in her chest. Trevor had seen these before. And so had Erin, in pictures. "Not...not what you think..." the Curator-duplicate said, haltingly. "Went looking for more..."

Dimitri gave this some thought. Given the choice, he'd have preferred to turn Dr. Sin over to the Chinese government for an execution - preferably a slow one. But knowing Sin and knowing his reach, he knew that turning the man over would likely not result in anything as smooth as an execution - but more likely an attempt by the Chinese government to coopt his organization, with dire results. "Easiest task is to bring Zui to us," he suggested. "Strike at smuggling operation, or at insect fellow big man suggests." He made a little gesture Dreadnought's way. "Either someone talks, and we gain, or someone talks to boss, and we bring him in our direction. He will have to handle problem himself, bringing in outside consultants would only attract unseemly attention to his labors here. We are a trouble but the Chinese government gaining an in on his operations; that is death." Striking a match against his palm, Frost studied the flame and said, "I suggest we look on docks for insect fellow and bring him to heel."

"How do we know you are not shapeshifting brainsucker from space? You know, Grue?" inquired Frost. "Have met plenty of those and while some are nice people, others are not. Without full medical workup is hard to know a man. Now don't get me wrong, you may not be a man under there - I certainly am not. But we still need to know." He looked around the office, then his eyes lit up as he spotted a small coffeemaker tucked away near the room's entrance. Without comment, he headed over there and set to work, letting Elizabeth and Black Mamba continue their conversation.

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You'll be glad you did!

I'm going to make one more complaint - can you peel off the points to give him 2 or 3 ranks in Knowledge (Tactics) so he can use those feats without the roll?