Avenger Assembled

You should dig up 4 PP from somewhere to get these: Benefit 3 (use Knowledge [Tactics] in place of Stealth to set up a surprise attack; use Knowledge [Tactics] in the place of Notice or Sense Motive to detect an ambush or avoid a feint in combat; use Knowledge [Tactics] in place of an Intelligence check for the Master Plan feat) Master Plan

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Let me know if you want me to come in and write that NPC, Syl.

Sounds good! Let me know if you'd like anything.

I'm good to make it down to die rolls - is it just Gather Info, or do any other skills come to mind?

Hey @Tarrakhash Sorry for the delay on this - it's a crazy time of year! Let me know what kind of thread you're looking for, beyond the one Tiff is already running for you and I.

In the end, they all came together. Sparkler's magic held open the portal, Raina channeling the energy in the room with supernatural potency. There'd been so much death here and so much killing, and the magic in the air could feel it, it _liked_ it - and the power that radiated through her gave her the magic she needed to keep the portal open. She'd be exhausted later, but what did that matter now? The great dog had Woundmaker down and pinned by the throat, but he was laughing all the same. "Do it! Show me the power of death! I know who's waiting for me on the other side - and it isn't you!" His men were gone now, dead or fled, the eerie wailing of sirens from the hole the Solution had torn in the floor a clue to where some might have gone. Ardent and Frostbyte's fire and ice drove the creature back, their combined power a symbol of the unity they'd chosen today - perhaps the demonic warning they'd gotten had been sincere but Keith had forgotten one thing. When you worked together with your friends, you could do the impossible. The Solution and Nighthawk worked together to muscle the former's twisted reflection halfway through the portal, the feral Alkahest seeming to sense what was about to happen. Turning its wrath on Nighthawk, it grabbed her by the wrist with its free hand and began to drag her towards the gateway with it. She could break free from its massive grip, but then the Alkahest would be free to tear its way from the Solution and kill and kill and kill. And Woodsman watched it happen and he knew what death looked like, because he'd seen it before. He locked eyes with Robin, asked a question, and saw an answer. What would he give up to stop a feral Alkahest from tearing its way through the people and heroes of Freedom City? Everything. "Now!" And the portal closed through the Alkahest's body with the sound of a slickly wet pop like the bursting of a balloon full of hamburger meat - and its remains crumbled to the floor, dead. And Robin's left arm went with it above the elbow. And then the Freedom League; and the Master Mage of Earth, arrived.

Sure, I can take that role.

Jesus Mary and Joseph, what kinda penny-ante operation do they have here anyway? But saying so wouldn't get her what she wanted. She'd seen Freedom cops get blood-type matches and a fingerprint from guys that Roman had lowered into the damn shark tank, much less with a mostly-intact (albeit flattened) corpse like the Bedlam boys had had. "Yeah, well, honey, I ain't no goddamn hero either," she said with decades of bitterness in her voice as she tossed back about half of her whiskey. "I'm just a runner." She fixed her gaze on Slate and said, "So I'll have the boys look into who worked there and who didn't, and who's missing and who isn't." In the old days, that would have been a simple matter of reading the company's payroll in a few ticks of the clock. Nowadays she could still do that, but it wasn't gonna be quite as easy. There were no boys, of course, but she wasn't about to give away her operation to this guy - particularly the fact that it was just her and a runaway with a GED.

"We do okay," said Smith. He smiled thinly, an expression on his dark face that looked almost wolfish. "In this dimension, anyway. Some real bastards have come through space lately lately, but the Lor are the biggest, toughest people in these parts. My people helped 'em do it, which is why I'm here. You ever hear of a place called Earth?" "What was your purpose?" asked Frankan, seeming to take over the questioning from her aide. For his part, Smith rose to his feet and looked out the window, resting his hand against the made-transparent paneling as the ship cruised at high superluminal speeds. Puigo could make out the expression on the young man's face. He had not been in space much - but he seemed to like what he saw. He removed something from his belt that

Anna watched the girl go - but then put herself back in the moment. In that same spirit, she didn't do more than sip the whiskey. "We need a name. On the goil that got killed out inna ironworks?" What some people called her Jersey accent was thickening as she spoke; but what did she care about that? Maybe nobody talked that way anymore but it was how she'd grown up talking and she was going to do it until she died. Because when she did, maybe nobody _would_ talk that way anymore. Geez, what's got me so worked up? Maybe it was because she'd been thinking about her father, and the old days, and the past that was slipping away from all these kids around her. "Your lab boys get anything offa them metal fragments? We know they ain't from around where she died."

Hm - and here he speaks to the dead! Perhaps I should tell him - no, there is business afoot. "Zui is in the city," said Frost in English that seemed to have lost all but a few traces of a Russian accent - after all, now he was at work. "and has kidnapped a mystic artifact from Great Britain - a long-hibernating woman who may be an immortal. What have you heard - and if you have heard nothing, who would have?" He made a little gesture with his hand. "I trust we do not need to tell you the consequences of Zui gaining the power of mass-producing his immortality agents, hmm? This is a matter of some interest to some peoples."

Sharl blinked. Wait a minute. If that was really happening, why didn't he start by telling me that? He doesn't look like someone scared out of his mind! Of course, he couldn't rule out that there was something wrong with John's brain, as was so common in this world full of industrial pollution and primitive educational systems. Either way, this was the sort of thing that he needed to go deal with - if John was delusional or fraudulent, that was a problem, if giant robots were chasing him, that was a problem. "Okay," he said diplomatically, "here's what we'll do. Where was the last place you saw the robots?"

Much to Anna's extreme relief (since this meant he was paying attention to her and not to his pants), she found Slate at the bar rather than in front of the dancers. "Slate," she said, raising an eyebrow as she took a seat on the stool beside him. "I'm..." She hesitated briefly, then named herself after a long-dead friend. "Lenore. You owe a friend of mine a favor," she said, before leaning close to add, " Blonde lady with the hat, talks like she's gotta a pair a'plums in her mouth?" She snapped her fingers, "Hey Mac! Gimmie what he's havin'." She leaned back and studied the detective, waiting for his reaction. Without the disguise she didn't look, or sound, much like her divinely powered double - of course, she had her own tricks up her sleeve.

29 on my Bluff check - what's the game here?

"Heaven forfend your heeepa rights be violated!" said Frost warmly, settling in to watch the discussion. "Certainly not by me." He had at times been unhelpful when the League was considering new applicants, he knew - but he'd never actually been denied his security clearance for it. Let us see what the man is like before I wrestle with the stories about the man. They were just stories, anyway - rumor and innuendo. There was plenty enough of that about Frost himself. Seeing "Black Mamba" speak was a fine way to see character. "Yes, let us begin."

So am I good to have her go over and find Slate?

Anna took the room in and smiled thinly. It wasn't the first time she'd been in a place like this - not even the first time she'd been in one that catered to cops. A'course, last time I was in a place like this, we were knockin' it over. "Hey honey," she said with a smile at Billy. She leaned in close to his ear and said, "a drink sounds real nice, Billy-boy, but I'm lookin' for my man Frank Slate. I wanna make it a surprise, see?" She ran her finger down his chest and said, "He owes my friend some money and I want to help him pay up. You know how you boys can be with your figures!" She tittered over the sound of the music, trying not to think about how she was four times the age of the dancers on the stage and probably had a good twenty years on the oldest man in the room. She didn't look it, though, that was the important thing. "After that, though, I'm off the clock - if you wanna help me out?"

A good reminder to invest in that skill! Eidetic Memory is a good feat. Knowledge (Streetwise): 14

"Oh, many times," said Frost warmly. "Such a place is South Africa, with so many people." Frost pulled up a chair with casual ease, taking a seat alongside Black Mamba as though they were the best of friends. "Your pardon, with four or five languages in there, my English may not be my best subject." He grinned again, then said, "I am Comrade Frost, Russian attache to the Freedom League. Ms. Ishumi will tell you is all okay, not a Communist spy or anything. And you?" he asked, folding his hands curiously.

If they'd landed in Russia, this would have been no problem, despite the political difficulties Frost had with the current government. Landing in Hong Kong, or rather in China, made things more complicated - Frost could easily have explained this as an emergency situation to China's superhuman community. After all, he knew most of them fairly well - even if it was as enemies for most of the last several decades. But explanation would have taken time and required attention they did not have, so instead he improvised. "Sorry, everyone, sorry!" he said, waving his hands at the crowd and speaking in accented English, "We were supposed to land in embassy! But you know how it is when you let Russians drive! We get there fast but maybe not always to right place! Amirite? Hahah!" He laughed a belly laugh that was considerably deeper than his usual chuckle. "So how are things in Hong Kong? I hear food is better than ever!

Okay, so the idea is that Anna is going (out of costume) to meet her police contact at the stripclub - whee!

"Oh no, is fine." There was a distinct chill in the air - and Dimitri Peshkov, aka Comrade Frost appeared, stepping out smoothly from one of the several doors in the office. Black Mamba had heard of the formerly Soviet, now Russian superhero - he'd been among the party that had tangled with South African super-agents in Angola a lifetime earlier. "Hello!" said Frost with vigorous joviality, striding over and slapping Black Mamba on the back with great force. "Pardon delay, Ms, Ishumi," he said with a Russian accent that owned more to the stage than reality. "I thought you might enjoy a second hand in dealing with our guest from Down Below!" He gave Black Mamba a winning smile, an interesting look on his whiteish-blue face.

"I-I don't know what DNA is," croaked Aquaria, her big eyes swiveling in their sockets to take in the whole scene. She was torn between her desire to be Leviathan's friend and her growing feelings about this place. "Making life is for the gods," she finally said after a long hesitation. She hopped over to the fluttering insects nearby and scooped them up with her hand and squeezed - blood and broken wings soon dripping from her grasp. After a moment's consideration, she licked her hand, tongue shooting out with the length of an extra limb. She admitted, ever-thoughtful, "It is good. But why make life when there is so much of it? This place could be a home for many creatures that have no home anywhere else. "

The two women talked theories, over takeout Italian. "Could be armor somebody hashed up," said Anna thoughtfully, twirling up a substantial amount of spaghetti on her plastic fork. "Somebody builds one of those wrong, tests in the old foundry, then they dump the corpse a' the pilot when they realize they forgot the damn shock absorbers." "You said she died there, though, and she didn't bleed like she'd been inside anything when she died." Esperanza's voice had rare animation in it, something that made Anna much happier than she was willing to show. "And even Bedlam cops would have found the second person. Maybe something fell on her?" "Nah, they'da found _that_ easy enough," said Anna, shaking her head. "And you said the metal there wasn't from anywhere there. The thing it made me think of was-" her parents corpses, trampled by centaurs "like somebody'd just picked her up and squeezed. Made me think a'one of those guys who controls metal and such." "You mean magnetokinetics?" asked Esperanza, rolling her eyes politely. "We got all kinds of words now, old lady! I guess it could be that, especially if he brought the metal in from outside. That'd explain why the cops didn't find any tracks." "You can science something up, right?" asked Anna as she gestured animatedly with really crunchy garlic bread. "Something so we can find somebody controlling magnets?" Esperanza admitted that she could do so - which left Anna with one more problem. She had to see if her police contact had found something more out - which meant she had to beard him in his den. After she took a little nap.