Avenger Assembled

Yeah, not so much on the Grapple. http://orokos.com/roll/595591 it actually rolled a 1 on the Toughness save, but that's obviously a little crazy for these purposes! So let's call that a bruised and dazed. The next character who is up is Sparkler. After we finish this round, I'll break this into individual scenes for easier writing.

"Not really my area of expertise, sir," said D-7 with the blunt pragmatism that spoke "senior NCO" to Puigo's ear analogs. "I'm just here to make sure the scientists like Dr. Ariel," he cocked a thumb backwards to indicate Pink, "stay out of trouble. I know they've found plenty on this here moon - maybe your ship is under the ice." They took a small shuttle up to the Lor space station, one that looked decidedly different from the ones Puigo remembered from his knowledge of the nascent empire - this one had a thin, narrow look of a knife made to cut through something solid, and an asymmetrical look more suited to a mobile vessel than a stationary base. It was clear that wherever they were seemed to have no star, which certainly explained the frozen hellscape below. Once inside, Puigo found himself escorted through rounded corridors by D-7 and several other armored guards to what was clearly a medical bay. The air here was warm and was actually air (unlike the icy hellscape below) and the humanoid crew friendly. "Hello," said a physician of a species that resembled what he'd seen of Dr. Ariel, short and stocky by humanoid standards, with big black eyes and faint scale patterns on her blue skin. "I'm Dr. Titania, and I am honored to meet you! If you'll go ahead and hop up on this biobed," she said, patting something that (as with most species) was cut for a bed for a species much larger and more ape-like than Puigo. "I'll go ahead and conduct a scan. It'll be difficult without a species baseline, but it should give us some idea of what happened to you."

"Soon Phantom will come and take us to the nest," said Aquaria, big eyes blinking as she looked from Jessie to SFX by swiveling her massive head. "When we arrive, I will speak to them," she said, "so that they know we are their friends and we bring them treasures. Then they will speak to us." She fell silent for a moment, considering, before she croaked, "If they fight, we will run away with Phantom. There will not be any trouble." Having had this conversation with Jessie in the elevator, she added, "I do not think they will fight. We will be bringing them food - and I know the rites." Suddenly she leaped slightly into the air and turned to look at SFX. "Are you a vegetarian?" she croaked, obviously concerned at the prospect as she emphasized the alien word.

The thugs went for Joule, fast and angry, with the carelessness that drugs and fear can bring if you mix them inartfully. Blackbeard was too busy to throw his Molotov cocktail, his hatchet whizzing by Joule's face even as she ducked low; his friend didn't even get that close as they closed on her. Up close she could smell the tobacco smoke and motor oil on them, and probably other drugs if she stayed too close. But given their relative strengths and sizes, it was already clear mobility was key. There was no sign of what had taken down Vern - but he was surely down. Suddenly, Joule felt a faint wind brush past her - and the glass bottle that Blackbeard held in his spare hand shattered, dumping broken glass and gasoline down the side of his pantleg so it puddled in his sock and on the ground. The man cursed and leaped backwards, leaving a trail of gas behind him.

New round!: Clock Queen: Gets fancy and hits the glass Thug 2 is holding, spending an HP to make it count. http://orokos.com/roll/595123 = 22, so that hits! Joule is up.

Aquaria encouraged Jessie to enter the submarine first, knowing it would reassure her friend to check things out for herself. When Jessie's back was turned, Aquaria gave Leviathan a reassuring smile to let him know everything was going to be all right - a striking look indeed given the mouth of razor-sharp teeth that stretched wide across her face. She even raised her thumbs in the fashion of Surfacers, though her tri-fingered hands made the look a little odd as she hopped into the submarine after Jessie. "Tell him about space!" Aquaria encouraged her friend, "We saw so many exciting things in the Sea of Stars!"

APPROVED

Thug 2: Punch! 23 Thug 3: Whack! 14 That'll be a DC 20 Toughness save for Joule, then I'll post.

"It is the sign of the Elder Ones," Aquaria croaked proudly. "Those who ruled Lemuria, in great days, and who will return when the stars are right." She traced her fingers over the design too, almost reverently. "It is a proud symbol - one that means bravery, and goodness, and protection. It suits you." She beamed at Jessie, smiling without showing her teeth in the Surfacer fashion. "I think you can fit it over your back when you aren't using it, see the hide straps go here..." - When the phone rang, Aquaria croaked to SFX, "We will meet in the butterfly garden again. Bring all of your things." When SFX arrived, the mismatched pair of the armored Sea Devil and the shielded Singularity were waiting for her in the butterfly garden. "Phantom is on her way," said Sea Devil, who had a bulging leather satchel over one shoulder. "Then we will go." Sea Devil considered mentioning to the others that they were going to see her spawn and her spawn's spawn, but she couldn't think of when that was likely to come up so decided to keep it to herself for now.

"At the moment, you appear to be in the back of a medical evacuation shuttle," said Pink, still watching Puigo with fascination in her deep dark eyes. From the scales and big eyes, he took her for another species with aquatic roots, albeit a humanoid one. "I'll be able to tell you more once we have a chance to download the shuttle's memory core." As she spoke, she was scanning Puigo with a whirring, glowing device she'd taken from her belt. "I do advise you to keep your environmental suit on until we've had a chance to get you into our shuttle; conditions on this planet are hostile to all three of our forms of life. If you'll go with Cohors D-7, he'll take you to the roof where our shuttle is parked." The corridors of the building they were in weren't familiar to Puigo, but he could see the ice covering every surface, deep and old, and not water ice either. Peering through windows showed him what looked like the perfect black and glittering white of space-without-atmosphere above his head. "This way, sir," said D-7, his voice sounding rougher around the edges than his counterpart. "Just a short hop to the station from there." Roof access gave Puigo a different view; the building they were in protruded above a vast field of white and grey, a deep field of ice that stretched on for thousands of kilometers, as far as he could see. Other buildings were protruding from the ice sheet too, great monumental towers worn down by the passage of vast time, some knocked askew by some vast cataclysm.

"...are you a Praetorian?" asked Pink, sounding delighted to hear the news. Pink reached up and tapped the side of its head - and as Puigo watched, the opaque black eyeholes in the center of the head went transparent enough to show a humanoid underneath, her skin blue and slightly scaled, her eyes big and black. "That's...very interesting." Red had returned by now, and said something in what sounded like a military code to Pink, who nodded before replying to Puigo again. "The comm system in our craft is only for intrasystem use, I'm afraid, and it's not space-worthy. What I can do is take you to our base at the top of the atmosphere. Once there, we can get in touch with our superior and see what we can do."

Pretty far!

Aquaria ribbeted nervously, her throat bulging. Oh, how could things be going wrong so fast? It was her fault - she should have told Leviathan that her friend had a much more famous sister, but it wasn't the sort of thing that came up much in day-to-day conversation. Why don't more Surfacers know each other!? "Singularity is my friend who lives with me," she croaked to Leviathan. "Wander lives in a much larger place, with things that speak." She hopped up and down, then said, "This is Leviathan. Leviathan, Singularity. She is very tough. She once-" She thought for a moment, casting her eyes in Singularity's direction. "She once kicked a rock monster in the head and his head was in half. The rock monster was all right though, and he is someone we know now. That was when we were in _space_," she added in Levithan's direction, flicking out her tongue to catch his attention.

"Aagh!" screamed one of the suits, a noise that seemed familiar enough despite the different species. Puigo saw them both reflexively go for what had to be weapons at their sides; wait, no, one of them looked like a weapon - the other one was taking out a scanner? Their suits weren't quite the same color to his eyes, one was red and the other pink. "Hey, easy there, easy there!" said Pink, the one who hadn't called out. Puigo couldn't make out species or gender, just a mechanical voice that sounded like the artificial reproduction of organic species. "We're not your enemies, little guy." Red had stepped back, out of Puigo's line of sight, but he could hear the sound of quiet conversation. "It looks like you're in an environmental suit. Did...and you're really alive, wow!" said Pink. "Did you teleport in there?"

Lor Standard Date 1853.1 WISE 0535−7500 The Lor don't know the moon's name - not yet. They know that the stellar body that Terrans call WISE 0535, too large for a planet and too small for a brown dwarf, was part of a star system in Delaztri days - a star system that went missing in the interregnum in the records between the fall of the Delaztri and the arrival of the first Lor starships. They know this moon, the size of a Lor-Van-sized planet, was inhabited in those days with cities, a spaceport, and a population in perhaps the millions. They're not sure yet; the layers of ice, first oxygen and atmospheric gases, then water ice, are thick enough that the Archaeological Service has been digging for months even to come this far, to the high upper stories of what had once been an arcology. They've found some interesting things. - Pugio awoke to pain, and voices, and darkness, the sounds of vibration elsewhere. He faded in and out of consciousness. "Translator online, deciphering audio records." And darkness, and confinement, and _cold_. "Spaceship hangars are gold - not only does it give you access to their tech, it gives you their starmaps - and that gives you access to _more_ of their tech." He wasn't in his own craft, he was in something else, something dark and cold and confining, and then suddenly the rear of it was coming open. In the instant before light came streaming in and two envirosuited humanoids looked down at him, Pugio realized he was in the back of a medical evacuation shuttle - but what in all the hells had happened to it?

Woundmaker took cover as the melee began, barking orders in code to his men with a smooth economy of motion that bespoke long practice. From his perch behind a crate, Woodsman watched, with the small part of him that wasn't watching and loving Robin, or watching his mother watch this world willing to fight and die for the monsters her own and created, as Woundmaker pulled a long sniper rifle off his back and took careful aim, sighting down on his target with the steady hand of a born marksman. He fired and sure enough hit his target. The bullet spun Grim around as it skimmed his side with the force of a strong punch, nearly knocking him to his feet with a blow that would have knocked him back, or killed him, had it hit in a different area. The baby in his arms wailed as he moved, luckily it having been on the other side when the shot rang out. But in the pattern of his own blood on the floor in the wild melee, he saw a familiar face reflected in the droplets and heard a distant cry as someone began pushing through the door in the blood and death that just opened at his feet.

Injured and Dazed, and you get access to one dog! Okay, Solution is up as soon as I post IC.

Woundmaker is in a tough position - he wants the heroes to die, but he also doesn't want the cannibal Alkahest that Abel was supposed to have dealt with to eat him or his men. Move Action: take cover and activates his Master Plan, giving himself and his allies +3 to all skill checks and attack rolls Standard Action: Snipe Grim! 19 With the Master Plan, that hits! DC 25 Toughness save - note that if you take an Injured here, you will get access to a dog.

The conversation with Jessie had been an interesting one. Worried about her friend getting anxious about being left alone, Aquaria had repeatedly assured Jessie that she wasn't interested in mating with Leviathan or living in his lair - that all they were going to do was visit his lair underneath the Bay, and she wanted her best friend to meet with her new friend. She wasn't sure if her assurances had actually reassured Jessie, though, especially the first one. So here they were on the beach by the bay, the cold wind coming off the water enough to make Aquaria's blood slow in her veins, preparing for the short swim that would take them to Leviathan's front door. Fortunately Jessie was a strong swimmer, even with her brand-new shield strapped to her back. She hopped up and down nervously on the beach, chewing the imitation crab meat she used as a snack when she was trying to stay awake, waiting for Jessie to finish putting on her wetsuit and other gear. The bottom of the bay was a long way down!

That hits! Tou vs 20: 25 Ah, sorry, BC, them's the breaks! I'll go ahead and post for 2 and 3 once you post.

There was a time when Anna Cline had traded punches with the Centurion. Well, that wasn't exactly true - but she'd punched him more than a few times and she'd made him feel it. That had been a long time ago, though - a time when she'd been younger, and stronger, and faster. But even now, she had power - power she wasn't afraid to use. She'd run around the side of the building when the bikers had shown up, but now that she saw them threatening the sweet little Russian girl who'd been talking to her just a minute or two earlier, she ran back. The scene slowed to a molasses crawl as she ran up behind the leader and spun him around, jabbing her fingers into his eyes hard. Then she punched him in the throat, hard, enough that the shock of it went up her arm, then again in the stomach, then in the groin, each time feeling the force of the impact in her bones, before she ended the fight by jerking him backwards onto the concrete, where he fell with a sickening crunch. She stepped back, out of the press of the fight, smiling. From Joule's perspective, there was a wind - and Vern seemed to convulse, body jerking spasmodically, grunting in pain, before he fell backwards with a thud that left him moaning, half-insensate from where his head had cracked the sidewalk at his feet. The other two thugs stepped back, looking alarmed, but didn't drop their weapons - they were too high, or too angry, to be chased away. So far. "What did you _do_ to him, you crazy freak?"

Initiative: Anna Cline: 41 Thugs (3): 19, 9, 7 Anna Cline: 41 Joule: 19 Thug 1: 19 Thug 2: 9 Thug 3: 7 Anna Cline: Well, this is bad! With full Concealment, Anna goes for the leader These are minions, so she'll take 10 and hit him Tou vs 20 (she gets +1 DMG from her Autofire): http://orokos.com/roll/593205 = 7 Thug 1 is down. Joule is up as soon as I post IC!

Okay, @BlazingCoconut, let me know if this is okay! And if it is, gimmie initiative!

"Hey, Vern, maybe this isn't the right place for-" declared Blackbeard in a loud whisper, his furry eyebrows pressed together with concern. "Shut the hell up!" declared Vern, the mustached leader. "All right, then, if yer so innocent, you better get the hell out the back." Reaching behind himself, Verne pulled out a short hatchet, a gesture matched a few seconds later by the rest of his squad. Well, except for Blackbeard - who appeared to have a glass bottle full with something clear - and a large butane lighter. Maybe that was why he'd hesitated, given his obvious intent. "We're gonna make a little example of this place and if y'all can't hold your breath or stand around in a fire, ya ain't gonna like it!" Having recovered his courage a bit, Blackbeard added, "This whole damn block used to belong to the Mafiya boys - but we're gonna show 'em this block is Shady Meadows property now - cause we're the hardest sumbitches in this whole damn town!"

Hey everybody, before I go ahead and have the NPC go - The idea here was that we have a big, hard fight and save the Fens (and possibly Freedom City) from being eaten by rampaging Ferals - I think we were still going to go with Nighthawk holding the Alkahest in the portal so it closes shut on her arm? After that the cleanup crew arrives, and there's time for the more social characters like Nighthawk and Sparkler to shine and finish the conversations started before the threads came together. I had thought that was the plan from the beginning, but I hadn't put it all down in one place before. Are we still good for that?