Avenger Assembled

It was more diplomatic than Caradoc would have chosen to be - but from the look of things, it had done the trick. There were things he wanted to say even now - foul oaths and harsh remembrances of a time Tarva had chosen to forget but that he remembered all too vividly, words enough to scorch his tongue even at their thought. But there were more important things than vengeance. There were options to consider, like marching Kimber and Tarva far enough into the Antarctic that they could teleport away without triggering whatever was left in the depths beneath their feet. "You have said what you came to say. Your presence here is a danger to all. You should leave." "And what is your presence, drone?" inquired Tarva. She sounded coldly contemptuous of the drone. "A dead machine's eyes on a dead place. There is no redemption for you here. Perhaps this one knows better than to pick the bones of the Terminus, but do you? Does your woman?" Caradoc stared back at her, face and body invisible behind both holographic and real armor, the wind howling around them, for a long, long moment. "...you are afraid," he said suddenly, and there was despite everything a tone of quiet triumph in his voice. "You think to wound me with your words, but you are a creature of the courts of Nihilor. You would not speak so unwisely if something were not clouding your sense. What frightens you so?" "Because..." Tarva, for all her size, was staying protectively just behind Kimber as she spoke. "I know the magic in this place - now that I am here, now that I have felt it in the air. I know what I saw in my vision! I know who sent Mandragora and his beasts here. And I know if all the life she sent here is not destroyed, then she could yet find her way to this place at the bottom of your world. Given enough time here, I can find Mandragora for you - and what remains of him can be destroyed. I must do this before she finds us. She will hunger for life upon life - if it is life she can feel.The Princess of the Beyond. Nightmare Doom. " While Tarva and Kimber explained who exactly Nightmare Doom was to Dragonfly, Caradoc stepped away from the group and radioed their base. "There are spells within the Terminus that function so," he said, knowing Miss A and Jill would have been listening to it all through the former's radio link to him. "And might well function here, from a being like Doom. These two show no ill effects from the temperature, so they need not be admitted inside, and the energies below fade without the teleportation." He hmmed, then admitted, "I find this sort of petty sniping more trustworthy than flattery."

"Oh, thank you," said Mark, smiling at Grim. "This is Richard, by the way. I really appreciate the help." Richard Amir might have appreciated it too, but it was hard to tell, being of an age when babies slept most of the day. "I know you weren't expecting babies, but his mom has pulled some all-nighters lately. I'll make sure he's all the way asleep before I put him down anywhere, though - if he wakes up crabby, all sorts of strange things can happen!" He laughed. Paying attention now to the briefing, he asked, "Are we going full-Halloween, or generic harvest festival - or both? We've got the powers and the resources for almost anything we want, so we can probably make something that everyone can handle." He thought of his own international family, then went on, "We could set up the different areas by spookiness level, so you've got one that's just jack-o-lanterns and costumed ghosts, all the way up through really scary stuff at the last one. I'll volunteer for the first one," he added with a grin. "I'm pretty G-rated these days." Snapping his fingers, he produced a jack-o-lantern at his feet - a good-sized one about as tall as his knees, with a fair likeness of Grim's face sending a cheery orange and yellow glow through the barn. "Give me some time, I can make enough of these for every kid who comes our way."

Sparkler Soot and Cinders Handclap Wander: You May Not Believe In Me Miss Americana Nothing All rollover points to Sparkler

Edge: You May Not Believe In Me Woodsman: Handclap Quarrel in the Quarry Marsha's Vignette - Anniversary Citizen: Do It Again Harrier: Coming For You Lady Horus: Fast Food Room Where It Happens Vignette - Anniversary Sea Devil: Chrysopoeia Cosmetics Beloved Monster Doctor Is Out Peculiar Proposition Vignette - Anniversary GMing: Dream Team Registration Day Give Sea Devil my GM Point, split rollover between Woodsman and Lady Horus as available.

"Just follow my lead," Aquaria croaked reassuringly. She wasn't quite as brave as she was acting - but she knew Leviathan had already gone beyond his beliefs to help her, and making him too ready for a fight wouldn't solve anything. She swam quickly towards the tribe, then planted her feet as they caught sound and smell of her and Leviathan making their approach. "Behold Water-Bearer!" She bellowed with an impressive volume, her throat bulging outward as she spread her arms wide. "Do Hydra's-Coils-In-Shadow hide from a lone female and her mate? Who is your chief?" she demanded. "Who leads this tribe in its flight?" By now the singers and dancers had stopped, floating or crouching on the bay's bottom, glaring suspiciously at Leviathan and Sea Devil. The latter seemed to be glancing in particular at one of the Deep One warriors, one whose coloration looked similar to Aquaria's - but among dozens of fish-frog forms in green and gold, all of them dappled with tattoos and other forms of art, it was hard to tell one from another. A scarred Deep One approached them, one big eye sightless, its body a striking shade of red and blue. Its croaking voice was translated by Leviathan's collar in a tone that made it rasp with age - and power. "I am Sees-in-Darkness - I sing for the people. Your mate is not a Deep One, Water-Bearer." "No," conceded Aquaria, "but he is a...potent companion in many ways - and it is no affair of chiefs-not-kin with whom I mingle," she croaked firmly, as if their chieftan needed reminding. "Shall we sing with you?" she inquired, gesturing to the tribe. "You may feast of our kills, and sing our songs - but we will crack your bones and void upon them if you betray us," said Sees-in-Darkness in a voice that spoke of reciting a long memorized phrase, stepping aside to follow Sea Devil and Leviathan back towards the tribe. "Let us greet them, brothers and sisters - we are not alone in these waters, and the one we thought is our enemy may be our friend." Some of the group resumed their singing, a constant _throb_ like great bullfrogs croaking that echoed through the water in an alien tone, others swam down to approach Aquaria and Leviathan.

When he was sure the high school kids weren't going to kill each other, Citizen took them upstairs for lunch - Garuda and Qualia departing from the small group to go to a Next-Gen practice meeting. A little out of his depth, Sharl was fully prepared to let the students do their thing, but after the near-fight that had broken out, he wanted to make sure he was leaving his charge in good hands. "You should have seen this place during the Day of Wrath," he commented as they headed out onto the relative peace and quiet of the quad. It was sunny here, and bright - more so than he was used to either in Emerald City or in his upload. "Mr. Summers was replaced by a Curator drone, so was a sophomore named Quickstep - it was a big frelling mess. But we got through it," he offered, "and so did the rest of the city. What you have to understand is that Freedom City sits on the center of a major dimensional axis and about four different hyperspace loops. Between the dimensional invasions and the astronomical threats, it's a wonder the city isn't invaded _more_ often - especially with all the dimensional creatures roaming around." Once everyone had taken their food from one of the outdoor 'food carts' (really just part of the cafeteria line moved outdoors for the good weather), there was plenty of space to find on the quad - whether the benches not taken by students taking their lunch out of doors, or just the grass, or under the trees. Citizen didn't really bother. "Believe it or not, this really is about the safest place you can be."

Okay, @EternalPhoenix, I think you may be the one who is up! But I could be wrong.

Aquaria croaked in fascination as she listened to Peculiar speak, watching him with wide eyes that (despite her human disguise) were oddly reminiscent of the flat, unblinking gaze of a toad or frog. "But those things are not so!" she boomed, gesturing with a chicken bone as she interrupted the Professor's lecture. "The universe swims on the chaos of the One Below, where it is guarded from harm by the might of the gods. The gods of your people too, I am sure," she added with a tone that was friendly, albeit slightly patronizing. "If you listen closely," she added encouragingly, "you can hear their song. But not too closely!" she added quickly, gesturing freely with her hands as she did so. "Or you might go MAD. That happens sometimes." She turned to Lucy and smelled the air. "Are you all right!?" she suddenly asked, sounding very concerned.

It was Leviathan who (after some close looking) spotted the first 'track', sets of three-fingered footprints clearly visible in the muck at the bottom of the bay, but it was Sea Devil who knew how to follow them (Deep Ones often moved by 'leaping' underwater rather than swimming, as a way to both save energy and confuse scent trails of creatures following them) - towards the sound of distant thrumming and croaking. Sea Devil and Leviathan found the Deep Ones down in the deepest parts of Great Bay, perhaps a mile or so from Leviathan's lair, near a WWII shipwreck that Leviathan had passed a few times (and that Tristan Delacroix knew was a Liberty Ship that had been torpedoed in 1944 and then allowed to turn into a natural reef in the years that followed. The Deep Ones had colonized the vessel and the space around it, carving yellow eldritch signs on the still-standing walls of the ship, mounting aquatic skulls to the vessel's prow, and otherwise claiming it as their own. More of the tribe was here; the young hunters Leviathan had chased off and more, some that looked particularly scaly and aged, some that looked like small, toothy versions of Aquaria - and something organic that seemed to be inside the wreck. They were swimming around each other and croaking, an alien booming underwater bass that was like no sound one could hear on the surface through air. Briefly not seen by the group, Sea Devil turned to Leviathan and asked, "What do you-oh!" She made a noise, her throat sacs bulging, and removed part of her suit, a torque-like contraption that hung around the neck. "You don't speak Lemurian!" It was easy to forget that such a rugged aquatic being was not of aquatic stock. "Here, I stopped using the translator because it told me lies, but that was only in space. It should work for you. Try it!" she encouraged warmly. If a cold-blooded fish-frog could be warm. The translator didn't quite work like they did on Star Trek - instead after a slight but noticeable delay, Leviathan heard from the collar what seemed to be a translation of the eldritch chant out front. "-Give thanks to Dagon, for He is good He created the world with wisdom He leads His people throughout history He feeds and comforts His children Give thanks to Hydra, Mother of Monsters She loves us with a mouth of teeth As we receive from Her, let us also give to Her Hearts open to those who hunger and thirst-" "You can understand now? Good!" Aquaria croaked. "Are you ready? You just have to be tough, and wrestle any that try and wrestle you. And don't fertilize anyone's eggs!" she added with a laugh. Surfacers loved jokes about mating, they talked about it on their television shows all the time.

Here you go, @Blarghy! Can you give me a Notice check and a Search check?

"Thank you!" croaked Aquaria, her mouth briefly opening in a smile that was impossibly wide for a creature whose head was as wide as hers. Maybe he is as pretty as he looks after all, she thought, before firmly pushing such thoughts out of her head to concentrate on the mission. She thought for a moment, remembering a Surfacer word that was a translation of another Surfacer word that she had learned meant the same thing as warriors showing their bravery without a fight. "This way they wil also not count coup on your house. Now they know you're very tough, so that will help. Weak males are..." She croaked and shook her head, or rather swiveled her upper torso back and forth. "Not good. We should pretend that you are my mmmate, and that we are there to guide them to a safer place." She croaked again, the pale white flesh of her belly darkening slightly, and kicked her long, long amphibian legs to stay in motion around Leviathan. "You may have to wrestle a few, or bite them with your teeth, but that will just show you are tough. Let's go!" She led the way, kicking with her powerful legs.

Inside the bathroom, Woodsman pulled his green poncho down until the shadows of the hood obscured his face, hefting his crossbow in his free hand. All right. Okay. His eyes were clear, his pupils undilated and his heart rate steady, but the rage he felt was boiling hot. He walked up to the bathroom door and suddenly slapped off the light switch, kicking open the door with his right foot as he brought up his crossbow and fired. The bolt shot across the room and buried itself up to its head in the body armor of the 'policeman' by the front door, the man automatically firing a shot back from an itchy trigger finger - that wouldn't save him! The hissing, smoking bolt suddenly exploded, blasting the gunman through the glass doors of the cafe with a tremendous bang! Now there was no one guarding the primary exit, and one of the thugs was already down. Woodsman jumped back into darkness a second later, flipping the lights back on to keep his eyes from adjusting. On the stage, the leader of Law and Order took cool aim at the Rush. "You don't scare me, pervert. We're going to bring law and order to this city whatever freaks like you think." He aimed and fired and Ash felt the heavy slug smash directly into a torso that had taken direct gunfire before without pain. This time though the bullet dug deep, striking hard like a hammer blow that might have cracked ribs that were any weaker. Whatever that old "Police Special" was, it wasn't no ordinary gun!

He passes the Startle check and the Toughness check - and notices that the gun is doing much more damage than a regular police gun ought to be doing (i.e., why it was able to get through his impervious) The Ride is up!

Outside the barn, the air gave a quick pop - and Mark and Richard Amir Lucas appeared. In his black suit, blue shirt, and gold tie, Mark (who also went by Edge) was instantly recognizable - the sleeping two-month-old in a blue and gold front-facing carrier was rather less so. "Hello, everyone!" Mark called as he walked into the barn, his hand on Richard's back as they entered even though the baby was securely asleep. "Hello, nice to meet you in person," he said, automatically stepping forward to press the flesh. "And Grim, nice to see you again." He certainly looked older than the Claremont student Lynn had met years ago, impeccable in a dark suit with a short blond ponytail. "I'm excited to be here, I have a lot of ideas. I hope you don't mind I brought my son," and there was still a faint catch to those words, two months later, "but we're on Geneva time still and his mother's in a meeting." Richard was still small, but his pinched pink face drew a striking resemblance to Mark, even though the fuzz of black hair on his head must have come from somewhere else. "Hello, Spitfire," he said with a familiar nod. "Hey, I guess I haven't seen you since before this guy was born. How have you been?"

Woodsman: 25, +1 extra HP given the circumstances Leader: 24 The Ride: 20, +1 extra HP His Partner: 15 Guy By the Door: 14 Guy By the Register: 12 I'll spend an HP to get Quick Change for Woodsman for the scene. Woodsman bursts out from the bathroom and fires a shot at the guy by the door, then ducks back into cover. Attack vs DC 15: http://orokos.com/roll/554775 13! Well that's embarrassing. I'll spend another HP for a reroll and have one left. http://orokos.com/roll/554777 = 24, with the HP. That's TOU (15+6+5) = 26 Guy By the Door: 21 He's a minion and he failed a Tou save, so he's out! (The same cannot be said for the Leader, watch out!) Leader: attempts to Startle Ash: 13 Not so good! Tries to shoot him: http://orokos.com/roll/554781 = 27 Now that hits! That's a DC 25 Tou save for Ash

Okay, it's initiative time! Woodsman goes on 25 The four 'policemen' go on: 24 - Leader 15 - His Partner 14 - Guy By the Door 12 - Guy By the Register (the one closer to Ash)

With authority and purpose, the leader of the police quartet strode towards the assembled guests. Holding up a shiny metal badge, he declared, "Excuse me, excuse me, quiet down, everyone!" One of his partners was following him, the other two in the quartet hanging out by the main front entrance and the main register, respectively. "This gathering has exceeded this building's capacity under Freedom City's firecode. We need to shut it down and send you people back where you came from." The officer was on-stage with Leo now, the older man on his feet with a dawning, angered suspicion. "You know this kind of building has a firecode capacity of 300, and we're barely over 150 tickets sold," said Leo, glaring as he stared down the younger officer. The cops seemed cut from Central Casting, two white, one black, and one Asian, all of them the sort of short-haired, military-tattooed, thick-necked young recruits that departments like Freedom City's had been attracting for years. "This isn't 1970, you can't just come in here and shut us down! What's your name? What's your badge number?" "Didn't y'hear?" The officer on-stage suddenly whipped out his baton, fast like a snake, and struck Leo on the side of the head, knocking him to the floor. The others went for their guns too, his partner pulling a shotgun, the two further back, those closest to Ash, drawing pistols. "Y'all are just too flaming for Freedom City!" he declared as the crowd screamed in terror, pulling his pistol with his other hand. "We're Law and Order, you goddamned degenerates. I want wallets, and phones, and all your damned jewelry now! Your choice if we get them nice, or if we have to make you squeal first!" Eyes briefly glued to the melee on stage, Ash noticed the doors to the nearby men's bathroom swinging back and forth, as if someone had just ducked inside without anyone else noticing.

"Okay, nobody is freaking out," said Aquaria, "that is good!" She walked over to one of the chickens on the table and tore off a leg, chewing on it freely as she spoke. Her companion, who was careful to stay to one side of Aquaria and the group, as if ready to either flee or interpose herself between Aquaria and the others. She didn't seem to have much to say. Looking around at the others with big goggling dark eyes, Aquaria croaked, "Jessie and I live in a castle with a ghost, and a woman who can see your soul, and a person made of metal." She took another bite of her chicken leg, chewing on it noisily. "So what kind of shaman chants do you have?" she asked the others curiously. "I learned my disguise chant from my friend I pray with in our castle - she's a witch!"

Both characters can tell: Those aren't cops - their uniforms, badges, and weapons are all just slightly off. The guns and tasers themselves all look real, though! Ash can tell: They're casing the joint, moving to the exits, the cash register - they're gonna rob the place!

Here's the OOC. Give me a DC 20 Notice check and a DC 20 Sense Motive check, Little Jo. Riley's Skill Mastery is such that he easily passes the first but fails the second!

It was a nice evening, albeit one that was more sedate than Riley's favorite forms of entertainment. The smooth jazz was the sort of thing that Peyton typically put on when she was trying to get to sleep - and though Community Poetry Night was full of heartfelt local artists eager to share their thoughts about the world in verse, he didn't think many of them were very good. But there was a lot to like anyhow. The coffee was good and so was the chocolate biscotti that came with it, and nobody looked funny at him for adding cream and sugar to his brew. Nobody looked funny at him at all, for that matter, not when he went to the boy's bathroom, not when two different guys came along to ask for his and the other Riley's number (other men weren't either of their thing, but it was nice to get asked), and not when he wandered around the racks of LGBT books unescorted before picking up an Audre Lorde anthology for Robin in between poems. This was the sort of place he'd never gotten to visit in the old world, and between one thing and another, the sort of place he usually didn't feel comfortable in this world either. It was a good night. Maybe I'll take Robin back here next time. By late evening, things were looking up. The proprietor, a bearded gentleman in his late fifties named Leo, had taken the stage to read a poem about the namesake of the cafe - Marsha P. Johnson, a Freedom City girl who'd gone to New York and been in the front lines at Stonewall. Riley liked the guy's fire and his curly, old-fashioned mustache and goatee, and he was actually starting to relax despite the occasional look he was getting from his twin. Maybe he would take to the stage...later. As Leo was wrapping up, Riley heard a tingle-tingle, and looked over (along with many of the patrons) to see four uniformed police officers entering the cafe. Riley frowned, catching a look from his double. "You see that?"

September 2017 Riverside Marsha's In a perfect world, the experience of one sort of discrimination would prevent other forms of discrimination. But then a perfect world wouldn't need superheroes. Of the bars, bookstores, and cafes of Freedom City's gayborhood in Riverside, Marsha's was one of the few that catered particularly to LGBT people of color. From Sylvia Rivera on one wall to Bayard Rustin on the other, with shelves of LGBT books on one side and a coffee bar with nearby stage on the other, it had the homey atmosphere of a long-attended, long-populated neighborhood establishment. There was a smooth jazz quartet on stage this afternoon as a growing crowd filled in. It was Poetry Night and the coffee was hot, the biscuits were warm, and it was going to be one hell of a night. Riley Quinn-Smith shifted uncomfortably in his seat, fighting the urge to adjust the black fedora he wore on his carefully-shaved head. His years on Earth-Prime had gotten him used to crowds of strangers, and he had to admit he liked seeing the faces of so many people who, like him, were a little less than whitebread when it came to who they dated. It was what was on the agenda for later that made him uneasy. "This is stupid," he finally whispered to the other boy across the table from him. To the other Riley. The other Riley was skinnier and softer at the same moment, in a black suit and tie that made him contrast slightly with Riley's own purple-plaid shirt and jacket. His goatee was a little thicker and he had a mustache, but the resemblance was striking enough to instantly peg them as brothers. Of course the reality was, they were more than brothers. Duplicates across dimensions, who'd worked out at least some of their differences in the last two years. "This is stupid," hissed the Riley who was uneasy in his seat. "Nobody's gonna give a damn." "It's not stupid," said the other Riley, a look of confidence on a dark face that was rounder than his counterpart's but whose eyes were no less intelligent. The noise of the crowd and the music was already such that nobody was giving them a second look. "We wait till it's darker and everybody's watching the show, you swing in and do your thing. Show 'em the T in LGBT." "Nobody's gonna give a damn," Riley muttered, staring into his coffee. "Shoulda gone out with Robin tonight..."

Harrier considered his options - and Dragonfly's suggestion that he too might be at fault. "I have used my weapon in my time here, but never under these circumstances." He turned and looked around the camp, then the terrain beyond it. He didn't need to say out loud what he was sure Mara already knew, that further teleportation would only flood the area with more energy. The nearest inhabitable shelter was the manual control center for the railguns and other defenses built into the base's perimeter, not a place where he'd willingly take Tarva the Black. The mouth of the excavation into the buried temple would be at least temporarily habitable, but that again was no place to take Tarva the Black. On the other hand, neither he, Dragonfly, nor the new arrivals actually required shelter. "The false obelisk to the north," he said, "we will gather there." Though the fallen column of granite had _looked_ like an archaeological formation at first, as far as he and the others had been able to tell it was simply a trick of erosion. It wasn't a long trip as such. - Evacuation wasn't going to be an easy task, not with an Antarctic storm at its current level of intensity in the dead of night. But the scientists on site did the preparations they were supposed to do for a Level Three evacuation - gathering person-portable data, including the 3-D scans of artifacts, while Keri Russet and Toby Koth suited up to go outside and get the helicopter warmed up. The emergency force field generator inside the helicopter might give them enough protection from the storm to reach another Antarctic base, but then again it might not. As Miss Americana and Jill watched, the building energies inside the buried temple seemed to stabilize - the eldritch radiation was still at alarmingly high levels, but not close to the magical eruption that they might have feared. - Kimber could especially sense the energy crackling inside Tarva as she followed Caradoc out to the fallen stone 'pillar' at the edge of the complex, both suppressed magic and a nervous, barely suppressed terror that in another woman might have something to do with the dark and cold all around them. As it was, Tarva kept her head down and moved forward, keeping a grip firmly on Kimber's shoulder as she walked so that she could keep her balance on the rough terrain. Whatever else could be said for her she was following the advice not to wake what lay below, and had pulled the magic that usually lay around her tight against her skin. When they'd gotten there, Tarva placed one foot on the granite and asked, "Who was it? Was it Tarvon? I can feel the magic in the bones of this old place..." "Mandragora," replied Caradoc evenly, a steel sentinel in the darkness of the Antarctic night. "Long ago." Tarva hmmed, shooting a look at Kimber, and didn't quite relax so much as become less alarmed. "A vicious monster, and not above dire traps - but not as innately wicked as some of the others. There may be more hope in the land here than I thought."

Midnight's electronics scan benefited from the hospital's infrastructure. There was definitely an electronics-scrambling field in the air that smacked of high technology, but no one was scrambling the hard-wired feed coming from the cameras directly into the hospital's security system. His scan quickly found three targets in advanced full-body armor, a trio roughly in red, green, and gold, who had materialized in the corridor outside the waiting room. They were slow and methodical as they went, obviously not expecting to be interrupted - and no wonder, given that the hospital staff outside seemed to be walking right past them. The three moved up and down the corridor, tapping the cameras outside with poles extruded from their suits, shutting the signals down entirely. When they'd shut down their cameras, Red and Green joined each other in the middle of the corridor - just before Gold shut down the last feed to which Midnight had access. - Inside the birthing room, Wander was too well-trained not to take in what was going on. In addition to Dr. Hussein and a nurse who were carefully giving the couple their needed distance, Mark had stripped off his shirt and had joined Nina by her birthing tub. The water of said tub was churning ominously, with a weird liquid motion that seemed like a small storm in slow motion, but it wasn't hard to guess why, as Nina was currently in the middle of a contraction to which she was giving her full attention. Mark's head automatically snapped Erin's way as she spoke, but had to settle for giving her a thumbs up to show he understood. The noise of soothing Eritrean pop music still filled the air, and it seemed like everything in here was all right. "Damn you and your magic sperm!" Nina was hissing at Mark as Erin stepped all the way inside, "should have shoved it up your arse!"

"I keep my promises," Anna lied, smiling. "Let's talk." She shot a glance Esperanza's way, took a breath, and spoke as she looked back at Nicola. "If we stay here, you and I ain't...you know, anymore." She colored slightly - but she'd made a promise to Esperanza to have this conversation out in the open, and she knew it would do the girl some good to see a healthy relationship in front of her. Well, sorta healthy. Still, it wasn't like she'd never been in this situation before, minus the part where they were both ladies..."Not if yer puttin' a roof over our heads." There had been times, when she'd been raising Dickie and on her own, that offers of shelter had naturally been offers that expected some reciprocity. But she didn't do that kinda thing no more - no, she wasn't gonna let that kinda thing happen no more. Especially not with a kid around.