Avenger Assembled

"I saw eyes opening at the bottom of the world - and terrible things that followed. They are going to come for me, boon, and when it is done all this will be -" She made a little gesture that encompassed the room, the castle, the city. "I need to go there and take the eyes when they open - before they can see me." Unconsciously, she made gestures with her thumbs that encompassed gouging out eyes. "You would only endanger your soul if you went, and you are all soul," she added, running her fingers through Kimber's hair. "You have been darkened enough by my touch." - Steve rested his head against hers, something that he had to admit was easier with the robot than with Gina. "Soon." The next morning, if you could really call it morning, the download from the temple below had finished. Circling the probe's backup cameras around to keep scanning the 'vault' had confirmed some of their earlier suspicions - the corpses in the vault looked to be a mix of human and humanoid, some human-like and others closer to the amphibious and reptilian people rumored to have dwelt in Lemuria, and the artifacts scattered around were at least in theory a potential archaeological and mystical treasure trove. No one was particularly willing to go down there and get them, though. They all knew the caliber of the foe they faced - still, the scientist crew that weren't the heroes kept themselves busy recording whatever data they could gather from the probe's backup cameras. "There's no doubt about it," Zielonki was commenting, a look of awe on his face as he wrote quickly in his notebook. "This isn't just Lemurians, these look like Proto-Atlantean artifacts as well. My God, this was a joint Lemurian-Atlantean invasion!" While Dragonfly and Miss Americana collaborated on a final check of the incoming feed from the probe, Steve took Jill aside. "Thank you for coming," he said softly. "I know what you have left behind. I am...grateful for your presence, and that you kept word of this cancer on Earth-Prime secret." He sighed softly, then said with particular fire, "It will be a pleasure to see the scientists home and watch this valley burn."

PM'd player on this edit. - Fox, 2017/10/02 Woodsman edits: AP: Obscure 3 (all senses, multiple chaff + smoke + stink arrows, 25 ft, Extra: Selective Attack) {16/16} 1PP

That hits! http://orokos.com/roll/551311 = 24. It would be staggered again, having failed by 11, but instead it is out of the fight!

Okay, welp. If she turns into Alkahest, that's an HP for Riley!

Kick its ass! thought Riley exuberantly, his lips curving into a hard grin. He wasn't letting himself think they'd beaten the damn thing, not by a long shot, but it was good to see Fred standing up to monstrous bullies from under the earth. When the thing kept going for her he sighted quickly, realized it was too far for a hatchet throw, and brought around his crossbow for one last shot. He had to make it fast, those great golden fingers were reaching for all-too-human flesh, and Fred was a lot more breakable than most people! He fired a shot from the hip, the bolt straight and true as it whizzed past Fred's ear and buried itself in the heart of the monster. The Aurans Riley had targeted before had been able to handle the hand-grenade-sized explosions he'd detonated under their skins, but what he'd thought was simply a biological reality turned out to be something else entirely. His shot entered the chest of the last Auran and exploded there with great force, bubbling golden skin erupting from its torso and spraying an unlucky Winifred Wei directly in the face! The hot, ill-smelling fluid, half golden quicksilver and half-blood, was in her hair, her eyes, her mouth - she was blind and could hear only the howling of the monster!

Confronted with this possibility, Lady Horus - removed her helmet. The transformation from god to woman was all glowing solar light and radiating golden energy creeping up Lady Horus's body from her sandals to her head, gradually transforming her back into the familiar figure of Anna Cline. With the Helm removed and transformation finished, it was easy enough to see what Nicola already knew - that Lady Horus (albeit with her face half-covered by the Helm) was clearly Anna Cline with about two and a half decades removed from her. "That's...real nice, honey," said Anna carefully. "And don't think I ain't grateful. Esperanza and I need to talk first. We'll be back." Espy scooped up her bag and followed Anna out the door. The two of them headed away from the steel mill complex towards the river it had once dumped chemicals into - the Manitowac wasn't the cleanest river even today, but alongside its banks and away from the buildings of the Mill gave them space to talk in privacy. - It was closer to lunchtime when the pair returned to the Mill, bringing with them a bagged lunch from the fast-food restaurant nearest the Mill site, one of the several Culvers' in the greater Bedlam area. "Hey Nicky!" said Anna sociably as they headed back inside, Esperanza sensibly settling down on a couch inside the entrance with her food. "We got hot stuff, but we gotta talk first. You gotta minute?" The question was asked in such a way that it brooked little argument.

Woodsman: Shoots Monster 3: http://orokos.com/roll/551059 = that hits! Tou vs DC 21 http://orokos.com/roll/551060 = 11 It's now staggered. Give me one more Will save, Giz! DC 25

That does hit! Tou vs 21 http://orokos.com/roll/551058 = it takes a bruise!

"Hey hey hey!" Citizen flew down from his perch and interposed himself in between the high school kids, remembering the good old days on Young Freedom and missing them with gusto. He didn't remember anything like this happening when he and Koshiro and Kimber had...hmm. "Save it for the actual bad guys," he said firmly, scanning the group with his sensors and eyes both. He didn't look ready for a fight so much as an imposition, something he'd already done. "Claremont students have beaten the Terminus, beaten the Curator, and they've saved the world more times than I can count. There's a time and a place for healthy competition - not whatever is happening here." Finding that he could detect Ouroborous by radar if nothing else, Citizen added to the dhampir - "I know things have been, uh, weird here. What did they tell you about what happened to Mr. Archer?" "Somebody kidnapped him and put a cybernetic control in his neck," said Qualia, quieted but not stifled by Citizen's presence as she kept glaring at Huang and Corinne. "If Next-Gen hadn't shown up when they did, he could have killed the students he was working with. They were lucky to get away alive."

2007 Somewhere in the Caribbean "Aquaria! What are you _doing_?" Vaguely scandalized, Lotan hopped closer even as the smaller female gave a little start. He'd noticed her missing from the celebration and had come looking - only to find her curled up by a small fire with a forbidden artifact. "Do you know what the elders would do if they saw you with that?" Aquaria frowned and stamped her foot on the rocky ground beneath their feet, a temporary home for that the tribe and its allies. "They would say I was listening to what I should not listen to," she admitted. "But this is harmless, Lotan, look-" She opened her secret, carefully hidden since the last time the tribe had encountered Surfacers. "Look, it has nothing forbidden and nothing against the gods. It has pictures of fish - food fish and poison and all the rest. These black marks must be their names - and perhaps where to find them. It must be a song." Lotan frowned as well, his big jaw muscles moving in a way Aquaria had to admit she found attractive even when he was annoyed with her - and she with him for his hidebound ways. There weren't many males in the tribe her age. Not since the last encounter with Atlanteans. "Why would Surfacers have a book about fish? They die in the Sea and they eat strange foods. Some of them don't even eat fish at all." Skeptic or not, he didn't leave her side, not even with the inviting thrum of drums and bellows from the rocks on the other side of the island. Squatting on the rock that the fire had been warming, Aquaria expounded her theories. "Maybe they were collecting them. There were some fish on that boat." Shifting uncomfortably at that memory, she moved over enough for Lotan to join her, which he did. "The other things like this, they fell apart in the water, but this one," she went on, hefting the book in her three-fingered hand, "this one survived. It must be special. I want to know what it means." "I don't understand you at all," admitted Lotan. "But I know you're strong and brave, so you must not be Misborn." He croaked at her and moved a little closer on the rock, the light of Aquaria's small fire reflected in his large dark eyes. "I will promise I will not tell. If your thing tells you true secrets, tell me as well, so we can both learn new things. I will bring you a great shark if you do." "Oh really?" inquired Aquaria, rumbling deep in her throat. "If it does have great secrets, it will have to be a great shark indeed. How will you catch it?" She struck with her tongue and caught the crab she'd left to scuttle about on the rocks, swallowing it with a single gulp. When she was done chewing, she began spitting out shell pieces as Lotan's croaking became more melodic. "I will use my spear and my mighty limbs - soon we will dance under moon" In return, Aquaria sang, "Your spear and limbs are mighty indeed but I have sharp teeth - and hunger." They sang together all night, retreating into one of the island's many caves when the pitiless eye of the Sun grew too bright in the morning. Aquaria kept her book for a while, studying the pictures of fish and looking at the words, but eventually had to leave it behind when the tribe fought a particularly vicious group of Atlanteans. Lotan died in that battle of a sword through his heart. Aquaria sang him a beautiful song. 2017 Aquaria was hungry and short on time, so she shoved the contents of a box of sliced meat in her mouth before she sat down in front of the computer again. Rubbing gel onto her fingers, she began the slow, laborious process of typing words. Typing was hard, writing was hard - but she liked the idea of writing her words for others to see in the future. I HAVE BEEN LEARNING. I KNOW THINGS. Tick-tick-tick, tap-tap-tap. BUT IT IS HARD. THE AIR IS COLD AND IT IS DRY. Tick-tick-tick, tap-tap-tap. I MISS THE SONG. I MISS THE PEOPLE. Tick-tick-tick, tap-tap-tap. The beeping alarm told her that her time was running out, so she set aside her discount laptop and quickly hopped into the kitchen. The wonder that was the slow cooker was still coming along nicely, much to her delight - tossing in a few more spices, she set the lid back down and let it continue its work. By the time Jessie was home from class, the two of them would have a feast of pig meat! She hopped back before her computer and began to type some more, enjoying the challenge of bringing the words forth without using her mouth. I HAVE LOST. THIS IS THE WAY OF THE DEEP ONE. Tick-tick-tick, tap-tap-tap. BUT I HAVE GAINED. I HAVE A TRIBE. Tick-tick-tick, tap-tap-tap. AND I REMEMBER THE GODS AND THE WAYS. Tick-tick-tick, tap-tap-tap. IF YOU FIND THIS, SING MY SONG. Tick-tick-tick, tap-tap-tap. FOR THE STARS WILL BE RIGHT!1! 2027 New Lemuria "Sin in her palace, Nibiru and Nergal, And the stars are right!" The little ones jumped and croaked happily as Aquaria finished the song, gathered around her in a sea of great black eyes and greenish-white bodies. She thought she could pick out the few that were of her own stock, by sounds from their chirps and croaks if nothing else, but there was little point to dwelling on something like that. "Sing it again!" croaked the female that Aquaria had dubbed Far-Seer, after her best friend, the one who reminded her so much both of Jessie and her sister when she fought against the other younglings. "Sing the Song of Beginning again!" Her sisters and brothers took up the chant, but Aquaria just laughed, her throat sacs booming wide. "You need your rest, little ones!" She licked a few of the ones that hopped up into her lap, and dropped morsels of fish in the mouths of the cleverest. "This is our age! The sons and daughters of Dagon and Hydra must be well-rested against the day!" She hopped with them to their special place, deep in the bowels of the children's cave, and when they were busy fighting amongst themselves for place she hopped her way out of the cavern and into moonlight, content that their guardians would watch them well when the battle was done. She looked up at the great ruddy mass of Sin in the sky and croaked in satisfaction at its light, then hopped from rooftop to rooftop of the great city, booming a friendly greeting to the Deep Ones she passed on the way to her destination. From the buildings and watery streets below she could hear the singing of the colony as they went about their night - some working in building the new temple, others hunting for fish and game, others building from salvaged stone and metal. For once her eyes were not for her city and for her people - instead they were on the stars overhead. The great mass of Sin overhead was quiescent tonight, her volcanos sleeping and her ruddy face beginning to dim as it cooled - she would probably see it sleep again by the time she had evolved beyond caring about anything but the tribe. Such an ascension was decades away, though, and in the meantime she had much to care about. One of the stars - by now swollen and shaped like no star at all, was moving with the impossible grace and speed that she knew came from borrowed Star Knight technology, a quickly rotating disc that settled down above the great fortress that still protruded above the rising waters of the city. Aquaria was by that point already nimbly climbing the walls of the ancient fortress, for the moment ignoring those that dwelt within as she headed straight for its roof. When the vessel's occupants began to emerge, Aquaria was waiting for them - or at least, waiting for the one who stood near the back in the uniform of the Freedom League. It had been a long time since Singularity had been posted to the League station in orbit of the Earth. "Jessie!"

"...all right, yeah." It took Riley a moment or two to process what Raina was saying - and to give her a hard stare to make sure she wasn't being affected by...whatever was happening just then. "All right, it's a party, so we party." He gave Robin a hard, toothy smile. "Just a buncha stupid teens out who don't know any better, right?" He took her hand and rose to his feet. "Let's show 'em how we dance, baby." Out on the floor, Riley was an untried dancer but in fantastic shape for all of that - he mostly stuck close to Robin as they moved through the crowd together, careful to not quite match the rhythm of the music. He'd read A Wrinkle In Time when he was a kid - it never hurt to be careful. "You see anything?" he whispered in Robin's ear, his arms around her.

"I HEARD THAT YOU HAVE A PARTY!" came that voice again, very distinctly, a croaking and baying sound full of emotional expression. "I LOVE PARTIES. I WILL BRING MEAT! IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY MEAT!" A noise like a giant frog croaking, and then, "CAN MY FRIEND COME TOO? SHE DOESN'T DO SPELLS BUT SHE IS VERY STRONG!"

Consider me available if you need something!

Ring ring! Ring ring! One of the telephones in the building was ringing. When picked up, a strange voice came over the line - a booming bass that sounded vaguely electronic, like an artificial reproduction of a voice that even without said technical help would not have sounded particularly human. "HELLO! DO YOU TAKE MONSTERS?"

Oh shoot, I missed this! Let me know if you do need an extra person in there.

Blarghy - yikes! Good luck.

Very excited to see this move forward! Let me know if there's anything you need.

"That sounds terrible!" Aquaria croaked, horrified at the thought of being frozen like an amphibian left outside in a Freedom City winter. The man being described wouldn't just go into hibernation - he'd die a slow, painful death. "Singularity, go!" It was abundantly clear that they couldn't wait on the plan, not when the hostage might die in agony at any moment. Sea Devil leaped from rooftop to rooftop towards the house that was their destination, her armor augmenting her powerful leg muscles as she bounded like a quadruped towards the house that held hostages and monsters alike. She bounded finally from across the street to the house and simply crashed through the front door, slicing it open with her tridents as she bounded inside the house at the speed of a galloping horse. With a man in danger, she knew the only solution was to put all eyes on Sea Devil. She struck the ground with her back foot, hard enough that the sound and impact echoed through the lower story of the house (and cracked the wood beneath), and bellowed in a booming electronic bass that echoed even louder, "I HAVE COME FROM THE SEA TO FIGHT! MANSTEALERS, PIRATES, AND MURDERERS, COME AND BE TESTED!" She'd seen that on on the television!

Eventually it all came together, as smoothly as if they'd all planned it out for years. The great Archevil monster fell from the Pyramid Plaza, bleeding from the wounds inflicted by Garuda and Qualia, straight towards the plaza below that Ouroborous, Zenith, and Salvo had all helped clear of gawkers and tourists. As the monster got close enough to trigger the banishing circle (said triggering helped by the black, oozing blood cascading from it) the circle flared to a brilliant, iridescent light that was maybe a bit more like Hollywood magic than actual magic - and suddenly monster, skyscrapers, and all were gone as the simulations in the Doom Room vanished to four walls of still-glowing electronics. "I might have known you'd hide down below when there was work to be done," Garuda hissed at Ouroborous, not quite audible at the level of where Citizen was sitting. "Can't you even be a-a man in training, much less out in the field?" "Jay, don't start a fight," said Qualia, patting his arm affectionately. "We have guests. They'll figure out who's a real hero here soon enough." "Hey, that was good!" said Citizen from up in the teacher's platform, sounding impressed. "You kept the monster distracted rather than letting it break into the towers, you dispersed the tourists so they didn't get crushed by the monster, and you came up with, er, a solution that got rid of the creature." He could forgive Salvo and Ouroborous for falling back on the focusing rituals that they used to channel their extra-dimensional psychic energies; a little nonsense was more than acceptable if it got the job done. "We did a simulation like that back when I was on Young Freedom," he reminisced. "Those were fun times. Man, I got in trouble for hacking the system. Not because I'd hacked," he admitted, "but because I did it twice. So are you ready for lunch, or do you want to go again?"

It's okay, we're doing our thing - concentrate on you! We'll be happy to see you back.

Riley really wanted to get up and dance with Robin. He'd gone to a lot of work for this night, picking out the right outfit and practicing his groove. Robin was freaking gorgeous - and she'd put in a lot of work for tonight too. They all had. So when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, he didn't speak out at first, but he did stare around the room with a sudden tension that Robin could feel where his leg pressed against hers and where his arm went around her shoulder. When he saw the staff at the exits, closing the doors and standing guard by them, he felt the tension in his spine ratchet up harder all over again, the same feeling he got when a stick cracked somewhere behind him in a dark wood. I don't want to ruin it, though! He looked at Robin, then at the others and said, speaking to pitch his voice over the sound of the music. "Do you hear that? Are you seeing this?"

Citizen slows his Flight to a move action (so he's now moving 1000 ft this round, straight up) - he spends an HP to double his dodge bonus and uses the total defense action. The target number to hit him is now 27. I don't need to make an IC post for that, since he's already dodging and weaving his best - go ahead and post, Ari.

APPROVED

2007 Familiar Faces In a darkened corner of the hastily-erected twenty-bed clinic that was possibly the largest hospital left on the face of the Earth, Peyton Smith-Quinn and her allies spoke in hushed tones. "Maybe we should just let him go," Peyton said softly, shooting a glance back at the locked isolation room (once one of the plant's security vaults) that held their patient. "Even when he does turn, with his powers he could be all the way back in California by the time he goes." Jack O'Ryan shook his head, his matte-black eyepatch not even catching a glimmer of light from the cracked-open door. "He's a meta. A meta who fought Ferals - and he told us himself he crawled through the Forest for two days to get here." "He's delirious, but he hasn't turned _yet_, even after two days. Maybe he's immune," said Peyton softly. "Somebody has to be at some point, right?" "We can't take that chance," hissed O'Ryan, a man who rarely raised his voice even in a fight for his life. He'd had a job to do with money in the old world - and in some ways he still lived by calculation. "Not after seven years of Hell. Fully healed, he could go through our defenses like a buzzsaw and bring in the whole northside pack with him. And what if he _does_ find that family he's looking for, and bring them all here too? We could lose everything we've worked for." "..all right," said Peyton, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Thanks, Jack. I just needed to hear it from you, too," she admitted. "Just get it done, and get it done tonight. We deserve safety - and he deserves his dignity. I'll talk to Mendoza, make sure he tells everyone our guest died of his wounds." When she and O'Ryan were finished, they parted ways - O'Ryan to get what he needed from Dr. Mendoza, Peyton to walk out into the hallway - and almost trip over her daughter! "Riley!" She didn't quite raise her voice, but it was loud enough that she heard stirring from one of the nearby sickbeds. Riley was staring up at her with an odd expression on her face, but said nothing as they both headed out into the corridor that would take them back to their rooms where they lived. "What were you doing in there?" Peyton asked the young girl, her voice a low whisper as they passed one of the perimeter guards coming back from her shift. She wore the bright red of one of the base metas - bright red to make sure that the Woodsman in the forest, and the other perimeter guards, could see to take her down if she crossed the Feral line. "Watching," Riley admitted during their short excursion across the compound grass. A distant, Feral scream echoed from somewhere outside the fence - a quiet night. "Is Mr. Ryan going to kill that man?" she added, her own voice soft. Peyton looked down at her, hesitated, and spoke aloud. "Yes, yes he is." "...Okay." Peyton slept with difficulty that night. But she'd slept through worse. 2017 Way Down We Go "You feel it, don't you? The rage? The HATE?" Woodsman kept his voice calm and even as he spoke to Chase Atom, but the psychic could see what an effort it was for the nerve-tight teen to keep his cool. "A-a life lived in the gutter of a murdered world, while spoiled gods in the next world over lived like kings." He swallowed. "And there were these images - of metas here on Earth, like in the tabloids and stuff, and things from home. D-dead babies, Ferals attackin', that kinda stuff. That's what it sounded like - then it just stopped. I picked myself up off the alley floor and headed right back to school as soon as it happened." "All right, well, Mr. Smith," said Chase carefully, "what I'll do is go into your mind and verify what happened." He met Riley's eyes and said, his tone serious. "Please note that I'm _not_ denying the validity of what happened to you. What I'm going to help you do is find out if this was the result of an outside attack, or an injury that we'll work to heal in your mind. You said this wasn't the first time you've had intrusive thoughts?" "...no, it's not," Woodsman admitted. "But it's always been in my voice before this. Never anyone else's." "Whatever happened, we'll find it together," said Chase, his tone carrying the reassurance of a practiced psychotherapist. "If you're worried about a violation of your privacy, many sorts of mental attacks wouldn't even have opened your mind to your attacker. But you need to let me enter your mind and trust me if we're going to find out." "...all right." Riley took a deep breath and admitted, "And they won't have to find out, if you don't find anything like that?" "Everything we find together will be confidential, Mr. Smith. You'll just have to trust me." 2027 Only Human After All The khopesh whipped past Woodsman's head and he fell back, deflecting a counterstrike with his hatchet as he kept his distance from the costumed vigilante. "You stupid or something?" Riley sneered from behind his facemask, the modulator at his throat turning his words low and mechanical. "What do you think's gonna happen to _you_ if she wins the election?" Blue Horus blocked the hatchet with her club, then threw up a kick that sent Woodsman reeling. With his rifle out of reach and his mark almost certainly warned by the superhero he was fighting, it was beginning to look like this job wasn't going to pay off. "Murder isn't the answer," she growled back at him, her armored costume glittering in the darkness of the Ash Street rooftop. "And you're awfully self-righteous for a man making 10 million yen for this job." "Meat's meat, man's gotta eat," taunted Woodsman. He took a chance and snapped a grenade open from his belt, hurling it on the ground before leaping off the roof backwards, trusting in his reflexes to put him where he intended to go. As he'd expected, Blue Horus had come prepared for smoke and stink alike - but she was used to costumed meta-freaks who liked to scrap it out till they got dragged off to Cahill, not operators who were just trying to make an honest living. He hit the mattresses he'd piled in the dumpster below that night and jumped out, hopping into his motorcycle and speeding off before the goddess above him could leap down in pursuit. Not one to do something stupid like stick around when he knew a vigilante was on his tail, Riley kept going, zipping through the Bedlam surface streets, then out of town entirely. It was September in Wisconsin, hot enough that he was sweating inside his leather jacket by the time he stopped for gas at a greasy spoon outside Green Bay. The Packers were on and the cheese fries were good, and he took a moment to smirk that the biggest stares he was getting were for being a black face here in Whitey Central. The bruises he'd taken in the fight with Blue Horus helped too, his jaw and eye darkened. It was late enough that soon he and the waitress (one of the few other black faces he'd seen in this part of rural Wisconsin) were the only people left in the diner, and he shrugged when she asked if he minded her changing the channel. When she turned on political news, he just smiled through a mouthful of food. A Presidential candidate was speaking, a charismatic outsider who'd won the support of a lot of people across the United States - especially in her native Wisconsin. As the candidate spoke, the familiar lines of the memorial rising behind her, a picture-in-picture displayed the hurricane ravaging the Maine coast. "I just don't know," the lady finally said out loud, "I had a cousin in Freedom, but what she wants is-it's just so dangerous, isn't it?" Riley stopped smiling. "Lots of things are." He rose from his seat and headed for the men's room, where after a while he was standing in front of the mirror and contemplating his face when he heard a footstep behind him. He put his hand on his hatchet and smiled tightly at the mirror. "Wondered when you'd get here." "It's not too late, Smith."

"Not tellin' you anything, señoras," said the man Alice had taken down - or rather, hissed, given that from the beating he'd taken it didn't look like he was going anywhere anytime soon. "Gonna be better off in jail than on the streets." "That ain't hardly ever true," said Anna, looking down at the fallen thug with suspicion on her face. "Even if the Hammer's after you, honey, he can find you in there." "This ain't about your costumed boyfriend, honey!" hissed the thug - Anna didn't so much as blink, but her sidekick obviously did. She didn't flinch from this one, though - in fact, her eyes hardening, she reached into her pocket for something that looked distinctly like a knife before Anna put a warning hand on her arm. "Jigsaw Man's gonna tear this town down!" "Jesus Mary and Joseph, it's like the Pandora's freakin' Box of super-people all of a sudden!" declared Anna, looking more exhausted than threatened. "Ah, thanks, girl's gotta know how to defend herself in this town." She rubbed her knuckles and added, "You girls did pretty well yourselves. You in the trade?" She left open exactly what the trade was. "I know what the Jigsaw Man is," said Esperanza, staring down at the thugs with an expression on her face that was hard to read. "Mara say he's their guy - their god that's better than Jesus or Horus. Some kind of Aztec thing, I don't know what the real name was."