Avenger Assembled

The heroes arrived in the middle of a battle between American soldiers and costumed metahumans - an unfamiliar scene even for those of them used to superheroic battles. On the runway, a company of some two hundred soldiers was exchanging fire with a quartet of metahumans attacking the big civilian jumbo jet in the middle of the runway. But lacking the ability to bring heavy weapons to bear, the troops on the ground didn't seem to be posing a meaningful threat to the attackers, but they were at least forcing them to keep their heads down. Unfortunately, that just pushed them closer to the plane, the one thing the troops couldn't actually shoot at. At least the gunfire was distracting the attackers from the plane! The metahumans had different powers but a common theme, black costumes with a single 0 in white painted over the hearts. One was firing blasts of energy from her open mouth at the troops, sizzling bursts of orange and red flame that erupted from her face like jets from a flamethrower. Another was bounding up and down the plane's roof, pummeling the reinforced aluminum with his fists and hands - on closer inspection, the being on the roof looked remarkably like a gigantic gorilla rather than a man. They both wore armored packs on their backs that didn't seem to be slowing their movements any. Two of the attackers were on the ground, one directly beneath the plane and chanting as he hurled a bolt of lightning at a jeep that proceeded to immediately blow up, the troops inside leaping out just at the right moment, while the fourth had his hand pressed to one side of his head and seemed to be gesturing at the plane itself. It was all hard to see in the melee! - "Miracle Girl, we are pinned down and facing hostile forces," came the radio reply to Casey. There were advantages to being on the government's list. "We have made a landing but we are trapped. Standby - please rendezvous with friendly metahumans ASAP, over." Casey could see the small group that was Hyperactive and El Huracan down below, who were themselves freshly joined by a dark-skinned, mustachioed man in a general's uniform. "-enemy came in flying, two on their own, two with jetpacks! They could have taken off the wing, but instead they did enough damage to force it down!" A BOOM as an explosion hit behind them, the firebreather having fired a shot directly over their heads that had hit a nearby warehouse. "Dammit! Fall back!" called the general to his troops. "Don't let them get you cut off behind the fire!" - Chrome's arrival at the base's perimeter got him some hard stares at first - but the few guards still watching the fenceline quickly waved him on as the sound of the battle intensified. They could use all the help they could get!

Let's do that second thing. Reflex save: 9 Bluff check: 31 Well the Reflex save isn't good. Made it with the HP, though! Okay.

"Oh, you've been an object of great interest!" declared Petra, hurrying over to Gaian Knight's side and pushing her lenses back up onto her face. "Your terrakinesis alone has been a subject of several theories from-" Behind her, An-Guis hissed - and she fell silent, looking back at him with concern, before looking back at Gaian Knight. "The, er, inhabitants of this planet had been labeled Extinct from the earliest days of the Ochlocracy," she finally went on. "and so when, er, activity was detected here, you became a trending topic on the Network. New sentients are very rare in this part of the Galaxy. May I take your image?" she asked, holding up her own version of one of those camera-things. As their party spilled out around them to explore the immediate area, the glowing Pharos approached Fleur de Joie - he really was putting out what was definitely clear sunlight. "Thank you so much for accepting us into your home. I know that can be very difficult, especially after that incident with the pirates. I can assure you, that we are _not_ affiliated with them. Space pirates only are a threat in parts of the Galaxy outside the Ochlocracy," he went on seriously, as the tourists, from a safe distance, began pointing their spherical cameras at the bees. "In our territory, currency and material possessions have no more value than the oxygen you breathe."

Ah, jeez! Lady Horus was no forensic expert, but she'd seen her share of bloody handprints in her time and they were usually not a good sign. She decided to let the other heroes have the boring conversation with the lady Poindexter - she was going to go down the tunnel and rescue the professor whose little radio show was about the only thing she enjoyed listening to in this one-horse town. "Come, my friends!" she called to the other heroes. "Let us go below and battle the darkness! Perhaps some minion of Apep lies within!" The voice in her head wanted her to say Set, but she figured Set got enough bad publicity and there was no sense in ruining her friend's gig. She kept it slow as she flew down the tunnel, the glow of Horus's divine power only providing limited illumination as she headed down into the darkness below Bedlam.

Torn between doing what Robin said (which was usually the right thing) and doing what his instincts told him (which were usually the right thing too), Riley extemporized, rubbing his fingers against the thin, dark goatee on his chin. "Fred...doesn't like to be bothered," he finally said. "Especially when she's got the condition." He still didn't have a good word for it, not when his nightmares sometimes gave him clear images of shooting her in the back of the head in the middle of a field of carnage - "If we don't see her by t'morrow mornin', Huang and I can do our thing," he suggested. "Nobody ever expects it at like four or five in the mornin'. Talked to Sanderson, Merlin said somethin' about helpin' us hack if we need it. But if she gets back here and finds, I dunno, that tea she likes, that's somethin' she'll like."

Riley was eight years old again, reciting the words along with the other students in the underground classroom. There was a battle going on overhead - automatic gunfire, explosions, and screaming, and the lights flickered with every low concussion - but their teacher was keeping them calm by having them recite one of the Words of their community - the last words of Lady Liberty, the last superhero. Run! Save yourselves! - Woodsman came closer in that moment to dropping Jann and running than he ever would have admitted. But instead he didn't, staggering to his feet and running as fast as he could, straight for the river. He stared at the river, flashing back to a childhood where the oceans were full of things that hungered for the flesh of men, and where when there were pools, he flinched from showing the body so unlike his soul. You better hope I can do this! he hissed to Jann before running along the bank as fast as he could, boots sliding and scraping against the pebbles on the banks, waiting until the last minute before he dived for the water. Can't outrun a forest fire. Better hope we can wait it out in there.

Street-Level Paragon PL: 7 (105) Abilities: 4 + 4 + 4 + 0 + 4 = 16PP STR 30/14 (+10/+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30/14 (+10/+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 4 + 4 =8PP Init: +10 ATK: +2 (+4 Melee) DEF: +4 (+2 Base, +2 Dodge, +1 Base) Grapple: +14/+19 Knockback: -8/-1Saves: 0 + 3 + 3 = 6PP TOU +10/+2 (+2 Con, +8 Enhanced Con, [7 Imp]) FORT +10/+2 (+2 Con, +8 Enhanced Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +5 (+2 Wis, +3) Skills: 24R=6PPDiplomacy 8 (+8) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 8PP Attack Focus: Melee (2) Dodge Focus (2) Improved Initiative (2) Interpose Move-By Action Powers: 16 + 16 + 9 + 7 + 13 = 61 PPEnhanced CON 16 (to CON 30/+10) [16PP] Enhanced STR 16 (to STR 30/+10) [16PP] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9PP] Impervious TOU 7 [7PP] Paragon Array 5 (10PP, PFs: Dynamic, Dynamic Alternate Power) [13PP] DBE: Flight 0-5 (0-250 MPH/2500 FT per move) {10/10} DAP: Super-Strength 0-5 (Effective STR 30-55, Heavy Load 1.5-24 tons) {10/10} costs Abilities (16) + Combat (8) + Saves (6) + Skills (6) + Feats (8) + Powers (61) = 105 pts --- Design Notes: My entry in the challenge is a Street-Level Paragon - fast, strong, able to fly and go into space, impervious to small arms fire, but without the ability to do a lot of things - like solve crimes, fight effectively, or hold down a decent job. This would be a fine build for a Claremont student.

All right, that'll work - the crowd's fear and panic will start dying down. Go ahead and post IC, folks. This means you, @Moira Morley, @EviscerusNox, and @trollthumper! =D

Aquaria croaked and turned her shoulders to look at Jessie, but the latter didn't seem terribly interested in that prospect. "Later. We must join our allies and save you," she added. Her mind flicked ahead to the sacrifices that had brought the Dark Mother below. It is the way of things. Sacrifices sing Your song, Dagon and Hydra. "We will sing for you and the Dark Mother later - if there is time." She looked up reflectively at the sky overhead, thinking about the alien stars above and wondering if they'd ever truly be right. Right for this day, when Jessie comes back to me from the cold grave of the Surface. Did Jessie have a soul? Was her counterpart in the comforting, albeit tenuous embrace of Surfacer gods, or mindless foam on the eternal seas of Dagon and Hydra? No wonder Jessie wasn't talking. Stepping aside, she triggered the radio function of her armor, trying to sing for the distant Cavalier. "Star-Knight!" she croaked into her helmet. "ARE you here?"

"I'm Flaxian," the drunken frog-man went on to Bliss, though it was hard to tell if he was actually talking to her or simply talking at her. "Least I thought I was. I found out today I'm some kinda cosmic...cosmic thing? I dunno. You have mimic toads on wherever you're from? Mimic toads come in, they eat your eggs, then they lay their eggs right under your hole and they grow into mimics that try and bite off your genitals. 'Sawhole thing, they're a buncha bastards!" He made gestures with his four-fingered hands. "Turns out there's a whole group a'those guys in space! And I'm one of 'em! Ain't that a thing?" - Citizen narrowed his eyes. "Oh, I see how it is. Your-" He stopped suddenly and rubbed his eyes, realizing where this conversation was about to go and how it was going to look, and made a point of settling down to ground level. "Look, I'm sorry. I know you're new here too, and that can make things seem strange." He looked around the increasingly crowded bar, the number of aliens and Lor alike growing increasingly unsettling. "...Listen, I have to go get back to work," he apologized, taking off again over the crowd's head, the display of powers without obvious technology enough to get quite a few holocams pointed his way. Floating back to his position by the Grand Nauarchus's party, he watched as she silently kept her eyes on the monitors, hands steepled into tents before her. - "Yes, I was wondering if the two of you had any comment on the role of religious faith in this year's election. After all, this has been dubbed the "epoch of new gods" in the wake of the Incursion and everything that meant." Hro smiled winningly at the two of them, his teeth perfect and hair shaped in that artfully tangled style that Zultasian men spent hours sculpting just so they could demonstrate how little time they spent on personal grooming, just as a man of Zultas should. "Some people have said both candidates may see the Light by the time this campaign is over." - Votes are coming in now from the refugee flotillas. Here Senator Th'emme's support is strong, among all those who appreciate the aid she fought for even during the height of the Incursion crisis and the grim months that came afterwards - but the Grand Nauarchus has promised to find "planetside homes for the refugee flotillas - by any means necessary. She's not carrying those fleets but she has support there, support enough to make any viewer wonder how much those people would be willing to risk for new homes. Or what they might be willing to support.

Woodsman's lips moved in a sudden, stifled obscenity. His ally and his air support was unconscious - he was the only one left fighting in a forest catching on fire and confronted with an extremely large, formidable-looking monster. With the kind of speed that came when you practiced, over and over again, in your room or in the field, until you could get it right the first time and save the shaking hands for later when the fight was done, he strapped his crossbow to his back and ran for Jann's side. He took in the scene quickly as he scooped the other boy up in his arms, realized there was no seperating Jann from his equipment in the field which was dumb as _hell_ so there was only one thing to do. Scooping up the Avian warrior in a fireman's carry, acutely conscious of how incredibly careful you had to be when moving potential head injury victims, he ran as fast as he could away from the flames and towards cover!

The ship sat there for a long time, making a distinct humming sound in harmony with the noise of the nearby bees, before finally a broad door the size of a good-sized dairy barn rose upwards into the body of the ship to reveal the occupants of a house-sized room decorated with a wide variety of moving images of worlds, peoples, and places that bespoke travel across a significant portion of the Milky Way. The humanoids inside were mostly of the sort of generic biped that in their own world would have been recognized as Lor, big-eyed and poofy-haired, with skin colors ranging from a deep volcanic black through bone-white. Clad in silvery jumpsuits that matched the colors of their spaceship, they immediately boiled out of their craft, waving translucent spheres about the size of their hands around before holding them fixed at the sky, the platform, and each other for a second or two before moving onto another object of interest. They were chattering to each other in what was (perhaps surprisingly, English), each one excited about 'the skies! the trees! the colors! the apians!' or some new sight on Sanctuary. The group did stay behind their leaders, however, a foursome who looked distinctive - and certainly distinctive from their peers. The lead was a tall, muscular man who glowed with an inner light that made his bronze skin shimmer like diamonds; real sunlight too as far as Fleur could tell. Plenty of skin was on display, for that matter, dressed as he was in a silver garment that covered about as much as conservative swim trunks. Just behind him was a tall humanoid woman whose dark skin and black hair were set off sharply by silver robes that hung on her thin frame loosely, an alien symbol of infinity hanging on her chest. The duo in the back were of a different sort, a another woman with frizzy green hair who peered at everything through thick translucent lenses, tapping away at a circular pad covered in alien syllabry as she took in the scene. Behind her, the last of the evident leaders, was a muscular humanoid who looked slightly less human than the others - his skin was green and notably scaly along the cheeks and limbs exposed by a tightly-fitting garmet, his eyes slitted like a reptile's. "Greetings!" declared the woman in robes. "I am Sancta, these are my associates Pharos, Petra, and our bodyguard An-Guis. We bid you greetings on behalf of the Stellar Ochlocracy, and ask that we might go among your people. Word of your deeds has reached far in this part of space."

That got her an outright stare from the other Richard. "You'd really just let me...?" He had evidently not expected this offer. "...All right. All right, Adze, honey, let's head for Bedlam and pick up the other me." Adze had looked ready to fight, or at least scrap, with the alternate version of the brother she'd never had - but she pulled away and listened to her father, albeit with one more glare at Will. "Pretty boy," she sneered. She really was quite a bit like Holly! With that, the two speedsters vanished off over the horizon, leaving the trio alone on the deserted beach in a world that was clearly not their own. Overhead a trio of jets was flying, a triangle of fast-moving contrails far above in a sky that was now almost painfully blue. Pause. Pause. The time it takes speedsters to have very fast conversations. And then - The group that crossed the horizon now was a good deal larger, with the other Richard, and Adze, the latter carrying a baby in a bjorn, and a man who had the blazing-fast mind of the correct Richard Cline. Without saying a word at first, he put his arms around Paige and kissed her on the lips. "Thank God!" he declared a moment later. Things are tough. They're friendly - but things are tough. I knew you'd find me. Hey boy, hey Phantom. I hope you don't mind," he said, shooting a glance at the others that was somewhere between friendly and wary, "but the party wanted to come with me." "This, uh, is somebody that my mother wanted you to see. This is Andrew Cline, my nephew." Andrew was a balding baby with a faint fuzz of blonde hair and eyes that were as black as marbles, wrapped in a blanket monogrammed AMC. "He's our first grandkid," said the other Richard with quiet pride. "His mom 'n dad are down by the border, but Paige wanted you to see more of the family."

Okay, you can get us to our destination, HGM.

Okay, I think we're ready to see what lies beyond here

Okay, let me know what needs to be done next.

Who are we now waiting on?

Oh- Woodsman briefly felt like the Earth had fallen away beneath his feet - but he wasn't one to dwell on embarrassment, even mortal embarrassment, in a stressful situation. He could dwell on that later, alone, in the privacy of his thoughts or maybe the dorm rooftop or maybe in the Headmaster's office when she talked about how he'd almost gotten himself killed or almost killed somebody else - Nope! "...sorry," he apologized, almost inaudibly at Raina's jog. "Thought it was empty." He hung back as Sparkler spoke to the cops, casting his own gaze around the room. "Finda zipdrive?", he muttered, not quite making eye contact with the civilians.

Let me know if there's any problem with that before I post IC.

Well, Riley is not gonna leave an unconscious person there in the woods on fire. He is going to stow his bow, pick up Jann, and try and stagger off through the forest doing a fireman's carry. Will he take the jetpack off Jann first? Let's roll a die. Heads yes, tails no. Yes! Okay he'll cut Jann out of the jetpack with his hatchet first. Once he's done that, he'll run until he can find cover and get away from the flames.

At Comrade Frost's direction, the hasty alliance of heroes headed for his house. "Technically is my house, anyway," he said as they arrived at the small surbuban house in Ashton. The night was dark and humid this far outside the city, the street lights on this block not seeming to function. He unlocked the door and led them all inside, flipping on the light to reveal something carved into the wall - an irregular circle surrounded by eldritch symbols that (to the knowledgeable, anyway) were Norse runes carved in unspeakable blasphemies. "Gateway will deliver us to afterlife realm adjacent to that of dead Earth," said Frost, cutting his hand open with a knife he pulled from his jacket and flinging blood against the gateway - blood that spattered thick and crystallized against the blue plaster. "Once there, we destroy Feral souls, close gateway to dead Earth, and are finished." He hmmed. "Ah, do not cross through gateway to dead Earth's afterlife plane. Contagion must not be allowed to spread." Tell them the truth, Dimitri. Invisible to the others, Hel sat on her throne, hovering behind the group of Dimitri's allies. Tell them the truth - that that world is dead, and a plague world, and if your friends fail to seal it, the gods will make sure that plague is ended. "Let's go!" he said, and suddenly stepped through the gateway, its surface seeming to ripple around him unwholesomely as he disappeared from view.

http://www.freedomplaybypost.com/topic/9850-dream-team-ic/ Hokay, that'll get Hyperactive, El Huracan, Chrome, Argonaut, and Miracle Girl on the case. You should be able to figure out how your PC hears about the attack and what they're doing in or near New Mexico. (note that June means schools are out for summer break)

June 2017 White Sands Missile Range New Mexico "Mayday, mayday!" came the alert as the plane descended towards the base runway, the beings surrounding it jetting back and forth like mites attacking a bird. But these mites had teeth - and super-strength. "This is Air Force One with a Code Uniform Mayday, repeat, a Code Uniform Mayday! We are in distress and about to make an emergency landing at White Sands Missile Range!" General George Bradley, the overall commander at White Sands, was a scientist more than a warrior - but he knew a Code U Mayday well enough. He'd been a young second lieutenant assisting Colin Powell the last time a Code U had been called - when the man it had been named for, the Ubermensch, attacked the White House during the first Gulf War and only barely been defeated by the Centurion. Superhumans were attacking the President! "Clear the runaway, now!" he called, running out the door from his office to his command post at top speed. "Get Kirtland and Cannon to scramble their jets now!" The Air Force bases weren't that far away, not at jet speed. The moment he stepped outside, he heard the battle in the air - Air Force One was screaming in for a landing at breakneck speed, smoke pouring from its engines, the zipping forms of attacking metas on either side now taking fire themselves from White Sands' small MP force. "And put out an alert - White Sands is under attack by unknown hostile forces!" There was no point in letting the world know the President was arriving - not yet!

I'm pretty solidly on-board with having a PC in that role (as long as we have a way to bypass it if there's a disappearance, and there is!) - there are plenty of NPCs who can fill the role of "NPC magician" if needed. (One reason why we haven't killed off as many NPCs as I personally would like to do is because of the sensible desire to to keep them around for stories.) Of the high-PL PC mystics, Phantom is the one who most closely resembles the style of your comic book shouty mages (Nick is a specialist, Fast-Forward is a poser, etc) - and she's the one whose player has the actual interest in doing it.

Let me know if you need a thread run, Tiff.