Avenger Assembled

Okay, Singularity has a 25 on her Skill Mastered Notice. Sea Devil has 23 - not bad. Does that cover looking about? Let us know!

Woodsman didn't speak as he went about his work, walking back and forth around the deer kill with a slow, deliberate stride that didn't raise more than a slight noise from the brush even when he needed to push through it. He crouched several times, studying a particular item or two closely, and once or twice got almost nose-close to the dirt near the edge of the animal trail and right down the center of it. After that came studying the corpse, a slow, deliberate process he carried out without the dramatics of Jann's usual human classmates, again getting close to the body and even prying some bits of meat away with his pocketknife. When it looked like Jann was done, he walked over to join the birdman, his own face impassive. "Man came that way," he said, pointing towards the ranger station. "Prolly who found it." Pointing a different way, back towards the forest, he said, "somethin' else came that way." He showed Jann the marks on the ground, unlike any bear or wolf print he'd ever seen, the strange jagged rectangle that approached the kill then moved away. "You smell it?" he inquired of Bird-at-Arms. "No dog tracks, no bear, no wolf - not a damn thing's been at the deer even long as it's been here. Maggots the only thing. 'Cept this stuff, which I think came from whatever did it. Looks burnt - maybe poison."

Let me know if that actually works, or if I need to roll the dice, or something.

"The lightning in the wall is broken, eh? My armor can channel-" she tried to remember the numbers she'd once been quoted, but couldn't quite recall them. "...a great deal of lightning." She'd once absorbed power from a ship that traveled the Sea of Stars, how much more power could this be. "Stand away, Agent," she croaked to Warnke before going into action. With one three-fingered hand, securely wrapped in the confines of her space armor, she gripped down on the edge of the damaged conduit. It had a striking effect, electricity now pulsing over the surface of her armor in short zaps - stretching out, Aquaria ignited the trident in her other hand and plunged it directly into the other side of the conduit, electricity crackling over armor and weapon both in a near-dazzling display of power that soon had her shutting her gigantic dark-adapted eyes and going entirely by noise - and such noise there was!

In the air again, Citizen shouted loudly "I SEE YOU!" As Miss Americana had taught him, robotic speech had the pleasant ability of echoing far more loudly than an unamplified human could speak. Pointing down towards the water, he let his eyes unfocus, redirecting the magnetic energies that he used to power his flight and strength into the generators behind his eyes - the ones that took up most of the skull cavity of the robot. With pinpoint accuracy, twin beams of scarlet, azure, and pure white light erupted from his eyes, burning down into the water and slicing into the hulls of the Atlantean vessels below, one after the other. Atlanteans can't drown - but I can make them swim!

I hope it won't ruin any illusions if I say that Sea Devil is going to grab one end of the electricity with one hand and the other end with the other hand and see what happens.. Let me know if that's actually a good idea.

APPROVED

Sea Devil February 2017 An oil rig off the coast of Freedom City On the roof, Tarva excused herself from the others with a murmured apology to Kimber before vanishing into a nearby shadow. The battle against the Deep One warriors had been fierce - the handpicked guards of the shaman Ihulateg-nata had given and accepted no quarter in their defense of the being they saw as an avatar of their god. Other Deep Ones, however, disagreed. In the wrecked central chamber where they'd left the Deep One sorcerer, she found the creature, still in his shadowy bonds, and an armored figure cutting him free with glowing green tridents. Hmm. "Aquaria," she finally ventured, "they'll catch you if you free him. Even if Blue Fox doesn't, the others will - and Singularity will be disappointed." "I am not freeing him," croaked Sea Devil in return, a menacing mechanical bellow from inside her battered armor. Sea Devil had hung back in the fight until Singularity had entered it - then had fought alongside the others with great and silent ferocity. She pulled the shadowy tentacles away from the Deep One's face, the male looking around for a moment with wide eyes before bearing his impressive fangs as he focused them not on Tarva (who had helped Kimber match his magic and silence his summonings) but on his sister Deep One. "You," Ihulateg-nata croaked, staring at Aquaria with undisguised loathing. "Have you come to kill me because I dared spill Surfacer blood? It's a wonder those marks on your body don't burn your way through your skin." Aquaria's tattoos were visible now as she'd climbed out of her armor, blue and green testimony to her faith, to what was menarche for Deep Ones, to hunting, to egg-laying, to adventure - and all the rest. "You miserable-ACH!" He had made a noise as if he was being choked - and so he was, because Aquaria had just chopped him in the gills with force enough to snap a Surfacer's neck - then punched him in the throat as he took a breath with lungs. It was good to remember, Tarva mused, that Aquaria had strength enough to kill in those gangly long limbs that were sometimes awkward on dry land. Mindful of her compatriot's ambitions, Tarva stepped back, interposing herself between the two Deep Ones and the partially-digested door, where a quick spell could fool any prying eyes. To her surprise, despite Aquaria's impressively bared teeth, the female Deep One didn't do the obvious thing of simply ripping out the other Deep One's throat. "You egg-eating wretch," croaked Aquaria, her voice an impressive amphibious growl that Tarva didn't think she'd ever heard before. "Do you know what you've done?" She spat something green and foul in Ihulateg-nata's face - the shaman looked disgusted but unafraid. "Lost? Misborn witch, do you think you can shame me for what I've done? Our enemies have bled each other and turned the water red - our children have sunk their teeth deep into the hides of both Surface and Atlantis. They will not catch us all - and we'll be ready for the next war. Even now, my circle sings the songs of what we've done. Who will sing your song, podless one?" "You fool," Aquaria hissed in return. "You had them. You had the Atlantean royals in your teeth and what did you do? You sent them against Surfacers like some perverted dolphin playing with a corpse!" She grabbed the other Deep One by the face, keeping her wrists clear from his teeth. The only sounds were the drip-drip-drip of water in the walls, the crash of the surf, and the hissing of the two amphibians. "You could have done anything! You could have made them surrender! You could have made them give us back our seas! You could have made them give us their treasures! But now...now every time someone sings of Atlantean treachery, of Atlantean cruelty, all the Surfacers will say 'Oh, well, those are just more lies from the treacherous Deep Ones!'" She bit him suddenly on the cheek, not at all gently, and just when Tarva was sure she knew where this was going, Aquaria pulled back, blood in her mouth. "Cities will fall. Young ones will starve to death. You and your circle are monsters." "...so kill me then, and be done with it." Tarva did think that would be the prudent thing to do here, especially with what she had heard about the Deep One capacity for grudges, but said nothing as the shaman went on. "Run back to your Surfacer cow, and whisper to her of your deeds by night." "No. No, you are a worse enemy to our people than even an Atlantean so I'll do worse than kill you." Aquaria lit her trident and pointed it at the shaman's face. "I will make sure that you are tried for your crimes in a Surfacer court - and sent to a Surfacer jail for what you have done." That made the shaman twitch in a way that Tarva couldn't but help smile at - she hardly ever had this kind of fun watching Aquaria among Surfacers! "You will rot in a cold, dry cell, where water comes from a hose and you can only immerse yourself when they allow it. Buried alive, beneath Surfacer eyes" She pressed the trident against the shaman's neck, close enough that flesh must have been searing at least a little. "And one day, when you die in that place, from the thousand things that can kill us on the Surface, and you pass into the voidings of Dagon and Hydra - REMEMBER ME." She suddenly struck the shaman across the face, knocking him out, and stood there, massive chest heaving, over the still-bound shaman. "I'm finished now, Tarva." She made a sound, deep in her massive throat. ""The worst of all is knowing that if I had killed him, the Surface would have praised the deed. He was only a Deep One." The shadow-priestess had the grace to be abashed. "To be an unperson is a difficult thing. But that was an impressive display - you are a mighty huntress." I had no idea you knew how to make other beings suffer so - or that you could so strategize! She steepled her fingers as Aquaria's helm slid back down over her face. "Shall we go upstairs and see the others? Singularity has been on the phone with the Liberty League and will surely be glad to see you." "Yes. Yes, I'd like to see Jessie too..."

"Lady on the roof had a gun, I hadda bow," said Woodsman with a cryptic shrug. "She and whats-his-face were expectin' somebody to see 'em from the ground - not to be on the roof w'them." He frowned, considering the case as he'd heard it. "Does seem weird," he admitted. "If they just wanted to kill van Raalte, why not blow up the house or somethin'? And if they wanted to kidnap him, why go through all that stuff back in Freedom? They coulda hit this place and dragged him out, and nobody would have been able to do a damn thing about it. We got their guy from the cult and we got their goons here, who yer damn right I'm gonna interrogate -" he said with a hard glare over in their direction. "so I say we squeeze 'em and see what falls out."

"No, I got better powers," said Holly with a big grin. "I'm a psychic like my mom - telepathy, telekinesis, precognition, the works. It's a pretty sweet deal. If I had my costume, I could even fly." "Not out where everyone can see you," said Richard, a touch more seriously. "Yeah, we have experience with mind control and telepathy - it was actually Hologram who figured out that trick even before our team got on it." Changing the subject quickly, he said, "So Hawaii and Texas, huh? Your family must get around. Do you make the run back home much? I commute myself now that Holly's in school out here - I run the family back and forth to LA every day. Makes for a good morning jog." He grinned. "You ever go global?"

Oh, I'm sorry, Blargy - Singularity is a version of Wander from Anti-Earth, but she's not from Anti-Earth proper. She was a dimensional refugee who faced abuse and psychic torture rather than aid and counseling, and was used as a living weapon by the Tyranny League. She was saved by Young Freedom and got treatment, spending some time in Blackstone thanks to crimes she committed here and because she was too dangerous for the asylum. She's better now, but has significantly more PTSD and introversion than your average hero. She strongly resembles Wander but doesn't look like an exact copy.

When they arrived at the scene of the 'crime', Woodsman was skeptical - it wasn't that he disbelieved that creepy witches would hang out in a house in North Bay, especially the old Saltonstall place with its fortress-like architecture and overgrown gardens, but he had a hard time believing that supercriminals were operating under the nose of Wander and Midnight. "You're right - they probably don't operate here at all," said Seven with a slight shrug. The foursome had taken shelter underneath a large, overhanging tree at the edge of the property next door, letting the giant willow conceal them from view before they made their own way across the fence and towards their destination. "Fouling their own magical den would only attract attention, especially with North Bay's super-population - but a well-defended house like this, far away from prying eyes, is a perfect lair for sorcerers who just want to enjoy their ill-gotten gains." "Whatever the crime, you can bet somebody's usually making bank off it," agreed Bowman. "All right, this is a big place. If we all make our separate ways towards the front door, we can probably beat any security they've got." "Kinda miss the flying motorcycle," commented Woodsman to Sparkler as the two Claremont students checked their gear one more time. "Catching 'em with their pants down'll be more fun, though."

"Careful, boy, your mother can still hear you across town," said Richard with a grin his son's way. "My wife, Thoughtspeed's mom, is going to be meeting us tomorrow morning on the Freedom City side of the race, but she's seen the two of us racing since the boy here was in diapers." That was literally true, but probably not anything Will wanted him dwelling on. "With three kids in the house, she appreciates a chance for some peace and quiet. Yes, I heard you were second-gen too," said Richard, loading up paper plates with reasonably warm fried chicken. "We're third-generation, but the doctors don't know if it's because the chroniton-things are actually being generated internally, or if it just comes from all the exposure I had from my ma, and Thoughtspeed had from me. We'll find out if the boy here ever settles down, in, uh, ten or twenty years." "Holly Cline, a pleasure to meet you," said Holly, who was doing her best to act mature for her age despite grass stains on her jeans. "Aaah!" declared Bryant, who had stopped trying to crawl away and was just sitting on the ground by his big sister, watching the new arrivals curiously.

"Even if they don't, they must know something of why they hunted that man. We could shake the truth out of them," agreed Sea Devil. She didn't like the idea of going back to Blackstone - a place where she had far fewer good memories than Singularity did. (Really, Singularity _was_ her main good memory of Blackstone - even if they'd only seen each other in the hallways before actually getting to know each other as roomates at Project Freedom.) But she'd do it so Jessie wouldn't have to go alone, and because she knew the place better than most people who'd never been within its walls. And it was not so bad. We could show the inmates that they need not rot inside a cage. "Does AEGIS know magic?" Sea Devil croaked towards the AEGIS agent, hopping over that way once the Surfacer female had finished speaking. "In strange aeons, even distance may die."

I'll be honest, I liked the visual of Sea Devil trying to use her armor to make the connection, but yes, we should wait on Punchline, I suppose.

All right! Well, there's not much to find here - it looks to be a 'burner' laptop that they picked up for cheap somewhere in Waco. It's running somebody's home version of Skype - recently connected to a single number with a Freedom City area code. Digging around gives you the portable radio that it was connected to underneath the van Raaltes' car that gave you the effect of the sniper being close by - looks like that was picked up at the local Walmart and tinkered with slightly. There's not much to go on - but from the relative crudity of the instruments to hand (all of which are off-the-shelf store stuff), you're pretty sure that these people aren't quite as sophisticated as they look - or if they are, they've saved it for the invisibility gear that they must have had running in the van.

Woodsman shoots the leader again, this time with a good old-fashioned Blast. http://orokos.com/roll/511886 = 24 Let me know if that hits! DC 21 Toughness save if it does! After that, he'll drop back to further cover.

"Nice to meet you!" said Richard, springing to his feet and shaking both their hands with just a trace of nervous energy. He was in his fifties but his powers made him look twenty years younger, with just a scattering of grey in black hair cut in a New Wave style that had been out of fashion before Tyson had been born. "This is my son Thoughtspeed, my daughter Holly, and -" was there a tiny bit of hesitation as he pointed at the rapidly crawling baby making his way through the grass? It was hard to say. "this is Bryant, our youngest." Holly waved a hello and actually was moved to say a cautious "Hi there" while Bryant crawled up and hung onto her pant leg. Richard gestured to Tyson and Emily to take a seat around the table, the basket from which . "I know your people and my people have already signed off on the race and everything, but I wanted to actually meet you and talk with you before we do our bit. It's good for people in the club to know each other."

Hokay, I'll wait for Blarghy - someone needs to explain what's going on to Aquaria! How much can she see with her biological and armored Super-Senses, by the way?

April 30, 2017 Freedom City Riverside Park 7PM It was a quiet enough afternoon for the Cline family, or at least one part of it. Richard Cline had always been an involved father (sometimes to Holly and Will's frustration) but he'd made a special point to step in and get involved in their lives after they'd all brought home baby Bryant Cline. Paige hadn't actually objected to adopting his infant father rather than see him put into the foster system - but he also knew her well enough after decades together to know what it meant for her to open their home like that. So he'd made a special point to be the father to Bryant that Bryant had never been to him, and if it was all strange and dysfunctional, well their family had always been that at least a little bit and they'd gotten through all right. Tonight, the day before the big May 1 charity Race for the Cure that he and Will had entered along with some other Freedom City heroes, he and his kids were sitting around a picnic table in Riverside Park, waiting for their fellow racers to arrive. Holly had Bryant out from his carrier and had laid him on his stomach on a blanket on the ground - but he wasn't staying there! Now a chubby nine-month-old full of energy, the bald-headed tot kept 'dashing' his way off the blanket, clutching his lovey in one hand and pulling himself along with the other arm and both his knees. <Go Bryant!> thought Holly, snapping some pictures with the new phone that had been her recent twelfth birthday present. <No more babies in chains!>

You could save a lot of points with Attack Focus/Specialization + Dodge Focus. There's no reason why she needs to be so good at fighting without her powers, and you could use those points.

DC 26 Survival, DC 27 Notice Search 15 Well not _bad_, just not as skyrocketingly high as the rest.

Sea Devil wasn't at all sure what she could do to help with the case of the missing Surfacer - but she'd come at Miracle Girl's call. And brought help. "This is my friend Singularity," she croaked to Miracle Girl and the others as she introduced her companion, a pale-skinned young human woman in a dark jumpsuit. "We live in the same building. I brought her to help." Introductions done, she hopped around the yard, casting her eyes around for signs of trouble. They'd heard of, but not seen Singularity, during their previous team-up together with AEGIS - Aquaria had called her up to talk about somebody named 'Baxter.' She hadn't entirely caught what had happened when the Surfacer disappeared, but she was sure someone would explain it in a way she could understand. For now, it was time to see if there were clues that had escaped even Miracle Girl's keen eye. What a vast land this was! Dry though it was, if this land were an island it could have supported a whole colony of Deep Ones in its shadows. It was strange to think of a whole Surfacer family living here, like a quieter version of the Hunter estate.

Sure, give me some rolls!

Me too!