Avenger Assembled

Ugh, I'm sorry, guys, I'll tag this one tomorrow - it hasn't been a great weekend. Vorik, was there anything you wanted your character to be doing at this juncture? I didn't want to start describing before your guy acted.

"Thanks," said Riley, once they were back at school at the end of what had turned out to be a long night. "Owe ya one. Hope we get bastard hunting soon..." Sure enough, Seven was true to her word - the next afternoon both Sparkler and Woodsman were called out of their final class periods to a "uniform meeting" in the Administration Building. There they found two Freedom League members waiting for them in the outer office. Seven, floating in her dark cape and cowl, was joined by a figure Riley recognized right off. "Hello, Woodsman!" said a cheery Bowman, who shook Riley's hand in a firm handshake that made the younger boy's back briefly stiffen. It wasn't that he disliked Bowman, who was an OK guy and good shot for all that he was from rich and fancy stock, just that Bowman tended to come on...stronger than Riley preferred. "Seven said you did great. You think you can handle fighting people who hurt your friend?" "Yeah, I'll be fine," said Woodsman with a nod, "feel better if I put an arrow in somebody, but I'm not gonna ruin the hunt for these guys because I got crazy." "Once I had a description of their physical resonances to tell the dark spirits," Seven was telling Sparkler, "it was easy to track them down. We've got other League members hitting the homes of other coven members - but we thought the two of you would appreciate a chance to go in after the leader."

Woodsman nodded in approval at Bird of Arms's choice of attire. The wiry teen was himself dressed in a green and brown poncho that seemed to blend in almost perfectly with Wharton's colors, the Claremont uniform underneath colored to match. He had his crossbow fastened over his back, strap across one muscular shoulder, and on his waist hung a single well-polished hatchet that looked suitable for chopping wood - and other things. Jann could see gear underneath the poncho, tools and other things on the belt, but it was hard to make out while Riley was still dressed. "Right. Let's see th' kill spot first - go from there."

Woodsman is going to go ahead and move out of range of his own Blast, then drop Blast 10 (Extra: Area [Burst]) right at the feet of the leader of the thugs. That's a DC 20 Reflex save for them to halve a DC 25 Toughness save - or possibly avoid it, depending on if they have Evasion.

These guys are dumbasses, thought Woodsman with skepticism from the tree he'd taken as his roost near the leader of the skull-faced soldiers. They're gonna have supers coming down on them like a ton of bricks if they start shooting those guns in the park - and they shouldn't be talking to the thing they're here to put down! Riley understood hunting monsters in the woods, oh yes he did, but Woodsmen didn't engage the creatures of the Forest in conversation. They killed them. All right, maybe I can put the fear of Woodsman in them. He took some time, sorting through his bolts, before he found the one he sought - the one with the red stripe down the middle. Keeping his ears on the conversation between the thugs and their target, he silently rappelled down the tree, then crept through the forest until he'd reached what he thought was maximum bow range. Without a word, he took careful aim, fired his bolt as close as he could to the seeming leader of the group, then immediately hit the dirt - inside the bolt, the force of the impact had shattered crystals and forced certain compounds to meet, causing-BOOM!

"All right," said Riley. "I'm with you. Let's go out tomorrow afternoon," he suggested. "Give me time to get my gear ready." There was no point in tiring the both of them out when they had class the next day, not for something that was eating deer. At least, that's how it starts. He took out his phone and slowly paged his way through Google to a map of Wharton State Forest. "I'll meet you out at the park ranger's station, then we'll go from there." That way he'd have a place to chain his bike while they scouted - and he wouldn't be shadowed by a raptor the whole way across town. Jann wasn't the first Avian he'd ever met.

The ride was rough - and entirely a new experience for Woodsman. Jesus Christ why the hell did I think this was a good idea!? he thought somewhere near Ohio. He had the idea that Hyperactive didn't actually have the shared speed that he'd seen speedsters have on television - and a ride inside a tornado wasn't easy for someone with no powers other than muscle, bone, and bow. But he didn't start puking the minute his boots hit the dirt in Grand Rapids and he didn't cry out - both of which small mercies for which he was profoundly grateful. Their destination, a grand old Victorian home that towered a good three stories high above their heads, stood open before the evening; its lights blazing bright, its doors and windows open. With a single hm, he drew his bow and went into a crouch, opening his ears against the sound of the night. "Block's quiet," he commented. "Looks like all the old people 'r sleepin'. 'Cept here."

"Could be bear," Woodsman opined as he studied the pictures, flipping through the device's images with his finger while missing the physical reality of homemade Polaroids. "Have to come up a long way for it, though." With a professional's eye, he studied the deer's corpse without a trace of the hesitation that many of Jann's peers might have shown. "Mebbe shapeshifter. Heard they like to play like that." He tapped the deer's haunch where it had torn away at the joint. "Big bear, or shapeshifted freak. Tore the damn thing off." He looked up at Jann and shrugged, handing the pictures back. This was the most fascinating thing he'd seen all day, but he wasn't about to cop to that. "You gotta crew backin' you up?"

Van Raalte admitted that it was just himself and his wife in the house - though the latter had already called the Grand Rapids police. "How long would it take you to get here, meester Hyperactive?" he inquired, Dutch accent thickening under stress. "I saw on the news that the Barnstormers are on a mission in St. Louis - and are beyond my reach in any case." His eyes were beginning to widen in alarm as he considered the possibilities. "Yeah, okay, I see the play," said Woodsman, nodding as he took in what he guessed was Hyperactive's implication. "Think you're right we shouldn't write Kano off, Mannequin, but maybe he's not stealing. Can you take passengers?" he asked. He knew some speedsters, like Fast-Forward, could - others could not. In the stress of the moment, he'd even managed to overcome his back-of-the-mind worries about having his flesh picked off his bones by a super-fast cannibal. He'd never actually been to Grand Rapids, but it sounded like it was within reach of a really fast guy.

What does Riley's 26 on Survival get him here?

Woodsman raised his head from his book and stared up at the Avian - and thought of rending teeth and claws - avian shrieks and blood in the air - and thought of another boy with wings and a claws - and the words and the blows. There was a reason why he hadn't approached the other student before now. Jann was a good eight inches taller than him, towering over the wiry teen, who as usual was in a darkly-patterned camo hoodie and jeans perfect for urban stealth. "Yeah?" he said shortly, staring up at Jann as he waited for the other boy to finish speaking.

Moving silently through the woods, Woodsman caught sight and sound of the armed thugs, and for a moment he was elsewhere and elsewhen, walking through the Forest Primeval in the company of his fellow Woodsmen, armed and armored against the horrors of the woods. But here he knew that armed men in strange uniforms moving through the forest couldn't be the good guys - or at least probably weren't. Spraying machine gun fire in a city this large would only get innocent people hurt. Still, he didn't mistrust these men as much as a typical superhero might. He climbed quickly up the nearest tree, a difficult task on the artfully maintained forest of the park, and began slowly making his way after the thugs, leaping from tree to tree when he could, dropping and running through the grass when no trees were close enough to stay together. He kept an eye out for anyone who looked like a leader, and readied his bow in case he needed to make a quick draw. If they were here to start a war, he was going to stop that war before it started.

Aquaria croaked in alarm, arms waving for a moment as her trident deactivated, briefly flinching away from the sight of Surfacer civilians in a panic. But she pushed past her fear even so, lowering her arms and declaring, "There is a fiend below your house with intentions! Run away so we can save you!" It was clear that these people either knew nothing of the crimes taking place below their feet or they were good actors - either way, it was best to get them out of the way before they panicked. She stepped between the civilians and Punchline as she did, giving the dimensional traveler shelter from their strange fears - a fear she knew only too well. Surfacers always did judge!

In the evening, on the rooftop, they had each other's company as the movie played below and it was pleasant enough. Dimitri found himself regretting it all the same, though - what was he to try and engineer situations where Leilani was using her powers? Why would he seek to separate her from the people who were far more like her than he ever would be, even if he happened to be safe from the risk of bursting into flames if her powers went out of control? "If we are going to do this," he finally said, his tone serious and nearly unaccented, "and be more than flirting and kissing after a date like schoolchildren, we need to be honest with each other. I do not know if I am the man for you. I am not suitable in many ways and I have not had a serious relationship with a woman or any other sort of being for...some time. There are many who would serve you better."

Riley did not like listening to conversations he did not understand - and the subsequent conversation between Raina and Seven was not a conversation he understood terribly well. He had the idea that Seven was using 'magical resonance' to trace people by the descriptions Raina was providing her - which mostly looked like chanting and making gestures in the air to him, but what did he know? He'd seen enough of Sparkler in training and other magic people in classes to know that they were tapping into forces beyond his understanding of reality - forces with great power that could accomplish great things. Should at least write this stuff down. What if she gets taken out and nobody else can look it up? That was one thing he understood only too well. At least the conversation seemed to be going well, from what little he could understand of what Seven was saying. Once the conversation moved to hunting matters, that was something he could follow. "All right, I should be able to find these people in the next day or so. I don't want to rush into a fight with people this dangerous - we need to make sure we have the right targets before we move." Seven studied Sparkler and Woodsman, looking at them both with perhaps a bit more respect than she'd had when they came in. "I could use magical backup, Sparkler - and Woodsman, I know you have a personal stake in this." Woodsman blinked a few times, trying to sort out Seven's words. "Supposed to go easy when I have a stake in it," he commented, remembering his Tactical training too. He didn't comment on how this was the first time an adult hero, even a younger one like Seven, had actually invited him to do anything other than follow along or go to school. "It's different with magic. If you care, if you really care about what you're doing, that can mean as much as the sharpest bolt or the biggest bomb." Huh. So she does know something about me, Riley guessed.

"That's an interesting idea," said Citizen, staring at the robotic duplicate of himself as he mentally transmitted everything he was seeing and hearing back to Archetech. Just in case. "<Are you aware that's proprietary Archetech technology you're wearing?!>" he hazarded in a firm tone that would keep any watching electronic eyes on him, switching from English to his own old-fashioned Lor. He supposed it was a bit like a Terran English speaker being confronted by someone speaking the English of the 17th and 18th centuries to them - but a fluent Lor speaker would get it well enough. And someone who learned their Lor from my memory banks would understand it easily. His robotic brain had fail-safes in it to make sure it couldn't be picked apart, the same that had activated his backups back in Freedom City, but there were flaws in any system.

"Miss you too. Just gotta do one thing." Putting up his phone, Riley headed for the park's nearest public restroom, which just as he had hoped was largely deserted. He didn't really need to deal with a lot of crap today - and there wasn't another good place to slip into his costume. The plant monster or whatever the hell it was in the park couldn't be too bad, he told himself, otherwise Fleur de Joie or Willow would be on this. So it's fine. I'll go take a look, and if it's anything too freaky, I'll get other heroes for help. Slipping out the restroom through the door, he kept to the evening shadows, stopping for a perilous moment to look up at the Sentry Statue and the metahuman up there with his binoculars. They liked to nest around the statue - and lurk up there to watch for prey. He'd only been a Woodsman a year back home, but the lessons drilled into him, in training from the age of fourteen, still lurked in the back of the young Claremont student's mind. After all, there was no reason to let his skills go rusty. This Riverside was hard to operate in, lacking most of the cover of the one he knew, but at least he was unlikely to run into wolves. He left the footpaths behind and soon was under cover of the park's forests, his tread light and movement swift.

April-May Vignette (Terrans): What Did You Do In The War? In February 2017, Atlanteans invaded the surface world - besieging Freedom City and Emerald City, even raiding Wisconsin and Europe for their magical treasures, and causing considerably more trouble than the usually-peaceful people of the Lands Below usually cause. Eventually the war was won, the last great stand of the Captain Thunder-era Freedom League raided the Atlantean capital city and defeated the Deep One mystics who had mind-controlled the Atlantean royal family with sinister intent, but it was still a moment that truly united the heroes of Earth. Where when you when the Kraken and its spawn rose in the waters off Freedom City? Where were you when the Great Wave washed towards the shores of the Emeralds? Where were you when the Atlantean raiders struck Bedlam and London and across the world? What did you do? April-May Vignette (Space): Your Right To Vote It's election season in the Lor Republic - the demise of the traditional political parties with Lor-Van has made this first post-Incursion election for Imperator a critically important moment in the history of the battered Republic. There are two major candidates in the running for office (which lasts until the end of one's unaugmented biological life). The first is Senator-turned-Ambassador Diena Th'emme, a hero of the Republic and mother of another hero, Diena Th'emme's leadership has kept Coalition Station together since the Incursion, just as it helped keep the Senate together in the years before Incursion. Diplomat and peacemaker, her strongest base of support is with Lor citizens who are not from genetic Lor stock themselves. Under Imperiatrix Th'emme, no Lor will go to bed hungry again. The second is Grand Nauarchus Bucklin Frankan - a Lor's Lor and the commanding officer of the Star Navy, "Grandmother Frankan"'s campaign promises to make the Lor strong again - to give them the discipline and order to resist the challenges of the frightening new galaxy where they've found themselves. Warrior and engineer, her primary base of support lies in the military and military-supply worlds. Under Imperiatrix Frankan, no Lor will go to bed afraid again. All veterans of the Lor military, those born on Lor-settled worlds, member worlds of the Lor Republic, or in Lor-claimed starspace, and permanent residents are eligible to vote. ----- Whichever vignette you choose to write (and yes, you can write both), please post it to this thread by May 30. Your vignette should be about a page of typed text long at a minimum.

"Well, we are only human - ah, no offense, Mr. Mannequin," said the scientist apologetically. Van Raalte told the trio of heroes a story of industrial espionage - how CRC had 'poached' away from Vision a sharp, charismatic man named Ray Kano, an engineer and electronics designer who came with a reputation that he'd sworn had been blackened by jealous rivals at his former employer. "Our mistake. He turned out to be everything Vision had tried to warn us about - he stole a whole year's worth of data and a few of our prototypes, then was gone by the time the police arrived. It was very embarrassing. Next time when I hear a man cannot be trusted, I will listen." "You have any idea where Kano is now?" asked Woodsman, eying the robot scientist suspiciously. "No, but I doubt he's in this jurisidiction. A smart thief would never come to Freedom City, not where the tech companies are run by much sterner stuff than the likes of me!"

Given the respective talents of Emerald Spider and Citizen, it made the most sense for the two of them to arrive at the same time but with very different purposes. After taking the time to drop Peri off on the way, Citizen made his arrival at the Ming Xi facilities. Assuming that Emerald Spider would do so in a stealthy fashion, Citizen did nothing of the sort - he flew down and landed directly at the front "door" of the Ming Xi facility, taking time to do dramatically (fast enough that he must have been visible and audible as he came down, and certainly clearly visible on any security cameras before him. He crossed his arms and magnetically hovered in front of the door, a superhero an unusual enough sight in Emerald City that he was confident he had the full attention of onlookers both outside and inside the facility. "Excuse me!" he called, taking the opportunity to scan the premises as he looked them up and down, "I need to speak to somebody in charge!"

Citizen thought hard before he made his choice. Okay, Warp, now's your chance. Go ahead and grab the bomb. He was gambling, but he'd learned in Claremont that part of being a hero was knowing you didn't have to do everything yourself. Mindful of the declining morale among the civilians behind him, he decided it was time to take action as quickly as possible. "I have an atomic clock as part of my brain," he lied to the thieves, "so I can keep time to the nanosecond. Did you know that?" He stared at the thugs. "I'm going to give you a countdown while my colleague disables your bomb. If you haven't surrendered by the time they're finished, I'm going to subdue you - and I can't guarantee I won't hurt you when you're wearing that stupid armor. Ten," he said, counting down in his head as he went. When two seconds had passed (the better to give Warp more time), he said "Nine."

Ready for action here!

Draft April-May Vignette (Terrans): What Did You Do In The War? In February 2017, Atlanteans invaded the surface world - besieging Freedom City and Emerald City, even raiding Wisconsin and Europe for their magical treasures, and causing considerably more trouble than the usually-peaceful people of the Lands Below usually cause. Eventually the war was won, the last great stand of the Captain Thunder-era Freedom League raided the Atlantean capital city and defeated the Deep One mystics who had mind-controlled the Atlantean royal family with sinister intent, but it was still a moment that truly united the heroes of Earth. Where when you when it happened? What did you do? April-May Vignette (Space): Your Right To Vote It's election season in the Lor Republic - the demise of the traditional political parties with Lor-Van has made this first post-Incursion election for Imperator a critically important moment in the history of the battered Republic. There are two major candidates in the running for office. The first is Senator-turned-Ambassador Diena Th'emme, a hero of the Republic and mother of another hero, Diana Th'emme's leadership has kept Coalition Station together since the Incursion, just as it helped keep the Senate together in the years before Incursion. Diplomat and peacemaker, her strongest base of support is with Lor citizens who are not from genetic Lor stock themselves. Under Imperiatrix Th'emme, no Lor will go to bed hungry again. The second is Grand Nauarchus Bucklin Frankan - a Lor's Lor and the commanding officer of the Star Navy, "Grandmother Frankan"'s campaign promises to make the Lor strong again - to give them the discipline and order to resist the challenges of the frightening new galaxy where they've found themselves. She was a famous figure on the Holonet in the years before Incursion, a sturdy figure calling for a moral reawakening of Lor civilization. Warrior and engineer, her primary base of support lies in the military and military-supply worlds. Under Imperiatrix Frankan, no Lor would ever go to bed afraid again. All veterans of the Lor military, those born on Lor-settled worlds, member worlds of the Lor Republic, or in Lor-claimed starspace, and permanent residents are eligible to vote.

"Ah yes, the goetia," said Seven sympathetically. "I'm sorry about what happened to your friend, Woodsman," she added, looking over Raina's shoulder and at Riley, "and I can promise we're doing everything we can to figure out exactly what happened." "She got tied up like a hog and nearly killed because some sonsofbitches set a monster on her," hissed Riley, who didn't have Raina's knack for the social graces. As usual, he wasn't yelling - but his words were clear enough. "What the hell are you gonna do about it?" Seven frowned slightly and settled 'down' onto the top of the conference table. "Yes, we found evidence of additional summoners at the site so we've taken the standard precautions against a broken coven - she's being watched in the hospital and will be under surveillance once she's out. We won't let her circle track her down again. What have the two of you uncovered?"

After they'd landed, Woodsman looked at the outline of Freedom Hall and shrugged. "Seen it lookin' worse," he commented dryly. He didn't like being here much, but he wasn't about to admit that to Raina, not when he'd invited himself along in the first place. The Hall (no one had called it Freedom Hall in a decade and a half) had meta-Feral nests - and lots of them. Woodsmen didn't go near it but armed and in numbers - and he wouldn't have gone inside to save his life. They'd spent a hard evening at this and it was definitely nighttime now - but with all the streetlights and building lights here in the heart of the city, this hardly felt like nighttime at all - hardly felt like the time of monsters. Still, he felt better with his weapon on his back as they headed inside the building, unbroken as it was. If Riley had expected some kind of magical sanctum like Huang's parents' house, he was disappointed inside Freedom Hall - the conference room where Seven was waiting for them looked like any generic office space, albeit with more high-tech stuff than you were likely to find even in a government installation. A little self-conscious at first, (he wasn't sure exactly how much he should be yelling at this point and in this place) he hung back as Seven greeted them - she was floating in mid-air, cross-legged, with what he guessed were mystic runes hovering in the air behind her. "Sparkler, Woodsman, come in," she offered, not 'getting up' from her position. "You said you have information about a case?"