Avenger Assembled

Aquaria went dead silent at Javeen's words, placing her tri-fingered hand against one of the Voidrunner's viewscreens for a moment, then she hopped away to reach out and directly touch one of the cockpit's small windows. She croaked softly, a small, surprised sound, and turned to the others. "I can hear her sssong," she hissed, her tone considerably more quiet than it usually was. "There are no other Deep Onesss in the Sssea of Ssstarsss. Nothing could make that sssound but...The One Below. We need to land, Ruby. We mussst land now. I will tell you where." She hopped back up to her position behind the pilot's seats, hoping Jessie was still resting comfortably below.

"We will punish the Surfacers who have defied the one below and the one above," croaked Aquaria, still nearly prostrate before the avatars of her gods with considerably more venom than Temperance had usually heard from the Deep One. If anything, the bass reverb in her voice sounded like the tones she remembered from the Deep One invaders of a few years ago. "They will never trouble the gods again!" The last was a deep bass bellow, Aquaria's long limbs shaking with emotion as she held herself perfectly still. GOOD. GOOD. One of the sets of 'eyes' turned to Aquaria, their glowing golden illumination now shining on Aquaria's blue-tattooed greenish-white skin with a glow that Temperance wasn't quite positioned well enough to see, as if the yellow sign was now facing away from her in space. The song that came from that glowing light was like nothing Temperance had heard before, eerie and alien and aquatic all at once, like frogsong and whalesong and other things together in perfect harmony. The other turned and cast a sidelong glance at Temperance and spoke not over the music of its companion but _through_ it. VENGEANCE.

Good luck with the move!

Aquaria knew of many things that ate Surfacers - some things friendly, others not. She was glad her helmet had stayed close on the way over, she wasn't sure what Punchline would make of her. "We can hear your signal, Miracle Girl," she croaked to the air. "I cannot speak to you." The truth was, her suit's radio probably did have some way of transmitting outwards - she simply did not know how to make it work. But there was no use in dwelling on that. She hopped around as Punchline spoke, trying to get a better feel for this strange vessel upon which they found themselves. It reminded her of some she'd seen out among the sea of stars. "How did you come to be in this dream?" she croaked to Punchline, the voice coming from inside her suit sounding half-synthesized, half-like the booming croak of a great frog. "We seek a criminal who has been in these places."

"Thank you, Lady Hel," murmured Dimitri in perfect sincerity in the moment or two before Erik forced the door. When the swordsman did, he found Dr. Dimitri Peshkov to be all smiles - despite the icy chill in the air, the frozen patches of what looked to have been a tremendous amount of blood, far more than he remembered from the previous childbirths he'd seen. "Behold, no one is dead! I am finest doctor to graduate from Moscow State Academy of-well, we talk about that later." Dimitri declared, looking terribly pleased with himself. "You will not give Talya hypothermia," he declared, "so you have at it with warmth," he said, pointing firmly. "All are healthy. What goes on out there - what do we need to do before League arrives?"

The inhuman avatars floated in the air for a long, uncomfortable moment as Aquaria watched them expectantly. As she did so, Temperance had the distinct impression that they were being watched in return, an impression sharpened when two glowing golden forms appeared on either side of the water-things. The golden shapes, squiggly circles that at first glance were like a child's poorly colored-in drawing, but on closer inspection were in fact yellow signs of near-infinite complexity, were like angel wings for the two water-avatars - or perhaps like the eyes of gigantic anglerfishes appearing out of the brightness just above great fanged maws. Aquaria didn't seem afraid, instead she cast her eyes low and bared the back of her neck, signs of submission for these avatars of the true gods, like reflections of reflections in one of Jessie's mirrors. DEFILEMENT croaked one in a deep bass - joined by the other in tones so profoundly low they made the very air vibrate. DESTRUCTION. The eyes were now distinctly regarding Temperance. SACRIFICE. That tone was echoed by the other in a distinct sound of approval. SACRIFICE. "They are angry," croaked Aquaria. "Tell them you did not summon the eye!"

The two women wound up under one of Freedom City's many cross-river bridges, Aquaria easily bounding her way up the side of the brick abutment and along the underlying steel girders. They were well out above the river by the time she stopped, forming herself into a strange, inhuman crouch with her bony knees up higher than her head. "Sing to the waters," she croaked to Temperance, "and I will sing to those who swim below." Aquaria was no shaman, to speak to the gods herself in words or song, but she knew Temperance was - and was confident that between the two of them, they could win an answer from Those Who Swam Below. Dagon and Hydra always answered the prayers of true believers.

It might have been an intimidating situation for most new heroes - but Aquaria Innsmouth had seen many strange things in her time on the Surface, and even before that she had spent her life worshiping the dark gods that swam in the waters between universes. She knelt, her knees bending backwards, and made a sound that to Punchline sounded like the deep bass bellowing of a very large frog. What she was actually saying was "Dagon and Hydra - thank you for guiding me across your waters. Help me now guide this Surfacer to where he belongs." When she rose, she took the clown's hand, gripping it in her three-fingered hands in the Surface fashion. "We will find our way out," she reassured him, her voice a bass, inhuman croak. "The others are still watching," she said, turning back to where Miracle Girl would be 'looking for them.' "Do you hear that? I can hear her but I have no way to sing."

"That's a terrible pun, Willie. Your ma and dad must be raising you right." She hugged William - just in time for Richard to step outside and catch them in it. When they all embraced, for a few moments the Clines were a normal family, mourning the death of the patriarch that had been a lover to one, a near-stranger to two, but nonetheless a part of the family even if they'd never carry his name. Richard supposed that the Halliday legacy would die with Bryant - he certainly couldn't remember meeting any paternal relatives over the years. - "There's no sign of cancer," said the nurse, who'd been joined by one of the night doctors, a balding, sallow-faced man who usually didn't say much. "He must have completely reversed his own cellular development, even in his brain tissue. My God, how is that even possible?" "The general consensus has always been that Bryant Halliday was an untapped metahuman dealing with chemical transformations - much like the second Bee-Keeper." Bolt was still frowning. "But he couldn't work without active chemicals, and he was far too sick to manipulate them on his own this time..."

Archer breathed out softly at Raina's words, guilt clear on his lined face, and Callie watched her depart - but no one made a move to stop her. "It wasn't me," said Archer quietly, his voice almost too quiet to make it over the mic. "It was that thing they put it in me." "It's all right, Alan," said Callie, her face almost inscrutable save for the worry in her eyes. "From what Miss Americana has found, the initial implant in Alan's body was no bigger than a microchip. It's been growing inside him for almost a year now, feeding on his central nervous system, influencing him more and more." "It was...putting thoughts in my head, making me do things. Making me frighten you in your tests, do things no one should have to do..." Archer's eyes tightened. "I'm so sorry," he repeated. "The only way to beat it was to do what it wanted, but go too far." Peyton Quinn had been silent so far, but she suddenly shot Callie Summers a hard stare. When she spoke, her voice reached Raina out in the hall, a voice suited for shouting over loud machinery in a nuclear power plant. "Your super-school let a man with a chip in his neck torture my son, and everyone's sorry?" She pointed right at the former Raven. "You told me he'd be safe! You told me this was better than letting him get into trouble without anyone in a costume watching him! But nobody was watching a damn thing." "Mom, it's-" Riley looked stricken for a moment, then kept talking. "It's all right. I've seen worse things in there. If something was making him do all that, it's not his fault. Everybody breaks. When people break, it's not...it's not them in there any more."

Tarva brightened slightly - almost literally, it was more like a light had been lit beneath her shadowy blanket. "I'm glad you think so, Kimber." She reached behind herself and grabbed onto Kimber's hand, squeezing it tight. "They will never stop looking for me," she whispered quietly, her voice full of certain, terrible knowledge. "I was their enemy before everything - and afterwards they thought it was a great joke that I was still alive and still myself-" She took a breath, and then another, on the edge of panic for a moment. "They-there will be things worse than you can imagine across that door. If you will not let me go, it may be kinder to do as the drone said. Send through a bomb. End it all now."

Sea Devil bounced to her feet, closely considering this situation. Igniting her twin energy tridents, she drove them into the sides of the screen near (but not directly in front of) Punchline's face and began to pull in either direction. The verdigris blades guttered and sparked as they made contact with the surface of the screen, Aquaria pulling the two 'sides' apart as if she was trying to part a particularly tough patch of water. When she spoke again, her booming grunt bespoke the tremendous effort she was undertaking inside her armor. "Miracle Girl - grab him. Together!" As she spoke, the front of her helmet snapped open, revealing the amphibious face inside.

"...no." There seemed to be limits to what Bonfire could uncover. He could fly high enough to get a view of the cheerfully manicured suburbs all around him, but couldn't go much higher than the roofs of nearby houses, or beyond about half a block from the yard where they'd all started. "Oh, Mark..." Nina had taken a few steps to lay her hand on her fiance's shoulder - and in the moment actually pushed back her armored faceplate to reveal the darkly-complected young woman beneath. "Mark, it's all right," she assured him. "It's just an illusion. I don't even think it's trying to hurt you." She glared at Punchline. "What if it gets tired of us not wanting to play, though?" asked Mark quietly, his handsome face ashen. "We can't just keep refusing it, or it's going to throw a tantrum." He didn't seem to be entirely listening to Punchline. At that moment, a smiling older man walked out of the house. In his late sixties with once-blonde hair that had gone almost immediately to light grey, he bore a very strong resemblance to Mark - Leviathan recognized him as Rick Lucas, the author of several books on the Silver Age Freedom League. "Hello everyone. Welcome to our 4th of July barbecue!" With a friendly smile, he walked over to the grill and flipped the burgers. "I hope you've all brought your appetites."

"They have another vessel too - one of the Grand Nauarchus' fleet." She had gotten that explanation, and understood it well enough, on the way back to their homeworld. "Perhaps their ships will come and-" At the sound of an all-too-familiar word coming from the lips of the stranger, though, Aquaria croaked suspiciously and hopped up to the front compartment of the Voidrunner, the front of her helmet still open to reveal the amphibious face underneath it. When the Surfacers on the screen started in what might have been recognition, Aquaria gave them her 'frown', great gold-and-black eyes staring and mouth hanging partially open. "What do you know of Great Hydra, Puny-Surface-Man?" she boomed. She kicked the deck plate beneath her feet, once, twice, and extended her throat sacs, emitting a challenging noise. "We will land and show you what we think of your ways!"

Okay, it looks like the first thread that needs to be run is the one vs. Faster Pussycat. Ari, is that something you wanted to run, or should I line up a different Guide/volunteer for it?

This looks great, olopi, keep at it!

While Miss A and Daedalus went about their work, Steve took this opportunity to explain to Bombshell and Miss Grue exactly what lay across the threshold. Or rather, who. "Corrupted champions of a dead world. Now they serve as the fist of Madrigal the Martinet, a commander of the armies of the Terminus. Tarva the Black is a native of their homeworld," he went on, "but fell of her own free will." He stared at the screen, half-listening as the Emerson probes' sonar found open passages underground towards Freedom Hall. As far as Miss A and Daedalus could determine from a preliminary scan, there were no significant obstructions between their probes' location and Freedom Hall itself. It was certainly the clearest likely path to the Hall, given the tactical information they had on the Hounds, coming up on some of the room's other monitors. "They have battled with the champions of Earth-Prime before - and slain those of countless others." His dark face was clouded as he studied the monitors. "When not engaged in the mixed murder arts, they thrive on show and spectacle, providing dark entertainment for the masses of Nihilor. If not for the probes, we would have walked directly into their trap." He whispered a short curse in the Black Speech of the Terminus. He didn't have to tell Gina she'd been right. - Kimber found Tarva in the latter's bedroom - the walls dripping with liquid black shadow that felt warm and soothing to a ghost's touch but would have been unpleasant indeed for the living. Tarva knelt in a protective pentagram by her bed, arms folded around her torso and face staring at the ground. Her hounds were with her too, flopped on either side of the pentagram, whimpering with their mistress's worry. She was singing, half to herself, a familiar song that she usually sang when she didn't think Kimber was listening. "No need for sorrow...Think of tomorrow...We'll be together again..." Kimber entering set off her wards, of course, so she looked up and stared at Kimber for a moment before saying, "I should go there. The Hounds will want to play with me again. You will be able to save those innocents."

Aquaria was close to panicking herself - until she heard Jessie's voice, close to mortal terror, on her skin. She closed her great eyes and breathed, slowly, in and out, a throbbing sound that came clearly through the microphones. "Jessie, it's going to be okay. We are going to figure out what happened and then we will go home." She breathed again, finding her own calm center amid the eternal chaos of the universe, the song of Dagon and Hydra amid the vast oceanic depths clear in her mind. "Cavalier, you should go to the other ship and talk to them. I need to swim to the Voidrunner." On her way back, she thought about the words of the strange creatures below, but kept her thoughts to herself. If they could tap into the voice of her suit, something she herself hardly understood, she didn't want to risk words that might serve to betray their secrets. Once inside the ship, she found Jessie and got close - not close enough to trigger her friend, but close enough that she could see her there. "What a strange mystery!" she croaked out loud. "The sea of stars certainly has many things in it. I thought for sure we were going to be gobbled up."

"I can't watch him in there!" boomed Sea Devil, making up her mind at the sight of the trapped Punchline. Perhaps he was a hideous monster, looking more like a corpse than a living being, but Surfacers saw _her_ as a monster and they'd still come to her aid. "We have to help him! Miracle Girl, follow me!" And so, after screwing her courage to the sticking place, she crouched low on the ground and leaped straight for the screen, propelling herself forward with muscles designed (by Dagon and Hydra's crooked designs) to powering a human-sized body through the oceanic depths that should have been her home.

Citizen mentally revised his estimate of his companion's lifting strength upwards - substantially! Luckily he wasn't planning to scrap with the other robot; unlike what certain Terran popular fiction liked to believe, superheroes usually cooperated rather than fighting amongst each other. Letting her bear the full weight of the plane, impressed by her anti-gravs' ability to keep the great Terran machine from collapsing in on itself, Citizen went to work. He flew up and along each side of the plane, reaching the exit doors before those inside could leave their seats. Quickly re-directing his internal electromagnetic energies, he sliced open the plane's various exit doors, catching and throwing the aluminum downward so it wouldn't stand in the way of those inside. He was fast, covering and opening all the exits before the internal slides could deploy. He kept a close eye out for Elsa's guardian as he zipped from exit to exit, trusting that a cyberneticist would be the one most impressed by him. He certainly looked human - but most people knew Citizen was a robot. He'd never hidden his identity - just his origins.

If Aquaria reaches in and tries to grab the guy, does anything of note happen?

"Here, darling, you take this." Monsoon handed the baby off to Edge, the latter of whom scooped up the little girl as if he'd spent his whole life holding a baby. In his dark suit and impeccable tie, he looked like a model showing off a new line of child-friendly formal wear. Striding out amid the finery of the imperial office, she folded her arms over her armored chest and declared "I am a grown woman and I am content with my life. I don't need some childish fantasy of myself as Empress of the World, ruling as head of an immortal dynasty that will one day smite Heaven itself, to play in like a child. I accept no guilt and take no responsibility for what happens in my imagination!" That earned her a hearty "Boo!" from the newscasters on screen in that same odd, childish voice - but it change things. As she spoke, the scenario around them changed again. This time the scene looked downright mundane - they were in a suburban backyard behind a big, two-story house and facing a substantial plot with thick green grass underfoot, a picnic table set with six places, and a giant tree with a tire swing nearby. Mark took a few steps back from a backyard grill, careful to keep the baby away from the burgers cooking there and his eyes popped wide. A masculine voice called from inside the house. "Mark! Your mother's almost done. How are the burgers coming out there?" His face white, Mark reflexively called out, "They're fine, Dad!"

Inside Callie's office, they were greeted by a familiar face - although not in person. The computer on Callie's desk was turned around to reveal its screen - and its familiar occupant. Alan Archer had obviously seen better days. He looked pale and thinner, having lost a noticeable amount of weight since they'd last seen him. They couldn't see the place where the implant had been buried, but he was obviously propped up, sitting in a hospital's recliner, and when he moved his head there were tubes going into the back of his neck. "Hello, everyone," he said in an older, tireder voice than they'd ever heard before. "It's nice to meet my saviors again - though it feels like the first time." Peyton Quinn stayed close to Riley, hovering over him as he took a seat, her face tight with worry. She'd nodded a short greeting to the headmistress and her son's friends, but she was obviously far more interested in Riley than anything else going on there. Callie spoke, hovering herself in the back of the room without actually sitting down. "Alan, are you sure you want to-" "Please, Callie, let me-" Archer was briefly out of breath, long enough for everyone to enter and take a seat. When he spoke again, it was in a low whisper. "I'm sorry for everything that happened to your group. I knew I had to provoke someone into attacking me to overload the implant - and I knew your group would fight back."

The next morning, Caradoc was as a bronze statue by Miss Americana's side, solemn and silent, as the modified Emerson units crossed the threshold and probed their way into the ruined Freedom City of a dying world. (And there was no doubt that the world was dying - sensors installed in the boxy, crawling units could easily detect the increasing exotic radiations that bespoke collapsing multiversal walls.) "The dimensional barrier must have collapsed to within their solar system," commented Caradoc, his voice a gravely quiet rumble as the heroes gathered together to watch the assembled bank of monitors. "Even if the barrier somehow remained intact, relativistic debris will destroy all that remains within days." The distress signal the initial probe had detected proved to be traceable by the Emerson probes, albeit with some difficulty through the torrent of exotic radiation that was flooding the reddened skies of this damaged world. Things being what they were, the location of the signal was visible on Miss Americana and Daedalus's monitoring systems before the location itself was - the distress signal was coming from the location of Freedom Hall. The structure was different, a round dome rather than a blocky cube, but it was clearly the same. "It's coming from the upper floors," said Daedalus, his voice quiet as he looked at the signal with Miss Americana. "There is Grue technology stored there in the trophy and evidence rooms. It's possible someone could reconfigure it - but who would they be trying to call?" Switching the scanners to energies traditionally used by telepaths gave them a better view of the number of sentient minds inside Freedom Hall - far too few, given the size of even this alternate version of the building. But just as the initial distress signal had suggested, there appeared to be at least two dozen lives inside the building, at least one of which bore the slippery mental profile that usually suggested a Grue. "Miss Americana, can you direct the scans underground, see if the sub-surface access tunnels remain unblocked. We could conceivably move Probe B there through the-" He fell silent as the probe detected movement for the first time - flight! Overhead, a black streak was just settling down like a predatory bird on the round roof of Freedom Hall - a gesture from Miss Americana gave them magnification, revealing a strange figure. The rainbow-haired woman was tall and muscular, with a substantial build that put her closer to Tarva than anyone else in the room. With a distinctly bored look on her haughty face, she tossed red and black lightning from hand to hand with fitful, nervous energy before disappearing back inside the building, out of the probe's line of sight. Behind them, Tarva's eyes popped wide. She shoved a fist against her mouth to swallow a compulsive, terrified scream in the instant before she vanished into shadowy nothingness. "Oh," said Caradoc mildly, not looking terribly perturbed at Tarva's departure. "Them."

Steve sat alone in the kitchen, a solitary figure beneath the glare of overhead lights. He looked down at the food, which he had little stomach for but knew he would eat anyway to maintain his functioning for the next day, and rose to his feet for the light switch. Alone now in the dark, a common enough place when he and Gina had fought, or for that matter when they hadn't, he closed his eyes and addressed the empty room in a voice barely loud enough to be audible on the house's internal mics. "Of those I value more than my life, you are the greatest of all." He slept on the couch that night - and dreamed of red, starless skies - and torments that never ended.