Avenger Assembled

I suspect we are good to move on at this point.

Okay, he's grappled - this round, anyway! Go ahead and edit your post to reflect the action - and I'll post for the Frosts.

A good answer is - would a thread about Claremont offering Driver's Ed be fun/interesting? If so, then yes!

The moment dragged on - the goateed man, wearing an expensive flannel shirt that Riley judged would never stand up to a real winter, said nothing, but stared around in wide-eyed terror. "Well?" He dug the blade in, earning a soft gasp of terror from his target - and leaving behind a few distinct drops of blood. Riley kept his hatchet sharp. "In...the...basement..red...storage locker...oh, please don't kill me," Pierre whimpered. "I swear we just were just gonna blow up the lab once everyone was gone, just so everyone would know-" "Save it!" Riley hissed, satisfied, his muscles beginning to ache from tension. He knew he had to move the situation along, and fast. He released Pierre, stepping back, and whipped his hatchet around. The flat of the blade cracked against the back of the man's head, sending the would-be eco-terrorist down to the ground. Knowing the man would be up in seconds, Riley knelt atop him, straddling his back, and had Pierre zip-tied and gagged faster than he could have gutted a Feral. Less messy this way too! He was too well-trained to look up Erin and Trevor's way - but he felt their eyes on him even so.

Spring 2016 Greenbank Warehouse District The Gaia's Liberation Front meeting was going well - the activists inside were ready to move to direct action against the corporate oppressors of the planet. All was going well, Pierre thought as he stepped out into the alley to light a cigarette. Just as his match flared to life; a hatchet appeared at his throat. "Hey, jackass," Woodsman whispered in his ear, glad that for once he'd found a criminal shorter and slighter than he was. "You say a word and you're gonna be crapping that match out your ears!" Dammit, Riley thought, embarrassed, why is it so hard when I know people are watching!? "Yeah, you heard me. Now talk. Where'd you put the goddamned dynamite? Or do I have to give you a shave first?"

May 2016 "Hello, children!" The famous, or more likely infamous, Dr. Dimitri Peshkov was waiting at the curb when the Claremont shuttle bus arrived - all smiles beneath his parka's raised hood. "Welcome to headquarters of the Freedom League!" He sketched a courtly bow to Fred as she stepped out, then gave Ardent a warm, almost predatory smile as she joined the Chinese alchemist before doing the same thing. "I am Comrade Frost, and I will be your lecturer for special study session on heeero history today. It will be exciting times, sure," he said, pulling his heavy gloves back on. "Did you have pleasant ride?"

That'll do it. Phantom is up. Don't forget to roll init, EP!

A DC 15 check of the relevant skill will give you that the King of Tigers is the name of one of the most feared drug lords in northern Mexico. El Huracan is up.

The fly humanoid shot Echo a glare that was more annoyed than angry - then crashed right through the glass! Amid a shower of fragments, the man bared impressive mandibles and spread his big, clawed hands. In a growling voice, he shouted, and buzzed, in Spanish, in a voice that was both human and terribly insectile - "<King of Tigers! You miserable whoreson - the wrath of God has come for you!>" His imposing manner and admittedly fearsome appearance didn't seem to match his words, at least, not exactly. "<Where are you hiding, you miserable old bastard!? Your mercenaries won't save you from my flies! Or from ME!>"

Fly-Guy: Batters his way through the glass, kssh! And Intimidates everyone. http://orokos.com/roll/396082 = 20

"I'm sure their record speaks for itself," said the Grand Nauarchus evenly. "Come, sit down in my office and we'll talk." Said office, just off the command center, was relatively unadorned - a deskcomp, a holo on the wall, and a polarized window displaying a view of the spectacular corona thrown off by the angry blue mass of Altinak. A quick look at the holo revealed the Grand Nauarchus, her hair grey instead of white, standing proudly alongside two young people in Star Navy uniforms. It was a graduation image - thirty or forty years old. "My son and daughter," said Frankan quietly as she took a seat in a hovering grav chair, looking up at the image herself. "Shenan was serving on the Redoubtable;" lost with Lor-Van "and Doah and his family were at a base in the northern continent. Yours?" It was a question Lor had been asking of each other in great numbers - in the time since everything had fallen."

Okay, Tou is DC 25. http://orokos.com/roll/396068 = 25! He just makes it.

"It's not supposed to be like this," Riley muttered blackly, looking over at Robin in her hospital bed. "World fulla people with powers and costumes, supposeta be able to fix things when they get broken. Help people when they're hurt. Today was...Jesus." He scrubbed the palms of his hands against his eyes, the movement showing off how noticeably darker the parts of his skin that had been pressed against Tesla Atom had been. "I've seen bad stuff before. Stuff like that. But it's supposeta happen somewhere else. Not in your Goodman Building. And not to Robin, fer Christ's sake. You were great, though, honey," he said to Robin. "You shoulda seen her. She was bustin' heads, takin' down legs...it was grea."

"<A storm is coming,>" pronounced Monsoon defiantly as she studied the situation. She made her focus not the monsters, but the witch that had summoned them: the cowardly woman who had hidden behind a shield when confronted with superheroes. Someone who hid had reason to hide - and someone with reason to hide could be pushed. "I don't have time to deal with your men of blood, you melodramatic monstrosity!" She leaped into the air and vaulted over the sanguine sex kitten, landing smoothly on her feet on the other side of Dam - hopefully leaving the other woman surrounded. "When we are finished thrashing you, you will return your outfit to the fifteen year old harlot you stole it from," she pronounced, her family scimitar flashing in the Freedom City sun as she drew it from its sheath. "Come, then, and entertain me."

Move Action: Taunt Dam. That's a DC 25 Bluff check. Move Action 2: Fly over the wall and land within melee range of Dam! Draw her sword.

Echo: 33 Fly-Guy: 26 El Huracan: 22 Sparkler: 20 Harrier: 16 Okay, Echo is up.

Richard reappeared around the time he was sure Will was calming down - the better to make sure father and son didn't get each other riled up. He knew himself, and his boy, well enough to know what that was like. "You talk to that Atlantean girl of his?" he asked, launching a can of pop his son's way fast enough to pull Will out of the conversation by making him catch it. "Wouldn't be the first boy his age to get a little mermaid fever." He took a seat, turning it around and sitting on Will's other side, and studied the cops. "But that's not really it," he hazarded. "If you really thought a guy like that had gone rogue, you'd be talking to the regular capes to help you catch him, or you'd be those fancy super-cops. What's the real story?"

Despite the vast bulk of the Shipyards, Aya found them swarming on the inside - cadets in training here, officers on the move there, clones and cyborgs in various positions throughout, and a surprising number of civilians: some of them quite young. Her escort, though, was a very tall, very slender Lor who introduced himself as Lieutenant B'Tran. "Chief of the local mentant division. Welcome to the Shipyards," he said with a smile, half his face distorted by what looked like deep tissue scarring, the kind of spiderweb surgery that meant someone had survived attempted cyberization during the Incursion by the skin of their teeth. "I'll take you to the Grand Nauarchus." Said figure was standing by the center table when Aya arrived, a figure of calm authority in the midst of controlled chaos. Walking down into the center well, Aya could see displays across the room showing images from all over the Republic; the holo the Grand Nauarchus was studying depicted a very familiar battle in the Incursion. "Ah, Corona! I was just studying your work against the Communion. The Republic owes you, and the other veterans of that day, our most profound thanks." She was less than a meter and a half tall, and old; with bone-white hair and pale skin that bespoke a woman into her second century. She nodded approvingly at Corona. "Thank you for answering my summons. I'm sure your work with our new allies keeps you very busy."

"I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal." -Curtis LeMay Altinak C The Grand Shipyards are among the most impressive works of Lor civilization - a Dyson shell of solar panels and high-end lasers, surrounding the blue-white star and providing the fantastic energies that drive some of the largest energy-matter converters in Lor space, using material from the star's corona and what remains of its systems to build starships. The converters, massive skeletal spheres that dot the space around the star, each as large as a planet's moon, can't run independently; the Shipyards still need to import certain exotic minerals to build certain instruments of high technology like artificial gravity units and jump drives. But for the most part, the vast shape of the Shipyards, enclosing an entire star in a spidersweb of humanoid-built technology, can build a fleet all on its own. As Corona's vessel came out of warp in the Altinak system, it was clear a fleet was indeed being built here. Row after row of brand-new starships were in orbit of the system's few small rocky planets, a fleet-in-being as large as anything she'd seen during the war, not to mention the new ships still under construction near the converter complex closer to the vast blue bulk of the star. An entire prewar sector fleet looked to be waiting here - with more under construction visible near the glowing, fusion-hot matter converters. But Corona wasn't there for the view - she was there to meet the commander of the Star Navy; and perhaps the most powerful individual in the Lor Republic. "Greetings, Corona," came the military-sounding voice on the comm channel. Grand Nauarchus Frankan is waiting for you in Central Command."

Please wait till it's your turn to post, EP.

Glamazon is up.

Initiative time

Reagent's a bit far away - but Aquaria is right there! And could use that Interpose if she keeps getting yelled at. http://orokos.com/roll/395260 = 27 Curses, it makes that save.

Character Name: Fast-Forward Friends: Wail Close Friends: Former Friends: Teammates: Hologram (wife), Thoughtspeed (son) Former Teammates: Clock Queen Lovers: Richard's never been physically unfaithful to Paige. Relationship: Serious Relationship: Married: Hologram. Ironically, despite their bad-boy/girl past, Fast-Forward and Hologram have been a (mostly) monogamous couple for the last thirty years - and have never seriously dated anyone else. Broke up/Divorced: They had some moments back in the day, but now they're one of those long-term couples that finishes each other's sandwiches. Related: Heroing for Fast-Forward has always been a family affair - his mother, father, wife, son, and in-laws have all been involved in the superhero world. Not all of them on the same side, though! Rivals: Presto Enemies:

April 2016 Mark and Nina's house Near Freedom City Mark caught the look on Nina's face and closed the box - and suddenly realized he'd always associate the smell of tsebhi and taita with this moment. "Or, hm, I can just put this somewhere-" He was pulling the velvet box off the table, ready to put it into his pocket and banish it to some far-off place, when Nina put her hand on his, meeting his gaze imploringly. "What would our lives be like if I was your wife?" She asked him, with the air of a woman who knew the answer to the question before she asked it, but Mark was too honest to tell her anything other than what he'd been thinking. "We'd live in the house - keep the apartment in Geneva. We'd go on working for the UN, and keep trying to make things better for Socotra. Maybe in a few years we'd have kids, when we're both ready-" He fell silent again, the intense look on Nina's face taking his words. "Mark, listen to me." Nina squeezed his hand with both of hers, then reached up and stroked his face. "I love you. And I want to be with you. You don't realize the kind of man you are. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life living in this place." Mark looked around the kitchen and said, a little hesitantly, "Well, babe, I can probably make more gold and get us a bigger place if you want-" "It's not that." Nina chewed her lip in a way that Mark always thought was very pretty but that now wasn't the time to dwell on it, "Mark, I miss Socotra. I miss being able to talk to people without having to translate every word in my head before I say it. I miss the food, and the art, the music, the sky that's always so blue-" Mark interrupted her, his heart pounding in his chest, visions of a future he didn't like at all flashing before him. "What about Iyar and the other people you and Trevor rescued? That's half the people you grew up with right there!" "That's not the same thing, Mark!" Nina fired back at him, the water sloshing in their glasses as she struck her hand against the table. "Mark, you have spent your life being tall, and blond, and looking like someone put your name next to American in the dictionary. You can tell me inshallah on the telephone without being stared at by ignorant peasants. You can fly on airplanes and dress however you want without worrying that some fat American tourist is going to tell a hideous old German flight attendant that you 'look suspicious' and find yourself having to call your boyfriend so you can cross an international border!" The incident, as they called it, hadn't gotten any better even over a year later. And why would it, really? The intervention of the most powerful superhuman in Europe had gotten an apology from Lufthansa - and only made Nina angrier at her place in the world. Mark stared at her, his face going hot for a moment. "Babe, if you want us to move out of Freedom City, we can do that. I speak like four languages, and I can just pop in here for Liberty League stuff and emergencies. Hell, my mom is more than ready to move now that she's retired. But where do you want us to go?" Nina took a breath - and after years of thinking, and months of planning, spoke. "Mark...I want to marry you. I want you to be my husband. In the name of God, I even want to have children with you - can you imagine what they'll be like?" She smiled, quickly, a habit she'd picked up from him. "But I want to marry you in the Grand Mosque of Socotra - as its Queen." She reached across the table, past the supper Mark had made for her, and took his hands again. "You know that my father's rule has to end. And that the people of Socotra need a leader." "I do," said Mark, his voice tight. "But why does it have to be you? You were the one who told me what a monster your father was for pitting you and your siblings against each other! Treating your lives like a game!" "Because it is my duty to rule. I spent my life at the top of a very small pyramid. living off the work, the toil, the blood, of other people. They deserve something more than me running away to America to be a superhero. They deserve someone who can lead them out of the darkness. And I don't think I can do that without you, Mark. And that's not because of what you do with your power - it's because of what you _don't_ do with your power. I need you to be my partner on this - so I can be your partner in the other things." "...all right. All right." Mark rose to his feet and walked away, standing and looking out the sliding glass window of the living room, out at the wine-dark sea. Nina came up behind him, putting her hand on the small of his back. Mark thought of himself, a good half-foot-taller than most of the Socotrans he'd met, and almost a whole foot taller than Nina. "Okay. But I'm not giving up my job. Either of them," he turned and looked down at her. "And I'm not going to lie to an imam, so you need to figure out what to tell them about why I'm getting married in a mosque." "It'll be all right," Nina assured him, rising up on her tiptoes to kiss his mouth. "After all - they'll work for me." They kissed again - long and deep, and didn't talk about politics for a while. The next morning, Nina put on the ring.