Avenger Assembled
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A Still More Glorious Dawn Awaits (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Known Space
Roulette's ploy seemed to work remarkably well. Most of the bar crowd, energized by the prospect of free drinks at the hands of a famous bounty hunter, soon were swarming around the bar, chatting up a storm with the pilot and bounty hunter who had dared pit her ship against the Gorgon itself! (The stories had been somewhat changed in the telling.) If anything, the problem was the sheer press of the crowd. Out the rear of the bar, though, Roulette's sharp eyes spotted a man sneaking away, a lion-faced Anglian with his hood drawn high around his thick mane of brown-green fur. Pushing his way through the crowd, the man headed straight for the rear exit, obviously ready to disappear. Meanwhile, Aquaria was watching Bliss eat with fascination. "Wow! Are you aquatic?" she asked the other female with interest in her translated voice. "I thought everyone in space was another kind of Surfacer. Hey, are you gonna eat that?" -
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 the Horizon 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 they'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. But the Horizon crew wasn't there for the view - they were there to meet an old friend. "Greetings, Horizon," came the military-sounding voice on the comm channel. Cavalier is waiting for you in the Grand Nauarcus's command center." - Cavalier's translator had given the Grand Nauarchus, the highest-ranking officer in the Lor Star Navy, a Mid-Atlantic accent - something that fit her short puff of bone-white hair and short stature that barely reached five feet. He could immediately see why her nickname was 'Grandmother Frankan.' She watched the holo again, the recording of the murder of a Star Knight, with a steely demeanor that belied her otherwise matronly air. "They put him down like a dog, didn't they? Barbarians," she muttered to herself before looking at Cavalier. "And you're sure these two are from your planet? That one there, with the tongue, doesn't look like any Terran I've ever seen."
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With his mother's favorite martini mix in a glass and his daughter roaming off to learn more about this interesting friend of her parents (who was at least a little closer to her own age), Richard stood with Anna in the living room and studied the new sound system there. "I'm glad you're here, Ma," said Richard quietly, and it was true - though not his only emotion on the subject. "We don't spend enough holidays as a family anymore." "Yeah, well, if you and your kids would move down to Florida like I keep asking, I could run over every weekend. Willy's gonna be in college soon, you know, and it ain't that much further from the Panhandle to LA than it is from here," said Anna, already into her martini. "Your old ma misses you, Dicky." "Yeah, well, you can move back to Freedom City, Ma. You know why we need to stay here around superheroes." Like everyone else in their extended family, Anna knew what had happened with Paige's father - and its grim aftermath. - "Woah! Can I touch it?" asked an excited Holly, staring at the Mother Unit, Daphne, and her mom in no particular order. "That is so cool - I can feel it in my head. Do the Grue have a lot of telepathic computers?" she asked Daphne, looking very interested.
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Woodsman studied the fence for a long time, sussing out his options, even as he watched the guards and figured out their movement cycle and seeming pattens. Strapping his bow to his back, he crept up to the fence between the guards' movements and began to climb, his gloved hands and booted feet letting him smoothly make his way up the security fence. The electrified barbed wire was a thornier problem, and something he noticed only when he heard the distinct hum of electricity passing through the metal. Considering his options carefully, muscles just beginning to ache, Riley scootched around until he found an area where the wire's coils were slightly out of alignment, just enough for the slim young man to slip his way through. He took off his bow and wrapped it in his poncho, then threw it over the side - then carefully squeezed his way through the fence, a gap so tight he left a torn fragment of his costume on the lower tier of the security fence before he dropped to the ground on the other side. Grabbing up his bow and poncho, he ran for the shadow of the nearest warehouse to dress and arm himself before beginning his search.
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"Nice!" said Riley appreciatively, shooting a glance at his counterpart outside in the yard. "You and he must, uh, get along really well." As the boys set the table, shooting each other the occasional sharp glance as they did so, Peyton resumed her conversation with Robin in the kitchen. Riley's 'mother' was obviously an old hand in the kitchen, working with a smooth economy that suggested much practice, and it wasn't long at all before they were filling up the casserole pan with her personal formula of sweet potato, brown sugar, and marshmellows - emphasis on the latter two. "So I know Riley has been discussing a career in emergency work," said Peyton, something Robin had not really heard from her boyfriend, "what are your plans for the future?"
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Riley listened carefully to the detective, trying to remember what Max, Afghanistan, and Iraq were. The latter two were wars the United States of Earth-Prime was involved in, he remembered, after terrorist attacks in 2001, and the former was a super-drug he'd overheard Winifred discussing. "Okay. Guess I'll check out Orphis, then." He took out his little pocket notebook, blue-lined white paper in a black leather case, and wrote down the address she'd given him. The name wasn't familiar, but he knew the street, at least - it would be a matter of biking over there and then searching on foot. Nothing alien to him. "Heard of this happening before," he said laconically as he headed for the window, "back in 2000. You know anybody around back then?"
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Caradoc quietly limped over to Miss Americana's side, doing his best to mask the pain of an injury to his left leg that he was almost certain reflected an interior augmented muscle whose metal strands had been pulled free and embedded in what passed for his regular flesh. It was only pain - pain that his body's natural regenerative powers would gradually heal over time as the smart metal of his frame returned to its original shape. What was his own pain? He carefully knelt in front of Miss Americana and gently turned her over to face the sky, aware that there was no human spine within the robot to sever. He patiently waited by her side for her recovery, watching the scene they had left behind with an impassive metal face despite his growing horror at the implications of the scene they saw before them. What had happened here, while he had been trapped in the past and away from those who he had sworn to fight alongside?
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"The scent is in all places in these days - hence the worry." Frost looked away for a moment, considering his options, and shot a glance at Bombshell. There was one particular reason, in fact, that he'd sought out Thrude in particular - something he and Talya had discussed in detail before this potentially dangerous conversation. "Investigation would take me into halls of Asgard itself, which is a pretty big problem for fellow such as I." He turned back, looking at Thrude. "There is child of Asgard now covered by Kantor's shadow - one that by all I have seen serves his dread father willingly and well. I can hunt him here, but how he came to this place is...ah, over the head of old Frost?"
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"The strike directly through the face and out the rear of the skull," Steve was demonstrating for Talya with his pike, "will kill virtually any humanoid creature. After that, the blades are extended," he demonstrated this too, ratcheting out the barbed talons of his personal weapon as it sunk its claws into the back of the now-penetrated straw dummy's head. He spoke all the time he demonstrated in a low, dull monotone the way he might have recited names from a telephone book. But Talya could see through that lie. "And pulled back through what remains of the head." He demonstrated, the straw scattering to the floor around them. "The precision of the strike, combined with the level of personal destruction it brings, is enough to-" Suddenly Steve stopped talking, stopped paying attention to Talya altogether as he cocked his head like a dog hearing an ultrasonic whistle. When he spoke, his "Yes," carried both on radio waves and sonic waves, burned with the banked heat of the man's internal fire. His armor erupted from his body - not the shining bright transformation of Caradoc that Bombshell had already seen, but the horrific transformation of an Omegadrone, steel and flesh and cables rearranging themselves in the terrible logic that turned a man into a killing machine. And then that machine was moving, black and red flames erupting from his jetpack as he left the dojo not by the door but _through_ the bulletproof glass of the window, rocketing through the skies of Freedom City with a speed like a Formula One race car, his mind focused on the exact GPS directions to the address Gina had just given him. - Gina's vastly enhanced intellect told her she was going to fail even as she desperately went about her work. Emerson's holographic disguise would fool these 'cops' only for a few seconds, and then where would _she_ be? She pulled the batteries out of one of her spare laptops and began connecting them to the car's electrical system, super-charging them with its powerful onboard batteries, her fingers working desperately to unravel what little copper wire she had into a working taser unit. She could see exactly how to build a unit powerful enough to stun even a low-level enhanced human - and she knew it would take her just a little too long to do anything at all. Having finished with the sports car, the 'cops' were now turning on her vehicle. As she hid in the backseat, her all-too-human fingers working as fast as flesh allowed, she saw a group of four officers approach the front door, where they paused. She heard their too-regular, inhuman commands for everyone to step out of the car, then another pause, like watching organic machines at work, then saw their batons come up to begin beating at the glass. Once, twice, and the glass fractured, and - The screaming in the sky, like a damned soul in pain, told her who was coming - Harrier didn't so much land on the asphalt as he cracked it, landing with a force so tremendous he cratered the road bed beneath his feet. He'd landed without regard for strategy on the middle of the road, directly between Gina's vehicle and the car in front of it. As the officers turned to face him, his pike cracked open in his hands, entropic energy singing from the blade, and he slashed the air, leaving behind a black mark in the air itself.
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The two Rileys returned at that point, carrying both the extra silver and a neatly folded tablecloth that Robin's Riley stepped out into the yard to shake clean of dust. Even without their physical differences, there was something profoundly different in the way the two young men carried each other. The Riley in here, who hugged his mother lightly before shooting a glance at Robin, was relaxed, even confident. Like the Riley she knew, maybe his body didn't match his soul - but he was still more comfortable in his own skin than the Riley outside, whose tension veritably crackled in the air. "Woah!" declared Riley-Prime, his voice noticeably deeper than the Riley she knew, looking admiringly at Robin. "You're cut. How much do you lift to get that kind of definition?"
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Well, that was easier than I thought! Frost shook Thrude's hand, his grip in hers icy and cold as, well, Nifelheim itself. "You know, Loki is not really so bad," he said sociably to Thrude. "He is...ah, you probably don't want to hear about that, eh?" He laughed jovially, putting his hands back in his pockets. "And if you do not know, this is breathtaking Bombshell, the deadliest woman I know who will still return my telephone calls, heh-heh. She is pretty one and I am terrible one." The former was not a complete description of Bombshell, of course, but it suited Talya often to be seen that way. He took a cup of mead himself, and actually drank from it - as thoroughly irrelevant as all that was. "As for Kantor, his flesh has died more than once. But he cheats death with help of ancient Egyptian curse. Have had words with Set but Set says Anubis is son of some other god and not gonna do what he asks."
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"The Star Orb was left us by the Chosen of Dagon and Hydra - those you blaspheme as the Serpent People. It would mean nothing to you, woman," the Deep One hissed up at Erin. "I doubt one as ignorant as the apostate could have seen it as anything more than a pretty jewel for her new masters." It looked up at Erin, blinking those big, bulging eyes that were so like Aquaria's - and yet so not. "Our promises mean nothing, ape. Our ranks beneath the seas are numberless. If you cut off our heads, two more will rise to take their place!" Suddenly, the other Deep One made itself visible - raising its hands in an attitude of surrender that seemed a sharp contrast with its fellow. "Void thisss out my cloaca! I don't want to die because of some wretch of a-" he said something in Lemurian that would have translated as "Shallow One" in English. It turned to face Midnight, still on the ceiling, and declared, "But I want protection from the priestsss! They're the onesss that lost the Orb in the first place and they're the ones that-" He was interrupted by the angry thrashing of the Deep One Wander still held pinned, who seemed to be shouting dire oaths from what the two of them had heard of Lemurian from Aquaria.
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In the space of a few seconds, though, everything changed. First came the explosion - a deafening roar as the nearby mountains that held the mines erupted in a tremendous avalanche of rock and debris! Echo's stolen radio (certainly an anachronism in this era, no doubt produced by "The Master" and his technology) crackled to life with a "THOSE CRAZY FRENCHIES-" before vanishing in a wash of static and the sound of falling rocks. The Batallie brothers must have rescued their families and fired the fossil mine - taking down most of the mountain with it! In the moment all were distracted by the explosion, Caradoc leaped into the air, his jetpack roaring beneath him, as armored man took flight amid the wild melee of dinosaur flesh! He targeted Mastermind - striking not for the man but for what he wore, grabbing the closed pike the immortal held at his belt and ripping it free. That earned him a blast back to Earth, a hard blow that abruptly smashed him against the impervium gangplank with a GONG sound. He struggled to his feet, snapping open the blade. And then the sky ripped open above them, bright and cold, and the Preserver-built time vortex washed over them all - sending home each and every time-displaced soul in Moab, Utah, circa 1855 ; and one gigantic armored T-Rex. (Continued in So Great a Cause 2015 - in the West End!)
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"I'm gronking out, Cyberknife." The words were calm and surprisingly matter-of-fact, given that Gina knew what they meant. "The ALS is gonna put me in a flesh box before I'm thirty - and in the ground before I'm forty, and that's if I'm lucky! The big jobs lately haven't been working out now that the whitehats are teaming up - but I'm running out of time. I've got the final version of the Freebooter planned - I just need the Crime League's money to build it." A sad-faced emoji actually hovered in the air in front of Cyberknife, and sardonic laughter came with it. "Listen to me sob story, me heartie, har-har -har! I'm not going anywhere. I just want you to know that whatever you hear me doing - I'm still me."
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Okay, TT, you recognize that the bearded soldier is actually Magpie, the notorious supervillian and burglar!
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And the gateway spiraled open, gaping wide and so bright Gina had to shield her eyes inside her basement shelter as the radio wash overwhelmed her connection to the robot - And the Interceptors (and Echo) came racing outward, Caradoc in the rear and moving with a slow, deliberate pace that bespoke an inner injury - And Mastermind gave a great and terrible shout, calling on oaths so ancient that only Willow could understand his wrath - And Geckoman, last through the portal, exited while riding on the back of a Tyrannosaurus Rex covered in iron plating, the great beast roaring its defiance to the West End night sky as it stomped out to join the ersatz army arranged against the Atavisms, the wash of radio waves fading as the portal itself collapsed behind them. Hovering in the sky, albeit increasingly battered and bruised, Mastermind pointed to heroes lost and found and declared, "So be it, then! Let all the horrors this world has known in a century and a half of carnage be on your miserable heads. We are ENEMIES today!" And with that, Mastermind and the three remaining Atavisms burst upwards in a flash of light, vanishing into the night over the strip mall as if they had never been. Well, if you didn't count the carnage - the torn-up street, the buildings hurled into the ground, the smoldering and living plants scattered through the decidedly worse-for-wear parking lot, the battered heroes as they picked themselves up off the street, the unconscious form of the fallen Darkness, who still lived despite taking a direct hit from the tugboat restaurant that had hit Willow and Miss Americana - but what could heal the horror of what they had all lost today? When Bombshell opened her eyes, she found herself staring at the face of Satan himself! Satan was dressed as an old-timey sea captain and declaring in a speech bubble, "Try me Devil Wings! They're hotter than the Inferno, landlubbers!" The air smelled distinctly of fried foods and blood, she was pinned inside a large box, and everything hurt.
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Steve waited until Miss Americana had come out of the other office before he said, "If I went there alone, I would miss you. I am glad that you will come with me." He'd have preferred if Gina herself had come - but she might have asked him to fly through Earth-Prime's star for an equally difficult journey. "And you look beautiful." Which was all true, both for Gina herself and the golden shell she had built for herself. "The colors are especially pleasant," he added on the elevator down to the cars. He knew Gina cared about colors and fashion, something he had at best a tactician's understanding of. Knowing Gina as he did, he did not press the question further. "Yolanda will be especially interested in meeting you. She has asked me many questions about you." He stopped outside the elevator to send a quick message to Erik to let him know they were coming, then they boarded the car. Normal people like Miss Americana and Steve Murdock drove their own cars, of course, so the pair of them sat in the front seats while Emerson drove them towards the West End, the car dipping low as Steve entered. He was fortunate - if his armor was only somewhat heavier, riding in normal vehicles would be all but impossible.
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A figure appeared in the iron-barred doorway at this moment, a classically gorgeous young woman with pale skin and platinum blonde hair, wearing a tightly tailored business suit that fit her like a glove. Walking carefully into the room, she shot an inquiring look at the vampire king, half-raising her red-gauntleted fist before Jack waved her off. With that, she shrugged and reached into the purse she wore on her other side, tossing a full-nearly-to-bursting blood bag to Nicola. He studied Nicola as she took the bag, waiting to make sure he did not speak over her eating. He knew from personal experience it wasn't easy to listen then. "Nicola, this is Daisy, one of my young associates," said the vampire king with a lordly gesture. Sighing a little as he let his wife take the role of dark predator she played so well (so _very_ well), Faretti studied her before saying, "I am Jack Faretti, king of the vampires of Freedom City. Welcome to my home. Who were you expecting to meet tonight?"
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"The Thule Society yet lives, here and there. As does its archdevil, Kantor. Little kohl-eyed der'mo thinks he can run from Frost just cause he's got some extra bodies," said Dimitri with the fire of seven and a half decades of murderous rage. With that he shrugged, still trying to keep the conversation casual. "Listen, I know you on side of old order, me on side of revolution, we not gonna be friends." He gestured from himself to Thrude. "But world out there is bigger than bunch of old family feuds. You seem like better woman than your old man, who I once...hah-hah, well, sometimes I go visit friends in Jotunheim and Nifleheim and things happen!" He laughed uproariously, then went on, "Anyway, Donar and I, we have some troubles. You and me, if there's trouble, we gonna work together? Or we gonna be trouble?"
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"All right, uh, sing Livin La Vida Loca all the way through," said Riley after a moment's quick consideration, discarding several things that he would like to see Robin do but only in private, and especially only with him. He knew his taste in teenage music was a little outdated, but he figured Robin could always look it up on somebody's phone, which seemed to contain basically magic. "Sing it loud! Loud as you can!" The last seemed especially daring.
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"In winter of 1941, Thule Society attempted to summon and bind Hel to their service, just as they had Donar. Used son of Rurik as candidate for human sacrifice." He put his hand over his heart. "Was quite a thing, I tell you! Great to-do of pagan chanting and ritual signs, all of which meant absolutely nothing to me until they came out with sacred knife. I actually saw my own heart outside my chest, before all was black greyness and I was in presence of Lady Hel. Big surprise to me, I tell you that much!" The accent was coming back, pouring thick like honey. "But sorcerers learned lesson. Hel could not be summoned to Earth because she was already here. In every camp, in every pit, waiting for every soul." He smiled, and she saw teeth. "Lady Hel, she does not appreciate being bound. So she sent me back to Midgard for vengeance sake. And so I have done her work these many years."
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"I'm sure you know about Riley and what happened to him?" she asked as she cracked open the oven just long enough to check the turkey. "I know my son isn't a liar - I just want to make sure anyone he's close to understands his story. And...I've never been to the Fens," admitted Peyton as she worked, digging through the neatly labeled, neatly ordered drawers in order to find the books . "I moved here from Mississippi when I was twenty - and I bought this house before Riley was born." There was no mention of Riley's father; no surprise, given what had happened to Peyton's marriage in this reality. "What's it like for you there?"
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Good Lord, why does every conversation I have with a beautiful woman go this way? Oh, right. Frost gave an exaggerated sigh that could only be described as long-suffering. "Ugh, I get this all the time. 'Frost, you are hideous abomination!' 'Frost, we can't leave you alone for second!' 'Frost, where are pants!?'" He looked at Thrude and spoke, and the exaggerated accent vanished from his speech as if a switch had been thrown. "For almost seventy-five years, I have fought the Thule Society - the people who 'bound' your father to do their dread work. No one now upon this globe has sent more of their number to icy cold of Nifleheim. And what do I get from you? Sneering abuse from a lordly Asgardian." He put his hands in his pockets and glared up at her. "If you are better than your father, come down and have some damned mead. If you are worse, come down and fight with some damned honor."
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The invisible Deep One didn't reveal itself upon Midnight's glance - but it didn't try running, either. Perhaps it was the smarter of the two, or else the more cowardly. The Deep One, which revealed itself as a priest of Dagon and Hydra, hissed out its story - one it seemed proud to tell despite the terror it felt so close to Midnight and Wander. Aquaria had become something of a notorious figure in certain Deep One communities who lived near Freedom City; the apostate who lived among Surfacers and consorted with Atlanteans, the traitress who had fought against a Chosen of Hydra and had guided Surfacers to a sacred Deep One ritual site. "When she stole the Star Orb and kept it for her own, Dagon and Hydra gave us the command to destroy her in the name of the gods she blasphemed. When she and her Surfacer mate were taken by the trident, we knew it must have been a sign that They had acted. We waited until the other Surfacer was gone, then we came for the orb."
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"Woodsman," said Riley shortly. "Saw the guy runnin' and put an arrow in him. Tried, anyway - he took a half-load of tannerite; that would have put 'nybody down but he just got back up." He hesitated a moment, glancing at the badge. "I don't just go 'round puttin' arrows in people, I heard the screaming and saw him running off afterwards." It wouldn't have killed him, anyway, just knocked him out. Dammit, Bowman didn't say people'd look at me like I was loco-crazy! He paced the room like the predator he was, his eyes still scanning the scenery for any further clues, as he reported to the officer everything he'd found on the scene. "What's an FET?"