Avenger Assembled
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Harrier Paradise Problem Like Broadcast Day Fast-Forward Applause Seven Comrade Frost Stolen Valor Edge One Of Those Dates Take You In Fortress Citizen Sea Devil Sophisticated Grace Uncharted Waters Been Caught Stealing Woodsman Hazard Pay Who Let the Dogs Out New Shipments Started GMing: Autumn A Whole New World Patriotic Gore Family Planning Kindness That's Rough, Buddy Scythe - since I have so many characters in it! So Great a Cause All GM and Ref stuff to Sea Devil
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"You can bathe when we are finished," Steve suggested. "Cucumber melon is very pleasant." He trudged along behind her, close enough that he was with her without giving her the feeling of being pushed. "Your sun is beautiful. it burns so cleanly in the sky, so free of contamination." He looked up at the star overhead for a moment longer than a man could have held. "Other news. Erin White will be wed soon. She has invited me to 'whatever we wind up doing'." Gina knew that extending an invitation to Steve did not always mean he actually came. "Erik has offered me a position at his school. Only in the afternoons when you are at Archetech and I am not guarding HAX," he clarified. "As an alternate teacher of the smaller children. I do not know if I will accept," he confessed.
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"Sometimes. Older people say the animals are gettin' smarter, like the smart ones are the ones doing all the breedin'." He shrugged. "There were enough deer in Wharton back before the Forest that deer are still pretty dumb, though. Deer's pretty good; better'n bear." He raised his hands and started gesturing, glad to find himself talking about something he understood. "Wolf and fox taste like crap, though. For wild stuff, the best meat is herbivore meat - squirrel, deer, stuff like that. Meat that's been eating other meat usually isn't that good." He grinned ruefully. "Don't have a lot of people I can talk 'bout hunting with. Matt, uh, doesn't like that kinda stuff. I think it's a death thing."
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"Thanks," said Riley, reaching over to put his hand lightly on top of hers. "I thought I was gonna break my neck when my hatchet slipped off the line there at the end!" he admitted. "Guess I'd have just hit the floor." He grinned slightly. "Sometimes I can be too sneaky. One time last year, I was tracking deer at HIT when no less than six freaking bears come along and bed down right underneath my tree. I could arrow a couple of them, but then the rest would start ganging up to push the tree over, or lay in wait for me when I climbed down. I spent half the day in my blind watching them scratch each other's backs till they wandered off and I had to make my own way back." He grinned. "Finally did catch that deer, though, and that was pretty nice."
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"You did nothing to stop what came before, or later. Stalin could have piled the bodies to the roof of the world, and your tribe would have done nothing because the boundaries of their precious sanctum had not been violated. The world could have been damned to Hell, then, and after, and your people would have done nothing but watch." Frost pointed at her, heedless of her towering strength and towering rage. "As we all were - in Stalin's name." Despite his anger, the edges of grief were beginning to crowd around his voice. "All the heroes of those days are gone, Klara. All that are left are those who learned to lie. To run. And to survive." He looked away, then back. "I should not hate you. You fled when you could, because it was easier than staying. But those of us left in the world were left to burn."
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"No. Though Erik and Min say I am excellent with children." He walked where Talya had pointed, taking his time with slow, heavy steps that were graceful for a man so big. "I have helped with adoptions. That was a pleasant task." Knowing Talya did not know Yolanda meant he decided to save his question about her for Erik. When Talya was done, he set her down as gently as if he'd been handling a paper doll the whole time, and with as little fatigue. "I am privileged to call Erik and the others friends. Do you know when they will be returning?"
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"I don't like predators," said Riley, frank emotion in his voice. "Human beings, where I'm from, we've all learned to work together. We have bad guys sometimes, but people don't just...hurt each other the way they do here." He smiled faintly at Robin. "You don't have a house, I don't have a world. That's a fair deal. And hey, afterwards, I could always take you over to Riley and Peyton's house after that. They'd probably be happy to see I have a girlfriend." He snorted, and looked away. "If I can't show you my place, I'll be happy to see yours. Especially since Summers won't be watching us there the way she does in your dorm room."
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"Yes." Steve did not comment for a moment, instead walking over with Talya still balanced in his hands, to the other side of the room. "I am glad to be of help. My strength has been cybernetically enhanced. I have lifted objects as large as one of your city buses." Again the silence, as Talya went about her work. "My, ah, woman uses Google frequently. I will tell her about you." He hmmed. "If you know Yolanda Morales, I was part of the mission that rescued her from her murdered homeworld some years ago. She has grown into a fine young woman." He looked up at her and frowned. "Do you have children of your own?"
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I'd like to have Aquaria ask Dr. Ellis where the medicine is and then go get it - can she do that, HGM?
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Everybody take an HP! I need Notice checks from people with Super-Senses.
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"You are too kind, Lady Talya!" declared Dimitri sociably, wandering over to take a seat by the window, bottle and cup still in hand. "Ah, I remember first ladyfriend well. I pulled her pigtails so, and dipped them in inkwell. And then, came older brother to beat me soundly. Such is young love." He sipped his drink, swirling the liquid back and forth in his hand - he'd have to vomit it up later, but this was vodka with friends, how could he turn it down? "I do not think you are a whore, Set. You are good, honest liar, and I respect that." He sighed. "Had lady I was courting on Freedom League, but she genuinely dislikes me. Was one that told me where I should place bobblehead," he said to Set.
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"Somebody's gotta take care of your people, even if no one else gives a damn. Even if nobody even knows they're there." He nodded at her words, finding them perfectly compatible. "School's all right," said Riley with a little shrug. "We eat regular, we sleep in beds, everybody tries to take care of us even if they don't know very much. Lot better'n my Bayview, I'll tell you that much." He said it without the judgmental tone that he might have had with some other Claremont students - Robin actually knew what it meant to go without those things. "Pretty girls are nice too." He smiled faintly, then went on, a faint trace of bitterness in his tone. "Dunno if they'll let me out anytime soon. 'Specially with my bow. But if they do...you ever want company going home?" he asked her. "I can...I can be with people without hurting 'em. 'Cept those guys who messed with the girls on Oregon Street. You hear about that?" The girls on Oregon Street were mostly trans women of color. "Scared 'em out of their car, then put an arrow in the gas tank. That's how Bowman found me."
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"Oh, I'm still the world's greatest pirate," said Freebooter in Miss Americana's body with a very self-satisfied smirk, running his hands down the sides of the well-tailored substitute costume. "I just borrowed your image for a while to send a very timely message about superheroes and the military-industrial complex. Did you know there's an Omegadrone working for AEGIS?" he demanded seriously. "What the hell, am I right?" He didn't stay serious long, though - not that he ever did. "Don't worry, nothing will stick to your reputation for long." He laughed. "The real prize is already in my hands." And then the top of the robot's head snapped open like a hatch and - - The same thing was opening outside. As the heroes' blows all struck home, suddenly the heads of their robot targets snapped open like Christmas toys. Miracle Girl's shouted warning about a sudden IR spike was enough to let all the heroes get out of the way as suddenly flashes of light and eruptions of noise came from the opened heads of their robot selves, flashes of light and noise that erupted into the sky (with some visible as coming from the museum) that even against the clear blue sky were clearly visible as a pattern of red, white, and blue fireworks! As the fireworks erupted in the air, hidden speakers on the robots began playing The Stars and Stripes Forever at a deafening volume in a patriotic salute to...something?
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"It was Take Your Daughter To Work this week, so Yolanda was visiting." He had never quite mastered the use of the young woman's nickname. Though she had always thought it amusing when he called her "Yolo" instead of "Yoyo", he preferred the name the young woman had been given. "She watched Mara build for a time, but she was more interested in demonstrating her combat prowess to me. After that, there was an adventure where one of the technicians manufactured a thinking, mobile armchair and I had to sit on it while we evaluated its sentience. Fortunately, it was no smarter than an insect, and so they could continue their work without fear of a sentient mind. I should offer something to Sharl Tulink to thank him for his help," he went on, on that subject. "What do young people from his civilization like?"
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"Oh." Steve looked up at her for a moment, judging her words, before resuming his vigil as her support. "I am a security guard at HAX - Mara Hallomen's corporation. I am sorry if that was a personal question. The people Erik knows who can pick locks are generally former criminals." He was showing no signs of pressure from supporting her weight. In an utterly generic white T-shirt and blue jeans, he could have easily blended into a Freedom City crowd if not for his impressive build and distinctive appearance. "Clandestine entry is a valuable skill. When I am working with Erik, I generally..." He looked up at her and decided, "The 1960s were over fifty years ago. You are a superhero. When I am working with Erik, I generally enter through the front while the remainder of the team enters through the rear."
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"So instead you went to the nation that invented imperialism - the nation that would have incinerated your former comrades, and your own blessed nation, if the old men in London and Moscow had made just a few more mistakes in those days!" If he'd been taller, Dimitri would have been standing chest-to-chest with her. "And what was for?" he demanded of her. "You were a criminal there, too, using your power to get around the laws that sent other women to jail!" he hissed accusingly. "Do you know what happened when you were gone? When Stalin knew that you were gone and your tribe hidden away by magic, he charged Frost the lapdog, Frost the toady, with persuading them to return! He sent me to Kazakh SSR and said "Dimitri, persuade Amazons to return by any means necessary" If any other man had been in my place, then the corpses of thousands of peasants would have been stacked around your bloody utopia!"
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I'll take the Complication and get 15 on Notice with Skill Mastery.
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Steve cupped his hands, then offered them to her with a glance up at the ceiling. Between her height and his, it looked like there'd be no problem with her reaching the ceiling with room to spare - and her weight would not be a problem. "I am sure he will appreciate your labors," he told her with firm reassurance. In the mirrored reflections on the wall, Tayla could see Steve not so much as glancing upwards as she ascended him, instead staring at his own reflection in the glass. "I come here as well. But I am too heavy for the equipment. I am usually here when the children are." He breathed in and out, slow and regular like a metronome. "Are you a reformed criminal?" he asked.
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Aquaria gave a startled yelp and jumped behind Black Knight, obviously scared. "I am on parole!" she announced to the police, her hands high in the air, spelling out each word of what was obviously a memorized speech. "If you look in my pocket, you will find my Project Freedom ID Card. My name is Aquaria Innsmouth, I am a responsible citizen, just like you!" She stuck her head out from behind Black Knight and smiled with just the front part of her face, not wanting to frighten the police officers any further. Then she stopped smiling. "There was a very bad human here. He said he was a god, then he said he was a time traveler, then he said he was from the Terminus, He was the one that did this."
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"Yes," agreed Steve as he finished stacking the weights. Shaking her hand firmly, he said, "Hello. My name is Steve." His hand felt slightly odd in Talya's grip, as if he'd been the subject of reconstructive surgery, or if his flesh didn't quite fit onto his bones. He was, he knew, an odd-looking fellow by Earth-Prime standards - his brown skin completely hairless, but married by scarring along the joints that bespoke long-ago trauma, his height matched by muscular breadth across the chest. "I am a friend of Erik's. I do not know who you are," he admitted, his deep voice slow and precise. He looked up at the ceiling. "What were you looking for up there?"
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With Miss Americana busy with a teleconference in Tokyo, Steve had excused himself to walk around the city - a process that he found much more relaxing than public transportation. As had been happening more and more lately, he found himself walking to the Interceptors' training center in the West End; the school founded by his friend Erik Espadas. What was a walk of several miles was hardly an exertion for him - and so it was in the evening hours he found himself walking in the front door with a faint jingle of bells. Not one for idle conversation, he walked in without a word, his heavy footsteps creaking on the wooden floors as he caught sight of the unknown figure working on the ceiling. Steve made a few assumptions - that anyone inside the dojo was there for a reason, that the mysterious woman was delicately balanced and that speaking would startle her (and probably fall on the floor below, padded or otherwise, so instead he politely walked over to the free weights in one corner of the room (which had been left out by the previous class) and began casually stacking the weights back, starting with the 500 lb unit. Disorder was never something he'd enjoyed.
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"-I am Dimitri to my friends, woman-," hissed Frost, surprised at how hot his anger still burned after seventy years. "-What makes you think you can just set things aside now and pretend that all that has passed between us has never passed?-" The yawning gulf of history, not for the first time that very day, dangled at his feet. "-Did you never wonder what would happen when you left? When you had your precious freedom?-" He kept his finger from jabbing in the direction of Klara's wife by sheer force of will, instead shoving his hands in his pockets when he glared up at her. "-Stalin hated and feared the Peoples' Heroes anyway. You gave him proof that we were a nest of traitors to be hunted down. In your happy little British home with your wife and your cup of tea, did you ever wonder why it is only me who is left?-"
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That's a miss!
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"Oh, you can," Nina parried back, smiling as she enjoyed the conversational play with the other woman. "You just have to start early, with an intensive education for each and every child that lets them grow into the future ruler of their own destiny. No one need be left behind by inferior ability when a strong enough state can make sure everyone is raised the same." "But some people are never going to be as smart as other people," Mark pointed out gently. "You can't have a government that leaves behind the people who just can't keep up. And you know that's true," he added with a grin. "Remember the crossword puzzle, when you said I was lucky I was so pretty?" "True," admitted Nina. "And you are very pretty." She hmmed. "With any luck genetic technology will keep advancing and future generations of children will all be dealt the same hand. When everyone is superior, no one will be," she added with a sage nod. "You know," Mark was offering the others, "when we're done here, I could take you guys somewhere outside the city...?"
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"I think breaching the defenses of the castle, even by stealth, is a mistake at this juncture," replied Steve, who had spent days puzzling through the tactics of the situation. "At this point the League is aware that she is in the custody of the Swift and the other heroes who dwell within the DuTemps Building. If we play the aggressor, then we make her the innocent victim of prejudice. Heroes do love an innocent to protect against the wicked." Anger boiled at the back of his voice at the very thought that Tarva could fall into that category. "So we plan, and we reconnoiter - but we do not act until we can all agree something has gone more wrong than it has already."