Avenger Assembled
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"Wait, the what now-" Aquaria's question was cut off by a scream of agony as the searing heat from the exploding man flashed over her body, burning away the water and oxygenated lotion on her skin and leaving her breathless and gasping like a fish out of water. Sent hurling on her back, her lungs pumping frantically as her throat bulged wide, she blinked back tears as she fought for control. The curse of the amphibian, she remembered in the voice of the beautiful Naija, at home in neither land nor water. Forgetting the Surfacer criminal for a moment, she pulled herself to her feet and wordlessly ripped open her singed hoodie and T-shirt, exposing her pale green and white belly. Leaping over to the water cooler on the other side of the room, she yanked off the top and immediately up-ended it all over herself. When enough water was on her skin that she didn't feel like screaming again, she called to the others, "He's not dead! He just ran away!"
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Tou vs 20 http://orokos.com/roll/330629 = 24!
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Starlight's blast did more than just disorient the titan - Neptune seemed to collapse down into the ocean with her shot, his body of water undulating as it seamlessly merged with the blue-green ocean beneath. Or so it seemed, anyway - under the water, she could see the rapidly moving outline of the deity heading in the opposite direction from where she'd come. It didn't look like he was retreating, however - more like he was gathering reinforcements. With her allies heading back towards the ship, it didn't look like they had much of any options. Starlight and the others were greeted on deck by Monsoon and Edge - the latter having hastily returned with the sick engineering crew and the captain (who were being tended by the ship's doctor, his costume looking singed and battered. "We have to get out of this dimension, right now!" the usually optimistic hero called urgently, his voice reaching down into the engine room thanks to Apex's comm signal. "I went to Freedom City, but ZEUS is there! The actual Greek god! The whole place was overrun by Olympian monsters! I don't think this is our dimension at all!"
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"Hello, Joe! And Asli, nice to see you again." Outside of his costume, Mark Lucas was tall, blond, and tan - only his relatively slim frame keeping him from looking like an Aryan superman. The dark-skinned woman at his side, wearing a red dress that went well with Mark's black sport jacket and tie, also cut down that impression. "This is Nina al-Darsah, my girlfriend. She works in the refugee movement," added, as the pretty brunette shook Joe and Asli's hand. Though of course Joe already knew exactly who Monsoon was. "With Gulf refugees, yes," agreed Nina with a glance at Mark, her accent showing she hailed from a similar part of the world. "Asli, Mark tells me you're in music?" Asli was interrupted by the arrival of their waiter, who guided them past several tables before depositing them in a corner booth that Mark had specially picked out. Nina slid in first on her side, then Mark slid in next to her.
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Riley stared at the horrific scene - and for a moment, his friends saw his eyes flare wide with a mixture of burning rage and icy fear like nothing they'd seen on the twitchy archer's face before. And then he exhaled, and his face became a cool, calm blank, as if he was another person entirely, or rather as if he were a person far away from all of this. Working the lever on his crossbow back and forth, he fired a bolt on a line directly up into the air, striking the corner of a building left relatively untouched by the sudden eruption. Ignoring the chaos at his feet, he began working his way up the side of the small skyscraper by a combination of free-climbing and grapple-line, cooly bracing himself on awnings and windowsills as he went up the side of a ten-story building with the ease of a mountain goat climbing a hill. By the time he reached the top of the tower, his muscles were obviously tense, bunching up beneath his poncho and shirt, but his face was still a mask. Moving with practiced ease, he walked over to the skyscraper's roof access door and wedged his hatchet inside the twin handles, providing an external lock and preventing anyone below from coming up. When that was done, he raised binoculars to his face and began scanning the scene, first the chaos at street-level, then the horizon, evidently looking for either an escape route, other survivors, or the source of the carnage. With his face so still, and without having said a word since the scenario began, it was hard to tell what was on his mind.
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"Yeah, well, I don't have any money," said Riley with a shrug. "Peyton gave me about 2000 dollars, I think, but what am I gonna do with that? So when I want something they don't have on the school menu, I have to go get it for myself. 'Sides, it's more fun to handle things on your own. What if that shop closed down, or that soup kitchen burnt up, or those dumpsters got scavenged before you got there?" he asked Matt seriously, hoping he could pry a little independent spirit out of what was already a pretty independent-sounding guy. "Cops here don't know anything about getting around in a city. Even if they knew I was there, what are they gonna do? And what super's gonna care about hunting in the city?"
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A Picture of Sophisticated Grace (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Port Regal
Aquaria did her best to be helpful during the cooking process, especially when Kimber broke out the bacon for frying. But she was obviously too excited by these new circumstances, and all these new people - she wound up poking several limbs through Kimber during the cooking process, and at least once shooting out a long pink tongue as thick as her forearm and about as long! She obviously found the whole thing hilarious, croaking so loud her throat sacs bulged. She had climbed onto the walls by now and was padding around while waffles cooked and Jessie made friends with everybody, experimenting with the ceiling with her long, padded fingers that stuck to interior walls as well as they did wet, seaweedy rocks on the coast. As everybody talked, the first clap of thunder from outside made her give a happy yelp and scramble over to press her face against the glass. The squall outside quickly grew into a bigger, broader one and soon thick, fat drops of rain were splattering against the glass outside as the sky turned truly, deeply dark. "Ooh, that looks so niccceeee," she whispered in a lisp, her muzzled face still pressed against the glass, big eyes staring out at the summer storm. -
After another hard kick to the ribs didn't faze this cybershark, Aquaria thought fast, scrabbling backwards down the Ferris wheel as she studied the shark like the amphibious top predator she was. With an explosive burst of energy, she raced back upwards and met the thing's charge with her own. Using momentum, she grabbed the shark by the legs and yanked with a muscular strength far greater than her mass should have allowed. She was a child of the sea, after all, with a muscle density greater than any Surfacer's! Her efforts paid off and the shark went flying past her, off-balance and unable to catch itself, and landed on the concrete far below with a sickening splat-thump. Leaping downward herself, her big goggly eyes flicked around the area as she bellowed "JESSIE!? WHERE ARE YOU!?"
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http://orokos.com/roll/330417 = 24 The shark can't bring her down
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Aquaria Power Attacks for +2, raising her Damage DC to 23, and takes 10 to punch the nearby minion! Does that work?
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"Nah, that's okay," said Richard, waving his hand sociably at Mara. "I got most of the stuff I could understand. Nice to be around someone else that can talk really fast even if I don't know all the words you're using. Hah-hah, we could probably talk at super-speed, but I wouldn't get any of the science stuff. But I've known my share of scientists, heh-heh, when I was a kid I used to spend summers at Madame Zero's place while my mom ran errands for her. Ah, good times, good times," he said, speaking of the notorious ice controller and murderous science criminal. "So what kind of science do you do?" he asked. - "Your mom talks a lot," said Holly, a little frostily, having caught the conversation between the adults. "She sounds weird." "My mom is a genius," replied Yolanda with unshakeable faith. "And I bet she's done more than your mom or dad both. What do they even do, just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo on television?"
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Now I know which build you used! Aquaria's Reflex save http://orokos.com/roll/330404 = 20! Tou vs 20 http://orokos.com/roll/330405 = 11. Okay, failing by nine would leave her bruised and dazed? I'll take it. She can skill master a 15 on Notice, just barely.
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I did not actually post IC, but that's okay! No worries. Am I up now?
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"Some worlds are too damn dangerous for people from Earth-Prime, even people with fancy superpowers" added Riley, shooting Fred a sharp look. "If superpeople just wandered into my Freedom City without knowing where they were or how to protect themselves, they'd be dead'r'worse, in 24 hours." There'd been a lot of speculation about other dimensions, Riley knew, but that had never accomplished anything - maybe rescue parties _had_ come through from the worlds familiar to his own, and simply been torn apart or transformed. "And I've heard there are worse. People here jus' dunno enough about dimensions'n'stuff to go screwin' around with the multiverse whenever they get bored."
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Outside, Frost silently poured Talya a healthy libation of vodka martini - right in the convenient cup that acted as the flask's cap! "To our health!" he declared sociably, knowing he'd get very little out of the super-chilled drink himself. Standing at the balcony's rail, he looked down at the city below - glad that DuTemps money had been enough to allow this building things like balconies that opened to the air. "Ah, Talya," he said in Russian, "There are so very few of us left. Old enemies like Nacht-Krieger and Kantor still breathe, and even the Katana has his new body, but those we once fought for..." He waved a hand. "Another thirty years, and they will be gone. And then people like you and I, and those two in there, will be all that is left."
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Riley tensed as the needle seemed to go into Anibal's neck - but then relaxed as he reminded himself it was all just a computer-generated dream. "Yeah, okay," he called to Dauntless, squeezing Robin again before he walked out onto the practice floor, murmuring "Nice try," with a wry shrug to Anibal. Taking up a position in the middle of the simulator, he took a moment to draw and ready his weapons, automatically falling back on the combat training he knew so well. His friends saw him unsnap the leather clasps that held his hatchet in place at his hip - and pull out his crossbow, holding the loaded weapon balanced and ready in his arms. He turned his head to shoot a quick wink Robin's way, then set his teeth, ready for the instructor's tricks. "Let's do this!"
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"Kimber, Kimber, it's all right," Tarva told her, obviously trying to reassure her lover in the midst of the latter's panic. "It'll be all right. I promise, I won't take any more children. I know it frightens you - and I never, never want you to be afraid of me." She let out of a breath of her own, then smiled comfortingly, standing up to put her hands on Kimber's arms. "Besides, what could come to me here? This is the safest place in Earth-Prime with so many mighty friends within, and my own wards on the walls. You'd have to open the door to let them in. We'd never betray each other like that."
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Tarva carried out the next few minutes with the practiced ease that told Kimber she must have had plenty of experience with this. She transported them both in a fissure of shadow, the two of them briefly emerging in a well-appointed nursery decked out in the pink that was a girl's traditional colors. With a sigh, she set the still-sleeping baby in its pink, flowery bassinet, and then glided out into the living room where a man and woman were laying together on the couch, opaque black globes hovering over their heads. "It's Eternal Night's Rest," she told Kimber with a whisper, waving her fingers and sucking the globes back onto her hands. "They'd have slept as long as I wanted, felt no pain or fear, and awakened as after a restful night's sleep. I crafted it myself, you know," she said with cooly professional professional pride." As the couple began stirring slightly, Tarva muttered another few quick words - and they were back upstairs. This time, though, they were in Kimber's room - the scene of their recent encounter. With a practiced smile, Tarva sat down on the bed, her hands folded in her lap, and looked primly at Kimber, obviously expecting a lecture.
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Already walking away with Talya, Frost froze, stock-still, when Klara addressed him. His hands, loose at his sides, clenched into fists - an autonomic reflex even though if he was going to strike Klara, he certainly wouldn't use his fists to do it. When he spoke, his Russian was free from the avancular perversion that usually infused his English. "<Not now. Not here.>" Without extending an invitation, and without refusing one either, he kept walking away rather than vent his grievances at Warrior Woman all over the exhibit hall. "Here," he offered Talya, "I keep vodka cold, just for warm lady!" He winked at her as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a shiny silver flask, polished mirror-bright for the special occasion - the German words still clearly visible on it identifying it as once belonging to Wilhelm Kantor. "My personal mix," he offered Talya as they headed for a big, open-air balcony that provided them with a view of the city below. It was screened off from tourists, but the velvet rope was no barrier at all to either Dimitri or Talya. "Will have to tell me how it is."
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"I will," promised Avenger. "See you soon." He hung up the phone and father and son drove in silence for a while. "You're lucky she didn't teleport into the car," he said firmly. "Or teleport you out of it, directly into your bedroom closet." Ah, so many nights trying to build the boy's night-vision. "Anyway, you already know what you did was very foolish. You don't need to hear it again from me. What was so boring about that museum you had to slip anyway, anyway? Don't you know we know people in that place?"
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Riley nodded silently at that, not foolish enough to agree to actual property destruction where people might be watching. He might not get lashes here, but there still might be...consequences. "They did...oh, man." He hugged Robin, not caring that people were watching, or for the muscles so tense she could have cracked his back with them. He knew what it meant to have only relics of the people you'd lost - and to be without your family. "I'm so sorry, baby, that's a crappy little mindscrew. You need any help with that spell, Raina, you let me know," he said with a fierce look his friend's way way. "You're not alone in this. We're right here for you."
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Suddenly, there was a faint poof of outrushing air - and the young heroes realized they weren't alone! Standing there on the quad about halfway between Raina's group and the new arrival stood a college-age guy in a bright-red costume, antenna sticking up over his head and big orange goggles giving him the vague appearance of an ant. "Hey, everybody!" he announced with a cheerful wave. "I'm Whoop-Ant, and I'm your tour guide! Welcome to Claremont, you guys!" He beamed expansively, then went on, "Whoop-Ant, the...eh, anyway, I mostly do dimensional adventures these days. And I go to college." He waved his hand and grinned. "But right now, I'm here to answer your questions and show you to your rooms. I bet you guys haven't even done the room-mate lotto yet."
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"...well, all right," said Tarva, her brow wrinkling at Kimber's reaction. She'd expected Kimber might need some persuasion - but not this level of resistance! "If that's what you want to do, that's what we'll do. But I don't see what you're so worried about," she told her lover reassuringly. "No one's ever noticed before. I'm not a fool, Kimber, and I'm not careless. I know you'd get in trouble with the mundane authorities if I was caught in a crime." She sounded a little skeptical of that idea; Kimber knew that Tarva tended to assume that powerful people were a much better solution to any problem than the laws of normal people. "I would never try and take another person's baby to keep." She squeezed Kimber's hands and smiled comfortingly at her. "The parents are sound asleep, will remember nothing, and they'll be awake as soon as I lift the spell. Come down with me and I'll show you." As she spoke, the baby rose up in the air, lifted by shadowy hands, and settled itself in Tarva's grasp.
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Frost looked up at Klara, icy red eyes flaring wide as he took her in. and said with sharp, pungent disgust, "Oh, it's you." The temperature in the room dropped noticeably when he made eye contact with the former Warrior Woman. He knew full well who this was, what she had done, and what the consequences had been for everyone else on the People's Heroes afterwards. He sneered in contempt at the notorious traitor and turned solicitously to Talya, deliberately turning his back on Klara. "Lady Talya, I have flask of finest vodka martini in coat pocket," he said, patting the parka he wore over his old military uniform. "Will you join me out of the way and share a toast? With such a crowd, place begins to stink."
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"Well well well, Solar Sentinel! Say, I never asked, are you like American astronaut, only goes to Sun at night to avoid flames? Ho-ho-ho!" Frost clapped Solar Sentinel on the back, perhaps a trifle too hard, and looked Torpedo Lass up and down. "Yes, I remember you." He assumed she must have dyed her hair in the years since - no respectable woman of their generation would have gone out looking like that. Or maybe she is not respectable? That has always been my favorite kind..."Heard of your resurrection. Pleasant you are still alive." He waved his hand. "When so many heroes are dead, is pleasant when some remain." His hands in his pockets, he looked up at the statuary. "Seventy years is long time. Children we saved are old men and women now. Their children are some of them grandfathers and grandmothers already."