Avenger Assembled
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"Oh, I want that," said Riley with a cocky smile. "And I want this, too." The same part of Riley that kept him alive while climbing high tree branches and fighting dangerous monsters reminded him that he actually had very little idea what 'this' was - just the occasional glimpse of romance in pre-Millennium movies and lonely observations of happy couples in the lost world he'd left behind. But then he realized that didn't matter - what mattered was that he had a girlfriend, she was cute, and her lips were just calling out for him to lean over and kiss her on them. "I think you're pretty cool." And so he did kiss her, planting a long, slow kiss on her lips, reaching up to run his fingers through her thick dark hair. She tasted like...she tasted like...his first kiss. And it was great.
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"Guy didn't like that I have girl parts," said Riley challengingly, meeting Matt's gaze without flinching as he stared up at the other teen. "He's lucky all he got was the stink bomb." He shot a glare around the common room at that, catching several of the boys there looking at him, before deliberately looking away. "Guns are too hard to fix. You need machine parts, you need tools, you need stuff that's better spent on other things." He put his hand on the bow. "Like making a weapon that'll take down somebody who's bulletproof." He added with a hard smirk Matt's way, "You think a gun is all I need to blend in with the gangs, huh? You really gonna go that way with me? Here I was about to say anybody kicks a man's dog deserves a punch in the face, and good for you."
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"This? This is just for survival." Riley took the hatchet and put it back in the belt holster he'd left on the table in front of him. "This is what I use for real action." He reached under the table and took out his crossbow, gently setting it down on the table while he stood up to fasten the holster on his belt again. He was a fair amount shorter than Rivera; but he was well-used to that sort of thing. He looked down at the dog again, fixing a suspicious look at the animal, before making eye contact with Matt again. "I remember you and your pack from the museum. That old guy really didn't like 'em, huh?" He grinned humorlessly, showing more sympathy with Matt than the curator who'd been so unhappy about the 'service dogs'. "Looks like somebody else didn't like your face," he commented. "You all right?" He certainly knew all about getting into fights, even if it hadn't actually turned to blows the other day.
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Riley grinned, remembering the men in Raymond who'd been especially successful with the ladies - and swashbuckling heroes from flickering movies he'd watched on battered old televisions. "Do you want one?" he asked, putting his hand directly on hers. "'Cause if you are, I think you're really cute, and I really think I want to kiss your lips." He swallowed hard. "I'll catch you the best game, and...and I guess that doesn't mean anything here," he admitted, "but I'll do lots of other stuff for you. If you want," he added, a little abashedly. "I, uh, I know a lot of girls like regular boys better." Riley had never actually had a girlfriend, not really - not that he was going to admit that now!
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Riley went noticeably stock-still at the sight of the dog, cocking his head and locking his gaze with the unknown beast. He'd been around dogs all his life - not the little toy animals that had died with the humanity that had cared for them, but big working dogs like German Shepards and mastiffs, or small, clever hunters like terriers and foxhounds. And wolves, of course. Lots of wolves. There was something odd about these animals..."Riley, this is Matt Rivera. He's in the same situation you are," John was saying. "Matt, this is Riley Quinn." "Really." said Riley, looking up at the tall, skinny guy without bothering to rise from his seat. Geez, I thought people from Earth-Prime were supposed to be jolly. He had to admit, he and Rivera certainly were dressed alike. Rivera was dressed roughly for a Claremont kid, matching Riley's clothes - the obviously borrowed jacket, the faded flannel shirt, the much-patched jeans, which looked more like they belonged on a street kid than a Claremont student. "So, what," he asked skeptically, "you from the dimension of dogs?"
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Riley, not one given to poetry, fell silent as he tried to think of a good way to describe his home timeline that would impress this very pretty girl. It was hard. He was imagining what it would be like to kiss her, and lay her down on the roof, and - "I don't, uh, have any cash," he finally offered, a little lamely. He ran his head over his closely shaven head. "We don't really use money. I guess I could borrow some from my other mom, but she's not really my mom." He looked speculatively over at Robin. "I think your jacket's really cool, by the way. A lot of people do that back home." With his eyes on her, he touched the stitched parts she'd put back together. "Everything here is different," he finally said, slowly taking his hand away. "Some of the people are the same, but almost everyone who's alive here..." He made a gesture out at the school, the town, the world. "is dead. Or worse. For a long time now." He suddenly seemed to flinch, as if he'd drawn too deeply from some inner reserve, and looked away. "...anyway, if you've never had a boyfriend, you want one?" he asked.
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Early September Common Room, Boy's Floor Riley sat alone in the common room, shoulders hunched, sharpening his hatchet. The jacket he wore was one size too big, a bulky, heavy outdoors jacket that had been a gift from his other self before leaving 'home' for Claremont. It was a nice enough jacket - it was certainly like nothing he'd ever worn back in his real home. Nothing this nice would have gone unpatched in fifteen years since the end of the world. The other boys were doing boy things; playing video games, watching television, and talking to each other. Riley, with keen ears and keen eyes, was intimately aware of every whisper of his name; every glance his way. Everyone on their floor had heard the yelling when Lubis had caught him in the bathroom - and they'd smelled the stink bomb afterwards, and seen the RAs coming back and forth and separating the two boys. Lucky I didn't make him eat that arrow. Divine avatar or not, he was pretty sure 'Garuda' wasn't tougher than impervium. Crossbow, and the duffel bag containing all his Earthly possessions, were at his feet under the table. He had only one companion there. "You ever thought about going double-headed?" Riley had the idea that John Smith had been one of the more elite students at Claremont in years past. In his early twenties, the crimefighter was still active traveling between dimensions, but in Freedom City mostly occupied himself with his duties as a combat instructor and RA at the Claremont Academy. He was the one who'd gotten Riley and Tyler Lupis separated, and made sure Mr. Hawke and his wife had put Riley up for the night in the faculty apartments across the campus, while Lupis had bunked with Smith himself - after some calisthenics. Garuda wasn't there right now, but Riley could see his buddy Gomera off brooding in a corner about how hard it was to be rich and well-fed every night. "Nah," said Riley shortly as he hefted the hatchet. "Not just for throwing, 'Sfor working, too." He pointed to the flat, weathered rear of the blade. "Use this for hammering and stuff." "Makes sense," agreed Smith before looking up as the common room door opened again. "Hey. There's the guy I was telling you about."
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"I get attitude about a lot of things," said Riley frankly. "But it's OK. These little...kids here, I don't care what they think. They're a bunch of pompous, spoiled jackasses who wouldn't know what to do in a real fight if it was biting them in the goddamned face." The words simmered with a teenage boy's angry bile, but they had the ring of truth, too. "Things are different here than where I'm from." Deciding he had to trust somebody, he went on, "I'm from a...a different Freedom City. Same place, most of the same people, different history." He looked out at the school, and Bayview, and thought of the stories he'd heard about the ruins of Claremont, den of one of the largest nests of Ferals in all of Freedom City. Woodsmen who came through there had a way of not coming back. He thought of the argument, no, the fight earlier, and looked at Robin. "You're real pretty. You have a boyfriend?"
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Kindness To Every Living Thing
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in The Realms Beyond
A DNA sample was all the locals asked for to study her powers - and after a painless blood drawing that seemed to work by air pressure rather than a needle, they soon were loaded into an underground tram for the trip to the university. "It's not that your powers can power the machine," Dr. Siddig told Cerulean almost apologetically, "but rather, well..." - "It's only a few photons wide, I admit!" declared Dr. Snorrison, a bearded, boisterous fellow with a barrel chest and carefully tended blonde locks hanging down his back. He was in his laboratory at Reykjavik University, a notably less elaborate place than the super-science facilities Cerulean had glimpsed back closer to her version of Freedom City. The dimensional gateway he had on his desk did indeed look like the gateway Siddig had described as being part of al-Darsah's territory now - it was, however, the size of a laptop computer rather than the size of a wall. "But if you can do so much with light," he offered to Cerulean, who had been accompanied by Siddig into the room, "surely you can transport yourself along it?" -
That'll work! Echo is now up.
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Citizen made a hard landing in the dirt at the feet of one of the big monsters, having done some hasty calculations in his head. "Hey, waste-of-nitrates!" he called up at the huge skeleton, heedless of the size difference between them. "I just realized something!" He grabbed the giant by the phalanges and began to lift, straining the enhancements of his robotic body to their utmost. "You're not sinking in the mud, which means you're not as heavy as you look. And if whatever's holding you together can handle your weight..." With a sudden effort, he lifted the skeleton completely off the ground! "It can probably handle this!" Like a tiny tornado, he suddenly whirled around and began using the giant creature he held as a battering ram/club, smashing aside the jotun skeletons in a boney storm with a noise like an avalanche, skeletal fragments larger than his body flying everywhere. He kept burying himself in pieces of bone as more and more skeletons exploded, but each time he kicked his way out and resumed his methodical assault with his increasingly fall-aparty ersatz club. "Whoops!" By the time he was done, he was standing amid a huge pile of debris like so many fallen boulders, and the skeleton he'd held (along with many others) had fallen into pieces. Good thing I'm not made of flesh right now, I'd have crushed myself. "Guess you were weaker than I thought. Oh well - science still wins!"
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I'll surge and make with hitting everybody! I'll take 10 since their minions and spend an HP to cancel the fatigue.
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Citizen switches his Flight-Super-Strength away to all Super-Strength. (He'll land for this.) That puts his Grapple at +35 He'll grab the nearest jotun. http://orokos.com/roll/324055 = 23 Grapple http://orokos.com/roll/324056 = 42 MEDIOCRE! HP http://orokos.com/roll/324058 = 50 Better, better.
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Neptune fixed his great watery eyes on the heroes thoughtfully, and then suddenly seemed to come to a terrible decision. The seawater that made up his body was indeed real ocean water - as he spoke, suddenly the water seemed to fill with a sudden eruption of predatory fish and sharks that had been summoned from his own watery depths. "So no one else knows you're here?" It was an ominous question - one that grew more ominous as Neptune raised his mighty trident threateningly, lightning beginning to crackle across its tines even as the sky overhead darkened with the ominous rush of a seagoing storm. "Well then. It's been fifty of your years since I killed a superhuman. Let's see if I still remember how."
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Initiative time on the water. Give me a Technology check, sho
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A Picture of Sophisticated Grace (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Port Regal
When Taylor left the young women to their own devices, Aquaria and Jessie decided to cut their trip short - after all, they already had almost everything they needed. They couldn't take the rental cart upstairs with them, so the grocery store boxed everything up for them. Jessie could throw cars and Aquaria could lift them - but their real strength wasn't really at issue here. The over-stuffed boxes together looked like quite a load for two young women passing themselves off as normal to carry, and so it was that Aquaria, Jessie, and Indira all found themselves carrying boxes of groceries, loaded into the elevator for the trip back upstairs. "So can we meet your friends?" Aquaria suddenly asked, twisting her shoulders to look at Indira and speaking over the music. "I promise I won't eat any more lobsters." Probably not gonna get any more lobsters for a while. "and Jessie's really fun. That way we'll all be together, and everyone will know everyone." -
"When I was taken away to the depths of space, you built a machine to bring me back to you. When I was cast into the depths of time, you were there to greet me when I came home." He squeezed her hand lightly and said, "There is nothing too hard for you." The words were said with a lover's faith - and belief. He took a step, carefully, making sure she had the feeling of walking with him rather than being dragged. They were on the sidewalk in what was to anyone's eyes simply a suburban street in Earth-Prime; but it was a place of fear for the woman he loved. "I have heard of another Hanover," he said, his voice cast to distract her from what lay around them. "From the boy in the Goodman Building, the dimensional exile. Where all this is one vast forest, and the beasts of the wild hunt here still. I prefer this one." A car passed by, an electrician's minivan, passing them on their side of the street on its way down towards one of Gina's neighbors.
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Ooh, a called shot vs the rider! Even upping the to-hit DC is more than enough to do the trick here. Tou vs DC 29 (the Autofire added +3 DMG) 7! The rider is down. The dino is still conscious - and not looking so good!
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Refpoint to the irrepressible Comrade Frost - give him the rollover PP as well. Edge Fortress So Strong Whole New World Harrier So Great A Cause Broadcast Day Citizen Teen Romance Fast-Forward TV Land GMing The Killers Why Can't I Breathe
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"True," said Frost, drinking the ichor to be polite. Well. That..tasted about how it looked. A look of distaste on his face, he set the cup down. "Your heart's blood is bilious," he commented, "what a commentary, eh?" He sighed softly. "As for what you say, well, until Lady Hel calls for my hand in her service to repay the old debt at Lake Ladoga, I am my own creature, and it pleases me to aid the little girl. She has powerful friends, and great power of her own. She makes a fine ally." He shrugged. "And if I must play her perverse uncle to do it, well, it is pleasant to be around young people of character these days. You know how it is in the Peoples' Heroes in this new, so-called enlightened millennium - all the young people want the glory of the old days but wants others to pay the price glory demands." He made a little gesture towards the hole in the phantasm's chest, then towards his own. "For now, it pleases me to be more than the Ice Commissar - and it amuses me to displease others in the process." - Tarva screamed in agony and dropped to her knees, black, ichorous blood beginning to drip down her sleeves and stain her dress. "I will not betray you!" she promised the Kinigosi, forcing herself to crawl towards it even as pain exploded across her back like the all-too-familiar scourging of nine-tails. It hurt. It hurt very much indeed, the agonies of loss and despair leaking through the shared wounds like shared blood. But how long, in the arms of Shadivan Steelgrave, had she longed for something sweet as pain? As thick and pungent as despair? When she grabbed the beast's limb, ignoring the steely creature's razor-sharp bite along its forelimbs, the hounds receded - assuming their summoner had chosen to devour the kill alone. Reaching for her belt, she pulled out her knife, her knife, her knife, the knife that had done so much. She raised it high, pulling herself to her knees. "YOU WILL SUFFER NO LONGER!"
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"Not a lotta demand for creative writing where I'm from." said Riley, still sharpening the hatchet. "I mean, people still do it, but it doesn't keep the lights on, you know?" He tossed the hatchet smoothly back and forth from hand to hand, then replaced it at his waist. "I guess we'll probably see each other in class. Everybody's gotta take superhero ethics and stuff." He smirked again. "That's gonna be fun. Wanna know a secret?" he asked, leaning close. He distinctly smelled of men's aftershave. "I don't actually have any powers, at all. Only reason I have the costume was for scavenging. At least that means I don't have to wear that blue and gold crap, man, those things, you can..." He was looking at Robin, but seemed to be looking at something else. "You can spot them for miles, even in the trees."
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"Did. Guy was a jackass. Gonna get a new one tomorrow," said Riley shortly, chewing his way through his bread methodically, as if trying to extract every ounce of nutrition. "Prolly that Matt guy, the one with all the dogs? His first roomie had allergies or somethin'" Riley smirked. "Give the guy credit, at least he didn't bitch about the dye bomb I left him. Alien bastard thinks he can talk crap around my back, like I don't have ears, either." He shot a look at Robin's way, judging her response to what he'd said, before he went on. "So. They got you in any of these developmental classes?" As they talked, he unhitched the hatchet at his belt and pulled out a small multitool, and with a small series of metallic scraping sounds began sharpening the former with the latter. "Damn stupid if you ask me. I spent my whole life around high-tech or super-tech stuff, hell, I make my own binary explosive arrows, and I need remedial English just because I never went to a damn regular high school."
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"There's Polaris," said Riley automatically, pointing towards the North Star. "And over there's Sirius, and Canopus..." He trailed off, putting his hand back on his lap. "I only know them for navigation, which is not easy with this much glow around." He made a general gesture at the many lights on the Claremont campus, then at the half-obscured sky overhead. He took a few bites of the roll, tossing it back and forth in his hand. "Maybe. I'm not real good at sitting still. I'll probably do it just 'cause somebody has to." Turning his head, he shot Robin a speculative look. He'd figured out there was probably a reason she wasn't talking about her parents - she certainly wouldn't be the first orphan he'd ever met. So it was better not to bring up that subject, not unless she wanted to. So he fell silent, just enjoying the company and the strange noises of the city all around them. "You gotta roomate?"
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"When I was seven years old, my father came into my bedchamber, awoke me from a sound sleep and told me it was time for me to see something important - something worthy of the daughter of a king." Nina wasn't looking at Trevor, she wasn't looking at anything, not even the dials and gauges in front of her. "I was very excited," she said, remembering, "because I hardly ever saw Father in those days, and time with him was very special." She began drumming her fingers lightly on the metal in front of her, slow, regular, back and forth. "The whole court was there, all the ministers of state, and even Farida - he was the only other royal still in the palace then. I stood behind him and I remember he had this...this look on his face, every time he glanced back at me, and I remember thinking that he must have done something naughty again because he looked like he'd been weeping. But of course he knew what he was about to see, and he was just a boy of ten." Abruptly, her hand stopped. "When the whole court was there, a man was dragged out in chains by the palace guards. He was some...barbarian Atlantean who had allied with Father to seize an orichalcum treasure house, and then tried to kill him and take the loot for himself. I remember he was defiant even then, even in the presence of Typhoon, which I had never seen before. My father was like a god to his subjects in those days. At least as far as I knew," she admitted. "The warlord gave a little speech and said that his clan would pay no ransom to Surfacers and that they would come in force to rescue him. And so my father laughed and said, "Then let there be no ransom! You will be returned to your people!" She made a little gesture with her fingers, closing them together like a baker pinching dough. "It is possible to drown an Atlantean," she said, her voice very soft. "You simply use something other than water. When it was done, he hurled the corpse to the depths of the sea to make sure the Atlanteans would find what was left. Typhoon had won again" She stood up suddenly so she could look down at Trevor. "Mark has told me about the enemies you have faced. I...don't expect you to fear my father. But I do."
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"Well, I mean, I can travel in time," Richard offered. "Remember when we went back in time to do the dinosaur thing?" "Dinosaur! Groar!" offered JJ cheerfully in the middle of their conversation. "But I guess you are the expert," he said doubtfully, peering uncertainly at the scroll. "All right, well, it was just one of a couple of ideas. Maybe we'll do another international thing; my wife's been wanting to visit the Mediterranean again." He studied Taylor herself, then went on, "Hey, have you ever thought about going on TV yourself?" It was a sincere question. "We've gotten some people from the Bay Area who can do some spells on in the past, but even they'd say they're no real wizard." He grinned, snapping his own book out into his hand. "We'd pay you our expert consulting fee, and I could let you see my magic thing! I looked up the name inside once, I think she was a real Master Mage back in Victorian times or something!"