Avenger Assembled

I thought you said we were out of combat now.

Ugh - I forgot how much Jessie hates the underground. I hope this'll be okay-hey wait a minute! Aquaria tensed, her crest rising inside her hoodie, and looked around - sniffing the air with her big nostrils. Aquaria's face wasn't quite shaped like a human's; her nose and the forward part of her large mouth were pushed forward like a snout. She had, as Jessie knew well, an excellent sense of smell. Unable to turn her head, she wound up turning her whole upper body back towards a young woman who looked about Jessie's age. The dark-skinned Surfacer was standing by the entrance to the mall's movie theater, studying the scenery just as Aquaria herself might have done without Jessie in tow. Except...she sniffed the air. That wasn't a Surfacer at all. "Jessssie," she whispered. "Doesss that one look funny to you? Not becausse of her sskin!" She didn't need another one of _those_ conversations.

Of course, it wasn't as easy as that - not when they didn't want a panicking crowd to interrupt the occasion of their first shopping expedition. After a firm noise from Jessie, Aquaria reluctantly put on her Freedom City Heroes hoodie and pulled up the grey fabric over her head - and put on her big, wide sunglasses to match. As long as she kept her head down, and her hands in the front pocket of the hoodie (or in the big gloves that were already in the pocket, courtesy of Jessie's sister-cousin), she would probably be okay. With one more look from her friend, Aquaria even consented to the most unpleasant fact of life on the Surface. Shoes. Muttering to herself, she sat down on the floor and began wrestling her feet into the big, bulky, clunky shoes that were all her oversized (by tiny-feeted unwebbed Surfacer standards, anyway) feet could fit into. "I saw a foot massager on television," she said as they made their way back out into the hallway. "We should get one of those." Downstairs, the underground shopping mall was crowded! Aquaria stayed close to Jessie, feeling nervous at the presence of so many Surfacers with their staring eyes, and bone-dry skin like a corpse, and tiny, shrunken eyes. Stay positive! She told herself - there were still plenty of things to see down here and lots she wanted to do, and if she freaked out, Jessie would never come this way again. Her head jerked automatically as she caught sight of a Surfacer child, running ahead of its, no, his parents and giggling, and Aquaria swallowed hard as she stepped close to Jessie, the two of them just past the big elevators that led down from the levels above. Her eyes flicked around behind her glasses, but luckily for her masquerade there wasn't anything to eat around here. "Let's hunt for food first. I want to get some sardines." She led the way towards the grocery store that anchored one end of the mall, slowly.

"Come on and witness the amazing magic of the...oh!" Tarva turned to Eve, a look of confusion on her pale face, before looking down at her arms. "Oh, this little gift from the dead cow? I hadn't really noticed." She concentrated, eyes turning black, and black light seemed to radiate from her arms, making the drying blood crumble away in frittering fragments of ash. "I've worn worse. And longer." She flexed her fingers back and forth, pale digits now clean, and smiled that too-bright smile at Eve as she visibly gathered her thoughts. "I was wroth," she finally said. "Foolishly so." She glanced back at Kimber. "All I did was embarrass Kimber - and burn my throat," she admitted. She did sound rather more hoarse than when she'd begun. "Do not fear," she told Eve with great sincerity. "It will not happen again."

Aquaria breathed a sigh of relief when Erin was gone, her bulging neck the only hint of her emotions. Jessie and her sister-cousin sharing a room was like sharks and dolphins sharing the same patch of ocean - creatures manageable enough on their own became liable to put blood in the water when they were together. "Okay!" she said, clapping her big hands together, long fingers wrapping around each other. "You should make a list of everything we need and find the money." Jessie had much better handwriting than she did; and was better at counting and remembering lots of numbers, too. "I'm going to take a shower and get dressed again, and then we can go shopping and meet people and get things. It'll be so exciting!" Inside the bathroom, she efficiently slipped out of the clothes that never fit her frame just right, then turned on the water in the shower, manipulating the knobs until it came in temperatures a few degrees warmer than the Caribbean Sea where she'd grown up. When that was done, she stepped inside and pulled the plain white curtains, luxuriating in the feel of hot, steamy water against her green and white skin. The shower felt good, very, very good, and she let her head rest under the spray, closing her eyes and imagining... Jessie's tentative rap at the door told her she was taking too long - the tentative rap that was better than letting an attendant come in to check on her. "Sorry!" she called, hastily turning off the water, scrambling with long green fingers before jumping out and yanking her jeans and T-shirt back on. "All done!" She looked at Jessie expectantly. "Are you ready?"

I will also wait on Oracle!

"All right, honey, you want me to get nasty? I'll get nasty. Why don't you take your bony Bette Davis-looking face back to Hell where you belong instead of dragging out yet another long, boring appearance with a bunch of boring speeches that I stopped listening to like five minutes ago?" Fast-Forward had spoken a little out of turn - but under the circumstances he thought his attitude was entirely justified. "At least the creepy haunted TV stuff was memorable! Now you're just an angry old lady talking about how much you hate the stories kids watch. What's next, Harry Potter as the freakin' Anti-Christ? Mary Poppins as Jesus?" Almost casually, he zipped around and kicked the white zombie directly in the crotch, the blow not just sending a cloud of fractured debris everywhere but also hurling the creature up, through Silver Scream, and into the whirling gateway behind her. "Get some new material!" he said, hands at the side of his mouth as he called, "Boo! Boo! Booooo!"

Hands in his pockets, Comrade Frost wandered out into the center of the circle, doing his best to ignore the icy cold all around them. "I have seen a circle like this before!" he called, but for once there was no joviality in his voice. "In the frozen marshes of Ladoga, in the cold winter of 1941." He pulled up his hood, his face all but vanishing in the shadows beneath but for glowing red eyes. "Is standard magic for these purposes, for the summoning of the dead and their energies." Kimber had not asked what he had told Hel about this mission. That was, he had long since decided, for the best. "Come, let us do our work." Citizen stayed in the air, flying along besides Papercut, though he had to keep enough distance that the air kicked up by his flight didn't disturb the other hero's passage. "This is a freaky dimension!" he called to Koshiro as they went. "All I'm getting from the atmosphere here is electromagnetic discharge; and it was even worse back in that circle," he said as they made their way over the trees. "Like a lightning strike 'hanging' in the air, waiting to go off." Soaked in gore up to her elbows, Tarva began walking the edges of the circle while she muttered softly to herself, obviously looking to Kimber for further direction.

that hits and is good enough to add to the damage by 1! http://orokos.com/roll/316368 = 22 She takes a bruise and is dazed. She goes ahead and blasts Cerulean, using that Fort save attack (have an HP!) Ooh! almost a crit. http://orokos.com/roll/316373 That's a Dc 23 Fort save.

September 5, 2015 Fort Meade, Maryland Supervillains were attacking Fort Meade. Well, not supervillains exactly. It had started out as a typical enough Saturday for the large military base close to Washington, DC; crowds of tourists at the National Cryptologic Museum and the Fort George Meade Museum, the Washington crowd taking advantage of Labor Day Weekend for one last hurrah. What followed next made its way onto the Internet quickly in one of those videos that goes viral the moment it hits Youtube. First, the golden gate had opened just across the street from the museum and a small group of costumed individuals had emerged - Argonaut, the armored AEGIS agent, Cannonade, the blue-collar brawler, Miss Americana, the patriotic paragon, and Vigilant, the all-American action hero. As the gate closed behind them, they ran, flew, and leaped across the street towards the museum, Cannonade casually sweeping aside a uniformed MP who (sensing trouble) had tried to block their way into the Museum. "F*cking typical!" he was heard to declare as they made their way in. "A world we didn't take over and it's already falling apart at the seams." Once inside, Miss Americana declared, "I'll get the missile! The rest of you get these wimpy bastards out of here and guard the perimeter. And get rid of all this trash!" The crowd, mostly civilians, didn't need any encouragement to run from the rampaging superheroes; a photographer outside caught Vigilant hurling a Mark VIII Liberty tank right through the museum wall with a tremendous crash! Whatever missile Miss Americana was after, she evidently found it - while the other 'heroes' took up position outside the museum, Miss A could be seen working on the preserved Ajax missile inside. It was Argonaut who dealt with the first wave of security, laughter coming from behind her armored faceplate as she cut her way through Jeeps, casually battering aside the MPS who arrived in them with cruel efficiency. "It's a bad time to be a bastard, kids! Sleeping in boxes and eating field rations for the past twelve months has built up a lot of negative energy in me, Miss A!" She called out, evidently over her suit's radio. "Treating these dirtbags to a little eye-gouging and back-breaking for a few minutes might be just the kind of cathartic exercise I was looking for!" For his part, Vigilant lived up to his name, taking up position on the roof and keeping stern watch on the surrounding base neighborhood even as chaos ensued all around them - Argonaut and Cannonade casually rampaging in the streets, sirens and gunfire ringing out, and panicking civilians being hastily evacuated away by the troops still standing who had not tried to directly engage Argonaut or Cannonade. "Attention, everyone!" he finally declared, using a voice amplifier. "This building is now the property of the Vigilance Committee! We are the baddest of the bad on this planet and several others you've never been to. Every once in a while we have to prove that to stupid people like yourself. Once we're done with the missile, we'll leave you to rot in your petty little world! Now, leave us alone...before we stop playing NICE."

September 5, 2015 It started with a wave of car thefts from the edge of the West End, all of them parked, secured vehicles in the parking lots of the many strip malls and other commercial areas that took up space between the West End and the growing suburbs of Ashton and Grenville. Then came the dumpsters, emptying out without a trace, and then finally vanishing themselves. When store owners put out security cameras and caught glowing lights surrounding their missing property before it vanished, they called their local superheroes for help. This meant the Interceptors - this meant stakeout. A little investigation revealed what looked to be a regular pattern to the thefts; and suggested the next place the thieves would strike. The team was currently occupying the next location on the list; a strip mall adjoining a small stretch of scrub woods that had for the moment escaped the growth of the city all around them. This late, only the all-night liquor store anchoring one end of the complex was open; the rest of the businesses, like much of the neighborhood, were sleeping. Luckily, Steve had a face for customer service, and so behind the counter he sat in the uniform of Al's Liquor Store, his scarred face and brusque demeanor making him seem 'like the kind of person who would work at a liquor store late at night." He wasn't entirely sure he understood what that meant; but he'd been given a mission by his team and he did his job. He knew the other Interceptors were on the case too. Of course, they weren't the only people out tonight trying to solve the mysterious disappearances...

Hey, SG! Just send us a PM and/or pop into chat and we can get things set up.

Fast-Forward will All-Out Power Attack (+2 for each) the ice zombie http://orokos.com/roll/316071 = 21, and out of HP! That'll be a DC 27 Tou save for it.

Nina will go for the blasting! But since you readied an action, go ahead and roll for that.

"It is a song of endings," Caradoc pronounced with authority - an authority that came from painful experience. "And of escape. It is a song that speaks of flying from a world of cares to the embrace of a creator god." It was one that he had heard sung before, and played before, and known before, on worlds long past. "One common across many worlds, and places, and times. This is grim." He paced the room, sword in hand, then turned back to the other heroes. "But why use this song as the cover for an attack?" he inquired, his mind still on it. "Surely one more easy to recognize would have motivated more to listen. If listening, and its consequences, were the goal to begin with." He turned back to the technicians. "If you can locate the source of the transmission, we can make sure it does not play again."

For his part, Sharl was listening to the conversation in the other room, laying his hand against the wall and tapping into the speakers of the landline phone in the other room. "I think Set has it handled - the EMTs are taking the patient away, but he's already up and talking. Even for Terran medicine, I think he'll be all right." He looked back at Eliza and a faint bit of color crept into his pale cheeks. "Oh! Well...the walls are pretty thick here." He didn't add "for Terran architecture" , not out loud, anyway. "And when the doors are all locked I don't think there's any risk of paparazzi." He was fairly certain Eliza wouldn't have been interested in romance with a medical procedure going on just through a thin Terran door. Thinking more about what she'd said, he shrugged, then patted Eliza on the arm. "If you're worried about me," he told her gently, "I may have blown up at Set before, but I was in an unhealthy place back then. I'm not blind. You're attracted to Set, I'm attracted to Set..." He shrugged. "Why not?"

APPROVED

"Many more demons loose on Earth than humans traditionally realize," said Frost breezily as he entered the vehicle, only looking mildly concerned at the prospect of the demon's escape. Ah, was fine after all! Young people are so tough these days. "Will be fine as long as we can catch him - and we surely can. But let Frost drive, you are burned to crisp." And I could not trace cellphone signal with box marked 'how to trace cellphones', much less spell young fellow seems to have active, ha-ha-ha! They wound up tracing the demon along a rural access road at the edge of the city, bumping uncomfortably through indifferently repaired asphalt, in pursuit of an escaping demon who seemed to be taking his own sweet time to get where he was going. They caught up with the demon at the site of a rarely-used public beach, one whose rocky shores and high nearby hills made it unpopular with the locals - even at the height of summer, nobody seemed to be there. With their vehicle parked out of sight of the beach, where the demon's cellphone signal seemed to be resting, Frost parked and turned to his American guide for ideas.

Her pursuer, evidently made of canny stuff, floated at the water's edge, her eyes on Cerulean. Cerulean could hear, and see, Reykjavik in action behind and around her - but so far, even with the city awakening, she was the only person in the air. No surprise, if superhumans were as far and between as she'd heard on this world. "That's one of al-Darsah's clone-daughters; the youngest, I think. I hope you're as powerful as you look!" Siddig called as he sensibly ran for cover behind a hovercar currently resting on a gleaming, self-cleaning sidewalk. "Because no one's been able to stop them before!" A voiceover in a language that sounded a little like German and a little like Norwegian broke in at that juncture, its sonorous voice instructing all citizens to take shelter, coming from a European-looking face that had appeared on the wall monitors and windows that seemed ubiquitous in this civilization broke in. At least until a new face broke in. "Attention, citizens of Reykjavik! This is Tempest, daughter of al-Darsah, and general in the armies of the Revolution. Your city has taken shelter one traitor and one invader to our beloved lands." She was young, and pretty, and wore the sneer on her face like a glove. "Firanj's fleets are tens of minutes away - but I am here, now! If our enemies do not present themselves soon - then I promise a great tsunami to smash the place that dared offer aid and succor to our enemies!"

Nina is going to try and Trick Cerulean out over the water again - I'll stick with her Skill Mastery and make that a DC 24 check for Cerulean to try and resist.

That will work! There is no sign of poisoning; the kitchen is entirely clear.

http://orokos.com/roll/315078 - a 4 on Current Events, effectively a 10 on History.

"In wilderness, you never pass up chance for food. And there is no wilderness like Jotunheim - not in all Nine Realms." Frost turned out to be quite professionally knowledgeable about animal slaughter, and within minutes had (with Wraith's help) butchered a substantial quantity of quality rib meat. Most of them do not eat, he thought with a look around at the others, but to have the meat is better than to let it waste. "Will freeze what we don't eat tonight - save for later." He pressed Citizen, both the strongest of the group and the least likely to be nauseated by carrying slabs of beef over his shoulder, into service - and with ill grace the robot decided to do a favor for the famous Russian hero. "Ugh," commented Sharl, keeping the rest of his thoughts to himself. "Okay, I think we're done here," he said once he was back in the air, trying to ignore just how weird this place was. "I can just carry people to wherever we're doing this magic...thing." "I wasn't going to kill all of them," Tarva had muttered sulkily when she disengaged from Kimber, still trembling with the aftereffects of what looked to have been swallowing a considerable amount of magic. "Just enough of them." Despite her feelings, she did pitch in to help with the animal slaughter, pulling out a sharp-looking knife from behind her dress and going to work with obvious experience on the butchering of the meat - when all was said and done, she had nearly as much blood on her as Comrade Frost - and that was a lot of blood.

She can indeed - go right ahead!

You are up!