Avenger Assembled

APPROVED

He appears to have a Defense of +10 and a Tou of +7 - your thoughts?

APPROVED

APPROVED

Seriously, though, let's see some investigation-related roles.

Between Kimber and Steve, Tarva looked like she wanted to shrink down into the ground and never been seen again. She crossed her arms and looked away, and finally spoke in a voice so quiet the others could hardly hear. "I wanted...I wanted to see the sun rise. I can't see it from my room. I haven't seen a living sun rise since..." She trailed off, unable to finish. Harrier stood beneath the skies of Freedom City - he stood beneath the cold red eternal night of the Terminus. And despite all of it, he understood Tarva. "...then we will stay," he said in a tone that brooked no argument. He took a step or two, then wound up on on firmer ground, his great weight already making him sink into the soft earth. "The rain will end soon."

"Who am I?! Who am I!?" Frost shook his finger at Titan, icy-cold fury burning deep in his flesh and words. "I am the man that fought alongside Henry Griffin for three bloody years! I am a soldier of the Allies of Freedom!" He thought of his best friends, his only friends, gone now for seventy long, long years." I am..." The only one left. The Griffin children are old men and women now. The new Blue Fox has no interest in speaking with me. Why should she? I'm the one who left the others to die. "I am, and ever shall be, Frost." He stared up at Titan and, fractionally, his frozen face softened. "Who are you? Who sent you to this place?"

"You are growing quickly," commented Steve after he and Yolanda had stood together in the corridor for a companionable little while. He certainly wasn't lying - like most children on Earth-Prime, she looked impossibly well-fed and treated to his eyes, but even more so than most it was clear she was growing into strength and dexterity. "They treat you well at your school." "I can bench sixty-five pounds," agreed Yolanda with a quick nod. "I'm the strongest kid in my class without any powers." "Good," said Steve with a serious nod. "Your flesh and blood give you strength - just as your will does." He wouldn't have talked this way to most children on Earth-Prime, but then Yolanda was unlike most children in this place. The eyes. The eyes were familiar. He looked away, for a moment unable to bear their gaze. "So...soon there will be another child in the family. Your thoughts?" "S'okay. Erik and Min are a good mom and dad. They'll take good care of the baby, just like they do with Eden." She rocked lightly back and forth on the balls of her feet, reminding him very much of a smaller version of Erin White. "Are you and Miss Americana ever going to have kids?" Steve smiled, faintly, quickly, imagining that conversation with Gina - and knowing what he could never have. He looked down at Yolanda and shook his head definitively. "...no."

Ayen, you can say you have your drones with you (maybe in your utility bag or something) - they're not Devices that the GM can take away from you willy-nilly! =)

The Gorgon's frenetic work stopped instantly - an ominous sight indeed for a creature of planet-devouring size. Debris floated in the gaseous void, core fragments larger than starships, larger than cities, before suddenly one of those gigantic snake-tentacles (as big as a continent!) whipped around with speed that must have been close to relativistic, the awesome, untapped energies of the world-Preserver making it a gesture as casual as the Traveler flicking hair out of her eyes. They were wildly buffeted by the gases disturbed by the transformation, with only Ruby's fantastic skill at the conn letting them keep even close to on-station. Then came the response - a floating, holographic head, the Gorgon itself cast in miniature form, projected against the observation panels the way she had once spoken to Earth by projecting her face across the Moon. A voice spoke, a clear, feminine tone with the instantly recognizable tones of the Gorgon, widely assumed to be the accent of the Preservers themselves. "STOP."

I think we're ready to go beat up more drug dealers, Rav!

"No, you don't!" replied both Tarva and Harrier, one in grief and one flatly, in an echoing response to Kimber's statement. Both fell silent for a moment, surprised to find themselves thinking the same thing. "I know her tale of woe and remorse, Ghost Girl." Harrier pulled the pike from the ground and stood, carrying it in one hand like a man with a long baseball bat. "But know this, Tarva the Black. Others may try to convince you they have forgiven you, that is more about them than you. For them, imparting forgiveness is a blessing. Can you forgive yourself?" Behind Kimber, Tarva whispered. "...no." Behind the armor, Steve's face was impossible to read - only that cold, robotic voice as he recited "The past cannot be changed. The dead cannot be brought back to life." As Kimber well knew, or so he assumed! "But your future is yours to decide."

The black fire tipping that pike flashed to red flame and with a slash, Harrier cut through the icy gust before it could freeze flesh through his armor. He stepped forward, facing them down, pike in hand - and suddenly, triggered by a thousand horrible memories, he hurled the pike into the earth, deep enough to bury it halfway into the soft, mushy soil of the park. He concentrated, trying to open his armor, and found to his alarm that the mechanism was stuck, no doubt burned out by the same electromagnetic pulse that had destroyed his holo-emitters. I am going to hear about this from Gina, he thought irrelevantly before speaking, raising his spiky head as if staring at them. "Tell her, Tarva. Tell her." "It..." Tarva wrung her hands, black, inky tears still on her cheeks. "He's not from the Terminus, Kimber! He, he lives here! In Freedom City! He's one of you people." "Yes." Leaning on the pike, Harrier rose to his feet. "The truth at last, Tarva the Black. What have you told her, that you were some innocent victim of multiversal annihilation?" "I, uh, well," Tarva shot a guilty look at Kimber. "I have told them the truth, though I may have omitted some of the gorier details so as not to shock their innocent sensibilities! You would not have me scar their innocent souls with my dread tale! The horror of infinite forced servitude and torment?! It was my fate to-" "You speak to me of fate? You were forced to do nothing." His hand tightened on the pike, but he still didn't pull it out. "I saw the bed you slept in. The food you ate. The luxuries that were yours. You were in that place and you did those deeds of your own choice." "You...you have to understand," said Tarva, ducking her head and practically hiding behind Kimber. "The skies had run red with the blood of a million stars. Our protectors had become our destroyers! What would _you_ have done, when faced with betrayal of self or its terrible extinction?" "I would have died. I would have died, rather than be what you became. What I became."

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4800399/= 23 Made it!

Don't freeze me bro

October 20, 1949 Nepal Frost stood over the bloody corpse, his eyes hard with frozen rage. Asano Ranaga, smiling in death, lay in a pool of his own blood, his Three Flames Katana at his feet. "I am denied even my REVENGE!" he screamed suddenly, an icy tornado erupting through the small room, freezing corpse, blood, and steel as solid as rock. He turned and stormed outside, where the NKVD strike team stood guard over the Green Dragon Society members they'd shot their way through minutes earlier, the stink of cordite still in the air. The officer in charge shot Frost a look, and Dimitri belatedly remembered how he must look - icicles on his face and hands, fangs bulging in his mouth and eyes burning red. "Orders, sir?" Frost stared at the corpse, then looked around the Buddhist temple the Green Dragon Society members had repurposed for their foul purposes. "Make sure they're all dead, then burn the place to the ground. Let him die unmarked, unmourned, and unloved." - "Your name!?" To Frost's embarrassment, bloody tears were forming in his eyes. "What, you are the Human Tank reborn?! Traveled through time?!?" he taunted. "The real Henry Griffin would never stand so heedless beneath his beloved wife's monument. He could not so much as come to this place until her spirit lay at peace! And you expect me to believe you have simply magically reappeared after seventy years?"

To his surprise, Caradoc hit the ground after Kimber passed through him, fat yellow sparks erupting from behind his armor as he automatically dropped Tarva. He did not cry out even as the pain rippled through his body and burning electronics seared his flesh, even as the holographic disguise he wore rippled away to nothing. It was an Omegadrone that rose to its feet before Kimber and Tarva, a hulking, merciless, faceless armored form covered in lethal-looking spikes, holding in one hand a flaming powerpike that had automatically come to life when his hand tightened spasmodically on the trigger. Now he radiated death, terrible and ever-lasting, a smile of triumph dying aborning on the white-faced Tarva as she beheld the unmasked face of the monster she knew only too well. "Does this face surprise you, Tarva?" His voice was a cold, mechanical growl now, an unnatural sound that grated even on the ears of the living. "Why? You've seen it before." Tarva backed up, silent, hands pressed to her mouth and for once completely at a loss for words. "Did you think I was some field conscript sent to die in the fields of this world?" He took a step towards her, even his movements neither mechanical nor organic but some unholy combination of both. "Foolish woman, I am a son of dread Nihilor. I have seen the face you hide to bewitch the innocent of this world." To Steve's horror and disgust, Tarva broke down crying. "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!"

"...you." Caradoc recognized Ghost Girl immediately - one of Tarva's jailers. He'd memorized all their faces, at least as much as the Freedom League knew, just to make sure he knew who was dealing with the shadow-witch. He shifted his grip fast, grabbing her roughly by the rain jacket and black blouse underneath so that she could not wriggle free. Holding Tarva in the air like an angry puppy, heedless of her increasingly desperate struggles, he declared in a flat, almost mechanical voice. "Your charge has escaped her cage. I am returning her for you." "Let me go! Let me go!" declared Tarva, her white and black eyes wide as she looked at Ghost Girl with guilt, fear, and triumph in her eyes. "Unhand me, foul freedrone, or this mighty spectre of the dead will drag you back to the burning pit you deserve!" "Foolish witch," growled Caradoc as his flaming jetpack roared to life. "Be thankful I return you conscious."

April 15, 2015 Liberty Park After over a year in captivity, Tarva had quietly gone into action. She'd taken advantage of a driving rainstorm, one of the heaviest to hit this city in the year she'd lived there, and a rare mystical confluence produced by Seven's battle with Malador in order to slip away from the Dutemps Building's both physical and spiritual security. With a heavy rain jacket on and her face down, she had gone unnoticed by the many proles who walked the wide, nearly empty streets of this city, long enough for her to carefully make her way to her intended destination. She'd seen Liberty Park on a map of Freedom City and decided to make it her own - and as she approached, thanks to the lateness of the hour and the recent driving rains, she was delighted to find the park almost entirely empty. She stripped off her shoes and left them heedlessly by a walking path near the entrance, staring in wide-eyed fascination at the green beauty of the place. There was no smell of poison in the air, no whisper of monsters in the trees - and when she stepped into the grass, the soft blades were damp and cool against her bare feet. It was exactly what she'd wanted. A cool breeze came up, blowing softly against her skin, and in her soul she wanted to weep for the sheer beauty of the park by night. Keeping her hood up against the rain, she walked towards a nearby pond, staring into the water and thinking with fascination about the creatures who must live there! Settling down by the water, she turned and stared east, knowing the sun would be rising in just another hour or so. Plenty of time for her to see the new dawn, the first she had seen in...in an age, and then flee back to the tower like the rat she had become, away from the awesome beauty of this world's star. It was all perfect - except for one thing. She shot a glare up at the artificial lights scattered through the park and muttered a quick spell as the rain continued to die down, smiling as black globes appeared to cover all the lights she could see. Now the park was in the darkness it deserved, despite the glow of the city all around it, and from the curses and exclamations her sensitive hearing could just pick up from around the park, she would not be molested while she waited. She was alone; as she deserved. Taking out her diary, she began to write, letting her sensitive soul spring to glorious umbral life in the words of darkness and regret that lay beneath her skin like her black-tainted blood. The words flowed from her pen like lightning from a bottle - until suddenly she heard the too-heavy footfalls behind her. She leaped to her feet and screamed in horror at the sight of the oncoming Omegadrone, her fear dimmed not at all by the fact that it was not yet wearing its armor. "F-freedrone!" she exclaimed as she shoved her diary behind her back, terror at the fire burning in those cold eyes. "W-what do you want?" Steve's cold voice curdled into a growl as he stared at the Annihilist witch. "I wanted to be free of you, Tarva the Black, but look at you now! Wandering the streets of this city outside of your cage? Casting your spells? Writing who knows what horrible plans?" He turned anger into purpose, turned the urge to grab her by the neck into a surge forward that caught her by the wrist. "Be grateful that it is an ally who holds you captive, woman, or I would surely call the Freedom League and make some suggestions to your confinement." He pulled, and she pulled back, but his strength was far greater than hers. "Mercy! Please, mercy!" Tarva called, "Please, I only wanted to-" Steve came within an inch, a bare inch, of driving his fist against her face - and the thought must have shown on his, because she fell instantly silent. "You beg me for mercy. You beg me. For mercy." Armor erupted across his skin as holo-emitters came to life, transforming him into the armored figure of Caradoc, Tarva briefly crying out in alarm as armor shifted against her skin where his hand gripped her wrist. He didn't speak; instead he began picking her up so that he could fly her directly to the Dutemps Building. The sooner this was done, the better.

Frost jumped, startled by Titan's sudden appearance, and looked up at the giant steel form that was suddenly, heart-breakingly, all-too-familiar. "...Henry?" Suddenly, as he remembered exactly what was going on, Frost's eyes flared a murderous red. "You...you DARE!?!" He threw aside his bottle and cigarette and ripped the gloves from his shaking fingers, the damp night air turning the cold air on his hands into clouds of growing mist. "You filthy metal-faced whoreson, you dare wear that face and come to this place on a holy night?" He couldn't rule out a ghost - but then, Comrade Frost had met only a small handful of friendly ghosts. And the ghosts of friends, in his experience, were never the friendly ones. "Grue or robot or SHADOW clone, I will have none of you." He snarled, squaring off against Titan with murder in his eyes. "To Hel With You!" - New Years Day 1943 Peshkov smiled, his fangs hardly visible, as he reached up to help tie Hank Griffin's tie, his hands cold even through the borrowed suit and tie the Human Tank wore. "You look beautiful for bride now, Comrade Griffin. Dr. Phipps-Gordon will be very proud." They were standing in a church corridor, Peshkov having braved a holy place for two of his best friends in the world. "Don't you mean handsome, Russkie?" asked Tommy, the teenager glowing with excitement as his brother prepared to wed, but not so distracted he couldn't shoot a friendly jibe at his ally the Soviet ice hero. "You heard me!" said Peshkov, laughing uproariously at his own joke. "So beautiful! Haw-haw!"

"I'm worried about Jessie," confessed Aquaria, who appeared to be eating somebody's leftover Christmas dinner out of a Tupperware. Distracted by the stressful events of the day, she didn't bother with a spoon - instead her tongue would occasionally shoot out and grab a chunk of meatloaf or baked potato and swallow it whole. "She doesn't like to talk about where she's from, but she talks about Seattle when she's sleeping sometimes." She leaned forward, stretching out her back, and set the Tupperware down. With her legs folded beneath her and balancing on her arms, long fingers spread wide to support her weight, she continued eating while talking. "I hope she's not getting into trouble! She's my best friend. Once she's out of Project Freedom we're going to move into an apartment together, and I'm gonna have an office job where I can file things, and she's gonna be my roomate! It'll be totally awesome." "Ah, okay..." A little nervously, Erik headed upstairs after his girlfriend, shooting a curious look down at his family-to-be. "You know," he said just as an upstairs door closed behind them, "I don't really mind that-"

"Let us not speak of her again," agreed Steve, looking deep into her eyes, hers so perfect and his marred by the lingering scars of his transformation. He kissed her again, more slowly this time, and pulled her onto his lap so she was straddling him - the better to stand up, his arms around her and hand on her butt, holding her up as easily as holding up a feather. "We need not speak at all," he added, as he stepped back, careful not to knock over the chair. "Supper can wait."

Fast-Forward made a big show of taking out an old-fashioned digital watch, programming it with little beeps and boops, and showing it to Jase as the countdown began. He didn't sound like a friendly dad, or a TV show host, when he glared at the dealer. He sounded like the punk kid who'd run these streets thirty years earlier, who'd have beaten a dealer from the wrong gang bloody just to put on a smile on his face and take the stash and cash for himself. "Ten. Nine..."

April 1, 2015 3 AM Outside of Wittmund, Germany Alone, Dimitri Peshkov stood in the shadow of history. The Allies of Freedom monument, erected in 1953, loomed behind him, commemorating the heroic sacrifice of Lady Celtic, Renard Rouge, and Spitfire Jones on one terrible night seventy years previously. It did not depict the last surviving member of that tragically crushed superhero team. In 1953, no one in West Germany had wanted to praise "The Ice Commissar" as he had once been known. Comrade Frost lit a cigarette, its glow bright in the darkness against his pale skin and hood, and stared up at the monument, pacing back and forth beneath its shadow, heedless of the municipal airfield nearby. The airfield that had once been the airstrip that Wilhelm Kantor had escaped from - after his cold-blooded murder of the finest men and women Dimitri Peshkov had ever known. Silently, he remembered the past - and opened a thermos of piping-hot vodka laced with human blood. April 2, 1945 Outside Königsberg, East Prussia "WHERE ARE THEY!?" Comrade Frost grabbed the big SS officer by the throat and began to squeeze, feeling blood and flesh begin to freeze to ice beneath his cold grasp, mist billowing from his eyes and mouth as his eyes burned red and his fangs bulged horribly. "WHERE ARE KANTOR AND NACHT-KREIGER!" He released his grasp and let the man babble, pleas for mercy, apologies, telling the angry ice controller he had no idea where Kantor had gone, he was just a low-level Thule Society member, he really knew. Frost grabbed the man's head and squeezed until his pleas stopped, then turned to his Red Army escorts, who were looking with a mixture of fear and awe at the Soviet champion. "The rest are as useless. None of them know where Kantor has gone." He pointed to the white-faced SS prisoners and then said, "Sh...no, even better. Strip them of their weapons and give them to those Jews they had made their test subjects. See what _they_ make of them." - April 1, 2015 3 AM Outside Wittmund, Germany The orders had come in from the usual sources, for all that the orders themselves were unusual. Titan had been dispatched to guard the Allies of Freedom monument in Wittmund, Germany on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of their deaths. There were evidently concerns about vandalism, concerns that seemed justified as he approached the monument by night (as per his orders) and found a man shouting at it in Russian, waving around a cigarette in one hand and what looked like a hip flask in the other. But why had he been pulled out of the United States to come here, halfway around the world, even to guard an important historical treasure. "<You would have given them a soldier's death, yes? Told me that we were defined by how we treated our enemies and that barbarism was no solution to barbarism.>" He waved in the general direction of the statue of Renard Rouge, his movements violent and his voice full of grief. "<But you were a hero, Amelie, a hero to the end. And I am, and ever shall be...FROST!>" Frost stomped his foot. "<A creature with a heart so cold!>" Titan knew this man. Comrade Frost; a Soviet hero and a brave man, a self-described 'ice monster' who had gone from an enemy agent to a loyal, trustworthy ally who was like his "least favorite brother." But he also knew he had never seen him before in his life.

Fast-Forward hung back and let the kids do their thing, ready to jump in if they needed help. Jeez, look how young they are. Even the dealer, who looked like a real punk-ass, couldn't have been outside of his early twenties. This was all bringing him back to his youth, and not in a good way, filling his head with memories of a life and a world he'd left behind him many years ago. As was usually the case, he found he just couldn't sit still under pressure. When he realized he couldn't pick up on their conversation, he zipped closer just as Starlight said her piece. "Way it works is, we can do it nice. Or we can do it hard." He zipped around to the opposite window. "Your choice, kid." He wasn't going to call this punk son, not when he knew deep down in his soul his boy was worth ten of him.