Avenger Assembled

APPROVED

Neko is going to spend her turn trying to trick Fiery Fury into stabbing the Gentleman. She rolls Bluff...and gets a nat-20! = 32 She will supplement that with necessary illusions. I think FF still has to roll to hit the Gentleman but OTOH he is possibly flat-footed from not expecting his own ally to attack him?

You should check out Worlds of Freedom!

Fast-Forward is like "Damn, I was gonna win by default! That's my favorite way to win!"

Okay! Given her origins in the FC Universe, it might make more sense to tie her specifically to Ani-Earth, the cartoon animal/anthro dimension.

Okay, that all makes sense! APPROVED

Tell me more about the Variable on his attacks

Can you edit your title so it says PL 10/12, not 01/12? It's been bugging me.

The melting paragon hurled upwards into the air and imploded with the sound of rushing air, darkly radiating as if the unfortunate man had briefly transformed into a black hole. There was a definite feeling of suction at ground level as papers, loose items, and bits of debris went hurtling up towards the brief singularity before suddenly it vanished in a single pop of light. What the - the Patriot took the time to mouth before she faced off with the shapeshifter who had been her interviewer, gun still in her hand. Unlike quite a few people in Freedom City, she knew, Ashley actually did not have a very high opinion of the Grue who talked a good game about redemption - but she'd also seen the shapeshifter intervene to get the suicide bomber out of everyone's way or maybe just its way ; and she wasn't about to start a fight when there were other enemies around. He kept talking - he must have had people in the broadcast trailer... At the end of the day, she also knew something about being in the closet at work. So she stared at the hulking Olivia, gun lowered but still ready, and growled quickly, "Are you with me?"

"The Meta-Mind?" said Century Woman, giving Daphne a baffled look before turning to her team with something of a shrug. "Well if that's true, I guess she is clean." She seemed to be treating Daphne with the ginger care one might give a member of a previously extinct species. "Are there others like you here?" "We still don't know much about what happened," admitted American Patriot, "but there was some sort of civil war on the Grue homeworld a few years ago and a faction called the Arcane came to power, one that relied on magic rather than science. When they took to the stars again, they had whole armies of mindless drones powered by magic rather than intellect; endless disposable armies surging across the stars. The interstellar powers weren't prepared for that sort of war, and most of them have barely survived. Luckily the Lor had King Hellion here to rally around, and he was able to summon allies from Earth. But it's only so long before one of their strike waves hits the Solar System." The other Dark Star seemed to be a little unsure of himself, having been rebuffed by people floating around aimlessly before he offered: THAT'S WHY THE LEAGUE STARTED PICKING UP RUFFIANS LIKE ME! I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THESE POWERS UNTIL THE FIRST DARK STAR GAVE THEM TO ME. UH HE'S FINE he added hastily to Stesha BUT YOU KNOW, HE STICKS CLOSE TO EARTH THESE DAYS AND WE REALLY NEED TWO GUYS UP THERE! WE KIND OF TRADE OFF BABYSITTING...AND ANYWAY I GUESS THIS ISN'T THE TIME! Ashley gave Stesha a quick tactical rundown about the visitors seeking aid from another reality. "It seems like things are less hostile there; or were until very recently. They obviously know most of us, even if they didn't recognize me." It was hard to know how to feel about that; maybe it was a good thing. "They came here for help." Hard-hearted good soldier she was, she couldn't help but duck down and smile at the baby. "Oh my God," she said, looking down at the very small baby. "Look at that little face." Oh my God, she realized, with dawning recognition. I want a baby. That thought was enough to distract her before Hellion spoke up, his voice a little weak. "I appreciate the welcome, but, ah..." He pointed to Freedom Hall, then said, "Do you think we could go inside? It's cold out here." "Yes! We need to warm him up!" said Persephone in a firmly sympathetic tone, "and everyone else, too." She was standing next to Hellion, her arms wrapped firmly around him. "Fleur de Joie has children to think of - just as we do back home! We need your help. So does - so does all of space!" she added dramatically, waving her hand to summon holographic images of the naked stars overhead, an imaginary sky overrun by silvery shards of war and death!

Oof, I don't want to put Neko through that Tou save! I'll spend one of her HP and double her dodge bonus so that doesn't hit.

Neko put her hands on the side of Mr. Tak's face, pointy tips digging into the skin, and laughed without a trace of humor: "kekekeke" Then she spoke to him like this, as the illusions faded and he gazed into her blazing eyes as she spoke in a voice like death itself: "I told you, fool. You will suffer, Yankee dog! Whimper for me!" And when she left him there, whimpering, she turned and strode through the barriers that blocked her from the arena, even as inside Owain snapped and bit at the Gentleman without actually penetrating flesh.

Owain's going to go for the Gentleman again. https://orokos.com/roll/933469 = I assume that's a miss, oh well! Let me know and I'll post.

It took Neko a little while to calm herself. For all the horrible things she had seen, things occasionally alluded to by Talya and some others who had come to the dojo, the cat-girl was usually far more reserved than this. When she was finally calm, eyes red and ears and tail drooping, she looked down at her hands, not quite able to meet Raina's eyes for a long moment. "We never really - really fought Hiroshima Shadow, because..." She licked her lips, then looked Raina in the eye. "Because when I heard Hiroshima Shadow speak, I recognized her voice. There were other voices in there, other powers, but the loudest voice was Miko. She - she is Hiroshima Shadow. I know she is, because when I called her name, she looked at me - and she flew away!" Raina had learned a little bit about Hiroshima Shadow at Claremont but history had never been her best subject. Actually abandoning his computer, Merlin chirped a soft reminder to her, just in case. Hiroshima Shadow had been around since at least the late 1940s, first active in Japan, then for the last few decades in the United States. The Shadow was, by all accounts, a furious, remorseless killer; the sort of inhuman, inhumane being that might not have survived this long if it wasn't so hard to contain or disperse it. "Everyone else who knew Miko Ishikawa is dead," Neko finished. "Or so old they can't hear anymore. But..." She pointed suddenly to the top of her head, to two curving, fleshy ears covered in white and brown fur. "I know what people sound like, even when they have been changed. I know."

I'll definitely put Fast-Forward in there

"Thank you. Everyone at school, all the therapists, they said I was imagining things. One of them even said I had made an illusion to fool myself. Ha! As if I would not..." She shook her head, then crouched on the bed next to Raina. "You know at Christmas, when I was shopping with the other Claremont students, and we fought - we fought Hiroshima Shadow?" There had been other villains there too, as Raina remembered: but the connection there was an obvious one, even if Neko had been asleep when the atomic bombs had fallen on Japan. She had spent most of the rest of that week in her room at Claremont. "When I was in the Hinomaru, I was-I was just a girl from a village. The others were criminals, or...or degenerates," she said with venom. "The only real friend I had was a girl named Miko, who was from a small village like me. She could fly, and she could control the winds, and she was like me, just a little older. She wanted revenge on the Americans, because her parents died in Tokyo when the Americans attacked, but she just...she just wanted to end the war, so she could go home to her village and tend the shrine there. For her parents, you know?" There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, and they got worse as she went on. "She died in the war, right at the very end. She was - she was in Hiroshima on that day. She was in the air, and - and she must have been trying to stop the bomb!" The last words came in a rush before Neko began sobbing softly, unable to finish speaking.

Neko normally sat cross-legged on the bed too; sometimes curling and stretching in ways that suggested she had a few more vertebrae than an average girl her size. But now she carefully closed the door and stalked around the room, her eyes down. "Raina, I..." She was visibly sweating on her forehead, and took a moment to pull out a flowery handkerchief and wipe it clean before she turned to face her friend directly. "I am going to tell you something. It is going to sound as if I have lost my wits, but I have not." She looked at Raina with her big, slightly yellowish eyes and said "I need to know that you will believe me, because no one else has." She said the last sentence in a hiss, jabbing at some invisible person with her finger.

Notice: Nobody here is a Grue but Century Woman is absolutely riddled with nanotechnology - just like a Communion drone? Maybe! What are you going to do about it? Intelligence:

Okay, give me a Notice check and also a straight Intelligence check

THANKYOU said the nun again, smiling where she stood. "Sister," said Owain softly as he stroked what was surely going to be a fine mustache if he held off from shaving for a while, "do you have a name?" The letters rearranged, and then FRIEND? For her part, Neko was over in the corner with a pencil, carefully scratching more English letters into the wall. "Graffiti," she said with a little shrug. "to help." She mouthed ABCD as she went, just to make sure she didn't miss any. "There are enchanters in this realm who know the guarding of spirits, Sister Friend," said Owain to the wall, then to this realm. "We can keep Friend safe; and ensure she has a home full of light and music." At those words, Friend turned to Ryder and waved her hands hopefully.

Something else came in through the window first. A gigantic skeletal hand plunged its way through the glass with a shower of broken glass and plastic that scattered everywhere, then wrapped its thick, bony fingers around someone; maybe one of the gunmen, it was all happening too fast. As the screaming, writhing man was dragged outside, the skeleton opened its gigantic mouth wide, giving everyone a chance to see its terrible intent. As the victim screamed "Kill me! Kill me!" the skeleton tossed him in its mouth and began to chew with a horrible, wet crunching sound that filled everyone who heard it with horror, blood and thicker things dripping down its teeth and onto its jaw. The worst part was that it had taken several 'bites' for the man to stop screaming. Neko watched blankly, coldly satisfied with her work when she heard the screaming of the gunmen inside, crouching low on the dragon's head. Leaping through another window came another beast; a wolf at least four foot high at the shoulder, its fur grey and teeth sharp, its growl fierce as it charged at the now-terrified thugs. "What ho, villains!" called Owain, his human voice a strange contrast to the dire wolf he had made himself into. Laughing, he leaped at the slowest of the fleeing thugs and bit him on the leg.

Back in her village, Neko would have simply opened the door and announced her presence. But Americans had different ideas about privacy, she had learned at Claremont, and she certainly had no desire to catch Raina in her underclothes or whatever it was she wore around the house at this hour. "It is Neko," she said to the door, scratching absently with her left hand as she leaned close enough that she was sure Raina could hear her well but that no one else could. Still, there were so many little ears and eyes in this house, at least one who could see through her magic like paper. She considered her options, then smiled to herself as she remembered Raina's magic. "Kinkyū ni anata to hanasu tame ni," she said, repeating herself when Raina would have had time to cast her spell of tongues. "I need to speak with you."

Kay's studio turned out to be a lushly-appointed affair, with all the luxuries one could desire tucked away in an underground space as large as any two-story house in Freedom City. At least if you were a mechanical holographic artist. PNG had to provide other reports to Davyd as they went, about the room's high-speed data network that connected directly to Rurland's prime systems, to the vast array of holographic systems here, and other technical observations coming from an Eira who seemed only a little distracted by some other conversation she was having with another machine intelligence. From Davyd's perspective it was a substantial underground seatless amphitheater, one with a variety of rapidly-buzzing drones overhead and gleaming white projectors placed against what must have been solid steel walls. The air seemed thick with activity; Eira and Kay looking around with a mutual relaxation as they entered the high-e-traffic area. For her part, Kay seemed to remember her duty as a host and took Davyd in hand, one cybernetic limb around his back as she said, "Here, to answer your question, would you like to meet one of our temporary residents?" She waved her hand in the air and a face emerged from thin air, no doubt a consequence of the holographic projectors everywhere - an almost blandly-inoffensive human countenance that might have been Caucasian, or Asian, or perhaps even a light-skinned African person. "Hello," said the new arrival, hovering in mid-air, "I am Farah; a smart-system emulation of an organic mind. Do you have questions for me?"

That hits! He rolls...a 33! Your HP will take care of the success, though: I like the manuever; have an HP for thinking of it. So go ahead and write her doing that, I think.

Spring 2022 They had all said she was crazy at the school. Oh no one had said it in so many words, but Neko knew what they meant when they spoke about transference and false memories; false memories when she knew what she had seen and heard, with eyes and ears better than most of them put together. But who could she tell? It was a thorny problem. While Danica was a good friend, the tortoise kami in human flesh was someone Neko talked about the future with - not the past. Owain was a good friend too, to whom she owed a debt she could never repay, but at the end of the day, Neko knew she couldn't add to his burden. Erik and Talya and Min were all fine people who had taken her in when they never had to, and truly seemed to want nothing in return for the boon - but in the end they were not like her. A year in the Hinomaru, maybe more, maybe less, and sometimes it defined her as much as being a girl from a village so isolated that it had only ever been "the village" to her people. And besides, they had babies to deal with now, and needed nothing from the past. And so it was that one Sunday night, when neither she nor Raina were on babysitting duty, Neko presented herself at the older girl's door with a firm knock. She'd been here before, mostly to talk about computers with Merlin, but today she had come just for herself, tail puffed behind her and ears pointed high, wearing a purple and red dress she'd found at the 'second-hand store.'