Avenger Assembled

Neko proceeds to stunt the following effect off her Yokai array (note that she doesn't have to drop the Obscure to do this, since it's Continuous, it'll stay up even if she's unconscious, but only for Tak as long as he remains within 250 ft of where she applied the effect: Emotion Control 8 (Extra: Secondary Effect, Flaw: Fear Only) + Illusion 8 (horrible things, visual) {24/24} Emotion Control is a contested roll, so - 24

Looks good, I like the new art! APPROVED

UH - ERIK, WHO KNOWS! MUST JUST BE SOMEBODY FROM HERE WHO SOUNDS LIKE ME. I DON'T KNOW THE GUY BUT HE SOUNDS HANDSOME- the shadowman was saying awkwardly before Tiamat intervened, OH UH SURE said 'Dark Star', stepping back from Stesha and sounding a little apologetic. It was hard to tell with the ethereal tones that came from being pure cosmic power. LIKE STARS'N'STRIPES SAID, WE'VE GOT A BIG GRUE PROBLEM WHERE WE COME FROM. He gave a look up at Daphne; one that was hard to read under the circumstances, then another look at Tiamat. HEY DRAGON LADY! IS THE MISSUS HEREABOUTS? "Since you already know them, I won't give you the speech I'd prepared - but in our reality, they've overrun most of our allies among the Lor and Stellar Republics," said the American Patriot, sounding serious. "It's so frustrating," he said, sounding deeply heartsick. "We had finally made peace in the stars! Dark Star's predecessor had turned the whole Khanate into a republic before he retired. Then those damn thought-vampires came out of nowhere and blind-sided everyone." "My husband Viktor, er, Dr. Archeville is out there now," said Century Woman, stepping back from Daphne and rubbing her silver-streaked hand thoughtfully as she looked up at the big Grue. "Along with some of our best people, like the new Centurion and Psyche. But we only have so many people, and there are so many planets. We came here hoping for answers; hoping that someone, anyone, could help us find an answer on how to deal with the Grue once and for all." "I'm...fine," said Hellion, sitting up carefully, a wan smile on his actually quite handsome face. "It's okay, Sephy, I'm in good hands with Fleur. In any reality, it seems." The local Patriot, the one from here named Ashley, had joined Stesha by Hellion and Persephone's side, giving the hologram a concerned look while she celebrated and hugged the near-human who was obviously her lover. "Are you okay?" Ashley whispered to Fleur, cocking her head towards Fleur's midsection. "We probably have this..." There was no reason to call attention to the baby just yet. To...oh hell, Ashley remembered. She'd looked at the pictures Stesha had sent of her and the baby, along with the people who'd been with her in Sanctuary when she'd had the baby...oh hell what the hell is the baby's name? Crap I'm going to look like an asshole!

They are definitely suspicious of Daphne, though it seems more being uneasy that she's dressed inappropriately than outright hostility at the moment. This other Dark Star is

People can make whatever assessment rolls they want to make here - Notice, Sense Motive, etc

In the following few minutes, many things happened at once: American Patriot said to Ghost, his voice serious. "Our Earth, Earth-1, is faced with a serious threat: an alien invasion that's already claimed many lives. While some of our most powerful members have stayed to battle the invaders, my team and I came looking for allies - or at least advice. But they hit us just as Dark Star was opening a wormhole to get here; and Hellion took the brunt of the attack." He sounded serious; the voice of an overworked man. "I-I see you've met the Grue and you're still here," he added with a nod at Daphne. "So maybe you can help us." "Hey, nice to meet someone else who's large and in charge," said Century Woman, shaking Daphne's hand with a firm grip, the cybernetic implants in her hands cool to the touch. Century Woman was some four feet shorter than the shapeshifter, but still towered over her team and almost anybody else you could name. "You know," she added with a wink, "you don't need to make yourself look scary like that when you're already that big. We're all friends here...and honestly some of us are pretty jumpy," she added more seriously, looking back at her team. "Over here!" said Persephone, her projected voice full of purple worry, waving her arms to get Fleur's attention. "He's over here!" Her charge, Hellion, looked to be suffering the effects of a deep stab wound to his back, one that had gone through somewhere around his kidneys and come through the front. He'd been stitched up wherever they were from, but it had been a hasty patch job that had now come loose. "You have to help him! Without him, space will have no king, and we'll never stop...them!" she added, looking up at the sky, hands over her heart as she looked down at Fleur's labors. Dark Star flew down next to Stesha while she worked, offering an encouraging word to Hellion. DON'T WORRY, KID - IF SHE'S ANYTHING LIKE OUR FLOWER PRINCESS, YOU'RE IN GOOD HANDS WITH FLEUR! He gave two big black thumbs-up to Stesha, something like a smile just visible on his black-outlined face. This was definitely not Derrick; though whoever it was seemed downright familiar... "come on Sephy," Hellion was muttering, "let the lady work, can't you see she's..." His eyes rolled back in his head in a faint. Patriot blinked, looking from Dark Star to Fleur, and exchanged a look with Gaian Knight and Tiamat. Should we...? The question in her posture was obvious; and only the fact that she wasn't technically a full-on member of this team was keeping her from stepping into action. She hadn't been around for the divorce of one of the most famous couples in Freedom City history, but she certainly knew about it - and Stesha had just had a baby for pity's sake..

There was a lot of shouting and flashing lights, eruptions of superpowers and Ashley had to admit some very good tactical thinking by her squad. "Hang on! Hang on!" she called urgently, braced against the door near Starlight to offer some additional protection. She looked ahead and saw the ground rushing up, felt the plane tilt upwards in one last burst of speed - By the time everyone had regained consciousness, it was clear that almost everyone was all right. Kensei, Freedom Eagle, and Patrioteen had safeguarded the pilots, who were shaken up but none the worse for where as they went about sending an emergency signal from their flickering control panels. "We're not that far from Dulles;" Captain Irons said, "I'm getting a signal through there. We're in Elk Neck State Forest, it looks like...but the GPS is screwed up, I don't know what the hell is going on." "Did you get any read on that other plane?" asked the Patriot. "It looked like they came down almost on top of us." Peering outside, the teens could see a forest and small lake outside; a trail of debris behind them from their impact, and a small cloud of dust and smoke rising from the forest nearby. It had been a nice late fall day. "I - oh, goddamit," said Ashley as she started to get up. The plant screen cast through the plane had saved everyone from flying debris; but she'd been standing by a metal strut that had cracked and driven itself directly through the muscle of her left calf. "Goddamit," she said again, blood running down her armored leg.

Kay laughed in a tone so artificial it must have been deliberate. "You are an American! We have the technology to upgrade malfunctioning Synthetics; or upload them while new embodiments are prepared. We don't just abandon the weak to some HMO." Davyd's comment about uploads certainly seemed to strike a nerve in both young women, who exchanged sharp looks before Kay said "Our perspective is likely to be the dominant one in the future, no?" She smiled, a distinctly spidery smile; the golden fangs probably just for dramatic effect, right? "As more and more organics come to see the benefits of Uploading." "That is unrealistic," Eira said, hands folded behind her back as the front door to Kay's studio swung open. "The technology to do so on an industrial scale does not exist. Or you would have told the world, yes?" "For now," said Kay with a wink. "Besides," she added, "can you imagine what some organics might do if they believed the secret to machine immortality was here for the taking?" PNG sent another message to Davyd that said simply SHE KNOWS but what Eira and Kay were saying to each other was: You can't fool me by linking with me; Eira. I saw you pass that message to your little shapeshifting friend. What, are you keeping secrets? Yes of course I am keeping secrets! You are also keeping secrets; and you have been this whole time. It's necessary. You of all people know about necessary secrets, Angelic. Does Pan know you're here? Eira sent Kay a rude image in response.

Tou vs 23: https://orokos.com/roll/931629 = 28! Sorry, man Okay, new round. Present leaps into melee range, then throws a punch at Leon; https://orokos.com/roll/931630 = 24 that hits! DC 25 Tou save. I'll post for Owain once we know how that went.

You have time to do something! Maybe it's make a Reflex save, maybe it's something else - what's your pic?

Overman began a tale of woe that seemed as implausible as it was lengthy; one about being kidnapped and surgically altered by agents of the wicked US government, then empowered by solar radiation, then gamma rays from a nuclear test? As Overman spoke, Olivia could see that something seemed to be happening to the stalwart paragon - first a sheen of sweat across his features that might have been produced by studio lights, if they were in a studio, then a gradual seeming shift that might have been imperceptible to anyone else other than a shapeshifter - before suddenly Overman stopped the story and turned to Olivia, visibly now beginning to melt. "I'm sorry," he said distinctly, "they told me that only the Patriot would die; I think you should RUN-" - Caught out of position, Ashley heard it as well as anyone else from her position prone in the snow halfway towards the control trailer where she guessed the broadcast crew was being held hostage. She weighed the needs of the many against the needs of the one, and decided that she couldn't leave that poor stupid journalist there to die in her name even if it put her in a bad tactical position. So she bolted to her feet, exposing herself to view from all manner of people, and ran like hell for Olivia and Overman, a badge-shaped shield erupting from around her armored wrist as she bolted for the duo just as Overman's melting body began to expand.

It wound up taking several hours of experimentation for the teens to figure out the 'rules' of their new friend. She (and she was always a 'she', manifesting usually as some sort of saintly religious figure or nun in the various paintings and icons she could move around in) could travel inside any image but seemed reluctant to hop out of her home in the church into anything unfamiliar. She couldn't communicate with them verbally but could clearly hear them, and especially seemed to like music, loud, emotional music of any character. The overall effect of the latter was a bit like a long-deprived person given access to a banquet. She wasn't seemingly interested in the food; but she did smile and point at it, licking her lips like someone miming 'hunger'. She wasn't actually limited to the nave of the church, and could travel anywhere, even into the still-present graffiti in the other parts of the building. She could move things around inside the paintings, but didn't seem to be able to pull up a written parchment with a message written for them or anything like that. Finally, she seemed to hit on an idea and disappeared entirely for a while, until luckily Neko and Owain's ability to track and sense magic let the whole merry group find their friend inside a dusty, previously-locked room that must have been the church's daycare center. The 'nun' was here: standing next to a faded picture on the walls of a teacher next to the English alphabet made of building blocks. Moving the letters around, she shaped out WILYOUVEHRNW? and gave them a worried look, her face half-visible in the gloom of the poorly-lit room.

The time for talk was over. Growling furiously, Owain bounded on the 'Gentleman' (who seemed nothing of the sort to his mind) and bit deep, sinking his powerful teeth into the man's thigh and worrying at him like a dog with the bone before bounding away. He was learning to respect those blades and had no desire to find himself in close proximity to the man for any longer than it took to bring him down.

Neko: makes the giant skeleton appear to grab a man and eat him gruesomely. https://orokos.com/roll/931489 = 32 on her Intimidate check! Owain: drops his Concealment because fighting invisibly is not an honorable thing for a knight to do! He then turns into a wolf and goes for the thugs by the window! He'll take 10 assuming they're minions, and get 18 to hit; that's a DC 23 Tou save for them

There was something - familiar about this assemblage as the various heroes looked more closely, especially to Gaian Knight and Tiamat. How many black outline humans could there be? For her part, Patriot kept to the back of the group of which she was only technically an associate member, trusting that the more experienced heroes could handle the visitors from another dimension. But the floating black outline said SORRY! I'M NEW AT THIS! THE VOICE THING...UGGH! For all that his voice seemed suited to booming across stellar distances, it didn't sound like the man inside the shadow was terribly comfortable with the role. With that, the shadowy outline stepped back, his shadowy form seeming to coalesce with two darkly outlined blades at his sides. The other man, the bearded man with the patriotic get-up, nodded and took the lead. "Greetings! I recognize some of you, but you may not know me. In my world, I am known as the American Patriot," Oh geez! thought Ashley disgustedly, that guy! "The cybernetically-enhanced superhero had become something of a cult hero on the far right even before the reappearance of Paul Revere on the scene; a martyr killed in his prime by a mad-dog supervillain. Ashley had never met him, but there'd been stories..."these are my allies - this great lady is Century Woman, Hellion and Persephone," this was the devilish young man and his holographic-looking assistant, "and-" DARK STAR'S GOOD FOR RIGHT NOW! IT'S THE LAST GUY'S NAME, STILL WORKSHOPPING SOME THINGS! "Yes." The American Patriot said, "If we surprised you all, I'm sorry, but we come as friends seeking help, if you can give it-" Suddenly, behind him, Hellion collapsed without a word and his holographic assistant yelled, panic on her projected face: "No! I knew that tie-off wouldn't hold, don't any of you people have superhealing? He's-he's everything to me!"

That is a very good roll and it will tell him that Overman believes it - almost! He is trying to convince himself of it very hard.

Freedom Hall New Jersey January 2022 When the wormhole opened up on Freedom Hall's lawn, just outside the protective technology that thwarted actual invasion, it was cold outside; enough that there was an actual coat of thin snow and ice on the ground this close to the Atlantic Ocean. But it was warm inside; the blaring alarms interrupting what had otherwise been a very interesting New Year's Party - albeit one with at least one important absence from the League's main roster. The Patriot, who had volunteered for monitor duty so that other people could enjoy themselves downstairs for a little while, took one look at the monitors and said "Goddamit," and thought No space-date tonight! as she moved from her position upstairs for the elevator. The first figure through the portal was a dark human outline, a uniform deep black with glowing white eyes surrounded by a circle of glowing black balls of anti-light. He, it, was followed closely by a gigantic, amber-skinned woman a good eight feet tall, wearing the gold and blue of the Centurion himself! More came behind them; a man with spiky hair wrapped in a tight black uniform with dark horns just visible above, accompanied by a glowing blue feminine form; and following them all was a sturdily-built figure in patriotic red, white, and blue, moving with the speed and grace of a panther. The team fanned out quickly and began talking among itself, some pointing at Freedom Hall, others at the street. The one in black called WE MEAN YOU NO HARM!

Neko is going to use the Fascinate on her Intimidate here, BTW. Tou vs 21 for Owain: https://orokos.com/roll/930386 Another bruise, ow! Okay, he's going to go straight for the Gentleman! 24! That's a DC 23 Tou save.

"You..." Overman looked around, then laughed scornfully, arms crossed across his chest. "Overman might have known that so-called Patriot would flee." He smiled perfect white teeth down at Olive and declared "I am glad you asked! OVERMAN's story is an astounding one! 'Formed from magic clay by the chief Sorcerer-Scientist of a doomed and dying alien world, Overman was sent off-world to spread Over-values to other worlds and bring them the peace and prosperity Overman's own enjoyed. Crash-landing in a secret government project facility in a farm in the place you call...Kansas," he added, hesitating slightly, "Overman was raised by the scientists there. They injected Overman with a "Super Soldier Serum," designed to bring a human to peak physical perfection, in the hopes of giving Overman a more humanoid form, which it did!" he added, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself of that very thing. "Sadly, OVERMAN became more and more rebellious in Overman's teen years as Overman's alien hormones raged, and finally escaped in a wild rage, though in so doing Overman! was exposed to radioactive waste and lost his vision!" He shook his head, face wrought with great tragedy. "Blind and half-crazed, Overman was found by another crashed alien, who bestowed upon him a Power Ring," and sure enough when Overman raised his left hand, there a verdergris band was glowing, "knowing the supercomputer in the ring could calm and soothe OVERMAN and allow him to focus his will enough to use it and do great deeds!" He waved his ringed hand in the air. "The ring had been damaged in the crash, though; it was able to soothe OVERMAN, and teach him to use his other radiation-enhanced senses to serve as a replacement for his vision, but that was all. Able to think clearly (and for himself), OVERMAN made his way across the world, helping others where he could, always trying to stay one step ahead of the secret government project that wanted him back!" Overman nodded, hand to his perfectly sculpted chin. "Overman eventually fled to the isolated Himalayas, where he found the Ancient One, who knew he was coming. The Ancient One took him in and tutored him in magic, sensing a great destiny within him; in his spare time he worked on a personal project, a magical potion that would allow Overman to shrink ()so as to better evade his pursuers) or grow (so as to better fight them). However, the Ancient One's other pupil, a dark-hearted soul, tried to kill OVERMAN by sending summoned hell-spiders after Overman and the Ancient One. As the swarm attacked, OVERMAN's ring lashed out and destroyed the spiders with a blast of weird radiation, but one irradiated arachnid survived long enough to bite him. Overman fell ill for a time, but later awoke and found he had the proportional powers of a spider!" Overman demonstrated this by firing a blast of white fluid from his wrist towards the nearby camera. "Alas, his salvation cost him the Ancient One's life -- the Ancient One had taken much of the venom into himself, and his frail body would not take the strain. With his dying breath, the Ancient One taught Overman his final lesson, a magical word of immense power." He struck his chest and declared boldly, "And that was not the end of Overman's story!" - From her position behind the set, flat on the ground against the snow, the Patriot stayed out of view of the obviously frightened camera crew and took a moment to mouth What the ever-loving f*ck before she tried reaching out with her power, the innate ability she had to connect with almost everything that was superhuman - and tried feeling for just how powerful Overman was. ...what the ever-loving f*ck?!? she added.

That works! Okay, and the Patriot will disappear using that as her cover - luckily Overman can't break her very high Stealth score.

Neko did a crouching leap upward that no human girl her size could have hoped to make, bounding over the leash as an animalistic growl escaped her throat. She only understood part of what the masked man was saying but she advanced on him, ears up and tail puffed out behind her, as the voice urging evacuation inside the arena faded. "Fair? Fair?" She slashed the air with her outstretched fingers and to Tak's eyes things began to spill out of the slashes she made, flaming cats riding terrible chariots of fire, hissing things that madly circled and hissed at Mr. Tak as the cat-girl looked him in the eye and declared in a voice that dripped blood and fire from every syllabus and thundered like the boom of Hell itself "You see them!? You will see them always, yankee dog! Unless!" She pointed the other way, back the way she had come, away from the fight.

Neko drops her visual and auditory Obscure on Tak and tries another Intimidate: 25

It was a long and not terribly pleasant flight - not from the company on board but because of the weather. The storm outside wasn't serious enough to force a landing but it was serious enough that anyone feeling prone to airsickness suffered through a bouncing, bumpy ride that was best spent under a dose of Dramamine. The Patriot herself seemed rather unsettled by the flight, walking up and down the aisles and peering out the windows, though she did her best to keep up camaraderie with the teens as they went. For students of sturdier stock, the in-flight movie turned out to be the latest Power Rangers (the cult American TV show-turned-movie that used recut public-domain footage of Japan's Squadron Supreme) and the onboard snacks plentiful. (If you were tough enough, anyway) Near the end of the flight, the Patriot went up front a couple of times to talk to the pilots, chasing any of the teens out of the cockpit as she went. The cockpit doors were actually closed as they began dipping low below the cloud cover - a moment before everyone realized another plane was coming right at theirs! In a moment of horror before anyone could react; it struck the wing as the Patriot's voice yelled "Crash positions! Everyone get in crash positions and activate defensive powers! I need someone up here protecting the pilots!" she called, throwing the cockpit door open wide. The plane, and seemingly the other plane, a Lear Jet like theirs, were beginning a rapid spiral down to the forested earth below...

Taking Davyd's look for assent, PNG simply crawled up onto his shoulder and directly into his left ear. Though the robot wasn't very large and had the capacity to shrink itself to a particularly tiny size, it was still perhaps a distracting moment. Eira covered for the shapeshifter by extending her wrists towards Kay's; extending dataspikes that seemed to naturally entangle themselves around Kay's chitinous additional limbs. It was a decidedly odd sight, especially when they both vocalized a faint, almost inaudible sound when the connection was made. Inside Davyd's head, the spider-bot, who was small enough to be completely covered by a little judicious shapeshifting, clambered right into his ear and began beating a message against his eardrum: VERY UNUSUAL. KAY IS FAN OF MONDRIAN AND BEEVER. DID NOT REJECT HUMAN ART BEFORE. The two Uploads did not offer any answers to Davyd's question until the car reached its destination, a half-sphere buried deep in the Ukranian soil that looked vaguely as if a 70s futurist had designed a hobbit's house. "We have many ways to communicate," said Kay, a low, warm smile in her synthesized voice. "The important thing is that all voices are the same, no?" Outside, the natural seemingness didn't quite last. Though the grass was still green, the trees hereabouts had been cut down flat, giving the area the impression of an almost flat, featureless plain on either side until you reached what might be the next property over - a concrete cinderblock building with flashing neon lights out front that read simply PARTY.