Avenger Assembled

Everybody take an HP for having your Complications tagged. Somnium, give me a Fortitude save vs DC 10

The keeper showed a remarkable ability to listen to the nice superheroine and beat feet, just remembering to take the time to stow his gun before he zipped out the door to get backup. Edge teleported in a few seconds later, but followed the lead of the Freedom Leaguer on the scene and kept his distance. Lacking Velocity's familiarity with the situation (and knowing that, frankly, the gorilla was not a threat to either of them, much less the two of them together), he picked up the clipboard left behind the attendant long enough to familiarize himself with the unfortunate ape's case. "Oh, geez!" Stricken with empathy, he held up his hands and said soothingly, "Hey man, it's cool, it's cool. We're not going to make you stay in that stupid thing much longer. There are some primate reserves in South America that can give you all the space you need to run in." Gargantua did not look mollified, despite Mark's soothing words, but at least now he was focused on the blue and gold-clad hero rather than trying to escape. <Come closer, you jackassical little primate, and I will make the space I need to run in through your ribs! You think you can fool me with your lies!?!> The thought blasted clear into Hologram's head as she and her producer arrived on the scene.

Here it is

That's nanotechnology, and lots of it! Someone with the right DNA signature, or code word, or whatever the security system is, could probably hack it and control the house from top to bottom - even the magic runes are written in it. He's from just far in the future enough to know that what he's seeing, and to know that what he's impossible by all the laws of science!

Oh well, Hematite never was the detective in his family anyhow! Cosmology: On closer inspection, all those markings appear to refer to the Cosmic Coil - not journeying from one worldline to another, but rather a direct journey back through all the possible pasts of one particular worldline - one that ended in 2014 at his parents' house. It was a _long_ journey, too; though he doesn't know enough to tell just how far, it seems to have been longer than the trip he took. This looks to be a copy of the Hunter mansion but covered entirely in white. Not paint, but some thick, almost metallic coating. it's not technology he's familiar with - he can barely tell it's technology at all

Her father's eyes bulged wide and staring, impossibly erupting the way no human face could possibly look. "WHY WON'T YOU LEAVE US ALONE!?!" it demanded in a sudden chorus, an instant before vanishing with a skittering of insects as the cockroaches (who had swarmed especially thickly during the illusion) scuttled down into the canal below. And then Terrifica was alone, or was she? The horde of insects seemed to be heading deeper into the sewers, skittering along en masse in a way that had nothing to do with how insects should behave - but moving slowly enough for the agile Terrifica (even in these close quarters) to follow. - Intimately familiar with the bowels of cities far worse than Freedom, Caradoc briefly hesitated before following his own cockroach swarm. But he was steel now, not flesh, and none of the creatures of his childhood, or his days at war, would be waiting for him below in the depths of the city. He began moving forward, taking slow, deliberate steps to avoid slipping on the slick surface beneath his feet. Meanwhile, the booming echoes of his heavy stride sounded in the dark, nearly silent sewers, by far the loudest noise down here so far below the rest of the city, where the ground above blocked the noise from below. - "YOU'RE NEXT!" screamed the Volvur, her face bulging and warping in a way no human face could possibly look, her skin erupting like two demonic crowns on either side of her head - before she vanished, leaving behind a skittering crowd of insects - cockroaches by the look of them, that vanished into the darkness, down deep in the sewers. There was only one logical way to go - and at least her ring meant she didn't actually have to walk in that stuff. In the distance, she heard the slow, deliberate sound of echoing footsteps, drawing closer and closer... - "Come on, luv, help yer old man out." Her father was advancing on her, his eyes bulging with inhuman malice, his voice taking on an echoing timber she certainly didn't remember, except from her nightmares. "You know this is what you want. It's in your bloody nature! Come closer!" He reached for her with grasping fingers - and then just as suddenly vanished, along with the other 'people' in the sewer, the only clue to where they'd gone a swarm of cockroaches skittering madly away, heading deeper and deeper into the distant sewers, the psychic radiance she'd detected going with them like the heat signature of a retreating firework.

Velocity was, as per normal, the first on the scene - and what a scene it was! A massive gorilla, bulking as tall as a man and much wider, had torn out one of the bars of his cage, or rather his cell if you counted it by size, and hurled it across the room hard enough to bury it in wood. The terrified keepers were hastily fumbling for a tranquilizer gun, but it was hard to tell if the darts would do any good. The gorilla was thickly muscled and very large, much bigger than any natural wild gorilla should have been, his white fur matted and his body covered in old scars. Her light-speed brain told her the story of who she was dealing with almost immediately - 'Gargantua', captured in east Africa some ten years earlier, was one of the most dangerous animals there. It had actually killed two men, both of them unpowered staffers, and was so ferocious it had been a favored item of sport for the real hunters like Orion, so ferocious that it had been resuscitated to allow the hunts to go on. Eyes mad with fury, Gargantua shoved a giant arm through the gap and reached for the lock on his cell door, its breath slow and guttural as it locked eyes with Velocity.

Because she was the kind of person who absorbed new information like a sponge absorbs water, Terrifica knew that Freedom City's sewers were famously spacious - built in the late 1850s as part of the first sewer systems built in the US, the old sanitary sewers were big enough even for a tall man to walk upright in, in most places more like underground canals (with small walkways) rather than the narrow pipes big enough only for small animals in more modern cities. While newer areas of the city had more modern systems, she was walking in one of the oldest still-operating sewer systems in the United States. Of course, the cold, dark, and smell didn't help any - she wasn't ready to use her rebreather yet, but if she went too far from the entrance where she'd arrived, she might have to. Unless something found her first. Terrifica...Terrifica...Turning around, she was confronted by an all-too-familiar figure emerging from the gloom. Lucas Carson, in the white shirt, black tie, and black slacks that were as much as a missionary's uniform as her own nano-fiber suit, seemed to silently glide towards her. "Terrifica, this is no place for a girl like you. Why aren't you church-hunting?" he asked her quizzically, the question seeming to draw from some deep inner pain. "Don't you want any spiritual guidance?" - Orange light cast eerie shadows in the semi-darkness of the vast sewers as Stronghold began her search for the mysterious beings that lived down below. As it happened, it didn't take her long to find what she was looking for - or rather, be found by them. Stronghold...Stronghold... She turned around, and found herself confronted by an all-too-familiar spectral form. The Volvur looked piteous now rather than frightening, wrapped in barbed chains that cut into spectral flesh that bespoke all the horrors of Hell Stronghold had occasionally seen in her nightmares. "This is no place for you, child, this is a realm of eternal suffering! Turn back if you value your soul!" - Psychically minded that she was, Somnium had some warning about what she was facing before she turned a corner in the deep tunnels - a scuttling explosion of psychic energy erupted into the air as she made an appearance, seeming to come out of the very walls that surrounded her. "It's about bloody time, Nightmare." Standing impossibly on the fast-flowing, befouled surface of the 'canal' was her father in a Saville Row black suit, flanked on either side by rough-looking goons. At their feet was an unconscious man with bloodied features, staring at the ceiling and moaning pitifully. "He's not gonna talk to us, so rip him open and see what you can see, eh luv?" Her dad was wiping blood off his hands, fresh blood at that. - Harrier...Harrier. Caradoc turned a corner and was confronted by an image of Gina Evans in her nightdress, steel and circuits erupting painfully from her body. "Run away!" she called to him through bloodied lips as cables erupted from them, "Run away and never come back!" Without hesitation, the armored knight stepped forward and drove his powerpike directly through the spectral figure - he had a moment of terror as he felt flesh and metal and bone beneath his blade, but an instant later the phantom image had faded from his vision entirely, the cockroaches that had surrounded him scuttling away in terror from the noise and movement. "This day is going poorly," he said aloud before venturing deeper into the sewers, heading away from the entrance he'd taken and deeper into the gloomy tunnels.

July 1, 2014 Midnight Greenbank Steve closed his phone, put it in the glove compartment of his HAX-issued car, and stepped out onto the street. The sightings on the streets of Greenbank had been dismissed as hoaxes, or perhaps a publicity stunt for one of the many stories told on Earth-Prime that he did not understand. At least at first. A group of young people, coming out of a store that sold picture books like those that had taught Steve how to read many years earlier, had seen representatives of some of their favorite fictional characters scuttling into the sewers, katanas and other martial weapons gleaming in the light. And then another sighting, this time of Sub-Terrans, and then another of the long-dead Conqueror Worm. The sightings all had something in common - they were all of beings that lived underground, all of them glimpsed on the surface before immediately disappearing below. It wasn't the sort of situation that got the attention of the Freedom League - after all, the only real emergency had been the HAX car that had nearly been run off the road by a startled driver after a surprise appearance of the Conqueror Worm in the middle of the street. The only people who had been put off by it were the homeless population of Greenbank and the other areas where the sightings of the "Underground" had taken place. But Steve was not a man to turn away from a crisis, even an exceptionally humble one. Transforming into Caradoc, he reached down and used his sword to open the panel, no, the manhole, that would give him access to the sewers below. Holding the manhole cover in one hand, he activated his jets and slowly flew down until he reached the sewer pipe itself, where a large walkway allowed for significant access even for a man-sized figure like himself. He had thought about inviting Miss Americana along on this expedition, but as a cockroach scuttled by, he decided this sort of mission was not one Gina would have favored.

The OOC thread here

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4548052/ = 11! He's down

Notice and Sense Motive - Roland is at the breaking point. If help isn't found for him soon, he'll snap, and probably not in a good way. He's not necessarily hostile right now, but some answers will need to be found for him. He doesn't seem to be a bad man. But he could _become_ a bad man if things don't work here. Trevor gets this from History vis a vis where Roland is from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ys The saint he referred to earlier is the patron saint of clockmakers. That Investigate and Gather Info are enough to tell him that Accolon is a common last name in Brittany, but it's not enough for him to identify a specific counterpart. He'll have to actually go to France to track down a specific one; or contact someone who is already on the ground.

"So, what?" demanded Roland, and though that sneer was still in his voice, listeners could hear an undertone of desperation gnawing his words. He was keeping it together, barely, but between his injuries and his agitated state his heartrate was racing on the medical monitors - this was not a healthy conversation for him to have. "Would you have me just abandon my home, my wife, my family, because you say our world was false!? My little Ihanna is just eight years old, she calls me her drôle papa when I put her to bed at night, she is not a LIE!" His breath was ragged and pained now, his good hand clenching into a fist. "If not you, then who was it? Who was it that snuffed out all that we were, all that we might have been, like blowing out so many candles?"

"I am the walking dead, Ghost Girl. It is fate." The vitreous humor of the eye was thick and gluey, ominously rising like sludge around the viewscreen of their borrowed vessel as they burrowed deeper and deeper into the massive ocular structure. Had it been weeping as they'd passed overhead, or had that simply been exterior lubrication pouring over skin that had looked all too human even in the depths of Terminus space? The air inside the pod seemed to grow thick and greasy as they headed deeper and deeper into the sludgy liquid, for all that the internal sensors assured Wraith (of the three, the best with interstellar technology) that everything was fine. Tarva shrank down into herself the deeper they entered the fortress, but even now there was art to her panic as she folded in on herself like a crouching ballet dancer. It came as a palpable relief when their vessel found the power duct, invisible against a vast metal wall but palpably present to their ship's sensors. With a low rumble, ship met docking ring - and they were ready for their next move. Inside, they found a smooth, featureless tube big enough for two of their little party to travel abreast on the flat inner walls. It was hot and stifling, close to human body temperature, and the air was rank with unnameable scents, but they were inside.

Roland stared at Erin, his battered face warring between uncertainty and anger. "Your sister?" he inquired. For the first time, hesitation showed in those fanatical eyes. "I am sorry. I would not have struck her if I had known." His eyes narrowed and he stared down the length of his hawklike nose at her. "But you are still the enemy of my soul. By the Grace of God and the blessings of our Saint Eligius, I will heal this wounds within a week, even if I do it behind the iron bars of your gaol. But here I am now, helpless for you to do as you will. Do you have more stomach than the girl with the bow?" he asked her. "I will not rest until you and yours are defeated and what has been taken from me has been restored."

The heroes were expecting trouble, but what arrived still came as a surprise just because it came so fast. With a clatter on the dock below, a black blur erupted upwards from the surface of the water to greet the fidgety mobsters, the blur resolving itself as it slowed to the Crime League's personal speedster - Downtime. "Hey hey hey!" the costumed thief said with a tone of mild amusement, "put those down! It's all good!" The triad members, many of whom had drawn down on the arriving figure, relaxed and put their guns away. "Hey, Sloppy Joe! My man!" He put his arm around the bald triad member's shoulders affectionately, then just as fast zipped away until he was directly facing down the mobsters again. "Listen, boys, we got your message, and I gotta tell you a bigger cut's not gonna work. Boss says we all need to play our part in the orchestra, and right now you guys are...I dunno, what do you call those fiddly harps? That's you guys. Don't blame me, though, I'm just the messenger!" "What!" The older triad leader's eyes narrowed and he flexed his muscles - behind his back, where Downtime couldn't see but the heroes on the roof could, a light glowed in a semi-circular shape like a rising sun. "You may cut us out, but you know who our master is! The Doctor has taken enough of your insolence, you jumped-up punk! You are nothing but a thief wearing another man's genius!" Suddenly, a third figure appeared with a puff of displaced air - this one all in black as well, but a more uniform cut than Downtime's flashy costume, like a ninja costume or a stagehand's. The teleporter arrived just behind the triad leader who had spoken up, his hand directly over that glowing light. "Well, I am a genius, bèn dà n. If your master thinks he can win a war against the Crime League, he is welcome to try." The guns were out now, half-pointed at the teleporter, half at the speedster. "As I recall, he couldn't even win a war against his own daughter!" The ninja-suited man laughed, loud and long and clear.

"The eyes are quantum storage devices," replied Tarva. "A craft this size can enter through the outer membrane and be concealed within the quantum radiation, then you can enter the ship through one of the power ducts. The laboratories you seek are within the braincase." She fell silent for a moment before saying hesitantly, "You must not be seen. Take a stealthy approach as you traverse the tunnels. Remember that what one drone sees, all will see. R-remain within the head, where the testing grounds are located." She cast a measuring look at the heroes around her before adding, "Do not enter the body. There is nothing there that will serve your mission. I..." She jumped to her feet, practically vibrating with restrained tension, her fists punctuating the air with every world. "Do not be taken alive. Do not allow me to be taken alive. Please."

1 goes skidoosh! http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4544009/ 2 goes skidoosh! http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4544011/

Hematite didn't so much vanish from view as he suddenly became hazy and indistinct, as if those still in the room were viewing him through smoked glass, or maybe glass smeared with things better left unmentioned. For his part, Troy Hunter could still see the others through the same murky lens. But wherever he was was nearly unrecognizable, because everything, every wall, the ceilings, the floors, the furniture, was painted an almost blinding shade of white that shimmered with a nearly magical radiance. Symbols were carved in the white, mint cream on ghost white, that were completely unfamiliar to the armored powerhouse. The Hunter family DNA was close, very close, perhaps 100 yards away - but before he could process that, he realized that for all the alien color, this room was very familiar - it was the very same parlor room he had left, albeit with the windows removed and door looking very firmly shut.

AEGIS might not have realized the alien was sentient!

APPROVED

June 19, 2014 Waterfront, Freedom City The evening patrol for the three young heroes had gone well - very well indeed. They were all on the rooftop of a closed fish market, watching down below as a small group of gangsters smoked cigarettes, cursed, and waited for their rendezvous. Word on the street was that a big player, maybe even a Crime League member, was going to arrive on the docks tonight to meet with the triad leaders below to discuss an upcoming deal - that meant that a savvy trio of young crime fighters could potentially catch some big fish tonight. Of course, that assumed everyone was going to show up. It was a warm evening, at least by the standards of a New Jersey summer, with a warm breeze blowing in from the sea that made the air humid and slick against spandex uniforms. In their suits and ties below, the triad men didn't seem very happy either - one older man with a short white beard kept looking at his watch, while another with a shaved head was reassuring the others in a voice loud enough to carry up to the roof that "He'll be on time, don't worry, don't worry!", something that he seemed to find quite amusing. It wasn't a normal patrol, that was for sure; the air seemed pregnant with anticipation as dark clouds billowed in the eastern sky, as if a real storm was coming. Of course, if that happened their targets just might get back in their sports cars and head home.

Very nice, MM, but you should go ahead and spend those last two PP

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Mechanically, Caradoc picked up the heavy floor lamp and began restraining the battered Omegadrone - first he bent the heavy metal center pole in half with a shriek, then used it to punch holes through the stone-lined walls, effectively stapling Newman, hand by hand and then foot by foot, to his own decadent office fixtures. He retracted his pike when that was done, pushing past the pain of his own injuries with a palpable effort. He'd been hurt, and hurt badly, but that was nothing before the crisis which they faced. There are no Grue in Perth... It wasn't that he couldn't think of a reason why Newman would have connived at getting all of Australia's superheroes out of the area for a few days - it was that he could think of entirely too many reasons. "This was too easy," he said as Argonaut called emergency services. "He fooled this world for twenty years. He should not have just abandoned this, he should have..." Not for the first time that day, Steve badly missed Gina and her vast intelligence. "...done more to conceal himself. There should be more here than this."