Avenger Assembled

The defeated demons dispersed like soap bubbles, leaving behind an unpleasant sort of sheen in the air behind them. It was as if they had somehow stained the very reality they'd touched, leaving behind an glistening, inky wetness that seemed to mar the universe itself where they'd once stood. Outside, the heroes could hear the fight going on in the lawn, where there was no sign of the shadow overlord but there were another three of the shadow demons in combat with the other family members. It hadn't been a good fight for Troy Hunter, who had taken a beating on behalf of his weaker cousins that had left them hale and hearty (and able to stay in the fight and beat the bad guy) but that had damn near killed the iron-bodied young hero. Having all the shadow demons destroyed before he could even make it back into the fight certainly hadn't helped matters - at least until he heard Blackbird's voice in his ears. It was a sensor unit speaking, not the main AI. "Hunter family DNA detected through the rift"

Don't forget to get BB into a 'real' thread as well, Val, since otherwise her debut story will be one that won't actually be connected to anything else.

I'll shave two off given the use of fire, http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4539046/ = 11 - so the shadow demons are all down inside the house

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4539038/ = 15 2 is down!

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4539035/ = 18 1 is down

The film crew concentrated on the technical side of the project over lunch, gathering together excitedly to hammer out exactly how they'd film the Space People on a return visit - or if they made it onto their spaceship! Those not talking about the aliens were poring over the dinosaur footage, both taken that day and yesterday, and all in all it wasn't hard to figure out exactly why Supercrime! was one of the hottest career destinations at the Discovery Channel. Since none of them generally did much on the technical side of things, that left the superheroes (and the superhosts) around a snuffed campfire to eat their lunch and discuss their situation. For his part, Richard was feeling unusually thoughtful, the kind of introspection that was usually his wife's department occupying a significant portion of his fast-moving mind. "Our friends up there have probably scuppered any hope of us taking the raptors," he finally said, his MRE still in one hand. He looked at the others. "If they are, you know, I don't think we'd better let them see us go back the way we came. That's not something anybody needs to know about."

"Well, we wouldn't be here without the Freedom League," said Edge immediately, with the respect a son of Freedom City should have for the world's premiere superteam. "Someday maybe we'll have a UN team that can intervene in these things, but for now you're the first line of defense." Mark was a proud member of the Liberty League, of course, but they tended to be the first line of defense against other sorts of crises. "And somebody has to fill out the paperwork, right? Otherwise how would the heroing get done?" Knowing paperwork, regulations, and other fine details, was a skill Mark did not have, but one he respected in others. Edge lit up as if Hologram had flipped a switch somewhere on his person. His voice reflecting the gravity of the situation but the relief everyone felt that now that the heroes were there, he said "Sure, go ahead. These little guys are called Tibetan blue bears, Ursus arctos pruinosus," he ticked off the Latin syllables on his fingers. "They're a brown bear sub-species that lives high in the mountain peaks and snowfields of Tibet. They're supposed to be a basis for myths about the Yeti. We're not sure how the Crime League got their hands on these guys, but we know they need to go home. What I'm going to do is take them to the Norbulingka Zoo in Lhasa, so scientists there can study them and figure out where they belong. Back in a few!" The UN hero disappeared in a flash of inky, swirling imagery that would no doubt look very good on the Discovery Channel's cameras. A few seconds later came a distant ROAR from one of the nearby outbuildings, one that (from the map issued to the visitors) had been repurposed into holding the animals that were probably not rehomeable. The roar came again just as Edge reappeared - and with it a telepathic message that only the group's psion could hear. <Kill me and be done with it, you miserable bare-faced bastards!>

"I'll go speak to Jessie about her status," offered Cleary, who was evidently choosing the better part of valor when dealing with the angry powerhouse and her friends. "With everything I've heard today, I don't think there'll be any issues with her remaining at Project Freedom." On the monitor behind him, Roland Accolon was clearly visible, his eyes wide in a thousand-yard stare. He was obviously much more badly hurt than Jessie, and his confinement to the guarded medical wing had certainly been deserved. His lips were moving, and pressing a button on the observation screen gave them all an audio feed from his room. "Kyrie, eléison; Christe, eléison;, Kyrie, eléison; Christe, audi nos; Christe, axáudi nos," he went on and on, murmuring in a deep-voiced Latin thick with emotions that he'd kept hidden as he spoke to Blue Jay earlier.

APPROVED

Cleary, who had been watching on a closed-circuit camera, looked deeply depressed as Blue Jay emerged. "He was picked up in early January near Freedom Hall on a public disturbance charge - when he struck the FCPD officers with hyperkinetic reflexes, it became an issue for the meta-criminal justice program. Initially he was a psych case. He claimed to be a native of Ville d'Ys, visiting the city with his now-missing family, who had been taken away by 'wizards and knights plotting against our godly world.' When our research showed that Ville d'Ys is a city from medieval French folklore, it seemed pretty straightforward that he was a disassociative case." Cleary cut the channel to the now-silent Accolon. "The Atoms checked him out and he's not from an alternate universe - his dimensional signature shows he's from Earth-Prime. A few months after he appeared, he made restitution for his crimes and convinced the Providence authorities he was not a threat to himself or others. He was a trusty at Providence for three months, and when he showed good behavior he was transferred here. If not for this incident, he probably would have been released at the end of the year." He perked up as they were joined in the hallway outside the medical bay by two others. "Ah, here are Ms. White's contacts. They may be able to help shed some light onto this situation."

APPROVED

hah-hah, I just wanted to make sure Baby Brawler was a brawler who looked like a baby, rather than one that fights with babies! I really like this concept and these powers. I would like you to fix the skills formatting to match that of our other sheets, as that's the only non-standard thing that makes it tough to read. you should also work out her Leaping distance so you'll know it for threads.

I have no serious issues here, though you'll have to clean it up a bit to get the formatting right. This is a solid take on an untrained gadgeteer, someone who's in fantastic physical shape but still new to combat. Is there a reason why she doesn't meet caps with the staff?

His eyes never broke from hers, and his voice never rose above a whisper - but Blue Jay had been among enough to know honest hatred even in the most restrained of voices. "<Your mockery means nothing to me, child. Aye, once you might have roused me to great rage - but I feel nothing now but the knowledge of what I am called to do. Go from me, if you have not the stomach to finish what you started. If you will not be hot or cold, then I shall vomit you from my mouth.>" He pointed that finger at her again, and she could see the muscles twitching in his good arm. "<But in the name of our Savior and St. Jude the Apostle, I do swear that I will restore to life what has been taken from us all. There will be no more families torn apart, no more lives ended, by your spells and curses. This world of lies will fall, and you and your friends will fall with it.>"

The Palace of the Virgin Flame was right where Tarva predicted it would be, still in orbit around the brown-grey world of machines that were so often Shadivan Steelgrave's boon companions. But the planet itself, for all its grimness, was not where their eyes focused. With the exception of Wraith, none of the trio of heroes were particularly religious people. (As for Tarva, well, she had abandoned the gods of her youth not long after witnessing their evisceration at the hands of Omegadrones) But there was something unholy about the Palace in its great orbiting bulk even from a distance - something perhaps blasphemous? A mile long, it was clear for what it was - a gargantuan image of a humanoid woman. She had been tall and pale, with red hair and blue eyes - the hair now a curl of reddish-brown fire that roamed up and down the naked 'skin' of the floating palace, a coating of flame that forever teased the Terminus with the form of whatever woman this once had been. It was grotesque, a blasphemous mockery of a life cast as the home of a remorseless despot, and the blue eyes, cast in crystal large enough to hold their small spacecraft, seemed to stare out at the reddish skies of the Terminus in some last, nameless emotion. Tarva stared at the palace, her inky shadows a subdued cloak around her body, before she declaimed, "There it sits. The pleasure palace and testing grounds of Shadivan Steelgrave himself. I knew he would not leave when he had such work to do here. He will complete his dread work."

As the Freedom League representative on the scene, Velocity certainly had plenty to do. The Namibian government (which lacked a native superhero, thanks to the years they'd spent as a South African satrapy) was playing the situation cooly, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. Hefty bribes (and intimidation) had persuaded the Namibia Defense Force and park rangers to look the other way about this place for too many years. The troops who had secured the site's perimeter, or rather their masters back in Windhoek, might have been able to make some stink about international law and the presence of the Freedom League - if it hadn't been for the national embarrassment they'd have faced. Not all the locals were their enemy, though, in fact many of the civilians working around the facility were from various zoos, aquariums, and other sanctuaries from Namibia and neighboring nations. There were forms to sign, repatriations to approve, guests to greet, and all in all it was a good thing she had super-speed, even if nobody else did! For his part, when he'd put the baby boar to sleep, Edge headed out for some quick mass transit. "Velocity," he said with a nod, falling in step with her as he joined her outside. While some UNISON agents might have caused jurisdictional trouble with the League, the American superhero hadn't gotten in Velocity's way during their work there. "Don't mind me, I'm just taking these guys back to Tibet." He walked over to a small pen full of bear cubs, the Tibetan blue bears resting in groggy sedation for the trip to the Lhasa Zoo where they'd be reunited with their subspecies. "How's it going?" he asked her as he traced out his signature on the smart pad the bear's attendant handed him.

Winding up for one last knockout blow, Harrier drove his pike into Newman's chest and smashed him backwards into the wall behind him, the blade driving through the armor to pierce flesh within. He drew back his fist and smashed it into Newman's armored face, a final blow that smashed Newman's head backwards, cratering the black marble a second time. This time, Newman slumped and fought no more, pike falling from nerveless fingers as his armor partially retracted, leaving him a bloody mess to match the terrible carnage he'd left behind. Having dealt with drones enough in his own time, Harrier did not release his blade - even as Newman's bloodshot eyes rolled in his head. "Vector?" he asked Argonaut, knowing with grim certainty that there was nothing that could be done for the Larrakite.

Harrier All-Out Power Attack! http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4529403/ = 28 +3+5+12=20+15=35 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4529406/ = 16 He's down, sports fan. Now for an IC post

The impact from the falling fountain seemed to make the ground shake - but the tremors went on and on, shaking the grounds and the mansion alike! The ground swayed and flowed ominously from the vibrations from beneath the debris, even as inside the house books fell from shelves and furniture tipped over! Inside the mansion, the air rippled in time with the vibrations in the ground. As those inside watched, three humanoid shapes emerged from the air with a high-pitched wail like glass scratching on a chalkboard. With glowing white eyes and featureless bodies, they looked like smaller, less-defined versions of the nameless monster who had come for the Hunter family - and their intent was similar as they advanced on the group inside the house with outstretched arms and eerie wails. "Finish it finish it" Outside, the shadow demons had oozed their way up through the rocks to advance on the duo who had slain their master - their very presence on the grounds of the estate (or anywhere in our reality) soul-scratchingly wrong as they advanced on Mystery and her father. "Finish it finish it finish it"

All right, I need a DC 15 Reflex save for everyone vs. a DC 20 Toughness save. Midnight Manor takes 10 on its save and goes undamaged for now. There are three shadow demons inside the parlor where the White Hunter first appeared - and three outside. They will act on 20 (inside) and 10 (outside) in the Initiative count. Wander is up once I post IC.

"<Then it was the golem, then, or the circus freak with his spellbook. Never mind that. I saw you together, and I know you for what you did. You, the golem, the circus freak, and the madwoman.>" He pointed at her with his good hand, limb trembling with pain and suppressed emotion. "<Did you turn on each other? Is that why she's here with her mind taken like everyone else?>" The hand fell, pain twitching on the man's face. "<Aye, I remember, girl. I remember the world that was, before you devils swept it away behind yon cloak of lies and treachery.>" His face hardened into a snarl, but his voice never rose above a pained whisper. "<I had thought I had fallen into a doorway between worlds - I had done my penance for wounding those constables, and I would have gone to find my way home from here. But then I saw you on that box, with that Congressman, and then the circus freak, and the others. I only knew the madwoman tonight, when I heard her speak and I knew she was the last of you.>" He tilted his head back. "<Kill me if you dare, but God will strike you down for all you did.>" - "Oh, that's great," said Aquaria. "They get some pretty bad people in here, you know, for surfacers and all, but Jessie's not bad. And she's really understanding!" She blinked her eyes and looked at Trevor for a silent moment that stretched on just a little awkwardly. "Is it true you have a lot of gold? I mean, money? Because I've only got another month here, and I don't want to work one of the boring jobs. I mean they're good, but they're not super-good, and the grease smells really bad!"

The Monster Harrier The castle's owners were in some meeting or other with some Earth-Prime scientist about some 'criminal case' or 'terrorist threat'; it was all very tedious by the standards of the Terminus and so Tarva hadn't bothered to follow it. What mattered for the moment was keeping the upper levels tidy, and in particular making sure the wards on the castle were maintained in perfect, sacrosanct cleanliness. From the floor that held the Blue Fox's personal office, she stepped into the elevator that took her down to the lower levels where the slaves, no, where the janitors, worked, ready to summon up a work crew to fulfill her needs. Once she'd have simply used her magic to step between shadows to terrify them out of their sleeping niches, but that was another life, and another place - and Tarva the Terrible was many things, but no fool. When the elevator doors closed, an Omegadrone appeared in the car in front of her. She opened her mouth to scream and the drone's pike snapped open in response, and for a moment she stood frozen in the utmost conviction that it had all been for nothing and she was about to be torn to pieces in agony before she suddenly realized who this had to be. "You!" "Yes. Me." Harrier's armor snapped closed and the drone itself stared down at the shadowy sorceress. She'd heard of this abomination but it was all the more terrifying to look upon it, no, him, with her own eyes - she'd looked upon plenty of dead-eyed drones in her time, and always found them creatures of technological doom and decay to loathe and pity all at once. (Her encounters with the doomdrones, the second of which had led to her defection to Earth-Prime, had only made matters worse in that regard.) But as that scarred almost-human face scowled down at her and fire burned behind those dead eyes, Tarva the Terrible knew fear. "W-what do you think you're going to do here?" Tarva demanded, as usual fear lending loquacity to her already voluble vocabulary. "If you think you can hurt me here when I have oath-bound masters and wards in this very place, think again! I am a mighty sorceress of the shadows themselves, freedrone, and your armor is no match for the true power of sorcery! Why I could flay your flesh from your metal bones, or, or pluck your eyes from your, from your-" The drone simply stared at her, scarred face immobile, until she fell silent - she hadn't realized she'd been backing up as she spoke, hands held in front of her protectively, until her back struck the rear of the elevator. "Do they know?" She'd heard the dead speak before, and the drone's voice was like that - as if something had been flayed from his very soul even as his body was flayed within the bladed crucible of a doomforge. He said nothing further, and she understood his meaning well enough. "Only what the Furions told them, and what they learned in the Terminus. They have spoken little of the past." Her own voice, so often her greatest weapon and most attractive asset, sounded hollow in her ears. Before that flat, unblinking gaze, a sentient Omegadrone, a terror beyond reason to any Annihilist, she wondered what this man had been, so long ago, before the armies of the Terminus had come to his world. "They will not ask." They stared at each other silently before, despite her fear, Tarva found herself laughing nervously. "Listen, maybe you and I aren't that different. The Terminus destroyed my world and-" "DID IT." It was the first time he'd raised his voice, like seeing a furnace door swing open and feeling the heat on her face, then closed an instant before her skin could burn. She took a breath, her heart pounding in her chest, shadows rippling on her pale skin with every pulse even as the bright lights in the elevators shone on them both. "I...all right, well, we're not going to be friends." She mastered her fear, as best she could, and found herself rising just slightly to try and match the man eye-to-eye. "What do you want from me, freedrone?" The word was one of the few obscenities in the Terminus - besides truth and justice. "The friendship. The trust. The love that may speak its name. They breathe it. You have seen it." When Tarva herself didn't speak, the drone went on. "You know what might have been." She swallowed hard and stared at him, fighting back a surge of unexpected emotion. "If-of you expect me to break down weeping for you, drone, then you don't understand me at all. Kill me, strike me, and be done with it, but I will not weep for what I have done. " "I have no tears to shed." The drone's stare seemed to bore holes in her as surely as a blade might have. "The past cannot be changed. The dead cannot be brought back to life. Nothing you are capable of doing, not even your death, will make up for the horrors you have wrought in Omega's name." "So...so what?" She suddenly exclaimed, tension bringing a laugh to her voice. "Why are you here, then, if nothing I can do will make a difference? If I will ever be what I was?" "If you were forever that, you would not feel. You would see their trust, their love, their oaths, and laugh at the squealing of the fatted pigs. But you do not." The elevator doors finally opened, unfortunately to a vacant office behind Harrier. "You see them, and you understand what was taken from you when your world was taken by the Terminus. And even if you taste it again, you will know it is not truly yours." "I...I, no," she shook her head, shadows like cobwebs around her head. "No, there must be more to life than mere survival! More than just cravenly going from day to day!" "Then live, Tarva." He stepped aside to let her pass, and locked gaze with her as the elevator doors began to close. "As do we all. It is our fate." Tarva spent that night on the castle's topmost battlement, wrapped in a cloak of inky darkness, staring up at the alien sky and the handfuls of glittering stars overhead.

"I did!" croaked Aquaria. "It was awful! Jessie was just washing pans like she usually does, when that weirdo guy came over and started yelling at her!" She waved her long, suction-cupped fingers for emphasis. "I was jamming to the music so I couldn't hear anything at first, but when I turned around he was saying..." She cleared her throat, thick muscles in her neck bulging, and said in what was obviously an impression, "Murderous devil-witch! What have you done with my family? With all that was? You killed them! You killed all of them!" Aquaria pulled a brush from her belt and gestured, "And Jessie was putting up her hands over her face, and so Roland grabbed this knife and he cut her face, super-duper-fast! He must be really fast to cut Jessie, she's super-tough." She blinked those huge eyelids and went on. "Anyway, that's when Jessie grabbed his arm and broke it! Just like this!" She bent her elbow in an alarming direction that turned out to evidently be an ability of hers. "And then she kicked him in the head so he went through the door, and then the guards showed up and she started crying, and it was awful!"

Give me an Intelligence check, Rav, to remember where Blue Jay has seen this man before.

Thomas Cleary, an older man in his mid-fifties, was waiting for Blue Jay on her arrival. "Welcome to Project Freedom, mademoiselle." He shook her hand, and walked with her into the building. This was Tona's first time at the facility, which looked more like a high-tech college dorm (at least from the movies she'd watched) than what she knew about Earth prisons. "Mr. Accolon is waiting in our medical unit, under guard." Cleary shook his head as he led the way through the hallways of the facility, the noises coming from some of the rooms letting Tona know some of the residents were still awake. "It's such a shame; he was doing so well! He and Ms. White both." He shook his head as they reached the medical bay, looking a bit like a hospital floor, where a wooden door (and the guards) separated the resident within from the rest of the facility. "He's in there. Are you sure you're comfortable with this?" The middle-aged civilian was obviously worried about her, even as the guard took her weapon. Peering past the door, Tona could see a man with a badly-bruised face staring with hawk eyes at a small television against the wall; his head bandaged and arm in a cast. He was not an immediately familiar face, with a short beard and sharp nose, but there was something familiar all the same about those craggy features. When she stepped inside and addressed him, those eyes locked on her with a cold, bitter fury. "Are you here to kill me, then, witch? Do the job your pet monster couldn't finish?"