Avenger Assembled

They worked long into the night, until a Moon dotted with the silvery lines of some long-gone construction project rose against a clear sky overhead. It was too far away to tell if it was Farsider work or some more recent Earth-human project, but the glowing lights and obvious signs of sentient alteration in Earth's only natural satellite was a reminder that life went on far beyond even the site of what had once been Freedom City. By the time Sunset and Dr. Tomorrow bedded down, the locals were singing a song of the victory to come in the next day - still an imposing prospect given the being they had to face. "There she is," said Tomorrow, pointing to the sky and using a pocket telescope to point out a distinctly blue glow in the sky like an approaching meteor. "Her interplanetary plasma radiance makes her visible even outside lunar orbit! Good thing she can't bring that sort of power into an atmosphere!" The next morning, as a column of blue-white fire, the Dragon came to Earth - landing on the highest point of one of the still-standing buildings far, far above the heads of the heroes and their native allies further down below. From her position, Sunset could make out a fiery six-limbed form cast entirely out of blazing blue-white fire and radiant plasma energy - two wings, two front legs and two back legs and a long, leonine head: - and at the very core of the energy form, something that might have been a humanoid shape.

All right, well, we'll treat this as a big, exciting failure to happen at some point during the thread - post coming tomorrow!

have an HP, crimson Tiger and Breaker. Might be a good time to try breaking otu

Down Below Sandstone stared at Breaker for a moment, then nodded, shooting a look at the warden who was still giving her a death glare before looking back at Breaker. "Yeah, yeah, I can see how you've obviously changed your ways, Breaker. Too bad! Otherwise I might have looked you up when you got out for all that good behavior. See you 'round, Tall Hat." She went back and joined the others by the door to Ember's cell, which was proving harder to get open than Downtime had evidently originally estimated - the black-clad speedster was muttering curses as he worked at the lock at super-speed. "C'mon, that'severypossiblecombination! Whatthehelliswrongwiththisstupidthing?" "They must have the DNA lockouts in place," offered Gamma with a tentative look at Ember - the big man's fear seemed to have abated now that she wasn't talking to him anymore. "We need the Warden to get it open." "All right, well, hold tight." Sandstone shot a look back at the black-jumpsuited figure who was the fourth man in their group, who nodded silently and stepped back - and suddenly jumped inside the elevator! He grabbed the warden before anyone could react and vanished just as quickly, reappearing outside Ember's cell an instant later. "OK, Warden, open the door. We can do this the nice way, or the way where I hold your eyes open over the scanner." - The monorail quickly zipped its way through the tunnels, the Blackguard silent and sure in their purpose as they guided the cars for the benefit of the heroes. Blackstone, dug out after 1993 with the help of Dr. Metropolis and other earth-movers, really was a gigantic prison, a place that could potentially have sheltered the entire population of Freedom City - as it was, it only held Freedom City's worst. Within a few seconds, they reached the sub-station that would take them down to the level that held the Warden and the VIPs who'd been traveling with him. "Our guest from Thailand and his escort, the hero Crimson Tiger," Schmitt explained - but at the station they found a scene of battle - the two Blackguards on duty beaten into unconsciousness and the control systems smashed. "Damn!" exclaimed Schmitt, practically jumping out of the cars as they stopped. "Jackson and Van Buren are two of our best people," he said, bending over the man and woman fallen at the foot of the control station. "We'll have to take the ladder; they're just one level down! You go, I need to look after my people!" He was already working on Van Buren, snapping open her armor's first aid kit. "C'mon, Mattie, you survived that damn Omegadrone, you can't let this get you down!" It looked as though both she and Jackson had been burned and tossed around, as if by some great, very energetic force.

If they'd been tired before, by the end of the day they were damn near exhausted. The next wave through the rifts had been big, heavy drones that targeted the heroes directly. There were fewer of them than before, but their sheer physical power made them no less a threat to the embattled members of 1-800-Justice and their unlikely allies, be they vigilante, patriotic do-gooder, or an unlikely pair of villains in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe it was a blessing that the heavy-armored, spiky-bodied monstrosities were hunting them rather than the people of Lincoln, but it certainly didn't feel that way at the time. Faster than the rest, Richard found himself in a support role - charging in to yank someone out of the way before a swinging pike pulled their head off, throwing super-sonic punches that kept drones off-balance and set them up for an attack from one of the others. As awful as all this was, this was not his first battle, even if those other fights in retrospect looked more like turf wars than a real war. In a stolen moment between the end of the fighting and the work of getting people out of the partially collapsed buildings on the street and towards shelter, Richard found himself alone with Paige again, his eyes still cast towards the smoke rising from where Blackstone at once stood, a column of fire now against the hazy black sky. Doing his best to be practical, he focused on her and said suddenly, "Okay, baby. When we're all done here...let's get married."

"It is possible," answered Frost. "You have experience with forest, ah, calamities, yes?" Storm had mentioned his protege's problem with fire. "One animal dies, it is nothing. A tree falls in the forest, who hears it? But if _all_ the trees die, and _all_ the animals die, as so many have done in Aralkum now that we have killed the sea there-" Even in Kimber's lifetime, not so long ago by geological standards, there had been a thriving Aral Sea - when Dimitri and Lucy yet breathed, the Sea had been a deep body of water with a thriving maritime culture around it. "The consequences could be grim. This is what I believe has driven Sister Sixtus to current dire scheme. Wizards love desecrated land for their wicked work. In Aralkun, we desecrated it ourselves."

"Ah, do we need the horses after all? Well, yesh' moye der'mo!" Frost hastily freed his mount from the freezing cold that had held it in place, then climbed aboard as man and horse rode pell-mell for the gates of Heaven. Famine and his mount maintained their unnatural fusion as he pulled up before the inner gate - the horse he rode had grown black wings and red eyes like some fell Pegasus, seeming to stare with a fascinated hunger at the melee all around it. "This is so much easier when I have tanks to-oh, of course they are here now that I have prayed for it!" He threw up his hands as golden armored vehicles rumbled up behind him, their long barreled main guns firing blasts of pure weaponized glory at the oncoming horde. "But if I prayed for this to be done, would that do it? No!" He pulled his bridle this way and that, absently soothing the uneasy horse with his free hand as old, old habits reasserted themselves. "Famine, Pestilence. Where would I go if I were...oh." He spun the horse around and rode like the Devil, the predatory mount vaulting and biting its way through the crowd and swooping over streets, before they landed before their goal - an outdoor nursery where parents and their children were together, some of them angels on guard, others souls protectively guarding the innocent. "Come to me, Famine!" he roared as the horse reared on its hind legs and gave a whinny like .a wolf's howl. "We have a score to settle! Ya mochit'sya na mogilu!"

A few years earlier, Steve might have let the Baron know the grim price that even good intentions could have on innocent worlds when one tampered with the cosmic indifference of the multiverse - but time had helped him settle some of the rawer edges of his mind. Let him keep his pride. He has lost all else. When they left the Baron with the medics, Caradoc finally spoke, his voice grave and full of intent, albeit nearly devoid of emotion. "His injuries will eventually heal. Treat them as you would long-closed wounds that have recently opened again." It was the first time he had spoken more than a word or two in the Baron's presence after the latter's resurrection. "Goodbye, Magnus." When he and Miss Americana had returned to the runaway where the Archetech plane lay waiting for them, Steve had put his armor away and returned to his human identity. He looked up at the sky, then at Miss Americana. "Let me tend your wounds," he said to the nearly flawless robot as they walked towards the plane, whose crew were surely enjoying an evening's rest.

Zipping around quickly, Fast-Forward cast that so-handy starry transport spell. Within seconds, they were back in Freedom City - conveyed to a grassy spot right in front of Freedom Hall's space by what had looked like a fast-falling meteor of white and blue to everyone around them. Sure enough, Freedom City was just as they'd hoped to find it - looking none the worse for wear and with hardly a sign of medieval times. Richard breathed a sigh of relief, waving automatically to the growing crowd. "Hey, folks! Catch us next week!" He turned to the young women and said, "Listen, Wander, Jaybird, it's been fun, but I'm going back to my wife, now that she's not a circus freak, and you guys should go find your families too. Sometimes supering just doesn't make a lot of sense. No use rewinding to try and catch the parts you missed." And with that, he turned and zipped off towards his family home, reaching his front door in an instant. Throwing it open wide, he zipped over to where his wife was watching the news and swept her up into a long, passionate kiss. "Baby, it's good to be home!"

Outside, where a light snow had begun to fall, Caradoc stared back at the open-mouthed gate to the fortress they had left behind, his invisible metallic face impossible to read. He lightly ignited the tip of his blade in a faint glow, letting any remaining nanites in it be incinerated in entropic fire. He hadn't said much to the bleeding man who he had struck down, the unmistakeable bleeding wound of a blazing powerpike at maximum still visible on the Baron's flesh. It is only fate that a monster was required to destroy a monster. He could not call it cruel fate, when an apocalypse had been prevented with no one dead and no one seriously injured despite the Baron himself. Still, the all-too-familiar feel of the blow radiating up his arms still haunted his mind, and he knew he would see the former hero's face in his mind when he dreamed that night. He didn't speak, instead briefly putting his hand on Miss Americana's back. "You were injured."

feel free! You should never be afraid to post, at least if it's not someone else's turn.

All right, I have now officially tagged this thread so I notice replies! OK, SC, let's treat the fake Ark as an invention - Go ahead and give me the Design and Craft checks, and we'll work out how long it'll take.

Frost was able to dig up a black and white surveillance camera, taken by a high-flying drone, that showed an image of the fallen town. "The decay you see here was present even before the arrival of Sister Sixtus," he admitted, steepling his long, cold fingers, then tracing one hand over the image of what looked to have been a ghost town even before the arrival of the dead. "Hope is that the barrier erected by Sixtus is merely that, and not zone of death over entire town. Muynak was fine city once, full of fishermen and factories, now it is merely a dead town in a dead place. The people who live there have done all they could to keep their lives even in the midst of devastation brought by too-hasty agricultural construction. They deserve better than death." He indicated a shadowy ring about the town. "Here are where dead known to be dead have formed. Garrison troops that probed town without warning, creatures from seabed. Am concerned about death of land itself."

"How can you be this?" Caradoc interjected, disbelief in his voice. "How can you be what you are, and do what you have done?" "How can you not?" fired Newman in return. "Look at you, you sneaky bastard, hiding it away in plain sight. And _you_, girl, slapping that A on yourself like a sham wearing a handprint. Your tribe will die screaming when they come. You've seen it happen. You know." He came out from behind his desk, hands up. "Sure, you can arrest me. Put me in that so-soft jail of yours, where I can eat any day I like and sleep in a bed every night." He sneered. "Men in this country don't even have the stones to kill their prisoners, much less give them what's comin' to 'em. I'd still be hanging by the balls if I'd touched a muckety-muck back on Nihilor!" He put his hands up on his bald, scarred head. "But before you lock me up in Candyland Jail, there's one thing you should know. There ain't no Grue in Perth!"

Merlin tilted over backwards and hit the Earth, the thorny brambles rising once again to entangle him at Nimue's command. "I can rest for another thousand years, praise Christ and Herne," she said with a great sigh. "Thank you for all you've done, heroes." She smiled beatifically. "Now, to undo all that was done and restore the balance of what is right." She raised her hands and began chanting, and Fast-Forward automatically stepped back to protect the kids. "Begone, ye mingling of past and present! Come again, world that is and ever shall be!" The sky rocked with a flash of light and clap of thunder as electricity erupted downwards into her hands, and for a moment the heroes were blinded - - And then they were standing in a suburban park in England, watching confused residents blink and look around as if awaking from a dream. Fast-Forward scratched his head and cautiously put away his magic book. Nobody around them seemed to be panicking despite the splinched city having been restored to normal (as if by magic!), so he focused on the other heroes. "All right...I think we finally flushed that guy down. Man, I hate magic people," he confessed. "It's just grody. Are you kids all right? Do you need a ride back home?"

Inside Sandstone snorted. "Not unless you've got green besides that hair, honey." She cocked a thumb back at the group working on the door. "This is a top-dollar retrieval job. But look, if you're getting out soon, think about what you're gonna do when you get out. The League's paying top dollar for people like us, and the new boss actually gives a rat's ass about the people on the front lines. He's-" "She's not going to work with you, Alexandra," said the warden, looking up from his wrist communicator. Unhappy though he seemed with this state of affairs, he wasn't particularly distressed - this looked more like yet another bad day rather than a disaster for the head of Freedom's toughest prison. "You're smart, you wouldn't have taken this job without reading her psych profile. Frances Psion is a loose cannon at the best of times. If you break her out now, people are going to die." "Seems to me that's the job of supers to stop, then," she said with a shrug. "Like Cat-Girl here." She frowned as she looked at Crimson Tiger. "Honey, don't you worry about what people will say on the Internet?" Across the way, another conversation was taking place between Frances Psion and Gamma, the Atom-Smasher. "Why would they send you?" inquired the former, her eyes narrow as she stared down the radioactive powerhouse. "Didn't you tell them what happened? Do they not know?" She laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound. "I guess you wouldn't have wanted to broadcast that, huh? Our little barbecue session, I mean." "I, uh...that was all your grandpa's idea!" said Gamma, swallowing nervously and visibly keeping Downtime between himself and Frances. "And he fixed me up afterwards, so we're...we're square!" --- Outside Inside the main control room in the Old Fort, the news was not good. The security alert had been cleared, but they hadn't yet been able to make contact with the rest of the prison. Looking at banks of monitors, Schmitt showed the heroes the interior of the prison. "Here's all the levels...except Level 2 of the Apex Level. That's temporary housing and trusty barracks. Where they put the people who've been on good behavior," he added for Mindsteel's benefit. "And it's where the warden last was." He pulled up a map that looked like an upside-down mountain - which in fact it was, a map of the prison. "But if we're going to get you down _there_...we'll need the monorail. That's nearly a mile of corridor down into the heart of the prison, way down under a whole lot of New Jersey sandstone."

"Of course they are here." Comrade Frost snapped to attention, Dimitri's theological hesitations forgotten. "Harpies! Their abilities, now!" He'd felt his own energies permeating the globe as he'd gone into that 'other place' that was Famine, but he had no idea what such things would mean in combat. Having spent his life battling unspeakable eldritch abominations, this situation was one he understood far better than mere questions of theology and Heaven and Hell. He strode right out of the stable again and positioned himself between the front doors, after taking a moment to secure his own mount with ice. The plagues of ancient Egypt, I wonder? Such would have been their work of angels now fallen. Plague of frogs? Boils? It is Nick Cimiterie who is the Angel of Death here, not me. "Gabriel, I recommend you take to the air and prevent assaults from the sky!"

"There are dimensional axes known to your science but not yet probed by the Terminus. My price is that you take me to one of those worlds and leave me there. It need have no sentient life if you are concerned about the effects of my magics. I can live as well on an empty world, or a dead one, as I can in a city." She pressed her hands flat against the glass. "You must understand that I have died, screaming, for this. This is what it is to be a daughter of Nihilor - this is our fate. But I have chosen a few more years of life as my own woman than to stay in the dark temples of Nihilor." She turned and looked at Blue Fox. "I summoned you because you are the one too swift to die when Omega was Dethroned. I want to run away."

He's still helpless, so that hits - but I'll roll the Sense Motive to see how much the Autofire stacks by. http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4433942/ = 14 OK, so that's +3 +5 +12 = DC 35 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4433943/ = 18 = unconscious!

"The Dragon was a woman, once, long before these people's ancestors walked the Earth," replied Tomorrow seriously. "She has traveled the cosmos and learned terrible powers - to burn out the energies of psychics and add them to her own power, to tear molecules to pieces without being destroyed by the subsequent ionic reactions, to survive in the depths of space and the heart of a star...but she is still human at her core. She is prone to rages, and greed, and jealousy, and has survived a million and a half years only because her short temper and petty nature have kept her from attracting the attention of the more powerful beings that dwell in this time and space. She is a terror to inhabited planets; a myth to those places that have the energies to repel her."

Let's just go ahead and fluff this last wave, and let it finish off Day 1. (Two more to go!)

Under normal circumstances, Fast-Forward would have taken this opportunity to sneer about how Freedom City's sheep had chased all the shepherds away, and so they had nobody to blame but themselves if they were sheared by two light-footed rogues. But after a day of the worst fighting of his life, of watching innocents who ran too slowly getting torn to pieces by monsters, somehow that joke didn't seem very funny. He tossed back the soda Paige had got for him and spoke, sounding not much like the brash quipper who'd been fighting 1-800-Justice that morning. "You know, I'd have laughed in your damn face before today, but now...I don't think I'm really cut out for self-sacrifice, at least not without self-sacrifice that doesn't carry a steady paycheck. Jesus, look around. I've known Ethan Keller since I was fifteen and I watched him pick up his drunken 'mentor' and carry him out of a fight. He and his friends gave everything to this city, even when the people abandoned them. He is...probably the best man I know," Richard admitted. "And what did all that get him? Shrinks smirking about hero complexes, and, and..." "And good men and women who died for what they believed in!" Fully healed of his injuries, the physical ones, anyway, Archer had emerged in Lady Liberty's company, bow slung over his shoulder. "And a lot more to come, if we can't get this done." His eyes were deep pools of grief, but his manner firm as he strode up to join the others. "Wail, Jump, Jive..." Archer was from Lincoln too, before he'd moved on to defend the city on his own, and young enough that he'd grown up with this trio of heroes among the champions he'd looked up to. "I'd be honored to stand with you today." Suddenly there was a distant boom and a low rumble, and a column of smoke suddenly poured over the horizon, fast and hot, from a distant fire. Nearly-simultaneously, Lady Liberty gasped, pressing her hand to her earpiece. Putting the pieces together fast, and realizing where that sound had come from, Fast-Forward bolted to his feet as the patriotic heroine said, "There's been a sighting of Omega, Lord of the Terminus, in Freedom City. In Blackstone Prison, just before..." "Ma!" The air slowed to a crawl, the darkened skies turning into a reddish-brown morass, as Richard put feet to ground - just as the first of the second wave came pouring out again.

God of Patriotic Lies PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 4 + 4 + 4 + 0 + 4 + 8 = 24 pp STR 24 [14] (+7/+2) DEX 24 [14] (+7/+2) CON 24 [14] (+7/+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 12 + 12 = 24 pp ATK: +6 (+7 Melee/+10 Trickster Array) DEF: +10/+7 (+1 Dodge, +3 Shield, +3 Base), +3 flat-footed Grapple: +14 Init: +7 Knockback: -5/-3 Saves: 0 + 0 + 5 = 5 pp TOU +10/+7 (+7 Con, +3 Force Field) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+7 Dex) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Acrobatics 3 (+10, SM) Bluff 13 (+17, SM) Concentration 4 (+6) Diplomacy 6 (+10, SM) Intimidate 6 (+10, SM) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+5) Language 1 (English [base], Old Norse) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Stealth 3 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 1 Challenge (Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus 1 Evasion Inspire 4 Leadership Power Attack Ritualist Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate) Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 6 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 29 = 69 pp Device 2 (Patriotic Shield, Flaw: Easy to Lose) [6PP] Enhanced Feats 4 (Evasion {2}, Interpose, Second Chance [ballistic damage], Ultimate Save [Toughness]) [4DP] Force Field 3 [3DP] Shield 3 [3DP] Enhanced CON 10 (to CON 24/+7) [10PP] Enhanced DEX 10 (to DEX 24/+7) [10PP] Enhanced STR 10 (to STR 24/+7) [10PP] Immunity 2 (aging, environmental cold) [2PP] Leaping 1 (x2, running long jump 26 feet, standing long jump 13 feet, high jump 6 feet) [1PP] Speed 1 (10 MPH/100 FPM) [1PP] Trickster Magic Array 14 (28 PP, PFs: Alternate Powers 1) [29PP] BE: Blast 10 ('thrown shield', PFs: Accurate 2, Indirect 3, Subtle 2, Variable Descriptor 1 [bludgeoning/piercing/slashing]) {28/28} AP: Illusion 9 (all senses, Flaw: Phantasm, PF: Progression 1 [10 ft by 10 ft]) {28/28} costs abilities 24 + combat 24 + saves 5 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 69 = 150 pts --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Design Notes: So once there was a trickster god who looked down on the Earth and saw that humans were hilarious - so full of themselves with righteous hubris for one cause or another, so pompously convinced they were the center of the universe. So he played with them, particularly focusing on a human soldier empowered by scientific enhancements to become the peak of human conditioning. The man had hardly any powers at all, just a nigh-unbreakable shield and a valorous heart - how could he possibly challenge a god? But the man did, even rallying a group of heroes to oppose the god's plans and defeating him in personal combat. It was all very frustrating; it was the most fun he'd had in years. And then suddenly one day the super-soldier died - killed by a sniper's bullet during a silly human political tiff. The god visited the soldier's grave to taunt him one last time, but as he stared down at the humble tombstone and the honors placed on it, he realized that this silly human in his silly costume had been loved, and would be loved, by far more people than had ever worshipped the god even in ancient times. So he found where the shield was buried and, using up most of his magics, transformed himself to the mortal plane and- Yes, inspired by that famous scene in Thor: The Dark World, here's a God of Lies cosplaying as a Patriotic Super-Soldier. As my colleague Gizmo and I teased out the other night, why not? He's weaker than most gods, but still with peak human abilities, he's incredibly charismatic, and he can do implausible things like throw a metal shield around, or have a Russian cyborg version of himself running around (sure, why not?), just out of sheer love of sheniganry. And maybe he's more comfortable with skulduggery than his predecessor, since it's something of his natural state! OK, so this guy's no Cap, and he's no Loki - but he's a pretty good fusion of the two. With proper use of his powers, his opponents will ideally never be aware they're fighting anyone other than a mundane super-soldier - some Illusion and a bouncy 'shield' sure can go a long way! Without the shield he's PL 7, only hitting PL 10 caps with his magic. Note that he can't actually throw the shield himself, never having taken up the extensive training required to use it. His backstory would need a little fudging to work in Freedom City - our gods usually need to be summoned and nobody likes our most famous patriotic hero, but I think it could be made to work with a little finessing. You might even be able to use Loki, who after all isn't actually a god at all!

With the Larrakite leaping along on his gravity boosts behind them, the heroes made their way to Evolution on Gardiner - the tallest building in Darwin. At 33 stories tall, it would have been easily dwarfed by most skyscrapers in Freedom City, but it towered over the sparser, wider Australian city all the same. When the others arrived, a short melee with the building's security staff ended with them heading down through the stairs and towards the penthouse suite where the Omega Boss himself, Leigh Newman, made his home. At the sight of the skull symbol on the double doors to the main suite, Caradoc strode forward and savagely kicked the doors open - landing his armored boot square in the middle of that silver skull in a shape unmistakably like that of the image of Omega - like that of the Omega cultists of Nihilor in particular. He didn't look over at the Omegadrone in his company, and in fact was so distracted he had barely registered her admission about her career, but he could imagine how she felt at the sight of these things, in this place, on this Earth kept so pristine of these horrors. How could he possibly have seen all this, yet done all these things? Once inside, Caradoc passed by a secretary who was just hiding under her desk, and headed into the private office of the Omega of Crime. A full-length window gave a good view of the city below, the three walls decorated with violent images drawn from Gothic and Old Master art - along the wall behind the big wooden desk was Goya's Saturn Devouring His Children. And rising from behind that desk, a smile on his weathered, heavily scarred face, was a figure instantly recognizable to Steve and Yves alike. An Omegadrone. "Well, well, well, looks like you lot finally made it!" He smiled yellow teeth and clapped his hands together. "Twenty years in this city, and all I get are little fishies nibbling at my feet like you, you whoreson bastard." He didn't even grace the Larrakite, his usual antagonist with a name. "I was beginnin' te think I'd have to come to your bloody country and kill a few of you blighters meself before anyone noticed!"