Avenger Assembled

The giant's enormous eyes grew even wider at the sight of yet another famous citizen of the mortal realm. "I...we are not savages, my lady. My masters will try the mortal as befits the ancient laws of our people, and then give him the penalty of any god-slayer. And we did not arrest Typhoon in our lands, but in this one. My lord Al-Quam did send his shadow legions to apprehend the foul god-slayer. The Kaaba gateway was no doubt torn open by Typhoon himself as he made his escape to the realm of mortals. He has been to our realm before," added the giant fire-genie, contempt on his massive face, "and stolen from the very gods. All know his face and his works."

-1 HP (do I have any left, TT?) for an Inspire on the Liberty League + Dralion! (See, Mark included him in his speech too)

"This is, without a doubt, the worst magical invasion I have ever been part of!" Edge shouted over the sound of the leprechauns' taunts. "You people...do you even know what Ireland is like? It's full of nice Catholic and Protestant people! They have enough problems, they don't want to live under the rule of cereal mascots from Erde with terrible fashion sense! Much less of the rest of the world!" He jabbed a finger against his palm, then slammed a fist. "And you know what, I read history sometimes, and things weren't even that different in 1940! You're not even misguided. You wanted to put chains on the world then, just like you want to do now! Well, you're about to get justice from BOTH worlds, so watch out! Liberty League, let's show them what we're made of!" He was making a spectacle of himself on purpose, as his friends well knew, drawing attention to the big and the loud so the fast and the strong could do their work.

It was a hot half hour or so for the two young men; Edge keeping himself hydrated with water bottles he produced from nothing while Boreas had access to the sky's moisture to stay going even in the extreme heat of the Ethiopian desert. Over a live volcano! But eventually the job was done and the volcano was patched, the tungsten settling in and looking vaguely like a metallic filling in the cavity opened in the mountain by the recent earthquake. Backing off from the crater, Edge tapped his commlink and said, "All right, Boreas, I think we did it. Come down here and we can-woah!" Suddenly the ground shook, knocking Mark off his feet, and from his aerial position Boreas saw a cloud of dust and smoke sweep over his erstwhile employer, as suddenly the entire surface of the lava lake began to tremble, smoke pouring from the crater, the molten rock rippling impossibly like a lake in a summer breeze... Until something parted the surface, and began to climb out. The figure was humanoid in the loosest sense, with a head and two arms and two legs, but with a triple row of glowing red eyes running down its face, and glowing yellow and red skin that looked to be made of the same stuff as the lava. It towered high, very high, rising to nearly a hundred feet by Boreas' estimation as one clawed foot made contact with the rocky surface at the top of the sunken mountain. It threw back a crystalline head and howled in a voice like Pompeii exploding. "RAAAAAAAAAOOOOARRR! AT LAST, AFTER TEN THOUSAND YEARS, MAGMAR IS FREE TO LAY WASTE TO THE COLD ONES ABOVE! WHERE ARE PUNY ATLANTEAN WIZARDS?"

Squishy Brick PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 10 + 4 + 10 + 2 + 4 + 0 = 30 pp STR 40/20 (+15/+5) DEX 14 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 10 + 16 = 26 pp ATK: +5 DEF: +15 (+7 Shield, +8 Base, +4 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +10/+32 w/Enhanced STR/+20 w Move Object Knockback: -2 Saves: 2 + 5 + 5 = 12 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 68r = 17PP Bluff 10 (+10) Concentration 8 (+10) Diplomacy 10 (+10) Drive 3 (+5) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 9 (+10) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 4 (+5) Medicine 8 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 5 PP All-Out Attack Move-By Action Second Chance (Medicine checks) Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 6 + 44 + 9 + 4 = 62PP Flight 3 (50 MPH, 500 fpm) [6PP] Gravity Control Array 22 (42 PP, PFs: Alternate Powers 2) [44PP] BE: Enhanced STR 20 (to STR 40/+15) {20} + Super-Strength 12 (Str 100, Heavy Load: 12.5K tons) {22} {20+22=42/42} AP: Move Object 10 (STR 50, Heavy Load 12 tons, Extras: Area [burst], Damaging, Selective, Flaw: Limited [up or Down Only], PFs: Indirect, Subtle) {42/42} AP: Move Object 10 (STR 50, Heavy Load 12 tons, Extras: Damaging, Range [Perception], PFs: Indirect, Subtle) {42/42} Shield 7 (PFs: Evasion 2) [9PP] Super-Senses 3 (gravitic field sense [tactile; enhancements: analytical, ranged]) [3PP] costs abilities 30 + combat 26 + saves 10 + skills 17/68 + feats 5 + powers 62 = 150 pts ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Design Notes: Generally super-strong characters in comics are tough, capable of dishing out punishment and taking it in their own measure. One notable exception is recurring X-Man Sunspot, a gravity manipulator who is really really strong but mostly just a normal guy physically. That was the inspiration behind this build - he's really, really strong, one of my strongest builds, capable of dishing out tremendous damage whether in melee or by picking up an object and 'throwing' it with his gravitically-enhanced strength. But he's just a man behind all that power, and if you can get close enough and hit him you can lay him out with a few good punches. He actually has a little bit of flexibility, but his Gravitic Manipulation powers (the Move Objects) don't let him bring the sheer power that gravity-backed punches do - if he really wants a fight, he'll have to get up close and personal with enemies who can atomize him if they manage to land a single punch. He can't even fly faster than he can breathe! A build like this requires care - my advice is to make frequent use of the Move-By Action feat on his Flight, letting him stay mobile on the battlefield and out of melee range of the big bad guys. Taking the advice from Doc's Gravity Guy build, I've built this as a paramedic caught in the backwash of an experimental anti-grav device - he's no dummy, but he's still learning how his powers work. If you shuffle the skills and feats around some, he could be an inventor or a soldier, or perhaps he's just a veteran hero who has a lot of strong training. A build like this would also work for a teenage Claremont student like Sunspot, someone with training in hero skills and the basics of combat, but who could use a little seasoning. And hopefully the chance to learn how to make a forcefield!

Benjamin Franklin Abilities: 0 + 0 + 0 + 10 + 2 + 4 = 16PP STR: 30/10 (+10/+0) DEX: 10 (+0) CON: 20/10 (+5/+0) INT: 20 (+5) WIS: 12 (+1) CHA: 14 (+2) Combat: 8 + 8 = 16PP ATK: +4 (+6 Electrical Control [+10 Electrical Control in Suit]) DEF: +7 (+2 Dodge, +1 Shield, +4 Base, +2 Flat-Footed) Init: +0 Grapple: +6/+14 w/Magnetic Control/+17 w/Enhanced STR/+18 w/Enhanced Magnetic Control Knockback: -10/-4/-2/-0 Saves: 5 + 5 + 6 = 16PP TOU: +13/+9/+5/+4/+0 (+0 Con, +4 Force Field, +4 Protection, +5 Enhanced Con) FORT: +10/+5 (+0 Con, +5, +5 Enhanced Con) REF: +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WIS: +7 (+1 Wis, +6) Skills: 56 r = 14PP Bluff 8 (+10/+14) Concentration 4 (+5) Craft (Electronic) 8 (+13) Craft (Mechanical) 8 (+13) Diplomacy 8 (+10/+14) Knowledge (Technology) 8 (+13) Languages 4 (English [base], French, Greek, Latin, Seneca) Notice 4 (+5) Sense Motive 4 (+5) Feats: 8PP Attractive Beginner's Luck Dodge Focus 2 Eidetic Memory Inventor Jack of all Trades Second Chance (vs Fear checks) Powers: 45 + 19 + 4 + 6 + 4 + 2 = 80PP Device 11 (Galvanic Power Armor, Flaw: Hard to Lose, PF: Electrical Controllers]) [45PP] Enhanced Constitution 10 (to CON 20/+5) [10DP] Enhanced Electrical Control 7 (PFs: Accurate 2, Alternate Powers 2) [18DP] Flight 3 (50 MPH/500 fpm) [6DP] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9DP] Impervious TOU 8 [8DP] Shield 1 [1DP] Super-Senses 2 (Infravision, Radio) [2DP] Electrical Control 8 (16PP, PFs: Accurate, Alternate Powers 2) [19PP] BE: Blast 8 {16/16} AP: Magnetic Control 7 (Str 35, Hvy Load 1.5 tons; PFs: Indirect, Subtle) {16/16} AP: Stun 8 {16/16} Force Field 4 [4PP] Immunity 6 (aging, electrical damage) [6PP] Protection 4 [4PP] Quickness 4 (x25, Flaw: Limited [Mental Tasks Only]) [2PP] Abilities (16) + Combat (16) + Saves (16) + Skills (14) + Feats (8) + Powers (80) = 150PP ------------------------------- Design Notes: OK, so I built Benjamin Franklin as inspired by Freedom City's Daedalus. He's an immortal hero who has supplemented his mental abilities with a suit of power armor - in his case, quite literally power armor as the suit is powered by the electrical abilities he gained after his first clash with Zeus lo those many years ago. I had to cut some corners, but I think this could pass for the historical Benjamin Franklin - a smart guy and a polymath who can work even with 18th century tools and with enough of a silver tongue to make him a devil with the ladies. (Though easy to fool, given that he had a British spy as his personal secretary for many years during the American Revolution) He can chime in on almost any subject, as befits one of the smartest men of his day. I figure that two centuries of channeling the lightning have hardened his body enough to give him a limited degree of protection even when his magnetic forcefield isn't up. He has a lot of options in combat and is able to deploy everything from ball lightning, cones of electricity erupting from his fingers, or magnetic manipulation to toss around magnetic objects - he can also just amp up the batteries in his suit with his personal energy and punch bad guys really hard. Being inside the suit, with its intimate connections to his abilities, helps armor him against all kinds of attack, making him a bit more resilient than your typical battlesuit. I figure his suit is a little old, hence the lack of many typical super-senses, but he can still get around all right in it. He can suck up some big hits wearing that thing! An even-more Tony Stark-esque Franklin could easily justify Wealth or Security Clearance, while one who has spent his career fighting magical beasts on the American frontier might have some more Arcane Lore. More Charisma, and some Skill Mastery, are both excellent investments for this fine fellow!

"I...I know you, Great One," said the giant, looking a little intimidated at the sight of the very small being before him. He seemed to be whispering, either for Midnight's benefit or out of awe, but still it carried to those on shore. "In this realm, I am only a voice that speaks the words of my masters," Al-Shahada went on. He raised a fist, but made no hostile gesture, instead spreading his fingers and rending apart a hole in space that beckoned into a dark realm lit by distant torches beyond, Midnight's eyes letting him see what looked like an ancient Arabian throne room in wild disarray. "Those I serve may not enter this realm, only dwell inside the Forever Black Stone. Save in death, as has our king below." He cleared a giant throat and added, "Would the Slayer of Entropy and his boon companions care to return within the Stone with me? I can show you the scene of the foul god-slaying murder and the captured criminal in his bonds."

"I can hear them," he admitted, again with that guilty look, which made the years fall right off her older brother's face and suddenly he was the teenager swiping their dad's keys and getting ratted out by Charlie Jr. "But not real loud. It's...it's lahk they're talking in the other room, and I can just make it out through the walls." His eyes widened. "Wait, that can't be right, I thought one of them was thinking about you, but he's just thinking about dead Grue over and over again, he..." He shook his head, as if trying to shake his mind out of the cobwebs of other people's thoughts. "I...so this is what you do?" he asked her. "Working for a superhero like Miss Americana?" Like a lot of men, he said the name with a little extra appreciation. "I guess Freedom City's real far from Blackwater, huh?"

You both realize (even CT, with the help of one of the scientists) that proximity to Grue technology, in a very small number of people, can induce temporary mutations - the space-warping powers of Grue biotech can cause people to temporarily acquire the superpowers that they 'want', in much the same way that Meta-Grue can be infused with the power of various superheroes. Sometimes the Grue use this as a morale-breaker, making the enemy think that there are shapeshifters within their own ranks, but it looks like the mutation effects of the space warp parts happened to play to some powerful psychic potential of Peter's, something that didn't show up on the typical scans. What happened to him can thus probably be cured; or he can learn to live with it as other mutants have.

Initiative: SEIZED

I need a DC 20 Medicine and DC 20 Knowledge (Technology) OR (Galactic Lore) check. You may have +10 to _one_ of those checks from the presence of the Archetech scientists

"Oh my lord..." Peter's voice was dry and cracked, and he drank quickly from the cup of water left by his bed so he could talk. "Ah...Ah don't feel very good. Is that really yew, Gina?" Sitting up, he looked her right in the eye, his own deep and haunted. "Ah never wanted any of this to happen," he went on, looking guilty, a deep blush on his pale cheeks. "Mah wife, mah kid...Ah probably scared the livin' daylights outta them. And everybody else." He looked away. "Ah just thought if Ah could reach out and...and make everyone be nahce, then maybe everything would be okay again. Maybe Momma and Daddy would get back together, and maybe you would come back, and...Ah never did anything the first time, I wanted things to just be all right this time!" His voice cracked again. "And now Ah just made everything worse." ------- Steve fought a brief, mad urge to distract the others from entering Gina's private space by dropping his holographic disguise and fleeing at maximum speed. "I...let us look at the equipment as Miss Americana suggested, and try to figure out what led to...yon events and Peter Evans' telepathy. Where be ye olde Grue equipment?" Luckily the broken Grue equipment was close at hand, and soon it was spread out on the runway for both the newly-arrived Archetech scientists and the heroes to study. "I see communications equipment, a beacon, Grue warp parts...What here could give powers to a man with no powers at all?"

Hestia "The hearth cannot be moved!" Abilities: 0 + 0 + 14 + 0 + 4 + 4 = 22 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 8 + 8 = 16 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Divine Power) DEF: +5 (+1 Dodge, +4 Base, +2 flat-footed) Init: +0 Grapple: +4 Knockback: -12 Saves: 0 + 5 + 8 = 13 pp TOU +15 (+7 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +5 (+0 Ref, +5) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Craft (Cooking) 8 (+10) Diplomacy 12 (+14) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 4 (+4) Medicine 8 (+10) Languages 2 (English, Latin, Base: Attic Greek) Notice 6 (+8) Sense Motive 12 (+14) Feats: 9 pp Dodge Focus Interpose Luck Move-By Action Second Chance 2 (Medicine checks, Sense Motive checks) Ultimate Skill 2 (Craft [Cooking], Sense Motive) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 6 + 41 + 2 + 3 + 10 + 8 + 3 + 4 = 77 pp Comprehend 3 (speak and understand any language, anyone who hears you can understand you) [6PP] Divine Power Array 17 (34 pp, PFs: Accurate 3, Alternate Powers 4) [41PP] BE: Blast 10 (ever-burning hearth, Extra: Duration [Concentration], PFs: Improved Crit, Indirect 2, Precise) {34/34} AP: Healing 10 (Hestia's mercy, Extra: Restorative; PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) {32/34} AP: Paralyze 10 ("Behave yourselves!", Extras: Area [General, Burst], Linked [Trip, +0]; Flaw: Range [Touch], PF: Precise) + Trip 10 (Extras: Area [General, Burst], Linked [snare], Flaw: Range [Touch], PF: Improved Trip) {32/34} AP: Snare 10 ("into the hearth with you!", Extra: Constricting, PFs: Improved Crit 2) {32/34} AP: Stun 10 ("go to sleep!" Extra: Range [Perception], Flaw: Sense-Dependent [Auditory], PFs: Sedation, Variable Descriptor 1 [pain/sleep]) {32/34} Flight 1 (10 MPH, 100 fpm) [2PP] Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3PP] Impervious TOU 10 [10PP] Protection 8 [8PP] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3PP] Super-Senses 4 (Detect Physical Condition 3 [visual] (Enhancement: Analytical)) [4PP] costs abilities 22+ combat 16 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 9 + powers 77 = 150 pts --------------------------------- Design Notes: One of my favorite superhero comics, PS238, includes a character who is an incarnation of the Greco-Roman goddess Hestia (Vesta to her friends). PS238's Hestia is there to illustrate how the titular superschool trains people with superpowers not really suitable for combat. Being the goddess of the hearth and home, Hestia's powers are more domestic in nature, though she is able to assure her teacher that she will one day find a husband and have many strong children with him. But that got me thinking; what would a Hestia built as a conventional superhero look like? Hestia was always the most likable and humble of the Olympian pantheon, and so she would plausibly be heroic even in the Freedom City setting where most Olympians, well, let's just say they stick pretty close to their standard mythological characterization. The hook to hang this build on, of course, is Hestia's mastery of the hearth. Of fire. She can summon ever-burning flames with a gesture or, if she's suitably wroth, summon a burning hearth to pin a target inside its cheery flames! She can also make household guests behave by knocking them to their feet, or put particular ne'er-do-wells down for the count with a word. She's a nice person and a good hostess, with the social skills to run a household of Olympians and tend the wounds of her teammates, both with and without her powers. She can welcome anyone in the door. She's not much for the kind of physical confrontations that her more martial brothers and sisters are all about, but she can take massive hits and (more importantly) take them for others. Good things to do might involve buying up her Charisma and adding Combat Diplomacy, so she really can talk down rampaging monsters before she has to resort to setting them ablaze. This works fine as a Hestia summoned to Earth to battle wrongdoers (perhaps to stave off some plot of her brother Hades), or as perhaps a demigod with only a portion of her mother's power. Since Hestia is supposed to be a virgin goddess like her sister Artemis, perhaps there's a very real reason why such a character has grown up on Earth and not on Olympus...

Edge walked as close to the edge of the leaking rim of the volcano as he could, feeling his costume start to heat up and his shoes stick slightly to the superheated rocks beneath his feet. He took a moment to stand there and stare, feeling the heat rising from the ever-active volcano overwarming his skin like standing outside on a bright summer day at the Equator, feeling the rumble of the volcano and thinking about where he was and why he was there. From the depths of the Terminus to dimensions overrun by radioactive Nazis, a good old-fashioned volcano still had the power to move him. And melt me! Better not mess around with this guy. "Okay, Boreas," he called, "start cooling!" The weather controller hadn't asked how Mark was going to patch the hole, which was good because Mark wasn't exactly sure how it worked either! All he knew was what happened when he wanted it to happen; a silvery-grey metal began flowing over and down into the lavaflow, glowing slightly but not melting as it gradually began to replace the lava inside the crack. "I'm patching the hole with tungsten!" he called up to Boreas, "it's something that doesn't melt inside lava! Aw man, that would be a cool power...I mean, anyway, make sure you're keeping the lake itself cold and sluggish, so it'll melt around the tungsten and plug it up instead of just pushing it all the way out!"

"Oh, they probably won't bother with their robes here," said Thinks-and-Eats. "But you'll know them if you see any with heads like his," he said with a nod towards Wail. "They pluck their feathers as proof of their devotion to the Bringer." The raptor party was, in itself, surprisingly recognizable. Children played with something shaped like a four-legged animal, laughing as they tumbled all over each other to try and get the treats that were spilling out now with every blow, while adults watched the kids play, laughing and taking pictures with big old-fashioned flash cameras. Behind them were triangular buffet tables laden with snacks and adults sitting at round ones, some socializing, some eating, while a big bronze sculpture of the family matriarch loomed over everything in the shadow of the big house. At the sight of the new arrivals, the crowd's heads came up as one - like so many hawks hearing a disturbance, they raised scaled and feathered heads to study the humanoid intruders. "I have brought the mammal heroes of Earth!" called Thinks-and-Eats ebulliently as he practically bounded in the air with glee. "They are my guests!" It was also, of course, an alien scene - those children, raptors the size of kindergarteners, were jumping and leaping at what looked like some sort of four-legged mammal that had once been alive. The smiling adults bore sharp teeth in long, scaly mouths, and the buffet tables behind them were equally laden with wet, red and brown meat. Unlike the car seats, the tables bore the occasional hole in the surrounding benches that seemed to be designed to accomodate particularly bountiful raptor tails. The sculpture that loomed overhead was another raptor, a heroic version of the small, knobbly-bodied old raptor sitting surrounded by young, sturdy-looking companions, the statue and raptor missing an arm and bearing instead what looked like a deep burn scar over the spot. On the other side of the 'pinata' field, some even smaller younglings were sitting with adults, watching a puppetmaster put on a show about T-Rexes and raptors against a futuristic city overrun with trees. One familiar face approached them that they could all recognize - the Commander of the expedition that had come to Earth-Prime was as imposing as ever, for all that she had drawn herself up to loom over little Thinks. "Well, this is an interesting display of your manly prowess, boy," she said with a raspy laugh before she politely exposed the back of her head to the visitors. "Welcome to the First City of the Empire. I must admit, I never thought I'd see any of _you_ again. These are the mammals I have been speaking of!" she added, raising her voice to the rest of the party guests. "Proof that Raptorkind is not alone in the multiverse! That not every word spoken in the Bringer's texts is true!" And this time, when the bravest in the crowd headed towards them, the curiosity in their eyes wasn't exactly predatory. Not _exactly_, anyway.

"Oh, sure, he can make ice, he can make steam, he can do anything with any state of water," said Edge affably, "he...oh." Picking up on Midnight's meaning, Edge shot a glance over at the waterfront, where Nina was flying around from sibling to sibling, organizing the al-Darsah family's protection of the bay. "Yeah, yeah," he said with a nod Midnight's way. "The only thing that's strange to me is that if he killed this, this thing, a giant, a god, whatever," he said with a gesture at the mountain-sized corpse, "you'd think he'd be right there!" Despite himself, his voice had fallen into a whisper, albeit loud enough for the other heroes to hear. "Waving the heart around like he's the champion...but that would explain where all the blood went," he said with a nod to Wander. "I don't know anything about magic," he went on to Cannonade, "but..." Mark was interrupted, however, when a giant flamed into existence on the chest of the fallen god - tall as a football field, with a massive goatee, ponytail, and red harem pants and vest, flame made an outline of the ifreet as he called in a voice that reached the edge of the docks where the heroes waited. "I AM AL-SHAHADA, FLAME-SHADOW MESSENGER OF THE GODS OF ALLAT! I HAVE COME TO SUMMON WITNESSES FOR THE TRIAL OF MUHAMMAD AL-DARSAH, THE MORTAL TYPHOON!" "Oh, crap, Nina!" Mark vanished in an instant, reappearing across the bay to try and talk his girlfriend down before the al-Darsah family went for the divine messenger!

The shining knight was the perfect choice for Peter Evans to see as he awoke, the wide-eyed, pale-faced and thin-cheeked man looking up at Steve as if unsure if he was going to be saved or damned for what had happened in Blackwater. "Ye have returned to the land of the living, Peter Evans," he told the former patient seriously, "The one you seek will be with you soon." Your sister...For a moment, Steve was lost, out of character as Peter himself sat up and looked around the airplane, looking first at the shining knight Caradoc, then at Thresher, still in his costume, and at the medical staff on the plane. How could he tell this man of the love he felt for his sister, of the broken man and the broken woman who had found each other in the shining world of peace that was Earth-Prime? Perhaps it was better, with all these people around, that he could say nothing at all. "Come, let us go," he urged Thresher as he heard movement inside the plane, "the one he has lost has come for him." And with that, perhaps out of sympathy for another's plight, or perhaps because he was just looking for the liberated members of his own team, Thresher joined Caradoc in exiting the plane. "And you as well! Go, go!" Shining knight or not, there was a darker iron in the urgency in Steve's voice. Still recovering from their brief bout with mind control, the rest of the medical staff left the plane too. Once outside, pushing himself beyond the limits of his usual withdrawn nature, Steve borrowed a radio to announce "Cavalier and Cobalt Templar, I will await...ye, on yon runway."

"Let's go!" said Edge with a boom in his voice. "Adventure awaits!" And with that, he took Boreas' hand - And they reappeared in scene like Hell itself! They stood on the slopes of a barren mountain that rose hundreds of feet above Boreas' head and stretched hundreds of feet below, a low, omnipresent rumble and cloud of billowing smoke rising from the peak showing that they were indeed on the slopes of one of the many volcanic peaks of the ever-active Erta Ale. It was dawn here where it had been after midnight in Freedom City, the star-dappled sky showing great handfuls of glowing orbs so far from the pollution of the city...if you didn't dwell too much on the volcanic plumes of smoke, barren mountain slopes, and strange, rugged desert that stretched as far as Boreas could see. "All right, you take to the air, I'll head for the volcano!" said Edge cheerfully, looking unphased by the exotic circumstances. He slowly trudged his way up, making his way along a rugged path cut by previous geological expeditions. "You've got your Claremont commlink, right?"

For his part, Mark wasn't above a little worry about the whole plan. Calling up and asking if there were any new weather controllers in the Claremont student body had been an impulsive act, and he'd been a little surprised when Mr. Summers (which he had to admit was what he would call the former headmaster in his head, probably forever) had agreed. But maybe the old man thought Boreas needed the guidance that came from doing service work in the larger superhero community; maybe he thought that Claremont students needed more job training before they went off to college...it was hard to tell! Either way, at a half-hour after midnight there was a gentle knock on Boreas' door - Edge had long since learned, after several attempts, that nobody liked having teleporters just show up in their bedroom.

"Right now, I'm going to take you back to Freedom City so you can make your classes. Tonight, I'm going to stop by and pick you up half an hour after midnight," replied Edge, glancing down at the old-fashioned wristwatch he wore. "That'll be a little after dawn Ethiopian time. Coolest part of the day, best time to do this kind of work. I'll brief you once we're out there. Make sure you bring a water bottle of your own. Just in case our powers fail, we don't want to get stuck out there in the desert with nothing but our costumes on, right?" He grinned, looking unruffled at the prospect. "But I'm sure between the two of us, we'll do just fine. Do you want to go straight back to Claremont?" he asked, "or back to where you were on patrol?"

"All right, well, that will work the best for what we want to do." Not wanting to dazzle the kid with the super-science they had available at UNISON (even that was less than what he'd probably run into if he was active in Freedom City long enough), Mark turned on his computer and opened up some images. "This volcano is called Erta Ale. It's one of the most active volcanoes in the world." The display showed Boreas a volcano that, unlike the ones he'd seen in the movies, seemed placed in a crater in the ground rather than towering over the landscape. "It generally doesn't erupt, but it does have one of the largest lava lakes in the world." He showed Boreas that image too and said, "There was an earthquake there recently, and there was some damage to one of the crater walls. I don't really follow the science," he admitted, "but in layman's terms, I need to go in and put a patch on the crater wall so that the lava doesn't spill out into that valley. The Afar people who live near the mountain, they have enough troubles, they don't need a wall of lava crushing their villages," he said as if that sort of thing happened every day. "So you don't need to go into the volcano, or even get that near it; you just need to get the air cool enough around the summit so that I can get close to do my work."

Thinks-and-Eats explained on the way, the hovercar phut-phutting along noticeably low to the ground once Wail was finally on board. He had a teenager's excitement as he spoke, obviously still thrilled to have the human (and otherwise) heroes there. "What we'll do first is we'll all go in and we'll socialize, and that will be...will be fun." He shook his long, pointed head like a dog shaking off water, his scaly fingers wrapped around the rubberized metal of the steering wheel. "It will mostly be people talking about things, like the holiday that's coming up, and how big Runs-With-Fangs-Bared is getting. She's the best hunter in our whole class, and she's sure to go to the warriors academy once she's an adult. She's just, she's just awesome, is what she is." Along the way, they passed through streets that were at once eerily familiar and terribly alien. The raptors had paved roads dotted with hovercars, but left their sidewalks unpaved, small packs of skittering hunters running back and forth on packed dirt beneath artificially planted giant ferns, the forest of skyscrapers above their heads a counterpoint to the natural ferns between sky and car. The raptors generally moved in packs of one or two smaller ones leading two or three larger ones. "So," he said curiously to Erin and Min, with the air of a smart kid who'd learned a new fact to wow his guests, "I understand human females give birth to their young live! That's very interesting!" Moving on from that subject, he cleared his throat with a scaly hiss as outside a small raptor bought something small and wriggling from a street vendor and tossed it to the bigger ones behind her, the large males seeming to laugh as they tore into the guinea pig-sized animal. "Anyway, ah, all you will have to do is be my guests. No one is going to try and eat you," he reassured them, "since that's not acceptable in a Fangs-Beared household. Commander Feeds-With-Rampant-Fangs-Bared will want to talk to you first, since you are surprise guests, but since you all have gifts, there will be no problem. Unless there is a problem! But that will be from the Orthodoxy clerics, not from anyone there," he added reassuringly. "They don't think humans are as good as people, but I know you guys are great," he said reassuringly. "If they serve food, you should ask for what Slayer-of-Machines-With-Fangs-Bared eats," he said, "she is the oldest of the family, and she has to eat her food dead and cooked all the time," he went on, sounding very sympathetic. As he talked, they pulled up in front of a large, round house cast in shades of purple, a mansion-sized dwelling that was obviously the home of the Fangs-Bared clan. The house itself stood on a nearly bare hillside, resting in the shade of those tall ferns that seemed to be favored in lieu of trees locally. He pulled up to the drop where the road became packed earth and rolled down his tinted window, pulling out keys and tossing them to a surprised-looking uniformed raptor who must have been the local valet. "They're with ME," he hissed with great pride, stretching out to his full height as they stepped out in front of the gates. As the iron structure swung open, the heroes could hear strange hissing, growling noises from behind the house, but their guide seemed unworried. "That's the early party, for the little ones."

"Oh, sure, I know how it is," said Mark seriously. "You never know who might be after you for your secret identity." He pulled his mask back down and faced Boreas, remembering again what it was like to be that young. Geez, just four years ago, Mark, he chided himself. Of course, a lot had happened since then. "To make a long story short, I've had an emergency come up that needs the services of a weather controller. Normally I'd go to one of the weather controllers who works here at UNISON, but right now they're all tied up on different missions. I don't need anything fancy; what I need is someone who can continuously keep temperatures at Arctic levels even in a desert during summer." He sat on his desk and looked at the younger man, unconsciously emulating some of his old teachers back at Claremont. "Now, I've cleared it with Mr, er, with Duncan Summers, so you'll be able to get away for the Labor Day weekend. But this is big stuff - you will be doing hero work outside the United States, and it will probably be an overnighter. Are you comfortable with that?"

"Sure. Take my hand and hang on just a second." Edge extended that firm hand to Boreas again, and when the younger man took it they both simply went away just as the megaphone had. When the lights came back on, they were in a small office looking over a city Boreas didn't recognize and a lake beyond it, with mountains rising just beyond the lake itself. The sun had seemed to move overhead, now settling in the west to reveal a lovely, mountain-dappled sunset. "Welcome to Switzerland!" said Edge cheerfully, clapping Boreas on the back before he took a seat behind what was evidently his desk. "This is my office in UNISON. You've learned about that, right?" Boreas had; UNISON was the UN agency that hired people with superpowers. "I do a lot of different stuff around here." The office itself was actually pretty sparse for someone like Edge, with just a cuckoo clock on the wall, a couple of books and a desktop computer, and a picture hanging on the wall of a whitebread suburban family - middle-aged father, younger wife, and son. "First, let me introduce myself." He pulled back his mask to reveal blonde hair and a perfect tan, and smiled with white teeth at Boreas. "I don't really worry about a secret identity with other superpeople, especially not people from Claremont. I'm Mark Lucas."

As far as Midnight can tell, whatever force drew the heart out of the body was being wielded by something much smaller than the corpse - from the extreme downward angle of its exit, perhaps no smaller than a man. It was by something tentacled and cold from the frost marks big enough to hide city buses all around the wound; something cold indeed, like the icy darkness of the Schattenwelt, or maybe the icy cold from the very bottom of the sea.