Avenger Assembled
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Edge Seizes Initiative.
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"I just want my mom to get better," said Mark, not quite looking at Erin as they pulled into the garage. "I know things will never go back to how they were. Not for her, not for me, not for how we were as a family...but she's been through enough, she should just be able to be happy. Things need to get better for her. She was so happy, you know, when you agreed to do this, so sure it was going to make things right. And that's what we'll do," he said definitively, as if trying to reassure himself as much as Erin. "We'll do this, because we promised, and then afterwards I'll make sure she gets help. Things are going to get better because of what we do tonight." He gave Erin a reassuring smile, and if he wasn't all the way better, it looked like her words had least pointed him in the right direction. The Andi Comics buffet dinner and talent show turned out to be a fairly sedate affair; no surprise given the middle-aged corporate types who made up most of the leadership. If you left out the giant picture of America's favorite perpetual teenager over the small stage and a few posters of famous characters like Kim Park or Prince Sweetheart, it might have been any other second-tier corporate get-together. Mark found them the table reserved in his mom's name, and soon was introducing his cousin to several artists and writers who were carefully asking "How's your mom doing?" in between shaking Erin's hand. "She's okay, she's resting at home," Mark reassured them automatically. "Is Alan Curtis here? I didn't know how he was doing after everything that happened." "Oh yeah, he's fine," said Ted Barker, a middle-aged man with a heavy combover in a suit that must have been in fashion about a decade before Mark or Erin was born. "I don't think he's coming to the buffet, he's setting up for his stage show. it's really gonna be something!"
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"Hmmm." Frost drifted up to the nearest fiend and solidified into a human shape, billowy clouds briefly forming the shape of a cape behind him as he approached the nearest tzitzimitl. "Woman, listen," he said, putting his hand against the Aztec monster's face and draining the life from its writhing form, ice crystals erupting from beneath its skin as he froze its solidified flesh as he would a block of wood. "You are beaten. You will be beaten worse. You know that gods in Omeyocan do look below and laugh at your failures, and sneer that you are no protectors of women if you can be beaten so handily. It is regrettable but they are quite harsh. Would you go home and prove your valour there in battle against the others? Or simply be beaten worse here and go home with the humiliation multiplied a hundred-fold?" He shrugged, doing his best to be diplomatic around the American supers.
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Comrade Frost: approaches one of the 14 - Tzitzimimeh x3 - Bound (+6 Toughness), Pinned and uses his Drain Tou. DC 24 vs a Rank 12 Tou Drain w/+ 2 Power Attack
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"All good things, I hope!" Sharl joked. His nerves were all on edge between what he and Eliza had just done Don't look at the bed, don't look at the bed. He shook the man's hand firmly, trying to find some sign of the mysterious heritage Eliza had told him about in his eyes. "We were just getting in some studying, you know, computer programming and stuff. Eliza's really got a good handle on this stuff," he said, keeping a perfectly straight face even as he heard the words coming out of his mouth. Luckily he didn't sweat while in his computerized form. "So she tells me you work down at the docks? That's really neat. Back home, I used to love to go down to the water's edge and watch the ships come in." And that was all true, for all that the ships of the plankton fleet dwarfed all but the largest terrestrial supertanker.
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For his part, Caradoc neglected the coachman entirely and closed on the coach, the armored knight slowly advancing on the vehicle that he gradually began to recognize was no ordinary vehicle. Horses were all one body with the coach itself, twitching extensions of the all-too-living main body. It reminded the man behind the armor, suddenly, terribly, of the rickshaws of the Terminus. He caught 'equine' nostrils snuffling wildly at the air as he approached, and suddenly came to a realization. "You know, don't you? You can smell it in the air." He walked up to the lead horse and put an armored finger to its lips and spoke. His soft, mechanical whisper was harsh, harsher than Steve liked being, but he grew uncomfortable with actually attacking a mindless servant if there were alternatives. "Sssh. Be very quiet, and do not move. If you attempt to escape, or rescue that creature, you will be found." He turned and fired a double-blast at the coachman, which unfortunately went wild, hurtling past him without actually making contact. Careless, he chided himself. Don't fire into melee with someone that swift. "The coach-thing has been subdued!"
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Harrier flies up to the coach as a move action, then takes a standard action to Intimidate it. DC 30 check which it cannot pass. He then turns, surges (-1 HP to cancel the fatigue), and fires a blast at the Coachman from behind. http://rolz.org/myroomlog?r=FCPbP+The+Sun+Never+Sets = 14 Well, shouldn't have Power Attacked! Oh, what the heck - might as well get a little fancy. http://rolz.org/group =23 Hah-hah, guess I shouldn't have tried to get fancy! OK, down 2 HP (but I have complication plans later, but one of the bad guys should be out of the fight for the moment...
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Mark was waiting by his car on time, looking business dapper in his sports jacket, slacks, and red tie. It wasn't the sort of outfit he'd have worn to a formal UNISON event, but this certainly wasn't that. "Hi, cousin," he said with a little smile, carefully not looking back at the house behind him where he knew his mom was watching. He knew she'd appreciate it more if he acted like everything was normal, as if he wasn't acutely aware that she would be sitting up all night until they came home. "You look nice," he said, cracking the door for her before walking over to the drivers' side. Inside Mark's car was its usual neat self - as lazy as Mark could be, looking good was one thing he always took the time to do. Or maybe it was just that he was lucky enough to never make a mess. He turned off the Soquitri language CD on his radio as they headed out. "Okay, if anyone asks, tell them you're a fan of Kim Park. Kim is the newest student at Oceanside and he's a trans man. My mom introduced him last year and he's gotten a lot of good press, but he hasn't been in that many stories. That way they won't expect you to know the kinds of stuff a long-term fan would know. It's that or be a squealing fangirl, and that doesn't sound much like you." He snerked, then sobered quickly as he remembered the gravity of the situation. "We'll probably just be expected to eat something from the buffet, then watch the talent show. It shouldn't be too hard."
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"I...oh, man, really?" Sharl jumped to his feet and looked around for a moment for a place to hide. "Oh jeez, oh jeez, oh jeez..." He was about to gather up his clothes when suddenly he was dressed again; his shirt, pants, and jacket having jumped back onto his body as if they'd never left. It was like watching a video game character upload his clothing mode. He looked down in surprise, not having expected this new power. "What...how'd I do that?" Shaking his head, he whispered urgently, "Quick, uh, get dressed! Make like we were studying something!" He sat down at her desk and hastily opened the textbook he'd left there, throwing it open at random to the computer science he'd been studying.
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'Caradoc' didn't address the coachman - Steve wasn't much for banter at the best of times, not to mention in the middle of a high-speed chase through Freedom City. He didn't like the coachman's manners or his method, but he was experienced enough to know to go for the vehicle rather than the bad guy himself. Instead he flipped over on his back, jetpack roaring as he easily kept up with the speeding coach. He drove his blade into the wheels, the whole coach vibrating as the shrieking tip hit the spokes, cutting deeper and deeper as he pushed harder and harder. It was only a matter of time until he cut deep enough to break the wheels and flip the entire contraption over - hopefully by then they would be in a less populated area!
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No, TT, Harrier attacked the coach, not the coachman.
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"Formal, but not too formal. They're business professionals throwing a party, but you're not gonna see anyone in tux and tails or anything." Mark had never been invited to one of Erin and Trevor's social functions, largely because his personal background just didn't fit into that kind of occasion, but he knew enough not to tell someone who lived at Hunter Mansion to go all-out. "In any event, I'll take care of all the explaining and stuff. They may peg you for a super since they know I work for UNISON's super-division, but since you don't they shouldn't look too closely." He sighed, and said "Thank you for this, Erin, so much. I may have a lot of people I like, but I don't have a lot of people I would trust with something like this."
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Populace 2 is punching his girlfriend! http://rolz.org/myroomlog?r=FCPbP+Backstage+Pass 23 vs Populace 2 DC 23 tou save for the sucka
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"I...I, yeah, you're right..." Mark rubbed his eyes, the edges of a sob in his voice. "God, Erin, I don't want to lose my mom too." He took a long, deep breath, fighting off that sob, remembering who he was and the person his mother would want him to be even as she herself was falling apart. "When we get back, I'll talk to her about something. A _real_ something, where she can actually get some help. We do know some psychiatrists, and some of them she even likes. But for now we'll go to the party, and we'll check it out, for her, because that's what you do for family. You're there for them." The cold memories of the months she'd followed his father away from their reality, to a place she still wouldn't discuss even after tearful apologies to him for leaving, weren't something he wanted to dwell on now. "You, uh, you shouldn't have to know too much. They spend so much time dealing with fans that they don't like to talk about the stories very much. And it might be better if you're my cousin, yeah. We'll...we'll make it work."
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Move Action: Harrier flies 100 ft and catches up with the coach. Free Action: Draw and ready his 'sword' Standard Action: A man with a vehicle needs help moving on his own. Harrier stabs it, using the Extended Reach on his weapon to stay out of the coachman's reach. +5 All-Out Attack http://rolz.org/myroomlog?r=FCPbP+The+Sun+Never+Sets =22 That's a DC 29 Tou save for the coach with the Autofire on Harrier's strike. Harrier's to-hit is currently 17 EDIT: I was originally going to surge and hit it again, but on reflection I'll let other people go ahead!
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"No," said Mark, and Erin could hear the fear and worry in his voice clear as a bell over the line. "I mean, not really. She's been to a couple of different therapists, but she says they're just quacks or incompetent, so she never stays with them for more than a few sessions. And she went on a couple of dates this summer, yeah, but she says she's still married to my dad." Mark sat on his old bed upstairs as he talked, his voice soft as he tried not to let it carry downstairs. "It's...it's really been tough on her, Erin. My mom's extended family had... a lot of problems, so she was cut off from them even before she met my dad, and after what happened, most of my dad's old friends have gotten...colder." He swallowed hard. "Not that anyone blames her, or me, but everyone in the old super community knows what happened, and why. They're just not around like they used to be. My mom _lives_ for her work, she always has, and if she's losing her job, I honestly don't know what she'll do."
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By that afternoon, Mark and Martha were back home. Martha was in her studio, working assiduously at her easel, as if nothing strange had happened in her career and life up to that time. From the living room, Mark watched nervously, trying to concentrate on the paperback novel Nina had bought him for his last birthday. His mom spent a lot of time in her studio these days, almost more time than she even spent in her bedroom. Sometimes he thought she slept in a corner down there when she couldn't go up to the room where she and his dad had spent so many years together, but he'd tried to talk her out of that. Mark watched his mother and realized unhappily that, after all this time, though he would go with Erin to the party and keep a close eye on the man who had made his mother so unhappy, he fully expected that he was...nothing. Just a bastard who had taken advantage of his mother's problems to drive her crazy. Maybe this wasn't a problem superheroes could fix.
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By way of response, Sharl leaned in and kissed her, long and deep, his hands coming up to cup the back of her head and stroke her hair. When they stopped for breath, he looked at her and smiled. In a warm voice with just a trace of a teenager's nerves, Sharl met her eyes and said, "I'm ready for you, Eliza. Let's do it." It occurred to him, suddenly, that losing his virginity to a pretty alien girl was one of the reasons he'd gone through the gateway out of Tronik in the first place. That thought was enough to make him smile and pull her close, stifling any nervous laughter by pressing his lips against hers and sliding his hands over her body, finding the places where her blouse was open and her skin was warm. When their lips met this time, he definitely felt a spark. And as the lights dimmed in her room, his holographic body glowed ever so slightly in the dark.
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Harrier goes on 19 http://rolz.org/myroomlog?r=FCPbP+The+Sun+Never+Sets
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"Do not think me cold to your offers of friendship," said Frost as he floated away from the disintegrating remains of the demon-snake-woman, reaching out casually with a passing limb to brush across the skin of another foul beast, ice erupting from its body as it howled and writhed beneath his touch. This was by no means his first action, and the battle was, so far, going well enough. He decided to restrict his targets to those not already bound by Fleur's plants, the better to make sure the enemies he defeated were actually enemies. "But let us save that for when we have frozen the plans of these foul beasts in their tracks." His icy laughter rang cheerfully as his icy body overran another pinned snake fiend - this one made the mistake of opening its mouth and inhaling, letting him pour inside and freeze it from the inside out! With a sound like cracking ice, it fell apart, all at once, into many parts. He drifted away from falling fragments of demon flesh, still laughing. "You must learn patience. Young fellow." He laughed again, a sound like falling icicles against concrete.
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Frost commences to freezing bad plant ladies. All-Out/Power Attacking for +2, as before: 21 vs the Tzitzimitl nearest him - the one at Bruised x1 say? DC 29 Vampiric Tou save I will have him surge and fly to the nearest Tzi - say, the one that currently is only grappled by Nick. 14 + 5= 19! Boo. Well, no use letting the Inspire go to waste. I'll spend an HP to reroll that one and just suck fatigue, still using his Vampiric attack. 14 again, but with the HP and Inspire that becomes 27 Another DC 29 save! http://rolz.org/myroomlog?r=FCPbP+Set+Up
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"I'm not invited, no. I'm not even supposed to set foot on company property this week, even though it's supposed to all be for my own good. But they'll know Mark," she said, "and he won't have any issues bringing a guest over." "I grew up with those people," said Mark seriously, "my mom's been working there since before I was born. No one's going to think there's anything weird about my being there, with a +1 or otherwise. Or, heck, I can go there alone and you can just sneak around if you want. It's in a big old-fashioned auditorium they rent every year, so there are lots of places to hang around." It didn't look like he believed his mother anymore than Erin did, but he was trying to humor her for now. "Thank you so much," said Martha, reaching across the table to try and take Erin's hand. "Ever since...everything happened, sometimes I've felt like it's just Mark and I against the world. This really means so much to me."
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"A few weeks. I don't know, I didn't know the man before he started up." Martha folded her arms. "As far as I know, he started as soon as they hired him from our British imprint. Maybe it was something he picked up over there." She reached behind her head and tugged briefly at her hair, trying to smooth it down into place. "I don't even know why they hired him here, usually our company has better standards than to hire someone like that, even if they did turn one of his books into a movie." She frowned and looked down at her hands. "I think he cast a spell on them. That has to be it, from that serpent staff he always carries. You've got to understand," she said, looking at both Mark and Erin almost pleadingly, "these people at my company, they don't really know anything about super-problems. They haven't published a superhero comic in fifty years. They think worshiping snakes and summoning dark goddesses, and talking about how you ripped your heart out and showed it to Death, is some kind of charming eccentric affectation, and maybe it is in their bubble. But this is the real world." "I promised my mom we would look into it," said Mark, looking almost beseechingly at Erin. "And that if we didn't find anything, we would look into other reasons she might be feeling this way." he added, looking back at Martha firmly. "Whatever is happening, it's very bad, and we're going to fix it." "Good, good," said Martha, "He, uh, he's going to do his ritual tonight at the company fundraiser. We do a talent show, you know, writers and artists showing they can do more than just put things on paper? Everyone thinks what he's going to be doing is some kind of magic act, but I know the truth." she whispered fiercely. "He's going to summon his god and some very bad things will happen."
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Mark smiled with real relief at the sight of his friend, and so did Martha. "Hey, Erin!" he said with a smile, giving her a quick hug. Martha shook the girl's hand, giving her a searching look, before sitting down behind the table again as the young heroes joined her. "Anyway, uh, Erin, thanks for coming out on such short notice. It was really nice of you to come out when you were working," he added with a significant look his mother's way. Martha settled a little at that, visibly taking a breath as Mark went on. "As you probably figured, I called you because I want to do something for my mom, and I need your help to do it. Mom's been having some trouble at work, and she thinks that she needs the help of people in our business." "There's a new man there," said Martha without changing expression. "Alan Curtis. They just...they just _hired_ him with no notice, and they gave him an office next to mine. Have you heard of him?" she asked Erin. She was already reaching into her work bag and pulling out comic books, dumping them on the table as if they would give her a disease. "The man is a freak. Sitting there with his unkempt beard, reeking of who knows what he's been smoking...and do you know what he writes? Awful stuff!" She paged through the comics quickly, pointing as she went. "Look, he turned HP Lovecraft into some...perverse sex thing where the heroine changes sides after Cthulu forcibly impregnates her, and in this one a thinly-veiled Harry Potter is some kind of freakish sex thing...I don't know, everything he does is just full of cursing and sex, and some kind of weird steampunk fetish thing." She threw the comics down again, a look of disgust on her face. "Curtis used to do nostalgia comics, back in the mid-80s and 90s. He even did a biographical piece about my dad once," offered Mark, obviously worried about his mother. "But now he does this adult comics stuff, for people who think the Freedom League's adventures are too boring." The look on his face showed what he thought about that. "His stuff is really gross, yeah, and I hear he's pretty weird in person. Anyway, Mom got into a fight with him at work, and they asked her to take a couple of weeks off to-" "He's a cultist!" Martha hissed, as if that explained everything. "Everyone thinks it's just some affectation, but I've seen the look in his eyes and he is a crazy cultist. He keeps coming over to my studio and whispering to me about things, and this last time he asked if I wanted to be there when he summoned A-sa-sa-ra, the Minoan snake goddess! And so then I threw my scissors at his smug bearded face, and somehow _I'm_ the bad guy!" She reached over and took Mark's hand, looking at Erin pleadingly. "Everyone there thinks I'm crazy because of...of what happened with Rick, and because I was gone for so long, but I'm telling you something very bad is going to happen."
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May 1, 2013 Midtown Cafe "It's okay, Mom, she'll be here," said Mark reassuringly, watching his mother nervously sketch human figures on the napkin. Even with a ballpoint pen on a cafe paper napkin, his mother's talent came through as Martha made the figures seem to dance and pace on the paper before her. "You know Erin, she's a very good friend, and she's always been there for me." The good cheer wasn't entirely false, but Mark was nervous, albeit not as nervous as his mother. When she'd called him and told him her work had put her on psychiatric leave, he'd heard the raw edge of tears in her voice, and even now that she'd calmed her voice and wiped her eyes, she was clearly pulled tight as a wire. When she'd told him _why_ she'd gone on leave, he'd gotten pretty tense too. "...still can't believe they put me on leave after all the years I've given that company," Martha muttered in reply, her flowery sundress looking out of place in the Midtown cafe full of urban professionals. But then, his mom had always been a little out of place in the real world, embracing a lifestyle of the generation before her upon marrying her older husband. "Just because I criticized their golden boy, suddenly it's 'you need a break, Martha,' 'you need a vacation, Mrs. Lucas,' blah blah blah bunch of old hippies in their tie-dyed..." She made a hard scratch with the pen that actually tore the paper, then sighed, setting it down with an unhappy look before looking back at her son. "At least there's somebody in the world who still believes in me." They embraced over the table, and Mark said the only thing he could. "I always believe in you, Mom." And he did.