Avenger Assembled

"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."

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!

"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."

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.

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.

Harrier goes on 19 http://rolz.org/myroomlog?r=FCPbP+The+Sun+Never+Sets

"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.

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

"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."

"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."

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."

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.

Citizen Taunts Populace 1 as a standard action: DC 25 Will save. I'll have him then surge (and spend an HP) and make a standard attack action: Roll(1d20)+16: 14,+16 Total:30 OK, nice. That's a DC 23 Tou save.

"Sure," said Sharl agreeably, "I won't ruin anything." He knew how protective Earth fathers were of their daughters, if TV was any judge, so he kissed her lightly on the lips and looked around for her family. He was excited, but did his best to play it cool, not wanting to give away that what he and Eliza would be studying that night had nothing to do with education and everything to do with...he'd have thought of a better metaphor, but it was pretty hard to concentrate that far ahead. "Don't worry, you can count on me." He made sure to hold her hand, and nothing more, as they headed into her family house. "Wow," he said automatically, even with his practice with Gina's house, "This place is huge! Does all your extended family meet here?"

"Frau Schmidt," said Mark immediately, "your pardon but I have to get going now." He stepped out of the kitchen, gave the too-friendly old lady a big smile, and disappeared-and appeared on the rooftop with Wander. "Man, lucky Cannonade called when he did," he commented as he took her hand for the teleport out. He'd studied ahead for once and memorized where everyone was likely to be posted. "I wasn't sure how much of that I could-" and disappeared with Wander, the two of them reappearing outside the club where Midnight and La Renarde Bleue had been posted. "take. That lady needs a bingo game, and maybe to get out to Freedomfest or something. Ride's here!" he called out loud. When they were all together, or rather when he was pretty sure even the sneaky ones were together, they vanished en masse and reappeared on the rooftop next to Cannonade .

"That's one of my powers, sure," agreed Mark, who was rarely one to brag. When the boots were on, he headed out with the engineer. "I can't fly, if that's what you're asking," he commented, "so we're walking whatever we wind up doing." As his boots squished along on the increasingly muddy surface beneath their feet, Edge had one of the brief moments of disconnect between where he was and what he'd expected to be doing just a few years earlier, but shook it off quickly. "I've been working closely with hydrokinetics lately, so I've got some special training in flood relief. The easiest thing to do is just open a vortex and suck it away somewhere else, or put down a polymer gel and then dissolve that...

His storms are smaller than they once were. Hmm. But pointing such things out were deeply declasse in the middle of a fight, so instead Frost went into action. He seemed to dissolve at the others watched, spreading on the wind into a white, whirling bank of icy cold fog with two red eyes in the center of it. "Allow me to CHILL your burning desire for REVENGE!" He floated through the crowd like the touch of death and settled against a pinned tzitzimimeh who thrashed only briefly before before it seemed to freeze solid, an icy sheen growing on it as its now-frigid skin hit the air. There was none of the fancy ice sculptures of more conventional cold controllers, simply a blue-white, stiff sheen over a freezing monster. Frost hmmed, viewing the scene from inside the cloud that was his flesh, and decided to reassure his more squeamish allies. "They do not live! They are no more than demons! Banish them to the realm from which they came!"

Until we get IP Content up and running, go ahead and get your wiki articles up here.

Free: Pop Insubstantial 2 (the descriptor for which is icy fog) Move: Move to the nearest bound snake lady SURGE Full: Attack the nearest bound Tzitzimimeh with his Vampiric Strike as a coup de grace (he is doing lethal here, yeah) All-Out/Power Attacking for 2: Roll(1d20)+8: 4,+8 Total:12 From http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm OK, so that's a DC 29 damage save.

Black Prince PL: 10 (150) "Heavy is the head that wears the crown." Abilities: 14 + 14 + 14 + 4 + 6 + 4 = 56 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 24 (+7) CON 24 (+7) INT 14 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 12 + 12 = 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+1 Dodge Focus, +3 Shield, +3 flat-footed) Init: +15 Grapple: +17 Knockback: -5/-3 Saves: 1 + 3 + 5 = 9 pp TOU +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1) REF +10 (+7 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 72 r = 18 pp Acrobatics 8 (+15, SM) Bluff 8 (+10, SM) Climb 8 (+15, SM) Diplomacy 8 (+10) Intimidate 8 (+10, SM) Languages 3 (Arabic, Chinese, English, Base: Swahili) Notice 7 (+10, SM) Sense Motive 7 (+10, SM) Stealth 8 (+15, SM) Survival 7 (+10, SM) Feats: 26 pp Accurate Attack Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 4 Benefit 4 (Fame, Status, Wealth 2) Challenge 4 (Accelerated Climb, Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Startle, Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus Evasion Improved Initiative 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery 2 (Acrobatics, Bluff, Climb, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive, Stealth, Survival) Startle Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 13 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 17PP Device 3 (Princely Regalia, Flaw: Hard to Lose, PF: Restricted [royal family]) [13PP] Protection 3 [3DP] Shield 3 [3DP] Strike 3 (PFs: Variable Descriptor 2 [bludgeoning/energy/piercing/slashing]) [5DP] Super-Movement 2 (Wall-Crawling 2) [4DP] Leaping 1 (x2 distance [using Skill Mastery Acrobatics: running long jump 52', standing long jump 26', high jump 13']) [1PP] Speed 1 (10 MPH, 100 fps) [1PP] Super-Senses 2 (Acute [olfactory], Low-Light Vision) [2PP] costs abilities 56 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 18/72 + feats 26 + powers 17 = 150 pts ----------------- Design Notes: Here's an African royal, comic-book style, ready to function as a perfectly fine Year One Black Panther (or White Lion!) for your thread or game. He's smart, charismatic, and above all fast - a physical paragon to match any super-soldier, wearing an armored costume that lets him climb right up walls, with super-senses and extra agility gained from eating some rare herbs of his home soil. I consciously built this guy along Year One lines - he's got good skills and he's an impressive physical specimen, but he doesn't have the tactical experience or technological skills of his more familiar incarnations. I think he works best as a crown prince rather than a king, by the way - that lets him have the wealth and access to the corridors of power, as well as some element of celebrity (i.e., great thread opportunities) without leaving open awkward questions about who's running the country back home. It may seem a little odd to build a totem/costumed adventurer type with no tradeoffs, but with his feats this guy can juggle his tradeoffs at will, and with his skills catch anyone flat-footed either by sneaking, scaring, trash-talking, or just out-leaping them. He can take hits and dish them out (thanks to well-aimed strikes and his armored costume) enough to hang with some of the toughest bad guys out there. You rarely see characters like this as particularly fragile! With the claws in his costume and the occasional energy dagger, as well as a good old-fashioned loaded fist, he can lay the hurt on just about anybody. Our own Dakana is a fine place for this guy to be from - no reason why he can't be the latest White Lion! Dakana avoids some of the more bothersome tropes of its inspiration Wakanda - there are no secret cancer cures or bizarre super-rich African civilization, just a wealthy nation with access to high technology, and an unbroken line of kings that managed to fend off outside conquest thanks to their wisdom and power. This young man isn't quite ready for that wisdom yet, but he's got a good heart and is going in the right direction. Working with superheroes will do wonders for him. No reason you can't make up your own hermit kingdom for him to be from, either - don't feel tied to Marvel! There's a reason I put my Latveria expy in the Indian Ocean, after all. Played as a villain, this guy is a perfectly fine jaded aristocrat turned rogue hunter, a Kraven with wealth and power.

On a column of blazing fire, Caradoc descended to join the others, feeling a little out of place among the more subtle heroes. He felt a momentary awkwardness surrounded by superheroes, but reminded himself of the necessity of his investigation and getting help for it. "Forsooth, there was one taken from another dimension. A refugee to this world from another one." He told the others the story of the disappearance he was investigating, occasionally stumbling over a bit of faux-medievalisms as he tried to stay 'in-character'. It had been a while since he'd adventured behind the disguise, and was a little out of practice. "He was a drunk and known to disappear. Even the League has barely looked. But he has not disappeared since he found yon crimson maid. I do not believe he would have abandoned her, and the coach was no coincidence. But I am no investigator."

Edge: River Claims Its Own Vaulted Door Harrier: Remember Who You Are The Darkness Within Citizen: Walking on Water Backstage Pass Sharl Ex Machina Someday Somehow Comrade Frost: Bricks of Babylon Here There Be Dragons Leaves On The Wind

Comrade Frost readies an action - an attack on the big fat monster! He goes insubstantial Let's call this an attack with his Thermovorous Touch - inflicting non-lethal. http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4017333/ 13 Well! Teach me not to have more HP/applicable complications. I'll hold off on posting IC until the monster actually enters melee with the crew on the rock.

At that precise moment, a knight in silver armor flew over Cannonade's head, a jetpack shaped like a dragon's head roaring black and red flame as he hovered over the scene. With his massive silver blade hanging at his side, Caradoc looked to visual inspection like a particularly technophiliac mystic, or a particularly old-fashioned gadgeteer. The Omegadrone beneath the holographic armor was, of course, neither. I am no detective, Harrier thought as he grimly turned over in his mind what had led him to this place. Disappearances from FLSCH weren't all that uncommon, even with the tracking devices in the building, given that circumstances meant that some of the Cline's residents were unable to live contentedly among the inhabitants of Freedom City. The League investigated, always, but sometimes not as hard as they might have. Peter Irons, alcoholic and political crank, refugee scientist from a world overrun by genetically engineered economic collectivists, had not been popular with most of his neighbors - but Steve had gotten to know his one-time neighbor well, and even introduce him to the refugee alien that was his girlfriend. He has never disappeared this long even when the drink has him. Something else is happening. His investigation had had one result; Finley had reluctantly turned over the gold bars that had been left in Pete's apartment to Steve, who she trusted more than the League members who had done a desultory investigation based on her call. He was bought by something. Something with an obligation to pay...but where do I go from here?

"I guess that's true," Mark admitted. "It's never been easy for me to look for help, but it's good to have somebody to talk to about things like this. You're really my best friend, you know? You and Trevor, and Joe too." He certainly couldn't talk to his mom about it, and he sensed Nina's advice would be rather less than helpful. "I know I'm not ready to be a dad, and at least I'm safe on that end too." He grinned. "Though when I do have kids, and someday I will, you and Trevor are totally godparents. Chris and Liz are on the list too, but you guys first. Any kids our generation has are going to grow up with the super thing right from the beginning, and you need...you need a good hand for that, otherwise things get a little weird." Lunch was winding down about then, and Mark had to resist the urge to try and pay the bill - he knew Erin was fine with money these days.