Avenger Assembled

http://www.themorningnews.org/post/pad-thai

MOOCs are really taking off - I'm not surprised to see someone apply one towards comic books. They're really doing a number on traditional evening classes. Hmm, looks like she's an adjunct/doctoral candidate at Ball State. Sounds familiar.

Stratos listened to Redbird's words thoughtfully, setting down what was by now a heroic-sized pile of wrappers on the little table before him. "You know," he admitted glumly, "normally that would be a really funny story, but I've been away from Earth for so long...I don't know, it just makes me feel down. Time to show the world the real Dr. Stratos when we get home." He hmmed and started to ask, "Hey, I don't suppose my double got Thu-" before suddenly Dorothy's gasp of horror broke through the conversation. "They...what?!" Her hands over her mouth, the young girl's face went white. "I...she hurt people? Are my mom and dad okay? Did she hurt anyone at the school? Mr. Archer says I could be a class-1 hero when I finish growing up, and if she had all my powers she could have done some really bad stuff!" "There there," said Stratos awkwardly, "you didn't actually do anything, right? And at least this way people will know who you..." He caught Redbird's gaze and slunk down his seat, looking long-suffering. - "Home," Steve agreed, "is where we are going. Where we were meant to be." Not much for idle talk, Steve held Gina close in the quiet darkness. He still had questions - how long had he been away, what had his double done in his absence, but they could all wait. A cosmic entity had been defeated, and an impossible distance had been closed, and all those who had been lost had come home safe. The dead can be brought back to life. he thought wonderingly.

Here's what you guys find out: The superconductor appears to be a previously unknown isotope of silver, Ag108, which was thought to have far too short a half-life for any industrial purposes. Somehow this variety of Ag108 is stable, its extra electrons actually accelerating electrical currents passing through it. Once given an initial 'push' of energy, these drones could theoretically keep moving without an outside source of power, even if that push came years or even decades after their construction.

Steve considered his words carefully. He had an intimate familiarity with brave young men and women who died defending those they loved, and the idea that one had done so and that his death had mattered was not such bad news - especially with the possibility of recovery! But he doubted Gina would appreciate that thought, so instead he said, "He was a brave young man who fought to defend his people. And from what you told me, stubborn enough to go on his own. You made sure he was as prepared and ready as you could, and the day is won. And you will save him." He looked her dead in the eye and said, "You know his code well and you are a genius. Computers sing to you as do the instruments of a musician. He could not be safer than in your care."

The news that their return might have required the death of Gina's friend and assistant was enough to cast a chill over the room for the former Omegadrone, dark though it already was. "Oh." Steve put his arms around her and hugged her, putting his forehead against hers. "It sounds as though it was something more than just destruction, at least, or surely no trace at all would remain...Was his data protected?" Having no particular hangups about artificial life, he knew perfectly well that Gina kept copies of her assistant's memories and personality handy. It was not an uncommon trick in the Terminus, though that was one thing he would never, ever tell her. If something had happened permanently to Sharl, though, then their rescue was not the triumph he had hoped for, especially when weighed against what sounded like a serious crisis on Earth.

Voltage finds that the interior of the drone is almost all conductor - there are almost no 'thinking' circuits here, just systems designed to absorb powerful impulses from elsewhere. No wonder they all fell down as soon as the main control unit was shredded! The internal systems are like the reverse of the wiring he's familiar with, aluminum wrapped around something exotic in the middle - he's not familiar with what it is, but from his tests it appears to be a room-temperature superconductor made of some exotic silver alloy!

"I have been in far more dangerous situations," said Steve with perfect truth as he considered the desperate flight across the dead planet, erupting from the surface of the Ringworld to the Curator's stronghold... "And I had fine companions by my side. We escaped the Curator's machines and fled his construct hale and hearty, and that is all the victory I want. As for the rest...the past cannot be changed. What matters is today, and every tomorrow after that." He closed his eyes for a moment, considering her words. "There was a disaster. And chaos. But you would not have abandoned Earth if you were needed there." He opened them and looked at her, his lined face lit oddly by the room's dim green lights. "I am glad you came for me, Gina. When I heard your voice, I was impressed at your bravery in sending your consciousness across the galaxy for me. But this is so much more."

Without another word, Steve picked Gina up in his arms and carried her through the sensor control room door like a groom at the threshold. No fool, Redbird let the automatic sliding door seal shut behind them as the two of them were together plunged into the dim light of a room lit only by control panels. He set her down, arms still around her, and looked into her eyes. "You are hurt. What happened? Did it hurt you?" Steve knew the phenomenon of replicants and how they might move among the populace at will only too well - he had no illusions about what was the human and what was not. "Do you mean...hah-hah!" Dorothy giggled and put her hands over her mouth for a moment. "Gross!" She took a ration bar and began wolfing it down, looking delighted to have something to eat that was actually fresh. "These are great! Oh man, I can't wait to see everyone's face when I tell them they were fooled by some stupid robot this whole time!" "I know, right?" Stratos had joined the girl in the galley and had found a meal of his own. "People are stupid. And believe me, the last thing I want to see is superheroes canoodling. Life of the mind, ladies, that's how to live," he said with a wink at his companions. "Yeah, are you one of their cyber-things?" He asked Redbird. "Those guys are great! They're like Viking bikers in space. Mean, though."

"You have saved us all," said Steve to the Lor seriously. "Thank you." Once he was on board the Nightdragon, Steve murmured to Dorothy, "The heroes have won the day. Everything will be all right. Come with me, and we can see this great ship." As happy as he was to see Dragonfly, a familiar face who was a pathway home, he left her to her reunion and walked to the bridge of the ship with his young charge in tow. He hated to interrupt Erin and Midnight's reunion, but he stepped in anyway, wanting to introduce Dorothy to more of her rescuers. And that was when he saw Gina, sitting by herself in a chair near the corner of the room, the bruised, all-too-familiar face that had been high in his mind in the dark nights of his exile. She had crossed the depths of space to find him, she had left her house for him. And she was here, which meant whatever his double had done couldn't have been too terrible. "You came for me," he said again, looking at Gina with wide eyes, "through all this space." He said the words that had been on his mind all that time, heedless of everyone around. "I love you, Gina." He didn't hesitate, bending down and pulling her up into his arms to give her a long, lingering kiss on the lips.

Blasted and battered, the Grue squadron fell away, freeing the Nightdragon for the jump back towards Earth. Guided by its pilots, the Quantum Singularity docked with the Nightdragon's rear access port. The little Lor ship didn't bother with gangways or other such luxuries, instead simply making a direct connection. "Get out fast," said Samran quickly, "we'll make a jump back to the battlecruiser." Both hatchways slid open, opening a door for the castways directly into the corridors of the Nightdragon. "We'll have to look you all up if we're ever out Earth's way." There was no debate over who got to get aboard the friendly ship first. Though she had no family waiting for her on the other side, little Dorothy was the first of the castaways to set foot in the Nightdragon: her eyes lit up at the sight of the welcoming committee, but she looked around for a moment before saying a little nervously to herself, "Well, okay, sure, my parents couldn't be here, they're not superheroes..." After that she cleared out of the way, her friends and allies coming on board just behind her.

Freedom League Oral History Project Harrier I remember a place. And I remember how it fell. It came first among the worshippers of their gods, a slow, gradual turning away from their faiths that broke the world's connections with the supernatural. A predatory sexuality among the previously chaste priests of Sol Invictus, then another turn among users of magic, as the slow infiltration of entropic radiation into their souls drove them into drug-addled degeneracy that left them blind to the crisis which they faced. In their defense it was no magical crisis at all, but they had no way of knowing that - a power beyond their knowledge was cutting the cords that bound them to creation, one by one by one. Then came a light in the sky over Great Britain and a body that fell to Earth in the Belfast Lough at the mouth of the River Lagan. This was a world that knew nothing of the Terminus and the dangers of entropy, nothing even of the larger multiverse. So the scientists and adventurers of that world's Great Britain took the inky-black asteroid to their capitol and began to study it. But even as they did, the Lagan asteroid began to _change_ them, a slow, subtle corruption that spread first through the British Isles, then the United States as scientists, the superpowered, and others began to carry fragmets of the asteroid to their homes for further study. The study of entropic radiation was profitable. Nations began building armies powered by entropic energy, soldiers given great and terrible power by the energies suffusing their bodies. Their souls left warped by the energies inside them, these soldiers began to appear in nation after nation; hard-faced commandos with holes in their souls, casually murdering and desecrating wherever they went when not obeying the orders of their dark masters. One soldier in particular heard the voices of his _true_ masters with special interest, and so became their greatest soldier. He slew his husband and children first, then began to kill his world's heroes. By then the corruption had settled into their souls as well, those few able to resist it murdered by their peers, assasinated by terrorists, or simply made laughingstocks until they fled the planet entirely. Violent, jaded sybarites, they were easy prey for a veteran soldier with powerful weapons and unnatural powers. The citizens of the world, corrupted on their own by the pulsing, beating heart of the Lagan asteroid, cheered on the one-eyed killer as he slew corrupted champion after corrupted champion, the soldier himself knowing he was doing what he had to do to save his world from the real monsters. Finally, he used a Terminus-enhanced nuclear weapon to assasinate his world's Patriot League, catching them in the Freedom City bordello where their grim bacchanalias had nearly burned the city down around it. It was when they died that Omega tore open the gateway from the Terminus and gloatingly stepped into the burning city, the proud Physician Friendly at his side. It had been a remarkably successful experiment. As the Terminus energies poured from skies turned red, the T-soldiers were warped into ravening ghouls, monsters that tore apart the world they had once defended as Omegadrones fell from the skies. Finally, their world's last god came to their aid. In a small city in the Americas, a priest was imbued with supernatural power by the last fragmets of the Unconquered Sun, given a voice to break the will and cow the soul even of the maddened T-fiends, the power to defend his dying world from the forces of the Terminus. I remember the look upon his face when I struck his head from his shoulders. For an Omegadrone, there is no voice louder than Omega's. The world fell into stinking ash and black fire and was gone. The soldier lurks around the court of Steelgrave still, a grim-faced assasin who will infiltrate any world and kill there any enemies of Omega, punishing those who would stand before the purity of the Terminus. Cynicism and suspicion are not virtues. Darkness and hatred are not strengths. These are the lessons of the Terminus.

2: 14 Boom! 3: 24 Okay, ship 2 is destroyed and ship 3 is disabled, staggered, and dazed - that's good. it means they can tell the story of what happened here to the unity.

16 Got 'em this time!

22 Boo poison!

Vince looked around at the system architecture, his eyes wide for a moment, before nodding. "

Cyberknife: 27 Dragonfly: 23 Midnight: 21 Redbird: 16 Grue 1: 14 Jill O'Cure: 13 Grue 2: 12 Grue 3: 10 Grue 4: 9 Grue 5: 6 Grue 6: 3 Curator: 0

At Midnight's words, none of the Grue ships opened fire on the Nightdragon. Whether they were intimidated or simply planning a new strategy, two of the ships opened fire on the big Lor battlecruiser, searing red laser blasts missing entirely as they zwoop-zwooped past the battleship. Inside the Quantum Singularity, the Lor crew took their positions as the ship inertialessly erupted off the platform and rocketed towards the Nightdragon at fantastic speed. "We'll get you dropped off, then link up with the battlecruiser!" called Samran as the Earth craft loomed large in the windows. "It's been an honor working with you people." Across the way, those red blobs the Grue had fired at the battleship on their arrival splattered against its hull, sparking and writhing ominously but not (from this distance) doing any more damage. The Lor ship itself fired a volley of blue cannonfire that sent two of the remaining ships spinning on their spherical axes and vanishing into their own red wormholes: whether retreating or going for reinforcements, they were out of the fight for now. The last ship, evidently made of sterner stuff, suddenly seemed to writhe forward in space as it tried to roll its way right into the hull of the Nightdragon, but missed cleanly, rolling its unnatural way right past the Quantum Singularity as the little Lor vessel finally docked on the Nightdragon's dark hull. Behind them, a pattern of three circles formed on the hull of the last Grue ship, almost unnoticeable in the wild melee.

Grue 2 and 3 open fire on the Lor ship: vs DC 20, not 10 14, 17 They both miss Grue 4 + 5: Retreat for reinforcements! Grue 6: tries to RAM! 9 And botches. Which gives me such an idea...

Tou vs 30: 17 Welp, it's disabled, staggered, and dazed = i.e., not going anywhere for a while. 17 Demoralized too!

Steve had resisted using his emitter among the others before, not wanting to spread confusion in an already-frightening time. It wasn't as if they could fool the Curator, after all, and it hadn't been necessary to armor up around the Lor. But he wasn't one to argue with good advice in a crisis, instead pressing a few buttons on the tabs glued to his chest, then briefly rippling and warping before reappearing as a conventional-looking armored knight. He didn't bother with the persona of the armored Caradoc, instead saying, "Follow quickly. You are not capable of surviving interplanetary space unaided." And with that he put his hand on the console, distinctly said, "I will see you again soon," to the computer before him, and headed onto the transport ring, vanishing immediately just as Blue Jay had. Aboard the Quantum Singularity, Harrier introduced himself with simply, "It's me!" as he appeared among Blue Jay, Bee-Keeper, and Vrix, who was working frantically at her panel. "I've got our engines powered up to maximum!" she yelled. "As soon as everyone's on board, we can jump over to join the Republic's Defender, or take up position with the Nightdragon! But they've got...wow, they certainly do have it," she said as a Grue ship shuddered and warped under Dragonfly's attack, Wander and the remaining Lor officers appearing just behind them.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3928257/ 9 vanished to oblivion!

"She came for me," marveled Steve quietly, putting his hand on the computer banks. That Gina had been part of the efforts to find him was incredibly reassuring, since it meant his double could have done no lasting evil on Earth, and that her voice was here was all the more reassuring. He knew she had the range to reach Earth orbit, the Moon if she tried hard, but this was something else, and he was moved by the thought of her consciousness reaching him from so far across the galaxy. She must have built a great machine to find us so far away from home... "We've got a link to the Singularity, but only one can go through at a time," said Samran. "And we're not leaving any of you here. We go out last." She and Shepard had worked together to make a person-wide ring of sparking blue energy on the floor beneath them, its glow cast into odd colors by the now-pulsating silver lights overhead. It looked big enough for one person, all right. "Take Blue Jay first," said Harrier suddenly, shooting just a glance at the girl. "She is the least protected of any of us, and the youngest. I am armored, and I know for a fact I can endure significant...punishment." - Inside the computer, Vince did his best to help Cyberknife search - the cybernetic intelligence looked just a little lost at all this talk of Citizen, but nodded in grim understanding when the subject turned to sacrifice. He was right behind her when she finally found what appeared to be the primary weapon systems, a gigantic cannon that the robots were working to reassemble and point at the cybernetic 'sky' overhead, where she could faintly make out the sensory echoes of the Grue ships. It didn't take her long to recognize the nature of the cannon, not when she'd spent so much time modeling that system. That cannon was a digitization weapon. And outside, on the surface of the Curator's construct, three 'eyes' began to glow...

Initiative for the six Grue ships: 1: 14 2: 12 3: 10 4: 9 5: 6 6: 3 Lor Ship: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3927278/ Okay: Dragonfly: 23 Midnight: 21 Redbird: 16 Grue 1: 14 Jill O'Cure: 13 Grue 2: 12 Grue 3: 10 Grue 4: 9 Grue 5: 6 Grue 6: 3 Lor Ship: 0 Dragonfly is up! The Grue ships have stats of TOU: +12 (+12 Impervious) and DEF: +12 vs targets aboard Nightdragon. Their primary attack weapon is an ATK 7, DMG 17...well, you'll see what it does!

Citizen and Miss A's Vignette Reticulating Splines January 14, 2013 With his friends busy working on the Wonderbus, Sharl transmitted himself up to the sixteenth floor to meet with his mentor for one last checkup before his trip to Erde. He was nervous, but looking forward to hearing her familiar voice before they left. Gina wasn’t what you’d call friendly, especially lately, but she was _a_ friend, and someone who knew a lot more about the world than he did, especially after working with him on their cross-dimensional backsignals to the Erde across the way. Just a short hop over, a short stay there, and they’d be back in Freedom City. Miss Americana was waiting for him in the converted exam room that bore the lofty title of “Infirmary” for Young Freedom. She had his code schematics up on one screen, while simultaneously on another she reviewed what looked like the design of a high security prison cell. Even as she examined both of those, she was talking on the phone over a discreet earpiece. “Yes, that’s fine, put ArcheTech down for a major sponsorship again this year. We’ll do the normal season, and then the children’s theatre workshop again. Make sure it’s scheduled so as not to conflict with the ArcheTech Youth in Science week at the museum center, third week in July. All right, mm-hmm... yes, of course I’ll be there, I wouldn’t miss the gala. Mark me down as plus one, if you would. Thanks, that’s perfect.” She noticed Sharl’s arrival and said her goodbyes, then removed the earpiece and blanked the prison screen. “You’re late,” she pointed out. “We were busy,” replied Sharl. “My friends are coming a long way with me, I don’t want them getting lost over there if something goes wrong.” He took a ‘seat’ on the examination table, close by the scanners Miss A used to check his programmed measurements when she was working on him. “We are ready, though. Everyone knows their job, and they know what to expect over there. And they know how to handle the Bus and do low maintence on the Tronik unit, just in case.” “We’re all busy, but some of us are on time,” Miss A pointed out, picking up her scanner and pointing it at him. Even beyond Sharl’s transgressions in her lab, Gina had been especially touchy this past month or so. When he’d ventured to ask whether it had something to do with Harrier not seeming to drop by as often lately, she’d nearly bitten his head off, so it seemed safer not to inquire. Testy or not, Miss A was all business as she checked him over, uploading the scan results to a wall screen where they ran parallel to the stored data she had on him. “You’ve been studying,” she noted. “Computers and technology, general knowledge, all increased. That may come in handy on your mission.” “I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do after I leave Claremont,” said Sharl with a little shrug. “I mean, sure, I’ll go home and be the defender of Tronik, but I want to be able to help the people outside too. If I know enough about computers and Earth technology, I can be a technical consultant when there’s a crisis, or I can go back and forth if I have to.” He smiled a little. “And knowing how computers work will make it a lot easier to live in one, right? Maybe I’ll get a job working in Leroj’s lab, so he can cover for my secret ID.” “Don’t knock the ignorance as bliss theory,” she advised him dryly, giving him a push on the chest with the flat of her hand to lay him out on the bed. “Whatever universe you live in, the more you learn about how it works, the more aware you become of how fragile and unlikely it all is. You’re a paragon, not a cyberkinetic. Computers and technology are good things to know, but they’re not going to be your strong suit when you go back to Tronik. They’ll need you as a hero. Best work on those social skills,” she advised, a wry twist to her perfect lips. “I guess I’d better,” replied Sharl with a little smile of his own. “If I’m the only hero they’re going to see on a day-to-day basis, I’d better make sure they don’t think heroes are all arrogant punks.” He didn’t really pay attention to what Miss A was doing, except to take note of the kinds of machines she used for this task. “I’ve made some mistakes, but I think most things have worked out all right.” He took an imaginary breath, then added, “Things are going to change after this. They’ll have to, with the new Tronikians to move in. And you know, I can’t wait to see it. All my life I wanted to change my world for the better, and thanks to you, I can.” “I think we’d better wait to see what’s going to be done with the Erde-Tronikians,” Miss A advised him, her tone softening just a little bit. “I’ve got a couple of sociologists looking into the issue in the hypothetical, but I’m worried that an integration of the two societies could be traumatic for both if done too rapidly. Your Tronik doesn’t even realize there is a world outside, much less that Tronik is a computer simulation with other versions of the same program running simultaneously. It may be wise to stabilize the society on Erde-Tronik internally, then look into a more managed interaction between the two cities over the long term. At this point, we don’t even know the degree of population overlap.” Sharl winced. “You don’t have to tell me about how hidebound we can be, believe me. But there’s nothing wrong with planning for the future, right? In a few years, or maybe more than a few, my Tronik will be ready for the outside world and to welcome our sisters and brothers back home. And I’ll be there to see it.” He looked serious for a moment, adding, “I want...I want to matter, you know? All this schooling at Claremont, all this time I’ve spent studying with you, and adventuring with Young Freedom, I want to mean more than rescuing people out of gravcars that flip in the air. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there’s more to do with life.” Miss A looked pensive for a moment. “You ever hear the story about the starfish?” she asked, even as she kept scanning. “Guy’s walking on a beach at low tide, and sees that a storm has thrown up hundreds of live starfish onto the sand. Starfish can’t move on land, so they’re all just baking in the sun. There’s a little boy on the beach too, and he’s running up and down the beach like a madman, grabbing starfish and chucking them into the ocean. The guy watches him, then goes up to him and says “Why are you bothering to do that? There are so many starfish on the beach, throwing a few of them back doesn’t even matter.” And then the boy held up the starfish he had in his hand and said, “It matters to this one!” and he threw it back in the ocean.” Miss A tapped a few more lines of command into her scanner, letting him think about that one. Sharl did think about that one, pondering over the meaning of the parable even as he accessed Wikipedia to make sure that a starfish was what he thought it was. “That’s true,” he admitted. “But I guess I’m more like a starfish that learns how to fly and starts rescuing the others,” he added with a little smile. “There’s nothing wrong with spending my time helping individual people in need; I mean, I’ll probably spend most of my life doing that. Most invasions and dimensional crises aren’t going to touch Tronik. I just...want to take care of the beach, too.” “Sure, and that’s fine,” Miss A told him, “but you have to keep in mind that without all those individual lives, the world as a whole would be meaningless. Every life is immeasurably valuable to someone. Now hold still and no more talking,” she ordered, as the scanner over the table slid into place and bathed Sharl in painless blue light. When the scans were done and his last tests completed, Sharl paused at the door on the way back down to join his friends. He knew how sensitive his mentor was about contact, even through the robot, so he extended a hand to her. “Thanks for everything. Now, and all the times before. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.” Miss A hesitated for a moment, a sure tell that it was Gina peeking out, and not the smoothly polished persona, then took his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “Be safe, and don’t screw up,” she told him. “And try not to crash the bus. Good luck.” She gave him half a wave as he went out the door, then uploaded the fresh backups to her database and got back to the million other things that were demanding her attention. January was shaping up to be a hell of a month.