Avenger Assembled

For fightin'

Outside, the Grue ships didn't waste much time before powering up their weapons and opening fire on the Lor battlecruiser! The Grue used conventional space-going weapons in their wars against primitive planets like Earth, big metal ships and blasting plasma cannons, but this was a different kind of war. Reddish blobs erupted from the spheres and began wiggling their way through space like gigantic electric eels towards the battleship, and not incidentally towards the Nightdragon as well! The Grue weapons seemed to sizzle with pinkish bioelectricity as they writhed across naked space towards the two ships, alarms on the Nightdragon briefly blaring frantically at the energies erupting from the oncoming projectiles. --- Cyberknife passed through electronic defenses like gigantic alien warmachines, ancient tools of death and destruction that would surely have torn an unprepared avatar to pieces that were now so many museum pieces. She found herself in the middle of what looked like a gigantic robotics factory, bizarrely old-fashioned, automated robots working together to assemble the pieces of a gigantic mechanical automaton that looked like pictures she'd seen of the Curator. But some of the pieces were broken and others were outright missing, and others still were stamped with a familiar wi-fi symbol. From down below came a human shout, and she looked down to see the bizarrely mundane sight of VINCE, the Interceptors' cyberintelligence, floating there over the scene. "Okay, a flying lady made of circuits, sure! I'm guessing we're supposed to stop this? I don't know!"

Heavy Reckoning to Make “Indiana Dunes” Ringworld ? Steve sat before the fire by the waterside, listening to the crackling wood and the nearly-silent ripples of Lake Michigan. The night was otherwise quiet but for the wind, a legacy of the dead world on which they found themselves. He’d been on murdered worlds before, far, far more than any man should have, but this place was different - not a dying planet, not a decaying one outside of the cities, simply one that had no life. There were fewer dangers, but more challenges to replace them. If the ship in Chicago didn’t work out, they’d be stranded here in a very difficult situation indeed. With only stored food to eat, and no animals, preparing an expedition across the seas to the nearest ‘map’ was going to be challenging. With the others asleep he added another cut piece of wood to the fire, the wood burning sweet and sparking slightly in the reddish flames. His ears were open, but so far there was nothing but the sound of the wind and the slight sleeping noises of his peers. Another man might have been uneasy at the dead city amid a dead world, but the comforting presence of his allies and his knowledge of their situation greatly reassured Steve. He’d been in worse places than this. A rustling of synthetic fabrics broke the disconcerting silence as Ellie shimmied her way out of one of their salvaged sleeping bags and made her way quietly over to the fire, careful not to wake anyone else. The young woman picked up her well worn jacket as she went, tugging it around her shoulders like a shawl against the cold rolling off of the lake. The flickering light of the flames deepened the weary lines on her face as she sat down across from Steve, giving the stoic sentry a tired attempt at a wry expression. "Couldn’t sleep," she mumbled quietly, cracking some of the stiffness out of her neck after tossing and turning against the hard ground. "Again." "Silence can be far less comfortable than familiar sound," agreed Steve, his lined face cast into shadows by the crackling fire. Perhaps he and Ellie had different personalities, but she was a friend cast adrift with him in this quiet place, and welcome. "But the fire is warm and the company is welcome." Not much of a conversationalist himself, Steve let the fire crackle for a while. Discussing Earth risked dwelling on what they’d left behind, particularly the replicants that had taken their lives on Earth. And if he dwelled on that, even he would have trouble sleeping, as he pictured a robot with his face closing on Gina in her sleep. "I remember... it took time getting used to Earth. On the Silver Tree, where I was before, there was always someone awake drinking, fighting, singing... but your cities sleep for truth." "Clearly you’ve never visited a university campus with a twenty-four hour coffee shop," Ellie quipped back gamely for all that her heart clearly wasn’t behind the humour. Throughout their cross country trek the medic had never been too long at a loss for a sardonic comment or witty rejoinder, but in the oppressive quiet of the night with no one listening but the largely humourless security guard the forced bravado slipped slightly. "The Silver Tree... that’s where the good guys in the Terminus dimension live, yeah?" she asked after a few beats, leaning a little closer to the warmth of the campfire. "I don’t know that much about that stuff, honestly. Guess I should have after seeing what happened to Yoyo’s home world..." There was another depressing thought along with another absent face to be missed. "I never have," agreed Steve. "I do not know enough of the world to be a student at one of your universities." He thought of little Yolanda, who had three replicators in her ‘family’ now, and pushed on. "The Furions are an arrowhead of good, lodged in the belly of evil. They taught Blue Jay, from what she has said, and sheltered me after I gained my freedom." He sat awkwardly for a moment, conscious of the young woman’s tensions. Ellie was very brave, all the young people cast adrift with him were, but some things were beyond their experience. Until they had their own freedom again, perhaps it was time to go beyond his own experience as well. "In those days, I found it difficult to relate to others, even to speak to them as I walked by them on a path. I know that news may shock you." He poked the fire with a stick as it began to die, bringing it back to life with a faint puff. Ellie let out a short breath that would have been a laugh had she had the energy for it and mentally underlined the largely in largely humourless. The liberated cyborg wasn’t prone to delivering anything approaching a punchline on his own and she recognized the gesture for what it was. "Heh. Thanks, big guy," she replied quietly, giving him a small smile that for the first time in at least a few days wasn’t a conscious effort. She looked up at eerie false sky of the manufactured replica of a forgotten alternate version of her home and shifted her jacket around her shoulders pulling it tighter. "Hard to imagine one little world standing up to all that badness, though," she mused after letting the crackle of the fire fill the silence for several moments, trying to picture the Furion planet Steve described. "How do they keep going, day after day, with everything stacked against them?" "They have their courage and their warrior spirit," said Steve reflectively. "And power enough to keep Omega’s forces at bay. They know that they will never reconquer the Terminus, but they have the power to give it defeats. In a bad place, that is enough." He relaxed faintly, glad to see Ellie’s spirits perking up ever so slightly. "And there are escapes. Myself. Blue Jay. I have heard talk of actually sending a Furion student to Claremont some years down the line. It is... such is life. Eventually the end comes." He shrugged, trying to make what might have sounded like fatalism from someone else positive. "The victories that are won today are no less sweet for that fact. Even if the only victory is that there _is_ a today." There was another long silence as Ellie considered that fully, weighing Steve’s words in her mind and bringing her knees up to her chin in a huddle. "...I don’t think that’s enough," she said finally, stretching her legs back out and sitting a little straighter than before. "I mean, I understand what you’re saying but I want to do more than just make it through one more day, y’know? I’m going to get back home to my family and to Mara, I’m going to help make sure everyone else gets home in one piece too and if the opportunity presents itself I’d sure as hell like to kick our gracious host in the teeth." She gave the somber man a grin with a flash of teeth reflecting firelight. "But maybe that’s exactly what you were saying, huh? You’re a pretty wise guy, Steve-o." "I would not say that it is so. But I have come from bad to better, and none can aspire for more than that in this life." He stared into the fire, remembering the light in Gina’s eyes. "To do more than survive, you must have something to live for, even if it is just the satisfaction of another day. Or another." He folded his hands and said suddenly, "The Curator has taught me this. I had thought I lacked the ability to lose. The power to have something that could be taken. It is... reassuring. Despite all this. This is..." He waved a hand at the cosmic construct all around them bearing the skin of how many dead worlds. "Something that will pass. But the feelings, the feelings never go away. Whatever happens." "Well, the zen is good, but don’t get too fatalistic on us," Ellie noted with a serious look and a pointed finger. "We don’t want to lose you, either." Steve was about as far from the medic’s impulsive older brother as anyone was likely to get but she did recognize a certain lack of self-preservation instinct, or more accurately a willingness to put others’ safety ahead of his own. "Well, I should probably give the whole sleep thing one more shot. Like you said, there’s another tomorrow to look forward to, yeah?" Rising to her feet, she shrugged off her jacket and slung it over one arm, walking around the fire as she headed back to her sleeping bag and placing her free hand on Steve’s shoulder as she passed. "Thanks again." Steve smiled back, and for once it didn’t look odd on his face ."Don’t thank me today. Thank me tomorrow."

"Power surge detected!" called Vrix's voice from off-camera, a conclusion echoed a moment later by Redbird's sensors. Something inside the Curator's construct was beginning to power up again. "Listen, if you can reach your people, we can-" SHACHOOM! Five thousand kilometers to the Nightdragon's port, suddenly space rippled and a shimmering red vortex opened. As alarms blared on both the Quantum Singularity and the Nightdragon, a half-dozen red, eerily fluid spacecraft as big as the Nightdragon came pouring out before the vortex closed behind them. There was no mistaking that flexible red surface which warped and rippled alarmingly even as the people outside watched, or those strangely flexible spherical ships and their small forest of tentacles - these were the deep space vessels of the Grue, carved from their own shapeshifting flesh, heavily armed vessels designed for exploration, infiltration, and conquest! A second after that, with a roar of neutrino engines so loud on sensors that the ship seemed to make a sonic boom as it arrived, the clean white lines of a Lor military vessel hove into view five thousand kilometers to the Nightdragon's starboard - a big, heavily-armed battleship like those the Lor had sent to help Freedom City's heroes during space battles in the past. It was a powerful ship, but could it handle an entire squadron of Grue cruisers on its own?

With a smirk that looked like a reverse of the one Darren saw in the mirror every morning, the Grue said, "You're the alien, homo sapiens. You think your little backward show here matters in the grand scheme of things, you've got another thing coming." He lost some of the attitude at Crow's approach and threw up his hands. "Look, I don't know! I just know this has happened in some Unity planets before. The Curator comes in, replaces some of our members with robots, then sets them against each other. And it's usually really terrible!" He waved around at the scene on campus for emphasis. "Like I said, I was hiding out on campus, and I heard one of your females talk about how handsome Darren was, so I decided to take his shape so everyone would trust me. And it worked really well, too!" Fighting the urge to facepalm by sheer force of will, Mark interrupted the Grue and turned to the others. "Be right back. Our friend and I are taking a little trip to Switzerland, where I know a xeno holding facility with his name on it..." And with that, Edge, the Grue, the diamonds and the water, just disappeared from the face of Freedom City with a faint shimmer of black light. "Thanks for the help, son," said Mr. Archer, appearing with a little zip behind Crow. "And you, Tsunami, and you, Adamas." If he was surprised at the latter, he gave no sign of it. "I'm glad you were here. You may well have saved our school." He looked around at the still-sizzling administration building, the injured students and teachers being tended by their peers, and added, "Let's go help our people together..."

"Never stab corpses," said Harrier firmly. "It will end poorly." He studied the computer bank with Wander, finger moving quickly over the unfamiliar systems. He had come a very long way in the last few weeks, not to mention the many years in his life before that, and he had no intention of being killed in the depths of a cosmic cybernetic intelligence without seeing his home again. And it is my home... he realized with a wonder before his eyes fell on a familiar system. "An access port...there?!" The Lor officers did their best to leave, but Samran was back in a few minutes even as the clamshell doors of the control center began to swing shut. "There's nowhere to go," said the bronze-skinned officer with a shake of her head. "The corridor only goes for a couple of meters and ends in a blank wall. They must have built the construct itself around this room!" Samran and Shepard began to work together, removing parts from their encounter suit and attaching them to each other in a technological display none of the other heroes could follow. "If we put enough juice into our enhancers, the QS can transmit us out of here...if we hurry." Amid the frenetic activity, Stratos turned to the Bee-Keeper and said amiably, "Look, it's fine, Barry, the heroes are taking care of it. That's the port, kids!" he added encouragingly. "Anyway, we're inside a big computer right now! The Curator's intelligence must take up the whole complex, and probably the other moons. Hey, I guess that's why the Big Blue Lunkhead couldn't take him out." He slapped the Bee-Keeper on the back and said, "We'll be _fine_." Wander slid VINCE's drive home into the access port, and an instant later a voice came from all around them, a cold, dry mechanical handful of alien words that Samran translated for them. "Rebooting in protected mode."

Aaah what? Sharl wondered if those seats were about to grow teeth and a tongue and feed for a moment. But there was a crisis and he was a hero; he was also out in public (sort of) with his girlfriend and couldn't wuss out now. He said, "You deal with the spirits out here, I'll deal with whatever's in there. If I can, I'll signal you through the radio, or just kick out whatever's possessing the car. I don't actually know how things will work in here as far as my powers, but there's really only one way to find out." He pulled open his trenchcoat and his chest symbol flared to brilliant blue life- the wifi, the symbol of the electronic networks that bound human civilization together just as much as it did Tronikian, a symbol of civilization, order, and progress. "This is a job for CITIZEN!" He winked at Eliza and jumped inside the car, vanishing into its systems with a little pop. Was that too pretentious? I hope it wasn't too pretentious.

Yikes! You've got to PM me when I leave stuff fallow, HGM. APPROVED

Being the closest thing the group had to an expert on cosmic technology, Steve had joined the Lor scientists for an examination of the inner workings of the Curator's stronghold. "Stellar technology," he commented as Samran triggered a holographic display marked in a language not even the Lor could read, showing the blue-yellow star in the center of the ringworld. "Reactors as supplement, perhaps buried deep. I have...seen its like before. This facility could power itself until this star enters its red giant phase." The Lor didn't care about the human with the lightning hands, they were far too busy scanning the intact Preserver technology around them, so Steve went over to share their rations with the very hungry Dr. Stratos. He didn't know the mad scientist particularly well, but they were all in the same boat. "All are alike in this situation," he said seriously, watching with mounting suspicion as Blue Jay made her move. There was a crunch as Blue Jay's arrow went through the robot's eye socket...and then, distinctly, the too-bright lights above dimmed perceptibly. "Oh dear," said Stratos, looking up from his nutrient bar. "You know, if I was building a giant computer construct, I would probably put security systems in the main room that weren't tied to the hard drive, just so I could blast a plucky team of heroes with lightning when they thought I was down! I mean, hypothetically, anyway, man, this is a good nutrient bar. Is this strawberry creme?" He swallowed and went on, heedless of the silver-black lights beginning to light up all over the room. "Anyway, Barry, he's got twelve, thirteen cities down there in the subbasements. The robots eventually did come into the dome and catch me, and they were about to dissect me! Me! It was horrible." He shook his head. "But then they stopped working, so I blasted them all and made my escape."

"Nightdragon, this is Lor vessel Quantum Singularity. We have assisted in the escape of multiple Earth humans and one Terminus cyborg from the Curator's construct," replied Vrix. "We have a party inside the main control center now engaged in emergency repair work, but they're out of contact with our ship. If you have a comm system with greater than 1.21 gigawatt output, you can reach their communicators." "Hello!" yelled Dorothy as she suddenly appeared in front of the comm system, "My name is Dorothy Langford, and I'm from Earth! I'm so glad you're here!" The girl called, her freckled face popping up on the Nightdragon's comm systems as Vrix activated the visual. "The others are inside fixing the Curator so everyone on doesn't die. Listen, if you've seen me, or Wander, or Harrier, or Bee-Keeper, or Jill O'Cure, or Blue Jay, we're some kind of clone or robot! The Curator took us away months ago!"

The plasma eruptions cascaded into the box of diamond and water, flash-frying the monster right in the face! It gave an agonized shriek as green-white fire washed over its body for an instant, then suddenly seemed to collapse in on itself. "I surrender! I surrender!" howled the giant red gorilla as it formed itself up and down into Darren's familiar shape, albeit a version of Darren with what looked like first and maybe second degree burns on his face. Holding up his hands, the former rampaging brute said, "Just let me go! I'm not the problem here!" For his part, Edge walked up to the twin barriers still holding the fake Darren in place, suspicion growing on his masked face. "Wait a minute..." He glanced at the other Darren, then back at the one inside, before saying, "You're not a robot. None of the other robots acted like this." He ticked off points on his fingers. "You're a shapeshifter who can make himself really big, you made yourself red with no face when you were trying to escape, you were in Claremont of all places..." Behind them the other students, and the teachers, were coming out of the shelter, but they were letting the UNISON hero and his young allies deal with the crisis. "You're a Grue!" "No...maybe," said the fake Darren, still tenderly poking at his face. "Look, c'mon, I wasn't hurting anybody. I thought this would be the one safe place in this stupid city when everything started blowing up. How was I supposed to know the ," Mark translated the alien word for the others, "was going to attack this place too? You people have too many enemies!"

With the heroes and two-thirds of the ship's complement beamed down into the heart of the Curator's central control room, it was just Jill and Vrix-117, and of course Quickstep as well. Vrix wasn't as talkative as Samran or Shepard, and admitted that as she showed Jill how to read the panels that showed everyone's life readings inside the Curator's construct. "Commander's tactical, Shepard's science, but I'm more engineering. I mostly keep the ship running while they're on missions." Vrix had removed her helmet too, revealing bronze skin and hair as red as a lollipop. "I...oh!" she pointed as one of the wall panels lit up to reveal a flash of light from the distant perimeter of the ringworld, a silvery saucer ship flying through the gap. "I don't know that design, but they're not local. Hang on." She tapped a button on the panel in front of her, then shook her head. "Damn. I can't reach the commander, but I got a tachyon squirt out to the fleet. They'll be sending reinforcements. Friends of yours?" she asked, cocking her head Jill's way. Dorothy peered at the screen and said, "Looks just like a flying saucer from the movies!" - The saucer erupted into the Curator's system as it dropped from FTL, spilling a wash of tachyons and neutrinos along with a spray of visible light. They were between the ringworld's star and its structure, and for a moment the sheer size of the magnificent construction, known to be one of the largest structures in the Milky Way, filled the scanners of the ship. Thanks to the Curator's famous paranoia, it had been a long, long time indeed since anyone had ever gotten this close. 'Beneath' them was an ocean big enough to swallow multiple Earths, a storm playing across it that could have covered the entire planet, with distant shores visible even to the naked eye beyond before the ring curved away into invisibility. Trillions of people were down there, living their lives, perhaps never knowing about the Curator. Above them, close to the star, hung a black sphere the size of the Earth's moon, part of the circle of rotating black squares the size of planets themselves that made day and night for the people below. It was the central control unit of the entire structure, the geniuses aboard could tell at a glance. And inside that sphere, somewhere, was Steve. And attached to the side, visible as they got closer and closer, was a white pod the computer recognized as a Lor military vessel.

The group of young heroes and their Lor allies stepped onto the transmitter pads and vanished, their atoms quantum-tunneling five hundred miles through solid computronium and re-emerging in the central control room of the Curator - the mighty cybernetic intelligence whose vast power and arcane manipulations of their world had brought them to this place. They found themselves standing in a vast, cathedral-sized hall lined with dark and silent monitors cut in a triangular shape, the too-bright silver light overhead a source of stark illumination inside the central hub of the Curator's lair. The air was stale and smelled musty, a relic of however many eons it had been sealed inside since the Curator's original construction. At the 'altar' of the room sat a massive chair, almost like a throne, covered in the same silver-black pyramids that were the Curator's symbol, tentacles of computronium rising from it to infiltrate the wall behind. Sitting in that chair, its head bowed ever-so-slightly, was a still, silent Curator drone, its three eyes dim and dark. And standing next to it was Dr. Sebastian Stratos, lightning crackling around his fingers. "Hey, kids!" he called with a wave. "Got your hive going, eh, Barry?" He chuckled. "I wondered if I'd see you again. You didn't happen to bring any food with you, did you? Because I am _starving_!" He waved his lightning-covered hands around for emphasis. "I found this zoo a couple of levels down, but most of the animals tasted terrible, and one kept trying to shapeshift into my mother or something. It was awful!"

"My name is Grace Mercer," said the driver with as much dignity as she could muster under the circumstances. "I do things Mr. Grant needs done around here, most of the time, anyway. Anyway, listen, I've done some stuff in my time, but this crazy hero Terminus space stuff isn't really my scene. I'm more, you know, bodyguarding, acquisitions, the usual corporate stuff, none of this out of this world routine." She adjusted her tie, straightened her back, and added, "So if you're done with me, I'll just be taking my stuff and heading somewhere a little greener till you guys get this taken care of?" She bent down and retrieved her lost chauffer's cap as she spoke.

What followed was something of a wild confusion: first the tubes drained dry, then the occupants awakened, heroes and villain stepping out into an alien place despite the familiar faces who were there to greet them. None of the recognizable criminals, Orion and the others, put up much of a fight, and for the moment submitted (albeit with some cold stares) as they were put under restraints, still wet from the fluid that had sustained them for how many weeks. It was Duncan Summers, his eyes strong despite his frail body, who took charge of the other 'survivors', staying on his feet by the expedient of an iron-handed grip on John's shoulder. "Tell us what's going on," he said to the heroes, his body like a drawn string. "How can we help?"

"So the car did...something bad?" asked Sharl, feeling a little lost as he stood there in the warped reflection of Earth-Prime, though doing his best to adapt. I went from one reality to another before I was even a superhero, I should be able to handle this no problem... "Should I try and get in there and see what's going on?" he asked Eliza. "Or...is it something the driver is doing?" he went on, trying to think out what seemed to be the logical consequences of this place. "If no one is making the car break the law, then it must be the human being inside it." He knelt down and peered through the windscreen of the car, remembering the weird anthropomorphic movie he'd seen about sentient automobiles roaming some sort of grim post-apocalyptic landscape he'd seen over Christmas. "Weird. Does the policeman on the other side need our help?"

The tentacles the Curator had extruded through the Sanctum gradually flaked away into crumbly ruin as Young Freedom went about the grim duty of disposing of the bio-weapons they'd been carrying and finding a safe harbor for the city that their friend had died, in part, to protect, leaving behind corridors swiss-cheesed with holes in the walls or blocked by fallen debris. As far as Koshiro, the most experienced of them all in going through abandoned buildings could tell, the Sanctum itself was still structurally intact, but they could hear the wind howling down some corridors much louder than they had on their last visit - some parts of the structure were open to the elements and would most likely need repair. But most of the famous structure had endured this attack just like any other indignity, and had survived. They found the Wonder Bus outside in the snow, the tough craft having fallen out the eye of the fallen headship before Glow could catch it. It was intact, as far as they could tell, and powered on at their approach, ready to take them home. Casting the bioweapons deep into the depths of the Zero Zone was easy enough; the instructions for the projector being so simple that even the least technically savvy of them could do it. Connecting the two Troniks, both saved from disaster, was beyond their resources, and probably a potential disaster anyway. But it was easy enough to find the power connector Sharl had marked and to leave it connected to the internal power supplies of the Sanctum, sharing the same room as its dimensional counterpart. Even if the young hero who'd hoped to unify the two Troniks was gone now, there was no denying that the mission had succeeded - Erde's Tronik had come home.

That'll do! Okay, Quinn, go ahead.

Players Name: AvengerAssembled Characters Name: Fast-Forward Power Level: 10 (150/150PP) Trade-Offs: -0 Attack / +0 Damage, -2 Defense / +2 Toughness Unspent PP: 0 Progress to Orichalcum Status: In Brief: Iron Age villain turned Modern Age hero, speedster punk turned family man and veteran hero Alternate Identities: Tempus Fugitive Identity: Richard Anthony Cline Birthplace: Freedom City, New Jersey, USA Occupation: TV Star Affiliations: Shenanigans Family: Paige Psion-Cline, William Cline, Age: 50s (born 1964) Apparent Age: 30s Gender: Male Ethnicity: White American Height: (6 feet) Weight: (160 lbs.) Eyes: Blue Hair: Black Description: Richard Cline is a tall, slim man with a runner's build. His hair is slicked up in that peculiarly 80s style and he wears leather jackets and jeans when he can, just like his hero Bruce Springsteen. His costume is a black and white bodysuit in traditional style - he doesn't wear a mask, and never has. When wearing the Helm of Hermeticism, his voice takes on a particular echo and he grows a spectacular blue and yellow cape. Powers and Abilities: Fast-Forward's speed powers are based in temporal manipulation rather than in super-speed as such - he accelerates his local frame of reference and appears to run fast, punch as fast and hard as an assault rifle, and a great many other super-speed tricks. He leaves behind a faint glowing red trail as he runs, a phenomenon caused by hyper-accelerated air molecules crashing back into their neighbors. His powers have begun to fade slightly as he ages, but he remains one of the fastest beings alive. His magical abilities come from wearing the Helm of Hermeticism and center around manipulation of the Sun, Moon, and four classical elements. He's not terribly skilled in their use, but using his super-speed to make rapid calculations he can cast blunt-force spells that blast his enemies with focused sunlight, pin them to the Earth or fling them from it, fly in the air and control the winds, summon clouds of water vapor and mighty rainstorms, or just fire jets of flame from his palms. Personality and Motivation: Richard's kind of a jerk, something of an occupational hazard for your typical speedster. But he's also a veteran who's been around the block many times, and that's significantly tempered the arrogant jerk who was pretty hard to be around back in the 1980s. He wants to make Freedom City safe for his family, and help make sure the kids tehse days don't make the mistakes he made when he was a kid. He loves his wife and kids more than anything in the world, though he has a considerably more complicated relationship with his still-living parents. He's still inclined to question authority in a Green Arrow sort of way, and doesn't always get along great with cops and other government officials, though he is always perfectly correct when there are cameras around. He's very handsome, though also very married. History: Some legacies in Freedom City aren't forged in the light of day. Richard Cline was born in August of 1964 to Anne Cline, aka Calendar Girl, speedster and smash-and-grab thief and briefly the sidekick of Doc Holiday. Abandoned by her partner when she got pregnant, Anne did the only thing she could, she raised her son at her side as first her ward, then her partner in crime. Richard developed his speed powers early, a legacy of all the times his mother had used her powers while he was in utero, and eagerly trained as his mother's sidekick. His childhood was great in some ways: the Crime League of the 1960s and 1970s were like a weird little family for him. He met gods and monsters, scientists and mystics, and sometimes crashed at their place for a few weeks until his mom could escape. She was Clock Queen, beautiful and glamourous, and he loved her with the devotion of a son for a doting parent. But his childhood was poor in some ways as well; he spent less than a year inside a classroom from age six to age eighteen, and only learned to read and write well from being able to practice at super-speed when he was very bored. Even when he put on a shiny four-colored costume to match his mother's, Richard didn't really know anything about the world except how to rob it. Eventually time ran out for Clock Queen and her sidekick Tempus Fugit. As the world darkened into the grim days of the 1980s, their brand of crime no longer fit: just before Richard's 18th birthday, they were busted and sent to jail. Richard went to juvie, his mother got a twenty-year sentence by a tough new judge. When Richard got out, the Moore era was just beginning, and the young man was disgusted by what he saw. Criminals had turned into psychopaths, cops had become bullies and tyrants, and the heroes had been chased away or turned killer. It was time to turn to _crime_: Fast-Forward, the laughing speedster-rogue, debuted by publically pantsing the mayor, making sure the police would hunt him for his blood for the rest of the Moore administration. It was about this time he reunited with his old girlfriend Paige Psion, who was equally disconnected from the old generation, and together Fast-Forward and Hologram carried out a unique reign of terror in Freedom City, a wave of crime that mocked society without tearing it down, that robbed without hurting, that called back to the crime waves of yesteryear. Life was good. Until the Terminus Invasion. The horrors of the invasion, and the heroic sacrifice of the Centurion, convinced Paige and Richard it was time to change course. With a full pardon in hand from the US government, they went on the road, traveling in an RV and exploring the country, living the life of hard-traveling adventurers. After a few years, realizing they weren't getting any younger, they decided to have a kid: young William Cline followed not long after that. They traveled for a few more years before settling in southern California so William could start kindergarten. They ran a private security company in LA for a few years and worked as part-time heroes, but weren't very happy: they got a big surprise when it turned out that Richard's regenerative and temporal abilities meant that his vasectomy hadn't taken and Paige became pregnant again, but things were mostly fine as William's younger sister was born. Their window into a renewed celebrity came just a few years ago, when they were called in as consultants for a show the Discovery Channel was airing about the history of super-crime. The pair were funny and charismatic, and had stories to tell most people had never heard, and after several guest appearances they were spun off as the cohosts of Supercrime! Supercrime! (don't forget the !) is a wide-ranging show that takes a broad look at the history of supercrime in the United States, and Richard is very happy there, working alongside his wife and (sometimes) his son! But recently things have been changing, and not necessarily to Richard's advantage. Richard's daughter's psychic powers erupted recently, leaving the eight year old girl with mighty psychic powers and the family with a problem. Moving out to Freedom City (and commuting home with Richard's powers) helped with that, giving her access to the Nicholson School and eventually Claremont. (It also meant getting a heroic education for William, who by now was getting a little old to be taught by his parents) But one problem that couldn't be solved were Richard's powers: the super-speed that had powered him for most of his life had begun to fade by the time he reached his late forties, a slow decline that the super-doctors on the West Coast probably would last for the rest of his life. His speed dropped from close to light speed to hypersonic within the space of a few months, and the thought made him feel...unhappy. Faced with the choice of letting his powers fade gracefully or trying to infuse himself with more chronitons (a risky, dangerous task), Richard took a third option. He dug an old artifact out of his basement, a mystic helm reputed to be of great power, and put it on... History of the Helm: The Helm of Hermeticism was crafted by John Dee in 1605, not long after the death of Dee's wife and children from the plague. The helm vaguely resembles a simplified Greco-Roman style helmet, cast in bronze with iron inlays. Dee's glyph over the forehead, cast in electrum, is the fanciest adornment on the otherwise humble metal helmet. The Helm contains all the Hermetic knowledge available to John Dee in 1605, reaching out to the ancient Greco-Egyptian texts he gathered not long before his death. Dee's legacy was taken to America by his disciple John Winthrop to preserve it against the coming civil war in England. The Helm has passed from American mystic to American mystic since then, but despite its age has never found a niche for itself - the vast, disorganized library inside the helmet needs a formidable mind to keep up with it, one beyond even that of most magical scholars. The last heroic mage to wear the helmet was Dr. Hermes, an occult homefront adventurer during World War II; his son Bob took the helmet from his father's study in the mid-1980s after the latter's death and went on a crime spree before being stopped (or rather, robbed) by Fast-Forward and Hologram. Complications: Family Man: Richard has a family to protect, for good or ill. Oh ho, it's magic, you know: While the Helm of Hermeticism carries the gestalt knowledge of centuries of Hermetic magic, Richard does not actually know anything about magic. Fame: A celebrity Discovery Channel host, Richard's face is known, and he has to behave himself in public most of the time Infamous: Ex-supervillains, even ones who were actually pretty harmless back in the day, have a way of attracting unwanted attention. Don't Let It Be Forgot: Freedom City has largely forgotten the 80s and early 90s, something Richard is determined to make sure they never forget. No Way Out: Between one thing and another, most people don't leave the Crime League. Fast-Forward is one of the few people who has and lived to tell the tale. So far, anyway. Fast As You Can: Richard is not above getting competitive with other speedsters, one reason he put the Helm on in the first place. Boom-De-Yada: The Helm of Hermeticism is a blunt instrument at the best of times, and Fast-Forward's not a terribly subtle guy. Sometimes he has to lay off the magic so he doesn't set the town on fire. Abilities: 0 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 10 = 26 PP Strength 10 (+0) Dexterity 14 (+2) Constitution 14 (+2) Intelligence 14 (+2) Wisdom 14 (+2) Charisma 20 (+5) Combat: 8 + 8 = 16 PP Attack: +4 (+7 Melee, +10 Magic) Defense: +8 (+4 Base, +4 Dodge Focus), Initiative: +2/+22 Grapple: +7/+14 w/Move Object Knockback: -11/-6/-3/-1 Saving Throws: 5 + 5 + 5 = 15 PP Toughness: +12/+6/+2 (+2 Con, +4 Defensive Roll, +6 Force Field) Fortitude: +7 (+2 CON, +5) Reflex: +7 (+2 DEX, +5) Will: +7 (+2 WIS, +5) Skills: 44r = 11 PP Bluff 8 (+13, +17 w/Attractive)* Diplomacy 5 (+10, +14 w/Attractive) Disable Device 8 (+10)* Escape Artist 8 (+10)* Language 1 (English [base], German) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Stealth 8 (+10)* Feats: 14 PP Attack Focus: Melee (3) Attractive Challenge (Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus (4) Eidetic Memory Jack of all Trades Skill Mastery (Bluff, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Stealth) Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 32 + 10 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 21 + 1 + 2 = 68 PP Device 8 (Helm of Hermeticism, Flaw: Hard to Lose, 40DP) [32 PP] Enhanced Feats 2 (Fearless, Ritualist) [2PP] Enhanced Skills 16 (Intimidate 8 [to +13], Knowledge [Arcane Lore] 8 [to +10]) [4PP] Force Field 6 [6PP] Hermeticism 15 (30 points; Flaw: Action [Full]; PFs: Accurate 3, Alternate Power 5; Drawback: Distracting to change configuration {-2PP}) [21 PP] BE: Impervious Toughness 10 (Shield of Luna, Extra: Reflective 2 [all ranged]) {30/30} AP: Blast 10 (Wrath of Helios, Extra: Area [Cylinder]) {30/30} AP: Flight 3 (Sylph's Mastery, 50 MPH, 500 FPM) {6} + Move Object 10 (Effective STR 50, Heavy Load 12 tons) (PFs: Indirect 3, Subtle) {24} {24+6=30/30} AP: Move Object 10 (Rejection of Gaia; Str 50, Hvy Load 12 tons; Extras: Area [50-ft. Burst, General], Damaging; Flaws: Limited [Only To Pull Objects Straight Down To Earth Or Hold Them Off The Ground]) {30/30} AP: Obscure 10 (Aquan Disguise, visual) (Extra: Selective) {30/30} AP: Damage 10 (Salamander's Breath, Extra: Area [Cone], Secondary Effect) {30/30} Super-Senses 7 (acute analytical radius ranged detect magic 3 [mental]) [7PP] 2+4+6+21+7 = 40/40 Enhanced Feats 10 (Defensive Roll 2, Evasion 2, Improved Initiative 5, Move-By Action) [10PP] Immunity 1 (Aging) [1PP] Quickness 1 [x2] [1PP] Speed 1 (10 MPH, 100 fpm) [1PP] Speedster Array 9 (18 points; PFs: Alternate Power 3) [21PP] BE: Enhanced Quickness 9 (to Quickness 10 [x2,500]) {9} + Enhanced Speed 9 (to Speed 10 [10,000 MPH / 100,000 feet per Move action]) {9} {9+9=18/18} AP: Speed 9 ( [5,000 MPH / 50,000 feet per Move action) (Extra: Affects Others) {18/18} AP: Feature 17 (mitigates Action Flaw for Magic 15 and Distracting Drawback) {17/18} AP: Strike 7 (goonsweeper; Extras: Area [shapeable, Targeted], Selective Attack; Flaw: Action [Full]; PFs: Mighty, Progression [Area] 3 [70 5-ft. cubes]) {18/18} Super-Senses 1 (Communications Link 2 [Hologram, Thoughtspeed] {mental}) [2PP] Abilities (26) + Combat (16) + Saving Throws (15) + Skills (11) + Feats (14) + Powers (68) - Disadvantages (0) = 150 PP

I'll say it fails, thanks to being bound already, and is trapped. Go ahead and post

"Look, that stuff isn't really my department..." The driver winced before adding, "But you guys got it all wrong. Listen, I don't even think the Terminus was ever really here!" She paused for emphasis, and added, "All I know is, the boss got this call from deep space or something, said it was a Stellar Khanate thing trying to see if they could make more T-babies on Earth for some kind of crazy harvester thing, seeing as how our genes all got pretty blasted back in '93. The boss wouldn't work for Omega, but make some people with powers, sure, why not? So they sent some supplies to here and some of the people who work with the boss, trying to see if they could make more T-babies. Who knew that would make you hero people go all crazy?" She shrugged. "Anyway, if you're looking for the boss's corpse or something, the lab guys dragged that off about the time you guys took off after your crazy friend."

"Luckily, I'm already on that-" said Edge over the comm signal a moment before the giant red gorilla-thing landed a devastating punch against the crystal barrier that trapped it, making Darren's hard-built diamond structure crack and bow outward like ice hit with a sledgehammer. Having recognized diamonds, Mark gasped in momentary surprise - either that kid's powers weren't as impressive as they looked, or they were in more trouble than he'd thought. "Okay, well, let's back Crow's play here and get this thing taken down! You guys know your role, you can handle this. We're going to beat this thing, save the day, and..." He blinked, staring at the monster again, and shook his head. "You know, _none_ of the other robots did this. Any ideas, people?"

The monster roars as it attacks the crystal barrier! It inflicts a Tou save of 30 - the barrier takes 10, thus fails by 10. it's still holding, but it'll crack next round and let the monster go unless it's reinforced...or unless the monster goes down! Edge Inspires again. Tsunami is up as soon as I post IC

The problem with accessing the Curator's command center from the ship was easy enough to see as the featureless black surface of the command center's 'north pole' came into view. "The problem is," said Shepard, the officer's mechanized voice sounding a little humorous, "is that the Curator doesn't have a humanoid need for a visual interface. We're lucky there's a command hall at all, really, it must be a leftover of the original builders when they needed to do maintenance...anyway, the Curator's command center is right below us, about five hundred miles through compacted neutrons and computronium. There's an oxygen atmosphere, though, which tells me the Preservers must have been oxygen breathers..." "Normally we wouldn't transmit through that in a million years," commented Samran as she worked at what was evidently a sensor station. "But the internal energy sources are in standby mode, so there's much less risk of interference. All we need to do is go down with an emergency transmitter system, and we can make a one-time transmit out even if the systems start coming back online..." She walked to a small group of white square built into the floor of the little ship, then slid open a panel on the wall, taking out several small black spheres, one of which she attached to her shoulder like a sticky ball. "So, who wants to go with me?" she asked the heroes conversationally, a half-smile on her face. "If you people are special as I've heard, we could use all the help we can get."

Frost uses his Vampiric Strike and Power Attacks for +2, spending an HP to make sure he hits. The battered Quickstep rolls poorly and is destroyed. Combat is over.