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Avenger Assembled

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  1. The news from across the city wasn't good. There was a bad fight in the Fens that was still winding down between the Bee-Keeper, the second one, and a group of heroes amid a scene of blazing buildings and carnage, while some shooting incident at the hands of a Claremont student at a Walsh campaign rally had left behind dead and wounded, including several dead Terminus activists, civilians, and rumors abounded about the iconoclastic Congressman himself. There had been an incident at Providence, now repressed, and a riot was ongoing at Blackstone Prison, where Gabriel and Miss Americana, the last heroes on the scene, were still incommunicado. All they had was word had come out that Harrier, the Omegadrone, had gone mad and been destroyed before he could destroy the reactor beneath the prison. At least in Freedom Hall, the damage itself wasn't too bad, or at least not as bad as it might have been. While people had been hurt by the rampaging Star Knight, some quite badly, by some miracle only the one security guard had died in her last great powering through the building. The same could not be said for her rampage at the courthouse, but one had to take small mercies where one got them. They were certainly glad to see Myrmidon, particularly the injured group of kids from the local high school who'd been hit by a shower of falling masonry. Scared as they were, things weren't so bad that the sight of a hero with first aid wasn't a very welcome thing. In the situation room, despite the holes in the ceiling and floor, Gaian Knight could see the regular status reports coming in from the various branch teams: whatever was going on, it only seemed to be happening in Freedom City. Meanwhile, down below, Fleur felt a faint echo of a concussion, and realized her flower, the one trapping Star Knight, had burst into flames!
  2. It took a sustained bombardment by water to finally put out the blazing green fire inside the former headmaster's office, leaving the building sodden and scorched in its upper stories. On any normal day, there should have been wild activity all across the Claremont campus, which after all foot for foot had probably the highest concentration of superpowers in the United States. And this was no normal disaster, not with the building scorched and now a healthy shade of glowing diamond along with all the fire and water damage. But the campus was still eerily quiet! Activating their commlinks and tuning them to the Claremont frequency got them Mr. Archer's voice. Or was it?
  3. "That's not Erin," said Mark, his voice calm and steady in Joe and Trevor's ear through their shared commlink, even as he clung to Redbird's rear seat for dear life. "You know it, I know it, and we've known it from the second she killed that man. Whether that's a clone, or a Grue, or those nanites again, or a robot double, or it's Erin from another Anti-Earth, or she's been possessed by demons, or maybe a ghost, or she's been drugged, or is being mind-controlled again, or anything else, that's not Erin. We're going to stop her, and we're going to save everybody. Just like Erin would want. C'mon, guys. Let's do this for Wander."
  4. They headed out towards the city, walking hand in hand in the brave new world Eliza was showing Sharl. He was quiet, almost tentative, but paid attention as she pointed out the sights of the spirit world. "Back where I'm from," he said quietly, in a rare confession of something he hadn't always been subtle about, "we're taught that all this is just..." he waved. "superstitious nonsense. The kinds of things a culture leaves behind when it learns how to fly through space, or the first time it makes contact with an alien civilization. There's nothing like this there, no spirits waiting behind the corner, no creatures from other dimensions. There's just us. And you," he added, with a look at Temperance.
  5. The ship remained dead even as the heroes approached, a grimly silent black arrowhead laying on its flank amid this copy of Chicago. To Harrier's surprise, a panel on the side swung open at their approach, exposing a darkened interior lit only by the glow of alien computer panels. Harrier studied the interior for a moment, using his armor's sensors to peer closer. "This is an intersystem craft, I think, sent from the Curator's control centers out on the surface of his world. The power systems appear to be intact...and there is a habitable compartment in the rear. Probably for specimen gathering. But there is no master computer." He looked back at the others. "This is all dumb systems. There is no internal guidance, no system to send commands here and there."
  6. "We, uh, I..." Sharl tried to put his hands on the table in front of him to steady himself, but found they were shaking so badly he couldn't hold them solid. "The Curator is a powerful cybernetic intelligence, one that dates back to before the birth of the Lor Republic, and before Earth people discovered agriculture. He controls a Ringworld structure on the other side of the Galactic Center, a...giant construct built out of the material from an entire star system, with the space to hold thousands of Earth-like planets. His ships go around the Galaxy gathering what he's interested in, unique plants, animals, people...cities..." He swallowed hard, and went on, "Tronik was a special case. We don't know why he chose to digitize the city, only that he planned to use them for experimental purposes in his mainframe. The Centurion captured the unit where Tronik was stored and took it away before it could be copied." He licked his lips, eyes ever on the growing metal ship as it squatted obscenely on the Sanctum. "One of those ships would be enough to fight Freedom City, but since he's here it...it's us, oh God, it's us. It's my fault, I..." He scrubbed his hand over his eyes, obviously on the edge. "That ship is probably full of drone robots and digitization equipment, with an avatar of his that's directly linked back to his mainframe in his home system. There's no intelligence there, it's just programming and a direct linkup to his will. If you guys can destroy the drones and break the subspace link, that ship'll be nothing but a collection of dead robots to add to the Sanctum. Kimber, you and I can interface with the systems in the Sanctum directly the way the others can't," he said with a look her way. "We can go in, stop whatever infiltration is happening inside the Sanctum's systems, or Tronik, and then we can go help the others. We can...we can do this. But we have to move fast. He could be in there _right now_."
  7. The real story behind the Day of Wrath: Oddball: Copycat Gorgon: Latchkey Kids Schoolhouse Vandals When It Rains Love the One You're With Where the Love Light Leads Merry HAXmas Test Site I Test Site II The End of the World
  8. OK: Heroes who successfully subdue the Wrathful will note that their targets appear to be extremely advanced robots.
  9. The Morning of January 15, 2013 The Wonderbus roared through the skies of the Northern Hemisphere almost impossibly fast, the extra-dimensional construction of the craft shunting away the excess heat energy from its hypersonic flight enough to keep it undetectable in the air. They were flying thousands of miles, but the fantastic speed of their craft would get them there in less than an hour. Trying to keep his mind off the crisis of Erde-Tronik, the bioweapons, and the advanced plasma weapon that had nearly killed them all, Sharl had pulled up situation monitors from the computer inside the Bus, trying to keep track of what they'd left behind. "The good news is, the chaos seems to be limited to Freedom City, so it must be something there...I don't know, that bomb was extra-terrestrial, but I didn't recognize the maker. Maybe it's something with the Grue again." At least what they hoped to do with the Sanctum was easy enough. "I'll connect Erde-Tronik to the power supply there and keep it safe until Miss A and I can get it protected. As for the bioweapons, we can just drop them in one of the stasis fields there. It's not a long-term solution, but it'll last long enough for us to keep things safe. We-" A distant beeping interrupted Sharl. "That's the proximity alarm. Maybe there's somebody from the League there already." He tapped a few buttons on the bank of monitors they were all sitting around, the black and white screens looking as much like something from a 60s sci-fi TV show as the high-tech pieces of super-science they were. "I don't understand, there's something on top of..." The great grey vessel squatted over the Sanctum like an anteater scooping out ants, tentacles rising from its lower half scooping away huge chunks of ice even as they watched. The three eyes and slight horn at the rear echoed the face of the Gorgon, but Sharl knew that face well enough from his studies and his nightmares. He saw the details in an instant; the great digitizing towers driven into the icy Arctic landscape like tent spikes the size of buildings, the glowing red 'eyes' that bespoke an active subspace connection across the galaxy, and worst of all, much, much worse, were the smaller tentacles already buried in the exposed roof of the Centurion's Sanctum. His eyes wide with horror, Citizen managed to form the words: "It's the Curator."
  10. Sharl erupted to life in the Wonderbus just inside the door, meeting Morgan's eyes just as he finished his speech. Sharl didn't know the other boy very well, Citizen's paradigm and Crow's being incompatible on multiple levels. But he knew Crow was a hero and evidently on their side, and as the news from a city gone mad pressed on his electronic consciousness like voices from chaos from another world, he knew their differences weren't nearly as important as what they had in common. He gave the other boy a hard nod and said seriously, "Get someone out to Blackstone. Tell Miss A what's happened. I know she can be trusted, and she'll know what's going on." Then the door slammed shut and systems sprang to life, and as Morgan watched from the outside the bus simply rose in the air with a faint glow from beneath its tires and hovered briefly above his head before vanishing from his sight in a ripple of energy. There was a distant rumble like a far-off jet, and then he and his team were alone with their mystery. Where _was_ everyone else, anyway? - Inside the Bus, Sharl checked on Tronik, then his injured teammates, his face white and tightlipped, before he joined the others in the cockpit. "We have to put Erde-Tronik in storage, and we have to put the bioweapon where no one else can reach it. There's only one place I can think of where we can do both that isn't currently being overrun by those...those things down there," he said, shooting a nervous look at the chaos they were still picking up from Freedom City below even as the city itself disappeared in their rearview. "We're going to the Centurion's Sanctum." As he programmed in their destination, he had a brief passing thought. I wonder who Morgan's mother is. I hope she's okay.
  11. TV: Yes, though the headmaster's office is still, bizarrely, aflame.
  12. The security guard was dead, his broken body looking as though he'd been driven through multiple floors by the sheer power of the flying Star Knight's armor. Fleur knew his face, but he'd been a new hire, not someone she'd had the time to get to know at Freedom Hall. Upstairs, Tiamat found Freedom Hall that looked as though it had been through the apocalypse, smashed walls and injured people showing where Star Knight had rampaged her way through the building. There were people up here who needed Fleur de Joie's help and that of other people with first aid training, broken legs and burns showing the effects of super-strength and energy blades, others who had been injured by debris in the melee. Worst of all was the situation room, a space Star Knight had repeatedly trashed: from live feeds across the city, Tiamat could see carnage across the city on her working monitors as heroes she vaguely recognized turned on each other and on their citizens like so many starving younglings in an abandoned nest. Though the worst of the actual fighting was dying down, the city was still in danger: there were unfought fires and chemical spills going unchecked, rampaging gods in the state forest, and people were still terrified by the outbreak of madness and violence that showed no cause.
  13. Something seems strange about Harrier's corpse. Though there's a layer of burnt flesh over the metal, there's much much less than Gabriel would have expected. This looks like a metal body with flesh over it.
  14. Give me Notice, Technology, and Medicine checks, KD.
  15. Harrier is destroyed. Miss A is destroyed; Gina is unconscious. We are out of initiative.
  16. Just assume we are out of combat for now.
  17. "What were you expecting, Gabriel?" sneered Harrier as he raised his pike high, staggering under the impact of Gabriel's spear and Miss Americana's laser blasts. "Some pathetic fantasy of redemption and renewal, where a murderer of tens of thousands could be accepted among the heroes of Freedom City!?! Perhaps in the name of your dead god?" He laughed, his voice full of bitter, mad hate. "No, it doesn't end that way," he said fiercely, speaking as much to the still-live cameras over their shoulders. "It ends in the only real truth. Suffering, agony, and death, terrible and everlasting. And if I die bringing such a fate to the thousands of criminal scum of Freedom City, so be it! With one blast, I shall slay them all!" And with that he raised his pike and plunged it deep into the heart of the reactor control systems, sparks erupting from the ceiling as the system began to overload. "And this place shall be my TOMB!"
  18. Harrier: Power Attack the reactor. Let's say it has Tou 20 He does his max Damage +5 Autofire, +5 Power Attack: DC 39 The reactor takes ten and is injured and 'dazed'.
  19. Sharl's world was falling apart. He'd reactivated the router in the office enough to send signals in and out, but all it had given him were horrors: heroes turning on each other and on the population around them, death and carnage in the streets, reports of a security lockdown and electrical disaster at Blackstone, where he knew Miss A had been visiting before their scheduled return, a vision of Freedom City on the verge of collapse. And now the very school itself had turned against them, with an unknown enemy outside the door and electrified nets on the windows, and Wraith still bound by the icy tomb that imprisoned her despite that fantastic effort from Ghost Girl. Not like this! Not like this! he screamed inwardly as he grew to his full size amid the shattered remains of Summers' office. "What is he yimmering about out there, some stupid TV show?" It was Kimber who shook him out of his funk, his eyes going wide as he saw the device she was pointing out. "It's a bomb! Kimber! Get out, now!" he shouted a moment before shoving his hand inside the device and concentrating hard. There were no active batteries in the place so instead he made his own juice, sucking electricity out of the network and lighting the building up by sheer force of will as energy poured through the building and into every crevice where electronic devices were stored, overloading them through sheer overpowering. "What they need more of is SCIENCE!" Outside, it was as if lighting had struck the building from beneath, sparks and currents of blue-white electricity pouring up the sides and the windows, the net across the office window flying away and sparking as it hit the brown grass outside. "Go go!" Sharl yelled, and followed Kimber out the window a moment later. Outside on the lawn, the Wonderbus's camouflage circuits flickered and died for a moment, the seemingly innocous-looking hippie van appearing out of thin air where it sat on the Claremont Academy lawn. Just as Koshiro and Mali reached the doors, there came a choking roar from the upper stories of the administration building as an eerie green fire exploded from the windows as the place burst into flames!
  20. Okay, I need a DC 25 Tou save from anyone still in the building. (Good thing Darren didn't open the door, and wasn't in the room!) Assume that all the electronics in the place and outside on the lawn are temporarily fried. The upper stories are currently in flames, but it shouldn't be hard to put them out for anyone who has a water-based effect (oh my ) and I think Darren should be able to make that Tou save easily enough. Sorry for all the confusion here, guys, I tried an experiment but it didn't work too well. No big deal! Everyone take an HP for the inconvenience; don't worry, guys, you'll need them. A couple of posts from YF 2.0 working on their escape/getting into the bus, and then they''ll hit the road while the First Line is left with a new series of problems...
  21. Free Action: Nullify Technology 12 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [burst], Flaw: Action [Full], Selective) {24/24} Standard Action: Power Attack vs. immobile targets - Nullify rank of 17 vs the snare on the window and the remaining electronic devices in the building. 36 That's enough to fry the snares and remaining countermeasures. Surge for a Standard action: Fly out the window.
  22. Woof, good thing there's a teleporter/vehicle booster chasing her. OK, go ahead and post IC.
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