Avenger Assembled

Ed: As they are not normal villains, the wrathful have exactly _2_ HP they may spend.

Ed: As they are not normal villains, the wrathful have exactly _2_ HP they may spend.

Ed: As they are not normal villains, the wrathful have exactly _2_ HP they may spend.

Ed: As they are not normal villains, the wrathful have exactly _2_ HP they may spend.

Ed: As they are not normal villains, the wrathful have exactly _2_ HP they may spend.

OK, Everyone who isn't Harrier, take an HP! Harrier's stats are adjusted upwards to PL 14 caps. Initiative? Maybe.

OK, Everyone who isn't Erin, take an HP! Wander's stats are adjusted upwards to PL 14 caps. Initiative may be a thing we do now.

OK, Everyone who isn't BJ, take an HP! BJ's stats are adjusted upwards to PL 14 caps. You may want to roll for initiative? Probably.

OK, Everyone who isn't Kill O'Cure, take an HP! Jill's stats are adjusted upwards to PL 14 caps. Jack is still up.

OK, Everyone who isn't BK III, take an HP! Bee-Keeper's stats are adjusted upwards to PL 14 caps. Silver Spider is still up.

January 15, 2013 9 AM Freedom City Courthouse "We now go live to the courthouse steps, where Star Knight has appeared to offer her opinion on the Yamashita verdict." The trial of the accused stockbroker had been a high-profile case of financial fraud in Freedom City, Greg Yamashita having plundered the pensions of several established Freedom City companies, and his acquittal had brought many demonstrators out with placards and catcalls. Yamashita was being ushered through the crowd by the police when Star Knight, the armored heroine and Freedom League member, swooped down from the sky overhead and briefly hovered over Yamashita and his police escort. The crowd fell silent for a moment as the heroine raised her hand, looking down from her faceless armor at the wide-eyed stock forger. "It's time," she said with perfect clarity before suddenly firing a deadly blast that instantly incinerated the criminal and sent his police escort tumbling like so many ninepins. "The day has come when the heroes of Freedom will no longer stand the existence of our enemies! You're next!" she yelled to the camera as the crowd began screaming in terror. The camera fell, tilting wildly, as a distant explosion sent the crowd stumbling. The last shot captured by the camera before a foot crushed it to bits was the heroine floating in the air and firing blasts into the side of the jail attached to the courthouse, laughing at the top of her lungs. "Hahaha! It's judgement day!" January Vignette: Day of Wrath On January 15, 2013 at 9 AM EST, a wave of violence sweeps through the heroes and villains of Freedom City, without regard for who and what they might once have been before. Some seem to go mad, laughing manically as they fall on their enemies alike like a rabid wolf gone among the sheep, driving some of Freedom City's worst to take shelter from the best gone evil. Some stalk their enemies with cruel, predatory intent. Their acts are showy and terrifying, sending the civilians in the street running in fear from their erstwhile protectors and criminals alike. Though deaths are largely limited to villains and criminals, the deeds are frightening enough, and deliberately, _mockingly_ public enough to strike at the very heart of Freedom City's trust in its heroes. As heroes and villains alike go mad, the heroes of Freedom must rally like never before to defend themselves, their families, and their cities from this unexpected attack. The 'wrathful', as the press has dubbed them, will happily tell anyone what they're doing: Freedom City has tolerated scum and villainy for too long, and now they're going to destroy the enemies of Freedom whatever it takes, and whoever they happen to be. It looks as though judgement day has come... Vignettes might include: Dealing with panicked mobs fleeing a particular crisis, or even one that has turned on another costumed hero in a moment of panic they will later bitterly repent Fighting a hero or villain 'gone mad', they are frightening foes who attempt to persuade the other heroes to join them in their campaign of violence before turning on their erstwhile ally with vicious intent. (make sure to get approval for the use of any canon NPCs in this capacity) If cornered, they will fight to the death. Helping investigate the crisis, looking for psychic spoor, computer linkups, poison or disease in the air, and whatever else might have caused this terrible transformation Reassuring the public, either on TV or in person, that they're going to solve this, and that they might even know who it is that's behind it. Blowing up one of the control boxes, and dealing with its various Foundry bodyguards [Note] Associated Threads: These Chains On Me: Miss Americana and Gabriel, and a mixed bag of allies, deal with an attempt by Harrier to blow up Blackstone Prison and kill the inmates there. Arms and the Man: It's Jill O'Cure vs. the Interceptors as she eliminates a jobber villain for them; permanently! Time and Chance: A battle between gangsters and bikers takes on a whole new terrifying turn as Jubatus, Velocity, and Silver Spider take on a Bee-Keeper gone bad! Pale Moonlight: Blue Jay deals with a battle between Congressman Aaron Walsh and some Terminus babies by shooting as many of them as possible with arrows while Blod, El Heraldo, Warp, and Kit take her on! Counterfeit Medications: When Wander kills Jonathan Grant during a board meeting, what will her lover Midnight, the rest of the Liberty League, and old friends Cobalt Templar and le Renard Bleu do? War of the Worlds: Young Freedom learns that home isn't necessarily where the heart is Checks: DC 20 Bluff, Perform, Sense Motive The 'wrathful' are obviously playing to the crowd, whipping up terror among civilians with their deeds as much as actually killing criminals, and specifically picking opportunities for showy, violent fights with other supers over general mayhem. DC 25 Computers/Technology There are radio signals passing between most of the maddened super-people emanating from various control boxes in Freedom City. Blowing them up should deal with some, if not all, of the 'wrathful' in the area. Careful, though, because those boxes have powerful robot guardians of their own... I will provide further information once one of the wrathful takes significant damage in combat. Send me a PM, or post here, with Vignette ideas or other stories you'd like to spring from this!

"You can stop wasting your time, Miss Americana," said Steve firmly as he strode up to face down Steelgrave. "I no longer believe that this version of Steelgrave has any knowledge of the events transpiring in Freedom City." He met the sly-faced Annihilist dead-on, gazing at him with burning eyes and a stone face through the steelglass that kept them apart. "For all his intelligence, he has allowed his self-worship to blind him to the real threat to the world that he has made his new home. Where he might have been an ally to the heroes here, instead he has been nothing but a sneering distraction for them. I find the misuse of your intelligence contemptible, Steelguard." he said with real animosity in his voice. Steelgrave looked a little surprised, but covered quickly. "Well, you've been eating your Wheaties lately, Steve. Are you always this forceful when the two of you are...together?" he added with a hasty wink, obviously a little rattled by the change in his former slave. Harrier suddenly smiled, an unfamiliar look for his warped face. "I warned you at our last encounter that your human arrogance would be the death of you, Shadivan Steelgrave." And then suddenly Steelgrave's eyes went comically wide and his mouth fell open, and frantically the former viceroy of the Terminus whirled wildly on Gabriel and Miss Americana. "Wait a minute, he's-" Faster than either Gabriel or Miss A would have believed, Harrier's pike snapped open in his hand and he shoved it forward and up, right through the glass with a hideous shattering sound, impaling Steelgrave through the head with a sickening squelch. As security alarms frantically began to blare and the prison guards at the other end of the corridor shouted into their radios, all three going for their weapons, Harrier smirked and pulled his weapon free as Steelgrave's ruined body fell to the floor. "Sic semper tyrannis."

Citizen led the way through the oddly quiet halls of the administration building to Summers' office, where the headmaster greeted all the students with a grim look on his face. "Come, sit down." Summers' office was quiet and secure as always, the intimidating presence of the man himself among bric-a-brac and the artifacts of a long life well spent cast among bookshelves the only thing that wasn't comforting about the room. "Tell me everything. I need to know all the details of your mission." For his part, Sharl left nothing out as he told the story, still securely holding the Erde-Tronik's storage unit on his lap as he spoke. He was obviously eager to get out of there and get back to Miss A's laboratory, but he was a good student and trusted his headmaster. He grew more and more uncomfortable as he spoke, acutely conscious of Summers' narrowing eyes as he spoke about bioweapons and recovered Erde electronic consciousnesses. "Maybe we bent the rules a little, but all in all it worked out for the best. Glace's people are going to try peaceful coexistence with the humans of Erde, and if they do hook up with the Canadians Kimber met, they'll be in a good position to fight Nazis without taking on the entire human race. We saved twenty-five million, eight hundred thousand and fifty Tronikians, too, which is certainly none too shabby." He smiled, growing more and more nervous as Summers glared at him. "And we pulled out a big stockpile of bioweapons, which will save thousands of lives in the long run on that planet. It, uh, it really went well..." He suddenly wished Miss A was there, and tried to contact her even as he spoke to Summers. "Sir, is everything okay?" "No, I'm afraid it isn't," said Summers, almost baring his teeth at Sharl. "You see, while you were away, I learned some very interesting information. It seems that there are _infiltrators_ active in this dimension and in Erde, posing as superheroes but actually working as agents of the _Terminus_. I happened to learn of a plot just this morning by one of their agents to smuggle a biological weapon and electronic warfare agents directly into this very school, brought to me by someone I trust more than my life." Suddenly, Summers reached beneath his desk and came out, whisper-quick, with a big, lethal-looking sci-fi raygun that he pointed right at the city in Sharl's lap. Sharl's eyes went wide and his muscles tense as he recognized a magnetic blaster! "I don't know how you replaced my student, monster," Summers rasped, "but we'll find out under interrogation. As for your stockpile of computer viruses there, we don't need them." His finger began to tighten on the trigger. All at once, Sharl moved like lightning, passing right through the Tronik unit on his way up. It fell back onto the seat, protected by his body from the gun. His eyes wide with panic, he yelled "No!" He shoved his hand through Summers' weapon and further on, deep into the old man's midsection. There was suddenly a great crackle of electricity in the air as sparks erupted from Summers's eyes, and with the scent of burning meat and electronics, he fell lifelessly and bonelessly to the floor as alarms began to blare.

Tona shook her head as she watched El Heraldo and Warp try to stop a brawl from breaking out on stage. "Hold my things," she told Sam, handing the other girl the notebook and pen. "Someone's got to give these folks some perspective." Tone retreated further into the alley and pulled off the messenger bag she'd taken to wearing everywhere. Inside was a tightly rolled Claremont jacket that she pulled over her long-sleeved shirt, a mask that settled easily on her face, and her bow and quiver all rolled up for maximum storage. In a few moments Blue Jay was standing there, and in another few moments Blue Jay was scaling a fire escape up a nearby building. Soon after she was standing on top of the building, bow in hand, leaning on the lip of the roof. She raised her fingers to her mouth and produced an ear-splitting whistle her father had taught her, which cut easily through the distance and the wind and the talking on stage. "Congressman Walsh! Heroes and citizens of Freedom City! I want to tell you something. I... am a survivor of the Terminus. "I was born there, raised there, and had the great good luck to escape to this happier place. I'm learning, slowly, how to live here and how precious life can be. I'm learning to defend it, all of it! And so Congressman Walsh, as a citizen of both Freedom City and the Terminus I cannot support your plan to register the Terminus mutants." In one smooth motion she'd drawn an arrow and nocked it. "It doesn't go far enough. No one will ever be truly safe as long as the stain of the Terminus is on this planet." And she loosed, straight towards Whiplash's heart. The arrow went through Whiplash's chest and pinned the young woman to the wall behind her, eyes rolling back in her head and bleeding from the mouth as she died on television before a horrified crowd.

"Oh, jeez!" Seemingly blind to the gecko making his way up the surface of his big armor, Jerry bent his massive metal frame down over the smashed Pitchoo, bringing his glass-domed pilot's capsule to within just a few meters of ground level. It was tough to tell if he wasn't paying attention, or was just that thick. "Man, I really smashed this thing up. Oh man, was this the Pitchoo? Sweet. Hey, I wonder if I could bring down the Raven's jet too! That would be totally wicked!" Police bullets from a few exceptionally fearless STAR Squad officers were beginning to bounce off his bulletproof glass bubble, but Jerry didn't seem to notice. "He must not even have been in it. That's good, because now he'll suffer knowing I broke his ride! Hah-hah-hah!"

Down below, the meeting was indeed taking a sinister turn as Midnight and le Renard Bleu listened in from their clandestine location, their data relayed to the heroes upstairs. Jonathan Grant had entered right at the hour of nine and was in a sour mood, though not directed at anyone in the room. They were too much his loyal toadies to attract his notice. His bodyguards had swept the room for bugs, but luckily they hadn't quite done a thorough job. "Now that our technological partners have failed, it's up to the biologists and chemists to do the heavy lifting. As usual!" He looked around at the junior executives, his executive's blonde crewcut almost a halo in the light from the big floor-length window behind him. "What's our progress on production?" One of the junior executives, one of several nearly-identical looking young men in red polo shirts and black slacks, said, "Street-level distribution is at 80%, which is well within our current expectations. We should be outcompeting most non-syndicate dealers of zoom and max within the next 12 months, and most of the syndicate distributors are already buying from our front companies. The black market will be ours by 2014." "Good, good." Grant drummed his fingers on the table. "I'm concerned about what we're doing with the vaccinations. Too much close distribution is just going to give us outbreaks of T-babies at every hospital and school, and not only is that going to get traced back to us, setting a neighborhood on fire is going to be very bad for business. If we expand our push out through the free clinics and the HIV test sites, we can still get full distribution without endangering our operation. Or the general public, aka our cash cows!" he added with a laugh.

The deed isdone! JoAB! is up

"It was really...messed up, like there had been a battle there. And bodies." Quickstep looked away, scrubbing her hands up and down her arms. "I didn't know about any of the underground stuff that, um, Wander and Jill have been talking about, but I used the emergency shelter in the administration building and ate up all the food there, and I opened the vending machines in the cafeteria. I tried to sleep in my bed the first night, but it wasn't...it wasn't good.That's where I saw Dr. Stratos, when he was flying over-" She saw the looks on the others' faces and went white, covering her mouth. "Oh no, did I forgot to say that? I'm sorry, I just, I just forgot..." She swallowed hard. "He was flying around yelling, trying to call out Bolt or Captain Thunder, so I hid in the administration building and he flew away." For his part, while the others talked, Steve walked around until he found an abandoned city bus parked alongside the road like it had always been there. "The keys seem to be in the ignition," he called to the others as he worked, "but the gasoline tank is empty." The bus was intact, with even its windows still holding out. "If we siphon gasoline, we will have a working ground vehicle as well as accommodations in the air."

Tou vs 23 for the bike: 19 The bike is smashed, being a minion's equipment! The biker falls off and takes damage... [urhttp]And is unconscious SILVER SPIDER IS UP NEXT, ONCE JUBATUS POSTS

"Okay, well, sounds like we've got a plan..." Mark missed cues about a lot of things, but he could feel the tension in the room like he could cut it with a knife. "Look, we'll forget about me sneaking in. I'll be with the powerhouse group while Midnight and Renard do their thing," Nice costume, by the way, Eve! he thought in her direction when he guessed her mind was turned his way. "I suggest we start on the roof," he said, pointing to the big wide roof of the Grant building that towered some twenty stories above all the neighboring buildings. Like any amateur historian, Mark was no fan of the giant glass boxes that had replaced urban architecture after World War II even in Freedom City, but in this case the sheer size of the glass tower would work to their advantage. "The meeting is just a few stories down from the roof. While you guys infiltrate, we can keep our ears open..." - The next morning, after just a few hours sleep, Edge was in costume and hanging out on the roof of the Grant skyscraper with Wander, Cannonade, and Cobalt Templar. He was in his subdued stealth costume, such as it was, the dark gold and blue he wore only about as bright and colorful as a Blue Angel jet fighter. They all had their commlinks open as Trevor and Eve did their thing, the meeting below was just a few minutes away from starting. The inside of the big corporate skyscraper was bustling and excited with the start of the business day; office workers were finding their cubicles, Bob the Breakfast Guy (if his cart could be trusted) was selling hot egg sandwiches in the lobby, and soft Muzak was playing down on the radio. The junior executives were filing in down in the small, wood-paneled meeting room where the big get-together was supposed to be held, talking in hushed whispers about the boss' new project. Between one thing and another, it was a tense morning.

Looking back, the results weren't quite what Velocity might have hoped for. Only one of the bikers was down, having somersaulted right off his bike and landed hard enough on the pavement beneath to knock the wind out of him. She'd hurt another one, at least badly enough that he'd had to toss aside his cracked helmet, but the rest were still on their bikes and ready for action. Maybe whatever had empowered their weapons had empowered them too, either way, there was no denying that all but one was still in the fight. "Yee-haw, we've got one who wants a race!" yelled the leader, who'd lost his helmet in the affray. "Come on, boys, let's show how we can really move! HELL ON WHEELS!"

We've talked this out; these complications might be appropriate later (if only for her own protection; it's not that Summers doesn't trust her, but rather he knows how _dangerous_ Sin is and how he might move against the girl...) APPROVED

"Aaah! Don't sneak up on me!" yelled Jerry, his booming robot voice sounding distinctly fearful at Geckoman's approach. "I'm very on edge right now!" He made as if to throw the bus at the Pitchoo, but couldn't make it: Geckoman's well-timed magnetic charge had pinned the big vehicle right to the giant fingers of the suit. "Aaah...man, what the heck!?! My mother was right about city buses!" A moment later, with sheer speed that belied the bulk of his massive armor, he stepped forward and his other fist came down like a gigantic hammer on the Pitchoo, instantly smashing the flying craft directly into the pavement beneath with a sickening crack of crunching asphalt and broken metal. Not for the first time in his career as Geckoman, only Chris's sticky hands kept him from being pulped like the insides of a dropped egg, but looking at the giant warsuit _through_ the now-cracked open roof of the Pitchoo, it was pretty clear they'd need a different strategy.

OK: With his efforts to dislodge the bus defeated, Jerry goes ahead and swats at Geckoman. 26 Nat-20, whoops! His stats are here: OK, well, that's a DC 40 Tou save for the Pitchoo with the Pitchoo? Um. I think it's dead, Jim. In any event, I'll subtract the Pitchoo's Tou and say Chris only needs a DC 26 save. Geckoman: 24 Jack of all Blades: 24 Dragonfly: 20 Willow: 8 Jill O'Cure: 7 Jerry: 2 Geckoman is up. Maybe down! But up. So as I don't forget, Dragonfly's Knowledge: Technology gives her the following:

Reflex vs. 28: 14, 17 Bikers 1 and 6 FAIL. Their Tou saves: 28, 23 One stays up, the other one goes doooown. Jubatus is up.