Avenger Assembled

With Argo down, Citizen floated in the air for a moment as he sized up the situation. Larceny, Inc. was no real threat now that their numbers were down and their members fleeing; the real threat was whoever had the Bauble! In this case, Corbin had it, but it looked like Get-Away had him! Having studied how Siren's powers worked, Sharl decided to skip the pointless battle with the usual speedster and instead rocketed towards her on a column of blue fire. Growing to tremendous size as he approached, he didn't lay a hand on Get-Away, instead reaching out and simply snatching the magic net right out of her sweaty grip. "DON'T STEAL." he told her sternly in a giant's booming voice before he rocketed straight up into the air with a sound like a clap of thunder, higher and higher until he and Corbin were so far in the air that the melee below was almost impossible to see. "TIME TO GET YOU OUT OF HERE!"

OK. Citizen flies over to the melee vis a vis Ghostbalt Templar and Siren-Get Away. He will attempt to disarm Get-Away. 12+2=+14 to the check. But first, to hit! All-Out Attacking for 2, Power Attacking for 2 = 24 Total of +16 to the check with the Power Attack. Disarm check: 32 If that succeeds, Citizen will spend an HP to cancel fatigue and surge for a standard action. He'll take an accelerated move and fly 20000 ft straight up.

I've lost track of where we are, Giz: who's got the Bauble?

Teagan's descent into melee with the attacking officers let her end the confrontation in seconds; by the time she'd stopped for breath, the cops were as down for the count as their chief was restrained. At the sight of the heroes' victory, the nearby dairy workers turned and fled: not one by one or even in an individual group, but like an eerie array of puppets all running in unison. From the sound of things inside the truck, bound and held with plants, it sounded like Fleur's captive wanted to do the same, but the viney bonds around the delivery truck held them tight. The city was eerily quiet now that the fighting had stopped, even the dairy was free of mooing and other animal noises. The smell in the air was of sour milk and blood from the neglected , an unpleasant combination to say the least. From inside the wrapped-up dairy office came a shout, "We've only got another day's worth of food in here! Can you at least get my boys out of town somewhere safe?"

They all go down, yay!

"Not really," Citizen confessed as he looked past the buildings behind them to the scrub and half-built developments beyond the theater. "This kind of open space makes me nervous, especially with all the plants and animals that I know are out there. It's so...alien." He turned to Temperance with a half-smile, floating down to sit on the edge of the roof with her. "I know for Freedom City, this is just the edge of town, but for me, this is like having Mars just down the street." With an alien girl at his side and that ever-shocking black sky full of stars overhead, for a moment it was a lot like the fantasies Sharl had had as a young teenager. Taking a chance, he put his hand on hers and said, "Company's pretty nice, though," he said with a wider grin. "Hey, think we should head back? The others have to be here by now, and we can tell them we've done the dirty work for them."

The ground shook and trembled alarmingly as Gaian Knight tried to ensare the sheriff, but whatever power Fleur had been pushing against earlier evidently had other things on its mind and he faced no serious opposition. The sheriff was quickly swallowed by the Earth below without a shout. The other officers had no such problem, though, and shouted in one terrible voice: "Σκοτώνουν τον εχθρό του την θεϊκή αγελάδα! Καταστρέψτε τον! Καταστρέψτε" as they opened fire on the not-at-all bulletproof Fleur de Joie. Luckily the plant controller was far more agile than she'd been when she started out, thanks to the League's intensive combat drills, and nimbly avoided the barrage of small-arms fire from the attacking cops.

19 He rolls amazingly well! But he's a minion and so takes the full effect of the Snare! Do-ho-ho! The six remaining cops open fire on Fleur de Joie, who aroused the anger of ? 8, 12, 11, 21, 17, 16 And they all miss, albeit just barely! All right, Teaghan will be open as soon as I post IC.

Actually, HG, with a General Area effect like the cone, you hit as many of them as fail their Reflex saves! And since they're minions, none of them can make it. Since your Area isn't selective, though, i'll say you can only hit six of the first wave of twelve attacking mind-controlled cops, since otherwise you'd risk hitting the building. (Normally we roll these things out, but I'm not going to make a PL 10 character roll vs. a bunch of PL 3 barely bystanders). Go ahead and post IC!

Yes, though make sure you aim it away from the heroes! :)

That hits, and even with the truck's size and speed, Fleur's massive Move Object is enough to grab it. Go ahead and post IC, and then Vector will be up.

Figuring this sort of debate could best be handled by the professionals, Edge decided to keep his word and get them all out of trouble. He rubbed his forehead and concentrated, and as the others argued over the fate of the Sharktopus, in a few moments they, the spacecraft, and all and sundry were transported yet again: this time to the big open square in front of Freedom Hall. There were a few startled exclamations from passersby, but it didn't seem too peculiar for the middle of the day in the middle of Freedom City. People were used to the fantastic around here. "OK, gotta go," he said, bending down to give Philo the short Lunar bow that nearly cracked his back. (it was a lot easier when you were seven feet tall.) "Welcome to Earth, Citizen of Farside," he said formally. "Nice to meet you, Jubatus, Wave-Eye!" he added with a wave before disappearing himself.

Stealth might normally have been the order of the day, but given the urgency of the situation they had to work fast. The old Shepard mansion was dark and quiet at their arrival, with no sign of the elderly couple that lived within or the ample staff that such wealthy people should have been able to maintain. A low wind kicked up as they landed on the neatly trimmed lawn, ruffling the flower garden that looked well-maintained. Quiet as the house looked, someone had to have been there not long earlier. "I would blast in the doors," said Harrier, charging his pike with a whine of energy, "but the display would be pointless and only rouse him to action." He wore his unshielded armor, but it was Caradoc by their side, not the choke-voiced Omegadrone. I will not let them drive me to the rage upon which they feed. "Can either of you see inside the house from here?" They both could, easily enough, and the scene of recent violence within (easily visible on security cameras or by magic) suggested for a moment they might have come too late! Thick walls in a tony neighborhood hadn't kept this enemy out; instead they'd hidden the sound of carnage from the neighbors. The scorch marks on the walls and broken furniture suggested a grim scene indeed. But up in the big mansion's ample attic, neither Miss Americana or Nick could see, and the marks of battle inside the house seemed to suggest something had been chased up there. Or dragged, depending.

"I have been to space before. Unpleasant, but I can do this for such important task," said Frost, straightening his parka unconsciously. "I will require a substantial thermal insulation, both inside and out, and extensive armoring. I can give you specifications from previous space voyages." The truth was that Dimitri did not like going into space; the awful depths of its yawning cold abyss reminded him far too much of his time in the embrace of Hel. Though it did have its charms..."Prefer the lighted parts of space. Is more comfortable there." He folded his hands behind his back and nodded to his alien guests. "If you will pardon, I must make report to Russian government so that they know where I go. Excuse." And with that, he turned and left the room, the temperature perceptibly rising on his departure.

Round 1: Fleur de Joie: 24 Vector: 20 (since she has a higher init than the truck driver) Truck: 20 GK: 19 Cops: 15 T: 5

Steve and Erin were standing guard outside when Mara made her way outside with the dissassembled bomb components stored in her dimensional pocket; her two bodyguards looked a little the worse for wear as a result of their adventures with the seamy side of the Thieves Guild, but they had won the day nonetheless. This has been a good day, thought Steve. Far better than it might have been. Or so he hoped. Perhaps soon the entire Thieves Guild would show up to try and burn the place down, or the media would descend and...no, dwelling on unpleasant possibilities was no way to go about his work. He had enough of those in his life as it was. "The road is clear," one of the AEGIS agents called to Mara. "We have people standing by blocking aerial and road traffic."

Between Temperance and Citizen, the remaining gremlins didn't stand a chance, and it wasn't long before the two heroes found themselves standing in a room blessedly free of supernatural technological creatures. "Nice," said Sharl with a nod. He'd worked up a sweat against the Marchesa, and taken some bruises along the way, but he was remarkably intact given the crazy magic creature he'd just blown up. "I took care of what's her face inside the computer. Even if she had backups stored somewhere, I think she'll probably find some place less threatening to deal with. I'm Citizen, by the way," he said with a smile for the really quite cute Temperence. (Or so he figured behind the mask) Nice to see a girl I don't have classes with. "I like your style."

Citizen opted to wait around for the others while Temperance did her side of the patrolling, though as soon as she was gone he realized the problem with that. Aw, crap, Koshiro and Mali will think I made her up! His friend had certainly seemed a little surprised to learn that he'd gotten a date with a girl, come to think of it. Lacking the ability to leave a note, though, there wasn't much he could do. I guess I should probably talk with Temperance about how I'm a holographic construct being projected by what looks like my wristwatch, but's a conversation for another time... At least he was out of that stupid Goodman Building basement, he reminded himself. For tonight, anyway. He took to the air and left the cooler behind, letting his friends to find what they'd left behind. If there are any crooks there, I will beat the crap out of them...

15 I'll treat the Sheriff's deputies as a group; they'll act on 15. The speeding truck will hit the dairy office at 20; probably a bigger threat for the driver given the Create Object Fleur just put up, but still a worry...

As the plants erupted from the ground to surround the dairy office, suddenly the ground began to shake beneath everyone's feet as a powerful, localized tremor shook the land near the dairy. A deep, basso roar echoed in the air as cans flipped over and windows shattered as if something deep beneath the earth was stirring and howling in frustration! As it did so, the sheriff, his deputies, and indeed everyone the heroes could see staggered as one and clutched the sides of their head as if something there was stirring and roaring as well. When the earthquake stopped, the sheriff and the townsfolk looked at the heroes and suddenly they didn't look so friendly anymore. "Kαταστρέφω!" they shouted in an eerie Greek chorus as they charged the heroes, guns blazing and fists raised as the entire area seemed to converge on the quartet of heroes outside the dairy! The townsfolk might have been civilians, the sort of people who heroes should hold back against when they fought, but from the look of murder in their eyes it didn't look like they would pay the heroes the same favor. And even their charges weren't safe yet; as the heroes watched, one of the dairy trucks spun around with a squeal of tires and began rocketing faster and faster, with a roar of its big diesel engine, towards the protected shelter of the dairy office!

?'s Power Check: 33

"Oh, you know, the usual stuff, the government's taking his money, the superheroes are all out to get him," said the sheriff with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Who can follow with these lowlifes? Normally he'd be at the festival by now, but the mayor and I told him he should stay indoors and keep out of sight if he couldn't keep his mouth shut around supers. I guess that was a mistake. If we can get him to the door again, I can probably take him from long-range," said the sheriff, unholstering his pistol. "We gotta keep this milk comin', lady," he told Fleur with great fervor, and might have gone off if someone hadn't shouted from inside the barricaded-off manager's office. "Don't listen to them!" yelled what was probably Cedric from what looked to be behind the door, the barred-over window at top cracked open by what looked like gunfire. "They're crazy! They're all crazy! This town has gone nuts! I swear to God I did not want to shoot that man, but he came in here trying to get at me and my boys and I had to do it! Look at the jail! Look at where they're keeping people! And don't drink the milk!"

Getting into the air wasn't easy; the mayor had initially protested "The sheriff can handle it! Really!" But when the heroes were determined, he gave his assent with a shrug. As Gaian Knight flew, a speeding black and white patrol car followed them on the streets below, sirens blaring as they made their way through the town to the dairy on the other side. The city itself was still and quiet from the air, with few people on the streets: the only strange sight was around the police station, where a parking lot full of a wide variety of cars threatened to burst out onto the two-lane road next to the old brick structure. Along the streetside of the jail, several fire and dairy trucks were parked, firemen and dairy workers walking around and working around both, the aftereffects of what looked like a milk spill just visible at their feet. At the dairy proper, the heroes found an odd, grim scene: a dozen dairy workers and policemen were lined up outside the manager's office, open steel jugs of milk turned sour nearby, and the dead body of someone in a police uniform was stretched out in front of the building's steel door. With its cinderblock walls and nearly windowless construction, the building that still bore the sign REED DAIRY along the wall looked tough to breach. Evidently the uniformed man by the front door hadn't succeeded, from the grim damage to his torso he'd stopped the shotgun rounds that Fleur had heard earlier. The sheriff arrived on scene just a few minutes after the heroes and quickly parked to assess the damage. "Oh, jeez," he said, his face turning pale. "I knew Cedric was going to go nuts one of these days, but this is...that's Wally Park, one of my deputies. Oh, geez..." He went to tend to the body, amid a strange scene. None of the cops on scene had evidently called in about the murdered officer, at least not as far as the heroes could see, and the dairy workers with the milk pails had clearly been with them. As for the dairy itself, despite the manager evidently barricaded in his office, the site itself was still in active operation, uniformed workers loading milk trucks and running machinery in the barns behind the reinforced building at the front. "Cedric's been on edge for a while now with that sovereign citizen crap, and it only got worse after Benjy won that contest," one of the other deputies offered. "He hates cops, and he hates capes."

"We put him in storage in our facility, Dr. Atom," called Sharl up to the older intelligence. He knew the grandfatherly old man quite well, if only because the elder Atom had been a natural person to consult given his own situation. With a glance at Miss Americana to make sure he wasn't speaking out of turn, he went on, trying to explain the situation to Atom. "He seems to be sentient, albeit not a true upload." He let it go at that, trusting Miss A to figure out what fate they were going to work out for D-Gray 2.0. "I can zip back there if you need me to," he offered to Miss A, "make sure his matrix is still holding up now that the Foundry's attention is elsewhere."

Fleur: Fleur hears a distant gunshot at the sheriff's words, echoing over the hill from the direction of the building complex a couple of miles away that's been pointed out to her as the Reed Dairy. That's not too weird; this is a rural area and people do have a lot more guns than in Freedom City. But then she hears another one, this time a different sound: a shotgun blast. Then another. GK: You distinctly see a big, overstuffed rural family climbing its way out of an overmatched sports car with out of town plates, smiling and laughing as if nothing's out of the ordinary.