Avenger Assembled

I need DC 25 Notice checks from everybody; Vector, give me a DC 20 one.

The crowd continued to pay warm, eager attention to the celebrity judges and their friends as time went by. There were offers of ice cream and milkshakes whenever their supply seemed to run dry, and the crowd of fairgoers were as interested in sticking close to them as they were to taking in the fair proper. A few cars with out of town license plates were starting to arrive by now, but they seemed to be coming up the access road from the town rather than down from the highway proper. The whole thing seemed to have a lively, carnival atmosphere, clowns forming up beneath the dais and performing for the crowd and the heroes as they sprayed each other with seltzer bottles full of milk, the ice cream truck from Reed's Dairy having moved up behind the stage, slowly circling as music played over and over again. Suddenly, there came from everywhere a terrible mechanical wail, a rising and falling shriek that made the out-of-towners start but didn't do more than make the townsfolk glance at each other. "Ah, sorry folks, I think some joker pulled the tornado alarm," said the mayor, turning to reassure the crowd before turning back to the heroes. "We can't shut it down from here, it has to be shut down from the hardpoint that called it in. Sheriff?" he asked the banjo player on stage significantly. "My boys are on it already," said the sheriff with a reassuring smile, his voice penetrating the noise thanks to the mike he was wearing, "they'll take care of that."

The minute Catherine set foot on the fairgrounds, the dairy crowd was on her. Smiling men in cheese hats pressed cheese trays on her; little boys in cow costumes and little hats smilingly offered her fresh cups of milk, milkshake merchants began pressing their wares on her from their stores. Even the ice cream truck approached, closing in behind her as its music played in a cheerful rhythm. A cow approached her, bell jangling as it sidled along and parked itself on the grassy path behind her. The heroes could see Catherine arriving easily enough; she instantly became the most important person in the fair for everyone anywhere near her. The Mayor, however, smoothly kept his attention on the heroes and company. "Aw, well, we do have plenty of regular American for a young lady's palate," he said with a wink. "Try the cheese, try the milk, enjoy the fair!" As he spoke, one of the 'cowboys' approached carrying a tray loaded with milkshakes. "As for judging, Mz. Fleur, that'll start at the hour of noon sharp. We have to make sure our special blends are all ready for serving, you know how tempermental a cheesemaker can be. Haw-haw-haw!" He threw back his head and guffawed before adding, "Feel free to help yourself while you wait. There's no charge for the Freedom League, of course, or their special guests." The All-American Surprise tasted just fine for a blend of American and bleu cheese, albeit a little mild if you were a bleu cheese devotee.

It was in the low-to-mid sixties in Pleasantville that day, just the sort of good weather the townsfolk were hoping for. As Catherine pulled up from the state road onto the town's main drag, however, she found a quiet, nearly deserted small city, with brightly-colored banners hanging on deserted streets that pointed the way to "CHEESEFEST 2012: WITH SPECIAL GUESTS THE FREEDOM LEAGUE!" The festival itself was mostly in the meadows just outside of town, which were full of brightly-colored banners and stalls. All the typical trappings of a country fair in summertime are on show: clowns with bunches of helium balloons, stalls selling farm produce, a large bouncy castle in the shape of a ridiculous looming Friesian cow, a face-painting stall, and sundry other attractions. Most of the revelers looked to be locals, although apparently the festival usually attracts visitors from the neighboring towns – Ten Commandments, Yellow Banks, and Small – and they seemed to be a fairly typical small-town crowd. Dairy was, unsurprisingly, the overwhelming theme of the festival: between the samples of cheese on plates, men dressed as giant wedges of cheese, stalls selling yogurt from the local dairy plant, kids drinking milk from locally produced cartons, this place really could be called the "DAIRIEST PLACE ON EARTH" as one of the overhanging banners proclaims. Everybody there was either holding, selling, moving, or consuming a dairy product of some kind. There was even an ice-cream truck driving slowly around the perimeter of the fair, playing a slow tink-tink-tink of familiar music as it circled the area, and several cows just wandering around among the humans as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. Getting through the crowd hadn't been easy for Gaian Knight and Teagan; everyone had been eager to press free samples of cheese, milk, delicious milkshakes, ice cream, and yogurt on them, enough that they'd attracted quite a crowd as they went. Enough that they'd attracted some attention. A four-piece band stood on a small raised stage nearby as the heroes met, working on their instruments slowly and carefully. Above them, a banner said “The Boys In Bluegrass.” The banjo player wore a sheriff’s uniform."Hey folks," said the town's mayor (or his twin, if the pictures sent in advance had been any guide) a big smile on his face as he stepped up to greet them, a plate of cheese samples in his hand. "Hey there, little lady," he added with a wink at Fleur. "Welcome to Pleasantville! I'm Mayor Stanley and I'm glad you could all be here today. Try a bite of our All-American Surprise?" he offered with a smile as he took a piece and handed it to Ammy with a huge smile.

Fleur, GK, and Vector enjoy all-American dairy.

Pleasantville, PA October 5, 2012 For the sleepy Pennsylvania town of Pleasantville, the annual Cheese Festival is the absolute highlight of the year. This week-long event is the most exciting thing that ever happens around these parts, the backwater equivalent of Mardi Gras, and this year anybody who is anybody will be there. The festival even attracts revelers from the neighboring towns of Ten Commandments, Yellow Banks, and Small. To the folks of Pleasantville this makes it practically an international summit. The Mayor has hired a bouncy castle and some clowns, and Sheriff Byrne has put together a band – the Boys in Bluegrass – to welcome the out-of-towners. This year’s festival looks set to be the best ever: Benjy Reed, the ten year old son of Cedric Reed, the town's dairy manager, won the Freedom League's essay contest: "What the Freedom League Means To Me" and two League members, Fleur de Joie and Gaian Knight, are coming out to meet Benjy and be celebrity cheese judges at the festival this year. Fleur and Gaian Knight are scheduled to arrive at nine AM sharp on the morning the festival starts, October 5. Meanwhile, another hero was being summoned. At around six AM on the morning of the fifth, Vector returned home from a long night of patrolling to find a message had been left for her on her apartment answering machine. Someone had been calling her secret ID, not her heroic identity.

APPROVED

I count 8 feats, not 10 You need to buy Dynamic on the base power of your Vector Array if you want to trade-off with that much flexibility.

All right, various kinds of things: I like the backstory, I like the powerset. I've corrected some errors here and there, but you need to do some personal revision. I put in her Grapple score; you should go ahead and figure out her Knockback, indicating it for both her Toughness with her Force Field up (That's what Sustained Protection is called, change it to say that) and her Enhanced Defense (maybe call that a shield for ease of reference?) As written Defensive Roll is a lousy feat, so we house-ruled it to be +2 Tou rather than +1 per rank. So you've got 2 points to spend, so that she doesn't have +19 Tou (and be rather over caps!) with her Force Field up. I alphabetized her feats and tightened up her Quickness. Telekinesis is better listed as Move Object (its name in Ultimate Power), so I did that and put in its Strength. You should figure out her Leaping distances and put those in for ease of reference. Why is she so vulnerable to fire, especially since she's immune to environmental heat? Is she...a WITCH? Overall good, just needs some book-keeping.

APPROVED

APPROVED

By the time the search was done, STAR Squad had already come and gone, taking a blind-folded and restrained Tommy Shepard from Caradoc's custody and into the well-guarded protective custody of the Freedom City authorities. Harrier was still in his Caradoc disguise when the heroes inside the building finally rejoined each other, knowing that both Miss Americana and Nick would recognize it from previous adventures together. "I suggest we head for the house," he said, his voice calm enough to let Miss A know that he'd calmed down from his earlier desire to head over there and simply beat Billy Shepard until he repented his magical ties to the Terminus. "Not through the portal, as it is Shepard's creature and no doubt well-guarded, but directly through some discreet passageway. This is an urgent threat, and should be met quickly, albeit not hastily."

Citizen swallowed hard and nodded silently at Miss Americana's words as the magnitude of just how mad she was at him sunk in. This was going to be a lot of work, in more ways than one, and he wasn't talking about the paper files either. (Though that would still be a lot of work) "I'll send you the files on what we're planning tomorrow. And I'm...I'm really, really sorry. Good night, Miss Americana." Even upset, he wasn't going to break Gina's secret identity, even in private: especially not now. He looked down and disappeared a few seconds before the projectors shut off, and Gina could feel his program leaving as he dispatched himself back to Claremont's servers without another word.

Edge thought for a moment to alert Wander that everything was all right, but after a moment dismissed that conclusion. She could hear what they were saying easily enough through their open commlinks, and there was no point in giving away her position if Medea was up to something. And if Mark Lucas knew anything about history, and he did, Medea was always up to something. "So what is it, the Dodekatheon again?" he asked Medea suspiciously, trying to read her intentions even as he tried to keep an eye out on the big room as a whole. "The Olympians never have liked you much, as I recall, but I haven't heard of Hades being active on this plane any time recently, and nobody short of demigod level before that for about thirty years. What happened?" Edge had wanted to ask What did you do? but despite what a very bad person he knew Medea to be actually accusing someone who certainly seemed to be pleading for her life was harder than Mark Lucas was willing to be.

Sharl blanched for a moment at that, thinking about the sheer size of the Goodman archive. He was familiar with the place Gina was talking about; he'd visited the building often enough with Dr. Atom, but he'd never set foot in the cabinet-festooned archaic lower levels that Atom occasionally joked about as having been the thing he'd had himself digitized to avoid. That's...tens of thousands of files. PAPER FILES! "I...okay," he promised, "I'll take care of that right away. If I work my free hours every night, I can take care of that and still do all my school stuff. And the planning stuff. Yeah..." Those files loomed in his mind like gigantic wood pulp bats as he licked his lips and said, "Okay, I'll do that. Whatever it takes to regain your trust."

"Oh, you brought food?" Sharl sounded momentarily nervous, and rightly so. They hadn't quite gotten as far as discussing power origins, which meant she had no way of knowing the problems that solid food and drink might bring. Not problems, he reminded himself. Just don't make a mess! If Gina doesn't like it, you can bet a girl like her won't either. "That's great!" he said, smoothly recovering. "Papercut and Crimson Tiger will be along soon. I was thinking after that, we could split up; you and I go around one side of the theater, those two go around the other, and then meet back up here. If we don't see any supervillains trying to rob the place, we can sit down and enjoy ourselves," he said with a smile, the light from the theater reflected in his mirrorshades. "Sound good?"

"I'll do whatever you need me to do," said Sharl, wondering at the back of his mind if other sidekicks had to go through this too! But he was an ethical young man, despite his attempted break-in earlier in the evening, and it wasn't hard to feel guilty for betraying Gina's trust under Miss Americana's formidable regard. I thought I was being a white-hat. Somehow he suspected that comment wouldn't go over very well with Miss Americana, so he kept it to himself as he waited for her verdict. He reminded himself of the people who needed saving and the city in danger on the world of alien monsters; getting punished by his righteously angry mentor was a small price to pay for the chance to help them. Wasn't it?

"All right," said Sharl reluctantly, "I'll go to the school." Carefully, he added, "I would like to present the idea to the school as something that was my idea, something I've been working towards privately, and not get the rest of my team involved publicly. That way, there's no risk of my friends getting punished if Mr. Summers is angry over the idea. This was my idea from the start, and I'll take responsibility if presenting it doesn't work." The look in Miss A's eye told him that he was going to be taking a lot of responsibility, as a matter of fact, but there was no use dwelling on that until she actually said it. "My tactical plans, and the data I have, are in my directory at school. I'll retrieve them for you. And I promise," he said urgently, "I won't act on any of them without your express permission, and the school's express permission."

Hah, well, real life comes first! Congratulations on the potential promotion, SpicyWaffle, and we look forward to seeing you soon. :D

18 if that's not enough, TT, I'll spend an HP if no one else gets it.

Citizen punches Gremlin 3. 12 And misses! I'll HP that 22 with the HP. DC28 Tou save for Gremlin 3.

Mid-October 2012 Arranging a double-date for Papercut, Crimson Tiger, Temperance, and Citizen was no easy process, especially since Sharl had secured his date with the lovely hydrokinetic without benefit of seeing her face under her mask or learning her real name. But with the forthcoming mission to Erde on his mind and a recent argument with Miss A still burning hot in his memory, the chance to get away with some friends for what teenagers were actually supposed to do (here or in Tronik) seemed like a lot of fun. After some consideration, he'd found something that could function as both date and patrol for the quartet of teen heroes. The Hollingshead was one of the few remaining drive-in theaters near the Freedom City area, a sturdy old place with scrub woods on one side and several good-sized office parks on the other. They could patrol the neighborhood, they could watch the movie, take in the freakish amount of space that Freedom City had to offer, and maybe enjoy each other's company. Having left a message with the number Temperance had left for him after they'd agreed to their date, Citizen waited on a nearby rooftop for the others to arrive, a big old-fashioned radio sitting on the tiles next to him. The Hollingshead was closing its season with a run of scary movies for Halloween, in this case a deliberately mismatched double-feature: the recent Dead Snow with its zombie Nazis in Scandanavia, and then Invaders from Space, an old 50s sci-fi movie that used real stock footage of the first Grue attack from the 1940s. This was Sharl's very first time at a 2-D theater, even across the road from one, and he certainly hoped would be memorable.

Miss Americana: Harrier Nick C.

Edge: Argonauts Harrier: Brighter Than the Moon and GMing Threat to Society Moloch's Champions Citizen: Paying Paul Viral Celebrity Going to the Other Place Little Girls and Cute Dogs Pepper's Ghost Mile In My Shoes Comrade Frost: You Can't Go Home Again GMing: Briefing With Friends Bee Lonesome Ref point to Edge

Search check time: Harrier: 15