Avenger Assembled

Weather Mistress runs 30 feet into the back of the apartment, grabs her gear and puts it on. Mad Maple: He backs up and tries for another blast. 14 That's a miss, but I'll say Wander can let that hit her and use the Reflective if necessary. Harrier goes on 24 next round. Go ahead and roll initiative, Fox

He can't beat that! That hits by 1, so no Autofire bonus. But! 23 He rolled well, but he's in bad trouble without his costume: he's bruised and dazed.

"I am familiar with the person you describe," said Harrier in a mechanical voice like death warmed over. "Not the cultists. The goddess they worship. An Annihilist who I do not believe has been active on this planet. I am glad you are here, Miss Americana, and you as well, Nick. We must...we must deal with this, and quickly, before whatever they worship there can spread. There are evil gods in the world of men." And with that, he took off into the air, hovering on a jet of black and red flame for a moment before the others followed him.

Wander: 17 Weather Mistress: 10 Mad Maple: 9 Officers: 5 each Wander is up. I'll say the melee makes enough noise, and the officers call out on their radios, that people can hear it outside the building.

Now that I know what you were doing, have an HP for the Fiat. He teleported away, Nick doesn't know where.

The Mad Maple goes on nine; Weather Mistress goes on ten His sheet's pretty terrible. We'll call this a straight-up Blast 8, ATK 12, no power attacking. 32 Well, darn! Ah well, there'll be other attacks to bat later. DC 28 Tou save.

Erin's scan for threats was easy enough, even as the two cops came in behind her: a man and a woman were slumped together on the big couch in the middle of the living room, a few half-open bottles of pills on the table in front of them and the smell of sweat and drugs in the air. From what Erin could see underneath the blanket they were under, neither of them were wearing much clothes. They were just waking up, the guy did first; something familiar about his thin face and wavy blonde hair as he started up and gazed at Erin with bloodshot eyes before he turned to his curvaceous sweetheart and yelled, "Courtney, leave your dressing gown and run for the vane! I'll hold these hosers off!" He tossed aside the blanket as his lingerie-wearing girlfriend ran for a rear door, revealing a man clad only in red and white maple leaf boxers and wielding a bat of his own: his with a serrated triple tip that glowed blue with sizzling cold fire. "You messed with the wrong man when you messed with the Maple Leaf, you American pigs!" And with that, he fired a blast of icy cold radiation directly at Erin!

Mark nodded, understanding Trevor's words implicitly. He and Midnight had been friends and allies for many years, and he felt pretty good about being able to read his subtle hints so easily. That's what teamwork is all about. Cannonade's a good man, and I'm proud to fight by his side, but he's not exactly subtle. "We'll find a way to keep ourselves busy, I'm sure. You've got that anti-mind control device of yours still, right, Trevor? That'll probably come in handy." Once that issue was settled, he looked around the others. "Are we ready to go? I can put us down somewhere near the theater, far enough away that she probably won't notice our coming. There's a lot of magic in that area and she'd have to be looking pretty hard to know it was me." With his team's permission, Mark did just that, walking them right out of the Manor's lair and into a Fens alleyway near the river, the smell of urban poverty and despair sharp in their nostrils.

"I am fine. The cultist created a false corpse in order to spread terror, then detonated a bomb." said Steve without hesitation, but of course Gina knew that he wouldn't complain if he was on fire. "Disquieted by the news that there are Omegan cultists loose in Freedom City, much less ones with the confidence to stage an attack like this." Distracted as he was, it took Harrier a moment to realize that Miss Americana was nearly embracing him, horror and all, in public view of everyone, and despite everything else that made him feel better. "It is good to see you, Miss Americana," he said, relaxing a fraction from his usual ramrod-stiff posture in her embrace. Nick followed the young evangelist's path like a ghost, eventually ending his 'scan' in what looked like a converted church in Lantern Hill. He could feel the magic in the room, a hint of hoodoo and Egyptian, with something else, a hateful curl of entropic darkness that was all-too-familiar to any magician who battled the dead. The black-haired young man was arguing with someone, a white-haired young man in a green work shirt, their silent argument growing heated before the interlocuter turned and seemed to vanish out the door like smoke, the evangelist taking a moment to gather himself before the object before the altar that was the strange holy symbol of the church: a woman with skin black like obsidian, in a strange red garment that hung oddly on her body. When he was done, he smiled, turned, and walked out of the church and into his encounter with Harrier, Nick, and the crowd.

"Great, now your consultant is telling me to do the job I'd have done an hour ago if your stupid Fed squad had called us in when they were supposed to," snapped Patrick, glaring at Petty with real anger in his eyes. "Murphy, Weller," he shouted to two uniformed officers who with their short haircuts and bland white features looked weirdly like twins, "go in with Miss Bossy here and clear out the building!" Across the way, a red-faced Petty was doing the same with his AEGIS crew, the armored federal agents setting up a perimeter in the street and gradually, efficiently pushing the people back out of the cul-de-sac to clear out space for both the spooks and the supers to do their job. Steve went to help with that, his intimidating, albeit helpful, presence ensuring that people backed away and out of the immediate area even before they'd consciously realized they were evading him. Inside the building, Wander found that most of the residents had in fact cleared out with the first pass the cops had made. No one wanted to be around an unexploded bomb, especially one of Grue provenance. From the conversation between the two police officers, both of whom were sourly sharing stories about their last encounter with the Grue during the recent invasion, they hadn't been told the truth about what lay beneath the building. The cops helped a few older folks who'd still been packing out of the building, and one weedy-looking younger guy hiding inside a stairwell who swore he "just wanted to see the bomb! That was all!" The last serious holdout turned out to be Apartment 36 on the third floor, where despite repeated knocking, no one came to open the locked apartment door. "We could hear him shuffling around in there earlier," muttered Murphy. "And his name's not on the list. Ready to do this thing?"

"TO BEE WIZE IZ GOOD," pronounced the queen, her cable-thick antennae dangling in Baxter's direction. "A FRIEND OF FLEUR DE JOIE IZ A FRIEND OF THE HIVE. IF YOU HAVE COME TO BEE A FRIEND, THEN THAT IZ WHAT ZHALL BEE." There was, at that, a general noise of approval from the other bees, a briefly deafening echo of apian applause as they rubbed massive forelegs together. When it was done, the Queen backed away to her roost, a massive enclosure along the far wall that took up half of her deep inner chamber. "YOU WEAR IMPORTANT COLORZ, BEE-KEEPER," she added, and as she spoke Super-Bee helpfully provided a puff of fire from her mouth that lit up the room in a cheery glow. Baxter could see his own colors, and the deep yellow and black of the bees, shaded by the reddish light of Super-Bee's fiery breath to match the colorview that an insect's eyes might have. "REMEMBER ALL THAT HAZ BEEN DONE, THE GOOD AND THE BAD, AND YOU ZHALL BEE WORTHY OF THEM."

With a superhero like Nick Cimiterie backing up his story, the police reluctantly lowered their weapons and went to help with emergency services: tending the two dozen or people injured by the blast that had 'killed' the cultist. There were several severe injuries, but with the police on the scene those hurt were soon whisked off to hospital. His pike retrieved, Harrier stood a mute sentinel of terror on the blasted street corner, face, body, and pose all invisible beneath the spiked armor that was today not much protection at all. The moment; the explosion, the 'corpse', the screams of the wounded innocents, it had all been too terribly vital, so much like the horrors of his past that it was hard to pull himself away from them. When Nick passed by, the Omegadrone murmured to him. "I have heard his kind before. In other places, other times, beneath the shadow of the towers of Nihilor. To see him here, now, and for it to end like that is...grim." He fell silent, then that great spiked head turned and seemed to study Nick. "I did not recognize him. Can your spells find where he went, or what his purpose was here?"

The Action flaw (in this case, making it a full-round action to use the drain) will be a more useful flaw for you as well.

APPROVED

Edge took the arrival of the cat-man and the fish-man with equanimity, at least once he recognized them both from his habit of reading UNISON files and (more importantly) watching hero-related TV. OK, Jubatus and Wave-Eye. These guys are both reliable sorts, this'll be fine. One fast guy, one water specialist, just the thing if something goes nuts here. I just hope whoever's in there isn't confused by the non-humanoids, but at least that way they'll know they're in a diverse city on a diverse planet. "Jubatus, Wave-Eye, welcome!" he called cordially from his bridge over the troubled waters of the bay. "If you don't know me, Wave-Eye, I'm Edge, I'm a UNISON agent and I'm here on behalf of the United Nations to help welcome our guest. But you're welcome to join the team, both of yoU! Please step back if you can, Wave-Eye," he said with a perfect smile and wink, "we don't want to alarm our guest, and if he can't understand your words, then you're just some alien pounding on his front door and yelling at him. What I need you to do is be ready if the pod sinks or if our guest turns out to have a problem with salt water, okay? Jubatus, same same for you; I can get us all back on shore if we have to, but speed has a quality all its own in these situations. All right, now let's be ready, and let's greet our guest." "Are you in distress?" he called to the alien pod, repeating his words in Grue and Lor just in case they didn't speak English. "We are local representatives, and we are here to help you!"

I approve of a character with the same name as my toddler! The abilities that potentially make him a danger to everyone around him give him that particular feel of authenticity. You've got a lot of people looking at your sheet now, so I'll let them handle it. I'll give you an APPROVAL now so you can jump right into play once they have a chance to fix it. My one suggested change is that you drop his Healing to 1 rank; with CON 34 he succeeds on all his DC 10 Recovery checks anyway, and you could easily spend those points on other things.

Rechecking every sheet; do the things Fox said. :P

A good sheet. Grim backstory, but one wouldn't expect a demon lord to have a cute and cuddly visit to Earth. My only advice is to come up with a memorable shortened version of the name, or perhaps a terrible title of diabolical rank and satanic majesty that he may go by on Earth. The Dark Prince of Tears! The Duke of Regret, etc. Or just something along the lines of Abbadon, Lucifer, Satan, Mephisto, Donny and Marie, etc. Halxofyq'ta'maswx may be on his driver's license, but it's way too long and awkward for heroes to yell in rage. In the meantime, APPROVED

Help a shapeshifting bro/sis out!

Sorry for the delay, SC! (It's OK to poke us about this ) I like the sheet and concept very much. I like the concept a lot. I worked to fix some of the math and power concepts, take a look and make sure it's okay. (It really should be) The only problem I see is that you do need to have bought a third of your Defense as base; in your case, that's 2.

The Lincoln cul-de-sac that held the Green building was unusually crowded today, with many of the Green building's residents on the streets and looking up at their usual place of residence with some alarm. The uniformed personnel on the street were a mixture of AEGIS and Star Squad, just the sort of police and government presence that would actually be on the scene for a misplaced Grue device. It looked like the Freedom cops and government spooks were sharing authority today, as it was both another suited government agent and plainclothes Freedom City cop who were there to greet the HAX crew. "Agent Daniel Petty and Lieutenant Richard Patrick," the two said after a moment to figure out whose authority took precedent. After a moment, Petty nodded to let the local man speak first. "We've cleared out most of the building; everyone we could find who was willing and able to get out of the premises in a hurry." Behind them, uniformed cops were doing their best to answer locals' questions about when they were going to be able to get back into their building, and what kind of crazy Grue device was down there! "The top floor is structurally unsound and the super assured us that no one else has a key. With the need to get people back and out of the area, we had to take his word for it," Patrick admitted. "The, uh, thing the Feds are interested in," he said with a sharp glance at Petty, "is down in the basement crawlspace."

"I'm on scene now," reported Edge from the shoreline, talking on his commlink to the UNISON base back in Freedom City. As he stood on the beach, his cape flapping lightly in the seabreeze, Mark worried about the poor alien who'd just crashlanded into the ocean. Freedom City's costumed defenders usually handled these situations, but with the League deployed elsewhere and with Trevor and Erin on a date tonight, he was handling this potential first contact as as a UNISON agent as much as a superhero. Look at you, Mark Lucas, spokesman for the international community; Earth's representative to what might be a new, uncontacted alien species. he thought with a faint smile as he walked out onto the water, the sea transforming itself into pykrete beneath his feet as he went. Nice! Wonder if it's a cute alien. Girlfriend or not, he could still appreciate things like that.

"Mm." Steve had experienced similar concerns as well, but luckily his boss and his immediate superior had phrased things more tactfully than it was probably within his capacity to be. He wasn't in the mood for condemnation anyway; with his intimate personal experience with the use of weapons of mass destruction, the thought of such a holocaust unleashed upon innocent people was appalling in a way that even the most satisfying put-down wouldn't have washed away. On his feet, he said, "I will gather my equipment and meet you at the vehicle." In truth that was nothing but his weapon and the communications gear Mara had issued him as a HAX guard upon his hiring, but those things had got him through every crisis this far. As for Andretti, he was evidently used to the capricious nature of superheroes and their objections to little things like terrifying a neighborhood in order to avoid issues of liability. With a nod to Mara, he gathered up his display case and headed out the door for the secretary's office to begin arranging the paperwork that would handsomely reward HAX, and make sure that nothing they did could possibly be turned to military purposes ever again.

"The locals have been told that there's an unexploded Grue warhead under their building, one left over from their most recent invasion and uncovered by the new sewer line that's being dug across the street," said Andretti with a nod Erin's way. "That proved sufficiently alarming to clear out most of the inhabitants. As for our teams, that's impossible to verify," he admitted. "We deployed trained professionals, but there's no way to be sure the information didn't leak. Lincoln does have several local supervillains, as well as mundane street gangs, who'd be very excited to get their hands on this kind of technology even if just to sell it off to the highest bidder. That's another reason to get things done as quickly as we can."

The police arrived to see an Omegadrone with a recently discharged weapon amid a crowd of bodies and made the natural, albeit wrong conclusion. "DROP THE WEAPON! HANDS IN THE AIR NOW!" the cops shouted, guns out and drawing down on the heavily armed cyborg. Harrier did as they commanded, dropping the pike to the ground and putting his spiked hands on his head. "There was a bomb under the podium! He killed himself with his device!" he called to Nick, evidently not as wise to Nick that the body at his feet was fake. And Harrier had seen a lot of those in his time. "I tried to deflect the blast, it...it could have been worse. Unspoken among Steve's horror at the moment was the simple fact that if he had fired his weapon to kill those civilians, they would all be dead. And that was something he knew from personal experience.