Avenger Assembled

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.

"I can do that," said Sharl, tapping at one of their suit communicators as he dispatched a sub-spatial message back to the 'Lighthouse'. "OK, Morse message away using the 'Shanghai' code." He hadn't quite understood the meaning of that particular phrase at first, but upon explanation earlier in the year he'd decided it made well enough sense. "And I can...oh, crap!" He turned and flew through the walls just as Koshiro and Mali took up shelter in one of the bridge's crash couches, emerging against just as the alien countdown reached its zenith. There were distant concussions, and they seemed to drift "Had to hit the explosive bolts, so we wouldn't-" Before he could finish his sentence, suddenly everything seemed to warp and ripple around them; the air, the consoles, the deck, their bodies, and there was a bizarre moment of CHANGE-before suddenly a massive wall of acceleration hit them like a rollercoaster, pinning Koshiro and Mali to the couch like they were stuck on the downloop of the fastest rollercoaster ever. Over the sound of the roaring engines, Sharl wedged his emitter in a crack in the console and called off distances and locations that meant little to the two humans before suddenly, just as rapidly as they'd stared, the ship slammed to a halt, the crash couches stretching taunt to hold Koshiro and Mali safely in place. The stars visible through the monitors were unfamiliar, the planet beneath them a strange shade of red and brown ocher. "...sixteen hundred of your light-years. We're on the other side of Deneb," said Sharl, gesturing at a bright, distant star in the alien sky. "And more to the point, we are well into uncharted space. Uncharted Grue space, at that," he added, his eyes wide as he reminded himself it was just a simulation. "Wow."

Sharl and Sharla rolled their eyes affectionately as the sound of the Storms filtered up from the back of the Wonder-Car. I guess some things don't change in any universe, thought Sharl dryly as he looked at his reflection. "So how do we fly this, does it have standard grav-controls, or-" She interrupted him with a smirk and simply dived into the control surfaces of the car, followed a second later by a whooping Sharl. Everyone outside the system saw lights come on and heard the engines roar, and seconds later the anti-grav powered car swooped up into the air and began flying through the blue skies of Freedom City. It was a lovely day here, and from the sky as they swooped towards the 13th Floor nothing looked that different. "Hang on, and we'll be there in a flash!" said Sharla from an open comm panel as she and Sharl appeared together in what looked like a cockpit seen through a camera but of course was just a construct from a virtual world. As the antigrav drive hummed, the two computer pilots waved before Sharla reached up and muted the internal display. When her friends weren't looking, the narrow-faced electronic teenager suddenly looked haunted. "Did you get one too? A version from a Tronik on Erde?" she asked in a sudden rush inside the system, looking at Citizen and pulling back her sunglasses to peer over at him, something she'd obviously been holding back spilling out. "Another Tulink? Another us?" "I...I did," said Sharl, sensing a distress deeper than his own in Sharla's words. He checked the system around them to make sure it was clear, then went on, "We're planning a rescue mission. I'm training up our team, and that includes Mali and maybe Kristen these days if she shakes out, to go over to that version of Erde and rescue our people. I won't let any version of Tronik suffer like that, even if I get in trouble with the school. What about you?" "They're going to sell her," said Sharla, her lips tight. "Right after she graduates. They're property there, just slaves to those bastards. I don't know what it's like for boys, for your double, but she's a pretty girl in a world run by sexist human scum. I could do the math." She stared at the holo-dials in front of her as the car sped towards the 13th Floor. "I'd die before I let that happen. I know I'm not alone anymore with Tronik, but still...you know what it's like." Sharl nodded, completely understanding, occasionally steering the car as they went. Luckily there was a very good autopilot on board, and the fact that he'd never actually had time to get his gravcar license didn't matter when it came to navigation. "I know. But like you said, we're not alone. And humans aren't all bad. I mean, you've got Mister Olympic, right?" "Yeah. He...he's a good man," she said, looking a little sad as the borrowed lab building came into view. "People like them, who helped us when we were at our weakest, they're what showed me that humans can be heroes too." She grinned. "And then after that thing with that crazy school with all the bizarre drugs and the killer forest, I realized my friends are heroes too. Life could be a lot worse." They were both still smiling at that when the grav-car touched down on the ceiling of the scientific skyscraper, and everyone started to exit for the trip into the building.

All right, I've got no issues with what I see here ATM. APPROVED

"I deny you." Citizen smashed a flaming fist into the Ultimate Android's midsection, trying to keep Argo angry, off-balanced, and focused on him rather than on Sage, who had just left herself open defending him. Of course, she's bulletproof now...best just to not think of it. "I deny your genius, I deny your power, and I deny your terrible fashion sense! Get a real costume if you're going to do this thing! Look at me, I'm in my street clothes and I look better than you!" He dodged another blow, swooped high, and raised his fists into a piledriver. "And today's a special day, Argo, because I am a Citizen of Freedom City and I am ON FIRE!" And with that, he brought his fists down onto the top of Argo's head.

The queen's chamber was deep in the depths of the hive, a massive peanut shape big enough to hold dozens of the giant bees at the same time. The vast room was largely empty upon Baxter and Stesha's arrival, outside of their hovering escorts, at least at first. As their escorting bees landed and he and Stesha dismounted, a massive apian loomed out of the gloom and began taking slow, deliberate steps in their direction, her voice seeming to blend perfectly with the distant buzzing that filtered through the massive walls all around them. Closer and closer she came to Baxter, a massive bee half again as large as the others, looking over them both with a great black and yellow face large enough to swallow a car, obscenely bloated body trailing off behind her. "ZOOO. FLEUR DE JOIE, IT IZ ZOOO DARK. ONE OF THE BABYZZ ATE ZE GLOWING MOZZ AND NOW IT IZ DARK. MY APOLOGIEZ." She evidently wasn't bothered by the dim light, instead she fixed an eye on Baxter bigger than he was, and as she did so Baxter was able to pick out giant shapes moving along the ceiling. The queen wasn't so alone after all; her escorts had just been watching them silently the whole time, stealthy insects big as Mack trucks. "WHO IZ THIZ? HE IZ VERY FAMILIAR, BUT HIS WORDZ ARE WRONG. HE HAZ NONE OF THEM YET."

Harrier's Terminus Awareness detects the bomb underneath the podium. He counters the blast with his pike, but it's not enough to keep the crowd from getting damaged. As the cops show up, Nick notices that is not a dead body at all: it's a fake one, and a magically fake one at that! More rolls will get you more info.

"Look! They come out like so many locusts to devour the truth from your mouth! They-" Suddenly, everything seemed to happen at once. "Down!" shouted Harrier in alarm, and he thrust his pike into the box beneath the speaker's feet a moment before an eruption of black energy cascaded from it in an explosive rush over the crowd. CACHOOM! The blast shattered windows across the sidewalk and bowled down pedestrians from the shockwave; car alarms and screams of pain breaking the momentary stillness as two dozen people who'd been standing in close proximity to a pavement-cracking explosion found themselves bleeding and battered on the sidewalk. Everyone was hurt, only Nick and Harrier, protected by their mutual armors, were uninjured. Harrier's pike was still sticking out of the pavement, just at the feet of the young evangelist who was most very definitely dead, torn to pieces by the explosion. And with screams of sirens in the air, the police finally arrived.

At the sight of the man who'd nearly destroyed his home and most of the people there for the sake of an ideological point about machine intelligences, Citizen immediately went into action. Trusting that Voltage and Cannonade could handle the still-silent drones for a moment, Sharl swooped down out of the sky to engage Keres in hand-to-hand combat, supporting Miss Americana's attacks on the murderous mechanical monster. "Hey, you," sneered Citizen as he swooped down from on high. "Looks like you survived the beating Gal Vanic gave you after all. You know it's funny, for a crusader for mechanical mastery, you sure do spend a lot of time picking on old men in computers and civilians in programs. Maybe you'd be better off fighting something more your speed, like one of your Tetris blocks!" And with that he threw a punch, a solid hit to the chin that rocked Keres back.

"None of you can see," said the young evangelist with a certain nod, his voice getting harder for Nick to hear over the sound of the crowd. Maybe thirty people were interlocuting the Omegan cultist directly, but a larger group was forming to watch _them_. It was going to get ugly, especially as more and more people left work. He could hear distant sirens, but so far the police were showing no signs of intervening. "You have been blinded by false priests and false gods. COWARDS who have kept you from the future of liberation you deserve because they fear change! Don't let them blind you to the joys of the future that- " Someone's Big Gulp from the convenience store in the nearby skyscraper crashed off his head in a shower of ice and blue juice as the crowd laughed, but the young evangelist looked undeterred. "Violence is the last resort of small and petty minds. If you didn't fear the truth, why would you be so angry?" A moment later, a roar in the sky made everyone look up, and a few people screamed! An Omegadrone roared down from the clear blue sky overhead, jet spewing black and red flame behind him, and the crowd was a moment away from panicking as the silent, faceless figure landed opposite the Terminus evangelist. Having fought alongside him before, Nick recognized the pitted armor and massive frame of Harrier, Freedom City's Omegadrone hero. "Look at me, fool." Normally Steve was more polite, even with idiots, but this particular brand of madness never failed to put him on edge; his cold, flat machine voice cutting through the crowd like a knife. "Look at your words made flesh. Step off the platform and walk away." Despite Harrier's formidable and terrifying presence, enough that the crowd had fallen silent as the grave and taken a few steps back, the young Omega cultist was unimpressed. "Pfah. With the blood on your hands, drone, you dare speak to me about MY words? I have called these people to truth and light, exercising my rights as a citizen of Freedom, and committed no crime save being brave." He turned up his nose at Harrier. "How many children did you murder today, monster?""

Citizen goes to help Miss Americana, as a sidekick should. He spends a move action flying down there, then punches Keres. 21 Well, that didn't work. Surging, HPing 32 Better. That's a DC 15+8=23 tou save for Keres.

OK. Citizen goes ahead and Power Attacks Argo with a Holy Fire Fist. DC 28 Tou save He will surge, spend an HP to cancel the fatigue, and do it again. 33! Aw heck, I'll blow another HP for Improved Crit. DC 33 Tou save for that bad boy

In response, the agent reached into his case and took out a sheet with US government letterhead. "I have an authorization from the director of AEGIS for you to dispose of what's left of Bigeye in whatever manner you see fit. Frankly, the less we have of it at the end of the day, the better for all of us." Andretti curled his lip. "Bigeye is the legacy of a shameful era that we'd thought we'd put behind us. All we ask is that you have verifiable evidence that the weapon has been destroyed, and that you confirm the storage and tracking figures we give you about the missing shipment. If what's left in the old Green building is what Susie Buck stole twenty-four years ago, people will be resting easier in Freedom City and in high-value targets all over the continental United States." "You said this was a binary weapon," said Steve from his position at the table, the former Omegadrone's experience with cosmic radiation and all manner of weapons having made him a valuable consultant on matters like this. "What exactly was included in the shipment? What are the risks of detonation now?" "The hijacked shipment was carrying the binary components together, minus the electronic and chemical triggers that would have forced the combination." Andretti's face showed what he thought of that kind of security. "Before my time. Even with the leak, the primary risk to locals is chemical contamination. Several of the components used were very toxic, albeit not as lethal as a completed Bigeye itself. It would take a powerful, sudden energy source; an multiton explosion or the deliberate use of metahuman powers, to trigger an actual detonation. If one did happen, we estimate that at least two square kilometers of the city would be threatened. The loss of lives would be in the thousands at a minimum."

HAX September 14, 2012 Agent Richard Andretti took a breath before he began to speak, the AEGIS agent obviously very tense. "It's called Project Big-Eye, or was, anyway," said the black-suited man as he spoke to Mara and her team, a rotating hologram of a massive, double-chambered bomb on the wall behind him. "A binary chemical weapon begun in the 1970s, designed to fight the Peoples' Heroes and other Communist meta-human forces. A canister of sulfur is mixed with a canister of the precursor QL, then exposed to cosmic radiation before detonating over its target. The resulting chemical compound is almost instantly lethal to normal humans, and dangerous even to people with superpowers. The program ended twenty years ago when a new administration came to power, and the stockpile was destroyed." He pressed a few buttons on his briefcase computer, and a small grouping of old-fashioned chemical barrels came into view. "Except for a small stockpile that was stolen back in 1988 by Susie Buck, the anarchist supervillain. She was killed 'resisting arrest' by the Price of Freedom Squad here in Freedom City five years later, and the stockpile she stole was never found...until today." The view changed again to a small tenement apartment, perhaps ten stories in height. "One of our super-sniffers detected a chemical leak from the old Coleman Building last night, and our preliminary tests have pinpointed it as residue from decaying storage barrels like those used in the Bigeye project. We've come up with a cover story and evacuated most of the building, but we've got a big problem. Our specialized chemical team is deployed right now to the Southeast, and they can't be reached until they're out from underground. We need someone who can go into the building immediately, assess the situation, and destroy the Bigeye stock by whatever means necessary. And that's where HAX comes in."