Avenger Assembled

When he saw Sage coming for him, wearing a costume that looked a little too familiar for his tastes, the flaming Tronik teen didn't hesitate. "Cobalt Templar's dealing with the bad guys!" he called, though his voice said he already knew Sage was on that. "I'm with you," he added, whipping around to join her in the air. "Can the others make it?" he asked her worriedly, his voice practically on fire. They were dependent on Kimber being able to make Koshiro's airplanes to all get over in time, no easy task even for the master of origami himself, much less the former Ghost Girl.

That's a 30 with Diplomacy, Skill Mastered.

"Why don't you just tell her where she is, and you can go back into the system," suggested Edge, his voice grave, but not necessarily antagonistic. "You're already down, and between the four of us, not to mention the telepath we know, you're going to spill the beans sooner or later. I mean, for pity's sake, look at them," he said with a gesture at Cannonade, Midnight, Wander, and Vanguard, "All the scary bad guy stuff is just going to make them want to beat on you harder till you talk. Spare yourself a lot of pain and embarrassment and just talk now." This was hardly the first time Edge had been the velvet glove around someone's iron fist, and this was nothing new compared to stuff he'd seen Midnight and Wander do over the years.

Eira went upstairs to join Mr. Archer in the control room, and a few minutes later they got their announcement from upstairs. "Today you'll be doing a special training session," came their teacher's voice, "where you'll be tested on your crisis response as well as your combat abilities." The empty room rippled, and suddenly they found themselves standing inside a small, confined area: an airlock emblazoned with the symbol of the Freedom League on the side. There were spacesuits hanging on racks to one side, the sleek, blue and gold ones favored by the League, shaped to match the body shape and costumes of the various heroes, complete with outside utility pack for Koshiro's paper. "For the purpose of this mission, assume you are all adult members of the Freedom League. An alien spacecraft has come out of a wormhole near the Lighthouse and you three have been sent to explore it and figure out what's going on." Through a window in the airlock, they could make out the craft, a black saucer-shaped craft roughly as large as the League's own Lighthouse station. "The craft has Earth-normal gravity and breathable atmosphere, but be on your toes. Anything could happen."

The Doom Room doors hissed open behind them, and in floated Citizen and walked Eira. Sharl was in costume, complete with shades and blazing chest symbol, while Eira had pulled on one of the rare Young Freedom sweatshirts that were still being made for the new team by James Prophets' old merchandising company. "Hello Mali!" she said with a gregarious wave and a heavy Swedish accent. "I have come beck!" "Hey guys," said Sharl with a smile, "Koshiro, this is Eira, she's the girl I've been telling you about. Eira, this is my room-mate Koshiro. He does cool stuff with paper." The little blonde girl bowed to Koshiro and gave him a cheerful wave. "Eira's going to be watching us train, and staying out of the way! Miss A and your dad would kick my butt if you get that new body scuffed." "I will be good," promised Eira with a little sister's big, innocent smile. "I know you may be doing something very exciting, and I do not want to get in the way. I will be in the safe spot."

OK. Citizen is going to try and fly up and intercept the next drone that takes a potshot at that part of the building. (IDK which one that'll be) 30 DC 23 Tou save. I don't think Sharl's fists count as physical damage, but if you think they do, I'll try something else.

When his call was done, Sharl briefly stepped back to rejoin the others. "Eira begged and pleaded with her dad, and he said she can come back and watch us exercise. Summers gave her free run as long as she's with me, so we'll see how that goes." That kind of trust from the school's headmaster was something that still surprised Sharl a little, especially when he and his friends were planning something that could potentially get them all in trouble, but it certainly wasn't unwelcome. Just a little lie, so we can do so much good. "Why don't you guys go down?" he said with a nod back towards the Administration Building, "and I'll catch up with you in a couple of minutes?"

Eldritch smiled thinly. "Ah, you're a fan. A pleasure. Just be careful what you read in those funnybooks. Some of them might teach you magic." He winked, and made a few gestures in the air and opened up another mystic gateway, simultaneously levitating the unfortunate Mystic Force into the air to pull him through the gateway after him. "You should have nothing to fear from Malador for this particular engagement, though of course he will seek to devour your soul as he does all life that does not bend to his will." He hmmed, and gave a little salute. Fleur de Joie, always a pleasure, Bee-Keeper, a pleasure making your acquaintance!" And with that, he was gone!

"He is a fool," exclaimed a voice from the air as, from a swirling mystic passage that glowed with arcane seals, the Master Mage of Earth, Adrian Eldritch himself, flew out to join the other two heroes. "Malador prefers cultists to impersonators, and this young man's failure as a criminal will make the dark lord very wroth. One does not take that face lightly. Good day Fleur de Joie, Bee-Keeper," said the legendary mystic with a polite, courteous nod to both the Freedom Leaguer and newly-minted hero. "I can take this unfortunate young man back to my sanctum and mystically cleanse his aura so that his efforts today will _not_ be noticed. And then, prison."

"It's an ethics and combat exercise, not just working out," said Sharl with a little shrug. "Those are always weird. One time Cobalt Templar and Papercut and I had to deal with a peasant uprising in a simian-dominated alternate dimension, it was some kind of historical exercise left over from the Freedom League of forty years ago. And speaking of Koshiro..." He caught sight of Papercut just across the way and waved to Koshiro, who was just heading for the Administration Building that overlay the Doom Room too. "Hey, Koshiro! Over here!" he waved. "Koshiro, Mali, Mali, Koshiro," he said, knowing that Koshiro would remember the girl he'd told him about. "I...oh, shoot, I gotta take this." He cocked his head and seemed to be listening to an inaudible phone call as he took a step away. "Sure, just meet us at the Administration Building," he said aloud to no one visible, "Maybe we did leave it there."

Eira's dad turned out to drive an extremely nice, extremely large European sports car of a make Mali didn't recognize, his tanned good looks and blonde hair making him look a little like an aged Olympic skier. He and Eira were soon talking at each other in Swedish before the little girl thanked both Sharl and Mali before climbing aboard the big electric car. Mali just had a glimpse of Eira doing something that looked exactly like sticking her index finger into the car's cigarette lighter before the door closed and left her alone with Sharl and the holo-dog. "I don't know what we're getting into today, but better not bring Lora. Run home, doggie!" said Sharl as he pulled out a remote from his pocket and pressed a few buttons: within seconds, a glowing portal appeared and the woofing dog ran right through it. Just another day in Claremont. "Eira's a full-body cyborg," he told Mali as they walked. "She was very ill, but Miss Americana and Dragonfly worked together to make her a full-body robot body to live in. They'll make her more and more as the years go by, until by the time she's an adult she'll have an adult body waiting for her. I spent a lot of time with her last year, after she'd been uploaded but before she had a body to live in. It was pretty neat," he said reflectively. "So how about you, how have you been? I heard you had a thing with, what are they called, ninjas the other day?"

The football game was still in its opening moments several minutes before the kickoff as Trevor and Erin took their seats on Corbin's big couch in the rec room. Erin recognized that the Heroes were in fine shape for this preseason game with a strong roster that looked keen to carry them forward into the coming season: maybe they were no Seahawks, but they were a community-owned and operated institution that the crowd obviously loved. As usual it was standing room only in the cheap seats as the team's mascot Captain Pigskin led the fans in the usual chant: "Let's go blue and gold! Heroes Assemble!" and the crowd went wild. While Trevor was familiar with the criminal histories of several of the East Coast's more notorious sports 'stars', the squeaky-clean Heroes front office meant he'd never had to have a professional encounter with anyone on Freedom City's native football team. Dressing as a superhero was pretty common among fans not wearing the team's colors, either in garb or with it painted in letters on their bellies, and looking in the back the announcer panned over several "veteran fans of this beloved franchise!" dressed as classic heroes of his grandfather's generation, complete with a little old lady (albeit one at least two decades younger than Travis) looking proud of herself beneath a black foam fedora. Soon Corbin and Quo-Dis arrived down to watch the game not long before kickoff, Quo-Dis sequestering herself along one side of Corbin so he could sit close to his friends. "The pizza will be here soon," she commented, still pretending nothing untoward had happened. "The man on the news this morning said the Jets were evil, but that was just sarcasm," she said firmly. "I am sure we will crush them anyway."

"I saw the library, and some of the flying students, and the gymnasium with all the equipment for very strong people. I have to return back to Miss A's lab soon," said Eira with a little pout, looking up at the teenager who was obviously a favorite big brother-type. "I am not supposed to overstrain my new batteries when they are not done testing them. But coming here was more fun than being in a hotel room again!" "Yeah, your dad is here with the car," agreed Sharl, cocking his head as he picked up an electronic signal. "I guess we'd better start over there. Hey Mali, I was going to go downstairs and train after this," he said as he and his companions turned and started the other way. "you up for it? I think some of the rest of The Team were going to be down there." Mali could read the caps on the words well enough; with the kids on superteams like Sharl, it was easy to guess which one he was talking about.

He grinned back with his oddly misshapen smile, though it was the smile that Gina knew meant he didn't really understand the joke. "It will be a fine time," he said, a little nervous as he contemplated the reality of all those eyes on him. It occurred to him, a little belatedly, that those eyes would surely remember the strange-looking man who dated Miss Americana when he was with some other woman, but he was too attached to this victory to give it up now. We have come forward impossibly far already. More will follow. "I suppose I will have some questions to answer from my friends when they see me with Miss Americana," he said with a nervous laugh. "Hopefully they will believe our story. It is almost true."

Quo-Dis calmed down a little when the visitors were out of sight, or at least seemed to unwind a little. she added regretfully before turning to head into the rec room.

"I have seen plays." He didn't elaborate. "And opera on television, but those were always large women in armor singing very loudly. I will be interested to see what one is actually like." He had learned, more than one, that despite how easy it was to see the world through television that it did not give an accurate depiction of human life. "I did not know you had taken singing lessons." Gina, in fact, had discussed her childhood with him extremely rarely, part of the unspoken pact that kept both their pasts off-limits. "Those are...for learning 'culture', yes?" he hazarded. "Like on Pride and Prejudice, where the women have learned music and poetry so they can find wealthy husbands."

Citizen looked distinctly uneasy at the talk of people gaining power, social or otherwise, from quasi-supernatural entities of unknown origin. "You've got to be careful about making deals with things you don't understand," he said out loud. "Stepping through a door is always a risk even if someone's there to catch you." He shot a look at Temperance, trying to get a grip on the situation. "You seem to know something about those things," he said with a nod to the place where the former electrical being had been standing. It wasn't a person, and from the sound of things it might not even be dead. "What was it, and is Gloria here still in danger?"

"I must have thrown it too hard," said the girl with a strong Northern European accent, stomping along after Sharl with an oddly heavy stride. "I hope it did not break anything or become lost!" "No, it's fine," said Sharl reassuringly as he petted the dog, "it'll have just turned into energy when it hit a wall. We can find it around." The trio of boy, little girl, and dog finished walking up to Mali. "Eira, this is my friend Mali. She's one of the other students here at Claremont." Up close, Eira was as pale as Sharl but with a fair-skinned, creamy complexion and lustrous blonde hair in a ponytail. She actually bowed for Mali, then extended a hand to shake, her small hand extremely strong in Mali's grip. "Eira is from Sweden, and she's visiting Miss A's lab this week, so I thought I'd take her on a campus tour," said Sharl with an affecionate grin down at the kid. "You don't get to see any of the secret stuff till you're of age, but there's a lot to see aboveground on campus." A woof from below made him add, "And Lora's my dog. Good dog."

Citizen goes on 18

The dog dropped the Frisbee and woofed at Mali in a friendly way, trying to sniff her face as she looked for a tag. She seemed real enough, breath warm on the teenager's face. The dog was wearing a handsome leather collar with a tag that read "LORA" above several more alien-looking squiggles, and responded readily with another woof and an outright facelick when Mali said the word out loud. Despite the dog's ability to run right through things, it could evidently make itself solid. A moment later, the dog woofed again and ran right through Mali again out a few steps onto the quad when she heard someone else call her name! Mali had met Sharl before, the tall, lanky boy as ever in a black coat and shirt despite the heat, but not his companions; the dog who immediately ran up to him, or the pale, blonde girl of about ten at his side, who walked with a slow, measured stride that looked a little awkward. "Hey, Lora," Sharl was saying as he petted the dog's head. "See, I knew she hadn't gone far," he added to the girl before calling, "Mali, did she have a Frisbee in there?"

Late August 2012 It was a warm summer day just before the start of fall term, in the pleasant quiet before new freshmen and returning students arrived on the boarding school's campus. Mali was just stepping out of her building's front door when a German Shepard leaped right through her chest! The dog seemed baffled by the transition, landing with a clatter of canine claws on the carpeted floor just behind her and looking up at her with doggy puzzlement as it gripped a black and yellow Frisbee between its teeth. Whining curiously, the big dog sniffed at Mali questioningly, its big eyes soulful and black as they looked up at the martial artist teen with a canine inquisitiveness. The Frisbee bore writing in a language Mali didn't recognize, the glossy plastic surface seeming to glow with an inner light through the yellow script.

Steve put his hands on his chin for a moment and seemed to be lost in thought as he faced the terrible prospect of everyone's eyes on him. "No. Let them see me for who I am," he said distinctly. "To be recognized for what I am is one thing, and that should certainly be avoided, but I do not want to hide in that way. But I would like to wear a tux, if only for a few nights. I have never worn anything more formal than a uniform." He had no plans to actually buy the tuxedo, but he thought it was unlikely Gina would ask him to pay anyway. "What is an opera?"

Knocked unconscious, the mystic 's cloak and mask began to warp and fall apart like smoke in the wind. Within seconds of catching him, the Bee-Keeper found himself cradling the unconscious body of an acne-faced kid who didn't look much older than he was. Underneath the false robes were what looked like costume-shop velour and polyster black draperies and cheap-looking, dime-store mystic symbols that clattered into the water. This was no master mage of maleficence; he didn't even look like he was old enough to drink! Meanwhile, the golems were falling apart with their master unconscious, loose coins and bills clattering or fluttering to the rough wooden surface of the docks, sacks of money thumping down alongside them or rolling off to plunge into the murky waters of the river as the animate creations of magic became so many inanimate piles of dough. There was a fortune there on the docks; it was probably for the best they were away from any nearby civilians for the moment.

"I would rather be myself for our dates," said Steve honestly. "A humble security guard dating Miss Americana will raise questions, but neither Harrier nor Caradoc will be a suitable companion for you." He reached across the table and took her hand. "They cannot touch you, and they would both attract attention for their own reasons." On the other hand, he supposed with a flash of dark humor, Miss Americana dating Harrier would certainly be a way to make sure they shared tabloid coverage: not that any of that was imaginably his goal. "The evenings I spend with you are never boring. I simply want to have more of them, and in different places."

"I will be very careful," Steve promised. "I certainly would not want to sacrifice evenings with you for afternoons with Miss Americana." He sensed her vague unease, and pressed on, "I know it may make things strange, but I will not lose sight of you beneath the mask. We will take things one day at a time, as we have from the beginning." He'd thought of going out with Miss Americana as a compromise measure, and was relieved that Gina had embraced it rather than rejected. It would not be a normal relationship, but he knew those things were far beyond him anyway. "Perhaps one day we will do more, but that is a good first step."