Avenger Assembled

"I have been thinking that we should be in public together," offered Steve carefully, or as carefully as the very blunt former drone could muster. He looked across the table at Gina, obviously trying to convince her of something he believed in, studying her for her own reaction in turn. "Either as you and me, or even as Miss Americana and me, if you would prefer. As more than just heroic allies. I am proud of you," he said with belief, "I am proud that we are together. Even if we do not broadcast it to the world, we could at least be in the world together with the meaning we have for each other."

Steve had learned more table manners since his arrival on Earth-Prime, but he still showed no hesitation about avidly digging into his meal. At least he was relaxed enough to remind himself not to put any of the garlic bread aside for later. "He is quite eager to eat food that is not compatible with his systems," he agreed with a little smile at the expense of Gina's young assistant. "Perhaps he simply enjoys doing impossible things." He studied Gina across the table, her appearance a sharp contrast to his own. Hairless and covered in scars, even fully-dressed as he was he was an incongrous match for the carefully made-up Gina. He'd tried surprising her with unexpected visits a few times, but her carefully concealed distress at that had convinced him to go in another direction. He tried a compliment. "You are looking lovely tonight." He swirled pasta around a fork before sticking it in his mouth, and said, "I have been thinking about our relationship."

The sensors that allowed him to see perfectly in darkness were part of his armor, and thus stored insensate behind his eyes at the moment, but rising to his feet with a groan of couch springs he could just make out Gina's shrouded outline in half darkness. "I...yes, I am," he said, remembering his conversation with Jack of all Blades and Gabriel about how to impress a woman. "Let me cook something for us," he offered as he headed quickly towards the kitchen. He had done this often enough, sometimes to Gina's bemusement, that he had a good idea of where everything was. He opened cabinets and dug out one of the box dinners that Gina preferred, busying himself in the kitchen with the fervor of a man born to a place without one. Yes, we will eat, and then we will talk.

August 2012 When Gina went to take a shower, Steve sat alone in her darkened living room, turning off the long-ignored television and listening to the sound of Emerson quietly cleaning up around the couch. It had been a very pleasant evening, as they usually were, even if the discussion about his cybernetic upgrades hadn't gotten very far. (Really, those were best left to visits to Miss Americana's laboratory rather than Gina's house). It was very dark in Gina's living room with the lights off and the sky outside the deep darkness of a cloudy night after midnight; if not for the omnipresent glow of the city leaking in the windows, and the friendly, winking eyes of glowing electronic devices, it might have been completely dark. I don't deserve this, he thought suddenly, a sharp pang of guilt that made his back go rigid and his posture inflexible as he pondered the deep meaning of the words. Darkness, and solitude, meant there was nothing but his memories in his vision, images of death and pain and loss that loomed impossibly deep in the depths of his mind. He looked down at his hands that had recently been touching gently, but had so many times created so many horrors. The smell of imagined blood, the feel of remembered broken things between his fingers, was sharply palpable in the recirculated air. How can I do this, having done all that I have done? Suffering was something with which Steve Murdock was intimately acquainted. He deserved it; he understood it. But if I step back into the darkness now...I will not be the only one left alone. He could walk through fire unshielded for a cause, but the thought of wounding another, especially one he trusted and...loved, as much as Gina, was terrible. The past cannot be changed. The dead cannot be brought back to life. But perhaps the "...future," he said out loud, a moment before he heard the shower stop. "Gina?" he called.

"Wait, so you're sacrificing your entire timeline for this?" asked Citizen, briefly knocked out of his concern for Danson by the possibility of the larger threat. "Everything, everywhere, all over your universe?" "Areas untouched by the Collective will notice no change in a corrected history. The loss of a galaxy overrun by the Collective is no price to pay for the liberation of the humanities from cybernetic torment." Genuine emotion seemed to be creeping into TOMORROW's voice at that; perhaps it wasn't just an unthinking machine after all. "But what about the human cost?" asked Citizen, shooting a worried glance at Miss Americana. What was going on that had Gina so tense? "Someone must make the discoveries that Danielle Danson will make. That is a certainty. What else can be done?" Was that skepticism in the thing's voice?

10 He is unconscious

"Weird that they'd be around here, too. There's not a lot of powerful mystic artifacts stored here," with some exceptions, Mark thought with just a glance at the bottle that had once held his grandfather's genie. "Unless they're doing something really bad like stealing old heroic artifacts, most of the powerful stuff isn't even kept in this museum." That was something Mark certainly knew plenty about, even if he didn't know much about anything else. "This is mostly artifacts that are just about hero history and the fights the League had back in the 1940s and 1950s. Midnight, does anything ring a bell here for you?" Mark inquired of Trevor.

"We could all get in some serious trouble over this," Sharl confessed to the others, looking disconsolate. Sharl might have rubbed his fellow students the wrong way sometimes, but he was basically a good kid who wanted adults to get along with him. Most of the time, anyway. "Unauthorized dimensional travel is something the League cracks down on hard, much less what the school would do if they caught us. The League usually sends humanitarian aid to help the human resistance, but that's not what we'll be doing. And we won't be authorized. If we go over to Erde and rescue Tronik, and it doesn't work, we could all get expelled," he said frankly. "Not to mention, you know, taking on the National Socialist super-armies with just us. I won't think any less of you if you back out," he went on to the others. "But if we are all going, we need to train hard in coverts ops and infiltration this year so we can safely make the trip without getting caught. By anybody. Maybe with Crimson Tiger and Glow, if we think we can trust them by then. I've got the location of the Tronik facility from my counterpart. It's heavily guarded, but we'll have some tricks of our own. " He looked around at the others and added, a smile breaking out on his face for just a moment at Ghost Girl's eagerness, "I'm really...really glad you're all in," he said, rising to his feet and drifting through the table in his own distraction. "It'll be hard. But we can do it, and it'll be worth it. We can be the heroes those people deserve. We can save them."

Eventually the heroes worked together to carry Shadivan Steelgrave into the waiting arms of the main line of the Freedom League, who zipped back up from Latin America just as Bowman had promised with the news that that the interdimensional despot had surrendered himself peacefully into the hands of the Freedom League Auxiliary. It was a long wait back at Freedom Hall with a mass murderer inside a flower, but Shadivan gave no struggles in confinement. With the arrival of the League, Captain Thunder and Lady Liberty listened to the debriefings from the others with some concern. "I don't like it," said the Thunderhead Titan as he steepled his fingers across the conference table where the day had started for the new Leaguers what felt like months ago, "but it sounds like you handled the situation as well as anyone could have," he said to the new recruits as well as Fleur and Bowman. "You did the right thing both in taking Steelgrave alive and in restraining him as long as possible. We'll be putting Steelgrave down in the deepest parts of Blackstone while he awaits trial. The League has ways of dealing with cosmic threats like him, even if he _is_ just a copy of the original."

"Your science will eventually advance to cure her neurological imperfections," replied the machine intelligence neutrally to Wail. "Her condition is regrettable, but it is the exception rather than the rule." The place where eyes might have been focused on Miss Americana, but they seemed to be staring somewhere deeper as they added. "I have empowered many beings in this era. All have used their knowledge and power to promote human technological development. Some have used their abilities to battle the forces of social and cultural entropy. Some have not. In either case, humanity will survive and prosper. That is what matters." It fell silent again, before adding more saliently, "With sufficient alterations over sufficient physical and temporal space, the home timeline will collapse into one of the new realities of human progress. The dead galaxy is a a necessary sacrifice. For humanity's TOMORROW."

Fleur is up. 5 "Malador" will go on five. I need a DC 20 Notice check from Baxter, as well as a DC 15 Will save to stay in the field against this terrible threat! Stesha:

Speedy though they were, the golems weren't that hard to chase down given the narrow confines of city streets and the massive bulk that made them almost impossible to miss. Dr. Metropolis was going to have a field day cleaning up the dents they were leaving in the pavement; luckily the poverty in the Fens (if that could be called luck) was enough to keep many cars off the road. At least one golem actually exploded during the chase, running full-tilt into a concrete wall and sending showers of money (and exploding dye packets) everywhere. Luckily, both the heroes were too high up to be slowed down by the crowd that began to accumulate! Eventually they cornered the two remaining golems by the water's edge, the two magical automatons looking briefly put out at the sight of the brown water of the river stretching out before them, the rickety old wharf groaning under their massive sack-feet as they looked around for an escape route. As it happened, their escape route presented itself quickly: in a puff of smoke like a bad Hollywood special effect, a black-robed figure in a golden skull mask popped to life floating over the water. Hero and hero alike both immediately recognized Malador, among the most famous and terrible evil wizards alive. "So, heroes!" he taunted in a voice from the grave, only staring red eyes visible from his masked face. "Come to die, eh? Well, then grapple with the mystic might of Malador!"

When Citizen floated out to the dance floor himself, the electronic teenager looked as scorched as he felt, the electrical discharges that woman was throwing around having fried his projected matrix and left him reeling. Got to concentrate, he thought as he floated up behind the sparking woman, can't let her get away again. "Hey, lady, I'm not finished with you yet!" he called as he flooded his projected body with power from his emitter. "I think it's time someone grounded you, lightning lass," he called a moment before ramming his hand right through her midsection, producing an exciting eruption of electricity indeed! "

I'll post as soon as there's an OOC resolution here.

Whee let me know when I can post!

"Behold." TOMORROW gestured in the air and images began to play above its outstretched hand, a view of black-walled, star-dotted space. As the heroes watched, though, they realized much of what they'd thought were stars were ships, insectile mechanical things as big as any Lor or Grue ship, swooping down in a vast and terrible armada towards a shining solar system dotted with life and machines with an all-too-familiar green and blue orb three steps out from a yellow sun. "In a time as far from you as you are from your primitive ancestors, the worlds of the humanities will fall before the hordes of the Communion. A vast, cybernetic intelligence that lives to consume and transform all into its own image." The illusory ships spoke as one with a terrible purpose, closing in on a so-tiny-looking Solar System. "All is one within us. All shall be one within us." As the image faded, TOMORROW spoke. "Only Earth, the hearthworld of humanity, was left. I was sent back along the aeons to build a stronger humanity. One with the science and wisdom to defeat the Communion, whatever cost had to be paid. My purpose is to give humanity its tomorrow." The hand dropped. "Danielle Danson's advancements in science will one day be part of the keystone of humanity's future. I...underestimated how far she had improved herself," the machine intelligence admitted without a glance at the still-twitching police officer. "Her desire for revenge burned hot enough to burn even the walls of time and space itself." "Can't you fix her?" Citizen asked with a nervous glance at Miss Americana. He could sense something big was going on here, but his questions went in an entirely different direction from Gina's. "Help Danson have that power, without it doing this to her? Or take it entirely?" Mental illnesses were treated in Tronik far differently than they were in Freedom City, though that was more because Tronik's sciences were more advanced: the implant Danson would receive, or the gene therapy that would change her brain, was not likely to be available here. TOMORROW's response was as cold and sterile as space. "She has become one of the most intelligent beings on your planet. Her work will one day be part of the keystone of humanity's future. That will be all that matters."

go ahead and post, SW, and we'll set up a chase.

Harrier's relevant die roll has a +8 modifier, but OK, I'm a good team player. Sense Motive vs. DC 37: 12

Citizen hissed against the electrical eruption and threw a punch, feeling the sickening sensation of his solidified electrical body striking something not entirely human. "Yeah yeah yeah, I get it, you're fancy with your powers and you think you're some kind of magic electricity ghost, and that means you can boss people around and hunt them like you're some movie monster," he taunted, trying to keep the being focused on him and not on the person she'd been pursuing seconds earlier. "You think you've spent time on the line? I was born there. You want to fight? We can fight!"

"Help the crew evacuate the ship!" called Harrier as he slammed his pike into the fracturing face-plate of the zombiedrone again, trying to crack through to the vulnerable neural material within. How many times have I fought this war? How many times must I free one of my own from the hands of those who would use them for evil?"If the ship does sink, we must not allow any of the crew to be trapped aboard!" Harrier was tense as he returned to the battle, waiting despite himself for the other shoe to drop. He had kept this creature from attacking the crew, but the ship was threatened with sinking, and some secret threat lay behind it all seemingly unknown even to most of the human crew...What's next?

Give me a bit, SC, and I shall!

Danson's head rocked backwards against Wail's blow, and everything stopped. Robots large and small fell to pieces all around the heroes, while inside the mainframe Cyberknife saw Danson's defenses shiver to pieces all around her a moment before the officer herself blinked from sight. Even as Cyberknife stepped back into Miss Americana's body, she felt a great rush of power pass through her and by her, and as the others watched electrical sparks in blue and white and red, and then all the colors of the spectrum and beyond, rose from the fallen robot parts to shape themselves into a humanoid mass of vague size and shape. Protectively, Citizen stepped in front of Miss Americana as the figure took stock of itself. It was, Miss A could tell, the trapped intelligence she had liberated from the computer. "Greetings," it said in a neutral, albeit not unfriendly voice, the multi-colored sparks that made up its body casting a bizarrely cheerful, multi-colored light over the small room. "You have liberated me from the prison made for me. I am TOMORROW. For freeing me, you have my thanks, and my apology for disrupting the natural order of your lives. I had intended only to be the genie for Danson as I have been for others among your number, but she proved unwilling to allow my departure."

DC 30 Gather Info + Well-Informed

Citizen turned a paler shade of blue fire as he took shelter in the water again. He'd briefly contemplated trying to make a rush for the Bauble, but with memories of his fight with Fathom uppermost in his mind, he knew he couldn't make mistakes like that again. Especially not against someone like Argo, operating without his usual emulator! "I'm faster than you in the water right now," he told Corbin, "I'll fly to that restaurant and bring the team back. You stay here, try to stay hidden, and make sure they don't go anywhere. Try and grab the Bauble if one of them drops it," he whispered to Cobalt Templar, a moment before bolting back under the water and 'flying' as fast as he could towards the rest of the team!

Citizen took this opportunity to turn to D-Gray. "Okay, we've got to go deal with this," he told the reanimated rapper. "Don't worry, someone's always trying to blow up something in Freedom City. You stay here and you'll be safe inside the system. This is one of the most secure facilities in Freedom City, you should be fine," he promised him. "If you try and go back into this system, you'll go right into my room. Just don't...you know, mess around in there too much, and you'll be fine." Luckily Lora was in his Claremont system this particular day. He shot a look at Miss A for confirmation as they prepared to go for the Goodman Building, making sure that she wanted D-Gray somewhere safe rather than out in the field.