Avenger Assembled

Field Battle Damage Toughness Saving Throw... Effect Succeeds No Effect Fails Disrupted Fails by 5 or more Shaken + Disrupted Fails by 10 or more Staggered + Disrupted + Disabled Fails by 15 or more Destroyed • Powers that inflict damage are assumed to do their normal damage against the force as a whole, even if the power does not normally affect an area. The wielder is assumed to be making multiple attacks with that power during the battle round. Damaging powers with the Area extra inflict +2 damage to a force, with each Progression feat increasing this bonus by +1, but the total additional damage from Area and Progression cannot exceed the force modifier (since the damage effectively encompasses the entire force at that point). • Non-damaging powers that do not normally affect an area have a negligible effect on a force in battle. The character can only use such powers if they have the Area extra and sufficient Progression to encompass the entire force. So a character with the Mind Control power, for example, could not attempt to Mind Control an entire force unless he possessed sufficient area for the power to affect the entire force. The GM can allow these powers to operate normally at the individual scale, they just don’t have much influence on the outcome of unit-level conflicts. • A particularly spectacular or destructive use of powers may impose a modifier to a force’s morale checks at the GM’s discretion, either a penalty for an enemy force of a bonus (rallying the troops) for an allied force. • Impervious Toughness is compared against the force’s total damage (including force modifier) before determining whether or not the character has to make a Toughness saving throw against the force’s attack. This is one of the advantages of larger forces: they can overcome—through superior numbers and firepower—Impervious Toughness that would render a target immune to the attacks of a smaller force. So, for example, a character with Impervious Toughness 10 can ignore the damage of a platoon of green troops (+9 damage total) but not that of a trained

Using the field battle rules for 30 Omegadrones: 13 The mystery guest in the ship will _not_ be rolling initiative. These guys should go down pretty OK. Gabriel: 21 GK: 14 Fleur de Joie: 13 Bowman will not be rolling; he is an NPC and will be looking impressive while the PCs do all the actual work. (Besides, this should be a short fight) Gabriel is up. The crash site is close enough for all of you to reach with a move action.

Gimmie some initiative. (We'll be using field battle rules to speed things up)

At Fleur de Joie's words, the sky seemed to tear open. A red jagged portal ripped open in the clear blue sky overhead and a sleek, malevolent-looking alien starship, bulking as large as a commuter jet, came rippling through the gateway. With its blade-like crimson lines and belching black fire from its engines, it was instantly recognizable to the Freedom City heroes as a vessel from the Terminus! Swarming the ship as it came through the gateway were some thirty or forty Omegadrones, slashing at it with their pikes as it desperately weaved to avoid them! Seconds later, the gateway snapped shut with a sound like a bolt of lightning, leaving only attacking drones and desperately manuevering ship as the melee in the air swooped overhead just a few feet above the treetops and disappeared on the other side with a thunderous boom, but no sound of explosion. "Let's move out!" called Bowman, arrow snapping easily into his hand as he fired a shot up just in time to pierce one of the passing drones through the head, then turning and running for the nearby crash site. "We've got to get to where that thing hit and destroy those drones, fast! The alarm's down, which means that may be a runner!"

"Welcome to our home," said Quo-Dis, shaking Erin's hand and then Trevor's with a powerful grip. She was definitely hovering, her dress floating loose beneath her and nearly as tall as Corbin. "Yes, ah, it's been a very busy couple of weeks for all of us," said Quo-Dis, shooting a momentary look at Corbin with unaccustomed hesitation before gesturing for the others to come into the house. Come to think of it, Quo-Dis had been away for a couple of days recently..."Corbin tells me that you recently were empowered by all-embracing waves of cosmic vril," the girl added to Erin in what seemed like a hostess' style. "Is that...going well for you?"

I will spend an HP for heroic inspiration to know where the pumps are! (Where are the pumps?)

Edge is going to maintain his grapple. 37 Well, that sucked. HP-based do-over, and suck fatigue. 49 Nice. He'll inflict a DC 30 Tou save on Devil Ray.

The geothermal taps turned out to be older than most technology of the day, one of the first generation of geothermal heat pumps patented in the late 1940s. "These were actually built by the first Freedom Eagle," said Beaumont as he pointed out the technical details from the small, deep underground control room, "but the League has been upgrading them ever since. Right now the original copper core is sheathed in a daka weave to draw in more heat." They're one of the few things in the building that survived the Invasion of '93 completely intact." Only Gaian Knight could perceive the deeply-driven metal structures beneath the building without the use of the monitoring equipment in the room, but it was very exciting stuff for the geologically-inclined. Upstairs, the League had an ample library and small art gallery, mostly pictures of well-known League members over the years and the occasional production of League members with artistic talents. "The Hall is attacked enough that we don't have anything irreplaceable here," said Beaumont, glancing up at a small selection from the Centurion's personal library of Greco-Roman history. "But we do have a-FWEET FWEET, FWEET FWEET-" First his, then Fleur's, belt communicator went off, indicating a League priority alert. Bowman shot a look at Fleur, then took a few steps to the nearby computer panel, where his access code quickly pulled up a map of the greater tri-state area, a red flashing light visible inland in New Jersey. "Looks like...one of the dimensional alarms has been triggered, out in the Pine Barrens. What do you think, Fleur, can you get us out there?" Bowman and Fleur had never fought alongside each other in a large group, but he was familiar with her capabilities. "And are you two in, Gaian Knight and Gabriel?" he added.

Harrier thought fast as he faced down the oncoming drone, having neatly shunted aside sympathy for the creature now that he knew it was no more than what it appeared to be. What I might have been. What I was. In another life. The creature seemed to lack his own staff weapon, rather to have its devices integrated directly into its modified armor. Armed, as I am disarmed. I can survive underwater and eventually break out of this hold, but the humans here cannot. If I can't break out...it can! Harrier balanced on the balls of his armored feet and waited, waited as the creature bore down on him with its weapon aimed high and jerked aside with impossible speed at the last moment, the all-too-familiar icy kiss of a Terminus weapon blasting a hole in the bulkhead big enough for the humans still trapped inside to flee. "Run. Run!" Harrier called to the humans as he faced down the drone again.

At Sergeant Danson's thumbprinted command, the vault door swung open, letting heroes and escort into the sealed robotics holding area. It was a grim area if you were inclined to personalize hominid machines, with robot heads, android bodies, and other signs of super-scientific mechanical humanity everywhere. If these had been organic body parts, the stacked limbs and neatly sorted body parts would have made this look like a butcher's shop. Or a serial killer's lair. That thought was enough to make Citizen shiver inside his coat as he met the soulless red eyes of a long-quiescent humanoid machine, for all that he couldn't feel the cold of the temperature-controlled vault. _I see this all the time at Miss A's place. I don't know what's so...wrong here. But it is!_ thought Sharl nervously to Miss A. "We don't get the brains or anything else that can think," said Danson as she rolled herself along the central walkway, the steel walls slightly reflective beneath blue bulbs overhead. "That all goes to Booking or the Freedom League, depending on what's happening to Tin Can Timmy or Tina." She made a gesture to the rows of humanoid robots along the walls and added, "The big stuff is all downstairs in deep storage, of course. This is just the stuff that could walk and talk like a man, back in the day." Suddenly, as the vault doors swung shut behind them, a voice sounded over the loudspeakers: a timeless, weighty voice like something from the beginning of time, Or its end. "Dana. Dana. Dana. You are a criminal. They will punish you. Surrender to them." The sergeant flinched at the words and stopped her forward progress, but pressed onward after a moment, evidently not sure if the others could hear it or not, finally offering an explanation. "Lots of old systems in here. Sometimes you get...echoes. There's nothing to see here, you all need to leave. And I need to fix the damn speakers!"

Up top, the heroes and their counterparts from Erde took shelter in the darkness of the warehouse as they waited for the Koshiros to return. While the others studied each other, Citizen's attention was focused almost entirely on the other Sharl, still carrying that box of acquired vacumn tubes, paying just a little attention to the dimensional device that had accidentally transported the Axis agents. The streets of a free, prosperous city of humans passed before Tulink's eyes, and he almost wanted to weep. Sharl floated uncertainly for a moment in the air, thinking briefly of logistics, before he sent back, he thought with more and more determination. and Sharl knew that tone very well. That was enough to get his counterpart thinking, or at least enough to shut him up for a while. As Sharl studied the dimensional device again, he decided that was close enough.

Quo-Dis had arrived early for the festivities and was busy getting dressed in Corbin's room upstairs, where she'd left enough of her things that she generally didn't have to pack a bag when she did stay overnight. "Corbin," she called downstairs when she was done, "I see them coming up the drive! And I am finished dressing!" She had, after some persuasion, recently started calling him simply by his name. She didn't walk down the stairs, she flew, literally; her red velvet evening gown not quite reaching the floor as she hovered in the air, blonde hair in almost Germanic pigtails down her back. The crimson-colored outfit would have impeded the mobility of a woman without super-strength and the ability to fly; as it was she was at eye level with her boyfriend when she reached them. "What do you think about how I look?" Corbin knew damn well how she felt about him lying about her appearance.

OK: Harrier's plan is to have the Omegadrone shoot at him (since it's still armed and he isn't) so that it'll blast a hole in the side of the rapidly-filling room and let Wave-Eye and anyone still trapped down there escape. In order to accomplish this, I'll have him use the total defense manuever (giving him an additional +4 dodge bonus) and then spend an HP to double his total dodge bonus, giving him what I believe is a DC of 29 to be hit? I'll go ahead and post IC as soon as Wave-Eye goes.

20

"Yeah, time travel's not really as cool as it sounds," Mark frowned, took a few bites of his burger, and felt better. "Dimensional stuff is a lot more fun, when you're not being chased down by the embodiment of cosmic entropy, I guess." I wonder how Marcie's doing these days? His Claremont therapist, way back when, had recommended he not pursue further contact with Earth-XX, but he still could wonder. He shot a glance over at Erin and Travis and asked Trevor, sotto voice, "How's your grandpa holding up these days?" Intimidating though he was, Mark had nothing but respect and admiration for the original Midnight.

Vampire Nation Defenders of the Confederate States of America on Earth G-Vampire-1 Uses: Hyperclan, Squadron Supreme, Crime Syndicate [if suitably tweaked], etc Captain Confederacy: Virginia-born Richard Reynolds was a captain by the time the Blood War ended, a veteran of a dozen battles and not incidentally a blood-sucking fiend, having been transformed by no less than Jubal Early himself. A veteran of the Battle of Arlington, the last great Confederate offensive north ultimately broken by the Union necromancers along the Potomac, Reynolds has spent much of his long undead life hostile to the Confederate government. The martial values and camaraderie between soldiers has largely broken down in Albert Pike's CSA, where officers are apt to spend more time competing with each other than commanding their men, but when Pike's government recently reorganized the Vampire Nation, the costumed champions of the Confederate States of America, his very adherence to old values made him the favored candidate for field commander. In his heart of hearts, Reynolds sometimes wants the fighting to be over: he's savvy enough to know the vampire way of life is coming to an end as the values of the Union slowly percolate their way even into the unbeating heart of the Confederacy. But it's been a long time since his heart could beat. Miss Belle: Jasmine Fishburne is a woman of color in the armies of the Confederacy, not a friendly place to be even with the Blood War. (There's nothing like everyone becoming undead to break down distinctions between genders) She makes up for a skin too dark and a gender too feminine among her peers by being among the most vicious and uncompromising of the fighters under the command of Richard Reynolds, for whom she is a reluctant number 2. When there's a slave uprising, invasion by hostile aliens, or other incursion into the 'peace and order' of the Confederate States of America, she's there in the front lines, tearing apart her enemies and ferociously drinking of their blood. She doesn't enjoy fighting, she _is_ fighting, and if not for her gender might easily have replaced her (much less politically reliable) commanding officer by now. If the Vampire Nation is ordered to scout another dimension for raids or incursion, she'll be there in the front lines. Doctor Dark: Much-abused pilot Alan Hoban is Texas-born and bred, and also the only human being on the Vampire Nation. And it sucks! He's a second-class citizen in his own nation, something of which he is intimately aware despite his government's very public declaration that humans enjoy their second-class citizenship in the CSA. His power gem (which he found at the site of a crashed alien spaceship on his master's rural estates) sustains his life even when he needs to 'make a donation', he is all too aware of the fact that he has no superpowers of his own. You would think this might make him politically unreliable, but actually he's there in the front lines alongside Miss Belle in every big fight. (She actually respects, and is even attracted to him, not emotions she's used to feeling for humans) After all, if he fails, or is seen to fail, he knows what fate awaits him, and his family back home. Better to just ram their flying machine, the General Lee, straight into the nearest wall than let that happen. Wolfman: Despite his ferocious appearance, Howell Cobb IV is not that bad when you get to know him. He's devoted to his mama and his family like a good Southern gentleman (despite his ungentlemanly ways), and frequently visits the family estate back in Cherokee County, Georgia. He's not an old veteran like Cap or a dedicated political animal like Jasmine; he's a mercenary (transformed when he came of age like many of his class) who's done all sorts of covert work outside the Confederacy, particularly in vampire-loving Japan, before coming home and getting swept up into the call for defenders of the homeland. Don't mistake a mercenary nature for a lack of commitment; he's getting paid well and often for the chance to hunt down and destroy the enemies of his nation and people, and that's enough to motivate most any man. He likes the idea of raiding other dimensions; so much new blood there, and so much stuff to steal! Firegirl: They took Summer Grey away when she was a teenager, vampire leaders like her brother Rand eager to use her nascent psychic gifts in the service of the undead. Under Rand's watchful eye, she was gradually transformed into among the most powerful vampires in the Confederacy; her tremendous psychic assets and powerful pyrokinesis making her one of the most dangerous women in the nation. She was a natural recruit for the Vampire Nation, her good looks and silent demeanor making her the ideal image of a more traditional sort of Southern womanhood and (for publicity purposes) a good counterpart to some of the other women on the team. Lately she's been acting more and more mysterious, seeming to listen to voices only she can hear. She has a particular hostility towards Wolfman, one he himself can't figure out, largely because Firefist: The team's other pyrokinetic is Summer's brother Rand, a jaded athlete and politician who was inspired by his sister's transformation to make something of himself. He used his tremendous influence in Confederate society to acquire various stolen artifacts to augment his already formidable vampiric powers, and wielding the Firefists of Boltagon is a skilled, savvy face man for the Vampire Nation. Rand is more political than most of his teammates (he hopes to replace Albert Pike as President of the Confederacy one day), and better at dealing with high society, for all that he sometimes has trouble with the dirty work the team has to carry out on behalf of the Confederate cause. He's much happier fighting Grue than he is putting down internal rebellions, and sometimes hopes to be the next Confederate liason to the Freedom League. Nightstar: T-baby Sarah Baccarin fell into bad company in the high society of her native Rome and was an easy recruit for the Vampire Nation there. She's a mercenary like Wolfman, albeit one with more of a scientific bent, and occasionally has had something of a rivalry with Steel Girl (particularly since she just doesn't understand why Ruby is just so dirty all the time when ladies look so much nicer cleaned up) She affects a certain Continental mystery about her background, easy enough to do since her teammates can't exactly go to priest-heavy Italy to investigate. The truth is, she was born to a wealthy family, discovered her powers and fell in love with another outcast, and then became more than she had been. Unlike most of her teammates, she is eager to explore the outside world that she sometimes regrets leaving: she knows that the imaginary gangs of savage murdering free humans so popular in Confederate entertainment don't actually exist outside their borders, and she's the most likely to simply wander off if the team goes to a dimension with new sights and sounds to see. Steel Girl: Ruby White is the team's gadgeteer, a scientist and inventor despite her down-home accent and rough-and-ready manner. She's a former schoolteacher from Memphis, or so she says, who built her power armor to clean up the streets. She and Richard are lovers, as vampires can be despite certain complications, and they share a certain lack of commitment to the Confederacy's darker traditions. This is one reason why she spends a lot of her time among her beloved machines rather than on the front lines, though with her power armor she's formidable in a fight. Another reason is that She has hopes for Richard, who's not really that bad: just spoiled and not terribly bright. Dark Knight: Barney Glass, swordsman, adventurer, and monster is one of the great horror stories among Northern vampires: formerly a trusted operative of the Union's Patriot Regiment, he defected when confronted with the delightful rewards given to Confederate vampires south of the Mason-Dixon Line. A spiteful man who enjoys playing with his food, he is a firm believer in the unholy glories of vampirism, and will if asked happily speak at length about the divine majesty of the undead state. While the others might invade another dimension for gain, for blood, for love of carnage, to follow orders or to keep themselves alive; he'd do it because he genuinely believes that the living are better off under the rule of the dead.

Since SC has been sick lately, let me just substitute in an APPROVAL. You'll still need to get another one, but you'll be able to go right to play when it's done!

The team flew via Koshiro's giant paper airplane to Ditko Street, heading straight for the address Miss Americana had found for Citizen. "It was the headquarters of a team called the Newcomers back in the early 1970s," he explained to the others as they went. "An interstellar and interdimensional team of outcasts and exiles from all over the Lor Republic, even the Terminus. Most of their members left Earth or settled down here many years ago, but their headquarters is still here. It was called...the Wonderbus. Miss A swears it's intact and still right here in..." They swooped down low over the destination address to find a parking lot, Citizen's eyes widening in surprise as they came in for a landing. "I don't understand!" They were standing in a parking lot for Earth ground vehicles, a particularly deserted one behind a recently-gentrified coffeehouse. The only vehicle there was a worn-looking Winnebago, parked beneath an overhang at the edge of the lot, which from the dirt on the windows had been there a long time. In a cruddier city, in a less secure neighborhood, the tires would long since have been ripped off. "This is the right address. Ugh." Sharl frowned. "Maybe I shouldn't have given Miss A that speech about wanting a base just for teen heroes."

For his part, Citizen was trying not to boil the sea around him, doing his best to make sure his fiery body didn't burst into flames and ruin everything. He lacked the ability to think underwater in a way anyone could understand; his ring-based consciousness as impervious to telepathy as his regular one, so instead he gestured as they 'walked', hovering around the ring on his finger so that he could navigate better. I wish I hadn't let him drop the Bauble. Stupid Fathom. I hate science criminals who don't really know anything about science. He sighed, his head turning back and forth beneath the bay. Why is the water here so filthy anyway? They don't even eat algae or plankton!

"We use a neutrino-based vibrational frequency for subterrean communications," Bowman assured Gaian Knight. "It's the same we use when communicating with people in the Terra-King's realm, or below. It was tested down to the inner core in '03, so it should be able to reach you anywhere on, or under Earth, as long as you're not in any particularly energy-dense rocks. At least, that's how Daedalus puts it," he said, raising his hands in surrender. "He had a feeling you might ask, but I only understand about half of that. As for reaching Sanctuary, we've been calling Fleur de Joie there for years. It won't be an issue." With both men in on the League's secret, Bowman took this opportunity to first unmask, revealing the chiseled features and playboy good looks of Fletcher Beaumont IV, one of the most eligible young bachelors in Freedom City, before he took the two new recruits on a tour of the storied structure of Freedom Hall. It was a well-built place, as one might expect, equipped with the latest in super-technology for defending Freedom City and the world. There was the Hall of Heroes of those who'd fallen along the way, Daedalus' super-equipped laboratories, Lady Liberty's library and Raven's crime lab, even Siren's personal shrine and mystic artifacts from her career as a divine champion. "It's bad timing with those Mayan golems coming to life this week, but what can you do?" said Fletcher apologetically as they made the trip. "Fleur and I figured it was better not to wait to get the two of you on the team. Is there anything in particular you'd like to see?" he asked as they walked through the Pegasus bays.

"We do want you," said Bowman with a grin to Tarrant, "but now that you mention it, you should make sure you want us, too. As a League reservist," Bowman answered Carson, "you'll be the one the League deploys when our big guns are elsewhere. That means you'll primarily, but not always, be working in the Freedom City area, since of course we'll generally go ourselves to deal with really big problems. There's a living wage that comes with it if you need it, and potentially living space in Freedom Hall; we don't want anyone in the League to go broke because they've been a hero at the wrong time. You'll have keycard access to Freedom Hall, and we'll issue you a League teleporter key." He gave both Gabriel and Tarrant a serious look at that. "All that comes with the idea that when the call comes in, you'll be ready to take action. Is this still something you want to do? There's no pressure, and we will purge our files of your names if you prefer."

Citizen folded his arms and glared at the robot, thoughts of Tronik, Rogue, and his own brushes with the Labyrinth flashing in his mind. "At least he has the memories of a real person. He's not just some stupid robot Talos programmed in a Lab to wreck human civilization. I'll remember how you people really feel the next time the Labyrinth comes sniffing around. D-Gray, it's going to be okay," he said reassuringly to the frightened man, feeling an empathy that only a citizen of Tronik could for the rapper. "Even if they duped your brain, you're still a person. You're still real. You're not the only human being who lives in a computer," he added.

Earth G-Vampire-1 150 years ago, the armies of the dead rose and established a grim and bloody-handed empire stretching from the Potomac River to the Gulf of Mexico. On Earth G-Vampire-1, the armies of the Confederate States of America were supplemented by armies of vampires: aristocrats who had come to America to maintain vast herds of human cattle and were eager to protect their feeding stock from the 'depredations' of the abolitionist North. Things were bad, very bad, when bat-winged armies swarmed over Washington and across the Ohio River, feeding gleefully on the blood of the innocent, but the North rebounded in a thousand different ways: the spiritualists of the Union turned their necromantic powers against the living dead, ghostly wars in the skies over Boston and Philadelphia driving back the grey-clad undead, while the holy faith of abolitionists and their allies burned like a fire in the sky over Jonathan Blanchard's Wheaton in Chicago and a dozen other holy sites. Day by day, year by year, the armies of vampires were turned back from the throats of the United States. The wounds of the war ran deep, with vampirism spreading wherever the hordes of undead went. Many Northern vampires resisted their urges, not inclined to become slaves to the slavemasters, but others didn't, and the armies of vampires swelled like ticks with new recruits wherever they went. European vampires, and others, forced into the open by their too-ambitious brethren, were often slaughtered pre-emptively, but more fled to the Union where (ironically) they found a government all-too-eager for any sort of assistance, even from others undead. Many others went south, transforming what had once been a war for the freedom of some into a war for the freedom of all. But the Confederates had their necromancers and dark wizards too, and the armies of the North were stopped at what had once been the Confederate border. In 1870, with millions dead on both sides, the bled-white North and South made a reluctant peace with each other. The Union rebounded, as nations do; the tragically doomed good vampire became a staple of Victorian fiction in the United States, while American policy became to fight the power of the undead everywhere: in Cuba (where vampire aristocrats still fed on the blood of freedmen), in the Kaiser's Germany in the First World War and its terrible successor state in the war that followed, the United States has stood forever as the enemy of the power of vampirism. American vampires no longer face execution if their secret comes out (thanks to a 20th century Supreme Court decision) but all are drafted into the Union Army as agents of national defense. The scars of 150 years ago run deep (especially if there are still people who remember those days) and the Union is ever-ready in case the Confederates come again. As for the South? The Confederate States of America feeds on itself and has since its inception. Vampires rule the night and their servants rule the day, and though 20th century political shifts ended the racial basis of slavery the Confederacy is still a nation of masters and slaves, those of the world's vampires who were unable to adapt to the loss of their power elsewhere having been welcomed with open arms and smiling fanged faces. Though Confederate entertainment glorifies the langorous grace and beauty of their masters, the truth is harsher and uglier: the Confederacy is a pariah state and tottering bankrupt, the Mass Games in Richmond and public veneration of Albert Pike, President of the Confederate States of America for nearly a century, have replaced what mass culture once existed by boot and spur. Confederate schoolchildren are taught that the world outside their border lies fallow and in ruin while only they possess the true key to civilization: eternity itself. So what place do superheroes have in such a place? Confederate mystics are not above cross-dimensional border raids for new vintages: tight controls exist on the feeding of the slave population of the Confederacy to ensure no overfeeding by their masters (particularly since not every Confederate vampire has the resources to actually own a human, contrary to what their propaganda broadcasts across the border say: indeed, most do not), but there are always those willing to go to a little more work for a taste of what is denied them by law at home. Superpowers exist both in the Union and the Confederacy, with superheroes in Freedom City just like our universe. (Freedom City was a center of particularly vicious fighting during The War, as Northerners and Southerners still call it) The Confederacy has fewer superheroes than the Union does, a legacy of early days when fearful vampires generally executed them, but now vampire heroes with powers of life and death are not uncommon beneath the Mason-Helsing Line. It is a closer parallel to our world than logic would suggest; heroes may well encounter versions of themselves corrupted by bloodlust and hunger into twisted reflections of themselves, or noble demons resisting their urges while making sure no one else suffers at the hands of the undead. Or, just perhaps, as righteous warriors prepared to cleanse the Earth of the dead. The Confederacy is a place of poisoned glamour; a world of moonlight and magnolia plantations where the hard reality of exploitation and bondage is hidden behind hospitality and a smile, with the eyes of the dead ever on the visitor. The population is fed ignorance and lies, with even many vampires genuinely believing that theirs is the only fair and just society. (and for them perhaps it is, for all that their castles are made of sand) Their leaders are no fools; they know all the world has been watching them since the end of the Great Deception in 1862, and the nations of the Earth stand ready with cross and blade, star and crescent moon, nuclear weapon and incendiary bullets to battle the armies of the dead. But they know too that there are other worlds out there, reachable by grim blood rites along the Cosmic Coil, worlds with a beating heart of human life all too ripe and ready for the devouring. And perhaps this time, there will be powers beyond the curse of undeath granted to the champions of The War...

Harrier Even When the Music's Gone Crucible Steve could have gone to Fleur de Joie's flowershop easily enough, but he'd absorbed enough of Gina's caution to want to be careful. So instead he'd flown down here to Cape May, a city Caradoc had visited several times, to shop for flowers for his girlfriend. Several shops later, and he was beginning to think he should have stayed closer to home. "It's not that I dislike your flowers," he was telling the clerk, a tired-looking freckle-faced woman named Lisa, "but I have no way of knowing for sure what my girlfriend would like. Perhaps I should come back closer to our anniversary." "In any event, thanks again for that box of chocolates," said Lisa as she stepped out of the shop behind him, closing the door and locking it. With a smile, she put her hand on her stomach. "I didn't lose any money spending that hour with you, _and_ I've been eying that box for weeks ever since I found out I had an excuse to eat it all." She grinned; Steve didn't understand, but smiled anyway. She turned one way on the quiet strip mall sidewalk and Steve turned another, the stars overhead just visible. A man stepped out of the shadows in front of Lisa not long afterwards, but Steve didn't hear them until she spoke. "Carl!? What are you doing here? I told you we were through!" Something in her tone made him turn, and from the shelter of a parked car Steve watched as the hard-eyed man in the white T-shirt and jeans faced down the florist. "Yeah, but you didn't finish the job," he sneered at evidently his former girlfriend. "I'm not going to be on the hook for any more child support, dammit. So I'm here to give you one last chance. Either you go to the clinic and you get rid of it, or-" Her eyes widened. "Or what?" And then Carl pulled the gun, waving it around for emphasis. A thug, not a professional killer, a stranger to the weapon. "Or I make sure-" You have to be a good shot to shoot the gun out of a man's hand, especially with a big, awkward weapon like an Omegadrone's power pike. But Harrier had plenty of practice. The searing cosmic blast hit him in the hand and broke the bones, fusing the firing cap of the gun and locking it into dead uselessness. He cried out in surprise and pain and raised the hand, Lisa screaming and backing off in fear a moment before Caradoc simply stalked over and backhanded the human across the face. Carl hit the nearest car and dropped, unconscious. "Ohmigod, Carl!" It wasn't what Steve had hoped to hear, but Lisa upheld his faith in human beings by keeping her distance from the fallen man. She pressed herself against the wall, pressing her hands against her stomach. "Who are you?" "I am Caradoc," Steve explained simply, interrupted a moment later by - "That bastard! I knew he was no good before, but this...I'm pregnant," Lisa said, opening up to the obvious superhero. "And it's his, and he's a bastard, and it was one time, but...Jesus, I never thought he'd actually try this." "He tried to kill you. Because you are carrying his child." Steve was talking to her, but his world was far, far away in that moment of slowly coiling emotion, like a beast of cold fire stirring to life. "Yeah, yeah, he did," she nervously wiped her eyes, then said, "I'm...I'm gonna be at my mom's place for a while. Just tell me what station you're taking him to, and I'll be there tout suite." Steve told her, and still in his Caradoc armor, picked up the unconscious Carl, slung him over his shoulder, and took off into the night. - Carl Lambert awoke with the stink of rotting garbage in his nostrils and an Omegadrone in his face. He screamed in surprise and tried to struggle to his feet, a moment before Harrier grabbed him by the midsection and pinned him to the Earth in a grip of cold, bladed Terminus steel. So easy. Like crushing an insect. "Look at me. Look at my face." Harrier pressed harder, exerting his full weight though nothing like his full-strength, his face pitiless, expressionless, eyeless. An Omegadrone's mask. "You are Carl Lambert of 4022 Westchester, Cape May, New Jersey." January's pleading face swept before his eyes. "LOOK AT ME." He raised his fist, the stench of rotting sewage in the air enough to make the human beneath him gag and weep, the gigantic horror-cyborg looming over him just adding to his terror. Carl couldn't talk, only whimper in utter, soul-crushing terror, as the Omegadrone pinning him to the Earth spoke, hearing the voice of another long-gone in his mind. "You will confess to attempted murder to the police. You will ask for a heavy sentence in guilt for your crimes. You will pay for the care of your child and its mother. You will not attempt to see them. You will not attempt to approach them." His grip tightened again, ever so slightly, as the garbage mound seemed to swallow the man beneath him. "If you try and find them, I will find you. Look at me. What do you think I will do? What fate both terrible and ever-lasting will be visited upon you if you should EVER lay hands upon a mother again?" When it was done, all done, Caradoc made sure the battered, stinking would-be killer gave a full confession to the police before begging to be locked in their deepest, darkest cell, and that Lisa Cummings knew she was safe before he flew away into the night sky, lost in the memories of the gigagenocide and the dead worlds it had spawned. And of one loss, so long ago. I am not a monster. In the cold clear darkness of the night, Harrier looked down at his armored hands. I did not kill. Even when a man seemed to deserve death. He remembered, a clear flickering flame beneath a red and searing sky, January's pyre, and the numberless, nameless, uncountable millions more that had come after, the unnumerable dead who lived only in the mind of an Omegadrone. No one ever does.

Sharl was all business when he came back, the electronic teenager definitely looking to have something on his mind. "All right, before we go, we should figure out exactly where we're going. I think it's best if Koshiro drives, since he can take all of us at once. You said this place was trustworthy, right, Kimber?" he asked as he took a seat around a vacant corner table. He spread a map out on it, an electronic-looking map of New Jersey that glowed a faint blue in key spots. "Right now I've got three places for us to look at; the old interstellar base under Ditko Street, the Archetech warehouse near Lincoln, or the decommissioned nuclear missile site in Wharton State Forest. The Ditko Street one is closest to here." He pointed out the faint glowing circle over the district of Freedom City much more famous for its occult bookstores and New Age stuff than alien activity.