Avenger Assembled

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.

"Wheee!" yelled Mark as he rocketed past all of them, cartwheeling merrily before rebounding off the ceiling with a faint thump. "I'm okay!" he added, swooping back down and rubbing the top of his head. "That was awesome! I love space." He didn't really have much control over where he was going, but that didn't seem to bother him much. "Coming through!" he added as he swooped past Erin and Trevor, pausing for a moment as he kicked off another wall. "Whew, this is exhausting," he added, the all-too-human Mark sweating a little, "but great. We should go to the Moon sometime and try this. There've got to be bad guys up there."

Suddenly, the statues of the first Bowman and Arrow directly behind Devil Ray came alive, wrapping their powerful arms around the armored supervillain and holding him fast. Edge was concentrating on the man, the air around him seeming to vibrate as the animate statues wrapped their arms around him in a mighty grip. "Listen, you need to surrender now before you actually make my friends and I mad," said Edge firmly, Mark's usually-cheery persona a little thin with his family's history so threatened. "You're what, bulletproof in that thing?" The armor creaked slightly in the grip of the heroes of the past. "If I can do that to you, what can I do to these other guys? We are mighty heroes and you are a bunch of history pirates!"

Edge inspires as a full-round action (-1 HP) He then surges (I'll go ahead and spend the HP to cancel fatigue now. He reaches out and grabs Devil Ray with his Perception Range Damaging Move Object (standard) Grapple check: DC 48 I'm declaring now that I'll spend an HP to make him reroll and take the worse of two if he beats that.

9 Harrier goes on 9

"Thank you both for coming," said Bowman IV seriously, the heir to the historic heroic legacy shaking Carson and Tarrant's hands with a firm archer's grip. He smiled, all cocky swashbuckler for a moment, at Tarrant and Gabriel's comments. "Hey, at least you didn't have your junior high prom pictures up there. I still can't believe Bowman kept those old shots," he joked. Growing more serious again, he went on, "Doctor MacLeod, Mister O'Keefe, thank you for coming. As I'm sure you know, with the League's focus on international and interstellar affairs recently, we've been looking to recruit local heroes with a solid reputation for dependability, courage under fire..." he gestured to the wall behind them, "and saving the day when it really mattered. You both have been highly recommended, from both Fleur de Joie and Freedom Angel, who unfortunately couldn't be here today, and looking into you we've found nothing but praise for you and what you've done from everyone in town. And beyond." He took a breath and added, "Now, this isn't a formal induction ceremony, that'll have to wait until the rest of the League gets back from Argentina. But if you're interested, we'd like to offer both of you a space in the Freedom League Reserve."

Gabriel, Gaian Knight, Fleur de Joie, and maybe other people deal with some bad stuff, man. (I don't want to give it away!) Also, the first two guys join the Freedom League.

The Devil Shovels Coal (IC) August 1, 2012 Freedom Hall The invitation had come by mail to Carson O'Keefe and Tarrant McLeod, an official Freedom League dispatch that invited both of them to Freedom Hall on the morning of August 1, 2012. Though it had said nothing about their secret identities, a summons from the Freedom League to two superheroes had a special weight all its own! It was a warm summer's day as they arrived, the streets of Freedom City were bustling with people and the usual tourists around Freedom Hall were out in full force, taking pictures and looking expectantly around for arriving heroes; though of course they had no way of recognizing most heroes if they had come without costume. - Fletcher Beaumont IV might be the rookie among the League proper, but he was still a veteran superhero. All that aside, he was nothing but polite to the Freedom League reservist who was one of the reasons they were there in the first place. "I know it's a little weird, but every place likes to welcome the new guys a little differently. Johnny had a big surprise cooked up for you and your group back in the day, but that thing with the Bee-Keeper sort of got in the way..." He and Fleur de Joie were sitting in the small private meeting room the League reserved for inductions; the League's golden seal on the wall and its Latin motto today joined by the pictures and newspaper articles illustrating the most famous cases and adventures of the heroes Gabriel and Gaian Knight, the newest prospective members of the Freedom League.

"I'm fine," said Citizen, shaking it off as he rubbed his lightly-burned hand. "I don't get hurt very much while I'm projecting, so it was just surprising." He shot a glance at the others, still mindful of his counterpart's evident secret, and modulated his tone. "I am undamaged. I am in contact with my counterpart; he indicated that the mission on the surface is proceeding according to plan. Perhaps we should adjourn to the upper level and wait for their return. If we are sighted alongside our dimensional counterparts, we may have difficult questions to answer from our superiors," he extemporized to his Corbin and Warren with a glance upwards. Across town, Sharl floated across the room and gathered up the box of vacumn tubes. He felt no more guilt about potentially stealing from these people than he would about robbing a human on Erde; indeed, the thought of a population of humans he could work out his frustrations on was at least momentarily appealing. At least until he remembered that other Tronik, and the memories of his counterpart. His eyes twitched momentarily towards the Koshiro who'd spoken up for him, geniunely surprised by the concern, but he shrugged off the way the other Koshiro acted. It was better than most. "Several of these units are intact, and should suffice to complete our purposes."

A flash of light and a tunnel in the sky transported Young Freedom home from the Silver Tree, the scene at the Martel estate looking for a moment as if they had never left. If you ignored their battle scars, the faint silver sheen now fading from around Wander, and the confused Martel servants wandering around looking for any trace of their mistress. They hadn't been gone that long in the grand scheme of things, just an hour or two when all balanced out, the battle for their lives against the multiverse itself had just seemed to take a hell of a long time! Edge excused himself a few steps away upon their arrival, muttering, "I promised to call my mom if I got kidnapped into any other dimensions today, so I gotta do this. I'll be back with the party in just a second."

"I know Lady Liberty almost always comes out for the Fourth of July, so we'll probably see her this year. Captain Thunder and Bolt are dealing with the fires in Arizona so that'll probably take up most of their time." Mark said that without a trace of resentment, his old anger at the Thunder Family long since gone for more important things. He listened intently as Trevor laid out the feast, summer meals being something he regarded as important indeed. "I...I have no idea what mysost is, so let's go for it! And maybe with poppy seeds, I don't think I have to worry about a drug test." He looked up at the clear blue sky again and commented, "First Fourth of July for the new Liberty League. You know, I heard back in '42 for the old League, the ghost of Uncle Sam sent everyone into different eras of American history. My grandpa went to the Salem Witch Trials and almost got burned as a witch! Which is weird because they didn't burn any witches in colonial Salem, but there was something about a really pretty girl and her father taking exception to it, so I dunno."

Citizen gasped in shock, shooting an involuntary look of horror at D-Gray as he realized what the man's program had actually been modified to do. He shot a look down at the hand where he'd touched him, briefly reassuring himself that his own body hadn't been corrupted. "I see what you tried to do," he said to Chimera out loud as his finger seemed to blur over the keys as he directly interfaced with Lab's security programs. "And it's not going to work. What you did here isn't going to hurt anyone else." he thought with rather less charity to Miss Americana.

Sharl has DC 25 in Computers, I believe?

Eugh, creepy. Sharl was not impressed by the Foundry's machine, even though he was oddly disappointed at the same time. Look, they can't all be out to get you, and do you really need more bad guys in your life? Not every Foundry mission has to be about you. "Miss Americana is one of the leading cyberneticists in the world," he explained for D-Gray's benefit, "that's where I came from." Which was true, for what it was worth. "Cost wasn't an issue." Hmming, he tapped the panel in front of him, taking a closer look at D-Gray's programming. he messaged Miss Americana, knowing she was easily-capable of dividing her attention.

Cubist, Catching up here. If you fix up the notation (saves, powers, etc) to make it match the sheets elsewhere on the site (take a look at Dok's sample builds for the best examples), and make it clear that this character is a comic book supervillain; in grossest terms a Barbara Minerva rather than a character from anthro fiction, we can start moving towards an approval.

"Hmmm." Lora was definitely growing uneasy around the strange cat, whuffing and whining as if to draw her master's attention to the strange creature. Sharl trusted that Kimber wouldn't have a dangerous pet, but explaining that to a dog wouldn't be easy. "Hang on just a second, I'm going to take her outside." He reached down and fastened on Lora's iridescent blue leash, pulling the unhappy dog along behind him as he headed outside, carefully keeping her from bolting through the wall. Once there, he headed for the alley next to the shop where he petted the dog before snapping his fingers in the air and opening an electronic gateway back to his laptop, where green fields awaited. "We'll talk later. You go eat your steak," he told her, and sure enough the dog obediently trotted through.

Harrier turned and looked at Wave-Eye, his flat, lined eyes burning with certain intent. "That drone is powerful enough to kill every human being on this ship, and most likely send the vessel itself to the bottom. Go below and get my pike. Run." And with that intent, the man Wave-Eye had met transformed himself back into an Omegadrone, Terminus steel erupting from his flesh as his body bent and warped inward into the grimly spiked, darkly metallic form of an Omegadrone nearly identical to the steel monster risen from the table. His face expressionless and gone, his identity invisible beneath his armor, Harrier faced down what might have been him had things been just a little different. "Are you capable of communication?" he inquired in a metallic voice like something from the grave.

"This is Lora," said Sharl, bending down and petting the dog's head to reassure her in case the unfamiliar person spooked her. "She's a German Shepard Miss Americana programmed for me." Sure enough, on close inspection, the dog had the faint air of unreality Sharl had, but seemed friendly enough despite that. She leaned close and sniffed Kimber curiously, then whined a little and gave her what might have been a canine's version of a suspicious look. Distracted by the cat, she turned and whuffed, obviously dog enough to know the face of the enemy despite her good nature. Sharl stayed down and kept reassuring the dog, remembering being an alien in a place like this. "We've come on team business," he said to Kimber when he was sure his dog wasn't going to cause a scene by barreling right through her cat. "Are you free for the day? We may need to do some...traveling." He had a feeling the exuberant psychic fragment would be up for adventure, but they were all students, after all.

Under the assault of the united heroes and their assorted allies from Erde, there was nothing the misplaced monster could do to resist them. With one last punch from Citizen, the monster fell apart, the Hound of Tindalos shrieking into fragments as each howling piece of the demonic dog was torn apart and hurled into the vortex between dimensions. They were left alone in the darkness beneath the old warehouse, left alone with the realization that the real problem here wasn't the monster at all. "This isn't my area, but I think we took care of that," said Sharl, shooting a glance at Corbin and Warren. His own, anyway; even though Rift was before his time, he seemed more trustworthy than the dimensional outsiders. "Are you all right? Do any of you need medical attention?" he temporized.