Avenger Assembled

NPC Spotlight Vignette Harrier Freedom League Special Circumstances Housing Step By Step First Floor (Internet Cafe) Finley typed slowly and carefully at the email, her red fingers moving in a hunt-and-peck over the alien syllabry. Maybe her shapeshifting wasn't where it should be yet, but her language classes and her cultural training were complete, and she wasn't going to let a little thing like her appearance keep her from being a productive member of human society. If she'd wanted to stay a useless cog in a machine she couldn't contribute to, she'd have stayed with the Grue hive where she'd been spawned. "Dear Learson Testing: As you can see my mathematical test scores are well within your standards, and I have letters of reference from several teachers in Freedom City. I think I would be an excellent member of your testing team, and I would love a chance to be part of the educational system here in New Jersey. Human-" She thought for a moment, then deleted that last word, "children are our future, and I'm very happy to have a chance to be part of the future of this city." She smiled at her reflection as she sent it along, her red, nearly featureless face easily marking her for what she was. "Now, what to do if they don't believe my story about not wanting to give a photo ID..." Even if they liked her scores, this clearly wasn't over yet! "Better give my holo-unit a test run tonight..." Second Floor: Interfaith Chapel Zhang rose to his feet and took a deep breath. "Hi everybody, my name is Zhang Lao, and I'm...I'm an eldritch survivor," he said, getting sympathetic looks from the rest of his social circle. "After the Great Old Ones rose on my world, it was just so much easier to start summoning shoggoths than solve my problems coherently, but that's my old life, and I'm not going to be that man anymore." He smiled, and met the eyes of the red-skinned Yami princess across the way. Maybe he had a chance after all. "And what are you going to do now?" asked Blake, the circle's moderator, a young guy not much older than Zhang himself. "Well, I don't need to carve elder signs or chant anymore to be happy," said Zhang hopefully, trying to convince himself as he spoke as much as everyone else. "I don't need to bow down to elder gods since they hardly even exist here. I can be...I can be me!" He brightened at that, the words feeling unexpectedly comforting, and for the first time, as the crowd applauded and sipped their fruit juice, he actually started to believe he could do it. Third Floor: Maintence "Oh, jeez, look, Tom, the helium gasket's cracked!" Careful of the iced-over impervium pipe, Larry Kazankis gingerly took out his cryowrench and began working at the defective part. "Good thing we caught this, or poor 403 would have been in a world of hurt. Must be weird for him living in a place so hot, huh? I heard he's some kind of bug thing?" "Eh, 403's okay," said Tom Flatman, chewing his gum as he handed his partner a part. "He and his ladyfriend, I guess she is? they put on a crystal music show for the residents last year, and it was all right! He swears it sounds better in a helium atmosphere, but it was okay by me. A little like one of those old planetarium things, but with more beer." "Yeah, I guess you're right," said Larry reflectively. "I mean, I bet you and me look pretty freaky to folks from Pluto! And we don't have to live there 24/7, poor bastard. I heard about what made him come here, and man, revolutions are always tough. When my old man left Greece back in '46..." Tom grimaced affectionately and adjusted his flashlight. Here we go... Living Quarters: Seventh Floor "GO Devils!" The gorilla pounded on the table in celebration, hard enough to make the sturdy oak quake, before he turned back to his interviewer with a massive smile, carefully projecting human social mores for the benefit of his human interlocuter. "Your pardon, Ms. Samuels, but I do love hockey, even if I have to watch Newark exhibition games these days. I hope you won't tell your readers I'm a traitor!" He laughed. "No, no, Dr. Primate, I wouldn't dream of it!" laughed the young journalist. "They'll be surprised to know you like sports at all. Don't most Gorilla Islanders reject human competitive sports as just another sign of innate human violence?" "That's true," said the ape paternally, "but as a simianthropologist, it's my duty to understand my hosts, even if current, ah, circumstances in my homeland have forced me to extend my stay. Personally, I think my people worry too much about human beings. The days of the gorilla warriors are long since past. These days we should work together, as fellow primates, to make a better civilization for us all." Inwardly, he sweated, hoping she wouldn't ask about the money. Damn rednoses back home, judging a man for his private entertainments! So what if he had to embezzle a little; how else could he afford all the black market goods he'd wanted for home? At least he'd escaped with both his Swiss bank account and his good name to Freedom City. Maybe that academic job would pay out after all. Outside, Joe's Eats The waiter headed over to the manager with a concerned look on his face, shooting glances back at his customers as they chatted amongst themselves. "Hey, uh, Joe? I think that guy slipped me a funny bill." The skinny college kid handed the green-and-gray currency to the thick-armed man behind the counter, the middle-aged chef-turned-owner pulling on his reading glasses as he peered down at the unmistakeable face of Gus Hall. _Ah, it must be Pete again. Hope he's not back on the sauce._ "No, it's okay," Joe whispered to Tim, "Pete over there's all right, he's just a little funny in the head. They take care of him over at the Cline, just like the Cline helps take care of us." "They're from the Cline?" Now it was Tim's turn to look awed. "Oh man, my mom swears she saw a flying saucer land there once. I bet they have all kinds of stories, and-" "Tim, don't go prying into other people's business," said Joe with a sharp look at his employer. "They're customers, sometimes they're friends, but that's doesn't mean we go digging." The two humans watched the shapeshifted devil and former Unspeakable One cultist try and get through their double-date with the Earth-Lenin-Z survivor and the Grue in the holographic disguise unit. "They're from the Cline. They're okay."

A massive bolt of electricity bounced from one cloud to the other, way up in the sky, before it erupted downwards into the monster in an enormous CRACKABOOM, outlining pseudonatural flesh in actine white haze as the great beast gave a terrible howl. "This world may be in the Terminus!" called Edge, "but it still doesn't like monsters showing up and wrecking the place! Lucky break for us...bad break for you, you abomination of abominable magic!" He pumped his fist, cheering on his friends as they went for the great beast too. "Let's deal with this sucker and go home! Eve has CAKE waiting for us! Maybe chocolate!"

All right, everybody hits, thanks to great rolls and Changeling's kind feint. 32 (Edge) + 2 (Sage) + 2 (Cobalt Templar) + 2 (Wander) + 2 (Wraith) Tou save vs. 40: 21 Okay, the monster is unconscious! Go ahead and post your actions, guys.

Harrier: Intimidate the scientists 17 That's awful! HP. 29 He's really mad, but they're gonna have to blast him first! :D

Harrier burst into the room, the counter-drones turning to scan the new threat, stopping as he took in the scene with mounting horror. His jaw set, the barely-dressed cyborg advanced on the robots surrounding Wave-Eye, ignoring the cold of the deck beneath his feet. "Who has done this?" He cast his gaze around the human scientists in the room, before his vision fell on the corpse of the Omegadrone on the table. He advanced slowly on a model too like his own; seeing the rotten flesh against the Terminus-steel bones, the sick knowledge that he could be lying there like that. "Who has dared to build Omegadrones from the bodies of the dead?"

Harrier ran alongside the troops, bare feet and bare-chested, choosing to keep his armor retracted, the better to avoid terrifying his potential allies. Privately, he worried that it was Wave-Eye. I sent him into danger without a chance to suss his potential. I may have endangered him and everyone aboard the ship. Who knew what sort of trouble the piscine humanoid had gotten himself into? In any event, when he did reach the scene of battle, Harrier knew what he had to do: defeat the Terminus! His steel-filled feet boomed against the deck as he ran, ready for anything.

Init: 14

Diplomacy: 17

NPC Spotlight Blood Will Tell Martha Lucas (Edge) October 2010 Snip Snip Snip Martha Lucas was trimming back her roses today, using both the big old hedge clippers Rick had inherited from his father and the good sturdy pruning knife she'd bought from the gardening store. Normally she loved working in the family garden, the relaxation of trimming and pruning helped her concentrate on her work. On Andi comics, the simple, clean safe world of Lakedale. A world where families stayed together, where love was strong and-Martha stopped and scrubbed her yellow-gloved hand over her forehead and tried to put thoughts of Rick out of her head. Rick Lucas, the handsome older man who'd spent her off her feet when she was just a junior editor at Castle, the author and adventurer who'd pulled her into his world with a wink and a smile. Everyone had been so jealous of her, marrying the beloved celebrity, the friend of the Freedom League, jealous of her and her handsome, healthy son who everyone admired even before he had superpowers. All of it gone now, of course. Rick's old hero friends remembered him as the man who'd gone crazy and broken the world into his own image; and the new generation barely said a word to her anyway. Somehow it had gotten out into the neighborhood, too. Still on one knee, she peered up at the houses all around the Lucas residence, the high wooden fence around their place blocking sounds from the street. They were talking about her, she knew, talking about her and Mark on the street. "Look at Martha, she thinks she's so perfect, she can't even control her crazy husband!" Had it really only been a few months since Rick had gone away? Alone in her perfectly-made marriage bed every night, the bed where she'd first made love and where her son had been born, sometimes it was like her Rick had been gone forever. Other times like he'd come back any minute. Rick had always made her happy, the way most people couldn't. That was the advantage of working in comics; she could write and draw as she wished and, now that she'd risen high enough at her company, never had to actually go out into the world that she'd worked so hard to protect her son from. Now Mark was a hero, fighting injustice alongside Young Freedom, out in the world that looked more and more dangerous every day. She hefted the scissors and went back to her rose bush, but this time faces kept appearing over the blossoms as she trimmed, faces staring at her, judging her for her mistakes: her parents, sneering at her for coddling her little boy, that psychic tramp who'd broken Mark's heart, her editor, demanding to know why her stories weren't on deadline, the other wives of the cul-de-sac sneering at the woman with the broken home, and finally Rick, laughing and smiling as he embraced green-skinned space floozies and extra-dimensional tramps, bodies entangled together as she cried out and SNIPPED- When her vision cleared, Martha stared down at the rosebush she'd cut in half and wanted to weep, tears bubbling at the corners of her eyes. Where had things gone so wrong? Maybe Mark was right, maybe they needed to get some-suddenly, a cold hand closed on her shoulder, and the kneeling housewife whirled around to see a man looming over her, his eyes white and staring, grinning as he reached for her with outstretched hands! With a scream of rage and frustration, Martha went for him, sweeping the suited man's leg out from under him and knocking him to the ground, raising her trimmer and shoving it deep through one of those vacant eyes and twisting and twisting and twisting inside as she felt things break and cut beneath the blade, the struggles of the man beneath her coming to an abrupt and messy end. She lost track of things for a while after that, until she found herself closing the garden gate and locking it tight, the high fence blotting out a commotion on the street she wasn't really paying attention to. When she turned back, the body was still there, still bearing its grim implement. _He's dead. He's dead, and I killed him._ She felt calm and collected inside as she walked towards the body, at peace inside and out. _I can't let Mark know. He can't lose both his parents. He'll go CRAZY_. She dragged the body into the dirt-bottomed garden shed and picked up Rick's ax. When it was done, Martha walked back into her kitchen and turned on the counter-top television, her awareness gradually beginning to return. What had happened? What had she done? _Am I...a MURDERER?_ It took her a few moments to realize what was going on on the TV, but when she did, she focused on the reports of the dead rising as if pointed by a laser. _He'll come back...or was he already dead!_ She couldn't stop herself from smiling, slumping against her marble countertop in relief as visions of prison and madness faded from before her eyes. It was the best possible news, really; everything was going to be okay! "It's a zombie invasion! Thank God! It's zombies!"

"...there are Terminus weapons being fired aboard your ship." said Harrier in a voice like something from the grave. He put his hands on the wall, feeling the discharges from deep aboard the vessel, and looked accusingly at the Marines. "Listen to me, men, as you have never listened in your life. I came aboard your ship in order to defeat the power of the Terminus, and I intend to do just that. If you are under siege, I will stand by you in your defense, but what matters is that the Terminus will be defeated today." He looked from one to the other, his body tense as he waited for their response. "What do you say?"

Harrier did his best to be unflappable as the alarms went off and the guards tensed, shrugging and keeping his hands held high. Wave-Eye? I hope all is well with him. And what is this talk of lethal force? I thought the militaries here were more mindful even of the blood of the guilty. "That sounds bad. Perhaps you should go deal with it. I can wait here," he offered, staying mindful of their weapons all the while. "Or you can leave me with your leader and we can finally have that conversation." He was expecting violent resistance any moment, but still hoped to avoid bloodshed. "You seem to be the more efficient parts of your security detachment."

"It's all dead down there electronically," said Citizen, trying and failing to have another secret conversation with his duplicate. It wasn't hard for him to tell his double was on the edge; from the way they were reacting around him, he wasn't sure Soldat's teammates even understood he was sentient. "I can't track it. But if the tunnels are as deep as Koshiro and I read, it's not going to be able to get out any time soon. We'll just have to keep looking. Can you all see in the darkness?" he carefully asked the other team. Soldat didn't so much as flinch when he got the summons from Agent Watanabe. "I will follow you downstairs in a moment, sirs," he said with a nod, "I have a call for assistance." He cranked up his emitter; a black cube about the size of a fist, and floated in the direction of Agent Watanabe's signal. When he emerged through the wall where the Koshiros were standing, the crew-cut teenager looked down respectfully. "I believe the Lieutenant is organizing an expedition after the dimensional creature, sirs. How may I be of assistance?" It was dark downstairs, very dark, but Warren could make out the ancient tunnels lined with fungus-overgrown bricks, as well as the tracks on the slick stone floor that suggested where the dog had gone. He could hear it breathing, deep down there in the darkness past narrow curves and blind alleys, down into the heart of the old bootlegging tunnels, echoing oddly off the ancient stonework. This wasn't going to be easy, but Rift could probably find it.

"We can't just leave this monster here!" called Edge to the others, nodding in satisfaction as Wraith efficiently disposed of the enemy spellcaster. When Wander was back on her feet, he relaxed briefly and went on, "Hit it hard and fast, and we can knock it back to the dimension from where it came!" He concentrated as he spoke, the sky over their heads beginning to darken as clean, powerful magic scorched the clouds. "Let's show the Terminus how to take out the trash! Young Freedom; friends to the end! We can do this! Take out the monster and then we go home!" he called, his voice ringing out to all the worlds of the Terminus. "And then we-hey, look, the cavalry!" Descending through the clouds, he could just make out four figures on Wyldriders: the space bikers of the Terminus were arriving just in time! "Hey, you want to give the Dethroners and their friends a ride!?" he called as they got closer. "Just let us take care of this one hideous monster for you!" he went on, the sky darkening even further as he spoke, storm clouds casting an eerie haze beneath the red sky.

Round 4: Edge: Seized Initiative, 0 HP, bruised Sage: 32, 4 HP, bruised Custos: 30, Wander: 25, 3 HP, slowed Cobalt Templar, 19, 4 HP Midnight: 19, 5 HP Hellstorm: 15, unconscious Changeling: 15, 2 HP, bruised Nightmare Doom: 14, unconscious Thing From Beyond: 13, bruised, dazed, staggered Wraith: 11, 3 HP Omnibeast: 11, unconscious Razorwhip: 11, unconscious Madrigal: 10, unconscious Edge powerstunts: Blast 18 (lightning strike; Extra: Autofire [10], Flaw: Distracting) [28/45] He then holds his action and waits until the last person to go, goes. Sage is up.

vs 25: 12 Staggered again, and thus unconscious!

I'll say, thanks to that Bluff check + being staggered, the monster can take no actions next round. Wraith is up! The monster is dazed, bruised, and staggered; Nightmare Doom is bruised and staggered.

As Wander fell, the battered monster staggered as it was hit from all sides, snapping great and blasphemous tentacle-jaws at everyone as it tried to find purchase in a world as alien to it as its own might have been to the assembled heroes! In better times, they might have been able to calm its rage, but not now when they themselves were facing so many terrible enemies! The great monster gave a howl that seemed to come from every orifice at once, and lunged finally after Changeling, toppling off-balance as it struck and missed the agile sword-wielding heroine. Thrashing in the sand with mighty limbs and warped tentacles all at once, tangled together and writhing around, it tried to pull itself back to its feet.

Wander will be slowed for the next round. The effect of the blast will feel as follows: Mechanically Fort-saved Paralyze, even with a Linked Damage effect, would only do that if you rolled very badly but that's how it'll feel!

All right, this is a straight-up plot device (since this should be coming up on the last round of combat): Take an HP for the Fiat, Wander! That hits Wander, thanks to her declared Interpose. Go ahead and give me a DC 20 Fortitude save, Electra.

"Not...not finished yet..." said Nightmare Doom, bloody but unbowed as she pulled herself to her feet amid the unconscious bodies of her friends and allies. "Chaos has only begun to fight." She laughed, a terrible laugh as clouds of black and red energy began swarming around her hands like angry bees, a poisonous, killing magic that was disgusting even to look at. "The unspeakable power of my old master will stop you dead, Cobalt Templar." She fired the deadly blast at the all-too-vulnerable Corbin. "DIE FOR OMEGA! AND DIE FOR THE ONE WHOSE NAME YOU MAY NOT SPEAK!"

Another flier went for Victory, fast, coming out of the sun as his fist smashed into Victory's armored torso faster than most men's eyes could even have processed. "Dirty cybernetic freak!" he spat at the patriotic cyborg. "You're nothing but an abomination of steel and flesh! We'll take the skies from you, just like the Maker will take all the world from your technological horrorshow!" He didn't seem concerned at the fate of his comrade, but the other flier who'd attacked Victory was: he 'turned on a dime' in the middle of the sky and zoomed out across the Atlantic faster than a man could blink. Down below, disguised as the armored knight Caradoc, Harrier surveyed the scene: the three fliers had pushed over a radar tower onto a nearby hanger, injuries luckily were minor as the unmanned tower had hit the nearly empty hangar. Without a word save introduction, he joined in digging through the rubble to look for any further casualties, the sailors on the scene taking the arrival of another hero as a good sign.

Flier C makes a go for Victory 25 DC 25 Tou save there, buddy. Meanwhile, Harrier spends a round helping with rescues, and earns an HP in the process! Meanwhile, Flier A retreats at Flight 12! Have an HP yourself, JP

There's no way he can make that check, so yeah, he is tricked! He'll actually do the tripping on his action, since he can't move when it's not his turn. Go ahead and post IC, Roo.

Harrier came quietly, not bothering to correct the staff sergeant about questions of age. He kept his eyes open as they went, trying to suss out the technological sophistication of the aircraft carrier and compare it to what he knew of Earth-Prime technology. He'd have to retrieve his pike from them before he left; it wouldn't work for anyone without his implanted circuitry, but he could easily imagine ways they might have obtained that. From a destroyed drone, no doubt. Somehow that thought was...depressing, for all that he favored the destruction of drones in any way possible, and protection against the Terminus, but so far these people were going about it all the wrong way.

That drops the Madrigal; leaving the giant monster as the only enemy still visible on the field. Changeling is up. You may post now, Aoiroo.