Avenger Assembled

The handsome Socotran sneered at Trevor, a look that evidently was cultivated by certain members of the Socotran aristocracy. "She is a beautiful woman, and I am a beautiful man," he hissed with the mix of Indian and Arabian-flavored Received Pronunciation that was the standard Socotran accent. "I can see that you are not familiar with either, Mr. Hunter." That was evidently a little much, or at least enough to get people sitting at the table looking their way. Meaghan laid a firm hand on her partner's and gave him a look that wasn't entirely disapproving, but still communicated a sharp Enough. Only Erin and Trevor, it seemed, had been paying enough attention to see the way the Socotran man had flinched at his words; evidently he'd understood him only too well. -------- "The Black Ring of Set?" For his part, Mark had recognized the ring on the mysterious Nepthys' hand right away, even if he hadn't noticed anything suspicious about the woman herself. He and Nina spoke in sotto voice in their seat at the end of the royal table, Mark distracting Nina from what was evidently a major source of frustration. So far away from her elder brother, who was speaking in sonorous tones about the beauty of his would-be bride, Nina al-Darsah looked ready to leap from her seat and demand answers from Morakot. "Didn't your father take that from Set when they had that falling-out?" "My father won that from Set in fair combat," Nina hissed at him, turning her anger on her boyfriend and incidentally thus _not_ causing an incident. "It was a fair struggle between the old god of sorcery and the new god of science, as you should-" "Be that as it may," whispered Mark, giving Nina a reassuring look, "we need to figure out why your brother would just give away an artifact that's so important to your father. He must think his wife-to-be will be worth Typhoon's anger." He reached over and squeezed Nina's hand. "You try and get a dance with your brother so the two of you can talk in private. I'll do the same for the bride." "...well, all right," said Nina reluctantly, relaxing a little now that Mark had changed the subject. "But she'd better not fall in love with you. I know how it is with you and I would hate to have to drown her." She winked at Mark, and they both returned their attention to the stage as the prince took his seat and Daisy Gibbons took his place. "Ancient Socotran custom puts eating at the end of a great social occasion rather than the middle, the better that the work of the cooks may be truly enjoyed by all." She winked at the crowd and added, "So, would all you couples out there please take your place on the dance floor so that we may begin? The prince has asked me to begin with his favorite love song..." As it turned out, as Nina and Mark among others went out on the ironwood dance floor, it turned out his favorite was Unchained Melody.

You don't have to roll, Roo; the minute Changeling uses her powers against the force field, it shuts down. Her Notice and Arcane Lore are high enough for this to make her suspicious; this was less like bringing down someone's spell and more like they flipped the switch off at her approach.

"I generally rise with the dawn, even when I have been up late the night before." His mouth worked in a faint smile as he sat down next to Gina to eat his share of their breakfast. He was careful to sit next to her rather than across from her; they were close that way, but could talk without him staring at her or her doing her best to avoid his eyes. Steve didn't need to shave or comb his hair, and indeed looked nearly as fresh as when the evening had begun. "Truthfully," he confessed, "I suppose even after all these years of living on Earth, a sun in the sky is alien enough to wake me." He balled his hand into a fist and rested his hand on it for a moment, trying not to think of red skies at night and day as well. "My sleep is rarely pleasant, but it was sound. I am glad I did not wake you. I will often be...unsettled in the night. Especially after a day like yesterday, with so many memories close to the surface." He ate with gusto of his own cooking, fighting the occasional urge to save part of it for later. "It was very...pleasant to awaken to your face."

"It's called the Quantum Bauble," offered Sharl, peering with some confusion at the label. "A souvenir Rick Lucas brought back from another dimension, which is evidently an artifact of unknown origin that manifests itself as something different for every observer, this effect is not an illusion but is actually...oh, c'mon." Sharl glanced around at the museum all around them, seeing no one looking too closely in the direction of the curious teenagers, and shoved his hand right through the glass case! He ran holographic fingers through the artifact expectantly and sighed, withdrawing them a moment later. "And it feels exactly like it looks. Well, that's pretty undramatic." Unconsciously, he flexed his fingers. "Weird, though. Why would it show me a fake holosculpture?"

Citizen's chest emblem seemed to glow just a little brighter around Miss Americana. "We're ready, Miss A," he told his mentor brightly. "I've heard Claremont sometimes has science fairs, you should ask Ms. Harcourt if she's going to run one this year or next," offered Sharl to his fellow student. "I'm not as smart as one of our real gadgeteer students, but I think I could come up with something good if the chance was there." For Miss A's benefit, and to prove he'd been paying attention to his lessons, he added, "I've emailed the school so they know we're on schedule and will be arriving shortly, and I've made sure to read over info on the school online so I'll have something to say to the students. I know Keith LaMarr will be there as part of the faculty. That's the hero Wail," he added for Glow's benefit. He was obviously very comfortable in Miss A's lab, studying her work with some interest as they talked. "You know, if we have time, Glow might appreciate a ride in the gravcar, and so would the kids in Lincoln, I bet. They don't get to see a lot of flying cars." he instant-messaged Miss A, "" --------------------------- Up close, Keith could see that while age had caught up with Peter as it had for most men, good luck, or maybe time spent around superpeople, had kept him from the typical tremors or other problems associated with men who'd spent their lives getting punched in the face (or having their eardrums blown out, as the case may be) by superheroes. He was old, but his back was straight for all that. "LaMarr." He'd tried to avoid a meeting, but didn't flinch from this one now that he had it. "Can't say as I'm glad to see most people from the old days. But I'm glad it's you." He offered a weather-beaten hand. "My grandbaby tells me you're the only thing keeping the old days alive for most of these children." "Graaamps," said Patrick in what was the affectionate exasperation of many a teenage boy for a beloved authority figure, peering up from his work through his glasses. "I said Mr. LaMarr was the only teacher who ever made civics and history and stuff sound interesting." Like a lot of smart kids, Patrick didn't mesh terribly well with most of his classmates: luckily with his grades and prospects, he had a good ticket at getting an education after his high school career. "If I have to take that stuff, it might as well sound like it's about me, not just about some old white men in a textbook."

Sharl repressed the urge to flinch, reminding himself that this was all theater. "That seems tasteless," he muttered to Miss Americana. "Even if the people here don't think that was some sort of religious event or psionic impression come to life, you would think the idea of an artificial intelligence gaining sentience would be too important to use for musical self-promotion. Whether for or against." His earlier interest in the unusual musical stylings of this group was beginning to waver, but he still craned his neck over the crowd to try and get a better view. "Surely the man's family would object to him being used as a marketing tool."

The next morning, thanks to his cybernetically enhanced physique, Steve was up well before Gina. Disentangling himself from the bed was no easy task given how much the slightest movement of his body made the bed squeak and rock, but he was a very patient man and in better spirits than when he'd come there the night before. And it had been the night, he realized when he caught a glimpse of Gina's softly-glowing, unset alarm clock; he'd slept the entire night at his girlfriend's place for the first time since the beginning of their relationship. Heavy metal implants beneath his skin didn't make him terribly stealthy, but he was able to make his way out of the bedroom and into Gina's high-tech kitchen. He was familiar with the kitchen at least, and by aid of the morning light streaming in through the window was soon cooking Gina up a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, the sort he ate himself when the money was there for it. It was all very domestic; the sort of scene he mostly saw in movies and on television rather than in his own life. His own life had been very different, very different indeed. I'm a superhero now, he reminded himself, or tried to, anyway, his mind wandering from his cooking efforts as he tried to stave off an all-too-power surge of guilt. "I wonder if Gina would be open to creating a superteam which bears Miss Americana's name..." he said aloud, all the while trying to stifle the bubbling echoes of ghosts who jeered at him for a callous monster. He tried to drown them out with his own thoughts, his only weapons in the wars inside his mind. The past cannot be changed. The dead cannot be brought back to life. The past cannot be changed. The dead cannot be brought back to life. To dwell in eternal suffering is to dwell in the Terminus. To dwell in eternal suffering is to dwell in the Terminus. I am a free man. I am a free man.

"What? No." Having walked over to get away from all the dead robots looking at him, Sharl all but pressed his nose against the glass, leaving no smudge and no breath misting behind. "Unless," he added diplomatically with a glance over at Kimber, "that's some kind of Lor grave you've encountered?" Not every Lor planet was as civ...had a culture like his own, some still made use of grave markers like this. "It's definitely from off-Earth, I've never seen human sculpture like that. Rick Lucas did travel extensively into near-galactic space..." Hmming, he looked around for a label, reminding himself that it was unlikely to be holographic here the way it would be at home.

Steve eyed the bed with some concern for a moment; would it support his weight? At six hundred pounds, he was within the realm of human body mass, but his relatively compact size meant he had damaged furniture before. Breaking Gina's private sanctum would ruin the moment! Tentatively, he sat on the bed with great care as Gina closed her eyes and took deep breaths, and though the springs squeaked it and he stayed intact. He was intimately aware that he was in a very personal place of Gina's, the emotionally intimate moment far, far removed from the terrible events earlier in the day. How is it that I have come so far? All unspoken earlier had been the hard nubbin of thought that Gina deserved better than him; that his warped body and blood-soaked past meant he deserved nothing from her or any other human being. But here they were, past another barrier together. He patiently said nothing, his eyes on the wall and his hands on his lap, as he waited for Gina to recover or not. I still know nothing of what brought her to this. But she has come so far as well. It is enough. It will have to be, for now.

Sharl had started briefly at what looked for all the world like a version of his own programming up there on the stage, luckily having rested his cargo on a nearby concrete barrier before doing so. "Oh, okay. Wow, that's convincing!" Sharl wasn't easily impressed by Earthly technology that didn't come from Miss A or another super-scientist, but he was impressed at how such a low-tech illusion could look so real. Craning his neck, careful to keep his feet on the ground, he said, "Yeah, people can be pretty jumpy about that sort of thing. In most places," he hazarded, "they'd just think it was a special effect, but in Freedom City it could be anything." He couldn't help but smirk a little. "Heh, can't wait to see what Kimber thinks about this."

Electra and I are off to spend a week at my folks' place. We'll be online, just irregularly.

"Thank you, Gina. There are those who don't see the Omegadrone, but few enough who see the man. And as for Miss Americana, she's not real. You are." He squeezed her hand gently, mindful as ever of cybernetic strength against human, and looked at her. "When I look at Miss Americana, I see Gina Evans behind her, and I know who the real hero is. And the real woman." He leaned in and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "And I like what I see. I may not be pleasant company, but I would like to stay the night tonight. I would rather not be alone."

"With their loss, and the loss of...another I cared for, I decided that I should be more than just another survivor in the Ghetto. I tried to organize among the proles, with the idea that we had common enemies enough we should be working together as allies. I was eighteen when the drones came for me. Steelgrave himself had been watching me for this day. And then I was taken to the doomforges and broken there, and...you know how that story ends." He fell silent again, staring off at the far wall without blinking for several moments before he seemed to finally hear Gina. When he spoke, his hands shook slightly. "I am not so foolish as to think I can make amends for what has happened in my life. But I could help make that little girl happy, and save all those people, and do good in this shining paradise. And that...that is enough. It will have to be." He turned to look at her. "You are the first I have been able to talk to like this. I always could, even when we were speaking through her."

Citizen: auto 25 on Computers for Online Research checks (he currently has his Datalink active of his Tronik array) auto 20 on Notice 24 on Pop Culture, 11 on Technology

19 on Pop Culture 19 on Technology

Knowledge (History): Both of you: The Black Ring of Set was taken from the titular god in what Typhoon has presented to the West as a mighty conflict between himself and the god of all darkness. (Western heroes remember a wounded Set being backstabbed and left for dead by a younger Typhoon during a failed attempt to seize the Aswan Dam back in the 1960s). It has great power: Because Wander got a natural 20, she also remembers that the ring is a powerful tool for shapeshifters like Set and other serpentine creatures, allowing them to magnify their own shapeshifting abilities a hundred fold. Notice: (The DC is high here because of the distance) Trevor notices, just as she sits down, that the bride-to-be's eyes flick open and shut with nicitating membranes just like Meaghan's buddy over there. Did I mention Meaghan and that guy are sitting right across from Erin and Trevor? (Because they are.)

"No, I think they believed that Steelgrave would kill them," replied Steve frankly. "Or end the way they had lived in some other way. He had forbidden them to have a child, you see, all those centuries ago. Their lost world was complete within him, he said, and they existed only as reflections of his glory. To produce a child was proof that there was something they loved more than they loved him. They told me only that after uncounted centuries, they had simply grown tired of obeying. That they would choose to die alive rather than to live as the dead. But they lived, and so did I. They were cast out, and I was born in the Black Ghetto some months later." He sat down again, putting his cold hand on hers. "The streets of Nihilor were far to fall for ones who had once stood by Steelgrave's side. The survivors of a thousand dead worlds, cast together in the darkness below, some gone mad and become as bad as the monsters above, some worshippers of the grim god of death who had destroyed their world and all they loved, all hunted by Omegadrones, Terminus dragons, and a thousand other monsters. Such was my childhood." He fell silent for a moment, then admitted, "I was lucky. My parents taught me to read, and about the worlds that had once been, and that Omega was a monster, not a god. And they finally died there, as all do. My mother of disease, my father in a fight over food. I was fifteen when I was alone."

Gimmie a history check, folks. I'll even put Mark at -1 HP so Erin can do it too! (with a +4 modifier)

"They paid the price for their deeds, make no mistake. There was a rebellion some time afterwards, once it became clear to those that had survived that their suffering was not over. That if they wanted to live, they would have to help in the destruction of others. Heroes, criminals, all who might have stood against Steelgrave rose together against him one night. My parents...were afraid." Steve closed his eyes again and said, "So they hid in their room in Steelgrave's palace as battle raged around them. And when it was done, and all the others were dead, sent to the doomforges, or dying in the games, Steelgrave gave them the same life-extension drugs that Annihilists use, so that they could stay by his side and praise his name as they had done for so long in the old world. And so they did, through world after world and year after year, watching as all the worlds like their own died, forced to praise all they saw to all in Nihilor in order to prolong their own lives. They kept track of the years at first; a year, two, ten, a century...and then finally, numberless." The look of pain in his eyes was deep as they turned on Gina again, the memory of someone else's pain still sharp after all these years. "And then, one day, after all that, my parents decided to have a child."

That doesn't break his Impervious 15. New round; Crimson Tiger is up. For now, I'll say you get another Fort save (at +1) vs. the Nauseate effect. The snare is currently at TOU +14, and I'll say that makes the Escape Artist DC to get out 24. Changeling also can make that Fort save vs. her sickened condition!

Edge hmmed at that. From all he'd heard, he could certainly understand why someone would be angry at Dr. Archeville. But no hero would send a fire-breathing dragon to kill somebody, even one who turns out to be not that bad like Fafnir. "Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I never really put a lot of thought into the mechanics of making monsters to try and hunt down your enemies. All right, well, whoever it is that's behind this, we'd better get there sooner rather than later. Every minute we're here is another minute they could be destroying evidence...or breeding more dragons! I doubt Fafnir would have stopped with just us, and he was focused as it was..." Just then, the Screwdriver beeped as it finally homed it on the teleport signal that had brought Fafir there and displaced the rock in the process: it was a powerful beam, but it hadn't traveled far: the origin point had been about twenty miles away, in a site Doc recognized that was supposed to be underneath the old municipal waste treatment plant of the nearby Dunkelstadt, a deserted place where no one would have gone if they could help it.

I need Notice checks. You both need to actually roll it.

"That's rough, Trevor," said Mark quietly, giving his friend a sympathetic look. He knew that the last thing Trevor would want is him to dwell on past pains, but he couldn't let his friend's problems go unremarked. "I'll keep an eye out. Weird that there's someone with that kind of mutation associated with Socotra; Nina's mentioned her father is very watchful about Deep Ones and the like, and he excludes people who don't meet his standards of beauty." He was about to say more, but someone was taking the stage alongside the musicians! Daisy Gibbons was resplendent in a green and gold Socotran dress-and-pants, her voice musical as she raised it perfectly pitched above the crowd. "Can I have your attention, please?" she asked pleasantly. "It's time for the guests of honor to arrive, so please take your seats!" She certainly looked much of a muchness from her days as a teen pop star, those fifteen minutes having ended not long ago. At her words, almost everyone in the room got moving; Trevor caught sight of Meaghan glancing his way, but there was no time for banter across the room at this very public moment: Nina and Mark were separated from the others to sit at the elaborate royal table, a massive circular table cut entirely out of a single dragon's blood tree, but Mark promised to keep an eye out as Trevor and Erin were seated at a table reserved for the leading heirs of prominent Freedom City businessmen who just might invest in Socotra if suitably persuaded. They had company there too. And then the room's overhead lights darkened, and a spot came up aimed at the big double doors on the far wall. Daisy's sultry voice took up the chant: "Presenting! The Prince of Tides! The Lord of Tsumani! The Son of the Storm and Cousin of Neptune: PRINCE MORAKOT AL-DARSAH! And with him for the very first time, making her public debut, Nephthys al-Arima, bearer of the Black Ring of Set!" Prince Morakot looked pressed for the occasion in his Western-style suit and tie, his eyes for once clear and his steps sure, his mustache impeccably groomed as he stepped out of the elevator, holding hands with a regal-looking young woman a solid decade his junior, whose dark skin and short black hair suggested a Middle-Eastern upbringing similar to his own. Sure enough, on one finger the clearly recognizable Black Ring of Set, familiar to Claremont students and Mark's friends from stories of the 1960s, was visible as she and her husband-to-be made their way to the royal table.

"I was, beneath the grim towers of the Annihilists. But my parents were not." Steve closed his eyes, as if seeing a long-gone world he had only imagined in his mind. "When my parents came of age, their world was torn apart by a bitter civil war between its superhumans. The mighty Heroic Assembly, the guardians of that place, had fallen out into bloodshed and carnage, and the human population suffered. They went to work for a hero called Steelguard, an armored champion of justice, as his speechwriters and his propaganda ministers." He took a breath, let it out, and focused on her. "They found he was not the man they had believed. He had...cheated to help bring about the war, he had provoked it, in fact, so that all the world's heroes would answer to him. But he promised peace and order, as well as prosperity for his followers, and that was very attractive. So they stood by his side and praised his name as he broke the heroes of the world and made them his pawns, and were with him the day that the Terminus starships appeared in the sky. Steelguard went to meet Omega. Steelgrave returned. He gave them a choice between death and joining him and his allies in the Terminus as vassals of Omega. And so...they chose to live. And their world burned."

With Nick's Arcane Lore, he can recognize without a roll that this looks very much like Malador's mask! It's clearly not the same, cut with a much more Dagonite/Deep One look, but it's quite similar, perhaps made by the same ancient craftsman many years ago...