Avenger Assembled

As they talked, Edge gradually swept the cockroaches together into a single large mass, one that he gradually surrounded with quick-setting emergency concrete. It looked crude, especially given the high-tech setting, but it seemed likely to be effective for the moment. "I dunno, it's weird that he's not disappearing back to his home reality. Maybe the Clockwatcher was right about them getting a different kind of time travel down in the future." He looked at the others as the concrete dome went up. "When he wakes up, you want a crack at him, maybe, Midnight?" Trevor was the best out of all of them of getting bad guys to spill their guts. Ew, I didn't need that mental picture. "The people in the Legion said there might be a traitor in their ranks," he added, confirming Cannonade's speculations. "I think we should try to handle this one on our own." He wasn't sure how they'd get back from the 26th century in that case, but they'd solve that problem as they went.

People's Guardian PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 24 pp STR 40/24/14 (+15/+7/+2) DEX 10 (+0) CON 30/22/12 (+10/+6/+1) INT 30 (+10) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+7 melee) (+4 w/Growth, +5 melee) DEF: +7 (+3 flat-footed) (+5 w/Growth [+2 flat-footed]) Init: +0 Grapple: +9/+16/+35 Saves: 12 pp TOU +15/+11/+2 (+10 Con, +5 Protection) (+6 Con, +5 Protection) (+2 Con) FORT +12/+8/+2 (+10 Con, +2) (+6 Con, +2) (+2) REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Concentration 8 (+10) Computers 5 (+10, Skill Mastery) Craft [Electronic] 10 (+20, Skill Mastery) Craft [Mechanical] 10 (+20, Skill Mastery) Knowledge [Technology] 10 (+20, Skill Mastery) Languages 3 (English, German, Russian; Base [Polish]) Medicine 3 (+5) Notice 3 (+5) Perform (violin) 5 (+7) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Feats: 12 pp Attack Focus: Melee Beginner's Luck Dodge Focus Eidetic Memory Inventor Jack of all Trades Master Plan Second Chance (Concentration checks to maintain powers) Skill Mastery (Computers, Craft [electronic], Craft [mechanical], Knowledge [Technology]) Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (TOU) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 63 pp Device 15 (Size-Changing Gear; Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [iNT 24+]) [61 pp] Enhanced CON 10 (to 30/+10) [10dp] Enhanced STR 10 (to 40/+15) [10dp] Growth 8 (Extra: Duration [sustained] (+0) )(Huge size) [24dp] (-2 ATK/DEF, +8 Grapple, -8 Stealth, +4 Intimidate, 16 ft tall, 4K-32K lbs, 15 ft space, 10 ft reach, x2 carrying capacity) Impervious TOU 10 [10dp] Protection 5 [5dp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1dp] Super-Strength 7 (Heavy Load: 720 tons) (PF: Groundstrike) [15dp] Quickness 4 (x25) (Flaw: Mental Tasks Only) [2 pp] costs abilities 24 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 15/60 + feats 12 + powers 63 = 150 pts ---------------- Design Notes: Osman Bobrański grew up in Gdank, a Polish industrial city, where it soon became apparent he was a prodigy. He played chess with all his teachers simultaneously in grade school, spoke three languages before he was 6, and had his first college degree at the age of 16. He's a trained classical violinist (though he's let his skills get a little rusty there in recent years) who secretly listens to bootleg 8-track tapes of the American Ronnie James Dio. He was working on his sixth Ph.D when he made his greatest discovery; the intrinstic field modulator that lets him change the size of any organic object he desires! He'd built the machine for agricultural and industrial purposes, but the KGB (who'd been watching this young genius for quite some time) swept in and made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He's not thrilled about being a propaganda tool for the Soviets, but he _is_ thrilled about the fully-equipped research lab and complete freedom to study and build they afford him. His great secret from his fellows is that Osman believes some dangerous things: his father and brothers are all members of Solidarity, the illegal trade union that is the center of Polish resistance to Soviet rule, and Osman himself is a devout Catholic. He's managed to use his position to protect his family (he also like East Berlin because it's easy to go home and visit them), but he's not stupid. The Soviets give him a long leash as long as he does what they want, but if he goes too far, his family and everyone back home he loves will suffer. His biggest worry is actually about his teammate Crimson Tarantula; she's a KGB killer, sure, but she's not the only one like that on his team. There is something _wrong_ with her, something that deeply unsettles the People's Guardian. If he finds out he's been teaming up with a vampire, his reaction is one of the few things he couldn't predict. OK, so Osman is basically your standard Black Goliath-type: he's big and he's strong thanks to his tech. In something of a role reversal for size-changing guys (who usually take third string behind battlesuits and gadgeteers), I made him very, very smart, with +10 to all his Knowledges thanks to his feats, Osman should know something about almost anything. He's not a very good fighter, but his size and his strength mean he can still be effective if he is forced into confrontations. His inventions will all be pretty powerful. He's big enough to function OK in military and urban settings, since he is a hero in East Berlin and all. Outside of his native setting, this could work fine as a heroic build, or as a genius goon who's made himself huge as a way of getting back at all those who have stood in his way!

Steel Eagle Abilities: 20 pp STR 24/14 (+7/+2) DEX 24/14 (+7/+2) CON 24/14 (+7/+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+8 melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +15 Saves: 12 pp TOU +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +10 (+7 Con, +3) REF +10 (+7 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Acrobatics 8 (+15, Skill Mastery) Craft (Mechanical) 5 (+5) Diplomacy 8 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 5 (+5) Notice 8 (+10, Skill Mastery) Languages 2 (English, Russian: Base [German]) Pilot 8 (+10/+15) Sense Motive 8 (+10, Skill Mastery) Stealth 4 (+11, Skill Mastery) Feats: 17 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee (2) Dodge Focus (4) Evasion 2 Improved Initiative Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Notice, Sense Motive, Stealth) Takedown Attack (2) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 63 pp Device 5 (25dp, Steel Eagle's Sword) (Easy to Lose) (PF: Restricted [+24 Dex]) [16 pp] Sword Array 12 (24 pp, PF: Alternate Powers 1) [25dp] Strike 5 (Extras: Autofire [10], Penetrating 4 [DMG 16], PFs: Improved Crit 2, Mighty, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [electrical/metal]) {24/24} AP: Stun 12 {24} Device 4 (Steel Eagle Armor) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [+24 CON]) [17 pp] Immunity 2 (environmental cold, suffocation [altitude]) [2dp] Flight 6 (500 MPH) [12dp] Protection 3 [3dp] Super-Senses 1 (Radio) [1dp] Enhanced CON 10 (to CON 24/+7) [10 pp] Enhanced DEX 10 (to DEX 24/+7) [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 (to STR 24/+7) [10 pp] costs abilities 20 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 14/56 + feats 17 + powers 63 = 150 pts --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Design Notes: Here's Steel Eagle, West Germany's patriotic hero in the Wargames setting. When NATO decided West Germany needed a patriotic hero to inspire the populace as the Cold War heated up in the early 1980s, they were left with a pretty serious problem: a lot of the historic symbols of German nationalism are controversial in Germany itself (not to mention the outside world!), particularly with the rise of the anti-nuclear movement in the 1980s. So Steel Eagle was built with a theme like the eagle coat of arms of medieval Germany, combined with a heroic knight in shining armor motif to play to a more innocent era in German history. He's still a controversial figure with a lot of people in his native country, but Steel Eagle is proud to be the hero his country hasn't had in a long time. Rather than just make him yet another battlesuit (there are a lot of those in Wargames, since after all everyone is a government employee), I went with making him a Hawkman/Captain America merger: his super-soldier-serum enhanced physiology lets him fly around in his super-speed armor, which makes him fast as a jet, as well as wield a powerful electrical sword that can cut through anything or deliver stunning blows to more formidable targets. He doesn't have the Charisma of your typical patriotic hero yet, but he's working on it as more of the German populace comes to respect him for the man he is: he frequently patrols the Wall looking to help people escape to the West, and clashes with Nazis and Communists whenever he can. Steel Eagle works fine as a native German hero now; Germany's had a lot of time to get over reintegration, but open symbols of nationalism are still pretty controversial over there. Or maybe he's not a patriotic hero at all, just a battlesuit maker (or inheritor) with an interest in medieval German iconography. If he built the suit, he needs higher INT and technical skills, and maybe fewer combat feats. You could also drop the connection to human history altogether; maybe he's an Avian from Greenland who has compensated for an injury by building his own set of metal wings and lightning claws?

Edge spends an HP to force Host 2 to reroll and take the worst of two rolls.

Edge led them through the camp, mostly quiet this late at night, to the body tent, where through a translator he introduced Nick to Paolo Salazar, the local doctor who'd been part of the initial expedition. As it turned out, UNISON's best efforts hadn't been very successful: Nick was confronted not with a legion of skeletons but with a great, if carefully sorted, pile of bones. "The grave turned up underneath a bulldozer," said the doctor, his eyes focused on his work as he went. "By the time they were found, it was too late to do anything but get them out so they could not be crushed! We have been sorting them, but as you can see..." He gestured to row after row of bones and teeth, laid out neatly enough but with little organization. "There are so many!" These were old bones, Nick could tell right away, decades at least, but the necromantic magic left on them at death was powerful enough to hint even at the edge of the tent.

Erin's redheaded contact had stayed close to the two women, though she'd divested herself of her outfit too, evidently milking her position as spokeswoman for all she was worth. It wasn't hard to guess that she'd had plenty of chances to see what happened to people who her superiors lost interest in. "Oh, well, ah, the nanites work by, you know, rapidly reconfiguring the base components of the body and the brain into Omegadrone replacement parts. There are actually only a few hundred worker units needed; Most of the chemical bath you see there is to add the Terminus steel and other materials not present in the human body naturally." She twirled her fingers together nervously and stumbled on, "It's much more humane, you know, much faster than the old way..." Across the way, Harrier and the others had returned with the remains they'd be disguising, and Harrier had put them to work arranging the signs that would fool whoever came to view the site later. He didn't strike a blow, hardly said a word, but when he approached the techs frantically went about their work in sheer terror of what he represented.

Edge is going to use his Perception Range Move Object 15 to grab Host 4 and slam it into Host 1 as a full round action. 42Grapple check to hit That should be a DC 33 save for both of them.

Harrier stalked among the technicians as they undressed like an all-too-real phantom from the recent past, his pike crackling with energy, the looks of utter terror that they shot him when he lingered too closely enough to make Steve's cybernetic guts churn. He hated that look of fear in people's eyes; he knew he deserved it, it was no more than his due, but that didn't mean he didn't feel that awful sense of alienation. But now as he stood among these people, these doomforge technicians who looked so like the ones that had-he paced away from the group until he thought he could control himself again, standing by the machines as a sinister sentinel. Wander didn't much have the chance to be a good cop, but with Harrier there, it was easy enough with these people around. "There's, uh, a cache in the square over there," said the redhead to Wander, pointing with shaking hands towards a dug-out portion of the scorched earth nearby between what had once been buildings. "What the dragons left, what they didn't want, but it's there and they look burned..." She swallowed hard as the implications of that set in. "We will collect them," said Harrier, making a decision as he wheeled on the technicians, pike in hand. "Go!" And so it was that Dragonfly teleported into the middle of what had recently been an abattoir; Harrier encouraging a group of two dozen terrified people in their underwear towards a great earthen mound from which grim reminders of slaughter poked out, Wander intimidating one particular redheaded technician, and all around her the high-tech machinery of the Terminus, magnificent machines of horror that glowed and crackled with entropic power, and deep pools of silvery metal that might have looked worth investigating without Green Screen's story.

Kaiju (NPC) PL: 13 (195) Abilities: 6 pp STR 50 [10] (+20) DEX 20 (+5) CON 34 [14] (+12/+2) INT 2 (-4) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 6 (-3) Combat: 48 pp ATK: {12} [+0 vs. medium, +6 unarmed vs. medium] DEF: {12} [+6 vs. medium, +0 flat-footed] Init: +5 Grapple: +42 vs medium Saves: 12 pp TOU +20 (+12 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +15 (+12 Con, +3) REF +10 (+5 Dex, +5) WILL +6 (+2 Wis. +4) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Intimidate 13 (+10/+20) Notice 5 (+7) Search 5 (+1) Survival 10 (+12) Swimming 7 (+7) Feats: 14 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3 Challenge (Fast Startle), Dodge Focus 6, Environmental Adaptation (Aquatic), Move-By Action, Startle, Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 109 pp Growth 20 (Extra: Duration [Permanent] (+0)) (PF: Innate) [61 pp] Immunity 14 (aging, environmental cold, high pressure, mental effects, suffocation [underwater]) [14 pp] Protection 8 (Extra: Impervious) [16 pp] Super-Senses 9 (Acute Accurate Tracking 3 [full-speed] Olfactory, Darkvision, Ultrahearing) [9 pp] Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 800 tons) [4 pp] Swimming 5 (50 MPH) [5 pp] Drawback: -4 pp Mute (-4 pp) costs abilities 6 + combat 48 + saves 12 + skills 10/40 + feats 14 + powers 109 -drawbacks 4 = 195 pts ---------------------- Design Notes: Here's a quick and dirty riff on your standard kaiju, based heavily on Kreuzritter's Cloverfield monster over at the Atomic Think Tank; a hundred foot tall monster ready to stop all over the PCs. (He's basically a somewhat more reasonable Gigantosaur). He's your standard aquatic behemoth, up from the depths to get up to no good. Maybe a giant Deep One? Switch up powers for Additional Limbs and some more combat feats for a giant gorilla up to some business; add a radioactive breath for your walking Hiroshima allegories. He's incredibly tough and faster than he looks; remember when Zilla dodged all those missiles? Yeah, you know you do. He'd be a tough enemy to fight, his +7/-7 tradeoffs in favor of attack and defense making him hard to take out with just conventional firepower, but he's dumb, and has lots of weaknesses a canny PC or group can take advantage of. You can lure him back to Kaiju Island (or to an oxygen destroyer, or whatever) easily enough. Add more INT and CHA to make him even more of a terror. One thing he may not expect to meet is someone who tries to take him on on his own terms...

Where are you getting the +9 ranged attack? (More generally, I would not buy Favored Opponent if I were you, especially not at your PL; it means Maskelyne is at a _terrible_ disadvantage vs. anyone else)

Iron Hand Abilities: 38 pp STR: 18 (+4) DEX: 18 (+4) CON: 18 (+4) INT: 14 (+2) WIS: 18 (+4) CHA: 12 (+1) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Electrical Control/Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +8 Grapple: +14/+20 with Magnetic Control Saves: 9 pp TOU: +10 (+4 Con, +6 Force Field) FORT: +7 (+4 Con, +3) REF: +7 (+4 Ref, +3) WILL: +7 (4 Will, +3) Skills: 80 r=20 pp Acrobatics 6 (+10, Skill Mastery) Craft (Electronic) 8 (+10) Craft (Mechanical) 8 (+10) Gather Info 4 (+5) Knowledge (Streetwise) 3 (+5) Knowledge (Technology) 8 (+10) Languages 2 (English, Russian; Base: German) Intimidate 14 (+15, Skill Mastery) Notice 6 (+10, Skill Mastery) Sense Motive 6 (+10) Stealth 11 (+15, Skill Mastery) Feats: 19 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Challenge (Fast Startle) Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack 2 Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Intimidate, Notice, Stealth) Startle Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 40 pp Device 10 (Electric Gauntlet, 50 pp) (Hard to Lose) [40 pp] Datalink 1 (10 ft) [1dp] Electrical Control Array 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Alternate Powers 3) [25dp] Blast 10 {20/20} AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Extra: Damaging, Flaw: Limited [Ferrous Materials]) AP: Strike 6 (Extra: Penetrating 6 [DMG 16], PFs: Improved Crit, Knockback 6 [DMG 16], Mighty) AP: Stun 10 {20/20} Force Field 6 (Extra: Impervious) [12dp] Immunity 10 (all electrical effects) (Flaw: Limited [Half]) [5dp] Movement Array 2 (PFs: Alternate Power 1, Subtle) [6 dp] Super-Movement 2 (Wall-Crawling 2) {4/4} AP: Leaping 2 (x5) and Super-Movement 1 (Slow Fall) {4/4} Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1dp] ----------------------------------------------- Design Notes: Elke Freimeier was a physics student at the Free University of Berlin when a group of Worker's Army Faction terrorists (funded by, among other people, Dracula) killed her sister during a nightclub bombing. She went a little mad, as happens sometimes, and broke into the engineering museum at her university, where she stole a fragment of a WWII-era Ubersoldaten's battlesuit and repurposed it for her own needs. With the gauntlet, a generator hidden under her black longcoat, Freimeier took to the streets as the Iron Hand; a grim avenger of evil and West Berlin's street-level costumed defender. Freedom Alliance is there to stop World War III; she's there to stop crime. (But hey, no World War III would be nice too) She's not really a team player, but when the good guys need her, she's there. She hasn't admitted it to herself yet, but she's developing feelings for Steel Eagle, West Germany's other native hero: he's a good man, but he may be too good for the world where she lives. I built Iron Hand with the idea that she's new to the Cowl game; she's not a particularly good investigator, but she has a lot of anger she can channel into making people talk. Without her gauntlet, she's a straightforward PL 7 martial artist; with it she can fire blasts of electricity, stop bullets with a force field, and navigate around the city by using magnetism to climb and pull herself towards all those buildings with metal in them. She can grab cars and toss them around if she has to, and will if she's fighting targets immune to electricity, but she's more about the close, in-your-face style of combat. Her gauntlet makes her a threat to anyone close to her PL, and if she's deprived of it, she can still handle thugs and soldiers with aplomb. She's smart enough to make all kinds of electrical power stunts as needed, though not an Inventor yet. That may come if she goes back to school, right now she's much more likely to be upping Cowl skills like Investigate and Gather Info. Of course, you can take the build however you want: upped INT would make her more of a pure gadgeteer, perhaps as a result of finally catching her sister's killer (or whatever backstory you give the PC!) Her origin works just fine dropped into Freedom City, though you will probably need to play your cards a little differently about who killed her sister. OVERTHROW is a good candidate; she can even still be German!

I'll say she managed to catch him flat-footed (since he's been so focused on fighting Papercut so far) 22 Bruised again

Battleaxe PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 22 pp STR 24/14 (+7/+2) DEX 10 (+0) CON 24/14 (+7/+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 20 (+5) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+8 melee/+10 Blast) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +16 Init: +4 Saves: 13 pp TOU: +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection) FORT: +8 (+7 Con, +1) REF: +7 (+0 Ref, +7) WILL: +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 19 pp=76 pp Diplomacy 5 (+10) Handle Animal 3 (+8, Skill Mastery) Intimidate 15 (+20, Skill Mastery) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 10 (+10) Knowledge (Earth Sciences) 5 (+5) Knowledge (History) 10 (+10) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 10 (+10) Languages 2 (English, Russian; Base: German) Notice 8 (+10, Skill Mastery) Sense Motive 8 (+10, Skill Mastery) Feats: 20 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee (2) Challenge (Fast Startle) Dodge Focus (4) Improved Initiative Inspire (5) Power Attack Skill Mastery (Handle Animal, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle Takedown Attack (2) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 49 pp Device 7 (Warrior King's Axe) (easy to lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [23 pp] Siegfried Array 10 (20 pp; PFs: Accurate 2, Alternate Powers 3, Variable Descriptor 1 [Earth]) [26dp] BE: Blast 10 {20/20} AP: Create Object 9 (PFs: Stationary, Subtle) {20/20} AP: Damage 5 (PFs: Knockback 4 [DMG 16], Mighty) and Flight 5 (250 MPH) {20/20} AP: Trip 10 (Extra: Area [burst], Flaw: Range [Touch]) {20/20} Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]) [5dp] Super-Senses 6 (Precognition (Flaw: Uncontrollable), Ranged [Tactile] 2) [4dp] Enhanced CON 10 (to CON 24/+7) [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 (to STR 24/+7) [10 pp] Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Strength 1 (STR 31, Heavy Load: ~800 lbs) [2 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 19/76 + feats 20 + powers 49 = 150 pts --------------- Design Notes: Returning to the Wargames universe (my favorite setting for Mutants and Masterminds), here's Battleaxe (Streitaxt) in his native German, an auxiliary member of the Freedom Alliance, NATO's superteam posted to West Berlin in the 1980s. In the 1930s, Carolus Schadek was a young farmer who discovered, while plowing his field, a magnificent, ancient axe of incredible power; when he touched the haft, he was transformed into a mighty warrior! The spirit of the Warrior-King inside the axe told Carolus that war was imminent and that he, a mighty warrior, must fight in it! A patriot, Carolus immediately went to the capitol to offer his services to his nation's leader; unfortunately for the young German's soul, that leader was Adolf Hitler. Streitaxt realized too late the monster he served and abandoned Hitler's service in disgust upon witnessing Hitler's atrocities: acquitted after the war and deeply ashamed, Streitaxt hung up his blade and went back to his farm, ignoring the voice of the Warrior King that still sounded in his head. Until just a few years ago (earlier in the 1980s), when Ymir the Radioactive Viking arrived in Germany. The Warrior-King realized that Ymir's arrival was a potent sign that the _real_ war was coming; that Ragnorak was imminent just as the ancient stories had foretold. So Streitaxt has come out of retirement to fight alongside the real heroes of Germany, and especially alongside the radioactive Norse champion. There was initially some concern that the crazy old man was a danger to himself or others, but he's still the mighty champion he once was, albeit somewhat slowed by age, and he's proved himself as at least an ally to Freedom Alliance. (The Soviet press, meanwhile, draws attention to the "Nazi super-soldier and his American allies" whenever they can) Carolus is in far better shape than most men his age, but he knows his time is drawing short. If he is to make up for the mistakes of his youth, he has to do it soon... So OK, I've basically built Streitaxt as a terrakinetic Thor: his axe lets him fly, hurl balls of rock or lava at his enemies, throw up rocky fortifications, or strike the ground and cause a big earthquake. (He's primarily a front-line fighter, but he can easily stunt Earth Control if he needs it). The axe lets him grow a suit of armor that can sometimes stop bullets (if it hits one of the armored spots), and the voice of the Warrior-King gives him warnings in battle (and also lets him sense tremors around him!) He has a very strong personality, and really is a good man to have at your side. We're not totally gung-ho about ex-Nazi PCs around here, but there are certainly plenty of bad regimes out there from history who could use a champion looking to redeem himself...

May 2012 Steve Murdock had never gotten a driver's license. It wasn't necessary for him; he preferred to walk and lived in a city with good public transit. So instead Roger Wheeler, the computer science teacher at the Nicholson School, was driving the minivan while Murdock himself sat in the shotgun seat. To the rear were the four children he, Miss Americana, and Dragonfly had rescued from the Moon nearly a year ago now: Pluto, who was thirteen, Mars and Venus, a boy and girl eerily alike and probably about twelve, and Demeter, the youngest of them at ten. Their long stay in Antarctica over, with the League sure they wouldn't they would all start at the Nicholson School over the summer, letting them settle in to what an Earth school was like before they would be among people who would fear and hate them for what they'd once been. The marks of Omega were clear on all the children with just a look, their cybernetic alterations deep enough that even Miss Americana had hesitated to remove them. She'd found enough booby traps in Harrier's systems that there was no knowing what lay beneath these half-assimilated drones. Demeter's eyes glowed red like LED lights while her voice was obviously synthetic, the Mars and Venus's innate subspace link meant they often spoke in unison, while Pluto's cybernetic arm, looking precisely like an Omegadrone's, were the most obvious. They were more like regular children than the victims of horror they'd once been, looking around and peering out the windows for the man their teacher had told them to look for, but Harrier could still see the memories of pain and solitude about them. Even in a group, these children were alone. None of them had said a word since they'd gotten in the car. Once they reached the base parking lot, Steve led the four kids, and their future teacher, through security. Roger was mostly taking the kids' measure today, supporting their usual authority figure rather than trying to replace him. "We should see Victory soon," he told them with as much warmth as his own dry voice could muster. "He will be here for us." Victory was the most cybernetically altered human being Steve had met on this Earth: the human pilot, with his popular acclaim, was the best example he could think of to show the kids that they could be successful here. However they looked, and whatever had happened to them.

Trying to steer some eyes in here, Vith.

Don't forget about this, Obscu! We haven't.

Short Range is not a suitable flaw for Teleport 3, since it doesn't have a long-range distance.

Have you done so, Airon?

Are you still looking at this character, Cubist?

He spends a move action moving into melee range. Wraith is up.

Papercut's attack did get the monster away from the civilian, though perhaps not the way Koshiro might have preferred. "Haaawww haaaawww haaaww!" The knife monster laughed, its voice turned deep and booming by the slow-motion bubble that had encased everyone. "Noooottt ssooo touuugh afffteeerrr alll!" Leaving behind the civilian, the knife monster advanced on Wraith and Papercut, his slowed movements meaning he could reach them but couldn't quite catch them yet. "Smmmmasssssshhh yooooouuuu fiiiirrsssstttt, heeeerrooooosssss!"

"The risk is too great. I can't destroy it safely." said Harrier, despite wanting very much to blow this place back to the entropy-raddled Hell that had spawned it. He had to be smart; he had to make the heroic choice. He dropped the man he'd been holding, hard enough that he crawled back to the others in terror, and raised his comm to where a mouth would have been on a man. "Dragonfly, this is Harrier. Wander and I have subdued a doomforge and taken its workers. We need to destroy this place, but to do it safely, we will need scientific assistance. I can send you our coordinates for teleportation." "The, uh, well..." The tech didn't look frightened by Erin's violence, not as such; she was from the Terminus after all, but she and the others had certainly figured out quickly who was in charge. "Lord Mandragora didn't want the forges built here," she finally said, her voice a confidential whisper. "I heard he and Lord Steelgrave fighting about it. He hates Omegadrones, thinks they're soulless and not fit warriors, but Steelgrave said if he wanted his support against Madrigal, he'd better do him this favor of testing...testing the new forges." She swallowed, glancing down into the pits with something like dread. "So if we're dead, he can tell Steelgrave the experiment failed, and he doesn't have to build them anymore."

"I know what Hell is." replied Harrier in a not-unfriendly way. "But I was not aware infernal subdimensions crossed into your dimension so regularly." He hesitated a moment, as if thinking it over, and added carefully, almost apologetically. "And I do not think I can go shirtless into battle. You see my difficulties." Pike in hand, he paced the floor, lightly scratching a circle around himself on the wood. "I believe I saw the bartender go below. Let us join him there...but not down the only path of ambush." And with that, he stepped back, and a hole opened in the floor where he'd been standing, falling away into the darkness of the basement below. Down below, the heroes found a scene like a public service announcement about infernalism: the bartender was there, fallen in a tumble at the bottom of the stairs, while from a twisted pentagram in the middle of the floor, cracked open to occasionally emit gusts of hellfire, hideous-looking creatures crawled like demonic scorpion-beetles, each bouncing off the edges of the pentagram and falling back among the others in an ever-growing heap. Chalk writing in Polish covered the floor, written in a circle that ended near the edges of the pentagram. Out of his field of knowledge, a baffled Harrier turned to the others. "Is that man alive?"

"Directly there," replied Mark, "one of the advantages of dealing with the UN. Here we go!" And then reality suddenly went strange all around them. While Nick was more attuned to necromancy than your typical forms of magic, but even he could sense the brush of sheer power in the moment it took Mark to wave his hand, everything around them to shimmer, and suddenly they were elsewhere. It was a clear night in Sao Tome when the two heroes arrived, Pico Cao Grande a raised volcanic finger of the Earth clutching at a star-dappled sky overhead, the equatorial night steamy around the men fresh from Freedom City. From the roadbed they were standing on, Edge pointed down to the United Nations camp down below in the gully beneath the raised embankment. "Here we are." He didn't seem concerned by their abrupt arrival, and from the way the guard at the gate waved, evidently he'd seen this trick before too. "Down this way. The initial investigators didn't leave the bones where they found them, but we've tried to preserve the site otherwise."

There was dead silence from the others, even the man Harrier was still holding up by the collar, having efficiently switching his grip so the man didn't strangle beneath his strong fingers. "Their families remain behind in Steelgrave's compound," said Harrier, the anger in his voice giving way now that the mass murderer he held was no longer trying to defend himself. "And await the forges, if they betray him." Looking around, he added for Wander's benefit, "I can bombard the site from the air, but will attract attention, and leaves us with the problem of these people. Andd I have no idea how the nanites will respond to- Suddenly, one in the rear sat up and tore off her helmet, a shock of red hair spilling out before she called out, "There are no more transports coming! Mandragora left us to rot in this miserable place!" It was the woman who Erin had seen desperately trying to raise her putative master. In a horse voice, she yelled, "There are no more humans coming. This planet is dead, and so will all of us be!" "DAMN you, Calendar!" cursed the man Harrier was holding, his attention on the betrayer more than the impossible spectacle of a thinking, talking Omegadrone. "Maybe you don't have anyone, but my family is-" "Don't be stupid!" she yelled at him, trying to break from the suddenly hostile crowd, her fellows turning on her in sheer terror of being found out to have been in her company, and make a run for the heroes. "Mandragora betrayed Steelgrave too when he left us here! It has to have been a setup from the beginning!" She went down, as two of her fellows jumped her, and yelled, her eyes on Wander, "Please!"