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Avenger Assembled

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  1. Avenger Assembled
    "I will use my holographic disguise if necessary," replied the cyborg evenly. "I have no wish to frighten these people more than they have already suffered." The drumbeats of burning worlds were already in his mind, but he went on: "None of the rest of you have experience with a world in the final stages of Terminal conquest. I could do far more there than here." And indeed, it was true: EZO1 had fallen to internal corruption rather than a massed physical assault. As for the fear Harrier felt at the idea of walking on a world under siege by Omegadrones, at the idea of once again coming beneath the forge and flame, well, his own weakness was the least important thing now. He had been as surprised as Erin when Mara took such immediate action to go to the aid of the people trapped across the dimensional axis, but no less happy with the outcome. When he thought of people like Ellie and Mara, with their sly jokes and eager youth, on a world like the one they faced, it made him feel a little sick. They would be insulted if I said anything. They go to do a great thing. I cannot help but go with them. "...all right," said Power cautiously, craning his neck to listen to Mara's voice since he still couldn't see her face. He worked big plastic switches on the console before him, another distant boom off-camera. "You'll be beaming into this room, then; this is where the most intact communications equipment is. If you are who you'll say you are, I'll take you and your team down to the Vault. Who should I be looking for?" Power had evidently forgotten he'd left the camera on, as he spoke he was carefully pulling on an outfit that looked like some sort of industrial battlesuit; a geologist's armor complete with crushing grip and slicing tools. The suit had seen better days; the tough, bulky blue armor was scarred and pitted from entropic blasts, but like Power himself still looked up for a fight if need be.
  2. Avenger Assembled
    28 The swarm is bruised! Cannonade is up.
  3. Avenger Assembled
    KD: From the basement storage beneath the bar, you distinctly hear a deep, booming voice, albeit one somewhat muffled by the floor itself. The voice seems to be speaking...Polish? Giz: WOOSH! Jack just had a tingle before now, but whatever's going on downstairs just had a big old jet of hellfire involved.
  4. Avenger Assembled
    Is she...coming onto me? No... Mark was confident Eve wouldn't date anyone who'd hit on him at Eve's own birthday party (plus, he was fairly sure there were logistical difficulties to anyone Eve would date hitting on him!), so he dismissed the momentary impression. Anyway, he had a girlfriend, even if she wasn't one he could bring to parties like this. Nina was...not someone he'd trust with the secret identities of his friends, and it wasn't fair to them to make them wear 'masks' at what was supposed to be a private party. "Well-said, well-said. The important thing is, we all have a fine time with Eve's party. Any idea what she's got in store? I've heard she had some interesting stuff in mind."
  5. Avenger Assembled
    Steve turned red, flushing along the cybernetic scars along his face so for a moment it looked as if he had wrapped himself in an irregular waffle iron. "No, no, that is, that is intact!" he said hastily, understanding why that might be the first on Archeville's mind. "I have had experience. What was not augmented was repressed, and thus when I was no longer under Omega's control..." he coughed. "When I came to you as a man, it was as much a man as...a friend. I am honored to call you my friend, Viktor. If I did have concerns like that," he said honestly, "you would be the first to whom I spoke, with no reservations."
  6. Avenger Assembled
    Suddenly, magic ripped itself open just a few feet from Etain as reality itself shattered asunder in a wash of sheer unprecedented power, the air curling and spreading open like the petals of a flower to reveal Mark Lucas. In his suit and tie, Mark looked dapper and dashing, his short blonde hair slicked flat against his head, his black suit cut perfectly to show off his chiseled physique and winning smile. As the screaming hole in the sheer fabric of the magical reality of the universe knitted itself shut behind him, the young man gave Etain a smile. "Hello!" Mark wasn't feeling quite as cheerful as he looked, but pretending everything was great was one of his specialties. "You must be Etain! I'm Mark Lucas." He shook her hand, crackling to her magical senses as if a bolt of lightning had struck where he stood.
  7. Avenger Assembled
    Well, he certainly doesn't seem to be peni-no, that's not far, Mark thought as Archeville and Nina bandied words with each other. He doesn't need to spend his life apologizing to everyone because of what happened...and nothing bad actually happened to Nina during the invasion! The hydrokinetic had been in her element when a Deep One party had raided Freedom City University and had simply slain all half-dozen of the monsters before a single student could be more than terrified. "In any event," Mark said firmly, "We can all agree we're on the same side here. You know how you'd feel if someone destroyed your father's palace." "...wait a minute," said Nina suddenly, her eyebrows furrowing. "You told me you kept your identity a secret from your enemies! For the sake of your family!" "It's a gesture of trust," replied Mark without heat. "If I went around planning to destroy everyone who might possibly be a bad guy ," I'd be a lot like your father, "I'd never get anything done. Doctor Archeville is on our side, and that means trusting him. Just like you trust me to look after my interests, right?" he asked pointedly. "Right," replied a very skeptical Nina. "I'm going rock-climbing," she said after a moment. "You two enjoy your lovefest. Perhaps afterwards, Mark, you can tell me why we should have one any time soon." Sneering, she walked away and began ascending a half-broken wall like an octopus monkey, scooping up water from the small pond to make climbing tentacles. Mark sighed, and, when she was out of earshot, said "Well, I certainly hope you are a good guy, because I'll never hear the end of it if you aren't." He didn't look too bothered by Nina's moment of temper, or particularly disturbed. "I'm sorry about your house," he finally said as he watched Nina go up the wall, "I've had some...family crises myself recently. Seeing your family history go up in smoke is never easy, especially if it's something you value."
  8. Avenger Assembled
    Hey folks with Magic/Infernal Awareness; There is some magic brewing behind the bar. SATAN'S MAGIC!
  9. Avenger Assembled
    Steve put his fingers to his lips, listening as two men he greatly respected gave sound, reasonable advice that nonetheless was obviously very different. "I think there is merit in what both of you say," he finally said. "I would like to have more spontaneity in our relationship. I would like to be able to plan more romantic occasions as well." He drummed his fingers briefly on the scarred wooden table, trying to summon the words that came painfully slowly at times like this. "She prefers not to go out, and that is not something I want to press on her. While we have had different pains, a desire for a certain flavor of solitude is something we both share. To stand alone together." He folded his hands before him. "As for fighting...it has never come up. We are both fragile, in our own ways, and both looking to avoid...explosions." Crack A sound like a gunshot made everyone to the bar, where the startled bartender was glancing in surprise over at a standing bottle of beer that had just cracked in half where it sat behind the bar, glass and beer pouring down onto the floor. And suddenly, with crack after crack, the bartender actually vaulting over the scarred wood to escape, the bottles and casks behind the bar began to crack and snap as if being crushed by invisible hands, the liquid pooling together behind the bar in a mixture of spirits, glass, and who knew what else? Most of the patrons, Freedom City old-timers, were sufficiently quick-thinking to be on the move, but a few gawkers and curious were peering over the edge of the wood...
  10. Avenger Assembled
    I will be on the road all night tonight, and attending a conference through the weekend. I'll be online, albeit spottily.
  11. Avenger Assembled
    Faced with tactical questions, Power drew himself up and spoke with a ghost of the authority this man must have once had before his world began to die all around him. "There are three hundred fifty-seven of us. Eight, now, I guess, that poor baby..." He coughed again, and it was becoming obvious that he'd suffered some lung damage in the recent past. "Me, what's left of the bravest crew I've ever known, and two poor Tarantula agents we had in our holding cells are guarding the tourists we rescued, some of our families, and the crew of a National Guard bomber that went down nearby. Running low on food and medical supplies. Didn't think it was going to matter soon...As for those bastards in the sky, they haven't found us yet, but it's only a matter of time now that they've landed that starship in San Francisco. Either they'll scan us and bombard the area, the way they did Action Force, or they'll torture some poor soul in their custody and find a way inside." "As for getting off the planet..." He laughed weakly and adjusted a few buttons on the panel in front of him, their beeps and clicks giving way to a world on fire. "I don't know if you can see this, but this is my only live surface feed." They were looking at what had once been a lovely national park, that was clear enough, but now was nothing but ash and bone, burnt stumps of trees rising above a sere, dry landscape that had once held rivers, plants, animals, and life. The sky was red, the sort they all recognized as what color Freedom City's sky has turned during the Terminus Invasion. But this was different; the red turning an utter, creeping black in places, like watching plastic being pulled so tight it had begun to warp, as if the sky was tearing itself apart. "There's nothing left up there. Not just here, but anywhere else. The stars went out the first night. Everywhere. As for a gateway..." The image cut back to him. "I'm a geologist, not a physicist. I was only able to reach you by running our reactor tap directly into this Forever World comm system. Maybe if you had their people here, or someone from CalTech, they could build something bigger...but those are gone." Harrier spoke, still too quiet to be heard by the man on the screen, his voice like death. "A day. Perhaps two." He shook his head. "Their universe has collapsed in on its central axis and is being drawn into the Doom Coil. Their world is already dead." He thought of the man's words, of a baby born amid the screams of a dying planet, and saw his own mother's face. "But we can't just leave them there to die." On screen, Power was going on. "Frankly, before I heard from you, my plan was to gather up anyone else we could find on the surface, go below, and rig our reactor to go. I'd rather things end fast, on our terms, than end on one of their spears or in one of their feeding chambers."
  12. Avenger Assembled
    "C'mon, Bluefire, show me what you're made of!" taunted Keres, the enlarged mechanoid throwing himself at Corbin and nearly landing a massive punch with a fist bigger than Cobalt Templar's entire head! His blows were powerful, denting the super-tough construction of Tronik architecture, but even with Corbin trying to protect the annihalation sphere he just wasn't fast enough to land a punch on the ring-wielding hero. "Smash you here, then find what's left of your body and smash it too!" he taunted. "C'mon and fight!"
  13. Avenger Assembled
    Keres: 23 Ghost Girl: 22 Cobalt Templar: 20 Keres is going to go ahead and punch Cobalt Templar, since he's the guy Keres has been sparring with verbally lately. Keres' stats 12 Well, that's a whiff, even versus Cobalt Templar's flat-footed Defense. What a terrible roll! Ah well. Ghost Girl is up.
  14. Avenger Assembled
    "Your words are honeyed, little sapling," said the king of the forest, looking pleased beneath his arboreal countenance. "But I have been taken in by the lies of free-range mammals before." As he spoke, the trees around the edge of the perimeter began to move, drawing closer to the illusory figures of the heroes as well as Changeling herself. "Fortunately, both new friend and old enemy will gain the same cure from me today. Evolution!" The so high trees began to slide upon with wet, slicking sounds of cracking wood and parting sap, revealing within each mighty trunk a matrix of sap and wood that would have looked far more beckoning were any of the trio plant creatures. "All ye three will be transformed into hybrid of plant and man, or woman," he added with a nod, "the better to grow and live in the world of forest that will come! The process will be fast," he promised as the trees grew closer, within seconds of overrunning the kneeling illusory duo. "And you would be...ill-advised to resist the embrace of my children!" Meanwhile, the real Citizen had flown around the clearing and planned to come around at the Green Man from behind, right through the massive tree that was his throne. But suddenly, within mere seconds of each other, Sharl broke through the tree behind the Green Man, desperately waving his hands at the others. No, no! he mouthed frantically, pointing urgently to the big central tree a moment before a tree limb passed through his own illusory body on the other side of the clearing.
  15. Avenger Assembled
    "I am grateful for your concern, Viktor," said Steve honestly, "but I do not think I have anything to be exploited for. I possess very little, I know very little I have not already told the Freedom League, and I am not a handsome man. She has had opportunity enough to strip the Terminus technology from my bones that I feel confident she has no interest in doing so today." He sighed. "As for our dates, they have all been...within a narrow circle. She is a very...quiet person. More comfortable with her work, and her machines, than people. I suppose I fit in because I am not like other people. I am planning to see her again in the next few days."
  16. Avenger Assembled
    Steve looked at the book, briefly concerned that he should have been reciting some sort of classical poetry to Gina before relaxing when the index told him the title was a figure of the so-complicated speech of Earth-Prime. "Thank you, I will study this text," he promised Carson, slipping it into his pocket. "We are only at the beginning of our routine, but there are things we can do that would change matters. I would like to be able to go more places in the city with her, and do more things. As for poetry, well," he said with earnest conviction, "that is how these matters should be spoken of. At the worst moments of human life, the most primal salvation can be the emotional connections between two people. It is the only art." He hmmed at that, and color showed along the lines of his face, the only place he could blush. "We have never actually had a fight," he confessed. "We tend to avoid unpleasant topics. The past. The more unpleasant parts of the present."
  17. Avenger Assembled
    "As far as I'm aware, the castle's status as a protected area hasn't changed," replied Mark with a glance back at the remains of the building. "I'm not actually assigned to the German division of UNISON," he confessed. "My primary work is with the humanitarian division in Africa and Southeast Asia. I was only called up to deal with the Deep One crisis because Europe had few meta-agents at the time." "What he means is, Mark is one of the most powerful beings working for UNISON, so they called up to deal with their biggest crisis." Nina slipped an arm through Mark's and gave the Doktor a flinty-eyed stare. This close, the resemblance to her father, who the Doktor had seen unmasked in Freedom League documents (there'd been no reason to take _that_ from his mind) was unmistakable. "You speak my people's language well, Herr Archeville. I'm sure a man of your experience must be familiar with all kinds of peoples." Mark gave Nina a nudge that wasn't entirely friendly. Before they'd started dating, Nina would have directly asked Archeville about his command of Deep One: this was a step forward, at least. "We were here because...I wanted to get a chance to see this place again, when it wasn't the middle of a battlefield. It's a shame what had to happen here."
  18. Avenger Assembled
    There was a static-filled silence on the line, stretching out long enough that for a moment it seemed like the connection had been lost. But then, Power's voice came back on, urgency in his old man's voice having replaced despair. "...This is Samson Power, acknowledging your signal! You're coming in loud and clear. My God, I thought we were the last humans left alive!" He gasped audibly. "Switching to visual!" Samson Power, when he popped up on Mara's monitor, turned out to be a salt-and-pepper, bearded man in his late fifties, his face looking rough and weather-beaten, a bloody bandage over his head and what looked like first-degree burns alongside of what had once been a handsome face. Behind him, the camera showed flashing red emergency lights and a bank of big Crays that might have been all the rage in the early 1990s. "I don't know if you can see me," Power said with a cough, "but this is my command post. A mile underneath Cone Peak, with two miles of solid rock between us and the monsters outside." He panned the camera around an empty room, its disordered swivel chairs and spilled coffee mugs showing signs of a recent struggle. "Everyone else is down in the Vault, our last refuge. Been trying for six days now on every frequency I could think of..." He coughed again, and there was a distant boom that made him glance up for a moment. "I couldn't just give up. Not yet." "If his base is buried deep enough, it would have been missed on the initial pass," Harrier spoke quietly, his eyes shut as he tried to summon forth every scrap of tactical data he could imagine. "Mandragora and his dragons fancy themselves warriors. They would kill all who resisted first, and then begin the business of incinerating the civilian population. The Dragon of the Terminus...I doubt he is its master. He served Omega through personal loyalty, not entropic corruption. He would wait for Omega's return." He rubbed his eyes. "They will kill every large animal on that Earth, then they will allow it to plunge into the Doom Coil for complete destruction."
  19. Avenger Assembled
    It's live, but just about to go to the automatic repeater. Since the speaker will probably move away from his system once he does that, that means Dragonfly needs to open a connection to him now. Dun dun dun!
  20. Avenger Assembled
    There was a dry, scratchy sound like static for a moment, the noise of an analog signal from however many dimensional axes away. And then, suddenly, came a voice like something from the grave itself. It was an old man's voice, dry and tired, full of pain. " Repeating. This is Samson Power in Los Padres Base in Big Sur, California, Planet Earth. This will be our last broadcast before I switch to the automated repeater. I have lost contact with the Action Force base in the Aleutians and I witnessed the destruction of the Forever Planet through [i]their[/i] last signal. I believe our base is the last remaining pocket of free humanity on planet Earth, possibly the last in our dimension. We will rescue what survivors we can, then take action to make sure none of us are taken by the Terminus. " Harrier dropped his coffee mug, the porcelain shattering at his feet, face going white as he listened in horror. "...if you are capable of receiving this message, in whatever world or dimension you reside, you must warn your civilization to abandon any attempts to tap into the fundamental source of entropy. That source is a dimension called the Terminus, ruled by a fanatical warlord named Mandragora, and his power is vast. In the space of a few days, his cybernetic horde and their dragon leaders have destroyed our world, and all other worlds we know of. Repeat, you must not... "...is he live?" Harrier whispered urgently, his eyes wide and hands trembling slightly. "Can you break into his message and reply?"
  21. Avenger Assembled
    "Technology advances in different ways, and at different paces, from dimension to dimension," said Harrier reluctantly, not always happy about volunteering his knowledge of dimensions besides the Terminus. After all, there was only one way he could be familiar with dimensions besides the Terminus and Earth-Prime. "They may have dimensional technology but no computer languages more advanced than this one, or they lack access to more advanced technology for some reason." He studied the code, but could make no sense of it from his own limited knowledge of such sciences. "Is there a way to show what the code is saying? What...all that means?"
  22. Avenger Assembled
    "It was very pleasant," said Steve, watching the boss work attentively. Steve had perfected the flat security guard's stare when he was on duty at the front door (indeed, it was his default expression), but he was learning to mirror his colleague and adopt a more humanlike posture when on duty inside the building itself. "I spent it in the company of a, ah, close friend." He smiled at that, a not-so-secret look over his coffee mug, as he remembered his weekend with Gina. "Thank you again for covering for me," he told her seriously. "Normally I do not enjoy time away from my duty, but this was time well-spent." Steve certainly was looking more relaxed about the world than before he'd left. When the overhead timer went off and the suit flared to life again, this time Mara was ready for it and her amplifier caught the signal pouring into the suit's system, analyzing the subspace datastream and showing the rich complexity of the overpowered signal that had been overclocking the Gateway suit's circuits. It was a signal, a standard audio signal of computer code at that, using the sort of blandly simple code Mara might have associated with the early 1980s: it was closer to Fortran than anything else!
  23. Avenger Assembled
    "Captain Moriarity survived being held hostage by SHADOW, worked towards her own escape and helped a superhero defeat an entire terrorist cell. I am confident that she will invite you to her medal of valor ceremony, once you have both appropriately recovered." The old man patted Myrmidon's hand for just a moment. "Good night, John. Welcome back." John was aware of Summers by his side as medication and fatigue overcame his natural alertness, all the way until he finally slipped into a comforting darkness.
  24. Avenger Assembled
    "Her personality is very..." Steve trailed off, staring down at his empty beer for a moment before crushing the metal in his hands. He suddenly imagined Gina's face if she had known he had discussed her problems, even with no names, before these smiling, confident men. "She is very quiet. She enjoys her work, and the company of machines more than people. She has had a difficult life." This was somehow more nerve-wracking than the heat of battle. "We sit on her couch. I cook for her, we watch movies...we let the silence speak." "And I want to be happy. I want her to be happy. I never imagined that I could make anyone happy," he confessed. "Not like this. But here we are." In a more direct answer to Carson's question, he said seriously, "Given my circumstances, it would not be responsible for me to speak of commitments. I could ask no one to make such...sacrifices." He glanced down in confusion at a loud thump from beneath his feet; but forgot about it when the older of the two bartenders muttered an exasperated curse and headed downstairs via the cellar door behind the bar. "But if I cannot safely plan for the future, I can plan for tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after...and I would like to spend what I can of those days with her."
  25. Avenger Assembled
    He has no particular resistance to that, so go ahead, Roo.
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