Avenger Assembled

Wraith, Papercut, and Sage made their way onto the ship as Citizen and Rogue speechified at each other, the two charismatic figures' argument loud, powerful, and from the looks on everyone else's faces incredibly distracting. The interior of the plankton trawler was like a temple to pure science; clean white corridors with ever-changing walls that functioned as screens, displaying the mid-air encounter between Rogue and Citizen, readouts of a plankton harvest that might now never come, images of Tronik itself with its massive towers and onlooking citizens, watching the argument about their future playing out with awe and fear on their faces, and a world of deep oceans with near-featureless bottoms, a central desert hotter and searer than anything on Earth, with ice mountains at the tidally-locked meridian rising higher than Everest. None of the trio really had the engineering knowledge to interpret what they were seeing, but the great silent bulk of the plankton extractors loomed over them like small houses as they made their way towards the central processing unit that held the hostages and the supervillains. There were signs of struggle aboard ship (and on the docks) as they went, it wasn't hard to guess that everyone aboard (and nearby) had been dragged aboard by the supervillains when the attack began. Inside the cavernous central hub of the ship, Rogue and Citizen were in the air, shouting at each other. Of the supervillains who were still with Rogue, a feline woman in reflective armor was actually filing her sharpened nails with a piece of polished steel, looking deeply bored with the philosophical arguments as she leaned against a wall on the far side of the hold from the narrow access panel the heroes were peering through. A rapidly-shifting, iridescent blobby humanoid with an indeterminate, ever-changing shape was busy stalking among the civilians and thoroughly intimidating the Tronikians, who had very little experience with this sort of thing, his chuckle deep and liquid even a couple of hundred feet up. Dead center in the group, watched over by a shifting humanoid shape that looked like metal knives and sharp edges hammered together into a man's form, was a deceptively tiny black sphere instantly recognizable as the last of the annihilation devices. Rogue had put the last bomb dead center of her own people.

Mark and Nina both jumped at the sound of the voice breaking into their romantic reverie, Mark with the guilt of someone being caught doing something naughty, Nina with the anger of a princess interrupted in the middle of one of her favorite pastimes. Mark looked up at the sound to see no less than Viktor Archeville himself coming down the path towards them and for a moment was an embarrassed high school student again. But he wasn't a kid anymore, and Nina wasn't his girlfriend with daddy issues. Actually, that's not too far from- He pushed _that_ thought aside too, and urgently whispered to Nina as she pulled the pond at her feet up into her hands in a razor-sharp whip of water, "No, no, it's okay, it's his house," he whispered to her in English. "He has more of a right to be here than us. Don't be a jerk about this." She didn't exactly look mollified, but with a sigh she put the water-whip back into the pond from which she'd made it. In his own accented German, he said, "" Socotra's legal name was considerably longer than that, but he didn't particularly feel like praising the revolutionary accomplishments of the exalted Typhoon today. He looked up at the man who he'd just given his girlfriend a lecture about trusting and decided to take a chance. "" He made his way up the path to shake the other man's hand. ""

"I am biologically functional," replied Steve, who was male enough to smile for a moment at what was, after all, an important question. "Removing the biological systems in question would have been an unnecessary alteration to the underlying systems, given armor plating and suppression of all hormonal desires. The same can be said for her," he added, not wanting to get into unnecessary detail. "She is a cyberneticist from outside Freedom City." He added with an awkward laugh. "You know, ha-ha, cybernetic scientist, after my body...well." He coughed.

This time, Summers did smile, though it was more a momentary slit appearing in his lined face than anything else. "You're a young man, John, and one who has lived through more than most men your age. I respect and trust your ability to make decisions about your life." As if the subject of hiding from SHADOW had never come up, he went on, "Your friend the captain will conceal what she witnessed during her time in Smythe's custody. When SHADOW reads her report, they will find that she was unconscious during most of her time there." He hmmed. "Now, the question remains of what to do with you. The Freedom League's facilities are better-equipped than Claremont's, and much more secure than this facility. In the morning, you'll be transferred to League custody where your wounds can be healed. After that, I see no reason why you can't resume your studies."

"I want to be happy," replied Steve frankly, "and I want her to be happy." He couldn't help but feel guilt as he said the first, selfish as it made him sound to his own ears. "We were alone, both of us, and now if sometimes we are alone together...well, at least we are alone together." He flexed his hands, cybernetic joints beneath the skin creaking ever-so-slightly. Lacking the restraints most men might have had here, he added,"I thought I had nothing to give. Nothing anyone would want, and nothing growing in my heart. But now, I begin to realize that I do. And that I am wanted."

"I am dating someone." As he spoke, Steve methodically crushed and sorted the peanuts from the small bowl by his hand, gradually assembling piles of shell and nut respectively. "It is a very complicated situation, as you would imagine. Because she has, er, unique circumstances, and I have very unique circumstances, she has asked that I not discuss who or what exactly she is with anyone. But she is a woman, a human woman," he added, suddenly wondering if they would suspect he was dating one of the more alien inhabitants of his apartments. Not that he had any prejudices about appearance, but it would certainly tarnish their advice if they thought he was dating, say, Kar'za, the Grue down the hall who lacked the ability to shapeshift. "We met through work, grew particularly close over the holidays, and have been more emotionally intimate in the time since." He cracked an especially large nut with a snap. "I have only...dated once before. And that was many years ago." Before the gloom of the long-gone past could fall over the table and himself, he forced himself to add, "I had a need, and saw a need in her. But now I have no idea how to...go places in a relationship. We have stepped over a line, we are dating, but after that..." He shrugged, looking a little helpless. "I know very little about these alleys."

"And so do you," replied Steve automatically, his voice sounding more sure than in most of Jack's encounters with the other man. "It is good to see you, Jack. Thank you for coming on such short notice." He felt terribly shallow as he talked, but then he usually did in social situations, carefully memorizing surface phrases so no one would realize he had no idea what he was talking about. There was nothing fake about the greeting, though, or the honest affection in his eyes. He looked equally glad to see Carson, greeting him with a firm handshake before both men were at the table. "It is good to see you, Carson. Thank you for coming on such short notice. Both of you." He took a breath. "I have invited you both here," he said with the same earnestness he might have used to speak of forming a new superteam, "because I trust you both, and I know I can rely on you to help me with a very complicated situation. You are my best friends. I want to talk about...women," he said, whispering the word like it was a great secret. "And what to do when you're dating one."

"If you have a better idea for where we can drive, I'm sure Crimson Tiger is all ears," replied Citizen, floating along next to the motorcycle as they went through the gloom. "Geez, even the paths are gone. Whatever happened here didn't just destroy human civilization, it made it like it never existed..." He patted his emitter, and gently tucked it in his 'pocket'. "I wonder if this actually happened and just hasn't come up in our classes yet, or if it's some kind of worst-case scenario..." Eventually, as the heroes penetrated the depths of the foliage, they found a low hill ring amidst a small clearing. On top of it was a palace of living wood: trunks and branches intertwined to create a palisade wall, with a natural gateway in between two trees. Within was a kind of courtyard carpeted in soft grass, surrounded by high trees, their trunks like pillars. In its midst stood the most massive tree they'd seen yet, towering above the rest. The front of its gnarled trunk and roots were shaped into a throne-like chair, where sits a figure of leaf and bark who blended into the surroundings so he nearly disappeared. “Welcome, my children” he said in a voice like creaking branches. “Welcome to my domain. I am the Green Man, the new king of this world. What you have seen in this city is just a sample of the power that is now mine to command. I am now the supreme power in this city. You may serve the green world as its protectors... or as fertilizer. The choice is yours." Close enough that only his allies could hear, Citizen muttered, a disgusted look on his face. "What...what the hell is that?!"

"I make it a policy not to hit my students when they're already down, John. You don't need to hear my remonstrations today." said Summers with a trace of a smile. He grew more serious as he faced down the injured teen. "SHADOW will not take the destruction of their cell lightly, or once again losing the asset you represent. Dr. Smythe will most likely not receive a warm welcome from her master, should she return home. You may not have captured her, but you've most likely deprived SHADOW of her research for quite some time to come." He studied John, looking down at him from his position above him as he sat. "But you've always known something like this was coming. As long as an organization like SHADOW exists, as long as Kantor exists, there will be a price on your head, and you will face retaliation from people like Smythe. If you are interested," he offered, "the school can help you find employment and training outside of Freedom City on your graduation, a place remote enough that SHADOW is unlikely to find you...at the cost of what you've worked to build here."

What's with the math on his Shield Fighting Mastery?

Have you done these edits, Obscu?

APPROVED

The man at the door turned out to be Duncan Summers, Claremont's headmaster having traded in his usual black sweater and slacks for a suit and tie today. He gave John a quick look, one that might have been reassurance (as ever it was hard to tell with Summers) and took Kate aside for a few murmured words. John couldn't make them out from the bed, but the policewoman's eyes widened and she nodded her assent to Summers. Stepping outside, Kate closed the door behind her, and both men heard the lock close as Summers slowly made his way to John's bedside. Maybe it was just the hospital setting, but Summers looked older than Myrmidon remembered, and perhaps a trifle frailer as he took a seat next to John's bed. "It's good to see you, John," he said, his voice dry and gravelly. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

Fox: Mara is going to determine that the suit is activating because someone is pumping subspace energy into its systems from another dimension, using a system that seems to be some kind of communications array. (Someone is 'hailing' it, but so brute-force that they're activating everything simultaneously) It's too weak to read what they're saying without some kind of amplifier, though.

Reality Warp'd by Dok So, I went ahead and decided to experiment with Edge at his earned caps. This is a very powerful version of his sheet, but one with some significant weaknesses I've been meaning to give him. He's much more dependent on not being caught flat-footed to stay in a fight, and it's much easier to lay him out if you can put him so. He's a full PL 15 offensively and defensively, but he can't Power Attack and he doesn't have a damaging area attack. Lacking super-senses means there are lots of ways to leave him too blind to fight without cutting down on the precious, precious HP that are what keep him going. [u]Player Name:[/u] Davis [u]Character Name:[/u] Edge [u]Secret Identity:[/u] Mark Mason Lucas [u]Age:[/u] 19 [u]Power Level:[/u] 15 (234/234pp) [u]Trade-Offs:[/u] None [u]Unspent PP:[/u] 0 [u]Progress to Impervium:[/u] 129/150pp Click [url=http://www.freedomplaybypost.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=1994&p=37256#p37256]here[/url] for Edge's old sheet, used before August 21, 2011. [img=http://www.freedomplaybypost.com/wiki/images/c/cc/EdgeHF.png] [u]Age:[/u] 19 [u]Apparent Age: [/u]19 [u]Gender:[/u] Male [u]Ethnicity:[/u] Caucasian [u]Height:[/u] 6’0” [u]Weight:[/u] 175 lbs [u]Eyes:[/u] Blue [u]Hair:[/u] Ash Blond [u]Description:[/u] At eighteen years old, Mark Lucas is a charming, muscular young man with a chiseled jawline, ashy blond hair, a good tan, and perfect winning smile. He prefers open-collared, colorful dress shirts and slacks when he’s relaxing but of course wears the famous UNISON blue uniform and beret when he’s on duty as a UNISON agent. When visiting indigenous peoples, he wears their costumes as if he’d been born to them. His costume when in action as Edge is a merger of his UNISON uniform and Young Freedom costume; a white cape, blue and gold body suit, with the UN logo on the chest and goggles on his face. [u]Personality and Motivation:[/u] Having been to the edge of the multiverse and back, Mark Lucas can deal with what life throws at him. He’s a sympathetic champion to people in need, a stalwart opponent of evil, a loyal friend, and always reliable in a crisis. He’s come through the fire and come out a sharper, stronger young man: he’s only 18, but he’s ready to meet the challenges of being an adult hero and agent of the United Nations. [u]Backstory:[/u] Mark Lucas is heir to many legacies: the Golden Age legacy of Jimmy Lucas and his Genie, the Silver and Bronze Age stories of Rick Lucas, the sidekick and good buddy of the Centurion; and the leader of [url=http://www.freedomplaybypost.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=5326]the Young Freedom team that faced down the Lord of the Terminus and lived to tell the tale[/url]. He’s a hero in his own right as well as scion of a proud heroic legacy in the Freedom City universe, though only a select few in Freedom City and Switzerland know that the heroic Edge is the same man as Mark Lucas. He’s survived more than most heroes do in a lifetime at the age of 18, which is probably why he was able to skip college and head straight into grownup work. He still worries about his mom in the wake of his father’s death, but Martha has recovered from her time as companion to the late Rick Lucas and has resumed her career as an artist for Andi Comics in Freedom City. He has his own life to worry about, anyway, and his own problems. These days, the recent Claremont graduate is an agent of UNISON, the United Nations organization charged with using superhuman power for the benefit of all mankind. It’s his dream job, one that lets him get out from under his family legacy while still working for the benefit of everyone in the world. Though Mark signed on to help fight world hunger, the most powerful super-being in the employ of the United Nations doesn’t have the luxury of spending his days just building houses for the poor and needy. UNISON has recognized the tremendous asset they hired on fresh out of high school, and they’re determined to make sure he gets used as he deserves. Again and again, he’s finding himself deployed to exotic areas of the world where the help they need is bad guys defeated rather than the humanitarian work he signed on to do. He’s the perfect UNISON agent, his native superpowers letting him operate freely (if in his disguise as Edge) even in places where UNISON agents aren’t authorized to carry weapons. Having superpowers is a tremendous responsibility, and even graduation and moving out of Freedom isn’t enough to keep him from living up to his duty to the world and to his friends. Luckily, he’s a true hero and able to roll with this as best he can. He works out of Geneva these days, but when Young Freedom calls (or any of his other old friends), he’s always ready and willing to answer even if it means a hop right back into Freedom City. But getting away from his family legacy may be harder than he expects. Some enemies never really go away, and some rivalries aren’t forgotten. [hr][/hr] [u]Complications:[/u] Allies (former Young Freedom members, the Liberty League) Enemy (Nazis, the Terminus) Fire-Forged Friends (Cobalt Templar, Midnight, Sage, Wander) Legacy (The Lucas family, Young Freedom, the Liberty League) Reputation (UNISON agent, former Young Freedom member) Responsibility (Martha Lucas, UNISON agent) Secret (ID) Vice (Lovely Ladies) [u][b]Abilities:[/b][/u] 4+4+4+2+0+14=28 pp STR: 14 (+2) DEX: 14 (+2) CON: 14 (+2) INT: 12 (+1) WIS: 10 (+0) CHA: 24 (+7) [u][b]Combat:[/b] [/u]12+12=24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 Genie Magic) DEF: +15 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +8/+26 Knockback: -6 [u][b]Saves:[/b] [/u]6+6+8=20 pp TOU: +15 (+2 Con, +3 Protection, +10 Defensive Roll) FORT: +8 (+2 Con, +6) REF: +8 (+2 Dex, +6) WILL: +8 (+0 Wis, +8) [u][b]Skills:[/b][/u] 80 r=20 pp Bluff 13 (+20) [sup]SM[/sup] Diplomacy 13 (+20) [sup]SM[/sup] Gather Information 13 (+20) [sup]SM[/sup] Knowledge: Civics 4 (+5) Knowledge: History 9 (+10) Knowledge: Pop Culture 9 (+10) Languages 6 (Arabic, English [Base], French, German, Grue, Lor, Russian) Medicine 5 (+5) Notice 5 (+5) [sup]SM[/sup] Survival 3 (+3) [u][b]Feats:[/b][/u] 43 pp Attack Specialization (Genie Magic) 3 Beginner’s Luck Benefit (Security Clearance [UNISON]) Connected (UNISON) Defensive Roll 5 Dodge Focus 9 Evasion Fearless Improved Initiative Inspire 5 Interpose Luck 7 Quick Change Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Info, Notice) Ultimate Check (Genie Magic power checks) Uncanny Dodge (visual) Well-Informed [u][b]Powers:[/b][/u] 12 + 65 + 2 + 13 + 3 + 3 + 2 = 98 pp [b]Enhanced Feats 4[/b] (Ultimate Save 4 [Fortitude, Reflex, Toughness, Will]; [i]Extras:[/i] Affects Others, Range 2 [Perception]) [12 pp] [b]Genie Magic Array 30[/b] (60 points, [i]PFs:[/i] Alternate Power 3, Indirect 2) [65 pp] [list] [u]BE[/u]: [b]Create Object 15[/b] ([i]Extra[/i]: Duration [Continous/Lasting], [i]PFs[/i]: Innate, Precise, Selective, Subtle) {48/60} [u]AP[/u]: [b]Move Object 15[b] (Effective STR 75, Heavy Load: 384 tons ([i]Extras[/i]: Damaging, Range [Perception]) {60/60} [u]AP[/u]: [b]Teleport 10[b] (1000 ft/Earth to Moon) ([i]Extras[/i]: Accurate, Affects Others, Area [Burst], Selective) {60/60} [u]AP[/u]: [b]Transform 10[/b] (1000 lbs, any inanimate to any inanimate) ([i]Extra[/i]: Duration [Continous/Lasting]) {60/60} [/list] [b]Immunity 2[/b] (aging, despair effects) [2 pp] [b]Luck Control 4[/b] (cancel GM Fiat, cancel HP expenditure of others, give someone else HP, spend HP for someone else; [i]PF:[/i] Subtle) [13 pp] [b]Protection 3[/b] [3 pp] [b]Regeneration 1[/b] (Resurrection 1/week; [i]PFs[/i]: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp] [code]DC Block Unarmed DC 17 Tou save bruised Create Object DC 25 Ref save bruised/trapped Move Object DC 30 Tou save bruised Transform DC 20 Fort save transformed Abilities 28 + Combat 24 + Saves 20 + Skills 20 + Feats 43 + Powers 98 = 234/234 pp Reality Warp'd by Dok

April 2012 The HAX crew vs. the Terminus

April 2012 It's a typical day at Hallomen's Advanced Experts. The boss is working on a consulting project sent her way from Blackstone Prison, where a seized artifact from a long-imprisoned prisoner has begun to malfunction. Dr. Gateway was briefly a terror in the early 1990s; a former archeologist whose alien battlesuit allowed him to banish his enemies into the Zero Zone, Gateway actually soloed against the Freedom League for a while before Daedalus succeeded in deactivating his stolen technology and freeing the policemen, bank tellers, and superheroes he imprisoned there. Gateway's been in jail ever since, the death of one of his early test subjects having given him a life sentence. With his suit deactivated and the man himself in jail, he had slipped out of the public eye. Until now. It's coming up on the second time the Gateway suit will become active in Mara's custody, and while she works on it, her two top security guards are hanging around in the event that the formerly dangerous piece of supertech comes to life in an inopportune moment. You can't be too careful when it comes to get sucked into another dimension. Looking confident in his security guard uniform, Steve stood by the door with Erin, drinking break room coffee from his new mug. "Your young man's blend is very flavorful," he commented to Erin as he watched Mara at work. "You should give him my thanks."

He has Growth 4. Hulk big, not Godzilla.

Wraith (and anyone else sneaking in): I need a Stealth check. It's not going to be that tough to avoid being seen, given the big giant distraction that's Citizen and Rogue hamming it up at each other, but you will be able to see more things vis a vis the freighter and where the bomb might be. Cobalt Templar and Ghost Girl: Initiative time! Sharl is down an HP.

"On it, Papercut. Thanks." He smiled the ghost of a smile at his roomate. "I'll be keeping Rogue busy, so use Sage to find Wraith. Next time there'll be more to explore here." With Wraith taking point for stealth, and the others coming to back her up, Sharl knew it was time for him to fly into the enemy stronghold and challenge the enemy leader to a fight. He found himself answering the argument in his head not with the face of Mr. Archer or his teammates, but rather with Miss Americana. I know I'm not being very subtle, but everyone else is and that should take Rogue by surprise. We're not scrambling to catch up anymore, and I'm not hiding. The people in that freighter are counting on Citizen to save them. This is my city. These are my people, and I'm not going to let them suffer at her hands another minute. A moment later Sage, if you're reading this, try and link what I'm thinking to the others so they can see this too. When Citizen crashed through the empty upper deck of the plankton freighter, he didn't need to feign outrage as he appeared in the massive cargo hold, big as any two or three buildings in Claremont. "Rogue! Your evil ends now!" He took in the scene instantly, the hundreds of people who'd been working on the plankton docks, all secured to cube-seats around the perimeter like they were students at one of the old mass schools, with Rogue herself sitting on a massive steel throne in the center of their little circle. He caught a glimpse of the supervillains she'd brought with her; a feral-looking woman with triangular ears and square metal armor, a rapidly-shifting iridescent blobby humanoid with an indeterminate shape, and some sort of angular metal thing, but they all slipped into the shadows and away from the terrified civilians shouting for his aid at a wave from Rogue. His worst enemy smiled as she uncrossed her long, leather-clad legs and floated up into the air to sneer at him. "Well well well, I see you came here alone, anyway. And as for my evil, well, was that some line you learned from your super-school, boy?" On the docks outside, on every one of the omnipresent monitors in the area, the two of them sprang to life like some demented television show. He crossed his arms and glared at her, mindful of the need to keep her attention on him. "I think it's a pretty fair description, you monster. You're the one who led these aliens to our city; YOU're the one planning on killing all these people!" he shouted, gesturing to the dockworkers and crewmen all around. Her eyes flashed an alarming shade of red for a moment before she laughed. "Oh, please, is that what you think I am? Some crazy maniac out to kill my hometown? You've been reading too much Earth propaganda." She focused her gaze on Sharl, speaking to him with the intensity of a missionary. "I'm here to give these people, _our_ people, the future." "A future with no home? No city? Where we're all, what, pawns to some stupid alien robot who actually thinks some ridiculous alien gods built him?" Sharl was not a big fan of Talos, or the bronze giant's mechanical agenda. "No. A future where we have our own city, and our own world." Rogue smiled. "A future where _their_ world is _ours_." She pointed to the sky, and Sharl knew perfectly well what world she meant. "A world with no more lies, no more tricks about what we are! A world where _we_ are the masters we have always deserved to be, and where _they_ are bowing down to _us_." She gave him an imploring look. "It's not too late, Citizen. You don't have to serve them any longer." "I'm not their _servant_," said Sharl cuttingly, hoping their big, noisy argument was distracting the supervillains below from all the sneaking around his friends were doing. "They're my friends, or my teachers. Their world is-" "THEIR WORLD!" Rogue detonated, driving her fists together with a boom loud enough to warm their air around her. "You know what their world is? Nothing but...nothing but animals who have befouled their own dens!" She flitted back and forth as she talked, her teeth set in a sudden fury. "They buy and sell their women in half the nations on their globe, they let unmanaged wildlife run wild across their land, they _murder_ each other for being of the wrong geographical area, they pump their skies black with carbon! Their world is _sick_, Citizen, and we. can be. their. _doctors_." "Maybe they do have problems," replied the electronic teenager firmly, mindful of the need not to betray his own secrets in front of all these people, who surely couldn't handle the knowledge of what had happened to Tronik, "but we should be lifting them up, not tearing them down because we haven't come as far as we have. And what if they could teach us some things too? Like about compassion. And respect for our common humanity. And tolerance, and...and origami, and Indian food, and a whole world that's just as good as ours!" "Their tolerance? Please." She gave him a dead-eyed stare over her mirrorshades. "You've lived among them. You've spoken with them. Can you really tell me that you've never felt different? That they've never made you _feel_ different because of what you are? Because you're a machine, and they're flesh and blood? Because they're real, and you're not?" She flew close enough to almost poke him in the chest with one long finger. "Have they called you 'it' yet?" Sage's face flashed in Sharl's mind, there and gone before he could stop himself, but he managed once again to concentrate on the threat at hand. It wasn't fair. "Just because we lost a world once doesn't mean we can take one now. And if you were really as righteous as you act, you'd be offering Tronik a choice, not forcing us to live by your vision of the world. Now stand down, and order your aliens out of the city so we can stop those annihalation devices. Or face the consequences."

Even as paranoid as the Tronik militia was, Gal Vanic's good cheer was infectious. She didn't get the laugh she might have gotten from Freedom City cops, but she didn't get blasted in the face despite her shocking demonstration. One of the militia officers might even have been smiling, though that was just a guess with the full face plates and all. The senior officer put his hand to his face for a moment and walked out with the others to form a perimeter around the edge of the roof without so much as a word of greeting. These weren't friendly folks, but they weren't going to stand in Gal Vanic and Cobalt Templar's way. The voice sounded in Cobalt Templar's head again. And then, as Gal Vanic landed, Keres simply strolled out of thin air with a smile on his face, the militia officers spinning around with their weapons drawn. "I have no wish to harm you, my brothers-to-be!" called the Foundry's assassin, "so let me instead assume a form more suitable for war with these filthy organics!" He laughed, and suddenly the red-eyed humanoid swelled with a monstrous regularity that could only be artificial, growing larger and fiercer as his teeth pulled back in a snarl. "COME!" he boomed. "LET US GRAPPLE WITH EACH OTHER!"

"Hey, no problem." Upon his release, Freebooter snapped his fingers and produced a jaunty pirate hat like something from a Republic serial. Once the hat was back on his head, he seemed to slip smoothly back into her persona. "Arr, don't worry, sentient programs be some of me best mates. I'd never have come to plunder these waters if I'd known they were inhabited. Just be careful where you go in here, swabbies. The Foundry'd like nothing better than to run yer scalps up their flagpole. These waters may not be real, but the cannon'll knock you down sure as anything." And with that, he vanished, folding sideways as if he'd never been there. About that time, one of the nearby monitors lit up with Citizen's face. "Hey, Sage and Papercut, I got your message about Freebooter," said Citizen seriously. "If you've got that in hand, we need backup by the docks." As he spoke, a coordinate map popped up on a screen next to them. "I'm doing this while talking to Wraith, so gimmie a minute...yeah, we're right there." A blinking dot popped up. "Get out here as fast as you can. Wraith's going to need backup getting into Rogue's lair and rescuing the people I think she's got hostage, not to mention taking out the aliens there. I'll be keeping Rogue busy."

Sharl concentrated, nodding in satisfaction after a few moments. "I've blocked us out too, so we can talk without them hearing us. You're right about needing to recon." He dropped down low behind one of the huge ships, Citizen and Wraith disappearing behind the giant shadow of one of the massive plankton freighters. "This isn't right," he muttered worriedly to Wraith. "These docks should be swarming with people, even if there is a crisis. This isn't like Freedom City, it wouldn't be vacant like this during working hours..." He pushed back his own fear, trying to dismiss the imaginary images of the broken bodies he hadn't been there to save. "All right, you're right about reconnaissance," he told Wraith. "Okay, so here's my idea. I give Rogue me rushing in without a plan, what she's probably come to expect, but meanwhile you're scouting out that ship. Maybe finding her allies, or seeing if that's where she's put the dock crew. All right?" He flexed his fingers. "If she hits me, or if her friends do, well, I can take a hit better than maybe anyone else on our team when we're all uploaded. Worry about the civilians and maybe the other bomb first. Saving the people of Tronik is what matters here."

There was a crater near the cracked-open castle gates that had filled in with water since, and with a sigh of relief Nina kicked off her shoes , rolled up her pants,. cand buried her bare feet in the new pond. "Aah, that's nice. However cold the air is, the water always feels just about perfect" She leaned back and gave Mark a lazy smile, looking more comfortable with her body partially in the water. "Just think, if you'd done more damage, all this could be a lovely mountain lake." She sighed, the water rising up around her bare legs at her mental command. "I'm counting you to convince me that this is a better way to spend your last week in Europe than Ibiza," she added with a little smile. Mark sat down next to her, keeping his feet out of the water. "Well, we're not going to spend the whole week here," he said with a little laugh. "Remember, there's still that ski lodge with our names on it." Dating the daughter of a king did have its advantages, even if arguments about politics tended to go awry very fast for the two of them. "I know it's silly to worry about property damage when people died," he said, waving his hand idly over the pond and warping a sculpture of green water up into the air. "But there was a lot of history here. It was a shame to lose it all because of one bad week." "Deep Ones don't have history," said Nina dismissively, "they're the scum of the undersea. I've fought them alongside my father since I was a child, and I know they're nothing but filthy monsters." Typhoon had also had his share of conflicts with regular Atlanteans, but Nina was too young to have engaged in those sorts of wars alongside her family. "If one of them had burned your family house down, the only thing they'd regret is not catching you inside it." "That's not fair," said Mark loyally. "It's not Archeville's fault he got taken over by weird magic. I just don't think someone should be defined by one bad thing, or even a series of bad things," and as he spoke he pictured his own father in his mind, "when they did good in their life too. The world's more complex than that. I know how you feel when people call your father a supervillain," he added pointedly to Nina, who from the look in her eye had to admit the truth of that. He put his hand on hers, his skin pale against hers dark, and they shared a smile that turned into a kiss.

With the struggling Grue Arcane captured, Fleur de Joie returned to Earth-Prime with her prisoner in tow just in time for the rescue. As a portal opened beneath Rene's mystic brush, Weaver reached in and scooped the little girl out, a faint boom underneath the soil the only sign of the hibernation pod's boobytraps going off. The real Chloe looked the very image of the resurrected angel (a far cry from the Grue that had disappeared into Fleur's dimensional gateway), her skin a little pale and blonde hair floofing around her head, awakening almost immediately in her tearful father's arms. "Daddy? What happened?" she asked as she blinked her big blue eyes awake. Between getting the family to the nearest hospital to make sure that the real Chloe had suffered no ill effects from being inside a Grue hibernation pod (as well as to make sure that this was, in fact, the real Chloe Johnson), conveying the now-hissing, spitting Grueling to the custody of the Freedom League who'd be able to deal with her in a manner best-suited to her, there was certainly plenty for the heroes to do in the aftermath. And lastly, came disposing of a woman who should have been much more of a threat that she had been: Madame Zero, whose attack on Weaver's neighborhood had prompted the heroes to stick together in the first place. Decanted from a giant flower, the white-skinned villainess stood there in the Blackstone entry hall, unresisting, as the guards removed her armor and fitted her with power nullifiers, everyone's breath but hers misting in the deep cold she required to stay alive in jail. "It's easy to keep her in place," the guards had confided to the heroes on the way in, "you just turn up the heat in the halls." Finally, she focused on the heroes with her ice-blue eyes and said in a voice like a winter wind, "The baby. Did you see him?" People said Madame Zero didn't have any feelings, but it was hard to see that now.