Avenger Assembled

"Do you have any idea how long we've been stranded on this world?" replied the 'little girl', her eyes narrowing unwholesomely as she gazed steadily at Fleur de Joie. "Watching the Unity waste its drones year after year trying to subdue a planet more powerful than all of them put together? All we wanted was a little DNA from your super-children so we could get a portal back to our own world." Her lips were curling now in a snarl as she advanced, her eyes definitely red as her voice became a chorus. "You have so many, why did you object to us using these? They were the spawn of your criminals! No one even wanted them!"

Drawing a picture of the kidnapped girl soon enough guided Rene to her location, a location closer than they could have imagined! "She was here?! She was here the whole time!?!" Rayford pressed his fingers against the grassy, half-mown earth of his own lawn, staring down at the hibernation pod Rene's scrying ability had detected so far beneath the soil. "But how do we get her out?" he asked the heroes, looking frightened. "If what they said about the booby traps is true, one false move and she's done for!" There was the risk they might be done in by whatever traps were there, but such a threat was irrelevant to a frightened father, much less two heroes! --- 'Chloe' happily joined Fleur de Joie in making daisy chains, but away from her native environment it was increasingly obvious that the little girl was anything but. Her smiles were too perfect and came at the wrong times, her fingers were a little too cold to the touch when she and Fleur occasionally bumped into each other while they worked. When it was done, the little girl looked up at Fleur with daisies around her neck and said in a voice that wasn't sweet at all. "You know. Don't you?"

Edge: 21 Cockroach swarm stats Hideous Cockroach Abomination from the Depths of Time: 12 Edge: 21 Wander: 19 Cannonade: 17 HCA: 12 Midnight: 11 Everyone has their base allocation of HP, for now. Edge goes ahead and Inspires everybody and is down an HP. Wander is up.

(21:28:23) System: AvengerAssembled rolls 1d20 and gets (12)=12. CT goes first.

APPROVED

With his Mental Quickness, Doc can see something here Harrier can't. Every few seconds, Shrike and Blackthorn 'drop out of character', they share an agonized look, they reach over and hold hands, they flinch at the gleeful way Joyful George speaks of the annihilation of their world and its last heroes. But a moment later, whenever anyone seems to be paying too close attention, they're back 'on', happy lackeys of Steelgrave, joking about genocide with the happy knowledge of any Annihilist.

Steven stood with his usual perfectly erect spine as he watched the image come to life, first in scent and touch, then sound, then against all the senses as Dr. Archeville's telepathic machine broadcast the full sensory record to both men. They smelled blood and other things first, then heard screams that resolved into the roarings of a crowd before an image on the screen revealed itself: someone was being murdered by Omegadrones. It was too fast to see a face, just the final roar as an azure-skinned giant was pierced a dozen times by pikes, then fell bloodily to the ground. The 'camera' panned up from that grim scene to one, if anything, even grimmer; a barbarically decadent crowd that could only be Annihilists and their lackeys screaming their joy at the murder below them. They could see the rapture on the faces of those given over to entropy, smell the sweat and feel the heat of the arena. From the red sky overhead and the grimly brooding black skyline all around, they could only be on the surface of Nihilor itself. A few moments later, the image shifted to the local equivalent of a pressbox, where a dead-eyed man with perfectly-tanned skin gleamed a golden smile into the camera, the scent of his hair oils sharp and alien. "Well, that certainly was an exciting battle, wasn't it? Before we go to our post-game coverage, let's get a few words from two of our very special guests." The image panned around to reveal a man and woman, and here Murdock's eyes widened, his hands clenched into fists. "Born Sally and Ben, reborn Shrike and Blackthorn in the fires of the Terminus, you probably know our guests from their work as champions of Shadivan Steelgrave, the glorious Right Hand of our Lord! Shrike, Blackthorn, how do you feel now that the last superpowered being from your old world is dead?" There was nothing maternal in the eyes of the narrow-faced, brittle-looking woman behind the blood-red glasses and bizarre black costume of jewels and flimsy draperies. "Oh, we're delighted," said Shrike with a smile, taking the hand of her fat, well-satisfied looking husband, whose rings and gold-lined clothes would have fed their family after their fall for years. "Being destroyed in the glorious name of Omega is one thing, but being destroyed here, in the name of the great Shadivan Steelgrave as well? We couldn't be happier!" She smiled, her too-white teeth looking like fangs. "I wish _more_ of those deluded fools had resisted our conquest by the Terminus, so the show itself could go on!" The show, as it happened, turned out to be an anniversary celebrating Shadivan Steelgrave's service to Omega. In honor of Steelgrave's service, the last half-dozen survivors of his native world (save for Shrike and Blackthorn) had been called out to die in the pit in honor of the power of the right hand of Omega. Harrier watched his parents smile and flirt with Joyful George, the 'sportscaster', his hands tight at his sides, eyes flat and pained, as they spoke of the glories of Steelgrave. Shadivan hadn't made it to that particular festival, but all would be praising his name soon enough.

For his part, Sharl studied all the Christmas decorations with a curious eye. The theological nature of the holiday didn't mean anything to him, but he'd been impressed at the spiritual nature of it. Even people who didn't share the religious justification for this season were generally happier and more confident around the Christmas season, more generous with each other and those around them. For the rationalist teenager, it was a little alien...but not at all unpleasant despite that. He hesitated on the steps of the float, not sure if they were supposed to board or use their powers to get around, mindful of the emitter that had appeared nearby. Nice customs, but so strange... He was turning to ask Etain a question when suddenly the Christmas trees on the steps of City Hall roared to life! Decorated pine erupted from the concrete, sending debris flying everywhere as three of the trees along the portico proved to be the heads of giant evergreen tentacles, huge flexible limbs of pine and cone and sinister intent! As the heroes watched, two grabbed for City Hall pillars and tried to pull them down, while another lashed out, its cheerily decorated tip a mockery of Christmas cheer, and made as to grab the startled Mayor himself as the crowd screamed in terror!

Nice nat-20, Aoiroo! Citizen skill-masters a 20 Citizen and Crimson Tiger feel a minor vibration beneath their feet, while Changeling can see the ground crumbling beneath the rows of Christmas trees as terrible things rise from the surface beneath them! Changeling can act normally this round, Citizen and Crimson Tiger can either take a move action or a standard action. (You can spend an HP to surge and do more, of course). Initiative! Citizen: 26 3 Vines: 5, 10, and 11 5 is the one going for the Mayor; 10 and 11 are going for the City Hall columns.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Sharl apologetically when Mali corrected him. "I'm not from around here." Really, all the human naming conventions were a little bizarre to the monoculture-born electronic teenager. He understood intellectually that people like Corbin, Mali, and Etain all came from very different places and ethnocultural groupings, but it would be so much easier if they picked a single naming standard for all of them! Shaking off the irritation (since it was his fault for being ignorant), he said, "I'm a computer program. I'm actually being projected by the Doom Room's systems now." At that point, much to Sharl's relief, the friendly voice of Mr. Archer came over the comm system, the gym teacher just visible from the control center higher on the wall. "Good afternoon, Ms. Maher, Mr. Tulink, Ms. Benjawan. I hope you're all prepared for what should be an exciting afternoon." The room shimmered around them in a way intimately familiar to Sharl, and soon the blank yellow walls were replaced with the streets of Freedom City. Snow was falling thick and wet around the costumed teens, and looking up they were standing on the steps of City Hall as a fur-coated Mayor O'Connor announced, "I'm proud to introduce Changeling, Citizen, and Crimson Tiger, the Grand Marshals of this years Christmas Parade!" And sure enough, with the massive blue spruce looming behind them, decorated with an abundance of sparkly tinsel and shining lights, and a Freedom Square full of candlelight displays and hanging banners, it was obviously supposed to be very close to Christmas! The simulated crowd went wild, cheering their names joyfully.

Steven followed Archeville down to the Doktor's workshops, feeling a moment's hesitation about letting the recorder out of his sight. A matter of trust? he asked himself. It wasn't that he distrusted Viktor, rather, he distrusted the multiverse as a whole. His work as a consultant with the Freedom League would certainly take on an entirely new angle if he couldn't be trusted with a mission like this. Feeling like a bull in a china shop, he kept his thick arms close to his body as Archeville went about his work. Or...suspicion? Viktor's predictions about the recorder's technological compatibility proved accurate enough, and as he worked Harrier continued to think about what he'd said. "They tried tracking the years they served Steelgrave at first. A year, a decade, a century. Then, finally, the years were numberless. All I know of their time with him was that they praised his name and were the champions of his cause to the rest of the Terminus. Until they defied him, and were cast below as a lesson to the others who served the Annihilists. They would come sometimes and look at us. To make sure their children learned the lesson too." He shook his head.

Posting for Electra: Wander: Greater Love Faded Giant Vignette Miss Americana: All In Fleur de Joie: Vignette Pollinated Flowers Papercut: Future Soon

Edge: Spoiler Alert Faded Giant Vignette Citizen: Incompatible Hardware Future Soon Harrier: Vignette Last Record All In GMing Hot and Cold

Harrier Born In Sin Harrier crashed to the floor hard enough to crack the paneled wood, armor erupting from his warping flesh as his body burned with unholy fire. "Omegadrone armor is unlike the battlesuits heroes like Daedalus or Ironclad wear." His hands shaking with tension, Steve Murdock gripped the podium in front of him hard enough to make the wood creak. The audience of security experts were staring at him with suspicious eyes, as if unable to believe an Omegadrone could walk like a man. "Internal cybernetic systems replace all essential organic bodily functions..." His armored fingers scratched the floor as Harrier pulled himself to his feet, concentrating on his armor's internal systems. He didn't have the detailed internal readouts that some cybernetic beings did; what did it matter to them if Omegadrones were sick or injured? But that his armor would not open was a bad sign, he knew, a sign of some deep infection that the armor's immunological systems were fighting. He walked to his television, feet clanking on the carpet, and gingerly flicked on the television, to news of apocalypse. An Omegadrone watched as Physician Friendly and Shadivan Steelgrave shared an argument, and a drink, in the Physician's private study. "Look, Shadivan, think of all the resources you lose with every world you conquer. I'm not talking about _them_," he said with a wave to the Omegadrone in the corner, one of half-a-dozen who Steelgrave had brought as his personal guard. "But think of the time running doomforges takes away from your work. Suppose I could build a virus that would kill a world _for_ you, superhumans and humans alike? And then you could come in and take it for your own?" Steelgrave hmmed and stroked his mustache. Distantly someone screamed a lament without end. "Hmm, a worthy experiment, Physician." He sipped his wine and smiled. "But the manner of the killing is important too. What did you have in mind?" "I am affected, but my armor's internal systems are battling the infection," said Harrier into Satyr's cellphone, his own having snapped between clumsy spiked fingers during his earlier conversation. "I will make myself available to you and anyone else looking for a treatment, but I doubt its effectiveness. Few will consent to be altered as I have been altered." When he hung up the phone, Harrier wondered if Gina could tell he was in his armor. It had been nearly 48 hours and his systems still hadn't finished their purge. And as he needed food, and even more importantly water, that was going to be a serious issue in the very near future. His tongue was dry, and would not be moistened. Murdock grabbed the rat between his fingers and pulled it to his mouth, biting down hard. Things were good here; the waste dump from the Madrigal's compound was as productive as ever. Warriors from a thousand worlds being beaten into her servants discarded much, and either the waste or the things that came to feed on it were good eating. The only risk were the occasional hunters looking for live prey to tear apart in Madrigal's arena, but this day so far things were quiet. When he'd eaten and drunk his fill, he caught three more, and a four-legged beast as big as him, to take back to January: she'd been acting funny lately, perhaps a little more to eat would make her feel better. Power flickered as Harrier slammed his fist through the wall, reaching inside the plaster to grab hold of the copper wiring the old Cline building still used. He gasped as the energy crackled through his systems, overcharging the systems that had replaced most of his digestive tract, sending nutrients and water flooding into his bloodstream. His armor would need recharging after this, not to mention the wall would need repair, but he would stay alive. He'd made the rounds in the Cline that night, checking on his neighbors, not that any of them really wanted to see him when he looked like this. Though infections had spread among the refugees, they were used to plague, and had handled it well, with little panic. There was blood everywhere, hissing as it burned through steel and stone like the powerful acid it had become. Steve had seen plenty of blood in the Black Ghetto, but not like this, a life-giving fluid twisted into poison for anything that lived. And much that didn't, from the way the robotic probes left in the walls writhed. Covering his mouth against the fumes, he stumbled out of the hovel to embrace his father. "It was fast, Steve," Ben told him reassuringly, "Fast and done, and she hardly felt it." But Steve had seen the bleeding horror before. "We needed to move on anyway. I have a space for us with Mad-Eyes, the one Madrigal's people cast out. It's not much, but it'll be a new start." It would all prove false. Five days in, and Harrier had come to the Lab, a vision of armored destruction that was a terror even as the city went mad all around them. He'd sat alone, aloof but cordial in his bladed shell, as heroes used a small teleporter to extract samples of his blood for further analysis. He could just see the holographic display the super-scientists were studying as the cybernetic leukocytes in his blood devoured the infectious organisms they were studying, then turned on the test sample of human tissue, and then the petri dish itself before a quick blast of hard radiation destroyed it. He winced, he couldn't help it. Well, perhaps they'd learned that the mutagen was mortal, if nothing else... Ultralord exploded into a cloud of rapidly incinerating, somehow still howling particles as Omega strode through his remains, the other Annihilists in the room having the good sense not to interrupt their master when he spoke. "He 'tasks' me! He 'tasks' me yet!" Omega roared, shaking his fist at the image of the fallen Centurion on the Wall of Conquest before him. Not Conquest now, of course, but the Omegadrone kneeling behind Steelgrave wouldn't get that joke for years yet. "To be destroyed is one thing. To have my 'manifestation' shattered is one thing. But to be 'defeated'! To slay my ancient enemy and still be crushed at his 'hands'! This day! This 'day'!" When it was done, and Steve was next at work, he was quick to reassure Erin White that he'd come through the infection without any serious problems. "It was difficult, but the solitude was no challenge. It gave me...time to think"

"Hey," said Sharl, shaking Etain's hand. "I'm Sharl Tulink. You're Eve's girlfriend, right?" It was easier to tell there was something off about Sharl to the touch, his grip cool and a little electric, like rubbing one's feet on carpet on a cool fall day. He shook Benjawan's hand too, making the same introduction. He was in the black longcoat he usually wore when he was out around campus, peering over the mirrorshades he still wore at the unfamiliar people. "I don't think we've met," he said to Ben. "Is this your first time in the Doom Room?" he asked both of them. "I come here with my team a lot, but mostly we train together. You're magic," he said skeptically, "and you're a fighter, right?"

"Omega has been...discommoded before. I recall the reaction after the death of this dimension's Centurion. His wrath was great." An anguished howl from a god's throat burned in the back of Harrier's mind. "That his body was destroyed now was a particularly great victory." Growing uneasy in his seat, he rose to his feet, his eyes still on the cone in Archeville's hand. "But to destroy entropy itself would require a change in what Is. And such changes are harder to work than even destroying the physical manifestation of the Lord of the Terminus. He will return, and the Terminus will come to this world again, possibly in the lifetimes of those alive now. But with direct assault failed, and subterfuge too, what will follow is...beyond my ability to predict." He fell silent, then said frankly, "To war to rule the Terminus in Omega's absence must be a difficult prospect. To fall before the other Annihilists would foretell a fate both terrible and everlasting. But to _win_, to be the one who has dared sit in Omega's throne on his return..." He shook his head. "Their conflicts meant little to me. As a prole, they were simply another of the many things we cowered from. As a drone...nothing had any meaning." Silence fell again, stretching long and painfully, before suddenly Harrier cracked the ghost of a smile. "I stand here and tell you these doomful things, in this shining city of Freedom in this beautiful world, and you are kind enough to believe them. I want...I want this to be more," he said, touching the storage cone again. "Only myself and Shadivan Steelgrave even remember there were such beings as my mother and father. I want...I want this to let more people remember what was. Otherwise their fates would mean...nothing. And that is a far crueler fate than simple destruction."

"Though all serve Omega and his cause, all are at once against all," agreed Harrier. "Open warfare is rare in times when the power of Omega is not in abeyance. Annihilists compete to demonstrate their power and wealth, their fealty to Omega and devotion to entropy, the luxuries they can promise their followers." There was that flat silence again and then simply "Their willingness to destroy. My parents served Shadivan Steelgrave as the makers of his propaganda, before and after his corruption by the Terminus. When all else was lost from the world that had been theirs, he found their survival...amusing."

"I am familiar with technology similar to what you describe," said Harrier, nodding at Archeville's words. He didn't go on; very few people on Earth-Prime enjoyed hearing those stories. The box snapped open easily enough at Archeville's touch, revealing the data medium inside: a black cone shot through with sparkling filaments of crystalline fibers that shimmered pink and purple as the light in the room hit them. "It may be compatible." He stared at the cone, the light from the nigh-luminiscent stripes along the sides reflecting in his eyes. "I never...I never had one of these. We would sometimes see propaganda broadcasts among the higher levels of the city, but we were never the intended audience. Proles already know the faces of their gods."

Steve relaxed once in the presence of Doctor Archeville, taking a seat and a plate almost overflowing with different kinds of food: fruits, meats, and cheeses in a wide array. He didn't seem particularly hungry, though, and in fact as he talked found himself slipping those little bits of food into his pocket. He slowly, gently, set the box on the desk between them; now that they were face-to-face, the doctor could see the bottled-up emotion behind those usually flat, dead eyes. "I am well," he answered, the same stock response he gave to most questions about himself. "I hope you are also well. In the box is storage media recovered from the Terminus; a broadcast made to the private channels enjoyed by Annihilists and their cronies." He didn't bother with the story of how the Furions had recovered the device during a raid on Nihilor, or how it had come along with a collection of other data to Daedalus during a dimensional conclave, and then been passed to him. "If the encoded data is correct, it contains information about my parents."

Citizen, Changeling, and Crimson Tiger deal with computer problems.

April 2012 Citizen mostly trained with his friends from Young Freedom when he trained at all; the electronic teenager's work with Miss Americana having left him with a pretty good ability to fight as part of a group. But part of going to school at Claremont Academy was learning how to get along with everyone, which also meant how to fight alongside them. As their ethics teacher had explained, "When lives are on the line, it doesn't matter if the people on your team are from the wrong planet, religion, or neighborhood; nothing's more important than working together to get the job done." He'd seen Etain and the new girl, Benjawan, around campus, but he'd never said more than a few words to them. He sat patiently through a day of classes, absorbing everything from another round of superhuman history to religion and philosophy, a class which usually left him uneasy in his seat, before it was finally time for afternoon training: he left his emitter up in his and Koshiro's room and sent himself directly down to the Doom Room, where he made himself compatible with the room's systems through long practice. Floating there in the gold and black-lined room, the doors irised open to allow the others to enter, he let his vision go unfocused for a moment as he studied the public records of the two other heroes on the Internet. ..well, this should be interesting.

"I have come with a personal request, Viktor," said the former drone, casting his eyes around the house with no more than a vague aesthetic appreciation for the artwork. "Your food would be...pleasant." The gorilla had initially unsettled him, but despite his personal experience with cybernetic augmentation, he understood the robot's unusual appearance was no more than the jest Viktor had intended it to be. And it was comforting to know the man he'd met in that cell in Providence was never really alone. He cradled the cylindrical storage container in his hands for a moment, an awkward look on his usually impassive face: Harrier was usually a blunt instrument, so geniune hesitation was something novel. After a moment's hesitation, he went on without further preamble. "Do you have equipment capable of processing and playing back quantum etheric storage media? This particular media is encoded with a complete human-sense matrix."

Dok and Harrier deal with the problems of the past.

April, 2012. Around lunchtime. Despite the mixed success of his initial visit to Doktor Archeville in Providence Asylum, Harrier had visited the now-released scientist more than once since. At first it had simply been to tell him about the welfare of Mona's cat, who Harrier had tended to with care, if not a great base of knowledge, until her recent return from the Terminus. But there'd been other reasons to visit after that, two men who'd been deeply broken in some ways finding their way back to healing. Steve was one man Viktor could trust would never hold his transformation against him, and once he'd proved the bonafides of his origins (a demonstration he only had to carry out once!) he proved a detailed source on the Terminus: there were few living beings who had seen so much there, and remembered it all so well. But today, he was there on a different matter. He'd been consulted by the Freedom League infrequently on the Terminus, but they'd sought him out personally for a particularly weighty situation. He'd thought about taking this to Gina, but their relationship was new enough, and fragile enough, that he didn't want to break their mutual pact not to discuss their past. And as he cradled the League storage box between his big, scarred hands, he couldn't think of few things more personal than this. He knocked on Viktor's door, his new suit making him look almost like a normal man: it was impossible for him to get any closer than that.

Rolling initiative at this juncture would be prudent!