Avenger Assembled

Harrier was silent for a moment at that suggestion, seriously considering his response, before wordlessly he let his armor erupt from his skin, folding away his organic flesh and hiding it beneath a somewhat-battered covering of Terminus steel. Though he'd taken some dents and scuffs here, most of it would be easy enough for his armor' self-repair systems to fix. As she worked on him, he lay silently, turning with a clank at her command, but he couldn't simply be silent with Gina the way he could with almost every living soul. From behind his armor there came an echoing "You have never pried into the details of my life. I have always appreciated that."

"I have suffered worse injuries than this," replied the former drone, a darkness in his eyes suggesting he'd taken blows recently far worse than what he'd gotten from Joseph's telekinetic powers, and taken wounds deeper than the bruises on his skin. He looked at Miss Americana, and as beautiful as the paragon was, he found himself speaking to Gina directly in his mind. "It was a poor reward for our conversation earlier," he said apologetically. "I would not have put you in a position to defend me, had avoiding it been within my power."

24 Bound and Helpless, for now.

Steve had walked from the area near Hayes Park where he'd landed to Miss Americana's laboratory, his armor retracted back under his skin and his head down. The memory of that awful grief on the face of his psychic opponent of earlier in the day still burned hot in his mind, a fresh layer seared on the already-scorched surface of his soul. But he'd always been one to push forward rather than wallow in depths of suffering he knew too well could drag him down into a bottomless pit from which no one could possibly escape, so he kept moving, walking in his slow, mechanical stride down the center of the sidewalk until he reached Miss Americana's lab's front door. Once there, and guided by the robot, he headed directly inside, removing his shirt as they went. "The projectors were damaged by the impact, not by the blast itself," he said without preamble as he peeled them off his chest, heedless of the bruises already forming on his scarred flesh. "They should be...repairable."

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The divorce thing seems decidedly odd. Franklin Moore's wife was a department store heiress married to the mayor of Freedom City (and Butterfly was born during his administration). It seems much more likely that she'd leave her husband in 1993 (kids and all) after his administration collapsed. Or, heck, maybe her mom was actually one of her father's many mistresses...

"My...my daughter?" said the agent, focusing on Weaver's words closely when that subject came up. "That, that thing wasn't my daughter!" Frightened as he was, he all but grabbed the hero by the lapels for emphasis. "They...they came and took her about six months ago, they told me she'd be in suspended animation, that she'd be safe as long as...as long as I did what they wanted." He tugged at his hair, eyes wild, as he poured out his confession. "They...they wanted genetic samples at first, samples from the super-kids I was placing. I had access to their medical records, it was easy to send DNA profiles to them. And then it was more, it was power workups, information, so they could recruit the kids when they got older..." He wiped his eyes, then gasped, "And then, finally, they wanted help finding a child so they could take him. Madame Zero's boy, with Glacier, they wanted him so they could study his powers. I couldn't do that." He shook his head. "I couldn't...I couldn't let them have any more children. So I used our records to find the number of someone with the Crime League and I told Madame Zero where her kid was. I knew she wasn't with them, and I knew she hadn't consented to an adoption, so she'd come looking if she thought her kid was being taken. thought she'd be caught by heroes and they'd protect the kid, or at least she'd take him and he wouldn't be experimented on...I...I'm so sorry, I just wanted to keep my baby girl safe! She's all I have left in the world!"

Harrier had been staring at the flashburned remains of the forge before Miss Americana's approach; when she joined him on the ground he turned to her, his face hidden behind cold, pitiless Terminus steel. Only her knowledge of the man inside the armor had let her gauge his mood so closely from the air. At her words, he looked at the unconscious man at his feet. "Doomforges are constructed on worlds that have been broken by the Terminus to facilitate the destruction of the surviving sentient population. To build one so accurately, he must have seen one for himself." Left unspoken was how many Harrier himself had seen, or the memories of what it was like to be inside one. "I will join you in your laboratory." They had to stay long enough for the authorities to arrive, of course, including a telepath from the Freedom League who could help control Joseph's powers even after he was fitted with a psi-nullifier. Harrier kept to himself and said nothing as Lady Liberty spoke to Miss Americana, but kept his ears open all the same. The occasional crunch of broken steel as Harrier walked around breaking pieces of the forge sounded as Lady Liberty gave her explanation. "From what Mr. Hart told us, this was the first anniversary of the destruction of his home world." Lives had been saved and certainly sanities, but it was a sad moment all the same. Heedless of the newscameras now watching them from a discreet distance, the 'heroic' Omegadrone having as always attracted heavy interest, particularly now in the company of the lovely Miss Americana and with the signs of the Terminus left everywhere, when Joseph was loaded into the ambulance; Harrier took off into the sky on a column of fire.

Those both succeed automatically, given Freebooter's stats. Go ahead and post if you can.

Harrier brought the pike down across Joseph's back again, this time using a powerful, electrically-charged stroke that reached the fragile body of the powerfully-minded psychic and knocked him into a deeper state of unconsciousness. With the body asleep, the mind that had done so much damage and might have done even more was no threat. As he stood over the body of the fallen victim of the Terminus, Harrier suddenly spun and fired another shot into the heart of the now-vacant doomforge: the half-assembled piece of menacing scrap metal exploded on impact from the cosmic blast, sending shards of debris flying everywhere in the now-vacant green. He'd been standing between the fallen figure of his former foe, so the destruction of the doomforge didn't harm its builder at all.

"Well, that can't be good," muttered Mark a moment before Edge sprang into action. Posing on a nearby stone block that had once held a Hero of the Revolution, fearlessly exposing himself to enemy fire, Edge was suddenly as heroic a figure as anything from a Socialist Realism poster. "Just as it was in the days of our grandfathers, the heroes of the People's Revolution and the Liberty League stand together in battles against terrible threats from beyond the stars! Come on, let's show them that the new generation has the heart and soul of the old! For Freedom, justice, and the people of Mother Russia, let's give this man the peace stolen from him in life!"

Edge Inspires his teammates as a full-round action. That's Wander, Midnight, Cannonade, Crimson Bomb, and Morning Star: sorry, Nightwatchman's just too high on the initiative!

7 He is unconscious! Harrier coldcocks him when his force field goes down, and that's the end of that.

"You can't stop me!" yelled the mad psychic as he absorbed the lasers without flinching. "I was the most powerful psychic on my world before that thing and his kind destroyed everything!" He released his mental hold on his terrified captives, who being sensible Freedomians took one look at what was going on and quickly vacated the half-built doomforge, fleeing for their lives as fast as they could run away from the Omegadrone, the mad psion, and the beautiful patriotic heroine who was all that made sense in this crazy world. "You doubt my pain! Let me show you what they've done and the justice of what I do!" He concentrated, a glowing red butterfly aurora of psychic energy appearing in the air around his head, a matching one flaring to life around Miss Americana's head a moment later, but evidently he found no mental purchase in the all-American heroine. "What? No! It's impossible! You should be-" Harrier's pike slammed into the back of Joseph's head hard enough to knock him to the ground, slamming him face-first into the sodden green earth beneath their feet. Blood in his mouth, Joseph looked up to see a crackling cosmic blade a few inches from his face as the former Omegadrone said with cold, methodical fury that burned like Terminus fire, "The vastest of sufferings is not a weapon to wield on innocents." He took a few steps back, aiming to give Miss Americana a clear shot if she came back for another pass. "You dare not speak of justice and build that horror upon this world of innocents," he went on, the doomforge at his back and outlining his too-familiar outline like a terrible spectre of the past.

Nat-20: 35 I really don't like this jerk -1 HP for Miss A as she's surging to hit him again, using the Homebody Complication that was activated earlier. 31 Ugh, I'm really starting to hate this jerk. Faced with a new threat, he'll switch it up and try Mental Blasting Miss A (the better to let him concentrate on his new opponent) and fail. Harrier All-Out Power Attacks again 25 That hits. 25 Yes! This jerk finally failed a Tou save. He is bruised and dazed. I'll say that breaks his hold over the mind-controlled civilians and lets them run away.

Streetwise Shark PL: 10 (150) Ailities: 36 pp STR 30/20 (+10/+5) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30/20 (+10/+5) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +24 Init: +2 Saves: 11 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +8 (+2 Dex, +6) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Diplomacy 8 (+10) Gather Info 8 (+10) Intimidate 13 (+15) Knowledge (History) 4 (+6) Knowledge (Streetwise) 4 (+6) Language 1 (French, Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 2 (+4) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Challenge (Fast Startle) Dodge Focus 4 Environmental Adaptation (Underwater) Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (radio) Well-Informed Powers: 49 pp Comprehend 2 (speak to and understand animals, Flaw: underwater animals only) [2 pp] Enhanced Con 10 (to CON 30/+10) [10 pp] Enhanced Feats 3 (Improved Crit, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [bludgeoning/piercing/slashing]) [3 pp] Enhanced Strength 10 (to STR 30/+10) [10 pp] Flight 3 (50 MPH/500 fpr) (PF: Subtle) [7 pp] Immunity 4 (aging, drowning, environmental cold, high pressure) [4 pp] Super-Senses 5 (electroreception; Accurate Analytical Extended Radio Sense) [5PP] Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) [8 pp] costs abilities 36 + combat 24 + saves 11 + skills 14/56 + feats 16 + powers 49 = 150 pts --------------------------------------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for Buford, the neighborhood bully and muscle of the Phineas and Ferb gang. Though he appears oafish and stupid, Buford actually turns out to have hidden depths as the series progresses. Buford can best be understood as a Proud Warrior Race Guy, a bully who beats up nerds because it's his duty under the Bully Code, a loyal frenemy who will happily adventure alongside the heroes one day and on other days try to tear down what they've built when they disagree over ethics. (That his family are ethnic outsiders, being descendants of Otto H. Adjacent, founder of the Adjacent Area that was merged unwillingly into the Tri-State Area in which the show takes place, only makes things sharper.) He's devoted to his mother and his goldfish Biff, even to the extent of naming the latter after the former. He's more of a friend who beats you up sometimes (particularly Baljeet) than a real neighborhood bully. Buford's interest in aquatic life got me to build him as basically a squaline Namor, a shark-man who can "fly like a little woodland pixie" on ankle wings just as he's always dreamed. I've built sharks before, so for this one I opted to focus on combat prowess and super-senses: a shark's electroreception might be more subtle than its teeth, but their ability to track by bioelectricity is quite real, and quite formidable. He's a decent street-level investigator and could function as an Atlantean Luke Cage pretty effectively. He's a solid fighter; maybe he doesn't have Candace's sheer physical power, but he's a better overall fighter. I think he works fine as an Atlantean hero who happens to have a little shark in him, or maybe he's a Hawaiian were-shark, a man who transforms under the full moon into an aquatic behemoth that can also go on land! If you want a more divine slant to his magical origins, he might be an avatar of Nanaue, the demigod son of Ka-moho-alii, King of the Sharks, trapped between human and squaline worlds just as thoroughly as he's trapped between human and the divine. That might explain the flight, too!

Omegadrone (NPC) (Rank 8 Minion) PL: 7 (120) Abilities: 4 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 10 (+0) CON n/a INT 10 (+0) WIS 10 (+0) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+6 Pike Blast, +7 melee) DEF: +7 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +0 Grapple: +14 Saves: 8 pp TOU +7 (+7 Protection) FORT n/a REF +4 (+0 Dex, +4) WILL +4 (+0 Wis, +4) Skills: 32 r=8 pp Intimidate 12 (+12) Notice 10 (+10) Sense Motive 5 (+5) Stealth 5 (+5) Feats: 8 pp Attack Focus: Melee 3 Dodge Focus 3 Fearless Startle Powers: 76 pp Device 4 (Power Pike, Easy to Lose, PF: Restricted [Omegadrones]) [13 pp] Blast 8 (PFs: Accurate, Improved Crit, Incurable) [19+1=20 pp] AP: Damage 0 (Extras: Penetrating 7, Vampiric 7, PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit, Incurable, Precise, Takedown Attack) Flight 3 (50 MPH/500 fpr) [6 pp] Immunity 40 (Fortitude Saves, Mental Effects) [40 pp] Protection 7 (Extra: Impervious 7) [14 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Darkvision, Radio) [3 pp] costs abilities 4 + combat 16 + saves 8 + skills 8/32 + feats 8 + powers 76 = 120 pts ------------------- Design Notes: Theme Music Here's my revised build for a base Omegadrone, one that I think is considerably more terrifying than the one in the Freedom City book. It may not seem that formidable in a world of superheroes; but in a normal world without heroes it's the most terrifying thing alive, easily capable of fighting an entire army base full of NPC soldiers and SWAT officers and potentially winning, shrugging off all but heavy weapons fire and repairing itself by draining the life-energy of its targets via terrible entropic strikes of its deadly pike. In an agents game, it'd be a monster who could easily fight the entire team at once. In a world of heroes, it's less of a threat: most PL 7s could probably take it without too much trouble. Despite lacking enough volition to be manipulatable by telepaths, It's not hard to fool or trick. But the thing of it is, where there's one Omegadrone, there's usually a thousand or ten thousand, boiling out of screaming rifts in the sky and overwhelming even powerful heroes by sheer numbers as they pull the world into the all-devouring darkness of the Terminus.

Unfinished sheets go in Character Building.

It's okay, TK, it's a common mistake. I actually checked to make sure that wasn't the British spelling first. APPROVED

Since he gets most of the 1 ep mundane equipment for free, you should specify that it's Masterwork. (Giving you +1 on its use!)

I've got no beefs here! APPROVED

What sense type is her Awareness? And it's Lose, not Loose. Sorry, that one just bugs me. :P

Impundulu PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 12 pp STR 30/14 (+10/+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON n/a (-) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Impundulu Powers) DEF: +8 (+2 flat-footed) Grapple: +7/20 Initiative +6 Saves: 8 pp TOU +12 (+4 Protection, +8 Protection) FORT n/a REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 12 pp=48 r Bluff 8 (+10) Handle Animal 8 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 2 (+5) Languages 3 (Afrikaans, English, Xhosa: Base: Zulu) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 9 pp Dodge Focus 4, Improved Initiative, Luck, Move-By Action, Precise Shot, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 95 pp Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp] Flight 2 (25 MPH/250 fps) (PF: Subtle, Drawback: Restrainable) [4 pp] Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp] Impundulu Array 15 (PFs: Accurate 2) [32+2=34 pp] BE: Enhanced Feats 6 (Improved Crit 2 [unarmed], Incurable, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [bludgeoning/piercing/slashing] [6] and Enhanced STR 16 (to STR 30/+10) [16] and Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) [8] 'avian body' AP: Blast 10 LINKED Dazzle 10 (auditory) (PFs: Indirect 2) 'lightning' AP: Teleport 9 (900 ft/anywhere on Earth) (Extra: Accurate, PFs: Change Direction, Change Velocity, Easy, Progression, Turnabout) 'riding the lightning' Protection 8 (Extra: Impervious 6) [14 pp] Protection 4 (Extra: Impervious, Flaw: Not Vs. Fire/Magic/Silver) [4 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Darkvision, Detect Magic 3 [visual]) [5 pp] Drawbacks: -6 pp Vulnerable (vs. holy) [uncommon, major] [-3 pp] Weakness (dazed by Charisma check vs. holy items) [-3 pp] costs abilities 12 + combat 20 + saves 8 + skills 12/48 + feats 9 + powers 95 -drawbacks 6= 150 pts ----------------------------- Design Notes: Going international with my vampire builds, here's an impundulu, the "Lightning Bird" vampires of southern Africa. (The picture is of Blacula, the most famous African vampire. It's a surprisingly not awful movie, largely because of William Marshall's dignified performance) The impundulu takes the form of a man-sized black and white bird, with the power to summon lightning and thunder from its wings, travel along lightning currents, and slash and bite with its huge claws and beak. So this guy can fly on bird's wings, transform himself into a feral-looking avian wrecking machine, his his enemies with bolts of lightning out of the sky, or turn into lightning to get around incredibly fast. (Why fly when you can lightning? Well, he's a lot more quiet on Hammerkop wings than he is as a bolt from the blue!) Impundulu are often associated with witches, so I've given him the ability to see magic by concentrating on it. I couldn't find any evidence the impundulu had trouble with sunlight (a pretty lethal drawback in a culture without buildings!), so I just gave him the usual aversion to holy magic and holy items. I took the mechanics for his claws (the Variable Descriptor) from Doc's Benadanti build: he can pummel with undead strength, bite with fangs, or slash with great avian claws. (He doesn't have Morph on his Hammerkop form, because a six-foot wading bird with a man's mass pretty clearly is nothing natural, even in the World of Freedom. Mechanics-wise, my theory is that this guy used to be a hunter or park ranger in one of South Africa's many national parks, where he was attacked and transformed by one of the last surviving impundulus, his maker having been driven there by constant Boer warfare against Africans in the 19th and 20th centuries. Fighting hard, he mastered his hungers and has come to Freedom City looking for a cure! You could make him a Mighty Whitey American, I suppose, but I think the character works best as someone native to South Africa, one way or another. He makes a fine villain, transplanted into a new land to rule it as his people once did his native soil. He makes a nice surprise for people who expect vampires to turn into bats!

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