Avenger Assembled

The heroes plunged again into the darkened forest, ever-watchful now of the jungle and the dangers it posed to them. Unable to be as stealthy as the two shapeshifters, Harrier took the lead as beater for himself and the other cyborg, hacking away at the jungle with the energized edge of a power pike with a faint sizzle. Eventually the staring sun overhead slipped past the mountains, the true night settling in all around them. His nerves on a razor's edge, Harrier kept his ears open, the roar of the jungle around them masking any approaching threats. They could all see well enough in the darkness, but for all that he was acutely conscious of how vulnerable they all were. After hours of silent trekking, they found signs they weren't the first to walk that way: across the flank of a nearby thick, heavy tree was a sheet of thick, heavy ash and fibers in a vaguely humanoid shape, one that Harrier had to only study for a moment before knowing what it looked like all too well. "Grue. Killed by energy weapons."

Blackwell promised to keep in touch, and the heroes made their way via plant and picture to the Rayford Johnson house. Johnson and his daughter Chloe lived in a suburban cul-de-sac in Ashton, a new development that had been left unfinished after the housing bubble had burst some years earlier. There were several vacant lots and half-built homes around, and the only occupied house was way down at the other end of the street. There was something sad about the Johnson home as they approached, the paint was peeling and the grass overgrown and dead, if not for the car in the drive and the lights on inside, the house might have looked abandoned.

"My mother doesn't cook," said Sharl to Corbin, fighting the unhelpful urge to explain that she didn't ride horseback or churn butter. Stressed as he was, this was no time for another argument with Corbin about the material culture of interstellar civilizations against that of Earth-Prime. After all, how could he defend the superiority of his civilization when they were threatened by a madwoman and her friends with only Young Freedom standing in her way? "It's the middle of the day, anyway, she's probably at work in the hospital. If anyone's home, it'll be my sister Sieva. She's, uh, twenty-four by your calendar, she's a holo-artist." He shook his head in response to Koshiro, and replied, "They know I come and go, and it can't be helped. It's supposed to be for a higher purpose." He managed a half-smile for Kimber as he thought through Sage, "" To Sage herself, he added, "" A quick walk through crowded but silent corridors with featureless walls got the teens to Sharl's front door. Sharl paused for a moment, composed himself, and placed his hand against the doorpad. "Sharl Tulink," the wall said gently. "You have been away for 3.57 years." And with that the door slid open, and Sharl stepped inside. Despite the tremendous bulk of the massive buildings here, the Tulink family dwelling was small: no bigger than a smallish two-bedroom apartment in Freedom City. Where there were no visible doors in exterior walls, on the inside almost every room was visible: a big master bed in a room on one end and a smaller one at the other, and a big central room with what looked like a tiny, smooth-walled kitchenette, the far wall gone transparent to show the nearest massive structure miles away. Despite the small size of the room, the giant window gave it a feeling of space, along with ceilings cast much higher than they would be on Earth. A half-finished abstract assembly of shapes and colors occupied the middle of the room, a symphony of red, greens, and deeper colors like an ultraviolet Christmas tree, and just turning from her work was Sieva Tulink, who with her tall frame and high-cheekboned face showed a softer cast of what Sharl might look like after puberty. "Sharl!" she said with the first real volume they'd heard from someone in Tronik, immediately crossing to her brother and embracing him. "Why are you here? Who are your friends?" Sharl made fast introductions, the local woman staring in fascination at these exotic aliens, even reaching out to pat Kimber's hair. "An outsider, that terrorist I told you about, has broken back into Tronik. And she's brought friends with her. I had to make sure you and Mom and Dad were all right, then I, uh, we, have to find Leroj and try and catch Rogue." "Mom and Dad are fine, as far as I know," said Sieva worriedly, "Mom's at work, and Dad's at the militia control center in Sector 1. They're having communications blackouts off-island, but I don't think they've said anything about terrorists..." she said doubtfully.

Citizen nodded in satisfaction, glad to see that the duo had gone ahead and taken Collins out on their own. "Better keep that on Collins just to be safe," he called to Papercut as he flew through the air. "We don't need her getting loose when our backs are turned!" Still in the air, he engaged one of the Dark Young in hand-to-hand combat again, its flailing limbs whipping uselessly through his holographic body as he landed a magnetically-backed punch against a soft, sensitive part that squished under his blow in a way that didn't bear much thinking about. "We've almost got 'em!"

Mark is going to pop them (or just himself over, if others want to stay and research) to the Peoples' Heroes headquarters in Moscow, where he'll use his massive Diplomacy and Bluff, as well as his Connected feat, to get favors enough to get the team access to classified Soviet archives.

The autopsy had left Edge unsettled, especially in the wake of the grim findings about the life and unlife of the man who'd died. After his experiences on Erin's homeworld, the idea of using dead bodies as puppets was particularly galling to the usually-cheerful teen, but for the most part he'd been able to wrap that up as the particular odiousness of the Terminus. The idea that someone on Earth-Prime could be that evil, maybe somebody inside a government, was appalling to all his sensibilities. "If the Spetznatz did fight the Color we saw, or if the Soviet government did use it for their own purposes, we're not going to find a lot of evidence in the US. What does exist is probably going to be in paper records, or in heads, in Russia...and I think I know people who can help with that. I have some contacts inside the Peoples' Heroes. I think we need to take a trip."

"Our probes into the other timeline haven't gone very well," explained Clockwatcher irritably. "It looks like someone's been active in the intervening centuries releasing more radioactivity, or maybe the destruction of Freedom City used more cobalt-wrapped charges than we've been predicting. The 2500s over there are so irradiated most normal humans can't survive on the surface for more than a few minutes, and whoever's running the Earth after that has a temporal defense network erected." He harrumphed. "Our theory is that they're uptimers, from one future or another, with an interest in making Earth a radioactive cinder." "Why is...why are the Centurion and Rick Lucas here?" Mark finally asked, only his friends knowing Mark well enough to hear the shaky tremor in his voice. Rick, by some blessing, hadn't recognized his yet to be born son; instead he was listening to the Clockwatcher with a distracted air that was painfully reminiscent of his son. Evidently global crises and beyond were already old hat for Mark's dad. "I'll take this one," answered the Centurion, a serious look on his face. "Clockwatcher here tells me that certain individuals are keystones in the flow of history, people whose lives are so important that keeping them away from any temporal anomalies is the top priority of any time traveler-" "We're wild cards, daddy-o!" interjected Rick excitedly, his choice of words making Mark wince, the Centurion lapsing with the air of a man tolerant of a friend's foibles. "If we show up around this time traveler guy, there's no telling what'll happen! So it's better for you cats to go out there and make history tidy again."

APPROVED

Citizen: Sharl flies up to Dark Young 1 and punches it. Boom DC 28 Tou save.

Fix the revised cost of his Fort Immunity, and note that it's Skill Mastery, not task mastery.

"Oh, you do not have to prove anything to me," said Sui Li with that huge flight attendant's smile. "I am here to serve you in any way you wish until we reach New Freedom. I would never think to challenge someone with advanced metapowers," she said with great distinctiveness, eying the TV screen on the bulkhead wall behind her for a moment as if speaking to her reflection. Turning back to the others, she said, "When we arrive in New Freedom, you will be tested to prove you have the power and skill to enhance our community, and if you succeed you will meet with our officials. Perhaps even with the Patriotic Colonel," she added, folding her white-gloved hands in front of her. "If you brought resources of your own, you will be able to move them into your new residence, or construct that residence yourself if you wish. For example, one of our recent arrivals, Emperor Sojin of the Ameratsu people, has used his solar powers to construct a residence in his own likeness out of native rock." She smiled again, her hands folded tight in front of her. From the cockpit, with the plane now safely on autopilot for the trip in, Sandstone strutted out, eying the two women a little skeptically as she towered over the flight attendant. Sharl had kept himself discreetly hidden in the onboard computer as they went, not even tampering with the plane to avoid causing problems too early. "You ladies picked quite a time to show your faces around here. Better be worth the visit." She grinned, her skin shifting slightly, revealing the particulate beneath. "Either of you spend any time in Europe lately?" she added, giving the others a hard look.

The Arena Earth G-Rand-1 The United States of North America is a grim, cold place on Earth G-Rand-1, the Creators' takeover in 1957 having transformed American society into a stratified place of haves and have-nots, where the children of the rich are told with some assurance that they are genetically destined from birth to rule over the children of the poor, who are on their own shabby tenement taught that their place is to serve. (Those very few poor who do tend to break through the social stratifications set up by 'objective oligarchism' tend to be those who have the most enthusiastically embraced The System, particularly low-level operatives of the Federal Police and the like). The rich live in luxury in mountain estates or carefully controlled super-science mansions, while the poor live beneath the polluted skies of a world where the very idea of a social common good is heresy as great as any other contradiction of orthodoxy. Unfortunately for the ruling class of the USNA, things are beginning to unravel for them. The rise of superheroes in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia in the last forty years (the USNA never had a large hero population; the Centurion's capsule appears to have landed in New Zealand; where the Antonian remains one of the greatest heroes of his world) has meant their economic and military weight no longer has the power it once had: when Britannia can swat down bombers and Dreamtime's spells can run machines without oil or coal, the government in Washington could no longer force their neighbors to deal with their "objectively superior", now mostly-decaying steel and railway-based industries. With people jobless and hungry even by the standards of USNA proletarians, as well as with a growing number of superpowered heroes right there at home, the government was faced with a very serious threat. All that lasted until about ten years ago, when a super-scientist working for one of the USNA's major corporations (a supervillain from Europe who found the conditions in North America much more to his liking) discovered a fairly safe, economical way to open portals between dimensions channeled through the Zero Zone, as well as to use micro-versions of those same portals to scan those dimensions. After some consideration, and a few thefts that boosted their technological base even further (and made that scientist even wealthier), the government hit on a great idea. What the masses needed to still their revolutionary rhetoric than a distraction, and what better for that than the bread and circuses of old? Construction of a massive arena directly beneath Rapture City (the site of our world's Freedom City, renamed after the takeover) began immediately, and just a few years ago the great project began. The general public believes that the New Gladiators are volunteers, soldiers of fortune from exotic Africa, Europe, and even alien civilizations and other dimensions who have come to fight to prove their individual worth in their collective societies from which they originate. The truth is, the New Gladiators are people with superpowers kidnapped from their home worlds and dumped into gladiatorial combat arenas shaped to their particular abilities. The Gladiatorial League keeps them in a solidly built impervium bunker, one laced with nullifying technologies they stole from another world that they'd don't entirely understand, watched over by the best superpowered mercenaries money can buy. Holographic arenas allow for a wide variety of terrain and battles, giving more drama to the watching proles and also helping convince them their government has much more power and respect than they do have if they can command battlefields so far away and contestants so alien. In the grand tradition of evil scientists and megacorporations everywhere, the Gladiatorial League people have no idea of the forces with which they're tampering. Tunneling through the Zero Zone helps them escape detection by the Terminus, and most of their neighboring worlds are grim anarchies where the prospect of fighting and dying for rich rewards (and being dumped back on your home timeline if you win) is enough to keep most of their kidnap victims loyal enough to at least fight, for all that the TV-watching crowd is usually happy to boo a dead coward. But the crowd has begun to grow bored with the never-ending array of new faces, and the head scientist of the League, a tentacled fellow who gets around via a gravity belt of his own design, has ambitions to go even further. If he does reach out to grab heroes from a world with values deeper than survival and greed, he may find he has a real fight on his hands...

Edge: Hotsy-Totsy Nazi Spoiler Alert (and GMing) Faded Giant Harrier: The Hunted (and GMing) Citizen: Future Soon Change Is Necessary Frozen Shadows (and GMing) GMing: Hot and Cold

Aaah why would you invent this

Jackal Necromancer Abilities: 40 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON 20 (+5) INT 18 (+4) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+9 Melee/+10 Magic) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Grapple: +14 Init: +3 Saves: 11 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Concentration 8 (+10) Intimidate 6 (+7) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 11 (+15, Skill Mastery) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 6 (+10) Languages 2 (Arabic, English; Base: Ancient Egyptian) Notice 8 (+10, Skill Mastery) Sense Motive 8 (+10, Skill Mastery) Stealth 4 (+7) Survival 3 (+5, Skill Mastery) Feats: 13 pp Attack Focus: Melee, Attack Specialization: Magic, Dodge Focus (4), Evasion, Power Attack, Second Chance (Arcane Lore checks), Skill Mastery (Knowledge [Arcane Lore], Notice, Sense Motive, Survival) Ritualist Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 40 pp Magic Array [22+3=25 pp] Blast 10 (PFs: Indirect 2) AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Area [burst], PFs: Indirect 2) AP: Drain Charisma 10 (PFs: Indirect 2) AP: Obscure 5 (100 ft) (visual and auditory; Extra: Selective) Protection 3 [3pp] Super-Senses 12 (Accurate Acute Tracking Olfactory, Magic Awareness 3 [olfactory; Enhancement: Acute], Detect Magic 3 [olfactory; Enhancement: Acute]) [12PP] costs abilities 40 + combat 32 + saves 11 + skills 14/56 + feats 13 + powers 40 = 150 pts ---------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for an Anpur, one of the more interesting character types from Green Ronin's Hamunaptra supplement, a mostly-successful attempt to merge the worlds of Egyptian mysticism and Dungeons and Dragons. (Among my favorite bits are the dwarves standing in for the Hebrews as far as a formerly enslaved race who have recently rebelled and set up their own homeland) The general idea with the Anpur is that they are civilized gnolls; after all, in Egyptian culture a canine-headed humanoid doesn't speak to savagery, it speaks to someone with a close connection to Anubis, guardian of the underworld. So the Anpur are serious, lawful individuals with a profound respect for the living and the dead; frequently finding work as embalmers and priests. They would be thoroughly appalled to meet your typical D&D gnoll! So this is basically a canine wizard; he's a decent hand-to-hand combatant (PL 7 offensively in melee) and a good hunter and tracker, as well as a powerful mystic who commands necromantic energies. (He's got the points to summon a mummy if he has to, but it's not something he should be doing regularly) He's in a lot better shape than most of your typical mystics, his furred hide acting as decent armor. He's also a good mystic tracker, his powerful scent abilities letting him fight in the darkness and track mystic threats around the city. If you don't like him as Anubis' champion, either one divinely empowered (perhaps by reciting a magic word, or donning an artifact) or one directly from Anubis's realm as a champion of ma'at, he could do fine as a regular European-style mystic bitten by a werewolf! He doesn't have a mechanical way of disguising himself as a human being, so you might want to buy him some Morph either from a device or a spell, unless you want him going around in a trenchcoat in the best Ben Grimm style.

Mystic Knight PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 36 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 20 (+5) CON 18 (+4) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +14 Saves: 10 pp TOU +10 (+4 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +7 (+4 Con, +3) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 76 r=19 pp Diplomacy 13 (+15, Skill Mastery) Intimidate 13 (+15, Skill Mastery) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 4 (+5) Knowledge (History) 4 (+5) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 4 (+5) Languages 3 (Arabic, English, Latin) (Base: Middle English) Ride 10 (+15, Skill Mastery) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 13 (+15, Skill Mastery) Survival 4 (+6) Feats: 15 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Diplomacy, Intimidate, Ride, Sense Motive) Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 45 pp Device 4 (Magic Armor) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [pure of heart]) [17 pp] Enhanced Feats 2 (Ultimate Save 2 [Toughness, Will]) [2dp] Immunity 2 (critical hits) [2dp] Protection 6 (Extra: Impervious 10) [16dp] Device 3 (Magic Sword) (Easy to Lose) (PF: Restricted [pure of heart]) [10 pp] Strike 6 (Extra: Penetrating, PFs: Improved Crit 2, Mighty) [15dp] Dimensional Movement 1 (Camelot) [2 pp] Summon 5 (Pegasus) (Extra: Heroic, PF: Mental Link) [16 pp] costs abilities 36 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 19/76 + feats 15 + powers 45= 150 pts -------------------- Design Notes: Having revised my earlier Golden Knight build to be more like an Avalonian Power Ranger, I went ahead and made a more straightforward conversion of the Mystic Knight archetype from Instant Superheroes. The picture is of Ystina, the Modern Age update of the Shining Knight from the work of Grant Morrison. (I'm normally not a fan of Grant Morrison, more the reverse, but Ystina's pretty cool). Inside her armor and astride her horse (just use the stats for Pegasus from Instant Superheroes), she's a solid PL 10 combatant, an invincible medieval tank whose sword can cut through anything and who can shrug off whole legions of archers. (PC level archers will be a threat, though, since they have Power Attack!) Her only innate abilities are summoning her horse from whatever mystic dimension he occupies and returning to her native Camelot. (My concept is that she's an ambassador from Camelot in the Wonder Woman mold, a heroic warrior for justice in the modern world). She's a solid PL 7 combatant without her armor and sword, making her fine company for any tavern-hopping or whatever sort of civvies adventuring you'd like to take her on. She's got Survival as do most of my builds from more primitive cultures, to represent someone who can survive in the wild on her own. Try mixing it up a little; instead of the usual warmed-over Celtic mythology that accompanies this archetype these days, make her a medieval fantasy Catholic from a world where priests routinely whip out crosses to chase demons out of town and the like. That's certainly a lot truer to the cultural roots of the mythos than whatever dubious historical moment may have produced the tales of King Arthur. She's got no Bluff, as that's not the sort of thing your typical fictional knights indulge in. A knight's code does make for a fine set of complications for her; as does pulling off a Sweet Polly Oliver (i.e., Mulan-style gender-passing) in armor. (Why would she keep doing that in the modern era? Well, maybe she feels guilty or dishonorable for lying to her friends from the modern day, so she continues with the deception even after realizing it's not necessary in the modern era) If you don't like the dimensional ambassador background (personally, i like it because it lets you explain the differences between historical times and the generally nice fantasy times that she comes from), having her frozen in a block of ice or transported in a time-traveling spaceship works just fine too...

"Because they're my family," replied Sharl from the elevator door, the words not quite enough to get the attention of the people on the street. "I came a long way, and gave up a lot, to make sure they could stay safe. I can't risk anything bad happening to them, even if it means we have to delay a little." It took him that long, sorting out the way different voices had sounded on the street, to realize he'd heard Sage's comment in his head rather than out loud. He wasn't particularly bothered by the idea; Miss Americana could read his mind easily enough if she studied his systems the right way, for all that was a relationship of sacred trust rather than scholastic companionship. All that was in his mind now was worry about his parents and sister, a palpable fear for his city and his people that he could barely keep to himself. He settled for saying to Sage as she joined him in the elevator, "We have skydiving too. With antigravs, you can jump off and fall at terminal velocity till five seconds before you hit bottom."

The local heroes, who introduced themselves as Star Knight, Professor Danger, and Clockwatcher, respectively, were eager to get the Liberty Leaguers and their more famous escorts down and away from any potential timeline contamination as soon as possible. A few minutes' ride in a smooth-riding, blank-walled elevator got them down to the room where an anxious-looking Clockwatcher gave them their briefing. It was all very mundane, just the super-team receiving the briefing from another hero, if you ignored the screens full of half-visible space scenes and far-future cities of glass and steel towers, the Freedom Legion evidently having responsibilities to watch the entire solar system. Not to mention the Centurion and Rick Lucas both right there, paying attention to the man who'd brought them all there as much as to the new members of the Liberty League. After all, they were veterans of eras when time travel was much more common. This sort of thing was routine for them. Well, almost; but then Mark hadn't said a word since they'd arrived. Occasionally pausing mid-briefing to glance into his pocketwatch, the Clockwatcher's presentation was simple enough. "Ladies and gentlemen of the Liberty League, today is the day our history will unravel. Tonight a thief is going to break into the Temporal Observatory on Venus and steal one of our most valuable holdings." Behind him on the screen, a rotating blue cube appeared, spinning in empty space to show dimensions roughly equal to the time pod that had brought them there. "A time machine capable of traveling back along the same quantum axis from which it originated, giving the pilot the ability to alter his own history. He, or she, successfully pulled the Legion away from the system with a wormhole bomb in the Kuiper Belt, and Temporal Investigations will be pulled off dealing with the Archeville incident this week. They knew exactly when to hit us." The image changed again, this time to a shot of Freedom City as it once had been, in the prime of this Centurion and when Trevor's grandfather had been at his peak...except that Freedom City had never been aflame. "He goes back in time to 1946 and detonates an old atomic warhead in Freedom City. The Americans blame the Soviets, the Soviets blame the Americans...and World War Three breaks out right then and there. Terran civilization, and galactic civilization, comes to an end." He closed his watch. "That's where you come in. Normally I'd send my 20th century expert, but he won't get here till it's too late. That's where your team comes in."

Mark spends an HP on Trevor's behalf to give him Inspiration while performing the autopsy.

Edge did as Midnight had suggested and teleported them all to the Manor in a flash of black light that was beginning to look more and more like a puff of genie magic these days. He didn't worry about that, though, instead he concentrated on assisting Trevor with the autopsy: for all that sometimes Mark was completely insane, as he and Midnight worked with the body he was as calm and professional as anyone else. They had speed-scientists on speed dial, of course, both genius Claremont graduates as well as former teachers and mentors, but it seemed more efficient to do the job in-house if possible given the time constraints they might be operating under. When the job was finally done, he waited around for Trevor to finish processing the results (which he lacked the ability to process) before they got ready to hop away to Siberia.

"Whew," Sharl breathed a sigh of relief, willing to accept Kimber in any getup if it meant she'd come into the system intact. When her foot scraped the ground and she revealed herself solid, he couldn't help but smile a little. "Nice. Must be from your psychic self-image being absorbed by the immersion unit..." He studied everyone for a moment, then took off his black duster and handed it off to the brightly-clad teen when she had disengaged from Wraith, a tanglesome process since Indira's metamorphic abilities had come with her too. "If you can't change your programmed clothes, wear this for the moment. You don't want to draw attention to yourself here. And that goes for the rest of you too," he added, taking the sting out before it could poke Kimber. "Guys, you have to be discreet here," he warned everyone again, his face intent and unusually serious. "Really, really discreet. Tronik isn't like Freedom City. People aren't as loud and nosy, and they're a lot more scared of superheroes," he admitted. "We can handle the militia no problem, but my family can't. And if Rogue is watching us, the last thing we want to do is clue her in to where we are. And where my family is." "There's an elevator just around the corner," called Sharl to the other teens as he led the way onto the street, which looked to be some futuristic combination of loading bay and service corridor, lit only by those artificial lights. "...with my passcode, it'll take us right up into the sector! It...oh." Sharl fell silent as the wall near them flickered to life, the sensors built into the building sensing a human presence: VISIT BEAUTIFUL NEW ISLE! A massive image of a sparse-looking island of low grass and licheny rocks set in the middle of a vast sea, the green sky and huge red sun unobstructed by massive buildings, came up on the wall, cheerful-looking Tronikians using loading equipment to terraform the land. "Nice!" The street was crowded as they went, at least by Freedom City standards, the humanoid people dressed in the black leather and dusters that were evidently the standard outfits around here. No one paid them any attention at all; a work crew was loading man-sized rectangular boxes into a big antigrav truck, a woman about their age was 'walking' a group of what looked like bug-eyed and antennaed tribbles that floated around her head on energy leashes, and it looked like a typical afternoon, for all that the people on the street were all but silent as they worked, hardly even looking at each other. When the elevator slid open, straight out of the smooth unfeatured wall, Sharl headed right inside, a look of relief on his face.

"Clear skies over Williams Field," reported Sharl automatically. "The New Freedom connector flight will be waiting for us on the runway." While the others got their respective stories straight, he watched out the window in fascination at the bizarrely familiar sight of Earth's southern polar continent, Antarctica. It was more familiar than most of Earth for the Tronik-born teen; though if anything the icy, barren surface beneath the plane was far lusher and greener than the ice cliffs at the edge of the halbmond that held Tronik. (Or seemed to, anyway). Late January was a busy time in Antarctica given the good weather in the summertime; the airstrip had several planes on it beneath the brilliant white sky over the ice shelf. Carrying his equipment, including his projector, he followed Lady Laser and Gateway for the short walk to the New Freedom plane, a black and grey Lear jet emblazoned with the clenched fist that symbolized the micro-state. What had once been a logo of popular revolution looked more like a dictator's fist as the disguised heroes approached, the New Freedom guard instantly recognizable to the Freedom City heroes as a Freedom City supervillain no one had seen much of in a while. It made sense, though; Sandstone was a famous mercenary, and her particulate body was immune to the Antarctic cold; her tall, muscular frame outlined in desert red that looked out of place in the cold. "Huh," she gave the two mercenaries a half-bored, half-curious look as she waved them up the walkway. "Welcome to Freedom-1, your charter flight to the freest place on Earth. We'll be touching down at Robeson Field in a half-hour." The interior of the plane was lushly appointed beyond even high-end corporate; the latest electronics on the walls, leather seats with real gold trim, and an eager flight attendant in the black jumpsuit favored by New Freedom civilians. "Hello!" the Eurasian woman chirped. "I'm Sui Li and I am honored to be your host. I am yours for our flight."

For clarity; Rick thinks Cannonade is Kid Centurion.

"We'll help," agreed Edge, glad someone else on the team had spoken up first. It wasn't that Mark lacked for confidence, just the opposite, in fact, but he had learned that sometimes what he thought was a good idea wasn't something his team thought was a good idea, and he didn't want to get his friends in trouble on his account. "Whether the past, the present, or the future are in peril, the Liberty League is always there to help." He, Trevor, and Erin had already saved the multiverse, protecting the future couldn't be that tough. "When do we leave?" "We already have," said Chen with a grateful smile, reaching down to press a button on his belt. "I've just activated our autoretrieval unit, it'll upswitch this whole area back to 2525, and then when you return you'll come back to the moment you left. I installed this myself, I can trust that it's secure. We'll be there in no time." Sure enough, a few seconds later a silvery-white dome expanded from the crashed time-sphere (only one; evidently the duplicate's systems were no longer an issue) and enfolded the entire team, transporting them all elsewhen in a wash of sudden perfect brightness. Mere seconds later, they were all standing together on a dimming circle of light built into a glossy metal floor, inside a large room instantly recognizable to the experienced teen heroes as Freedom Hall, but much and spectacularly changed; plasteel walls rising high where once wood and metal had stood, ever-shifting holographic displays on the walls showing a melange of historical and futuristic scenes too alien to process, and five individuals standing before their arrival pad: three were strangers; a man in black with an hourglass on his chest, impatiently checking his watch, a blonde man in a Star Knight armor the didn't recognize, and a woman in a surprisingly skimpy green costume peering at them through hi-tech goggles with fascination. The other two, though, were immediately recognizable: the Centurion stepped up to greet them with a firm handshake, his costume the bulky, golden-looking suit he'd stopped wearing in the 1940s. "Good afternoon, heroes," he said with the combination of authority and charm anyone who'd ever watched a newsreel could recognize. "Welcome to 2525. Our hosts thought a familiar face might be easier for you to relate to, but I don't see what all the fuss is about." He smiled with that so-famous grin. "If you're anything like the League I know, a little time travel isn't anything to worry about." Normally the sight of the Centurion would have been all Mark could see, all he could think about, but the young man in 20th century civilian duds next to the Man of Adamant occupied his attention for now. "The new Liberty League! Swell!" Rick Lucas, looking to be in his mid-twenties, practically leapt up onto the transporter pad to effusively shake all their hands. "And a Midnight, a Kid Centurion, that's keen!" He grinned from ear to ear. "It doesn't surprise me a bit, though. I always knew the Liberty team would come back." "If you don't know Rick," said the Centurion with some humor, introducing his 20th century colleague as well as the other heroes; Star Knight, Professor Danger (she of the surprisingly open costume), and the worried-looking Clockwatcher, "he was visiting his father in 1946 when the Legion called for our assistance." Mark couldn't stop staring at his dad, for once his effusive tongue stilled. "Yes yes," said the Clockwatcher, taking out what looked for all the world like a 19th century pocketwatch and checking it worriedly. "We have enough anomalies as it is. Come, let's get you with the others and we can discuss who's trying to murder the history of Freedom City!"

Sharl opted not to take sides in the argument between Cobalt Templar and Sage. Maybe it was a little cold-blooded to think this way about his friends and teammates, but their personality conflicts weren't important. Fifty million lives were in peril, and that was a lot more important than what words had been said between them...at least until they were done. He gave Sage a quick smile and got her into her suit as well, the suits tingling as they made their nerve connections to their human (and otherwise) wearers. Ghost Girl's was a little harder, but it wasn't hard for him to show Kimber how to 'occupy' the suit, the protected circuits on it keeping her psychic energy from overwhelming the circuits within. He realized his hands were shaking, and before he pressed a button he pressed them against the panel before him to try and still it. Almost everyone he loved was in peril and all his friends had come to help him save the day...even if he'd have to have things out with Sage later. "They've only ever seen one superhero before, so they really won't know what to make of you if you start using your powers. I've..." He hesitated a moment, then admitted, "I have been fired on by the militia sometimes, so be watchful. Make sure they trust you before you do anything crazy around them. When we get in-system, I'm going to take you to find my family, and then my friend Leroj. He's what you call the sysadmin, he can help us..." He fell silent then, closing his eyes and thinking of Miss A, before shoving his hand into the center console of the immersion unit, plunging himself, and then all his friends, into the Tronik mainframe! Sharl appeared at the base of the 30th district, the familiar white-blue glow of the ground sector lights the only reliable illumination. The distant, reassuring hum of the air recyclers that were all that kept the land at the base of hundreds of mile-high towers inhabitable by humans sounded in his ears as he looked up, and up, imagining his family so far overhead. In the deep sky, where sectors bent together like trees to form a forest of steel overhead, he could just make out a few slivers of welcoming green sky, with little flivvers moving back and forth between buildings. To his profound relief, there was no sign of Rogue in the sky, or any other evidence of the terrible juggernauts that those enhanced programs he'd caught would be in a place like this. For the human (and otherwise) heroes, arriving one by one as the immersion suits scanned their bodies and uploaded their mental faculties into the system, Tronik was a considerably more alien place. It took a few moments for their perspectives to adjust. They were surrounded by buildings that were more like tremendous towers, huge skyscrapers cast in dark blue and gunmetal grey, rising far higher and bulking far thicker, than any building on Prime had ever dreamed, packed so closely together they blotted out the barely visible alien sky overhead. The Pyramid Plaza in Freedom City would have been lost in the forest of steel overhead. The air had the faint smell of ozone and the whine of equipment was everywhere; the glare of artificial light glowing all around them. Overhead, half-visible craft flitted silently from building to building, without even a glow at their tailpipes to show what might be powering them. There were no birds against that sky; no sign of animal life in the alley they shared. From outside the alley came the sound of people and conversation, but no one who sounded like they'd noticed their arrival.