Avenger Assembled

Madrigal's Hounds Madrigal's Hounds are the eye and fist of the Madrigal Martinet, her agents in the Terminus and the enforcers of the will of the commander of Omega's dread armies. Six deadly assassins, warriors, and generals, closer than friends, closer than family, they are among the most feared beings in the Terminus. Like many Annihilists, they were heroes once on their own world: champions of love and peace in a world ruled by a benevolent lunar goddess. But when the Moon fell from the sky in a curtain of flame and chaos swarmed the land in blood and death, the Hounds came together in a pact that they would defeat the cruel sun god and his bride Chaos. Whatever the cost. When the war was done and the planet cleansed of chaos and the life it had contaminated, it was the Madrigal Martinet who came to them from the sky with a maternal offer: join her as her warriors and make sure no other planets could fall to the powers of cruel light, mad chaos, and foul freedom. Once they had gazed together into the Doom Coil, they knew exactly what they had to do. Madrigal's Hounds are suitable for use in the Terminus as a squad of Annihilists that can pose a serious threat to the average party, or as "bosses" in an adventure where the PCs have just spend several rounds slogging their way through Omegadrones. They are also possible choices for a hit squad sent to eliminate a troublesome person or group of persons, or as challenges to face during an invasion scenario. With the exception of Hellstorm, they work well together as part of a team, and will happily gang up on powerful opponents, target weaker ones as necessary, and generally do whatever it takes to get the job done. With Omega's power currently in abeyance and the Annihilists at war with each other, the Martinet has begun relying on the Hounds more than ever. Blood Diamond: Cruel and selfish, Blood Diamond is the leader of the Hounds. Truthfully, she'd rather be playing the backstabbing, ruthless games of politics at which she is a master, but the Martinet prefers her favored hunters to dirty their hands with the blood of their enemy: Annihilists have many enemies, after all, and she is determined that her carefully-molded weapons will be as formidable as she is. Blood Diamond's favored weapons are the exotic gems she has gathered and internalized from a hundred worlds, mastery of which have given her tremendous powers. Resplendent in royal purple colors, her body covered in glittering gems, she loves nothing better than to seduce an enemy and let them watch helplessly as she destroys all they once loved. Her rooms in the Martinet's palace in Nihilor, covered in a gigafortune of deathgem jewels, are a testimony to her artistic genius, an inspection that reveals the screaming face on each one is a testimony to her cruelty. Discordia: Once a priestess in the temple of Chaos, Discordia went cheerfully mad when her world died around her. Gathering up weapons and armor from the Chaos arsenal, she went out to do battle with the demons in her head, and actually engaged the Martinet herself in hand-to-hand combat when she appeared. Impressed at the young warrior's mad ferocity, the Martinet took her under her wing, advanced her weapons and training, and unleashed her upon an unsuspecting world. What she lacks in powers, Discordia makes up for in determination and madness; she will loyally follow the commands of her sisters-in-darkness to the best of her ability, and is the only team member who will actually sacrifice herself for the benefit of the others. She wears a pink and purple costume like a jongelur's, and carries a massive particle cannon over her shoulder. Hellstorm: If it's raining blood and the sky is burning with a black flame that gives no heat, gives no light, but can never be put out, Hellstorm's probably to blame. A beautiful adrenaline junkie in gold and blue, who cares more for her own pleasure than anything else, many have believed she's the weak link of the party: at least until she hurls them into the sky and watches them fall a lon, long way, or on a whim burns them to ash with a burst of entropic lightning that leave behind not even a soul to rescue. She's something of a thorn in Blood Diamond's side, and usually does her own thing in a fight whatever her orders had once been. She's succeeded, so far, but one day her luck is likely to run out and she will be corrected by the 'gentle teachings' of the Martinet in a way no one who sees it will ever forget. Nightmare Doom: People think of Discordia as the mad one of the Hounds, but it is actually the mighty entropic weaver Nightmare Doom who is far more unstable than her fellows. It was her research into the nature of death and destruction that unleashed the forces of entropy upon her own world that ultimately corrupted and destroyed it, it was she who helped summon the Martinet when all was said and done and their world was ash and smoke. But she is not the Terminus loyalist one would expect: rather, Nightmare Doom has ambitions to one day be mother of even more destruction, perhaps even of the Martinet herself and her fellow Annihilists. She studies her fellow carefully, ever-looking for a sign of weakness that will one day let her destroy them all. She wears black robes and a cape that trails behind her, her eyes dark with true madness. Omnibeast: Quiet and reserved when forced to participate in social gatherings, Omnibeast is often underestimated by her fellow Annihilists...at least until she glares a terrible soul-searing glare and tears them to pieces with the fangs and claws of impossible hellbeasts from long-dead worlds. She is the hunter and stalker of the group, a feral creature of rage and hunger who has stalked the Hundred Worlds of the Terminus and beyond, gaining the power to warp her body into the shapes and colors of the creatures she has slain and devoured. She embodies the animalistic cruelty so beloved by the Martinet, a reminder of the hungry beast that lies in the center of even the most innocent-seeming soul. She has the pale flesh and staring eyes of one who spends most of her time hunting the ghettos of Nihilor, and her black and red costume (as well as her hands and face) is usually stained with things best left unconsidered. Razorwhip: Razorwhip wields a cruel weapon derived from the forges of Shadivan Steelgrave, a nano-thin whip that can cut through steel with a flick of her lovely wrist, as well as snap tight and let her haul even the most fearsome targets around. Perhaps the whip's most fearsome power is its neural applications: fibers from the whip can attach themselves to the nerve endings of a living target, letting her control their mind and weaken their resistance enough to render them powerless to resist her commands. No secret is safe from the whip, and few souls are either. Despite this (and her razor-edged brown and blue costume that looks almost impossible to wear), Razorwhip is the most practical of the Hounds: she's interested in her own survival first, and is the most willing to negotiate (temporarily, of course) with enemies, as well as beat a retreat when the situation calls for it. It's all just business. She and Shadivan Steelgrave are secretly lovers.

"He's only a year old," said Carlton, shaking his head. "He barely knows how to walk on his own, much less who his parents are. Zero told the cops his daddy was Gla-Zer, that ice prince guy from up north." Gla-Zer was somewhat younger than Zero, but the two were the most famous ice-wielding villains in Freedom City and had teamed up on more than one occasion: evidently for more than one meaning of that word. "Nobody's seen him since he tangled with those guys on the West Coast back in summer." He shook Weaver's hand, pulling himself back into the moment, and said seriously, "Nice to see someone stepping up and defending the neighborhood again." Up over their heads, with Madame Zero in another dimension the ice slowly began to melt.

Was there anything further you needed here, Rav?

As they all headed into the jungle, the exotic ecology of Mintaka II closed in around them. This was an alien jungle even for those familiar with exotic wildlife from other planets, the twin suns baking hot even through the dark leaves above, the sounds of Mintakan wildlife as thick as the steamy, oxygen-rich air all around them. They were all intruders here in one way or another, even hunters like Wraith, but it was perhaps the two cyborgs who were the most out of place in the jungle. Harrier's great weight meant it was almost impossible for him to walk quietly or quickly as his heavy metaled feet sank into the ground or broke branches beneath his feet. As for Victory, he had it easier at first, but ultimately it was his exposed flesh that was his greatest weakness: as they walked, suddenly his feet broke through what had looked like a solid piece of earth: beneath him, suddenly a tremendous swarm of massive red and gold insects came boiling out of the ground beneath him, taking to the air with fantastic speed as they flooded over the other heroes, hissing and spitting angrily as they chewed at flesh and bone and even metal, their wriggling insectile bodies as large as a man's finger as they did their best to eat the heroes alive!

Victory falls foul of a swarm of needle bugs (think leaf-cutter ants jacked up on steroids): http://www.freedomplaybypost.com/search.php?keywords=famine&t=4109&sf=msgonly (Why pick on Victory? So the prey will have someone to blame!) DC 25 Tou save for everyone in the area as they try to feast on everyone's tasty meats. 28 Harrier passes. Give me initiative (you might think this'll be a short fight given the relative PLs and the energy attacks available, but) 24 Needle Bugs: 7 (And yes, you guys have juuust enough Flight available to get above the swarm line...but there might be other things up there.)

Mark stunts: Move Object 15 (Extra: Affects Others, Flaw: Distracting, PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2) [32] Spends an HP to shake the fatigue. If that makes sense?

Edge had no idea what the Color out of Space would find attractive. Brief visions of a floating, inhumanly-colored mass with lipstick and long blonde hair crossed his mind, and Mark was tired enough to find that pretty amusing before he buckled down and concentrated on what he was trying to accomplish. "Okay, let me think..." He considered for a moment, concentrating hard, and holding his hands in front of him. As he concentrated, something made of shaped metal formed in his hands, an electric motor emblazoned with arcane symbols and a felt-lined bag behind it, an old-fashioned piece of housewares and so much more. He handed it to Cannonade and said, "It's just like the one Adrian Eldritch made for my grandpa when they were fighting the Ghost-Kaiser's Spook Army back in '43. It looks like a vacuum, but it actually blows ghosts and things around. Pretty handy."

For his part, the Sanctum was both familiar and unfamiliar to Sharl. This had been his home, and the home of all his people, his whole life, but he hadn't known that until very recently. When he'd stepped out of the world, he'd come out in Freedom City, not into the Sanctum, and his visits here hadn't been that common with the direct shunt Miss Americana and Dragonfly had set up between the Lab and the Sanctum. He'd certainly never met the Centurion, a man who'd lived and died years before his birth, and many of these monuments didn't mean anything to him. But there was no denying the emotion of the moment for him as he pressed a few buttons on his emitter, nodding in satisfaction as he found the Sanctum's systems waiting for him. His resolution visibly dropped when he picked up the Sanctum's projectors, forcing him to squint behind his glasses as Sharl seemed to get a little off-color. Better fix the new projectors..."The Centuritrons are in a maintenance cycle this week," he said out loud for the benefit of his fellow students, floating up to study the Centurion's big statue in the main hall. He couldn't actually reach up very high, not when there were only a limited number of projectors in the old Sanctum, but he didn't want to dwell on that. Soon enough, he'd be home!

Navigation: The DC is 15, so Wraith can navigate them through the jungle just fine. It's not that hard to keep the mountain in view, particularly for someone who can go up trees and back Hazards: Oh, there are hazards. Everyone give me a Survival check (or Wisdom, if you lack the skill). I'll pick on the one with the lowest result: 14

As soon as they were obliged with a translation, the Omegadrone said simply "We are being hunted." That was something Harrier understood instinctively, for all that most of his experience with being the hunted had been in the grim ghettos of Nihilor, not these lush jungles. "I suggest we head for the site of the transmission," he said immediately. "If they are affiliated with our captors, they will have the resources to get off this world." He turned suddenly, his pike screaming to terrible life in his hands, and fired a bolt of black smokeless flame that blasted a mighty tree in half: good, his weapons did still work. "And we will take them. Good." And with that, trusting that the others would see the wisdom of his actions, Harrier stomped off into the woods.

"I don't know for sure," admitted the former Eye. "The Raven locked her up before my time, and my wife's dealings with her were all through third parties." He sighed, looking at the place where Madame Zero had been before getting sucked into another dimension. "My wife and I have fostered a half-dozen kids for the League, usually kids whose parents are nothing but bad news, but we've never had an attack like this. Emergency foster kids either are behind seven different informational firewalls, or their parents are glad to see the back of them so they can get back to hurting innocents." The look on his face showed what he thought of that. "Her kid's got enough trouble as it is. One of the kids who's got mom and dads powers, and weaknesses, right from the get-go. My wife's in there with him now."

Sharl paged through quite a few breeds, enjoying the attention the puppies brought as well as the chance to see all the adorable, exotic-looking animals: he still didn't quite believe that these were all interfertile members of the same species! He associated that kind of flexibility with Lor humanoids, not with domestic animals. He looked torn between the German shepard and a Scottish terrier, switching back and forth between the two dogs, before finally their imminent landing at the small hidden airstrip associated with the Sanctum made him put his computer away. Ms. Harcourt patrolled the aisles to make sure all the students who needed to be restrained were restrained before taking her own seat. When the plane dived through the storm, they finally got their first look at the exterior of the Centurion's Sanctum. It turned out to be deeply unimpressive from the outside, of course; the artificial structure of ice and rock which encased the Centurion's home looked like any other frozen-over mountain here deep in the Arctic Ocean, thanks to the cunning design of the Man of Adamant decades earlier. When the students gathered their things to depart, Ms. Harcourt fussed over all of them, making sure they were all wearing their thermal gear and carrying their spare equipment, even Kimber pressed into service to carry a box of survival rations, before they headed out together into the Arctic winter. It was bitter, bitter cold, enough that without their Claremont-issued blue and gold survival gear, all-too-human students like Sage and Papercut would have been in very serious jeopardy in short order on the windswept icy plain. But luckily that was just the space of a few minutes before they were at the front entrance of the Sanctum, a massive steel door embedded in the icy rock before them. Ms. Harcourt, ensconced in as heavy Arctic gear as any of her human students, called out a muffled Latin syllable that opened the massive gate for them. As the massive steel door rolled open for them, the students stepped into the massive (and delightfully climate-controlled) entrance hall of the Centurion's Sanctum! Around them all was the stuff of legends; the regal man and woman in togas holding up an image of the Earth that had birthed the Centurion, artifacts collected from all over the vast space and time that had been the Centurion's career, everything from Grue battlechargers to ancient Egyptian statues, with even a sign clearly leading the way to "The Alien Zoo". Ms. Harcourt excused herself to signal to the pilot that he was safe to take off, giving the kids a few moments to stow their gear and take in where they were.

Edge looked unusually subdued today, particularly for the generally ebullient reality warper. Peering out the windows of their helicopter for any sign of the damaged trees they were concerned about, he tried to stay awake in the vibrating helicopter as he drank coffee borrowed from Midnight. Mark was many things, but not actually superhuman physically, and his UNISON work had been keeping him busy. It didn't help how cold it was; weeks of work in the tropics made a Freedom City winter uncomfortably cold even for a lifelong Freedom City native like Mark. But Mark wasn't one to complain, particularly not in uniform while on a mission, and so blinked back fatigue as he kept his eyes open. "I wonder if we should try and recruit an alien," he said thoughtfully, not taking his eyes off the scenery as he talked. "Or someone with more experience with outer space. We all fought the last time the Grue showed up, but none of us have a lot of experience with weird magic from space." He had some personal experience with weird magic, but somehow he doubted a genie was to blame here.

"She's headed for the woods," called Citizen, knowing Sage would send that information to the others, disengaging from the system with a deep ache in his bones. Interfacing with the primitive system and pushing it to its utmost had drained him; his pain and fatigue adding to the overall creepiness of the day. As if he'd stepped completely outside the boundaries of the world again, and was desperately trying to keep his friends from doing the same..."Let's go!" Emitter in hand, he headed not through the walls but through the doors, lingering behind to make sure no security systems trapped his friends below when they were all in danger. "We've got to move fast! The last thing we need is the students rallying to her defense before we get there!"

Sharl searches the school grounds using his electronic ESP. With his Rapid, he can do it 100k times faster than normal. That's a 30 if he can take 20 on the Search. He's looking for any sign of Collins, or of any further arcane seals.

Sharl was glad to be the center of so much attention, even if it did mean having to get up close and personal with his teammates. At least Indira and Kimber were both pretty girls; most of the time, anyway. There was personal space, and then there was personal space. "See, Miss A got me new rooms for my house," he said, awe in his voice at the idea as he tabbed over to show the girls his pad: it turned out that inside his computer, Sharl lived in a wooden house with a white picket fence, where inside he scrolled through to show them a bedroom, a fully packed kitchen stocked with the chips and snacks any teenager would love, and now an entertainment room with video games and pool, a huge bathroom with marble fixtures and a jacuzzi, a library full of books ("Miss A says I need to learn to appreciate those," he admitted), and even a yard in back with a tree, tire swing, and a half-built doghouse. Sharl was the most excited about the yard, really. "Look at all that grass! All that space!" he said about a yard that looked as big to scale as any suburban backyard. His dog program turned out to be something of an animated dog encyclopedia; clicking on each breed on the screen brought up a gamboling puppy that looked ready to jump out of the screen and lick the trio by the computer in the face, along with behind it a little screen of information on each breed. "I like the little dogs like the bichon frise and the Scottish Terrier," said Sharl thoughtfully, "I don't know where I'd put a St. Bernard or husky if I take him home! But they're really cute too, and I'll already have to tell people about my alien pet..." He hmmed.

Edge: Hotsy-Totsy Nazi (GMing) Cup of Adventure (GMing) Harrier: (and vignette) The Hunted (GMing) School Counselor River Monster Citizen: (and vignette) Future Soon Change is Necessary Freedom Angel: (none; blegh, got to get some threads for Heyzel this month!) GM: Ethical Dilemmas Shining Promise Hot and Cold

Having taken a seat near his roomate, but not too near, Sharl repressed a wince in sympathy for Koshiro. Personal space was something the electronic teenager valued quite highly; one reason that he and Koshiro had been put together in the first place. He knew Kimber didn't mean anything by it, though, and so he opted to distract the peppy blue girl rather than risk turning the trip into a personality conflict. They weren't that far, he remembered, from their landing site. "Hey, Kimber," he said, impulsively making a decision. "before we get there, I just now downloaded the puppy packet Miss Americana gave me for Christmas," he said, tilting his laptop to show Kimber a huge melange of a wide variety of small dogs woofing and sniffing at each other adorably on-screen. Miss A had also hardened his laptop enough that it could stand being around Kimber without too many problems. "But since I don't know anything about canine breeds," he extemporized, "I was wondering if you could help me pick one out?" He demonstrated by clicking on a bichon frise, bringing up an image of an adorable floofy white puppy that seemed to look right out of the screen with intelligent eyes, its 'breath' steaming the screen slightly.

I'll call it a DC 25 Physical Sciences check to recognize the Mintaka system. (Normally it would be higher, but both Scholar and Wraith are from an extra-terrestrial civilization. Scholar's impressive Life Sciences score tells her that this is a hothouse jungle, a high-energy ecosystem likely to have large, active predators: indeed, it's surprising nothing has investigated them yet. The fact that the clearing they're in was almost certainly produced deliberately is perhaps suggestive! Victory's radio detects a covert signal (from an area in the mountains about twenty miles distant that he'll need to get closer/actually roll Notice to pin point more directly) that sounds like alien chatter; perhaps a language one of the aliens around here speaks! When he does (it's Galstandard), he gets an upper-class Lor accent reading: "...little did these four aliens know that they were being stalked by Gammazon himself and a wing of the finest Alphan hunters in the sector! Truly, this was a great day for all those who worship the Fang-Mother, as well as anyone who appreciates the glory and majesty of the Ultimate Hunt!" And then theme music plays, which Wraith recognizes as a crappy attempt at rendering Kinigosi (and several other hunter-species)' music as something vaguely tribal and exotic: it's actually pretty insulting.

"I am unfamiliar with your organization, or your civilization," said Harrier apologetically to Scholar. "I have been freed from the Voice of Omega for some years now, and have lived outside the Terminus for most of that time." He hesitated a moment, confronted with a question that was impossible to answer. "My kin are dead," he finally answered. "A long time dead. If you are familiar with the Terminus, then you are aware that no Omegadrone is capable of planning or organization, much less of the magnitude required to bring the four of us here across interstellar space. And no Annihilist would ever allow a freed drone to live." After a moment's consideration, Harrier took another risk and turned away, instead assessing the jungle around them. He appreciated Victory's gesture, but part of him wanted to tell the other cyborg to back off. The other cyborg..."Are any of you familiar with this star system? Or with each other?"

"I am not responsible for our location," replied Harrier, his voice the flat echo of a man speaking through circuits never designed for human speech. An Omegadrone speaking any language was novelty enough that the others let him finish. "This is clearly not the Terminus," he added, tilting his faceless head towards the sun-filled sky, "nor am I familiar with any dimensional axes where those stars have replaced Earth's sun." There was still no trace of expression in his mechanical posture, and no sign of the face inside his armor. He didn't argue with the attitude the two shapeshifters were displaying, it was an entirely reasonable response to the sight of an Omegadrone. His hands tightened automatically around his pike, the double-headed haft that had snapped into place at the sight of Wraith and Scholar shifted back to a singular point. He could feel the phenomenal light from the two suns on the horizon, casting vivid shadows and warming him through his armor. "It is good to see you again, Victory. I am Harrier," he added to the other two.

I'd be fine with CT just taking the thing out.

As the hideous alien monstrosity weathered their strongest attacks, Citizen fumed in disgust. This sort of thing seemed natural enough to the other students of Young Freedom, to whom magical abominations were apparently a freeday's walk in the hydrobay, but for the Tronik-raised teen the monster was unsettlingly alien and familiar all at once. He remembered the raw, naked madness of computer networks without his emulator program, the terrible things with no names and impossible bodies that had seemed to slither through and in and out of reality, and felt a pang of recognition at the sight of the Dark Young. It's just a coincidence, he told himself with desperate determination as the thing shrugged off the paper birds from Koshiro and barely looked phased by Kimber's touch. It's just imitating forms that drive the humanoid mind crazy. I won't let it drive me crazy! Stepping back, he didn't bother with summoning a phantom keyboard; instead he shoved his hand directly into the control panel for the dairy machinery that was all around them, reaching out with his mind and mastering the simple program inside by sheer force of will. That was reassuring; that was a reminder of the way the world was supposed to work. Behind him, the machinery whirred to life as he faced down the monster. "Hey, meathead!" he yelled. "You like animal protein so much, why don't you eat this?!" At his words, suddenly an overhanging tube, used for some arcane engineering Sharl didn't want to know about, detached from a tank nearby and slammed into the monster, pinning it to the floor as milk spilled out over its body in a disgustingly slow, viscous process: luckily the tube itself was sealed where it was connected to the tank behind, or they'd have a flood on their hands. "Hit it now, while it's stuck!" he called, his hand still inside the sparking panel.

Roll in chat for now.

Citizen currently has 24 pp in his Tronik array. He stunts Snare 12 (Flaw: Action [Full], PFs: Accurate 3, Covers Sense 2 [vision/hearing], Indirect 2) [19 pp] with the technology descriptor. (He will be animating some machinery and dropping it on the Dark Young. He will go ahead and Power Attack that, as the children say. (21:53:12) System: AvengerAssembled rolls 1d20 and gets (3)+7=10. That's a pretty terrible roll, so he'll spend an HP for a reroll. (21:57:28) AvengerAssembled: HP reroll (21:57:32) AvengerAssembled: roll 1d20+7 (21:57:37) System: AvengerAssembled rolls 1d20 and gets (20)+7=27. All right, well! That's 22+5+5=DC 32 Reflex save. Sharl will be fatigued at the start of the next turn if he does not spend another HP in the meantime.