Avenger Assembled

“I can come there,” said Murdock, the idea coming to him for the first time as he slowly puzzled it out. He knew how Gina felt about human contact, he'd had a painfully memorable demonstration of that, but she seemed far more relaxed tonight. “Or to wherever you would prefer to meet.” He had no idea where that would be, but the thought of doing it seemed as warmly pleasant as the drinking had been. “I don’t know where you are,” he confessed. “But I can walk many places. Or fly. I am a good flier, and I have a disguise.” He had never actually flown while this intoxicated, but he supposed it would be all right if he was very careful. Maybe walking was the best idea, really.

“I am watching the end of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” said Murdock deliberately. “It is a very very interesting work. The themes of prejudice and superpowers are very...very interesting!” He pictured Gina’s face, and decided she sounded happy. It was a good sound. “I have been singing Christmas carols, and the cat likes them.” He considered a moment and then, greatly daring, suggested, “We should not drink ourselves unconscious alone. I was thinking that we should get together tonight in the spirit of the holidays. We can drink more, and do what we like.”

“I did,” agreed Murdock, “I am drunk,” he added with his usual frank honesty. He certainly had taken more strong drink tonight than he'd taken in a very long time, and the wobbling sensation he felt when he stood up furthered his impression that he was certainly drunk. “I am sitting in my apartment watching Christmas movies. You sound as if you are drunk as well.” There was silence again as he closed his eyes, carefully marshalling his thoughts. “I was thinking of you, and wondering what you were doing. Are you well?”

The alcohol had made Murdock’s voice, if anything, even more deeper and measured than usual. He was doing his best to stay even and in control, which all in all made him talk like he was reading a book out loud. “Hello,” came his familiar voice. “This is Murdock. Merry Christmas to you as well.” A silence fell on the line as he measured his thoughts, alcohol making his voice nervous. “I was wondering what you were doing tonight.” He didn’t give names; she valued her privacy, and he wouldn’t risk it even over the phone lines, even drunk. At least for this. All he was doing was calling up a friend close to a holiday, when they both were full of drink. Or perhaps he had simply just woken her up? It was tough to judge, especially when he had to remind himself to hold onto the phone.

Murdock had put away a solid half-bottle of the Farsider alcohol before he began to feel its more nagging effects on his psyche. As much as he enjoyed seeing all the happy families and spiritual connections on the television, the alcohol made sure he couldn’t forget that neither of those were his: the friends he’d be with on Fleur de Joie’s world were just that, allies against the darkness in whose company he never felt totally easy. Some judged him, others didn’t, either way more than once he’d had the thought that he didn’t dare socialize with them. They wouldn’t enjoy his company except as a project to fix, and some days he wasn’t sure he deserved to have their company, to have their trust. Unbidden, he thought of Gina, the woman behind Miss Americana, and wondered what sort of holiday season the cyberneticist had. It must be a grand thing, he thought without a trace of rancor, to be able to be so beautiful, so poised, so trusted, and without having to wear a mask like he did to do so. She was a lucky woman in some ways. Still, remembering her fear at the sight of him (fear she did _not_ show as Miss Americana, suggesting that it came from her own psyche and not his frightening nature), he doubted she was going anywhere today either. Miss Americana socialized, but he had a feeling Gina (whose last name he had not even learned) didn’t. Surrounded by festivities that must have meant so much more to someone actually from this world, who actually had Christmas memories and a family here, the holidays had to be very different for her. He thought about that, and took another drink. With that thought, Murdock suddenly blinked and slapped himself on the side of the head, a sudden, violent gesture he’d never have done while sober. “Of course! I don’t have Gina’s number...but I do have Miss Americana’s!” Shaking his head at his own drunken absent-mindedness, he rose to his feet and walked to the phone on his kitchen table, slowly and deliberately dialing Miss Americana’s contact number. What was the worst that could happen?

Some time later, Murdock was definitely beginning to feel the effects of the Farsider concoction, most notably when he finally rose from his chair and nearly stumbled through the floor. Having his inhibitions weakened was something of an alien sensation for the former Omegadrone, but it wasn’t necessarily an unpleasant one. Being free from the weight inside his mind and soul, if only for one night, was actually quite enjoyable. He found himself singing along to the Christmas carols on the television, letting his mind settle into the fuzzy blanket that the bottle produced. This was a good place to live, it was a good time of year, and it was good to be alive. This wasn’t his first Christmas, that being a holiday his parents had very occasionally marked in the so few good days, but it was his first as a new man in a new life. He’d pulled his chair close to the radiator, and between that and the strong drink he could almost no longer feel the metallic cold deep in his bones. He thought about going out, but the idea of being seen by friends in an inebriated state was potentially embarrassing. This was a private moment to be alone with his thoughts, a quiet evening to celebrate that his life wasn’t all grey darkness, even here alone he could be genuinely content, even happy. And it wasn’t very likely anyone was going to seek him out, anyway! He found a show about a red-nosed reindeer living with the Santa Claus figure and found himself watching the puppets intently: what secret messages of tolerance were embedded in this delightful program, and how had they gotten the stop-motion animals to move so artfully with such primitive technology?

Mid-December, 2011 Murdock came home to a wrapped package waiting for him in his apartment office, fresh from a shift at HAX. It was something of a surprise; he didn’t get a lot of mail at his Lincoln apartment. Usually when people wanted to talk to him, they’d simply seek him out, whether contacting him in person at his place of work, coming here, or summoning him directly to Freedom Hall. But this was a season for gift-giving, and from the colorful wrapping paper this was certainly a holiday gift. He silently walked up to his apartment, silent now that Satyr was spending most of his nights out with his many girlfriends. His putative roomate hadn’t made much of an impression on the place, and as the former Omegadrone sat on his creaking armchair, the Spartan rooms were much as they’d been when he’d begun to decorate them. The only real change had been the presence of Fulcrum’s cat, but even he generally avoided him when he didn’t want attention: the feline never really had warmed up to the former Omegadrone, though he did consent to tangle his way between Murdock’s legs and purr when he wanted food. The cat was sleeping by the radiator now, enjoying the warmth. “TO SM: THANKS FOR YOUR HELP WITH THE LUNAR SITUATION. THOUGHT YOU’D APPRECIATE THIS PRESENT FROM THE FARSIDERS. CAREFUL; IT’S POTENT!: STAR KNIGHT” Hmming, he unwrapped the box and found inside a single large bottle, its sides cold to the touch, the fluid inside a mysterious green. He carefully removed the cork from the cloudy glass, judging the consistency of the fluid within, and immediately realized what it was. He’d drunk alcohol before; even on Nihilor, making a still was one way to make yourself a king in the Black Ghetto, and between Satyr and the friends at Champions who had occasionally passed a flask around the dish line, he’d had plenty here too. But nothing so far had affected him; the cybernetic alteration of most of his organs having rendered him largely immune to Earthly intoxicants. With few material needs, he generally donated things gifted him to the local homeless shelters, but this was...hmm. He sniffed the fumes wafting from the bottle’s mouth and blinked. Just how potent was the Farsider brandy? He got up, chair creaking beneath him as he rose, and took out one of his mismatched glasses, this one a Champions mug with the logo worn away. He thought for a moment, and poured himself a drink, his apartment as ever silent but for the purring of the cat and the rumbling of equipment deep down in the basement. He raised the mug to his lips, took a sip, and all but choked as green fire slipped down his throat. This was nearly pure alcohol, but with flavor all the same, and potent enough that even he had noticed it! Well, he couldn’t just donate this, not when it might poison a human who drank it, and his curiosity had now been piqued. He took bottle and mug and sat down before his television, flipping through channels before he found one of the many Christmas movies that aired this time of year. He had nothing better to do, not until his departure for Sancturary in a few days, and the chance to sit back and drink was not an experience he often had.

She can't pass that, but I'll roll to see how badly she's caught. 20 Not a bad roll given her very low Reflex save, but it's still enough to catch her. Madame Zero is bound and helpless.

Mystery solved!

You guys will have no trouble with these losers. Are you going to knock Greta out, or just take out the thugs directly bothering you?

It wasn't tough to find Aryan Angel, the rig-turned-super-villain stronghold turned derelict wasn't heavily populated. Just inside the first door that Wander threw open, they found the blonde songstress turned supervillain, Greta having changed out of her skimpy costume into a more comfortable (perhaps on many levels, if she was the fascist spy from another dimension they suspected she was) long-sleeved black shirt and jeans: and so did her minions, the half-dozen thugs in similar garb who were in the room with her. That also answered the question of who was doing the beating: the lead thug had just landed a solid punch to Greta Ratner's midsection, seemingly the last in a series of blows given the artistic bruising scattered across the young woman's cheeks. The room was full of papers and material, maps of Freedom City posted on the walls, various city landmarks marked with spots, and a scattering of neo-Nazi paraphenalia everywhere. Gasping from the last punch, Greta managed to yell "Get them!" And sure enough, the half-a-dozen thugs in the room, each with the shaved heads and tattoos of neo-Nazis, actually did try and engage the members of the Liberty League in hand-to-hand combat, shouting white supremacist battlecrys of ultimate Aryan vengeance!

Mark breathed a sigh of relief at Erin's suggestion, he'd been worried she would take the opportunity of shopping in Paris to go buy an expensive dress. He wasn't supposed to go around making Euros, there were laws against that, and he doubted the money he had in his wallet would have covered anything fancy. But tourist shopping was well within his budget, and so they walked by several kiosks to look things over. "Ooh, or how about this?" Mark suggested. Producing a black beret from a nearby rack, he put it on Erin's head; luckily it turned out to fit absolutely perfectly. "You look great!" he said, pointing it out in a mirror. "And so French!" Just behind her, though, Mark spotted something bizarre happening: the street behind her bowing up and out in a growing bubble of asphalt, the people on the sidewalk pointing and exclaiming in alarm at the sight of the Champs Elysees breaking! Suddenly, from beneath the street, there erupted a bizarre sight: some thirty or forty hideous humanoids, their faces white and their clothes an eerie mix of black and white, their movements silent and their evident purpose sinister as they scuttled towards the shoppers on the street. Without hesitation, Mark put himself between Erin and the oncoming horde and yelled "Oh crap, I forgot to give Erin and Trevor their communicators! What's your parents number!?!" Seconds later, the phone in the White house rang.

"I have seen abandoned children before," replied Caradoc, his armored hand on the tank as he watched the fish-babies swim around, happy enough in their new home despite the emergency measures that had been used to put them there. "I could not see them here. Not even these." He took his hand away and turned back to Fleur. "I am sorry I told no one, Fleur de Joie. I had thought that freeing them would be taken poorly by the League. But the deed is done, and they have lived. And they will go on living, safe in the protection of this place. The deed was worth doing." He nodded at that, looking as satisfied as anyone behind an opaque faceplate could be. "I should return to my duties in, uh, Avalon now," he added, shaking the hand of the man he hadn't met before. "I am glad you both were there today."

Luckily, most of the reporters seemed especially interested in taking pictures of Mara first, Joan Collier making sure to egg her fellows along. "Hey, we've got Daedalus out of costume here, you better get all the pictures you can!" It looked like the press conference was about wrapping up, and they wanted to take care of business while they could. With the moment of sanity that got her, Joan got in close to Ellie. "We're going to need something for attribution," she said frankly to Ellie, having guessed that whatever the girl's story was, she wasn't interested in having it broadcast by some of Joan's less ethical fellows, "and you want it from me. Don't get me wrong, we're all sea monsters here, but I'm the one who doesn't eat kids for standing up for themselves." She smiled thinly.

Fleur: 20 Madame Zero: 12 Rene: 9 Weaver: 4 Thugs: 3 Fleur is up. Fleur and Weaver, take an extra HP because a kid is involved.

9

Gimmie some initiative, folks.

Through great good luck, the nearest plant turned out to be an ornamental pot where some herbs were growing just a few feet away from Saied's position on the fire stairs, giving the heroes a chance to rendezvous with each other before they went to engage Madame Zero. That lady seemed to have abandoned her plans to attack the first apartment she'd approached, instead walking out to the center of the plaza between the apartments, right in the middle of the block. She evidently wasn't suspecting serious superheroic resistance, not with her thugs breaking off to secure the doors to each building, Saied's included. Instead, she spoke, the ice all around her vibrating to the sound of her voice. "You all know who I am. Some of you," she added challengingly, "know why I'm here. If you come out now and bring what I want, the ice will go away and your neighborhood will be safe. I know you may have fought some little super-thugs, twenty years ago, but you've never fought anyone like me before If not, you're going to find out what a REAL supervillain can do!" No sooner had she said that, though, than a torrent of blankets and sheets came descending on her at Weaver's command, burying the supervillain beneath a pile of cloth that thoroughly blocked her view of the world: most of her thugs were under cover and impossible to hit from this angle, but the lady herself was truly blinded. For now.

"Oh, I'm pretty good at making friends wherever I go," said Mark with a little wink. Sometimes strange things happened to those friendships, but it was best not to dwell on that. "I believe in reaching out and embracing all the opportunities of life, even the ones you didn't expect to find when you got up that morning." He put his head on his hands, studying her. "You know, I've got some euros even after paying for this, and my friends will call us if your parents need you. What do you say we go shopping in one of these little stores? You can take a present home from Paris."

That got a laugh from the journalists, even the one who'd asked the question and been the target of Jill's barbed tongue. No one really expected people to answer the question "Are you a superhero?", and a funny answer was better than no answer at all: it made for better copy, and what else were journalists after. The worst that seemed to happen was lots of attention paid to both Mara and Ellie, cameras flashing and snapping, and seemed to make a fine end to the press conference as the interviewee and her people made their escape into the building, where dignitaries were in the capable hands of the rest of the security staff. "I have been thinking," Murdock was murmuring to Erin, "perhaps we should try to introduce Archimedes and Charlie. I worry he will grow unsocial in Mona's absence."

"Really, I'm lucky to have the friends I do," said Mark, finishing the story of Young Freedom and their many adventures. "I know I can always count on my teammates to be there for me, whatever situation we're in and however bad things are. If it wasn't for them," he said honestly, sitting over his second cup of coffee as he gazed over the table-top candle into Erin-Prime's eyes, "I wouldn't be the man, much less the hero, I am today." Glad that he'd gotten them both out of the way of the people in Seattle, he asked, "So, uh, have you made a lot of friends in college? It seems like a lot of the people I went to school with are still hanging around with people they knew in high school."

Fleur de Joie's call to Siren got the Atlantean-allied Leaguer out to help with the Deep One infants, the long-time heroine's influence more than enough to get them into the Freedom City Aquarium with the children, gawkers being kept away by security as they headed into the building. "It'll be just like the old Coney Island nursery," speculated the scholarly hero as she helped Fleur deposit the toddlers into a huge tank full of salt water, where some hastily-gathered feeder fish and plants were waiting for them. "We'll take care of them, and let people see Deep Ones aren't all monsters either. I'll take charge of this," she told Fleur, Pyre, and Caradoc, giving the armored knight a suspicious look for a moment. "You three have done enough today."

A couple of small formatting tweaks, and APPROVED!

Background is fine. Don't forget to put Variable Power Configurations behind a cut. Separate the Enhanced STR and Enhanced CON, or make them a container. Why does a character with no Dex-based skills have such a high Dex?

"Destruction can be a good thing," replied Murdock. "A cancer. A forest fire. An Omegadrone." He thought for a moment about how to deal with the boy's concerns. "You cannot change the past. The dead cannot be brought back to life, the deeds of the Terminus cannot be undone." He spoke those words as if he'd memorized them a long time ago, and they came straight from the heart. "But you can do deeds that make you worthy of the abilities you have. If you spend your life lamenting the origin of your powers, lamenting being warped in the womb by Terminus radiation, then you will be simply be another victim. But if you use your abilities for good, you will master them, and thus be the master of your own fate."