Avenger Assembled

"I've got the day off, so I'll probably go over and visit my mom. It's tough because of the weird time zone thing, but that's teleporting for you. Reminds me why I usually didn't bother with it back in school." He hmmed. "You should probably open the present sooner rather than later, so you can decide if you want it. The place only offers 72 hour return, and I bought it yesterday. Oh, is that your new kitty? Hi kitty!" he said with a wave, offering his fingers for a smell and scratch if he could get away with it. "Are you doing anything else for your birthday?" he asked her. "Anything at your new job?"

"GOODNIGHT," said the giant bee with a wave as she took off, hovering in the air over the two heroines and Ammy. "THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP, WHIPLAZH! I WILL MAKE ZURE EVERYONE KNOWS YOU WERE A GOOD FRIEND TO BEE. ZEE YOU TOMORROW FLEUR DE JOIE AND AMMY!" She was happy, a frightening night having resolved itself very well for her, and seemed to be humming something under her breath as she went. And with that, she was off, thrumming away into the night with a sound like a helicopter's whirring blades, heading towards a just-visible shadow in the darkness of Sanctuary's night that looked more like a mountain from a distance than anything else.

"That's really great, Trevor," said Mark with a smile as he took a seat at the small kitchen table. "You're already so smart, you could probably teach those classes anyway," he said without a hint of self-consciousness: he was sure it was true. "I'm doing pretty okay in Geneva," he added. "They've got me taking special classes for meta-agents, but most of those are just warmed-over Claremont classes anyway." Most of his colleagues had gone to college themselves, something that occasionally gave him pause, at least momentarily. Why worry about that when there was so much awesome stuff out there? "I just spent a week and a half in Ireland, where they're repatriating those Brigadoon refugees. At least now they've all got modern houses." He picked up the coffee and smelled it, savoring the scent. "Ah, now that's midnight coffee." He thought for a minute. "Hey, I bet midnight mist-infused coffee would probably taste pretty weird if you mixed in it right. Ever try it?"

http://www.sesamestreet.org/parents/theshow/gordon

Mark was more than a little naive about a lot of things, but he was no fool: he'd spent nights in girls' rooms too, and he knew Trevor and Erin had been intimate for a while now. "Heeey, Trevor," he said innocently, giving his friend a wink. "So I guess you guys are having a party, huh? I'll just stay so Erin can open the present, then. And maybe for coffee," he added. "You just can't get that midnight brew in Geneva. So how you doing, man? Seems like we hardly see each other when we're not fighting Nazis these days."

"NOPE, JUZT ME," buzzed the bee proudly. A little nervously, she added, "THE ZCHOOL IZ ZECRET, THOUGH. IT WOULD ATTRACT A LOT OF ATTENTION IF BIPEDZ KNEW THERE WAZ A GIANT BEE GOING TO ZCHOOL HERE." She rubbed her forelegs together at the sight of the familiar Fleur, and added, "I WENT BUZZING AROUND THE ZOUTHZIDE AND I GOT LOZT," she admitted. "ZIZ BIPED HERO HELPED ME GET BACK TO BEEDOM HALL ZO I DID NOT HAVE TO FLY AROUND AND ZCARE ANYONE. I REMEMBERED WHAT YOU ZAID ABOUT FLYING AROUND. WHIPLAZH IZ VERY NIZE!"

Super-Bee gave Whiplash a safe, easy flight over the bridge, clever enough to fly low and underneath so that the drivers wouldn't gawk and cause an accident: evidently she knew something about urban flying. "I DON'T UZUALLY GIVE RIDEZ TO BIPEDZ I DON'T KNOW, BUT YOU ARE NIZE. NOT MANY PEOPLE WOULD HELP A BEE THEY DID NOT KNOW." Super-Bee wasn't a particularly fast flier, but she was graceful despite her bulk, and soon the giant bee was descending onto the big grassy area behind Freedom Hall, where a costumed figure was rapidly approaching. Shamefacedly, if such an emotion could be read on a bee's face, the giant bee waved at the newcomer. "HELLO FLEUR DE JOIE. ZORRY I AM LATE!"

Escorting a giant bee across town might not have been what Whiplash had had in mind for one of her early Freedom City missions, but it turned out to be less difficult than she might have expected; Super-Bee was smart enough to stick close to her and to not alarm anyone down below, and though a thirty foot bee wasn't exactly stealthy, the sight was odd enough that most people who looked up from down below seemed to dismiss it as a hallucination. As they approached the bridge to the heart of the city where Freedom Hall lay, the bee seemed to regard her with huge faceted eyes. This close, the bee was very warm, much warmer than the cool night air. "IT WILL BEE TOUGH FOR YOU TO ZWING ACROZZ THE BRIDGE. WOULD YOU LIKE A RIDE?"

Sharl smiled back. "You couldn't read my mind anyway," he said with a little shrug. "Telepaths can't read what isn't there, or so they tell me." It might have been a joke at his own expense elsewhere, but not here. Sage and others had always sworn up and down that he did have a mind, just not one that telepaths could read, but he'd accepted that he was no more 'real' to these people mentally than he was physically. Physically, he could at least fake. He hmmed. "So, uh, do you have any questions about the school before we get there? Anything I can answer?"

"Hi, Erin!" said Mark cheerfully. "Happy birthday!" He offered her the big, bulky package he was carrying, the glossy wrapping paper suggesting (accurately) that he'd gone to the store's wrapping department rather than done his usual job of finding the most colorful comics he could. "Can I come in?" he asked, so ingenously it was hard to say no. "Sorry if I took you by surprise; I'd have called ahead first, but I knew you'd be home since it's a holiday and all, so why not come over?" He grinned, as that explained everything, at least for Mark. "Are you gonna have a party at your work?" he asked curiously. He was sure Trevor, ever-clever, had planned something, so he didn't bother to ask about that!

November 11, 2011 Erin White's Apartment One of the advantages of being able to jump from continent to continent was that if you wanted to go to your friend's birthday, you could just take advantage of the Armistice Day celebrations that gave most UN employees the day off and walk right over to Freedom City. So it was that when Erin White reached the age of nineteen, her high school friend and ally against the Terminus, Mark Lucas, just headed over to her place around ten AM eastern standard time, a big package under his arm fresh from a nice store in Switzerland. They'd all exchanged addresses before they'd moved out their various ways, so it was no trouble even for the usually scatter-brained Mark to find exactly where his old ally and Liberty League comrade was living these days, for all that he hadn't visited her there. He knocked firmly, whistling a jaunty tune.

Sharl wasn't sure what to do here, so he defaulted to the others' judgement. If not for the lives that were already in peril, he'd have advocated simply taking their people, gathering up the space plane, and leaving these people to wallow in the misery they'd created for themselves. But he knew that was hardly very heroic, and besides there really were lives in peril. (Fictional ones, anyway!) He watched as the others went about building their construct to rescue the gorillas, noting that no one was doing a damn thing to rescue the trapped king. Evidently the gorillas, faced with a real crisis, were willing to let their king go too. As Koshiro and Corbin worked, Bonda, leaving his mentor aside, came over and approached Papercut. "How long will the construction around Fala last?" he asked carefully, obviously very tense.

All righty, was there anything more you guys wanted to accomplish here? (Caradoc will eave contact information with Bishop, not having met him yet)

With Melvin's return, information about the Nicholson School in Arleen's hand, and the arrest of the Clown Constructor, the heroes could congratulate themselves on a job well-done. Behind his mask, even the usually-dour Murdock was pleased with what they'd accomplished: perhaps they hadn't inspired that assembly of students quite as they'd hoped, but they'd saved a young boy and his mother from a wrathful father, put the young man himself on the path to right, and they'd done it all with no serious damage to the city, themselves, or the civilians they had been protecting. It had been a well-spent afternoon, for all that it hadn't gone quite the way they'd planned. With the work done, having done his part by helping destroy the robots, Caradoc made his excuses from the house and headed to leave: perhaps he was not one for grand speeches or mighty deeds, but he'd been there to help and that was what really mattered. He wasn't one to inspire children; just one to save them.

"It's okay," said Sharl with a teenage boy's awkwardness, tugging at his collar as he looked down at his outfit. "I don't, um, normally dress like this," he admitted, "but I was supposed to look nice for meeting you." Like a gentleman, he went to retrieve Kristen's bags, giving her a chance to meet the headmaster personally. Duncan Summers was in his seventies, but looked closer to his fifties as he greeted Kirsten with a solid handshake. He was in a black sweater and slacks himself, a reminder that November in New Jersey was considerably colder than November in Australia. He leaned on a walking stick and said in a gravely voice, "I happened to be in the airport on personal reasons myself, and Mr. Tulink is one of our...volunteers. How was your flight?"It took her a moment to realize he'd been too far away to hear what she'd said to Sharl, but had responded to it all the same. Retrieving her bags turned out to be easy enough, and soon the trio headed for the waiting black van that would take them to school! Summers drove, leaving the two teens to talk in the back. "So, uh, I hear you're a telekinetic," commented Sharl. "Can you read minds, too?"

TT, What DC is Sharl going to need to hit to hack the school's systems while we're hanging around and talking?

This is a pretty standard bomb, if there is any such thing. Any garden-variety demo guy for the Mob could have whipped it together, no problem. (That's why the EMP charge fried its circuits so thoroughly) It looks like an incendiary with explosive thermite, something designed to blow up the trailer and burn it to the ground, looking very impressive all the way, without actually doing much damage to the surrounding area. The parts are generic; he'd have to take it back to the Manor for closer analysis. It looks like it's been there for no more than a couple of hours.

"ZMITH ZTREET IS THE FAZTEZT ROUTE TO BEEDOM HALL," explained the giant bee, evidently relaxing in the presence of a trustworthy-seeming human. "I KNOW THERE ARE MANY HUMANZ AND FLYING MACHINEZ HERE, AND I DID NOT WANT TO FLY TOO HIGH AND CRASH INTO ONE. YOUR ZKIEZ ARE ZO CROWDED! ANYWAY, I AM GOING THERE TO MEET FLEUR DE JOIE ZO ZHE CAN TAKE ME BACK HOME." She buzzed along for a moment, then added, "I AM GOING TO ZCHOOL IN BEEDOM CITY ZO I CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT ZIZ WORLD. MY HOME IZ VERY DIFFERENT." She rubbed her face with one of those giant forelimbs and added, "MY CODE-NAME IS ZUPER-BEE."

Smith Street is nearby (the local avenues are all common last names like Smith, Jones, or Johnson); it feeds directly onto the main artery that'll take the giant bee back towards the center of the city. One possible concern is that if the giant bee does take Smith Street into the city, she'll be heading into a crowded area at night: more people might panic at the sight of her if she doesn't have someone there to reassure them that things are okay.

The OOC thread. Give me a streetwise check.

The giant bee instantly whirled on Whiplash, flying close enough to talk without seeming to try and overrun her position. It was tough to read emotions on an insect face as wide as an oncoming truck, but those compound eyes did seem fixed directly on the whip-wielding heroine. "I WAZ LOOKING FOR ZMITH ZTREET," the giant bee said cautiously, its feminine buzzing sounding a little wary. "BUT THE ZTREETZ HERE ALL GO IN THE ZAME DIRECTION AND I WENT THE WRONG WAY." The giant bee didn't seem to see there was anything strange about her flying through the skies of the city by night. "CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE ZMITH ZTREET IZ?"

Mid-November 2011 Southside The old Sanderson office building was mostly deserted after working hours, not that it was in great shape in daylight thanks to the general decline of the neighborhood. By the time the cleaning crew had finished, it was very late, and the neighborhood around was almost deserted. Almost, anyway. As the crew headed for the van for the ride back to their central office so they could change out of their uniforms and head for home, a gigantic insect descended from the sky! One of the maids screamed in surprise at the sight of the thirty-foot long giant honeybee, easily the size of their truck, as it descended from the sky nearly to ground level as it hovered over the intersection. Wings buzzing loud as an aircraft in flight, the giant bee hovered from corner to corner, bending its giant face towards the streetsigns and frantically rubbing together giant limbs large enough to pierce the sides of a car. As she listened closely, Helen picked out sounds coming from the bee that sounded like words spoken by a jet engine's hum. "OH DEAR OH WHERE IZ THIZ?"

Mid-November, 2011 Jordan International Airport Freedom City Sharl fidgeted nervously alongside Headmaster Summers as they waited for the new student to come through customs, keeping a firm grip on the briefcase-shaped emitter that let him pass for a normal human teenage boy in a suit and tie rather than a computer projection that couldn't safely pass through the metal detectors. He'd been on the outs with the school, or thought he was, since killing the Stratos-robot during the Gorgon incident, and being this close to the headmaster made him worry he'd screw things up and be back in the animal house. How did that saying go, anyway? He wasn't even sure why he was here at all. Summers' silence and stillness didn't help matters, the old man leaning on his cane with perfect ease as time ticked by. Sharl was left wondering. Should he say something? Was the old man all right? Finally, as the passengers from the Australian flight arrived, Summers shot Sharl a significant look. With a wince, the electronic teenager headed over to greet the new people, casting around until he picked out Kirsten Jones. "Hello," he said, recognizing her from her pictures. "I'm Sharl Tulink. Um, welcome to Freedom City." Sharl was tall and a little pale, his black hair looking slicked down, but he smiled as he remembered to offer her a hand to shake. "I'm a Claremont student myself, and the headmaster and I are here to pick you up. How was your flight?"

Redcap Living Weapon PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 14 (+2) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+7 melee, +13 Unarmed) DEF: +7 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +14 Saves: 9 pp TOU +13 (+7 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 68 r=17 pp Bluff 15 (+17) Intimidate 15 (+17) Language 1 (French) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 13 (+15) Stealth 8 (+10) Survival 8 (+10) Feats: 21 pp Attack Focus: Melee 3 Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3 Challenge 2 (Fast Startle, Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus 3 Evasion Fearless Move-By Action Power Attack Second Chance (Taunt checks) Startle Takedown Attack Taunt Ultimate Save (Toughness) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 45 pp Enhanced Feats 10 (Fearsome Presence 10) [10 pp] Matter Eater 13 [18 pp] Protection 6 (Extra: Impervious) [12 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Accurate Acute Analytical Tracking [quarter-speed] Olfactory) [5 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 16 + saves 9 + skills 17/68 + feats 21 + powers 45= 150 pts ----------------------------- Design Notes: They told you awakening your fae heritage would be a beautiful thing. They lied. Instead you were filled with dreams of rage and hunger as your body was warped and changed into a squat, feral thing with spiky hair and flat teeth that could chew through anything: Canada's way of mastering the world of magic. You beat them, though; your own impressive willpower and the might of the beast inside you gave you the strength to escape your handlers. You chewed your way right through the impervium cage where they kept you and ran for the hills, living off the land until you were found by heroes from Freedom City. Now you're here and living among happy, contented people: you've mastered the voice in your head that tells you to eat your way through your problems, and instead you use your ferocity and terrifying nature against criminals, satisfying your predatory urges by hunting in the state forest and living off the land when you're not catching human bad guys. But that hunger is ever there... Here's my build for a redcap, Changeling the Dreaming-style, based on the Living Weapon archetype from Instant Superheroes. (Redcaps basically are the Wolverines of the Changeling world, so that makes a lot of sense.) Let me tell you, I never really _got_ Changeling society, where the PCs are evidently supposed to be content with the recent brutal conquest of fae society by the recently reawakened sidhe. PCs shouldn't be kowtowing to European aristocrats with pointy ears and anime hair just because they have lots of Charisma, emotion controlling superpowers or not. Especially not when they're powered by dreams that want to be free! So I always had a lot of sympathy for characters like redcaps, monsters of hunger and rage, who wanted to pull the system down and _eat it_. He's a powerful combatant who can soak up massive hits, a good thing when he's in combat against sidhe weapon masters and troll powerhouses: he's also a good martial artist who can hit hard and do some damage with his fists. His real power is his mighty jaws, with Matter Eater 13, he can without a roll chew through any mundane substance with a single bite (inflicting a massive Drain TOU 13 on objects) and be damn threatening even to super-tough substances like impervium or magic swords and such. (He should not be using that on anything but robots, demons, etc). He can put anything in his mouth without harm, so he can just eat bombs and super-weapons if necessary. He can also trash-talk anybody even close to his PL, able to bedevil even opponents who aren't afraid of him thanks to his masterful ability to tear them down to size. I figure his Super-Senses make sense for such a feral character. He'd be a scary guy to meet in a dark alley.

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