Avenger Assembled

Sharl frowned, picking through a number of things to say. Miss Americana would be conciliatory now, so that's what he'd be too. "Actually, we are connected to the Internet. Or we were, until a few months ago when Miss Americana and I closed down the connections. That's how I got out," he explained. "I was exploring in a bad part of the city, and I found...well, it looked like a doorway in the side of what was real." He tried to put into words something he had completely lacked the ability to understand, even to process, at the time. "Like an open space that wasn't just in the wall, but an open space in reality itself. So I went into it, obviously, and, uh, here I was."

APPROVED

Sharl frowned at that, looking down at his outfit, which was as common in the sectors of Tronik as a shirt and jeans were on the streets of Freedom. Why does everyone keep saying that? "We all dress like this where I'm from. The black absorbs heat, and the glasses are for the ultraviolet...anyway, I'm almost certain the people who made that movie had access to some sort of Freedom League files; it's too much of a coincidence otherwise. _Anyway_...to make a long story short, the Centurion rescued our civilization and got us running on a computer here on Earth. That's why I haven't said anything before, and why I blew the head off that Stratos robot when it seemed to know what I was. We're all computer programs, all fifty million of us. All it would take is one big Gauss gun, and we'd be finished."

"With what happened during the fight at Freedom Hall, I've been thinking, and I've decided it's time I was honest with you, and everyone else on the team." Nervous at the idea of public meetings, Sharl had planned to talk to them one on one. "I'm not from the Internet, and Miss Americana didn't program me. I'm from a city called Tronik, on a world we call Neo." He thought for a minute, trying to think about how to explain this to the less-than-tech-savvy Koshiro. "2000 years ago, our old homeworld, where we lived before, was destroyed by a supernova. Millions of people died. But in Tronik, we built machines. Machines that we thought were transporters to send us to another world." Koshiro's attention looked like it was lagging, so Sharl tried another tactic. "But we were _wrong_, because those machines were digitizers!" he said dramatically. "Before Tronik could be destroyed, the machines scanned us down to the last quantum particle and rebuilt us in digital data a billion times more complex than your computers could absorb, in the holdings of the alien supercomputer, the Curator."

Early October, 2011 Sharl talks to YF 2.0, or tries, anyway.

Early October, 2011 Claremont Academy Sharl spent the first week of October on restriction, not that he had anywhere to go outside of school. When he wasn't visiting Miss Americana and discussing everything he remembered about the Stratos robot, as well as helping analyze the captured pieces, he was at school, either in classes still taught with dead paper textbooks like something out of the dark ages, following along as teachers explained how modern technology worked, or in his training sessions in the Doom Room with various pieces of high technology, demonstrating that he knew how to possess and operate battlesuits, combat robots, and other pieces of machine warfare without destroying 'innocent' human targets. He took his meals in his computer, since he didn't eat normally anyway, and slept there too when he wasn't sitting up working. Maybe destroying the Stratos robot had been a mistake. Maybe he'd have regretted blasting a normal person like that, powered or not, especially if the man hadn't survived. But when he thought about what 'Stratos' had said, about the secret knowledge it must have possessed, it made his heart sick. But finally, though, after much consideration (and a few meetings with Headmasters Summers, as intimidating a person as Sharl had ever met), Sharl began to realize why he was so stressed out about his duties and the idea that anything might threaten them: he was the only student who knew about Tronik, he was the only one carrying the burden of fifty million lives. Faced with the double-choice of being off Young Freedom, and probably being a solo hero for the rest of his career, or of opening up to them, Sharl remembered the dangers they'd all faced together and decided to be honest with them. He couldn't keep the secret of his origin forever, especially if the Curator _was_ again taking an interest in Earth. It was his responsibility to open up to his team, and that meant starting 'at home.' Even if that was going to be tough. - Sharl had been a good room-mate for Koshiro; or so he liked to think. He didn't bother Koshiro or try and engage him in unnecessary chatter: he also took up almost no space in the room proper. When he wasn't studying inside his computer, visible as a little 'webcam' on the screen, he sat on the unfurnished bed and read paper books, moving inside the dimmed computer when his organic roomie needed to sleep. Sharl didn't have a lot of physical needs while he was projecting, and he'd been raised in a society that valued privacy: hell, all he had in the room were a few books and a desk covered in high-end, high-security computer stuff like his laptop and the auxilary towers that went with it, that was humming in the corner most of the time. So when Koshiro came back from supper, still well before lights out, to find his room-mate standing inside and facing the door, it was a little novel. "Uh, hey, Koshiro," said Sharl, looking uncomfortable. He was in his usual black shirt, slacks, and long jacket, switching his shades back and forth from hand to hand. "We need to talk."

Martial Artist with a Power Ring PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 14 (+2) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 20 [14] (+5/+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+7 melee/+10 Blast/Move Object) DEF: +7 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +14/+20 Saves: 11 pp TOU +13 (+7 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +10 (+7 Con, +3) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +9 (+3 Wis, +2 Enhanced Wis, +4) Skills: 68 r=17 pp Acrobatics 13 (+15)* Bluff 13 (+15)* Concentration 2 (+4/+6) Intimidate 13 (+15)* Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 2 (+2) Knowledge (Pop Culture) 4 (+4) Notice 8 (+10/+13) Sense Motive 13 (+15/+18)* Feats: 21 pp Accurate Attack Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 3 Challenge 3 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Startle, Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus 3 Evasion Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Intimidate, Sense Motive) Startle Stunning Attack Takedown Attack Taunt Ultimate Save (Toughness) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 45 pp Device 11 (Verdant Flame Ring) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [those worthy]) [45 pp] Enhanced WIS 6 [6dp] Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6dp] Immunity 4 (disease, poison, suffocation) [4dp] Impervious TOU 6 [6dp] Protection 6 [6dp] Verdant Flame Array [25+2=27dp] Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 3, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [any fire]) AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Accurate 3, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [any fire]) AP: Strike 6 (Extra: Penetrating 6; PFs: Improved Crit 2, Knockback 10 [DMG 23], Mighty, Precise) ‘flaming fists’ costs abilities 40 + combat 16 + saves 11 + skills 17/68 + feats 21 + powers 45= 150 pts --------- Design Notes: Ted Scott was heavyweight champion of the world back in the day, a hard-drinking, hard-hitting boxer who was second to no one in the ring. His real hero was the superhero Verdant Flame, the keeper of the mystic green fire of Creation, who’d saved Ted from a scandal early in his career and who was a big fight fan himself. On the day Ted was due to retire from professional boxing, the Verdant Flame came to his last fight and was murdered himself by an old enemy, leaving Ted behind with his friend’s dead body and a mystic verdigris power ring that seemed to be calling him. Curiously, Ted put the ring on and was imbued with mighty mystic power: now he was the bearer of the Verdant Flame, a streetfighter from a bad part of town who now was fighting cosmic foes and mystic menaces the like of which no mortal man should ever have to see, much less battle. But with years of experience as a fighter and now bearing a mystic ring of incredible power, Ted Scott is no ordinary man! Based on Alan Scott and Ted Grant (Green Lantern I and Wildcat, respectively), here’s a Martial Artist with a Power Ring: a powerful heavyweight boxer with phenomenal magic powers! Without his ring he’s a mighty PL 7 boxer, a powerful fighter who can hold his own versus almost anybody. PL 4-5 boxers he shares the ring with are going to be standing only as long as he wants them to be. (He can lay almost anyone flat-footed with his trash-talking, scary demeanor, or good old-fashioned fancy footwork and then knock them down with a Power Attack; Stunning Attacks are good versus superhuman opponents with tough skin but weak little bodies.) He can actually hang out okay with high-level opponents, in fact, given how good he is at swinging for the fences and making it count every time. With the ring he’s an all right blaster, capable of hanging back and blasting from afar, using his usual combat patter to keep his opponents flat-footed and demoralized in the process. He’s also more observant and thoughtful while carrying it, though not any smarter. His Strike I figure is a combination of both worlds; igniting his hands into fists of mystic green flame and throwing mystically-empowered punches that could hurt anybody or knock them halfway across the state! (Don’t spam Knockback, though, as that’s just annoying) He’s got a big melee tradeoff, but again thanks to his skill as a fighter he can take advantage of that almost every time. He’s a bit weak on Impervious, but he can shrug off assault rifles and his high durability lets him come through most fights okay. With earned PP, I’d suggest buying up his INT and skills, reflecting an increase in his knowledge about the mystic world where he’s just been thrust, as well as maybe some Impervious. If you want to make his ring cosmic-focused, drop one of the APs off his Verdant Flame array and give him Space Flight, and shuffle points around (perhaps dropping the Impervious) to give him immunities enough to fly in space. He could use some Super-Senses too, like Detect Magic, which would help compensate for his dabbler-level Arcane Lore. He doesn’t have Create Object, but as he gets more creative with the ring and goes beyond just ‘bubbles and beams’, that’ll be a very plausible purchase for him. You could change up how his powers work if you want to get creative: one possible way might be to give him a Mighty Blast to reflect literally “throwing” flame-punches across the room. Making him more of a high-accuracy fighter without the ring might be interesting too, reflecting a more conventional martial artist, perhaps one wielding the Ring of Ki!

American Werewolf PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 36 pp STR 26 [20] (+8/+5) DEX 20 [16] (+5/+3) CON 26 [20] (+8/+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 18 pp ATK: +4 (+7 melee/+10 melee [werewolf]) DEF: +10 (+2 Shield, +2 Dodge, +2 flat-footed) Init: +3/+5 Grapple: +12/+20 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +3 Enhanced Con, +2 Defensive Roll) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3 Enhanced Con) REF +8 (+3 Dex, +2 Enhanced Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 88 r=22 pp Acrobatics 10 (+13/+15)* Climb 2 (+7/+10) Concentration 4 (+6) Diplomacy 7 (+10) Drive 2 (+5/+7) Intimidate 12 (+15)* Knowledge (History) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Tactics) 10 (+10) Languages 2 (Chinese, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10)* Pilot 2 (+5/+7) Search 5 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10)* Stealth 5 (+8/+10) Survival 4 (+6) Swim 2 (+7/+10) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 3 Benefit (Security Clearance) Challenge 2 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Startle) Defensive Roll Evasion Master Plan 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle Takedown Attack 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 49 pp Device 1 (Shield) (Hard to Lose) [4 pp] -Shield 2 [2dp] -Strike 2 (PF: Mighty) [3dp] Alternate Form 9 (Werewolf) (Extra: Duration [sustained]) [45 pp] Enhanced CON 6 [6 pp] Enhanced DEX 4 [4 pp] Enhanced Feats 5 (Attack Focus: Melee 3, Dodge Focus 2) [5 pp] Enhanced STR 6 [6 pp] Leaping 4 (x25) [4+1=5 pp] AP: Speed 4 (100 MPH) Regeneration 9 (Bruised 3 [no action], Injured 6 [no action]) (PF: Regrowth) (Drawback: Not Vs. Silver) [8 pp] Super-Movement 2 (Wall-Crawling 2) [4 pp] Super-Senses 6 (Danger Sense [Olfactory], Accurate Acute Tracking [quarter-speed] Olfactory, Ultrahearing) [6 pp] Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (silver) (uncommon, major) [3 pp] costs abilities 36 + combat 18 + saves 9 + skills 22/88 + feats 19 + powers 48 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts ---------- Design Notes: Jim Walker didn’t have the Patriot serum or special powers when he became an American hero, but back in the late 1970s the Vietnam veteran was a young, healthy war hero with a solid reputation for integrity: just the thing the US Army was looking for when they issued him a bulletproof steel shield and patriotic costume. Maybe he wasn’t up to soloing against supervillains, but he was a tactical genius and skilled fighter, easily able to break up the drug rings and criminal gangs that had infiltrated the Army during its nadir at the end of the war and become a hero to his fellow soldiers. All that changed one day when the contraband-smuggling ring he broke up turned out to be working for Lady Lunar! He beat up the thugs, but their Farsider escort crushed him with thrown objects and impaled him with a fragment of Moonstone mounted on his spear, imbuing his body with cosmic lunar radiation. Waking up in an Army hospital, Walker thought he was lucky to be alive, until the first full moon shone on him some days later and he began to _change_... USAgent and Cap-Wolf (the period where Captain America was a scientifically-created werewolf) were both creatures of the 1970s, so I made this character a native of that time and place. Most of the time he’s a PL 7 masked patriot, a skilled planner and goonsweeper who’s also a fantastic athlete. But when the chips are down, he can transform himself into a mighty werewolf and become PL 10. As a werewolf he can claw his way up walls, rip cars apart with his bare hands, and take fantastic punishment before dishing it out on his own. Note that he does still need to carry the shield to meet his offensive and defensive caps even as a werewolf; I figure bashing people with a shield is a good way to keep himself from ripping into them with his claws and teeth! He’s got good all-around saves, with no real weak ones even if none of them are particularly strong, either. He lacks Arcane Lore since he’s a scientific wolf rather than a mystical one, another legacy of the Bronze Age when they didn’t dare make major characters out of old-fashioned movie-style monsters. He’s not quite as personable as your typical Cap build, but with constantly being bombarded by new smells and sounds thanks to his heightened senses, that makes sense! He works just fine as a Bronze Age character, especially since his nature as a heroic symbol of the American dream that occasionally turns into a monster that wants to eat you is just the sort of understated message beloved by comics writers of the period. (In an Iron Age-influenced game, he’d almost certainly be an evil monster fed college students by a sinister organization) He works just fine as a modern-day PC, though you may want to make him an Iraq veteran or give him Immunity: aging. I tried to come up with a respectable Freedom City backstory for him, inspired by the Patriot as well as Jackwolf, the brief period when Jack Wolf was transformed into a werewolf thanks to the machinations of Lady Lunar. (Indeed, given Jack Wolf’s military background, the two men may have once been comrades-in-arms before going back to their respective careers). For a mystic werewolf, pick up some Arcane Lore, and maybe some more Regeneration.

Edge Vignette Gods Themselves (and GMing) Swiss Misses (and GMing) Harrier Vignette Power Struggle Doktor is Insane Vanity Project (and GMing) Going the Distance Freedom Angel Plan Bee and GMing Animal Control: Breakout Faith Protects, Kevlar Helps Citizen Vignette Detroit Minute (and GMing) Latchkey Kids (and GMing) GMing Queen of Heaven Final Frontier Friend in Need Please assign my Ref point to Edge, as well as any possible reward from my GMing.

Citizen The Far Realms Backup Site Sanctuary September 24, 2011 Standing on the surface of an alien world, Sharl Tulink couldn’t help but wonder what his life would have been like had Tronik had access to other dimensions back in the long-ago time before the Exodus. Back before the supernova, back before digitization. Presumably the citizens of Tronik would have evacuated just as the people of Earth were doing now, except they’d have moved their entire population and not just a select few. They’d have built their city again, begun anew...”And I’d be dead,” he commented to no one in particular, his humming projector all that was keeping him active and conscious on this primitive world of unrestrained vegetation and giant alien animals. (He’d thought some bad things about the primitive human inhabitants at first, but luckily Fleur de Joie’s briefing had told him what had happened here, and so he’d learned without saying anything unforgivably stupid) In a few minutes, Sharl would walk back to the emergency League technical station set up on Sanctuary and give them his incredibly precious cargo. But for now, the electronic teenager was content to wander the alien woods, never minding the sound of gigantic bees fluttering about overhead. He’d met the young one who was going to be his classmate later in the year; the cheerful giant insect (though tiny next to her aunts and sisters) had been full of questions about his electronic nature he’d done his best to answer before making his excuses. He wasn’t going to be there long; he just had to drop something off before going back through the flowery portal to rejoin his friends. But for the moment, he had some time to himself, so he sat down beneath a tree and opened the box he carried, peering in at the carefully sealed alien computer that was his most precious of cargos. “Well, I finally did it.” He rested his hand on the metal case that held Tronik. “I got us to another world. Hell, another dimension, even.” He knew the people inside couldn’t hear him; only his family and Leroj knew he was active on the outside, and after some consideration he’d only told Leroj about the threat facing the planet and his solution. He’d leave Tronik here, secure in the sealed container Miss Americana had manufactured, and let it run on the small perpetual power generator in the computer station. If nothing happened, they’d go back to the Sanctum in a week. If the Earth was lost...well, Tronik could go on without any more faults for fifty, sixty years with the programming and hardware changes worked by Dragonfly and Miss Americana, running until hopefully the local civilization could rebuild enough to give the people there a more permanent home. “All fifty million of us.” He closed his eyes, making sure to shut the computer first, as, not for the first time, all the responsibility of the moment came crashing down on him. Fifty million people in Tronik, and damn few people on the outside would see them as anything but disposable data. If something went wrong, if what passed for civilization on Earth-Prime fell, would anyone care about the little box with what had once been his whole world in it? About his family, his friends from home, and everything else? He was close enough to touch them all, but so far away he might as well have been in another dimension too. It was tempting to just upload himself again and go back home, to tell his parents that it had all been a mistake and that he could be a hero in Tronik again. The only superhero, in the only place he ever really felt at home. In a place where the trees felt real, where the food felt real, and... No, it doesn’t. He reminded himself grimly. If he went back now, when he was needed back on Earth, all he’d be doing is proving his own cowardice. Like it or not, as much as he missed his family, Tronik didn’t need a flying strongman like he was back home, at least, they didn’t need him now: they needed someone to keep them safe out here in the world of flesh and substance, where Sharl himself was just a ghost of light and magnets. He’d come out for a reason, to find out what the world was really like, and he’d stayed out because his powers and his knowledge meant he had a special responsibility: he had to save Tronik, and he had to be a hero: the only hero his people had, possibly the only one they ever would have. He thought about his last visit home despite himself, though, and missed the comforting safety of real walls that rose up high, with just a glimpse of comforting green sky overhead, the forest of steel and screens that had been his home for almost all of his life. “I guess it’s true what they say. You really can’t go home again.”

Edge Front-Row Seats September 27, 2011 Ashton and Grenville When Mark opened his front door on the day the world was supposed to end, he expected one of his Claremont friends, maybe his mother (assuming she’d found a way home despite the grounding of commercial flights that had kept her in Emerald City all through these last few days), or someone from the Liberty League. He’d thought about going over to Midnight Manor or Danger Mansion, in fact, but his corner of the city was eerily quiet today under the terrible gaze of the space-god in the sky: his friends were dealing with this situation in their own way, and if they wanted him, they’d get in touch. This was a private time for reflection and deep thought, and being available in an emergency. A superpowered princess with a bottle of wine in her hand wasn’t really an emergency, but it was the thought that counted. “Agent Lucas,” snapped Nina al-Darsah, looking a little tired: like Mark, she evidently hadn’t been sleeping much the last few days, and she hadn’t bothered to keep the water off her on the flight over here. “Is this where you live? It’s so...small.” She was wearing a black shirt and skirt that clung close to her knees, both of them of some stretchy fabric that repelled the water on her skin. “This is where I grew up,” replied Mark, a little heatedly. “Shouldn’t you be over in Socotra with your father?” “Well, he’s closed the borders to all outsiders, and he left me out here as his...well, he didn’t really explain why...” Nina waved the bottle for emphasis, and Mark noticed for the first time that it was half-empty. “And, well, I realized you were the only person in Freedom City I actually knew who wasn’t afraid of me, so why not come here?” Mark had no good answer for that, especially since he was alone, so he invited her in, joining her on the couch and turning on the news, anything to get away from the monster watching them from space. He told her to call him Mark, which meant he had to call her Nina, and they were very companionable for a moment before she asked him suddenly, “Did you really kill Omega?” “...not for good,” said Mark after a moment’s hesitation at what had evidently been a penetration of his secret identity, looking over at her on the couch next to him, the two of them surrounded by the family pictures his mother had never taken down after he’d moved out to Switzerland. “But we fought him and won. Not many people can say that. Why do you ask?” “I wonder about superheroes,” she said, giving him a slightly blurry look. “You saved the world. You’ve probably done it before, the way you people work. And now there’s a giant space god coming down planning to destroy the planet and every living thing on it! Doesn’t that make you feel, well, bad? That you did all that and we’re all going to die anyway?” “We’re not going to die, Nina,” said Mark firmly. “We’ve fought monsters before, even big ones, and we’ve come out all right. Just the other day my team and I fought the god of thunder and won!” “Yes, I heard about that. But this is a lot bigger than some divine manifestation, isn’t it?” She pointed at the sky with the bottle and leaned back, stretching her athletic body out as she put her feet up on the table. “I-” Mark frowned. “Don’t do that. My mom works hard keeping this place nice.” Nina shot him a hard look, but put her feet down on the carpet anyway. “Well, you’re in a more commanding mood that now that we’re on a first name basis, Mark. You wouldn’t have talked that way to me back when you were my bodyguard.” “That was when I was assigned to protect you. Getting into arguments about your tone would have been stupid,” Mark shot back. “And you don’t think it’s stupid to fight about my tone now?” she asked him challengingly. “No. If you’re only a good person when the chips aren’t down, there’s nothing at stake. Principles are what you do when bad things are happening. Otherwise you’re just giving the world a fake face because it’s easier. Are you fake, Nina?” he asked her. She thought about that for a minute, then hefted the bottle. “This wine’s real.” They moved outside sometime after that, Mark unrolling a blanket in the backyard to get a better look at the space god overhead. It was one way of being defiant when they didn’t have a lot of other options. After they’d both drunk some more, Nina looked over at Mark. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she finally offered. “I just...want people to notice me. I’m the youngest of thirteen children, you know.” She hmmed. “And it’s especially needed now, when we’ve got that...THING up there!” “I understand,” said Mark after a moment’s reflection. “You’re from a different place, and I can’t expect you to act like other girls all the time. But you still can’t just be a jerk to everyone because that’s how you were brought up. I was brought up...” He took a sip of wine. “Not like the person I am now.” “Well, you seem like an all right person to me,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. “So, you think of me as a girl, eh? Not just Princess al-Darsah?” It was increasingly obvious, even to Mark, that Nina might have had nefarious intentions in coming over to his house. Mark looked down, deep into Nina’s huge dark eyes. “You are Princess al-Darsah. And a girl. A very pretty one, too.” He’d told her that before on the plane, mostly to distract her from telling off the flight attendant, but it was certainly true. “And you’ve been drinking, and I’ve been drinking, and the Gorgon’s probably watching us right now.” “Does that bother you?” she asked him, reaching up and putting her hand on his cheek. “Being watched?” “No, no, it doesn’t.” He reached up and put his hand on hers, thinking about all his high school hookups. “But what does it mean if we-” Suddenly, there was a crash from the street and they both jerked their heads up, the sound of blaring car alarms and crying voices immediately getting Mark’s attention. “C’mon,” he said, jumping to his feet. “We’ve got to help!” he said, his costume swirling into being around him a a thought. Nina stared at him for a moment, then without a word cracked open their wine bottle, summoning a raft of liquid for her to ride on. They worked together on the disaster outside, a car that had drifted off the road and hit a lightpole, Mark tending to the driver while Nina put out the burning engine, and made sure the paramedics took him away. He’d never seen the hydrokinetic princess in action except in combat, but she could handle herself here with uncommon grace, using the wine to smother the flames before the alcohol could ignite, looking pleased with herself when it was done. Afterwards, both of them sooty and sweaty, they went inside to get cleaned up. They were alone in the house for the rest of the night.

Harrier The End of the World: September 25, 2011 The Lands Beyond Freedom League Antarctic Base Rondane Mountains, Queen Maud Land, Antarctica Murdock opened his eyes to darkness and cold, a child’s voice in his ear. “Mr. Murdock? Mr. Murdock?” He started, ever so briefly, and turned his head mechanically to see the girl in his room: Demeter was nine, the youngest of the four surviving children he, Dragonfly, and Miss Americana had rescued from the drone transport at the start of this terrible crisis. For children saved from the icy cold grip of the Terminus, they were well off. With her glowing red cybernetic eyes and mechanical voice, permanent markers of her time sealed within an Omegadrone’s shell, she could almost have passed for human. Her grip on his bare arm was urgent, and as he slid out of bed, he instantly realized this was no childish errand. The lights were out and the heat as well, given how his room had chilled from the cold of the Antarctic spring outside. As the two dozen humans appointed to this base could not survive here unaided, that meant something dire had befallen the place. “I am awake,” said the former drone, hefting his power pike in hand and not minding his own state of near-undress. He was modestly covered enough for a child’s eyes in his shorts, and anyway there was no space for modest here. “What has happened?” Around Demeter, at least, and the other children, he could speak with the confidence that he didn’t feel around superheroes. “They came when we were sleeping,” said the cyborg girl, her voice a low mechanical whisper in the dark. “They zapped Mr. Sheridan with some kind of electronic probe and they rounded up the staff and the other kids. They’ve locked them all in the radio room and I think they’re looking for me!” She had no idea who the base’s assailants were, a half-dozen black-masked humans, some with superpowers, but it was clear that they had come with sinister intent as they had targeted all the children who had once been Omegadrones. As they spoke, Harrier armored up, his organic shell retreating inside his Terminus steel body to show the armored form inside him. Demeter didn’t look away; the little girl had seen worse and survived worse herself only very recently. “Stay here,” he said without hesitation. “You are no fighter.” He bent down, his face hidden behind his soulless black armor, and said simply: “I will save you, and save all the children. It will be done.” Most children wouldn’t trust an Omegadrone to tell them that; most children would scream and scream and scream at the merest sight of one, but this was no ordinary child. She nodded wordlessly and took up a hidden position near the window, where her body heat would be distorted by the IR scatter from the window, Harrier himself using his pike to weld the door shut. By the time any searchers came looking for her, he’d have long since defeated them all. Or so he hoped. With Demeter protected, he went outside himself, his armor’s sensors effortlessly piercing the deep darkness of an Antarctic night, his armor proof against the biting cold outside. Circling low to avoid detection, black bubbles of flaming entropy belching from his rear flight pack along with unspeakably hot flames, he activated his onboard radio systems and found what he’d expected. Yes. Yes, there was only one reason people would come to this base on this day and take those children prisoner. “...say again, Gorgon, this is Rook of the Knights for a Pure Humanity.” It was a human’s voice, a man, his words desperate with fear and urgency that he was masking behind a voice of command. Harrier knew that tone well. He’d heard it from many people about to die. Many at his own hand. “We have the Terminus prisoners rounded up and are prepared to execute them for you! We can eliminate every trace of Omega on Earth! Just respond to this message so we can open up a visual commlink, and we can show you that we hate Omega too! Please, respond!” Though he considered donning the disguise of Caradoc for a moment, at those words Harrier didn’t hesitate. This was a time for his real face, even if it made diplomacy impossible: without a word he sped up and simply rammed into the radio dish at speed, driving his spiked body through the antenna before whirling in the air and firing a blast into the midsection that sent it tumbling down the mountainside and away from the semicircle shape of the League base. Before he could think to hesitate, he crashed through the roof of the communications tower, taking in the scene below in an instant: the League civilian staff bound and gagged, the children held at gunpoint by three armed mercenaries, and three Knights now standing around the radio control station with very surprised looks on their faces. As anti-Terminus terrorists would, at the sight of a rampaging Omegadrone of course they sprang into action. And time seemed to slow down for Harrier as he raised his pike, crackling black entropic energy already forming at the tip. Thermal controller- He matched her fiery eruption with his own, the concussive force of energy meeting hurling the woman in black back against the far wall; her superheated exterior overwhelming the metal surface and sending her flying out into the frozen rock beyond. Terramimic- The rock-faced man charged a moment later, and Harrier reversed the pike, smashing the shrieking blade at the top into the man’s jaw, then bringing the blunt end down with lighting speed on the top of his head, the double-assault stunning the rocky powerhouse. “RAWRL!” Harrier growled like an animal, the sound pulled to bizarre extremes by his mechanical throat, and smashed the pike down on the top of the dead radio control panel, firing a divided blast that took the mercenaries off-guard; they’d been watching the dramatic superbattle with fascination, and so they’d hardly been expected to be targets themselves. But now they were down, blasted into unconsciousness, which left only: “Stop right there, monster!” Rook had grabbed up Pluto, another of the children, a boy close to twelve years old, and was holding a massive blaster pistol against his head. “You stop right there, or I’ll blow this little freak’s head off!” Harrier was impassively silent for a moment, pike still in hand, the only noise the sound of falling debris all around. “If I am a monster, why negotiate with me? An Omegadrone would care nothing for the life of a partially-assimilated drone. It would let you take his life, and all these others, and then take yours.” “You...you have to act human, though!” said Rook, his hand shaking. “Otherwise even the stupid Freedom League wouldn’t trust you! I know what you really are, monster, and what these monsters in kids’ bodies are. And soon the whole world will know that killing you is what saved the world!” “It is unlikely that destroying the liberated Omegadrones on this world will appease the wrath of the Gorgon. You would instead have to eliminate all those mutated by Terminus radiation, as well as those who share their genetic code,” replied Harrier emotionessly, just now beginning to feel the ache inside his armor where that flame-blast had super-heated his hands. “How many innocents will you slay to assauge your own fears?” Aching hands or not, he kept the pike leveled at Rook’s head. “Innocents!?” The word seemed to offend Rook greatly. “You metal bastard, what the hell do you know about innocents? These aren’t children, these are...robotic zombies animated by the thing that killed their world! And you’re just like the monster that killed them! That killed-” He fell silent, but Harrier, who had imagined a conversation like this a thousand times, realized what hadn’t been said. “That killed someone you loved. Perhaps a great many someones.” “Don’t you dare psychoanalyze me! Put the pike down!” he yelled. “Let me offer you an alternative.” Harrier set the pike down on the radio con station, assessing the situation and coming to the only decision he could. “I am an Omegadrone, albeit one freed forever more from Omega. These children are no longer such.” He stared implacably at Rook, his eyes invisible beneath the armor. “I did not kill your family. But I have killed families. More than you can imagine. If you want your revenge, do not dress it for the market in mad schemes of salvation.” He spread his arms wide. “Take your revenge now, and leave these children go.” His hand trembling, Rook began to point the gun at Harrier...and Pluto _moved_, biting down on Rook’s free hand, making the man scream and wave the gun wildly in the air. Harrier acted without a moment’s hesitation, scooping up the battered pike and hurling it, blunt end first, at the man’s chest. It hit Rook with force enough to stave in his ribs and sent him hurling backwards against the wall with bonecrunching sureness. Harrier, the League staff, and even the kids were a long time repairing the base, Harrier (in his Caradoc disguise) actually flying over to the nearby Pakistani Antarctic weather station for food and supplies: the Pure Knights and their mercenaries sullen and silent in their makeshift holding cell as they waited for the League flight to come pick them up: as it happened, the Pegasus jet didn’t come until after the Gorgon had come and gone, leaving the Earth to pick itself back up after the chaos of her coming. Riding in the jet with the captured terrorists, Harrier was addressed by Rook for the first time in over a week. “You lying scum-sucking bastard,” he spat from his restraints once they were in the air, glaring at the scarred man across the body of the plane from him. “You let me think you were some kind of martyr just so your little cyber-brat could get the drop on me!” Murdock stared back at Rook impassively. In his mind were the screams of millions of uncounted dead, the horror that had come so close to overcoming this world in so many different guises. What he’d survived. What those children had survived. What Rook, aka James Jordan, who had lost his parents and siblings to the invasion of 1993, had survived. “I am no martyr. And you were not deceived.”

September 27, 2011 Gorgon Endgame (following/wrapping the Gorgon vignettes) Coming from outbound in the solar system, the Gorgon comes first to the Eastern Hemisphere at night, looming in the sky like a terrifying figure from nightmare. Earth has faced a doom from space before, but never a singular, unstoppable entity like this, one who matches the planet itself in her mighty bulk. It’s an interconnected world these days as it never was before, and as soon as the first Chinese astronomer has a good view of the oncoming cosmic monster, soon the whole world does too. People in Freedom City who are inclined to stay up all night on the 26th can watch on webcams and the news as that hideous alien face swells impossibly bright and massive in the sky, glowing brighter than the Moon and first matching, then expanding in the sky to outmatch Earth’s lonely satellite. Brighter than the Moon and twice as large at her closest, she is a sight no one on Earth will ever forget seeing. In the skies over Freedom City, the Sun rises on the morning of the 27th, and so does she. On the morning of the 27th of September, the Gorgon is a terrible grim face that seems to glare down into the souls of every man, woman and child on Earth. Her serpents rising large as continents on each side of her face, their eyes and fangs visible to any who dare look close enough with a telescope. Close enough to blot out the sun for part of the day, the grim darkness she casts on the world below is like the eclipse to end all eclipses. And it’s not just the natural process of the day that the Gorgon interferes with. She is a body as large as the Earth and as massive as a small planet in her own right; and what is on a planetary scale a minor disruption is a thousand disasters on Earth. There are earthquakes in California and volcanic eruptions in the Caribbean and tidal waves in the Mediterreanan and South Atlantic as her gravity pulls and tugs at our planet, making the oceans slop in their beds and ground vibrate like a plucked string. There are meteor showers as debris captured by her gravity as she went through the asteroid belt is caught by our own planet’s gravity and pulled to Earth; mostly pretty light shows here and here around the globe, but a Tunguska-sized event in West Africa kills hundreds, while an entire town in Nebraska is pounded by a bombardment of strange alien meteors that exposes thousands to strange alien radiation. As her face fills the sky and the heroes of Earth busy themselves with saving it, suicides creep in here and there like a thousand pinpricks of pain against the billions looking up and waiting for salvation. But luckily the online suicide cults have been monitored and squashed by cyberkinetic heroes and villains alike, and those terrified few get to go on living after all. And everywhere else, there are heroes: Captain Thunder and SIren stop a tidal wave that would have devastated coastal Central America, while Lady Liberty and Daedalus break up an asteroid that would have destroyed suburban Paris. They can’t be everywhere, and people die. It’s a rough day, but it’s a day that ends in salvation, but no one’s quite sure who strikes the final blow. All that the world knows is what happens in space: the Gorgon stops well outside Lunar orbit, far beyond her usual attack range, her eyes gleaming a green visible from the surface of the Earth in the day with the naked eye. . Only a few super-scientists know she is bombarding the Earth with tachyon scans that sweep the planet down to the very bedrock. At what she finds, the cosmic space god suddenly howls in unspeakable agony, her massive snaky tentacles vomiting up an omnidirectional, mindless silvery cloud of nanites that will make the Van Allen Belt glow for days afterward as the inactive alien machines pass through the most radioacive parts of the atmosphere. Her pain and horror is visible not just from the surface; her mighty EM generators broadcast across the planet as surely as was her last message to humanity. And then, as the world watches in hope, the wailing Gorgon turns with impossible counter-relativistic speed, far faster than anything of her mass should be able to move. She then flees into the Solar System as quickly as she came, tunneling into an interstellar wormhole in between Mars and Earth within minutes. Perhaps a hundred thousand people die, world-wide, on that last terrible day and the days after; and the slow descent of alien nanites into the atmosphere will have repercussions not yet known. But recovery and investigation will come tomorrow, and what matters is that there will _be_ a tomorrow for humanity and all the other races of Earth. But by the night of the 27th of September, 2011, the Earth is saved and the Gorgon is far away, deep in the depths of interstellar space. Things are going to be okay.

Back at Midnight Manor, Mark let Ace and Bombshell take charge of dealing with the money, figuring that with all their mutual experiences with theft and wealth they knew what to do with a massive quantity of gold. He sensed that neither Trevor or Erin were in a mood to talk to him, which left him without a great deal of options. "So listen, uh, we should probably organize something with the Norse in the near future," he suggested. "If they're going to cause trouble on Earth every time there's a crisis, we're going to make sure we're ready for them. When you got close to him, Erin, did he look especially empowered or anything? More than he did back in the 40s."

Lacking much knowledge of the Circus of Crime, Caradoc simply 'hmmed' through the radio link, scanning the house as they entered: while he saw no obvious weapons, his armor's sensors were not so powerful they could not be easily fooled. If Melvin's mother was a former criminal, this might be a dangerous situation. But when no obvious threats presented themselves, he concentrated on paying attention to the other two heroes and their discussion with the Thackery family. Melvin's mother was just saying that, "....I appreciate all your help, Miss Americana, Bishop, and, uh, Caradoc, but my son is not getting sucked into crazy super-science. We've had enough trouble with that in this family!" As Melvin wandered unsupervised, she added, looking at Miss Americana, "You're a woman, you understand. I work very very hard to make sure my boy stays on the straight and narrow path. There are SO many problems he could run into!"

"Look, once you get the computers back up, you can call me. I'll can be here in a second from anywhere on the planet." Citizen was genuinely torn between his teammates and the situation at hand. Wasn't the threat they were already facing from the Gorgon enough? Did everything have to happen at once here? "Difficulties?...You don't understand. None of you understand." He held up the broken circuit, imprisoned in his electronic body and the steel shell around him. "Nobody but people at the Lab and the Freedom League recognize me, and we stopped Stratos _before_ he hacked their systems. He knew us. He knew who I am. He must be watching Earth to see if we fight off the Gorgon, to see if we're worthy to collect." The sunlight gleamed off the alien metal in his hand. "This isn't from Dr. Stratos, and this isn't from any science on Earth. This is from the " he added, speaking a word that was the same in his archaic Galstandard as it was in Wraith's, after all, it was the same thing. And with that, the battlesuit with the program inside stepped off the roof and flew away on noisy boot jets towards the West End.

"Your termites build nests higher than a man can stand and live in communities of tens of billions, but they do not think. Ants have wars, armies, and even slaves and agriculture. If a robot can be programmed to be an man, surely one can be programmed to act like an ant. I have seen-" Caradoc paused momentarily as the electronic screams of the dying echoed in his mind, before he resumed his work with a particularly vigorous stab. "Mechanical lifeforms capable of a great many things. Some can mimic a man, but lack a man's true nature. Unlike Protectron. Miss Americana has told me of your work," he added to the robot.

Vampire Swashbuckler PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 16 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON - INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 24 [14] (+7/+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +11 Saves: 8 pp TOU +8 (+6 Protection, +2 Defensive Roll) FORT - REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 80 r=20 pp Acrobatics 12 (+15) Bluff 8 (+10/+15) Climb 5 (+10) Diplomacy 8 (+10/+15) Gather Info 8 (+10/+15) Intimidate 8 (+10/+15) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 2 (+2) Knowledge (Popular Culture) 10 (+10) Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Stealth 12 (+15) Feats: 13 pp Acrobatic Bluff Challenge 2 (Fast Acrobatic Bluff, Fast Taunt) Defensive Roll Evasion Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Intimidate, Sense Motive) Takedown Attack 2 Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 65 pp Concealment 4 (all visual) (Extra: Duration [Permanent], Flaw: Only Vs. Machines; PF: Close Range) [5 pp] Device 1 (Sword) (Easy to Lose) [3 pp] -Strike 3 (PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty) [5] Drain Constitution 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [2 pp] Enhanced Feats 12 (Attack Focus: Melee 6; Dodge Focus 6) [12 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) (Drawback: Not in Daylight) [2 pp] Immunity 30 (Fortitude Saves) [30 pp] Protection 6 (Extra: Impervious; Flaw: Not Vs. Fire/Silver/Holy) [6 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp] Silver Tongue Array [10+2-1=11 pp] (Drawback: Not in Daylight) Enhanced Charisma 10 AP: Enhanced Feats 10 (Fearsome Presence 10) AP: Mind Control 10 (Flaw: Sense Dependent [auditory]) Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] Drawbacks: -8 pp Weakness (dazed by holy symbols versus Charisma check) [-3 pp] Weakness (Direct Sunlight; Uncommon, Major [-1 all physical ability scores], per 1 minute; -5pp) costs abilities 16 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 20/80 + feats 13 + powers 77 -drawbacks 8= 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: You grew up watching old movies, especially the old black and white swashbucklers on TCM. Maybe they didn't have a lot of people who looked like you in those Errol Flynn movies, but that's okay because that just made it easier for you to imagine yourself in those parts! You excelled on your fencing team in high school and were a pretty good gymnast, too, but you disappointed your coaches to head off to college to get your degree in film. You were going to get a degree, start out as the baddest stuntman in Hollywood, break into acting, and then get a spot behind the cameras making your own swashbuckling movies! All that came to a crashing halt when you met this girl in night class; normally you didn't like them waify and pale, but she was really, really hot and she was a huge film geek too. She preferred the movies of Lugosi and Karloff, though, insisting to you that they were much more authentic than Flynn and Fairbanks could ever hope to be. You told her that it didn't matter if Flynn and Fairbanks were authentic; they were heroes who laughed at danger and beat the bad guys, and that made them good. Finally, one day she lost her temper and showed you why she loved Lugosi so much: she'd taught him how vampires act! Sometimes, being a vampire sucks. You don't show up on film anymore _and_ you shrivel up in the sun like a prune. No wonder Lugosi's Dracula stayed inside all the time! But you've tried to handle this the way Flynn or Fairbanks would have; you've taken up your sword and you're cleaning up the streets, making everyone else's life better so you don't feel bad about how tough things are for you. And hey, you're not one to complain: you're faster and deadlier than you ever were, and you're a _devil_ with the ladies these nights, just like your heroes always were in the movies. So smile and flirt and don't feel bad about all your problems; you're the hero you always wanted to be, except you're doing it for real instead of in the movies. And hey, you can always direct... All right, I think this is a reasonable vampire swashbuckler, a fast, deadly fighter with incredible force of personality. He's a lot tougher than most swordsmen, no-selling rapier strikes as long as they're not enchanted with your typical vampiric weaknesses. (And if that does happen, he can get out of the way!) He's actually a pretty good fighter if his vampiric abilities are somehow suppressed, but he needs his vampire powers to hold his own in combat with high-level supervillains. He doesn't die in sunlight, he just lies there groaning like Bela Lugosi in Dracula if he's left out in the sun too long. Like most of my vampire builds, he uses Subtle Flight to fake things like leaping and running up walls. He has a _tremendous_ force of personality, and can woo a lady, send minions fleeing in terror, or talk a bad guy into doing something foolish with just a few well-placed words.

APPROVED

You should make his Detect Visual based rather than Mental, since you only have 1 PP to sink into it and you want it to have enough extras to be useful.

APPROVED

Nice to have another cyberkinetic at Claremont. Fix the notation on his armored costume, please. Please give the travel distances for his Teleport. Note that Stun is Touch Range by default, so he's way undercapped there. Consider the Action flaw.

Vampire Energy Controller PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 6 pp STR 20 [10] (+5/+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON n/a (-) INT 16 (+3) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+8 Entropic Powers) DEF: +8 (+4 Shield, +2 flat-footed) Grapple: +9/20 Initiative +0 Saves: 10 pp TOU +12 (+4 Protection, +8 Force Field) FORT n/a REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 14 pp=56 r Bluff 6 (+8) Concentration 12 (+15) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 7 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 7 (+10) Notice 7 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 6 pp Fearless, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Precise Shot, Second Chance (Concentration checks to maintain powers), Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 110 pp Drain Con 2 (Flaw: Requires Grapple) [1 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Entropic Vampire Array 13 [26 pp; PFs: Alternate Power x4=30 pp] BE: Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate 2) 'fires of entropy' AP: Drain Charisma 12 (Extras: Alternate Save [Will], Range [Ranged]; PFs: Accurate 2) 'soul-blasting' AP: Healing 10 (Extra: Ranged; Flaw: Others Only; PFs: Accurate 3, Persistent, Stabilize) 'entropic redirection' AP: Move Object 12 (Heavy Load: 48 tons) (PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Teleport 8 (800 ft/2000 miles) (Extra: Accurate; PFs: Easy, Turnabout) 'entropic tunnel' Feature 7 (Buys off Sunlight Drawback) 'entropic shield' [7 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3 pp] Force Field 8 (Extra: Impervious 6) [14 pp] Immunity 30 (Fortitude effects) [30 pp] Protection 4 (Extra: Impervious; Flaw: Not Vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [4 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) (Flaw: Source [blood]) [3 pp] Shield 4 [4 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] Drawbacks: -10 pp Weakness (dazed by Charisma check vs. holy items) [-3 pp] Weakness (destroyed by sunlight; 1 minute) [-7 pp] costs abilities 6 + combat 16 + saves 10+ skills 14/56 + feats 6 + powers 110 -drawbacks 10= 150 pts ------------------ Design Notes: The eruption of her superpowers after an accident at the physics lab made Carrie the most popular graduate student on campus; the revelation that her power was to manipulate and control entropic energy (manifesting in blackish-purple blasts and tentacles) made her the most infinite. Though she hotly insisted she was no T-Baby, the negative publicity forced her to drop out of school. She managed to scrounge together a bargain basement laboratory, though, taking advantage of money she raised in her costumed identity (doing what her fixer discreetly called 'grey market demolitions and acquisitions', and began working to study the nature of entropic powers: she was making promising results with her discoveries, particularly the revelation that she was not a creator of entropy but an absorber and redirector of it, able to heal others with a gesture and make a powerful shield of entropic radiation around her body. Unfortunately, the Corrupt Corporate Executive who thought himself the rightful owner one of the pieces of high-tech she'd 'liberated' came looking for it, bringing with him a powerful mercenary whose abilities were far beyond what science could explain. She fled after being bitten, and recuperated in a fleabag hotel room long enough to sort out her new self and her new powers. Her life hadn't changed that much: she was still something feared and hated by everyone, and she had to be in her new costume with her force field active to go out in the sun, but at the end of the day, she was still a monster everyone feared and hated. Now she just had to find a cure for vampirism too! All right, here's a Vampire Energy Controller (with arguably a background as a villain depending on how you feel about supervillain propery rights), in this case one with the power to control entropy! (Yes, a T-Baby vampire, exactly what Jack Thompson and Art Bell have been warning us about all these years). Obviously her true nature is going to be a fascinating sort of complication for her as people realize there are layers to what an Acceptable Target she potentially could be. I tried to give her the sort of entropic powers (with a family-friendly plan) that a 'good'-natured Terminus mutant would likely have. She's not smart enough to be your team's gadgeteer or go-to science person, but her scientific training does make a fine supplement to her cosmic powers. (Now there's something you don't expect vampires to have!) She's an interesting spin on the Hank McCoy-style of monster, a scientist whose efforts to make herself no longer a freak turned around and made things very much worse! Naturally, given the many grim things about the character's power, she could make an excellent bad guy. If played as a villain, this could potentially be a scary character (well, duh), especially if you say that she's a vampire from the Terminus, perhaps an Annihilist or a scion of Taarvon the Undying (whose shadow powers means he probably hangs out with a lot of vampires) who has come to our Earth to do their masters' will, perhaps to persuade the vampire lords of Earth that if they join Omega's cause he will allow them to feed on the very life force of Creation itself! If you don't like the entropic angle, this would work fine for, say, a vampire shadow controller, perhaps one who has those abilities before her transformation as well.

"No. No, he doesn't." Holding carefully between mechanical thumb and finger, Sharl picked up a curved piece of what looked like colored glass run through with nigh-invisible filaments of gold. "This is a neural transceiver chip. It's used for inputting high-speed motor and electrical commands, the kind you'd use to fool a mentant trying to scan a synthezoid's brain." He balled the suit's other hand into a fist. "It's far beyond human technology. This is..." The armor's head tilted up, its eyepieces looking up at the sky far overhead, before he seemed to shake himself out of it. "I need to get out of this suit and find Miss Americana," said Sharl, his voice tight even through the projection. "Can the rest of you try and reach the school? Maybe get some help?"

I need a DC 20 Knowledge: Technology check from Wraith. (Just Wraith) 28 Sharl gets 28 and passes.