Avenger Assembled

Freedom Angel's Initiative: 4 Awwwwww

When the robots opened fire, Caradoc dropped his cloak. The electrical discharges were a concern, given his cybernetic body's general reaction to electromagnetic overloads: i.e., that he would explode. However, given that they didn't seem to have power enough to do that, he opted instead to draw their fire. This close he'd been able to pick out Protectron's golden armor in the police crowd, and so he knew there were other heroes on the scene. "Criminals below!" he called, using his best attempt at a phony Middle English accent. "Ye are in violation of the laws of Man and the Church! Stand down, or face the wrath of the noble Caradoc!" He'd been in enough battles to know the value of someone who drew the fire of opponents, letting his allies gauge the power of the targets below.

Fear Controller PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Fear Array) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +8/+20 w/TK Saves: 14 pp TOU +10 (+3 Con, +7 Protection) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 14 pp=56 r Bluff 3 (+5) Concentration 8 (+10) Diplomacy 3 (+5) Gather Info 8 (+10) Intimidate 13 (+15) Knowledge: Pop Culture 3 (+5) Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 12 pp Dodge Focus (4) Fascinate (Intimidate) Move-By Action Precise Shot Second Chance (vs. Fear effects) Startle Power Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Well-Informed Powers: 60 pp Enhanced Feat 1 (Quick Change) [1 pp] Fear Array [22+3=25 pp] Damage 10 (Extra: Targeted Area [shapeable]) (PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Create Object 6 (Extra: Moveable) (PFs: Precise, Progression 2, Selective) AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [shapeable]) (Flaws: Limited [Fear Only] Range [Ranged]) (PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Extra: Damaging) (Flaw: Feedback) (PFs: Accurate 2) Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Impervious TOU 10 (Extra: Duration (Sustained) [+0]) [10 pp] Protection 7 [7 pp] cost abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 14/56 + feats 12 + powers 60 = 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: Here’s a fear controller in the vein of DC’s Sinestro Corps. Fear is a perfectly healthy emotion for a superhero to instill in bad guys, so I think it’s entirely reasonable to have a heroic fear controller. Note that he doesn’t have Fearless himself, rather he has a high Intimidate score and Second Chance vs. Fear. (That way if you rejigger him as a bad guy, you don’t have to rejigger his sheet in the process) Note that he doesn’t have a power ring, rather his abilities come from internal psychic abilities. He can fire blasts of ‘fear energy’ to psychologically terrorize bad guys, or just smack them around with energy constructs like the gay Mexican bear he’s making use of to back up his use of the Startle feat. Like most of my GL-style builds, he has Protection in place permanently (so he can take hits even when powered down) but has a “Force Field”-style construction for the Impervious: that way, while getting stunned is a serious threat, it’s not a game-ender the way it could potentially be. I borrowed liberally here from my Beacon build and Flame Octopus builds, of course. He’s a cousin of my patriotic hero build from upthread, perhaps. My idea here is that this is a fearmongering journalist or news commentator who unlocked his true inner power and realized he could now fight his enemies with superpowers. He also works as an unwitting Fear-Master legacy; perhaps an exposure to the sonic weapons of Fear-Master II triggered a protective reaction, giving him a psychic mastery of the very emotion that the Fear Master had sought to inflict on him! It’s up to you whether or not he’s maintained a secret ID; he could work just as well as a celebrity hero as a celebrity with a really big secret. You could save points by cutting down his physical attributes some, I’ve gone with the theory that he’s an adult in decent shape, but you could easily give him a physique more appropriate to a desk-bound journalist and spend those ‘wasted’ points in a more efficient fashion. He’s very good at terrifying patriotic bluster that reminds you of the many terrible things just waiting for you under your bed, ready to spring! He's better at sweeping goons by force or fear than outright blasts, but he can do that too if he really has the need. He could use some super-senses if you can dig up the points. An easy way to save points is to put his powers in a device, of course! That would let you fluff out his skills and feats to make him more formidable without his powers, or to fluff his powers up some and make him an even more impressive Note that he’s not actually space-worthy as such (well, he can survive there, he just can’t get around) so give him some Space Travel if you want him to be part of an interstellar corps of fear-mongers: perhaps focused on uplifting sentients from animal panic by wielding those self-same instincts for the greater good.

Without a need to meet the others in the air, and indeed unaware there were other heroes on the scene at first, 'Caradoc' made his own way towards the power plant. He opted not to interact with the local authorities, not wanting an accidental reveal of his ever-shaky secret to the crowd below. Lacking a good view of the others, 'Caradoc' took advantage of his chameleon circuitry to fly right over the makeshift barricade and study the group who had seized control of the fission plant. Unfortunately, that also meant he was in the line of fire when the robots below turned out to have far better sensors than he'd anticipated, based on the sudden outbreak of weapons below. Perhaps I should discuss a better disguise with Miss Americana-

Blitzen drove one of his massive fists into the other, sparks crackling and flying as he did so as if lightning was in his very bones. "We can start by smashing this little prison-house to rubble for you," he offered, seemingly perfectly serious as he did so. Despite his brutish appearance, right down to little incisors sticking up past his jawline, there was something intelligent in the giant's voice. "And make sure these zips learn that when one of US goes away, you treat him with RESPECT!" He growled. "Freedom is the right of anyone who can reach out and take it for himself!"

Initiative: Blitzen: 26 Cobalt Templar: 23 Citizen: 22 Firehawk: 19 Sage: 15 Wraith: 13 Protector: 12 Rustbelt: 11 Black Goat: 8 Papercut: 7 Ghost Girl: 6 Blitzen is up. He holds his action, waiting for Papercut's reply, but readies an action to pummel anyone who tries to stop what they're doing. (He's already prepared a Teleporter as his invention for this encounter, in case he and the rest of the Champions do make a hasty exit) In the meantime, Cobalt Templar is up.

Initiative time, ev'rbody. Sharl: +7=22 Protector: +6=12 Blitzen: +11=26 Rustbelt: +7=11 Firehawk: +7=19 Black Goat: +0=8

Feeling a little better about himself now that he hadn't messed up the meeting for everyone, Sharl joined the rest and headed outside into the Detroit night. While Eve called for another van to come pick them up, he turned to Koshiro and gave him another once-over. "Hey, uh, sorry about that earlier. I don't normally piss everyone off around me every minute of every day. I'm Sharl." He offered his hand to Koshiro, but before the angsty ex-con could turn away something surprising happened! The big warehouse across the street suddenly rippled and warped right before their eyes as a massive portal big enough to drive a truck through seemed to scoop itself right out of the two-story high brick wall that had been the most interesting thing Koshiro could see from his cell: from that portal there emerged an unlikely quintet of villains. The first was a tall, solidly-built figure in a grey, rounded battle armor that looked like an old-fashioned diving suit; from his air of stern command, he seemed to be in charge. Flanking him at ground-level was a hulking figure easily half again and wide as Corbin, electricity dancing around his huge fists. Half-in and half-out of the 'threshold' of the portal was a weirdly-shaped figure in a green cloak that looked like a rusted-out version of Dr. Metropolis back in Freedom City; before him was an arrogant-looking man in blue and pink body armor with a long ponytail, and finally embracing that last man was a weird, green-skinned woman in black with what looked like weird, twisty shadows dancing around her fingers. She gave an evil laugh as she studied them all, her gaze fixing on Koshiro in particular. From inside the facility, the teens distinctly heard the guards yelling, "It's the Champions! Go on lockdown!" Behind them, gates were locking down and sirens going off as the lightly-armed prison guards did their best to protect both themselves and their charges from the dangerous supercrooks out front. As they did so, the armored figure (of the group, only the giant and the rustropolis weren't flying) addressed the teens: "Attention, Origami Thief! Oriental or not," and here the pony-tailed man visibly face-palmed, "we're all brothers under the skin, and we're not going to let you rot in jail with these do-gooders. Come join the winning side and you'll teach this city what happens when they lock up their best and baddest! I'm Protector, this is Blitzen, Rustbelt, Firehawk, and the Black Goat. We're the CHAMPIONS OF CRIME." To the Claremont kids, he added, "Stand down, children, and we'll go easy on you. We're here to recruit, not pick fights with gradeschoolers." Despite his words, though, he hadn't taken his eyes entirely off them, as indeed had none of the others. These were experienced adult supervillains, every one.

For his part, Murdock lacked the connections that the others had, the former Omegadrone being much more likely to be in Miss Americana's personal laboratory than anywhere in in the lab proper. As it was, the power outage caught him at home on a rare day off, in a period where he was the only one there. Though he'd been busy reading the (carefully-vetted) Freedom League reports about the liberated Omegachildren in Antarctica, something about this made him prick his ears. Suspicious, and taking advantage of his isolation, Murdock transformed into Harrier. The radio receiver inside his armor, the one with the internal circuitry that ran deep into his brain, picked up a police band report about the potential disaster at the nuclear plant. Having seen fission meltdowns in his time, Harrier took action now: donning first the holographic disguise of Caradoc, and then using the chameleon circuitry in his pike to become invisible, he flew out the window and towards the incipient disaster.

Recovering from his embarrassment as best he could, Sharl offered, "You can visit. Family's always welcome at the school," he hazarded, hoping he wasn't getting himself into worse trouble. Unbidden, he thought of his own parents and sister, who'd let him come so far on this impossible journey to another reality. But he couldn't talk about that, not in front of people who might not be his friends after all this. "Even if you're from really far away. We picked Indira up in India," he added with a glance her way to make sure it's all right. "And Mrs. Storm is from Canada, and their families can come over any time they can. Family's very important."

True true, Giz, but without Discrete Inquiries, there may be difficulties. What do you want to do?

"I hadn't noticed you were underdressed," replied Edge with a wink. "You look very fine to me." He coughed discreetly at Midnight's warning, though, and paid attention to what was going on, though he couldn't resist shooting Trevor a look that seemed to say I was! "Hey guys!" He looked around, glad to see Trevor and Erin first, particularly since he'd hardly had a chance to talk with them. He couldn't resist the urge to go over there and give them both a big hug. "Wow, looks like we really did get the whole gang back together!" To the others, he added, "Princess al-Darsah's safely back in Freedom City, so all we have to deal with is, well...everything else," He shrugged a little. "Anyway, ah, I've checked with UNISON. As you know, their policy is that the United Nations should have responsibility for dealing with interplanetary threats. And since I'm the most powerful UNISON special agent," he coughed, suddenly feeling his age. "That means we have authorization to go. I didn't tell them the specifics," he added. "Just in case Typhoon was right about the infiltrations."

Overhead, the angel of Freedom swooped down, the morning sun making his halo flare to life briefly as he studied the situation. He had no particular innate distrust of machines, but he was still inclined to be cautious at the sight of the robot addressing the crowd. Not out of any lack of respect for the being's good soul, which glowed as brightly to Heyzel's eyes as the mechanical man's magnificent armored shell, but rather because a robot might not know what help a man needed any more than Heyzel himself would not understand how to fix a robot. "If any of you are injured," he called, "we can assist you!" Turning his head, he called to Glowstar, "Are there any injured in the van? What of its cargo?"

Hooray!

"Listen, kid, I bet your fancy Freedom City school wouldn't like it much if we locked you in here for the night!" said Lou the guard. Turning to Kimber, he added, "Look, lady, I don't know what kind of chaperone you are, but your kids need to learn some respect for law enforcement. Get McMillan and get your asses out of here." On the plus side, thanks to Sharl's loose tongue, now the guards were much more focused on the stricken-looking electronic teenager than their own erstwhile inmate and his family. "Sorry," Sharl mumbled, looking down at his feet. He'd been scared in the interrogation room, and glad that Miss A's program (and mini-projector) had held up despite the patdown. Luckily they hadn't actually taken his shades or anything else in his pockets, since they'd just have fuzzed out and ruined the whole game. And then he'd tried making a joke like the ones he'd seen on the Internet: Why hadn't anyone laughed? He imagined Miss Americana's disapproving face, or his mom's. "I'm from Earth," he whispered back at Indira before saying louder, "Sorry, again. I'm Sharl Tulink, and it's been a really long day. Just ignore me."

Around that time, a somewhat irritable Sharl was ushered into the room in the company of two guards, the electronic teenager keeping a death grip on the laptop case over his shoulder. "...not any reason to turn it off," he was saying, not wanting to interrupt the team's first meeting with the new student. "The running processes are part of my work." Though he shot a glance at Koshiro, sizing him up and judging him as a potential classmate, he was more focused on making sure the guards didn't try and take his laptop again: suddenly having to project from whatever primitive systems were hereabouts would surely blow everyone's cover. "It's just a regular laptop. If it had a bomb in it, it would already have exploded."

When Mark appeared on Ace and Talya's balcony, he did so in his familiar Young Freedom costume. Though he was arguably here on UNISON business too, he was a hero first and despite his reservations about the life, he'd missed his old gear. Luckily, he arrived just in time to be greeted by the beautiful Bombshell as she opened the door in her silk robes. Shazam! he thought in the voice of Gomer Pyle. Despite his recent good times with Nina, well, Bombshell was quite a looker. Out loud, he bowed courteously and grinned. "Good afternoon, Bombshell. What a lovely flower to find on a Parisian balcony in a summer afternoon. May I come in?"

All right, I'll assume a 10 on all relevant Bluff, Disguise, and Stealth rolls. The Chateau The Chateau is a five-story Tyrolean-style mansion built at the head of the Valle Relais; they've had several avalanches there over the years but none since the 1980s. The main body of the complex is the five-story mansion; the ground floor consists of the ballroom, the dining room, and a tremendous kitchen, while the rest are meetings rooms and various $1000-a-night rooms with a Tyrolean theme. There are some outbuildings in the complex; a few small lodges for private meetings and the small complex around the ski-lift. The food is good, though the chef is obviously cooking by rote taught him by more creative professionals. The hotel staff is clean and professional, though they seem to have been chosen for their good looks and pleasing personality rather than skill at their job. They're dressed in traditional Tyrolean garb, right down to the little feathered hats when they go outside. It's the off-season, but the Chateau is not above using a snow machine to provide a skiing environment for devotees of the sport. The cleaning crew and other folks doing menial jobs around the hotel are primarily of Middle Eastern descent, most of them being refugees from the various uprisings there in the last few years. They're excited for the coming party; times have been tough at the Chateau lately, and the merger's three days of festivities should make life better for everyone.

Despite all their precautions, the people at the detention center weren't interested in the YF kids either way. When Corbin and Eve (as the oldest kids) showed the paperwork with the instructions from Freedom City to pick up one Koshiro McMillan, the beefy guard behind the front desk barely glanced up. "Mmhmm. Claremont welcoming party. Been expecting you." She did raise her head enough to note there was an adult in the group, then left her partner behind the desk while she picked up a big jangly keyring and led the Claremont group through security. It was after hours and things were quiet, and "Lurleen" seemed more bored by her job than anything else. "Wondered when someone was going to pick up McMillan," she commented. "We don't get a lot of supers in Detroit. I think he's the first we've had in here." They headed down a visitors corridor adorned with what were clearly homemade murals of hard-working kids cleaning up graffiti and picking up trash, all of them with the looks of smiling hard work that teenagers only had on propaganda murals. Before they hit the exit processing room, they had to go through a more heavy security: Though Sharl was able to talk his way out of going through the metal detectors thanks to his ID from Miss A, he did get stuck getting patted down, and with a slightly nervous smile he said, "This'll just be a minute, I guess? See you guys in there." And with that, as Sharl headed over into the other room, the Claremont kids were escorted into a large room full of people, the exit processing room for Wayne County where they'd be meeting Koshiro McMillan.

The former Omegadrone didn't blink at the Satyr's reveal, instead slowly looking him up and down as he sized him up. "I am familiar with beings from dimensional axes like yours," replied Murdock, and it was true though that familiarity was limited to one particular variety of their lives "I have not encountered a satyr before, however." Not to talk to, anyway. Trying to put the smell of burning hair out of his mind, Murdock added, "I would prefer if you continued to cover yourself when you are outside I work to maintain my secret identity very closely. Revealing my nature to civilians is not possible. I am not like you." As they talked, he pulled on a large Freedom City baseball cap to hide his scarred head. "Secrecy is very important," he added.

I'll volunteer Heyzel!

I'll set a DC 20 Gather Info DC for this information in general. The Bank The Schwarzenfurst Bank, the one affilated with the chateau, is relatively new for a Swiss bank, founded after the First World War by a family of Swiss technocrats. Schwarzenfurst was particularly troublesome in the World War II period, with their bank president not just a collaborator in first handing over Jewish gold then hiding Nazi gold, but even a member of the Swiss fascist movement of that period. Herr Schwartz I retired in 1948, and his son ran the show until very recently when he suffered a "psychotic break" during the Archeville Incident and was replaced by his own son. Herr Xavier Schwartz III has a reputation as a dilettante playboy and womanizer, though one with an interest in superhuman studies: he was the lover of Swiss heroine Wilhemina Tell until their breakup last year. It was in all the European tabloids. The bank has a reputation for genteel sleaze, pushing even Swiss banking practices and ethics without actually breaking them. The Hotel and the Party The Chateau Relais is a nice hotel, though not famous enough to be overrun by tourists even near the end of the season. It was built in the late 1940s with help from Argentinian investors. Placed securely in a remote fjord-like valley near Lake Geneva, it was an occasional meeting place for Cold War-era spies from second-tier powers like Yugoslavia, India, and Brazil. The hotel these days specializes in expensive parties with guests who come for the five-star food and stay for the luxurious, old-fashioned accommodations. The party is supposed to be Schwarzenfurst's merger with an East Asian bank: Dragon International Finance, based out of Shanghai. DC 20 does not tell you where Taurus is. It does tell you that Labyrinth-affiliated businesses have been doing extremely well the last several months, particularly in the field of arms dealing. DC 20 does not tell you where Dr. Sin is, but his empire has fallen on hard times lately now that the Chinese government has started funding their own superteam. Typhoon got into a fight with the Atom Family on his way back to Socotra over a fallen satellite (like he does; he and Alexander Atom had a thing back in the day and he still gets along poorly with the family), but no lives were lost and he made it safely back home, where he most likely still is.

The next few days passed quickly enough, with the lingering threat of extradimensional Nazis seeming decidedly fanciful in the city of love. Whatever else could be said for his eventual meeting with Erin and Trevor, Ted Hunter did have the business contacts to help his son and his girlfriend make their discreet way into a party in Switzerland: after all, he did have significant business ties in Switzerland thanks to his work in European international finance. If his relationship with his father and his own son was decidedly rocky, well, he was still a Hunter who knew when it was time to help out with hero work. As for Ace and Talya, while Paris had changed quite a bit since their earlier visits in the years before World War II, it was still at its core the gorgeous, bustling international metropolis it had always been, full of culture and life and art and music, and the dancers at the Moulin Rouge were as beautiful as ever. For his own part, Mark spent a day and night in the loyal company of Nina al-Darsah: Nina had obviously been hurt by her dismissal at the hands of her father, and in the privacy of the Socotran hotel suite at the Plaza Athenee, she didn't mind taking her frustration out on the UNISON agent assigned as her bodyguard. Luckily, though it had been a long couple of days (particularly with the detailed report he'd had to fill out for his UNISON superiors, stretching his short attention span to the breaking point), Mark was a patient man. Unlike her previous bodyguards, he reminded Nina, he was there for her, not for her father's orders, and he also wasn't subject to her whims: that also meant he could tell her he thought she was very beautiful, particularly after standing up to that Nazi bastard on the airplane. He wasn't sure if it was the compliments that stilled her sharp tongue, or the really good wine he luckily managed to lay his hands on, but either way after that their enforced time together (when he _should_ have been with his friends) wasn't nearly so unpleasant. By the time Nina was back on the plane to Freedom City, this time with more secrecy and a French military escort, it was a real pleasure to slip back into his uniform, his _real_ uniform, and head out into Paris to find his friends. If they were going to get to the Chateau and have plenty of time to stake it out before the special guests arrived, they were going to have to get there sooner rather than later: luckily, he was confident the others had already gotten that problem taken care of.

"The Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility," said Sharl as he withdrew money from the machine. "At 1326 Saint Antoine Street in Detroit." They were already in that city, of course, but Sharl didn't really get the bizarre gaps between cities that were so much a fact of life on Earth. "And that's the idea," he added to Kimber, not wanting to admit how unsettled he still was by whatever the hell it was the chipper girl was. "Out of all of us, Corbin and Eve can pass for regular people the most easily. If there's an emergency in either car, that's the most efficient way to make sure they can keep the police from getting suspicious." He'd acclimatize himself with Kimber later, when they weren't worrying about this other kid. Eventually, once Eve was back from being a Good Samaritan, they did indeed get their two taxicabs (both driven by friendly turbaned drivers who seemed interested in keeping pace with each other for more money) and got on the road for the drive to the Detention Facility. For all the bad things they'd heard about Detroit, compared to some of the places they'd all been, it wasn't that bad: even at night, Detroit near the airport was far better than the less pleasant parts of Mumbai or the Fens back in Freedom City, much less Earth-EZ01, and it was sufficiently novel for the out-of-towners that the obviously depressed city streets could certainly have been worse. "Thanks for what you did back there," Sharl commented to Eve as they went. "I don't understand this place," he admitted. "I don't understand how even the wealth in this society can be just...held in the hands of a few places when there are so many others who really need it. Mumbai was in a different nation-state, but this is right in America," he said as the cab-driver told off a man who'd tried to wash their windows at a red light. "It's good to know that the problem isn't the people." Despite the blight that had afflicted much of the city, the detention center turned out to be far less depressing than it might have been: it was a new building that might have been an upscale urban high school, if not for the bars on the windows. (Come to think of it, even that wouldn't have been out of place.) Near the university and close by the interstate, it didn't look much like a juvenile jail at all. Once everyone had caught back up with each other and their taxi drivers paid off handsomely for the smooth ride, Sharl looked up at the well-lit building before snapping his fingers. Thinking of Miss A, he said, "Wait a minute...we're teenagers. This society is not going to hand someone in a prison over to juveniles. Can one of you be an adult?" he asked curiously of the others.

I'll volunteer the mighty Harrier for this one!