Avenger Assembled

No particular infrared around the robot, but there is a distinct infrared pattern directly under the skylight in the middle of the room. Feel free to spot each other as you like!

Marcus blinked a few times, and said, "Ah." He stared off into space for a moment, and seemed to quote "'Thus violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves."' He shook his head. "My...sainted mother forbade me to enlist, but I tended to the wounded at the Army hospital here in Freedom. I can believe we would make a war upon ourselves that would lead to our destruction, with or without the aid of beings from another world..." [quote]Her skills were on full display right now; the entire log wall behind her seemed to be attempting to come back to life. Besides the flowers and mushrooms, there were even a couple small leafy branches beginning to poke out of knots in the wood.[/quote] "Is that..." He blinked, looking past Stesha, and said, "Do you see that too?" he asked, his face going white. "I saw such rapid plant growth...in the time sphere, but if I am seeing it now...?"

Let's see a Diplomacy check, @Tiffany Korta

Charisma: 13 Knowledge (Technology, w/HP): 26

Vice-President Kaur had been a critic of the government's cozy relationship with defense contractors during her time in Congress and brief time as a Presidential candidate in 2019, but she was all smiles for Alek. "Mr. Nakani, it's a pleasure to meet you." She shook his hand firmly, and though she was smaller and lighter than Alek by a substantial margin, her presence seemed to fill the small room all the same. "I'm glad that we have continued the fifty year relationship between Summers Advanced Design and the United States. Ms. Shen, Mr. Pratten, it's a pleasure to meet you as well. I'm so proud that your generation is already standing up as leaders. I just hope that people like myself and Mr. Nakani will know when it's time to get out of the way." She made a little gesture to the door, and led the way in her smart orange pumps as they headed out to the elevator. "Shall we go below and meet 'America's newest hero'?" Down below, the room where the new Patriot was waiting looked like a large press conference room, with space set aside for the press who were supposed to be here in a few days for the big announcements. Overhead, videos of Revere's previous careers in the US Army in Afghanistan and as a Border Patrol agent along the US-Canadian border played silently. At the sight of the new arrivals, Revere took a few quick steps from the small stage and jumped down to join them. It was immediately clear that how much the Patriot process had changed him; he was big, taller and broader across the beam than Alex, his short blond hair in a crewcut and his blue eyes impeccable. "Hello, little lady!" He smiled at the Vice-President and threw his arms wide; sweeping her up in a hug that made Kaur visibly tense (and her Secret Service escort notably move to a higher alert) before he set her down. "Captain Revere," said Kaur cooly, "it's a pleasure. All of America thanks you for your service to our nation, I'm sure." Ashley had reentered the room during all this and had moved to take a position at the Vice-President's side, and was looking up at Revere unsmiling from behind her classes. "Oh well," said Revere easily, "it wasn't so much. I'm just glad to be here ready to keep on serving the American dream. Sorry if I came on too strong, boys," he added with an easy smile for the Secret Service, "even after all the tests and the interviews...I still can't believe this is all real. Hello, Agent Tran," he added with a smile for Ashley. "This," he said to Kaur, "has to be the deadliest person her size in the federal government. She taught me a thing or two about fighting hand-to-hand before I fully grew into my new, ah, pants," he said with a look down at his empowered body.

"I have..." Marcus looked down at his watch and closed it, a look of determination on his face. "If my future is doom and destruction, I have a mistake to correct before that fatal hour. If the future is indeed what I can of make it, then I have someone with whom I would...choose to build it. If my machine can be repaired, I will return to my own time." He put his watch away inside his borrowed shirt pocket and said, "Do you have archeological records? Eyewitness accounts of what occurred? Even hints and clues in old legends may give us something vital." - Everyone was hard at work; Horrorshow in the disguise of a giant bee and Zenith working her awesome molecular might working on clearing away the vast remnants of the honey flood, Bee and Paper and Ryder and his bugs on the time machine itself. Brobee, flying down beside them, wanted to help. "ZOMETHING ZTUCK? I WILL HELP!" He put one giant flank against the tank Bee had indicated and gave it a hard shove, making a few more dozen gallons of honey slosh onto his back but not seeming to mind the mess a bit. The crackling little shape of energy shivered in place for a moment, then spread out into a line, which itself spread open into a thin rectangle nearly as tall as Brobee himself. The drone sensibly backed away as out through the rectangle stepped a figure. It was a large machine, tall as a small building and wide as a bus, built in approximately the shape of a man, its head crafted like a giant white lion and its torso set with a single, massive daka crystal that though cracked still sparkled and sparkled with tremendous power. It took a step forward, moving slowly and jerkily but with all the signs of tremendous power. The great mech turned its massive head, producing an audible sound of rumbling metal, then raised a hand towards the group around the time machine, its palm widening to reveal a large round hole it seemed to be aiming at them...

There were signs of recent activity inside the warehouse by the time the two heroes arrived. The abandoned equipment that likely should have been here had recently been removed, with faint scratch marks leading up to the loading dock showing where it had probably gone. As far as they could tell, what was left of the former processing plant was now a largely empty warehouse that still bore the faint smell of fish. There were a few rats scuttling about in the corners, and loose papers that when examined turned out to be leftovers from the good old days of the shipping company. Everything seemed normal. Except for one thing; in the middle of the big metal and concrete box that was the room was a single brass-colored metal humanoid form, its head and arms tilted downward, its body seemingly-powered down.

Okay: Neither of you spot anyone in the sky or lurking about. The darkness does impose a Notice penalty, so @EternalPhoenix and @RocketLordyou both have the impression you're not alone by the time you arrive at the warehouse, but there's no sign of who that person is...

Or he would have, if Watchdog hadn't stepped in and taken the punch, taking the hit inside her helmet hard enough to make her bite her lip. Maybe that was why her next series of shots went wild, chewing holes in the table behind Matt without actually making an impact on the rogue cyborg. This had the makings of a real horrorshow, but there was no way out but forward.

"My creations are at work!" she called to Pan, "and so am I!" Angelic let her armada take hits that might have destroyed her. As proud as she was of her work, they were non-sentient (she had made sure of that, very carefully) and the occasional joke aside she was not actually a machine supremacist. Even as falling parts fell from the sky, it was clear that her robots had taken the worst of the bombardment, but were continuing to hammer and claw away at the chain that held the great crocodile. Seeing them busy at their work, she decided to take a chance and spread her wings wide, lightning crackling from tip to tip as she made a wild jink through the air and zipped toward the Hooked Man himself. She zipped past him like a bullet, metallic wings ripping past his head, as the pirate king dodged a blow that might have taken his head clean off. "Hooked Man!" she called. "You are wrong!"

Lady Horus Drunk Dialing "Hey Set honey, baby, sugar-doll. I know, I know, I'm a little old to be drinking but it's my half-birthday and a girl's allowed to live a little on her half-birthday. I'm celebrating this one because on my actual birthday I am gonna be eighty-seven years old and that is just too goddamn old! It's fine, Nikki, honey, I'm just on the phone with Set! Yeah, I'll tell her you said hello. Nikki says hello, honey. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I was calling to talk to you because I am maybe a little plastered right now and I figured why not call up your best friend when you're plastered, what's the worst that could happen? Hahahaha!" "Anyway, I'm calling you because I have been doing some thinking, and I know I don't do too often most of the time, but like I said it's a special occasion. All those times, back in the old days, I turned you down when you were a girl, it wasn't...it wasn't because you ain't a pretty girl, because let me tell you, Set, you are a very pretty girl, heh. And yes you were trying, I know what it looks like when a girl is trying, so don't use that silver tongue on...well, anyway, it wasn't none of that...none of that internalized homophobia neither. You remember when Queer-Eye tried to join the League back in the day, and I was the first one to say 'I don't care if he's fancy, he is more man than half of you put together!', and when Doc Neutron tried to cause trouble for those little so-and-sos with the telephone number, I said no way, we don't mess with no family?" "I just dropped the bottle, Nikki, it's fine! Trust me, I'll clean it up. You know I really don't drink like this all the time, Set honey, so don't come thinking you need to come dry me out or nothing. I just was thinking...you know, back in those days, there were men. A lot of men, but never any girls who weren't just, you know, really good pals. And that's because Set, honey, I like men, and I like screwing, and if I could goddamn fight the Centurion mano a womano, I could screw whoever I wanted. And I did want it, every time, even when I was doing it for reasons besides just the guy being a real hunk. If I did things because it put a roof over my head and pretty rings on my fingers, that was my choice, not anybody else's." "Anyway, uh, I was trying to figure out why I never slept with you. And I think it was...it was because of my boy, honey. Now don't you get me wrong, I raised Dickie right, he never had none of them prejudices against anybody except the people trying to put his ma in jail. We're all down in society's gutter, even if we're living in the penthouse, that's what I used to tell him, and we all gotta stick together. That's why I never said anything about him raising my grandkids as Jews, by the way, because a little of the old-time religion was good for them wherever they got it." "Ah...ah jeez, I'm beatin' around the bush again. Listen, honey, you know when Dickie was growing up, he had all his crazy aunts and uncles, but half of them weren't no good to anybody. Especially not his old man. And then there was his ma. His crazy ma, who spat in God's eye for fun...listen, Set, before my grandbabies came along, my boy was the only thing in this whole goddamn world that ever loved me. I would come home all busted up sometimes, or sometimes not come home for a couple of days before somebody picked him up, or that I let him try smack when he was a teenager, or any of all the...all the really awful things I did. Even through all of that, and through bringing home all those men, or bringing him into their hideouts, even, he loved me anyway. I couldn't...ah jeez, I just couldn't bring him up like that." "And I guess maybe that was that internalized homophobia, which is a word I learned from my very smart granddaughter, by the way. But anyway, that's been...that's been on my chest for about fifty years now, and I wanted to get that out. And Dickie does know, you know, that I have a special friend now, even if I left out some of the, er, gorier details. You know, about the vampire thing. But anyway...speaking of people of the biting persuasion, I know you've got your sweetheart, so this ain't me dialing you up for some action. I just wanted to tell you...you're my best friend, all right? Don't go telling nobody now, though. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to speed my liver up by about two hundred percent, so I will talk to you later. Yeah, yeah, Nikki, I'm done, I'll clean...aw jeez, you're a real doll, honey..."

(so you both roll both Notice and Stealth)

Okay, @RocketLord and @EternalPhoenix, give me opposed Stealth vs. Notice checks

"Oh no," said Frost baldly, "My childhood home was in penguin's nest and my mother was polar bear, very different than this..." He raised the fireplace poker to Ghost in salute. "But yes, you have solved mystery. Here is test for you." He set the tip of the poker, point down, against the wooden floor. "Trolley problem. A man with great power has gone mad and threatens to kill two thousand, five hundred and thirty people. It is a terrible thing; a man who has once defended the people has become their enemy. You have all the necessary means to stop him but said means will certainly kill him. What course do you take - and is your choice different if this man is your...old friend, say he is one of the few left you can still talk about the old times with. Hm?"

Tou vs 25: 18 That's too much of a fail, so I'll let the automatons take that - it's what they're there for! Angelic: Switches to her Enhanced Flight + Damage array and tries to cut the Hooked Man so bad, he'll wish she didn't cut him so bad. She'll use her Move-By Action to stay out of his reach once she hits him. Moving Feint check: 28 Well assuming that leaves him flat-footed, let's get interesting Eira attacks! https://orokos.com/roll/898194 = 30, a crit! OK, that's a DC 30 Tou save for the Hooked Man. Eira will not stay in melee range and will continue to get as far away from the Hooked Man as she can with her Move-By Action. Automatons: They hit the chain again. DC 23 Tou save for it this time.

Watchdog will Interpose for Matt: I'll have her spend an HP on Ultimate Toughness, so she's bruised but otherwise unhurt. Watchdog Bluffs this joker too - DC 25 check vs being flat-footed. Then she shoots him! I'm just going to use her new sheet for ease of reference if I can. https://orokos.com/roll/898153 = 11 Gonna re roll that! https://orokos.com/roll/898154 = 25! Okay, that's a DC 27 Tou save for him if she got her Sneak Attack Bonus.

APPROVED

May want to throw in a feature like Temporal Inertia to reflect being from another dimension. Or just Feature 1 (From Another Dimension) if that doesn't fit the concept. You should indicate what his skills look like outside of the armor, since they're enhanced so much by the Device.

Robo-Anna: comes running out, mad as hell, and throws a punch at Sparkler! https://orokos.com/roll/897669 = 24 Okay, that hits! It has Autofire on the punch, so that hits at DC 27! Go ahead and roll, as you like.

It is hanging open, as if a speedy robot just ran out without bothering to close it, blasting it open will blast it open all the way!

Late June 2021 The Iceberg A dark, sleek dynamo at five foot three, Kalinda Kaur had moved through the AEGIS base with a bright smile and firm handshake. The Vice-President was known as a critic of law enforcement outside but inside she'd been nothing but professional, even friendly, as she'd met with everyone from Director Bonham to the lowest office drones. She was the sort of protectee that liked to bull ahead of her bodyguards without so much as a backwards look. Luckily they'd spent most of today down in one of the most secure sites in Freedom City. Special Agent Ashley Tran, on special assignment to the Vice-President's detail, had done her best to blend into the agents who occasionally had to jog a little to keep up with 'Desi'. Jim Ward, the VPOTUS's usual detail head, had proved to be philosophical about the whole affair; something Ashley appreciated. This was supposed to be a big day. In just a week now, Paul Revere would make his Fourth of July debut as Patriot II - a new hero for a new generation! The program had been founded in the early days of the Cahill administration but the O'Connor administration had embraced the idea, even if Revere (who had been left quite the blonde, blue-eyed Aryan superman by the DNAscendant treatments he'd been given) wasn't quite the kind of person the O'Connor administration tried to promote. Ashley had heard about the program in its early days, even if her duty to Judith Cahill meant she was never seriously in the running for it. The man who had actually gotten the position? She'd met him, even sparred with him, having been brought in to test his facility with hand-to-hand combat. He was cute, certainly; she liked big, muscular alpha males and the fact that he was a cop wasn't bad. But something else was...not right. - The Iceberg was home to a small studio, where against a curtained backdrop, Revere was practicing his speech. He stood behind the podium and gave the cameras a winning smile as he continued: "Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down - [up] man's old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism..." "Well he certainly can handle himself in front of the camera," said the Vice-President thoughtfully, "even if he does sound he's Ronald Reagan personified." She looked a little skeptical, but many of the agents in the room looked very interested in what the man had to say. Ashley knew for almost certain that one of the agents, a star-struck young sound engineer from Oklahoma, was actually sleeping with Revere on the sly. She hadn't said anything, but the number of people she could talk to about any of this was damn thin. "Beth, are the defense contractors on schedule?" Ashley knew for sure that they were; Alek and company wouldn't be late without finding a way to let her know, so while the Vice-President (and technical head of the project, answering only to the POTUS himself, who was back in DC getting ready for the holiday) chatted with her immediate staff, Ashley looked around and spotted maybe the only other person in the whole Iceberg whose knowledge of superhuman tactics wasn't theoretical. "Agent Zermeño," she said cooly from behind her shades, "a word?" She cocked her head towards the studio control room door.

Terrifica and the second hero to bear the name of Archer had been investigating the leads given them by Richard and Paige Cline for months. It hadn't been an easy investigation; they'd been stonewalled at every turn, especially by the Swedish company that had taken all that Curator tech then supposedly lost it all in a major industrial accident that had also seriously wounded the company's founder. They'd been able to find some interesting information; while almost all of that technology had indeed been destroyed in Sweden, a small but significant portion had been taken back to Freedom City where it had promptly disappeared from the records. This was quite a potential scandal, but firing accusations against Archetech was potentially a risky operation indeed. You didn't just accuse America's most beloved scientist of being a robot, especially since everyone knew she was already a robot being controlled remotely by an anonymous superhero. (There had actually been a suggestion for a while that Miss Americana was being controlled by Viktor Archeville himself, but that particular suggestion had been convincingly rebutted.) But now something new had happened. They had both (though neither of them knew what the other was doing) gotten a confidential email inviting them to a rendezvous at Sunshine Fisheries at the remote New Jersey coastal community of Money Island. The informant had promised them information about their investigation into "the secret plans of the robots", making enough references to the obstacles previously encountered by their investigations that it was clear their informant knew what they were doing. So now it was after midnight in early summer and the two of them were just approaching the fishing company's abandoned building from different directions. All they knew was that Sunshine Fisheries had gone bankrupt after Hurricane Sandy had sunk its fleet almost ten years earlier, and had been bought out recently by a company linked to Ukrainian organized crime...

The robot went straight for Anna, moving with a blur of speed that moved almost faster than Raina could see. Her fist went straight for the old woman's face - but Anna jerked her head backwards, suddenly impossibly fast herself, and the blow hit nothing but air. "Better girls than you have tried, sweetie," taunted Anna before she zipped past the robot and grabbed Raina by the wrist. What happened next was hard to describe. It was as if suddenly the house went away for a moment or two and they were running together through a verdant spring meadow with no other signs of civilization; and then suddenly they were back on the lawn of the Marshall mega-mansion, taking shelter behind the heavily-rebuilt garage. "We only got a second honey," said Anna quickly, reaching into her bowling bag, already looking a little winded. "That thing thought it was playing with a weak old lady, but now-" She didn't need to fill in the blanks. "leastit'safterusandnotthekid"

Robo-Anna: 41 Regular Anna: 39 Winning initiative, Robo-Anna runs right up to her and hits her. 13 And misses! Anna grabs Raina by the wrist and uses Teleport 3 (300 ft) (Extra: Accurate, Affects Others, Flaw: Short-Range Only, PF: Turnabout) {10/10} to get them out on the lawn! Raina is up as soon as I post IC

""I tested with small clockwork machines. I found I could send into the future and then return. When I found I could not send them into the observed past, I took it as a sign the test should be run only into the future, I never imagined anything...so bizarre." Marcus made a small, frightened noise, running his hands through his shaggy red hair. "Aliens...timelines...multiverses..." He shook his head. "I used to imagine what a fine thing it would be to bring Socrates to the future and show him the wonders of the industrial age. Now I think he would simply be terrified at a world beyond his ken." He looked up at Stesha and Tarrant and said, "What do you mean 'if' I return? If my journey back does not endanger you...people, why would I not?"