Avenger Assembled

Round 2: Wander: 25 (bruised, 6 HP) Red Falcon: 25 Edge: 20 (8 HP) Omegadrones: 15 Cobalt Templar: 11 (4 HP) Midnight: 9 (7 HP) Omega: 8 Sage: 7 (1 HP) Midnight's Master Plan is in effect, so everyone gets +3 on their skill checks and attack rolls this round. On Edge's turn, his Inspire will kick in, giving everyone +5 on all attack rolls, saving throws, and checks for the following round. Those things do stack!

"Foolish 'child'," spoke Omega as he advanced on the battered Wander, midnight mist boiling away around them as he glowed particularly brightly, his voice was the cold and furious promise of death made audible flesh and so much more. It was the screams of a million dying worlds; of Quo-Dis in flames, of Clarissa White as zombies tore her apart, the silent creak of an empty house and the promise of an old man's senility and death. "You and yours might have stood at my 'hand' as your world burned, sons and daughters of 'entropy' in my house. But now you are not worthy even for me to strike you down. Burn like the insignificant 'speck' you are," he pronounced, and he raised his hand. From his glowing palm came a blast of pure entropy that was to the Omegadrones' pikes as a nuclear bomb was to a match as he fired it directly at Wander!

Omega's going to go ahead and blast Wander. He shouldn't have any trouble clearing the use of midnight mist with a counter, but so he can get that done in a round, have an HP, Giz. He's got Power Attack, but he just won't bother to use it this round. 33 All right, Sage has declared her intention to Interpose. Her defense hits +41 this round, so he misses her...this time.

Edge Inspires! Forgot to mention that.

1 Million Omegadrones: ATK: +20 DMG: +22 DEF: +4 TOU: +23 They go ahead and blast Wander. A crit! Welp. Edge goes ahead and spends an HP to force a reroll. 27 OK, that'll be a DC 37 Tou save.

As the heroes engaged the Lord of the Terminus in hand-to-hand combat, Red Falcon took a step back and rapidly pressed a few buttons on his wrist computer, summoning his flying bike to his side. Moving with incredible speed and efficiency, the red-faced Furion slipped a cylindrical silver shape out of the bike and slipped it into Edge's knapsack a moment before that hero himself stepped forth to confront the monster that had lain at the center of so many nightmares. For a moment, Edge was at a loss for words. What did you say when you confronted the end of all things? Everything in him wanted to run to the depths of this dying universe, to flee space and time until he was a child in his mother's arms again. But there would be none of that here. There was only one place to go. He balled his hands into fists and did what he did best: he spoke from the heart, pouring fear and rage and power into his words as he called out, "This is it, Omega! We stopped your minions and we'll stop you. This isn't going to be like 1993 when the Centurion broke you and you ran. This time: you can't run anymore!" As Wander struck the Lord of the Terminus, he staggered back, his glowing yellow eyes widening in momentary surprise. His minions, though, had no such hesitation, and suddenly a sea of energy came roaring from the swarm over his head, blasting down on Wander like a fiery tide against a single lonely sentinel as it drove her back against the pavement beneath her feet, the very asphalt catching fire against just the reflection of the incredible bombardment she was taking. It was cold and hot at once, the burning touch of entropy eating away at body and soul as uniform charred away and the flesh beneath it heated and froze to burning!

Omega takes an injured

News of the World

Wander: 25 (8 HP (7 from earlier+1 (It's Omega) Red Falcon: 25 Edge: 18 (9 HP (8 from earlier+1 (It's Omega) 1 Million Omegadrones: 15 Cobalt Templar: 11 (4 HP (3 from earlier+1 (It's Omega) Midnight: 9 (7 HP (6 from earlier+1 (It's Omega) OhSnapOmega: 8 Sage: 7 (3 HP (+2 from earlier+1 (It's Omega) Wander is up.

Edge: 11 pp to spend Ultimate Save (Reflex) [1 pp] Second Rank of Evasion [1 pp] Enhanced Feats 3 (Ultimate Save 3 [Fortitude, Reflex, Toughness]) (Extras: Affects Only Others [+0], Range (Perception) [+2]) [9 pp] Edits done by Geez3r

Omega goes on 8 The Omegadrones go on 15 Edge goes on 18 I'll get combat started shortly.

Aliens: Cuckoos Once among the most terrifying races in the cosmos, the Cuckoos are almost all gone now. Their homeworld is so much irradiated ash, their colonies either destroyed or in the hands of vengeful local inhabitants who have done their best to blot the memory of their ancient conquerors from history. But once, in an age when humans were first learning to smith iron, the Cuckoos were the terror that kept Lor generals and the Meta-Mind's sages awake at night. From their homeworld, a single planet orbiting a lonely yellow dwarf (which was itself orbiting a larger blue star) just outside the accretion disk of the great black hole Cygnus X-1 some 6000 light years from Earth, the Cuckoos in the space of a few centuries began a wave of conquest that saw a dozen worlds fall beneath their heel. And they did it all with twenty ships. They needed no more. The story began thousands of years ago. When they learned the truth about the universe, that the Eye of God, which so many generations had grown up revering, was simply a terrible source of cosmic destruction that would in a few millennia pull their planet to so many fragments, the high priests of the Cuckoo conceived a dangerous plot. Though their proximity to Cygnus had kept them from advancing space travel, they had mastered other sciences as well: biological sciences so they could survive beneath the punishing X-rays of the Eye and its supergiant blue companion, subspace sciences that had given them the power to study a galaxy to which they were all but invisible, and the sciences of the mind and body. They would build teaching machines and body-sculpting machines and miniaturize them, placing them in small rockets that would slip through even an advanced world's defenses, and then fire them through the accretion disk of the eye into the X-ray jets that would carry them throughout the galaxy. From there, the plan was simple: the rockets would seek out the radio traffic of inhabited worlds and crashland in some remote area, where the sensors inside would begin their work: they would shape the cargo aboard: an unhatched Cuckoo child, and shape it in the likeness of the planet's inhabitants but far their superior: stronger, faster, and better than them in every way, and with the innate knowledge of social cues that would make them beloved wherever they went. From there, cunning signals would lure a local to the crash site where they would adopt this impossibly adorable infant, taking advantage of the ancient nurturing instinct subverted by alien powers. And when the child was old enough and their brains able to hold the knowledge, perhaps after they'd had children of their own with the locals, they would seek the ship out and be informed of their true purpose: as conquerors, as rulers, as saviors of their people. Once they had subdued that planet, perhaps with the aid of their children, they would build the great machines that would allow the Cuckoo teleporters to reach them and move colonists there in their tens of thousands. And so they succeeded, again and again, Cuckoos worshipped as gods made flesh on some worlds or feared as conquerors in others, singleton demigods or the slayers of a planet's existing defenders already, until billions lay beneath the heel of their beautiful conquerors from space. Until finally they landed in the Wolf 359 system on a planet populated by Grue Arcane, whose magics and protean nature made them warier than others: they found ship and craft both, and a magical scan revealed a grim threat to the rest of the galaxy. Though the Arcane have little love for other creatures, solid or otherwise, a galaxy under the heel of the Cuckoos could hardly serve their interests. So they came as a great body to the Cygnus system, magically warping their way through the space waves, and there via doughty magics now lost to time, they redirected the expulsion jets of the black hole against the Cuckoo homeworld. Their cities, their people, all that they were, burned to ash in a matter of minutes. Satisfied with their work, the Arcane left the system intact as a warning to the fate of all who dared defy them. Cut off from their homeworld, the various Cuckoo leaders were eventually overthrown by their former slaves, many such revolts aided by ships of the Lor Republic who had only just begun to enter that part of the Galaxy. They died in their numbers, convinced ever of their own goodness, save for a solitary few who had successfully intermarried with and become part of the worlds they had once come to rule. And the Cuckoos seemed to disappear from the galaxy, save as a grim warning in the pages of history. But the story wasn't over yet. Not all Cuckoo colonies fell: some simply closed their systems and hunkered down, waiting for a day of liberation that might never come. The Arcane destroyed the Cuckoo homeworld, but never sought them out: A great many ships launched by the Cuckoo were never heard from again: some perished in the cosmic spaceways, but others continue to drift at low superliminal velocities, waiting for a radio signal from a passing planet to lure them in and begin the cycle all over again. ---- Cuckoo PCs Cuckoo PCs are fast, strong, and powerful, and generally intelligent and charismatic in the bargain. They are almost entirely indistinguishable from humans (and the humans that made up the area where their rocket crashed, at that) save for the deepest scans. Heroic Cuckoos are those who likely were not exposed to the adult 'instructions' aboard their craft: perhaps they simply never sought it out, or perhaps the rocket itself was damaged in the initial crash-landing. They may not even be aware of their alien heritage at all, though a detailed scan by galactic sensors in particular will likely clue them in. While there are perhaps no more than 10,000 Cuckoos alive in the Milky Way today, and those all scattered throughout the stars, should anything bring them together (like the discovery of a Cuckoo infiltrator alive and well on a Class-M world), they would be a formidable threat indeed. Suggested Cuckoo 1 Suggested Cuckoo 2

Wing, Welcome! Let me offer some suggestions. 1. My take on the Grue is that they normally don't have gender as such. My thought for the Power Ring character was that she'd selected a preferred gender for herself upon gaining independence. 2. As far as I know, the books don't say! (The Grue are left open to be filled in). My personal take on the matter is that the Grue reproduce parthenogically. That would explain how the Grue Arcane survive and allow for things like racial memory, etc. 3. My guess is the Grue do have an immature period, yes. 4. The Grue are more locusts than conquerors. They come to loot rather than rule, stripping planets of their technology. That said, they probably aren't above actually occupying strategic planets and enslave the population. (Perhaps to mine some key resource/harvest their own planet dry) The Meta-Mind wouldn't control them; the Meta-Mind's powers are only really useful on Grue and anyway the minds of non-Grue are full of filthy individuality! So there'd be potential for a revolt, yeah. 5. It's tough to say. The Meta-Mind seems to do its own thing most of the time. The empowerment of the Meta-Grue (and his subsequent independence) probably didn't help there. My general take is that elite Grue have some independence, but are still mentally enslaved to the Meta-Mind. 6. Probably. No doubt they are there subject to dire experiments!

Edge concentrated for a moment, preparing to blow the city to smithereens, but at Midnight's words he paused, then hurried towards the bike outside. Trevor's theory made a grim sense, and the sooner they were somewhere he could take the city out without being disturbed the better. But it was already too late, too late for any of them. From the sky overhead came a curling flicker of red and black, like a ribbon of fire and death swirling into existence as Earth-EZO1 brushed its closest against the edge of the Terminus itself. The fires of the Coil came incredibly fast, plunging downward at what had to be supersonic velocities, heading straight for the very heart of Freedom City. An instant before it hit, Edge gestured wildly and a shield of blue and white erupted from the broken asphalt before them, shielding the heroes and their ally from the force of the blast as the fires of the Coil touched the ground. For a half-second, Edge frankly expected death, knowing full well what the end of the world looked like from his own studies. But what came bursting out of that miles-high column of fire was no simple fiery death or incineration: rather, from out of the fires of the Doom Coil came first waves upon waves of Omegadrones: terrible black sentinels of entropy that filled the skies in numbers ten times what the heroes had seen on their first arrival: this was no casual guarding force, this was the sheer power of overwhelming invasion: what the Terminus Invasion of 1992 had been twice over, and with only this small band of heroes to oppose it. From beneath them came rumblings and tremors: the fires of the Coil had eaten through the foundations of Freedom Hall and were rapidly working their way through the bedrock to the heart of the continental plate. The city itself would fall down even without their help. And then, from the very heart of the fires of the Coil, strode a gigantic figure in black armor. This was no Physician Friendly; this was no Shadivan Steelgrave. This was the terror of a trillion nightmares; this was the thing they'd all grown up fearing. This was the cosmic overlord who had beaten the Centurion to death before the eyes of the world. Omega, Lord of the Terminus, Godslayer, the Knight of Entropy and the Father of Destruction, the rock and the chain and the lightning, towered above the broken remains of the League statues near the steps of the hall as he strode down with the regal power of a dark god. "Children of 'Earth'!" he boomed, pointing a massive finger at the heroes as the sky above him turned black with his power. "I would have 'words' with you."

Juche PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+15 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +20 Saves: 9 pp TOU +7 (+5 Con, +2 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Diplomacy 9 (+10) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 5 (+5) Medicine 8 (+10) Languages 2 (Chinese, English) (Base: Korean) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 19 pp Attack Focus: Melee 7, Dodge Focus 5, Fearless, Interpose, Power Attack, Stunning Attack, Takedown Attack, Ultimate Save (Will), Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 50 pp Immunity 6 (aging, disease, poison, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [6 pp] Juche Array [21+2=23 pp] Emotion Control 10 (PF: Subtle) AP: Healing 5 (Extras: Action [standard], Total) (PF: Stabilize) AP: Teleport 6 (600 ft/20 miles) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Easy, Progression [250 lbs], Turnabout) Luck Control 4 (spend an HP for another character, give HP to others, spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5) [17 pp] Protection 2 [2 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 10/40 + feats 19 + powers 50 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: Pak Chul used to be a patriot. The only child of a high-ranking general in the army of the DPRK, aka North Korea, Chul grew up in relative luxury and raised on the same propaganda as his fellows. All that was good in North Korea came from the Leader, all that was bad came from the imperialists to the South and particularly the evil Americans. Like many a North Korean schoolboy, he dreamed of one day reuniting the Koreas under the leadership of Comrade Kim. He joined the Army to accomplish that goal, earning an assignment to the hospital corps thanks to his hard work and dedication. What he saw in the military began to make him uneasy: it soon became clear that his own luxurious upbringing had been a product of his father's corruption and powerful business ties that had allowed so many goods from China and elsewhere to flow through his son's hands. But Pak said nothing; he was a patriot, he was a young officer, and he certainly had no wish to bring his family into jeopardy! He was just 22 when his powers manifested during the Mass Games in the most spectacular way possible: the moment where the young officer rushed off the stage during a martial arts demonstration to tend to the elderly dignitary who'd just suffered a massive heart attack, his hands glowing with power as he brought the man back to life, became one of the few unscripted moments in North Korean television history. A lesser man might have died for that, for taking the glory away from Comrade Kim, but General Chul's son was well-placed to take advantage of the Great Leader's generosity. He said all the right things at the right time, that he'd gained his powers through strict reliance on the North Korean philosophy of juche, that he owed it all to the leadership of Comrade Kim, and that it was his greatest wish to use his abilities in the service of the workers and peasants of the Democratic Republic of North Korea! So Pak became Juche, the living embodiment of the North Korean revolution, the blue colors that were a necessary display of his powers becoming a symbol of the national unity of the people of Korea. (Well, of the northern part, anyway). He was given a huge apartment in Pyongyang, his own headquarters and personal staff, and all the luxuries and lovely women that any young man could dream of. And he even enjoyed that, for a while. But his powers have taken him all over the countryside healing the sick and the old, at least the powerful sick and old, and slowly he has begun to realize the monster he serves and the poverty of the nation where he lives. He has teleported across the border a few times to China and South Korea, and the hard reality of life outside his homeland (i.e., that it is so much better than how his own people live) has begun to tell on him. But what can he do? The proud young warrior has seen enough human suffering into an older, wiser man: he is no fighter to take on a head of state and an army of soldiers, and the violence that a revolution will bring horrifies him. But he has seen so many suffering already, and he knows so many more suffer yet. So he heals the sick and comforts the afflicted, hoping that perhaps this time, he can heal the guilt in his own soul for the greater sickness in his country he cannot cure. OK, here's my attempt at a Blue Lantern type, under the theory that his powers are aimed at making things better for others. Even bystanders will likely make their recovery checks when he uses his healing on them: after all, he'll just spend an HP on their behalf to make it work! His powers keep him healthy and strong even as he does the same for others, letting him continue to tirelessly work to make the world better for his fellow man. I figure he's probably a mutant given his descriptors and fairly broad powers, but I could just as easily see him as somehow magically or divinely empowered. (He doesn't believe in either of the latter two, though!) Heck, maybe his handlers are right for once and he really _did_ get his powers through North Korean Stalinist philosophy! Too bad that experiment really doesn't work for others. He makes a fine tragic antagonist for an international supers game, or possibly a player character if you assume he has successfully made an escape from his handlers! His biggest worry in a Freedom City game is likely to be Dr. Sin, who no doubt has his own plans for North Korea and has no plans to see any troublesome super intervene.

"I didn't mean to say so much," said Sharl, a little worriedly once he was sure Torque couldn't hear them. He was well-trained enough to keep helping Miss A with the equipment, but that didn't mean he wasn't concerned about the potential consequences of spilling the beans: especially to someone was going to be a future classmate. For all the space people in this world had available, they sure did cram their teenagers together. "Do you think it'll be all right? He seems nice enough, and he's got his own problems to worry about..."

Protectron could be the one "adult" hero left with YF 2.0 in Freedom Hall?

"I know I'm ready to get the hell out of here," Mark agreed, who took this opportunity to evaporate most of Physician Friendly's lab as it had never been, leaving behind simply a rapidly-corroding corpse and the empty shell of what had once been the home of this worlds' greatest heroes. "I need to get outside," he said, "otherwise I won't have the room to do anything..." He led the way outside, walking out to the middle of the grass-overgrown, weather-cracked street that had once been Freedom Way. It was a depressing sight, but the broken bodies of thousands upon thousands of Omegadrones, twisted shells that covered the landscape like gigantic fallen snow all over the heart of Freedom City, were more reassuring. "Looks good. Just needs one more push..." Red Falcon threw away his souvenir as Cobalt Templar's mystic blue light washed over his body, sighing a little. "The scars would have been pleasing around the campfire...but the story, and Redbird's camera, will have to be enough." Clapping Cobalt Templar on the back in gratitude, he joined the teens in heading outside. "Whatever happens today and in your lives, my young friends," said the Furion seriously as they all formed up together outside. "You have defeated the machinations of the Terminus and saved all that is. Few are so honored. It was a privilege to stand beside you."

SO! The Gorgon, aka Cosmic Entity 31966, is coming to the Solar System. Her power is stupendous, her purpose terrible: to transform planets she deems worthy of 'preservation' into balls of lifeless nanites, preserving all life inside it like flies frozen forever in cosmic amber. This will be a cross-FCPBP event, culminating near the beginning of September. I need volunteers (as both players and GMs) for: The Lab and the League: Freedom City's greatest science heroes and their most respected champions journey into space to take the fight to the Gorgon herself! (I'm running this one) The Interceptors: The Interceptors war against the huge plant minions seeded by the Gorgon before her arrival as said pawns try to encase all of Freedom City beneath cosmic vines, but they soon find the greatest threat is from one of their own as Willow is empowered as the mighty Herald of the Gorgon! Parkhurst: The Grue Arcane take advantage of the chaos of the Gorgon's coming and the subsequent weakening of Earth's magical defenses to stage raids on Earthly mystics. Claremont 1: The Neo-Gen finds trouble from one of their old classmates as the arrival of the mightiest artifact of the Preservers transforms the Preserver-empowered Megastar into a cosmically-powered threat! Claremont 2: As the adults go into space, the children of Young Freedom are left below to battle against the Crime League as they plot to seize Freedom Hall and the secrets within. (I'm running this one) For everyone else, ONCE THE EVENT STARTS, the eventual word of the Gorgon's arrival (and her eventual appearance in the sky itself!) will make for thread potential across Freedom City for the remainder of the summer as people deal with what might be the end of the world itself! UPDATE: News of The World

Crowsbane PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 16 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON n/a (-) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +4 (+6 Ranged, +10 Crows) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +11 Saves: 11 pp TOU +10 (+6 Protection, +4 Ring) FORT n/a REF +8 (+3 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Bluff 8 (+10) Disguise 0 (+2/+37) Intimidate 4 (+6) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 4 (+5) Notice 8 (+10) Perform (Dance) 4 (+6) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 13 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 2 Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 84 pp Device 9 (Crowsbane Ring) (PFs: Restricted 2) [38 pp] -Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic]) [24+1=25] -AP: Morph 7 (any humanoid) (Extra: Continuous) (PFs: Covers Scent, Precise, Second Chance [Disguise]) -Impervious TOU 9 [9] -Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2] -Protection 4 (PF: Subtle) [5] -Buys Off Vulnerability [4] Immunity 32 (Critical Hits, Fortitude saves) [32 pp] Protection 6 [6 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0 [5], Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [8 pp] Drawbacks: -4 pp Vulnerable (Fire) (Common, Major) (4 pp) costs abilities 16 + combat 20 + saves 11 + skills 10/40 + feats 13 + powers 84 -drawbacks 4= 150 pts -------------- Design Notes: In the wake of their escape to the Kingdom of Ix, Elphaba and Fiyero were left with a pretty thorny problem. What to do now that Fiyero had been transformed into a man of straw? Luckily, she had access to magical artifacts besides the Grimmie that she'd seen fall into Glinda's hands, so Elphaba bestowed upon her lover the magical ring of Crowsbane: empowering him to once again assume the guise of a mortal man. But there was trouble in Ix just as there'd been trouble in Oz; clockwork men on the loose with dire intentions for Munckin and man alike, patchwork girls stealing priceless jewels, and Fiyero knew he couldn't rest easy. While Elphaba took to the skies as a cunningly-disguised new witch in town, Fiyero used his magic ring to become Crowsbane! Now Oz has two new superheroes located just along its borders, heroes who keep safe a world that would fear and hate them if only they knew who they truly were. Okay, it's the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz (from the Wicked musical continuity, not the novels or the Garland movie) as a superhero with a power ring. I had to downplay some of the abilities we see in the Garland movie a bit, he could use some more Regeneration (with Plant Matter as a Source) and more Anatomic Separation for that. Beyond the specifics, though, I think you'll find this is a convincing version of an animate man made of straw as a superhero: he's got no inner parts, he's vulnerable to fire, but at the same time he doesn't age. His power ring lets him fly, blast people with golden yellow magic (I figure he primarily uses energy constructs like the crows you see him surrounded with above), disguise himself as a human being (though not at the same time as his blasts) and makes him tough enough to fight opponents at his PL. (It also makes him fireproof, all the better!) He's reasonably dexterous, though he could probably use more points if you want him to dance around like the late Ray Bolger. He's surprisingly charismatic for a man made of straw, though like his musical inspiration he's not much for straight-talking when there's sneaking and scheming (in a nice way) to do. If you don't want to make this Oz's native superhero, I could easily see this build as your garden-variety scarecrow with a power ring: Perhaps a magic artifact animated a once-mindless construct to fight bad guys? (You could sell it in a meta-sense as a Golden Age comic book company trying to cash in on the popularity of both the Wizard of Oz and National's Green Lantern). Or perhaps it's a mortal man cast into a straw-stuffed body, looking to gain his humanity again!

The last of the zombies fell, leaving the heroes alone in in the shattered remains of Freedom Hall with the spectacularly dead remains of reconstructed corpses and the disassembled components of the cosmic bomb. Mark took a moment to take in the scene, listening to the dead silence inside the hall and out. "Hey, hey...we did it! We did it! I knew we could..." Edge embraced everybody, suddenly overwhelmed. "We stopped the zombie and stopped the bombs!!!" It was a moment of overwhelming joy after all the horrors and surprises of the last few days, and Mark wasn't one to refuse joy when he could help it. The roof was gone now and they could see the grey sky overhead, one blessedly free of Omegadrones. "Hey, where's Red Falcon?" he asked, realizing what the silence outside might portend. Luckily, though, he hadn't cause to worry. A moment later, from behind them, came an exclamation. "Hah! Hah!" Red Falcon looked battered and bloody, and he was leaning on a broken powerpike like a cane, his left leg looking to have taken a direct blast. But he was, for all that, looking very happy. "400 score Omegadrones slain by my own two hands! Freedom Bird will never believe it!" He looked around. "And you have won the day as well! The dark ones' plans stand smashed by our heroic might!"

After long hours in the air on a dead airplane, steered by the sheer main force of Cobalt Templar's ring and Sage's psychic connection, their plane finally made a hair-raising landing on the ground in Rabat, Sage's telekinesis going underneath to drive open the landing gear. The plane itself was shot and the passengers glad to depart, crew and passengers both making sure to thank the teenage heroes who had done so much to save their lives! Citizen took their thanks, and was grateful for it, but he was worried all the same. As soon as he could, while Sage was helping get care for the unconscious Cobalt Templar, he changed back to his civilian ID and zipped himself back to Miss Americana's laboratory to tell her what had happened. It was an hour later, after Cobalt Templar had woken up and everyone had been attended to, that he reappeared in the airport, cautiously carrying his bags under his arm as he headed for the emergency flight that would take them all the rest of the way to India. They'd be in first class again, but this time, they didn't have to worry about the school's budget when it came to their entertainment on board. As of an official word of the airline's president, emailed to him while he was with Miss A, the three young heroes had free flights on Delta from now on. He looked around for his allies as he went, worried about the questions he was sure they'd ask.

For a half-second, as the boxes fell open, there was no sound as Erin anticipated yet another visitation from her dead little sister while Trevor contemplated the unpleasant sight of an undead version of his grandfather. And then from out of Erin's box erupted a blue-skinned, black-eyed version of Trevor himself, black fluid leaking from his mouth as the fourteen-year-old version of her lover reached for her. "Erin." he hissed gravely, his face eerily expressionless as he began to climb out of his box. "Can team up together. You know what for." He kissed in her direction, reaching for her with claw-like fingers. "Never touched you on this world. Never knew you. Can be together now." From out of Trevor's box came "...Trevor?" Midnight, who knew his own personal relationships offered few chances for exploitation, had successfully guessed what the Terminus had used against him: he knew his grandfather's voice as well as he knew his own. But there was no sign of movement within. "Trevor, I can't feel my body." There was no alarm in Travis' voice, merely an old man's mild concern. Finally peering inside, Trevor was confronted with the sight of his grandfather's head mounted on a folded metallic shape that began to spool up into a humanid form as he watched: blue and black as all the other zombies, simply staring at him. "Why did you leave me, Trevor?" asked Travis again, his metallic body shaping itself into an Omegadrone's armor. "Why?" "I'm over here, Travis!" zombie Trevor waved. Travis looked over there and seemed to relax. "They took him away for a while, you see," explained the amalgamation of zombie-head and robot flesh. "But they gave me a new grandson back, better and stronger than before, just like they gave me a body to crush the enemies of Omega." He raised huge, cruel claws that looked absurdly like an old man's hands. "He never did well with the ladies, though, so I think he wants your little squeeze over there. Probably because he used to be a hideous freak. But Omega washed him clean, just as he'll do the same for you and all your little friends. Now come to my arms, my boy!"

There were a few rockslides as the ship vanished, but thanks to Dragonfly's well-placed dimensional distortion there were no larger deviations in the crater wall. With that problem solved, the heroes turned to the trip home and the flight back to Freedom Hall: there was much to do, and far more pressing issues than some juvenile Omegadrones facing the heroes of Freedom City and all the world. But for Harrier and the other League employees down in Antarctica, that project was just beginning!

Switch descriptors to magic instead of psionic and BAM