Avenger Assembled

Ghost Fox Killer PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 20 (+5) CON 18 (+4) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 34 pp ATK: +9 (+13 ranged) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +11 Saves: 10 pp TOU +7 (+4 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+4 Con, +3) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Acrobatics 10 (+15) Intimidate 10 (+12) Languages 2 (English, Mandarin) (Base: Cantonese) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 10 (+15) Feats: 15 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Specialization: Ghost Fox (2) Dodge Focus (5) Eidetic Memory Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot (2) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 49 pp Enhanced Feats 2 (Second Chance 2 (Notice, Sense Motive) [2 pp] ‘summoned spirits’ Ghost Fox Array [25+2=27 pp] Drain Constitution 5 (Extra: Aura [+3]) AP: Blast 7 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic]) AP: Damage 7 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective) (PFs: Affects Insubstantial 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic]) Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Senses 4 (Darkvision, Radius Vision) [4 pp] Teleport 4 (400 ft/1 mile) (Extra: Accurate) (Flaw: Short-Range Only) (PFs: Hide in Plain Sight, Turnabout) [10 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 34 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 15 + powers 49 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: Here's Ghost Fox Killer, or "What if Wonder Woman was a John Woo character?" She's the native superheroine of Hong Kong in the DCU, a grim vigilante dealing out lethal justice to the triads there with her ghost fox weapons that look just like strange pistols, accompanied everywhere by the spirits of the evil men she's killed. She has her reasons, though: her home dimension of ghost fox women is powered by the souls of the evil dead, and so every man she kills helps sustain her and her entire family. She's a new member of the Great Ten, and falling in love with her commander August General in Iron, the only man she can touch without poisoning him. I tried to build her as a fast, stealthy, deadly warrior, cleaving through goons with a 'death blossom' style area attack, or just blasting away with powerful autofire damage from pistols she can never lose. I didn't put her jade lion in this build: I decided to take that (and the souls of the dead all around her) as a descriptor for her super-senses. In combat she should play as the mobile creature she is, shadow-stepping from room to room and eliminating bad guys before they even know she's there. She'd make a good PC as is in an Iron Age game, but in our game she's much more suitable as an antagonist: a murderous vigilante who is just sympathetic enough in who she kills and why that the PCs may have some qualms (if short-lived) about bringing her down with particular force. She'd make an interesting counterpart to the Silencer in our own game, a mystic killer to his high-tech version. She's probably a rival to Crimson Katana, and I'm sure the two have had many a duel over the years if you put them in the same place. Of course, you should make her "Ghost Fox Woman" (i.e., not a killer) if you want to make her a PC in our game: perhaps if you like the backstory, her dimension is powered by the _defeat_ of evil rather than by its death, and so she has to go out into the world and battle darkness as a way of keeping the lights on at home. You can even keep the ghosts by saying she can call on the "good spirits" of those she's defeated as a way of redeeming all the bad things they've done. Being a grim street vigilante doesn't mean you have to be a jerk to be around: a little levity (particularly at the expense of the scumbags you fight) can make the most depressing day be lots of fun! Some heroes may object to you using guns on principle, but since the pistols are just descriptors for her Blast (and her non-lethal Blast at that), you shouldn't have a lot of issues with the setting. Complications with those other PCs, though, are a great source for HP for you! She's got some pretty broad descriptors and should have no problems pulling out whatever kind of weapons she needs. Note that her lion is a fine descriptor for a blast if you want it to be featured in her combat, though as usual with minions and such I went with what you typically 'really' want out of having an ally: more chances to see what's going on, and more things to do in combat!

Socialist Red Guardsman PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 22 pp STR 40 [24] [12] (+15/+7/+1) DEX 14 (+2) CON 18 (+4) INT 12 (+1) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +5 (+8 Ranged) DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +6/+22/+27 Saves: 10 pp TOU +15 (+4 Con, +3 Density, +8 Protection) FORT +7 (+4 Con, +3) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Craft (Mechanical) 4 (+5) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 4 (+5) Knowledge (Technology) 4 (+5) Intimidate 12 (+12) Languages 3 (Cantonese, English, Japanese) (Base: Mandarin) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 8 pp Attack Focus; Ranged 3 Fearless Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Powers: 81 pp Device 11 (Socialist Red Guardsman Armor; Hard to Lose; PF: Restricted [radiation control]) [45 pp] Density 6 (Extra: Duration [Permanent]) (PF: Innate) [19] Enhanced STR 12, Imp TOU 3, Immovable 2, Super-Strength 2, Mass x5 Enhanced Feat 1 (Ultimate Save [Toughness]) [1] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9] Impervious TOU 2 [2] Protection 8 [8] Radiation Control 0 (buys off Uncontrolled) [8] Suit Array (3 APs on 29 pp Radiation Control) [3] Blast 12 (PFs: Improved Crit, Improved Range, Incurable) Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 720 tons [w/Density]) (PFs: Countering Punch, Groundstrike, Shockwave) Flight 14 (total of Flight 15 [500000 MPH) (PF: Moving Feint) Super-Senses 3 (Darkvision, Radio) [3] Drain Constitution 5 (25 ft) (Extras: Action [Reaction], Area [burst], Flaw: Uncontrolled) and Environmental Control 3 (25 ft) (moderate radiation) (Extras: Action [Reaction], Duration [Permanent], Flaws: Range [Touch], Uncontrolled) [29 pp] Immunity 6 (aging, radiation damage [includes environmental radiation]) [6 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 20 + saves 10 + skills 9/36 + feats 8 + powers 81 = 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: OK, this rather complex build is for Socialist Red Guardsman, the only actual Maoist (much to his annoyance) on the Great Ten. The Guardsman is China's oldest active super, having been a leading figure in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Kept young but isolated by his powers, he's watched with increasing anger as his leaders betrayed the revolution he fought for in the name of market capitalism. Of course, that's not the only thing he has to be cranky about the Guardsman is very much in the Tragic Radiation Controller mode (see Shaen's build in his thread) like Positron from City of Heroes. He's permanently, dangerously radioactive and has to spend all his time around human beings in a powersuit that was the best the People's Republic of China could make in the mid-1970s. Isolated from the world in more ways than one, frankly these days he prefers to be alone in his hermitage in the Gobi Desert, where he can at least live in peace without fear of hurting anyone or being shunned by them for his appearance. OK, the basic idea behind his powers is that the Guardsman (without his suit) constantly irradiates an area of about twenty-five feet around his body, poisoning anyone there with radiation, potentially lethally, as well as making all the objects around him dangerously radioactive. He does this all the time, every round, whether he's conscious or not, and he has absolutely no control over this. He's a threat even to some superhumans, though most PCs will be just fine with repeatedly making a DC 15 Fort save if his suit comes off: it's mostly bystanders who are at issue. Odds are pretty good that your average bystander will be dead in two rounds being near him. Luckily, he probably won't be out of his suit around them! Buy a good headquarters, though. I went with the smaller area (compared to Shaen's build) because I think it makes him easier to function as a PC. If his suit gets broken, it's a serious problem for him, but he's not a threat to the entire city, just to anyone standing around him. The suit lets him control his powers, giving him the ability to fire powerful blasts of radiation, fly at tremendous velocities, or just punch people really hard so they fall over. It looks really big and bulky in all the pictures, so I gave him Density to reflect a big, heavy powersuit. (No Growth, though, since we see him standing next to people and not looking out-sized) Expect to be kidnapped and shoved in a bad guy's machine as a power source a lot. This build is a natural if you want an angsty guy bummed out because he can't have any normal human contact. Hey, a lot of people are into that sort of thing! Just don't make him depressing to be _around_, even if he himself is depressed a lot. (I try to have Harrier, my own Super-Depressing Guy, at least be some comfort to be around because his own life sucks so much more than the other PCs, they feel better hanging around with him!) If you want to keep his Communist origins, maybe he got tired of constantly being promised a cure by his masters (who were actually much more interested in using his abilities for their own ends), and has headed off to Freedom City to be an independent superhero? He works fine as a super-soldier too, perhaps a Chernobyl survivor if you want to keep the Commie stylings (maybe he's a supersoldier of Belarus?), or even an American more depressing Captain Atom. Probably a little too soon to make him a Japanese hero, though..

Seven Deadly Brothers PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 44 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 20 (+5) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +20 Saves: 7 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Acrobatics 10 (+15) Bluff 9 (+10) Knowledge (History) 10 (+10) Languages 4 (Cantonese, English, Japanese, Mongolian) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 13 (+15) Stealth 5 (+10) Survival 1 (+3) Feats: 22 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee 5 Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Dodge Focus 5 Fearless Improved Crit 2 (Unarmed) Improved Initiative Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 30 pp Concealment 10 (all senses) (Flaw: Miss Chance Only) [10 pp] Duplication Array 7 (14pp powers; PF: Alternate Power) [15 pp] BE: Add Selective and Targeted Area [burst] to Unarmed AP: Add Autofire and Penetrating to Unarmed Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Regeneration 1 (Resurrection 1/week) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [3 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 44 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 15/60 + feats 22 + powers 30 = 150 pts --------------- Design Notes: Here's Seven Deadly Brothers, the martial artist of the Great Ten. He has an interesting concept, a duplicator who can split into seven copies each of whom is a master of a different style of martial arts. I've built him the way I build most duplicators, giving him area attacks and autofire on his unarmed damage as he either sends copies out to fight a group or focuses multiple unarmed strikes on one opponent, as well as a limited Concealment that makes it much harder to target the 'original'. Rather than worry about the kung fu fighting style in the book, I've tried to give him a generalized flavor of martial arts badassery: with his high Improved Crit, high STR, and powerful unarmed attacks, he really should be able to fight superhuman opponents at a much higher PL than he is and holds his own. He's put out the story that he got his powers after saving an old man from a mugging, and there's enough martial arts stuff floating around the PRC that his superiors and the general public believes him. The truth, though, is somewhat darker: Seven Deadly Brothers is actually several hundred years old, a former soldier in the Imperial army who took part in the purge of Shaolin monks hundreds of years ago. Impressed by what he saw, he tried to present himself to another group of kung fu masters as an innocent potential pupil. They saw through his deception, though, and cursed him with a terrible gift: he knows all seven styles of kung fu as a master, but each style has its own mind and own voice inside his head, and his soul is forever at war with seven voices shouting in his mind at all times. He only knows peace when he's fighting, and so has become one of the world's greatest fighters. (His 'teachers' used him as a weapon at first to eliminate those kung fu masters who had sided with the Imperial purge, but even they aren't around for him to talk to anymore.) Seven Deadly Brothers has joined the Great Ten because fighting is the only thing that brings him even a momentary peace, and because he hopes deep down in his soul that one day he will fight an enemy that will finally end his life. As written, Seven Deadly Brothers makes an excellent tragic villain, especially for martial artist characters or those otherwise influenced by Chinese culture. He's a good Arrogant Kung Fu Guy to fight as a one-off, perhaps satisfying his never-ending lust for fighting by going around to cripple the masters and students of somebody's local dojo, but he's even more dangerous as a recurring antagonist for a given hero that he happens to latch onto, constantly ramping up the violence and threat level against that given hero in the hope that one day his antagonist will snap and finally put an end to his centuries-long life. If you like the concept, though, the math works for a PC, and you could easily make this an eternal kung fu champion, forever battling against the wicked with the power of all seven kung fu styles behind him!

Celestial Archer PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 22 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 24 [14] (+7/+2) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 34 pp ATK: +9 (+15 Ranged) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +11 Saves: 10 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Acrobatics 12 (+14) Bluff 8 (+10) Disable Device 9 (+10) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 9 (+10) Languages 2 (Cantonese, English) (Base: Mandarin) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 20 pp Acrobatic Bluff Accurate Attack All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 6 Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Improved Initiative Power Attack Precise Shot 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 52 pp Disintegrate 5 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Improved Range 3 (1 5000 ft range increment), Variable Descriptor 2 [any magic]) [32 pp] 'celestial bow' Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Extended Vision 3 [x1000]) [3 pp] Super-Movement 2 (Dimensional; any Chinese mystic) [4 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 34 + saves 5 + skills 14/56 + feats 20 + powers 52 = 150 pts --------------- Design Notes: Here's the Celestial Archer, another Great Ten character, as a PL 10 starting character. He's an interesting concept, essentially an archery-themed Thor, in that he's a normal man empowered with the celestial bow of Yi, the divine archer, of Chinese mythology and legend. He has an explicit mythological connection to the divine, the sort of character who travels to the Moon to talk to the gods there by means of shooting an arrow and riding its trail up into the Moon. (When explaining this story to his atheist superiors and colleagues, he adds "I know how this sounds...") I've gone with the theory that his bow is a powerful Disintegrate effect, packing enough of a punch to seriously injure any opponent. With his Improved Range feats and Extended Vision, he's an incredibly powerful sniper, easily able to both see and hit anything within his range of 5000 ft. With his range, he can catch the bad guys flat-footed even when they can't see him: when they can, he's fast and deadly enough that he can usually feint them up close too. And when he Power Attacks with that bow, what he hits is going to suffer for it. With his Variable Descriptor, he can pull out any arrow he needs to hurt whatever opponent it is he's firing on. I don't recall any mention in the book of him being immortal, but I've given him a couple of the immunities I usually give to divinely empowered PCs. Stunt anything you need off his bow to give him whatever kind of arrows he needs: he's got a tremendous number of points to spend there and can pull out almost any divine/magic effect that can plausibly be fired out of an arrow. The character winds up having some serious issues in his story: being the champion of the old gods in atheist China is a tough row to hoe, especially for a former street thief turned superhero. Maybe that's why the old gods do return, or seem to, he ultimately sides with them over his putative allies...at least at first. Being the champion of a divine pantheon can have its downsides when said pantheon is still taking an issue with the world around it. His empowerment story would work just fine in any normal superhero story, and indeed would give him fine claim to be one of China's superheroes in a more Neo-Silver Age setting (i.e., like ours). He makes a good antidote to the Indo-European idea that divine characters all have to be blustering braggarts with gigantic hammers. Honestly, he seems like he'd be fun to play. He'd make a fine companion to my Asgardian Archer build upthread, as the two of them are both unusual archers (who have a tendency to be squishy normal people most of the time). Given that he actually _is_ a very, very good archer and could easily meet his caps even with just a regular bow in hand, he also doesn't need to feel quite so unbadass if he's in an archery contest with more mundane heroes. He works just fine as a super-soldier or independent hero both. He could work as the bow-wielding champion of all kinds of gods, too, as well as a mutant with a bow theme like my earlier archer thread. Closer to home, I could see this as the sheet for a Native American champion like Dani Moonstar as well, though of course you'd have to finesse the backstory a bit to avoid being the bad kind of Magical Native American in that case...

3 If it matters, he goes on 3.

Edge shot a glance backwards as they landed, briefly paling at the sight of thousands of Omegadrones rising from all over the city and speeding towards Freedom Hall. Young Freedom had cleared the air of thousand upon thousands of Omega's monsters, but more and more were on their way. "All right, we need to get in and get at the bomb. They can't bring the building on us without damaging the bomb itself, but they can still flood the corridors or mess us up some other way. Red Falcon, can you hold them off?" The Furion nodded that he could, and he and Redbird took up a position by the front door, the cosmic motorcycle still quietly chortling in the aftermath of the spectacular destruction it and Midnight had unleashed together. Pulling a huge energy rifle out of the cycle's rear compartment, Red Falcon nodded to the others. "You have done fine work today, my friends! We shall tell stories of you around the Silver Tree forever more...after our victory!" He laughed, and squeezed off a long-distance shot that brought down a drone, leaving the heroes of Freedom to bolt inside and take in the scenery. And what scenery it was! Freedom Hall had much changed since even Wander had been here last: the decaying lobby full of the corpses of hundreds of people who'd died begging a League that was already dead to save them had been cleaned out and replaced with what looked like a high-tech scientific laboratory: indeed, the gleaming walls and readouts everywhere suggested a technology far beyond that of even super-tech back in Freedom City. There were casket-like boxes on tables all around, seven in all, each gleaming black box connected to a chuffing, humming machine whose antennae crackled with energy. On the far side of the room stood the cosmic bomb, glowing with a familiar red power, but between them was the first living being larger than a deer they'd seen on Earth-EZO1. Wander recognized the lab she was looking at; she'd seen a copy of it before in the Doom Room based on Harrier's accounts. This was Physician Friendly's laboratory. "...came out of nowhere and destroyed thousands of them! They're here and they're going to ruin the experiment! I'll do what I can, but you've got to send..." The humanoid figure was a bizarre contrast to what they might have been expecting: a short, fat man with ruddy cheeks in a stained physician's smock, complete with head reflector, he looked exactly like a pediatrician from the 1950s. He was shouting into a big wall screen at an Omegadrone's face that cut out as he whirled to greet them. "Aheheheh..." He put on a big, winning smile. "Well, hello, you've certainly come a long way! You've given me some valuable lessons about bringing my nurses with me instead of just those drones, eh? Aheheh...well. When the rest of them get here, we'll be able to get to know each other much better! But for now, you can just call me Physician Friendly!"

Accomplished Perfect Physician PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 16 (+3) DEX 18 (+4) CON 20 (+5) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +9 Saves: 10 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+4 Ref, +3) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Bluff 7 (+10) Diplomacy 7 (+10) Investigate 7 (+10) Languages 4 (English, French, Russian, Tibetan) (Base: Mandarin) Medicine 5 (+7) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 6 (+10) Feats: 17 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 4 Dodge Focus 6 Eidetic Memory Improved Initiative Jack of all Trades Move-By Action Power Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 48 pp Flight 4 (100 MPH) [8 pp] Physician Array [30+5=35 pp] Blast 10 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Improved Crit 2) AP: Create Object 10 (Extra: Moveable) (PFs: Selective, Subtle) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [Cylinder], Selective) (PFs: Progression x2 on Area) AP: Drain Toughness 10 (Extras: Affects Objects, Ranged) (PFs: Slow Fade 2 [5 minutes]) AP: Healing 10 (Extra: Ranged) (PFs: Regrowth, Stabilize) AP: Paralyze 10 (Extra: [Ranged]) (PFs: Improved Crit 2) Protection 3 [3 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 13/52 + feats 17 + powers 48 = 150 pts -------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for Accomplished Perfect Physician, the politically outspoken guy/rebel of the Great Ten, the Chinese national superteam in the DC Universe. He's something of a Neal Adams-era Green Arrow in his native setting, which means he was actually an outlaw for a while there. The defender of Tibet and its peoples from the oppression of the Chinese government, the Physician is heir to a long and noble legacy of Tibetan physician-sages, imbued with powerful sonic abilities that let him perform remarkable deeds with a touch: he can fly, make walls, heal the injured, and even blast and paralyze his enemies with a sound. He's not actually Tibetan himself: the young man he once was joined the PLA to escape poverty and found himself assigned to Tibet to break the lamas once and for all. He killed a man, fled, was actually shot by his former commander for desertion, and woke up in the hands of the last Physician: he'd killed that man's son, you see, and the price for taking the life of that man was to take his place and take up his title. For years the Physician dueled with his archrival, the August Soldier (of various ranks) in Iron before finally that worthy persuaded him to join him in the Great Ten: he could do more good for China inside it it than out. But it's not working. They're already deploying him to break riots in Lhasa despite his vigorous protests, and he's more and more being identified as a creature of the government rather than the independent actor he used to be. Tibet's only superhero may be about to face a very serious crisis. OK, so despite his hotheaded politics and frequent clashes with his superiors, the Accomplished Perfect Physician actually has a pretty bland and uninteresting array: he's a sonic controller with a healing theme, able to patch up injuries with a word or rip them apart with a shout. I've tried to rep "all the experiences of the past Physicians" via Eidetic Memory and Jack of all Trades, giving him quite a bit of access to past life memories. He can fly under his own power, and flies just a little bit faster than the August General in Iron will when I get him up. Doc has an upcoming post about some of the scientific basis of sonics, check that out for ideas for powerstunts for him. He's in decent shape and a competent sneak to reflect his years on the run as well as his military service: he's an OK doctor, but he's got his powers handy to solve any serious medical crises that come up. You could change the name and the backstory some and drop him just fine into our game, particularly if you go with him as a Tibetan hero escaped to the West, or perhaps more trickily a rebellious Chinese super who has left his government backers behind and gone his own way. Being an ex-supersoldier and/or fugitive is a great source for complications! He doesn't have to have a Chinese background at all with these descriptors, of course. Another fine way to do it would be to make him an American (but not necessarily white!) hero empowered with Tibetan mysticism as a way of playing up the cultural divergences he really should have: noble intentions or not, he's still a guy fighting for a culture that isn't his own. Of course, if you think about the circumstances of the guy's empowering a bit, perhaps that makes sense and the Physicians were tired of their number constantly getting killed off by Han Chinese.

DC 32: 18 OK, you've indicated that you're adding Selective and Distracting, so Sage is fine. Both groups of Omegadrones are gone. 4000 Omegadrones have died at Young Freedom's hands. And this is round 1!

"Yes," said Harrier without hesitation, speaking before the young dronelings could process them further. "Dispatch them to the League holding center at McMurdo Station used for processing Omegadrones in 1993," he said sharply, remembering his own confinement there so many months ago. "The Antarctic brigade there will be able to hold them in place." He wasn't entirely sure what you had to do to be assigned to Freedom League Antarctica, but the heroes there had seemed professional enough despite their many personal problems. They were his priority, they'd have to be, but he could hardly ignore what was happening with Entity 31966. "And send me with them," he said, grabbing the lead drone by the collar. "Reach me by radio there if you must!"

That will work, KD: You'll need to spend the HP pretty fast, though, and you'll need a mentalist up front to help you steer the things you can't see.

Scientist though she was, the first thing Dragonfly found was the body. What had once been an Omegadrone sat shoved into a corner of the small cockpit, having been placed there without sentimentality by the things that had once been its charges. She could make no features of the drone out: the damage to its head had been incredibly savage: it looked for all the world like something had gone in its face and erupted out the top of its head with spectacularly unpleasant results. Luckily, the vacuum meant no smell, and of course the drones themselves had efficiently cleaned up the stray organics. From the half-open pike across the drone's midsection, she could take a guess about its fate. Inside the cockpit, she found a dizzying array of equipment only somewhat marred by organic mess: the crash damage was largely confined the body of the spacecraft, rendering it almost certainly unflyable but having preserved the stuff within: here were datachips and control surfaces, the control hardware for what was (by earth standards, anyway) an incredibly advanced spacecraft, the data for a small, powerful entropy core that was still in operation and whose running data helped give her insight into how to build them. Actually reading the readouts, while she gathered up their spare parts, wasn't particularly reassuring, however: though the entropy leak she was reading wouldn't hazard people in vacuum, it meant the ship itself would need a serious degaussing if she ever took it back to Earth. Inside the rear, things were getting tense. "What do you mean you need to look over there?" said the leader drone, sounding more and more like a teenage boy filtered through a mechanical voicebox as he spoke. "All who hear the voice were recalled from that dimension! You have no business leaving your place!" For his part, Harrier ignored him, his armored head turning towards Dark Star. "Entity 31966," said the former drone, sounding appalled through his persona. "I don't know what you call it," he added, "but the forces of the Terminus have encountered _her_ before. A being of power without end, driven by a desire to transform all organic life into her image...They must have encountered their dimension's version of 31966 when she came to their strand's Earth-variant. Fires of the Coil, if she came _there_, that means odds are good Prime's version might be coming _here_."

Rogue hissed and cursed as Sage's blade cut along her midsection, the electronic matrix beneath opening up to reveal nothing but a blank electric void within. She pulled her hand out of the plane's electronics, but the damage was done: the plane was dark and the people aboard screaming, with not even the emergency systems or oxygen masks deploying. "Stupid," she spat Sage's way, blood visible on her lips as she pressed her hand against the slash. "You're in a room of gasoline and you're throwing matches at me!" As the plane hit a pocket of turbulence in the air in the air, it began to shake, and suddenly it began tilting forward in a dead spiral! Everyone had had time to fasten themselves in, but that didn't do anything to stop their terror. "I'll survive a crash, but I don't think you will!" Inside the cockpit, Corbin found a terrifying scene: every control surface was dead, some still smoking as the co-pilot put out the flames with a fire extinguisher: his boss the pilot was trying to do something, anything, with burned hands and dead controls. At Cobalt Templar's arrival, the steely-eyed man at the controls said without preamble, "Son, if you have the power to fly a plane, now's the time to do it!" Looking through the front windows, Corbin could see the ocean beneath beginning to fill their view as the plane tilted toward. "Stop it!" yelled Citizen as he landed a solid punch on his rival's face,one that snapped her head back but didn't seem to do any real damage. "You're willing to let all these people die, just, what, to prove some sick point to me about how the world works? You're insane!" Neither of the two programs seemed affected by the suddenly weaving plane, the thin, almost invisible glow from the TV screen and Sharl's projector not buffeted by the plane's jostling. "If you think any of them would lift a finger to help us, you're the crazy one," said Rogue defiantly, her eyes twitching again, Donning her sunglasses, she extended her hand and said, "It's still not too late. We can _have_ this place, all the people like us, if you'll just take my hand and-" Citizen slugged her in the jaw again, and this time he did rock her back, leaving a solid bruise on her face. "I'm not going anywhere with you. Now stand down, so we can put you where you belong!" he said, pointing his finger at his antagonist. For her part, Rogue studied him for a long moment, and her situation on the screaming plane as the ocean outside seemed to rise closer and closer. "Sorry, Citizen," she sneered, "but I think you have a plane to catch." And then she turned and grabbed the seat phone behind her, and before the heroes could stop her she'd vanished in a blur of green, leaving them to deal with the chaotic collapse she'd created as the plane banked into a dive so steep that everyone in their seats was thrown around like on a rollercoaster! But this would have no such happy ending...

Fff, these guys are rolling well And Mark really needs to save his HP. OK, so the Omegadrones are disrupted x3 and staggered still. Midnight is up.

Ouch, they nat-20ed and passed the first time! 28 Ow. OK, they're staggered and disrupted x2. Normally Group A would attack Wander, but they're so beaten up they can't fly down there this round. They'll attack Sage, since she's the one who attacked them the most recently. And they miss! Okay, CT is up.

As Wander tore her way through whole armies of Omegadrones beneath, the others were confronting with a rising group of Omegadrones from elsewhere: the center of Freedom City had been reinforced with a great black mass of Omega's terrible sentinels of death, and while Wander was dispatching the force on the ground, another was rising to meet them amidst the sky! Clutching the bag Erin had given him, Mark concentrated and closed his eyes. Freedomfreedomfreedomfreedomfreedom... It wasn't fair, none of it was: Freedom City shouldn't be besieged by these monsters! "Even a dead city deserves better than these cockroaches!" Edge shouted to the air. "I am Freedom City!" And with that, he spread his hands and lightning seemed to strike from the sky itself, electrical crackling energy that chained its way from drone to drone, sparking along the tips of their pikes and detonating in eruptions of black, crackling omega lightning. He smelled blood, and dust, and fire, and so many were falling, but more were still coming.

Group B: DESTROYED! Edge drops an Area Attack vs Group A. Blast 15 Which they pass! He spends an HP to force the group to reroll. 20 Better. Disrupted and staggered Though they're disabled, I'll handwave that for our purposes: Omegadrones don't run. So Mark gets that HP back thanks to my fiat...

You rolled a 27, which exceeds their flat-footed defense by 25. Your full Autofire bonus applies. They fail by 21

Wander: 31 (5 HP/+1 Trevor, +1 Terminus, +1 Earth EZO1) Edge: 20 (8 HP, +1 Rick, +1 Terminus) Sage: 18 (1 HP) Group B (in City Center): 18 Cobalt Templar: 11 (2 HP, +1 Quo-Dis) Midnight: 8 (4 HP/+1 Erin, +1 Travis) Group A (in Freedom Hall): 7

injured and stunned I'll say she shakes the stun as a reaction. Have an HP, Sorus

Continued from >The Earth Died Screaming Earth-EZO1 was a stark world of grim horror and sere beauty. Redbird's fast flight over the western United States showed them a world of dead cities and empty ruins beneath. Most cities had burned by now in their long untended period; Boise, Denver, St. Louis, and the rest were shells of what they'd once been. Streets were clogged with the rusting shells of cars and debris, and even unburnt buildings had begun to sway and fall. They were, at least, too high up for any lingering smells from beneath, though most of those had faded with the years of quietude. On another day, they might have appreciated the natural beauty beneath: the Misssissippi free of man's pollution, trees growing where cities had once been, a herd of bison stampeding beneath them in Missouri, what distinctly looked like a lion watching them as they skipped through Appalachian peaks in the Carolinas. But there was no time for that now, not with where they were going. Undersea was all quiet darkness as Redbird, with Midnight's skilled hands on her handlebards, took them beneath the waves. The ocean was dead of people; the Atlantean genocide having been one of the first outbreaks of the hero flu, but here too there were fish at play and the sunlight passing through the waves. There was life here, if no human life, and a vast universe beyond them. This world was more than just a tool for saving all reality; Earth-EZO1, for all its horror, was a world worth saving too. As they passed under the water, lit only dimly by the glow of Redbird's lights and the shimmering blue of Corbin's cold fire, Mark looked around at all the faces of his friends, thinking about the people underneath the masks. Erin, Trevor, Corbin, Eve, and their new friend Red Falcon, who with his plasma rifle would be defending Redbird even if they all had to leave it behind. They'd all come so far, over so many years and so much time, and now they were about to face their greatest challenge yet. They were approaching the river now, Edge riding behind Sage in one compartment, Cobalt Templar and Red Falcon on another side, and Midnight grim and determined behind the wheel with Wander behind him. For just a second, Mark closed his eyes and saw his mother's face, then his father's. Goodbye, Mom. Goodbye, Dad. And then they were erupting out of the water and Freedom City was given over to the forces of Hell: grim Terminus towers rising where once the Pyramid Plaza had stood and on the site of where City Hall had been, the downtown of Freedom City transformed into a Terminus hellscape of firepits and belching machinery: and as Redbird roared towards the battered bulk of Freedom Hall, he saw the Omegadrones beneath look up. "Let's do this! For Freedom!"

Mark goes on 20 Group A [in Freedom Hall] goes on 7; Group B goes on 18

10,000 Omegadrones to fight I'll break them up into 5 groups of 2000 each. Omegadrones have +5 Attack and do +7 Damage; they have +4 Defense and have +8 Tou. Force Modifier of +10 So each group will have: ATK: +15 DMG: +17 DEF: +4 TOU: +18 Init: +4 I'll say they have a Morale modifier of +5 given their nature I'll say there are two groups of 2000 in City Center.

Sage: 25 (+1 HP from Responsibility complication) Cobalt Templar: 25 (+1 from Responsibility, +1 from Secret ID [assuming you use it...]) Citizen: 16 (+1 from Enemy Complication) Rogue: 9 Sage is up

EMP 8 (PFs: Extended Reach 2, Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Precise) [18 pp] The plane loses the maximum TOU from the Drain, which is 8, dropping it to +5 Tou vs 28: 10 Okay, so everything electronic is technically fried. IC post ahoy. Citizen goes on 16; Rogue goes on 9

Emergency sirens aboard the plane were sounding, and the heroes could hear the sounds of panic and fear from second class and coach: after all, where could they run on an airplane out over the Atlantic? Most of the first-class section was already on their feet, making a hasty but discreet break for the rear. This was a flight out of Freedom City, after all, and they all knew what to do about supervillain fights: get the hell out of the way! The stewardess was at the tail end of the group, not one to leave her charges, but she seemed to assume the burly young Corbin was some kind of soldier or policeman. Rogue peered down her nose at Sage and made a dismissive noise, and proceeded to literally walk right through her, giving Eve the disconcerting sensation of clipping right through the other woman's body and standing there as she continued to confront Sharl. "For pity's sake, Citizen," she snapped, "you could _be_ there, now! Instead you're flying across the ocean in some primitive metal cave that doesn't even have antigravs! These people are one electrical overload from plunging right into that ugly ocean of theirs!" "I'm here because it's how people here act," said Sharl fiercely, stepping through Sage too and actually shoving Rogue backwards into the corridor. "Why are you here? Last I saw, you were sneaking your way out of Miss A's hard drive and going to hide on the 'Net. What, did you think showing up when there were _more_ heroes around was a good idea? C'mon, you don't...you don't have to do this," he almost pled. "You don't have to be part of any of this. You can go back." "Home doesn't matter," she spat. "It's _fake_. It's _dead_. Or did you forget about that part? Like it or not, Citizen, _this_ is the real world." She clenched her hands into fists, her eyes twitching visibly. "And these people don't _deserve_ to have it for their own." Suddenly, she turned and put her fist through the side of the plane's bulkhead before Sharl could stop her, and the lights began to pop. Her leather-clad arm was glowing green where it protruded eerily from the wall. "One punch! One punch, and I can do all this!" she yelled. Sparks flew and lights exploded all over the plane as even the emergency lights faded into blackness. In the second before the screaming started aboard, the black-clad program spat, "You see? One touch from one of us is all it takes to bring their primitive little world crashing down around their heads!" As far as the heroes could see, everything electronic attached to the plane had just gone dead: the engines were still roaring, but that was no comfort as they were currently in a flying brick!