Avenger Assembled

Redbird was well-equipped even by Midnight's standards, carrying with it a heavy armament load of high-energy cosmic weapons designed for sweeping large crowds of powerful opponents: i.e., heavy-combat Omegadrones specifically sent after superhumans. With a small fabricator abroad, Redbird could produce any item smaller than Midnight's own torso for his needs as well, and had plenty of spares to repair both its jets and its interstellar drive. Redbird had worked with psychic sneaks back in the Terminus, and had specific advice for Eve about how to integrate her powers into masking its energy signature from the ground. "Yeah," said Edge with a serious look on his face, "I can take out a city. I've been talking to scientists," he said, making an admission he hadn't to his friends before, "Dr. Supercape and some of the other people at the new science Lab, and they don't really think there's an upper limit on what I can do right now. So I'm gonna put that to the test. I'm going to blow that city to Hell," he added with an unaccustomed oath, "and make sure Omega can never use it again. Maybe we're too late to save this Freedom City, but we can at least give it an honorable burial. And when we're done, we'll have a home to go back to. And so will everyone else. Everywhere." He put his hand over the fire. "I don't know if we'll have a chance to talk again, with as fast as I hear Redbird is. So...today we're going to save the world. All the worlds, everywhere, and all the people in it. There's a good chance we won't survive." The ever-cheerful Mark didn't look so cheerful now. "But it doesn't matter if we die. What matters is that we live, so that everyone else can. Let's do this." END OF PART SIX Continued in >There Won't Be A Next Time

"I'm rearranging my room," Sharl explained to Eve with no little pride, pointing to what did indeed look like the room of a typical (if fastidious) teenage boy. "See, when I upload into this system," he tapped the side of his laptop for emphasis, "I can interact with everything you see like it's really there. It's part of my emulator package. I'm not real, uh, into fashion or anything," he added with a teenage boy's hasty pride, "but when you can just point and click and move things around, it's a lot easier than doing it in the real world." He hmmed, then typed in a few commands and pulled up a stored Young Freedom gif to put on the 'wall'. "There, and now if I go into that system, I'll have a Young Freedom poster in my room." Sharl was no dumb cookie, he knew what team Eve was on, and he wanted to get in good with his Claremont buddies sooner rather than later. "It's the best team, ri-" "What the hell!?!" The exclamation from the startled businessman sitting across the way made Sharl jump and give a guilty little start, but the man didn't seem at all interested in Sharl's computer talk. "Stewardess, what kind of joke is this?" The man was pointing at the screen playing the in-flight movie, which in this case (though Sharl had no way of recognizing it) was an old episode of Friends playing before the big-budget thriller supposed to start later in the flight. Of course, there had been no episode of Friends like this! Right in the middle of the wacky action, a humanoid shape was developing, one that rapidly resolved itself into a human being who simply stepped out of the screen and out onto the deck: right from the television into the real world. With her short, spiky black hair, leather outfit and sunglasses, she looked...well, a little bit like Sharl. She focused right on him with a smile and headed for his seat, and for his part Sharl bolted up so fast he didn't bother to undo his seat belt. "Rogue! What are you doing here?" he asked, his fists raised automatically at the sight of his nemesis. "You back for another round?" "Oh, I'm just here to look out for old friends," said the woman, who looked about five years Sharl's senior. "And to talk to you away from that witch who-" "Who kicked your ass last time we met?" spat the Tronik titan defiantly. His outfit was shifting, his glowing blue crest appearing on his chest in the universal symbol of wi-fi. "Quite." She took off her sunglasses, gave a contemptous look to Corbin and Eve, and focused on Sharl. "Are they in on it too? Or am I going to ruin your little IRL secret identity if I ask: is this really what you're going to be doing with your life?"

Rubbing the back of his head, Dark Star moved with uncommon thoughtfulness to the interior of the cell where the Farsiders waited. Without a word, perhaps because he might have betrayed them all again if he spoke, the sentient star opened a portal in the universe and gently sent the prisoners through into the darkling void. Focused as they were on the confrontation between Harrier and their leader, the little drones didn't notice (as Dragonfly did) the distinct outlines of Freedom Hall through the portal before Dark Star mercifully closed it.

Gina delved deeper into the system, uncovering earlier records of the transport's history. The story seemed to play backwards for her, as if she was watching a tape in reverse. She saw its flight as it careened into the lunar surface before the crash; the screams and curses of the pilot not withstanding all that. Before that came a great flash, and a start of all the screaming, as the the ship came careening through a dimensional vortex and headed for the far of the Moon. Beyond that: This ship had left a dying world behind it. Gina could see only glimpses through what was left of the exterior cameras, but she could see crowds of Omegadrones and a few pitiful, weeping humans: a black sky with all blotted out by rising Terminus towers. But something was strange, very strange: the ground was shaking and the Omegadrones moving with an uncommon urgency, the weeping humans in the crowd singing triumphantly amid their tears. She saw the faces of children, no more, a half-dozen small bodies between perhaps 10 and 15, loaded aboard the craft with pale, silent faces by the big drone she recognized from the older tapes. And then the transport was taking off, fast, so fast that the people around it were casually incinerated by plasma fire. She could see other ships around it, rising higher and higher into space, all of them desperately avoiding something...something big, something impossibly big that dwarfed the ship, dwarfed the dying city it had left behind, loomed larger than New Jersey, large as a continent: the Terminus vessel paused for a moment and Gina distinctly saw the face of what looked for all the world like a Terran serpent cast large as the East Coast of the United States...before suddenly it struck the planet beneath, fast, hard as an asteroid strike that kicked up layer upon layer of debris. There were more, much more, a whole forest of continent-sized snakes tearing the planet beneath to shreds. And then transport staggered as it fled the world being torn to pieces behind it. And then, something peculiar happened: a single flash of light came from the central mass of the snake forest, blasting through the ship and making circuits explode everywhere. And just then, just as the ship went into dimensional warp, she heard the first screaming from the cockpit...

Commander USA PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 56 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 24 (+7) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +20 Saves: 3 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+7 Dex) WILL +8 (+5 Wis, +3) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Craft: Chemical 10 (+10) Drive 3 (+10) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 10 (+10) Language 1 (German) (Base: English) Notice 5 (+10) Pilot 3 (+10) Sense Motive 5 (+10) Stealth 3 (+10) Feats: 18 pp Attack Focus: Melee (7) Dodge Focus (7) Leadership Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 39 pp Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] USA Array [37+1 pp] Transform 7 (inanimate to inanimate; 100 lbs) (Extra: Duration [Continous]) (PFs: Innate, Precise) AP: Create Object 10 (Extras: Duration [Continuous], Impervious 5) (PFs: Innate, Selective) costs abilities 56 + combat 24 + saves 3 + skills 10/40 + feats 18 + powers 39 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here’s a build for Commander USA, the leader of the Freedom Brigade. (They’re basically the Freedom Fighters expies of the Freedom City universe, being a Golden Age team of B-list heroes who relocated to Erde to fight the Nazis in the future there). He’s an interesting character; one of the first black superheroes in the Freedom City universe, he’s also a merger of the super-soldier and transformer archetype, able to rearrange the molecular bonds of anything inorganic he touches while also running around with a peak human physiology. He can also ‘transform’ air into things via Create Object, something which probably gets used mostly for making cover for himself and his allies. (Air has a pretty low weight, so I figure he can get a lot of mass by transforming a large amount of it) Selective Create Object can get broken very very quickly, so I’ve gone with limiting its Impervious: making a brick wall for his allies to shoot through is very helpful, but it’s not going to win the fight for him without getting out there and landing some good old-fashioned Golden Age style punching. His low Transform rank may not seem that helpful, but remember he’s got the accuracy to do things like target guns, and with his goon-sweeping abilities he can give a whole roomful of thugs nothing but flowers for guns before he lays them out with a good right cross. The Commander’s story is as follows: a patriot, he volunteered for Army service even before Pearl Harbor. Though he was a trained chemist, his race and the segregation of the contemporary Army meant he was assigned menial guard duty in the Army. Instead of working at Army labs as a researcher, he found himself standing guard outside with a rifle on long, lonely dog shifts. One day, though, his world turned upside down when fifth columnists attacked his base! Heroically fending them off as long as he could, he realized he couldn’t stop them forever. There was only one way to keep the Ratzis from getting their hands on the secret Allied formula: drink it! He passed out and the Nazis left, thinking him dead, but he rose to find himself alive, well, and bursting with strength, vitality, and power: the miracle formula had transformed his body, making him the perfect soldier, but they’d also given him the power to transform whatever he touched! Given a patriotic costume and name by the Army, the new Commander USA [which, hey, as it wasn’t an Army rank, didn’t give anyone funny ideas about black officers...] became a heroic costumed defender of the American legacy, though tragically he and his team disappeared (and were thought KIA) when they launched a retaliatory raid on Japan just after Pearl Harbor. What had really happened, though, was that the Freedom Brigade had traveled to Erde in the future to fight the Nazis there: a visit by Dr. Tomorrow had shown them that their mission was doomed to failure, but that they could redeem their legacy by traveling to another world that desperately needed superheroes. Now he fights the Nazis there as one of the big guns of the Resistance, determined to free that world even as his contemporaries freed his own. Where he failed in one world, he can succeed in another, and freedom for all men and women can triumph once again! This works just fine as an NPC build for the Commander if you want to take a trip to Erde and fight alongside one of America’s favorite patriotic heroes: it also works just fine as a legacy of one of America’s very first patriotic heroes. Perhaps he’s the grandson of the original Commander, the family’s mutation passed down through a child the original never knew he had, or maybe you’re going to say there was a Silver Age Commander USA after all and this guy is carrying on his ancestor’s legacy. He’ll still have lots of Complications to deal with. There’s still prejudice aplenty in America, but a patriotic hero determined to redeem his family legacy in _this_ world has a lot of ground to cover. And hey, maybe the Commander’s war against fascism failed, but at least _he_ never sold the Liberty League out like his rival (and much more family-friendly [i.e., white guy]) the Patriot.

Shapeshifter With A Power Ring 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: +7 Grapple: +20 Saves: 7 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Bluff 9 (+10) Diplomacy 4 (+5) Disguise 0 (+1/+21/+96) Knowledge (Pop Culture) 5 (+5) Language 1 (English) (Base: Grue) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 5 (+10) Feats: 17 pp Attack Focus: Melee 5 Dodge Focus 5 Move-By Action Power Attack Second Chance (Disguise checks) Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 40 pp Device 6 (Cosmic Ring) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [26 pp] Variable Power 3 (any cosmic) (Extras: Action [Free], Duration [Continuous]) [30] Grue Array [12+2=14 pp] Morph 4 (Extra: Continuous) (any humanoid) AP: Drain Wis 7 (PFs: Improved Crit, Reversible, Slow Fade 2 [5 minutes], Subtle) AP: Mind Reading 10 (PFs: Rapid, Subtle) costs abilities 44 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 10/40 + feats 17 + powers 40 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: Here’s a build for a Grue with a power ring, based on Marvel Comic’ Crusader, one of my favorite recent character introductions in the Marvel Universe. The idea here is that this character used to be just another Grue drone until she got her hands on an artifact of great cosmic power, one that awakened her individuality and gave her tremendous power. Neither of those things are welcome among drones of the Unity, and so she fled as soon as she could with a Grue battlefleet behind her! She knew there was only one place she _could_ go to avoid the Unity’s wrath and get a handle on her powers, for all that it was a place of legends and terror for the others of her species. What better place _to_ hide? Now she’s on Earth, blending in among other superheroes and hiding from the Meta-Mind, while also letting everyone else believe she’s just another bystander who found a power ring and got power! Which is certainly true in its own way, but leaving out some pertinent details... She meets her caps in hand-to-hand combat, being a trained Grue warrior, and she’s a talented shapeshifter and infiltrator in her own right. The Drain WIS is a standard Grue tactic, a way they suck the mind out of their targets before they replace them: similarly the Mind Reading is a common strategy of theirs. You could actually reshuffle the points from the ring and make this just a very good Grue super-agent, or just buy her Flight and Blast to be a Lyja knockoff: I think she’s much more interesting with the ring, though! Normally I prefer to build power rings with blasts and force fields: your Green Lantern and Doctor Spectrum types tend to have a half-dozen or so big tricks they use and power-stunt everything else (i.e., they have an array), and it also makes book-keeping easier. But here, to emphasize the protean nature of the character’s outlook, I went with a variable power: with a free action, she can have 15 pp in any cosmic power, and that power sticks around until she rearranges it. This is a very powerful ability, but the fact that she’s paying through the nose for very limited ranks and thus limiting her talents in other areas should make your life easier: the last thing you want to do is have no one want to thread with your character because she’s too broken and TOO versatile. As it is she’s a Swiss Army Knife without being a Mary Sue: while she can do almost anything thanks to her Variable Power and broad descriptors, she can’t do it well enough to overshadow actual specialists in those areas. I've made this a cosmic artifact, but you could make it a magic one easily enough: perhaps this is that ultra-rarity, a heroic Grue Arcane? As PP accumulate, you should buy some things outside the ring for her: low ranks of Impervious, low ranks of Flight, and other things that will let her concentrate on putting big points into big powers and abilities in the ring: as it is she’s got to buy utility powers to go with whatever her current big trick is. This hero makes a fine character to play, given her merger of the “shapeshifter” and “ring-bearer” archetypes. Her origin gives her all sorts of complications in the Freedom City setting, where almost everyone is a survivor of one Grue invasion or another and everyone has reason to mistrust the shapeshifting psychic vampire hive mind from space. (You know, when you put it that way, they do seem pretty bad!) Free Grue have to deal with prejudice from those who’d find them out, but they also have to deal with enemies as their former masters seek them out on Earth by means of disguised agents. So many complications, and so many delicious HP to hang onto in the crisis. And for this character, one way or another, there’ll be a lot of those!

As requested. For this thread, the part of Duncan Summers will be played by Electra.

It was some days after the new kids at Claremont ventured out to Avalon that they all got a message via email, telephone, or whatever means were best suitable for reaching them. "Meet me in my office on Wednesday at 11. Summers." It was a clear early summer day when they got the message, the grass green and lush on the well-tended lawn, the trees bursting with leaves and looking ripe for climbing. It was a great day to be a kid...of course, in the wake of their journey to rescue Wisp, how many of them could call themselves kids now? Except for the adults they still had to listen to, anyway, and theirs were the opinions that actually mattered. When they arrived at the Summers Administration Building, they found that the door was open and all was quiet. The outer office was for the moment empty, with the door to Summer's private office standing ajar.

Sounding a little offended, Redbird piped up. "Redbird capable of protecting all passengers while traveling through water ocean. No new life support systems needed." Red Falcon quickly explained to the bike that they were talking about combat cover, not cover for the oceanic trip, and the bike agreed with Cobalt Templar's suggestion. "Fire protection is good idea. Redbird prefer not to see more passengers be hurt." The bike seemed to give an apologetic look to Red Falcon, but that was probably just an illusion from the cool yellow sunlight of Seattle reflecting off its atomic headlights. "How are we going to get there in the meantime?" asked Edge. "Are we going to have to cut all the way down the Pacific underwater?" That, at least, Red Falcon could confirm wasn't a problem: while he'd been followed out to Seattle by pursuing drones, that was simply a sign of their determination. "Okay, so if we stay in the air till we hit the Mississippi, then cut down beneath radar level...we can maybe swing out maybe in Virginia? And then up under the Atlantic and out into Freedom." He looked around at the others for ideas.

Patriotic Robot PL 10 (150 pp) Abilities: 22 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON n/a (-) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +21 Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+10 Protection) FORT +n/a REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Diplomacy 4 (+6) Craft: Mechanical 5 (+5) Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Knowledge: Tactics 5 (+5) Knowledge: Technology 5 (+5) Languages 4 (French, German, Russian, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 17 pp Attack Focus: Melee 6 Dodge Focus 4 Fearless Master Plan 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 77 pp Device 1 (Shield) (Hard to Lose) [4 pp] -Enhanced Feats 3 (Improved Defense, Interpose, Ultimate Save [Toughness]) [3] -Shield 2 [2] Immunity 40 (Fortitude saves, Mental effects) [40 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 10 (Extra: Impervious) [20 pp] Regeneration 5 (+0 Recovery Bonus) (PF: Regrowth) [6 pp] ‘smart metal body’ Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Darkvision, Radio) [3 pp] Super-Strength 1 (Heavy Load: 1.5 tons) [2 pp] Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (magnetic effects) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 16 + saves 8 + skills 13/52 + feats 17 + powers 77 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts ---------------- Design Notes: He was a hero, and champion of the people: a soldier for his nation who fought for his country as long as there was breath in him. With only his tremendous physical abilities, granted to him by a super-soldier serum, and his mighty shield, he stood alongside superpowered gods and monsters. But he was just a man, a man who grew old and ill, until finally one day he lay in a hospital dying. His old friends came to him, though, and offered him a chance to have his life back...as long as he was willing to spend it fighting for his country again. And now he's back, fighting for the homeland and freedom, but he's not a man anymore. Here's a build for a robotic supersoldier like Freedom City's Patriot or Image Comics' Diehard, a once-mortal man who has become an all-American machine! Combining a robot's powers and a super-soldier's isn't an easy blend, but I think I've captured a pretty good blend of the two archetypes: he's a powerful machine with just a few machine-related problems, and also a pretty good fighter and skilled tactical planner: he's not much for the inspiring speeches these days, but he's still definitely someone you want on your team in a fight. I had to scrimp here and there, but he's still reasonably effective. He's got +4 to Ranged Attack, which is at least comparable to soldiers and police officers: even super-soldiers shouldn't be using many guns! (Much less robots: I figure they keep the guns in the hands of people who need them). He could use Security Clearance or Connected if you want to play up his agency ties, right now I figure he's just starting out so his former allies aren't inclined to trust him quite as much as they used to. Even those who know the secret of his resurrection may have those thoughts: after all, who's to say just how trustworthy a robot is? The conflict between having once been an all-American man and now a machine, if one with a human face, is going to be one good for many internal as well as external complications. He's got a lot of mental readjustment to do, as do the people who knew him while he was alive! Comparisons to the Patriot are likely an issue in the FC Universe: perhaps this guy was a beneficiary of an identical procedure, or perhaps he's from another nation or group that opted to copy what happened to Jack Simmons. Or you could make things more complex: perhaps he's a robotic double of the Patriot gone rogue, a man determined to find an identity for himself and get away from the legacy of the man whose face he wears and whose memories he still has (if in a very fragmented form). Note that he doesn't actually throw the shield: it's a defensive weapon, though it's a fine idea to flavor his melee strikes as hitting someone with the ridge of the shield. Look at my Cold War Relic build upthread for an idea how to build a decent throwing shield. If you don't like the idea of playing a man who is now a machine, a robot built for patriotic purposes makes sense in a cheerfully Golden Age way: a steel soldier fighting for the values of an America he was programmed to believe in!

"They were expecting an attack from above," agreed the Furion, "but they will have had no reason to scan underground or in the seas: the former inhabitants of both are no longer a threat to the machinations of the dark lord. Their only threat, or rather, the only threat they imagine they have, are intruders through the weak point or attacks from space." He hmmed, sketching out on a map. "Redbird is faster in the air than with close-in maneuvering. I recommend the nautical approach. Swinging out over the seas like so, and then swooping in through the river." He nodded at that, still ginger with himself thanks to his serious injuries. "If we work quickly, and do not hesitate..." He looked around at the others for thoughts.

The question seemed to take the drones aback. Before the leader could speak, another in the back said, "I was thirteen...," something which brought nods of acknowledgement from the others before the leader snapped, "All questions will be answered by the glories of Omega. Take her to the assimilation chamber and-" Harrier snapped his hand out and and lifted the young drone off his feet like a puppy, grabbing onto the spikes at the front of his armor like they'd been put there for just that purpose. "You will listen to me," he growled in a voice like iron burning in a fire. "And you will give NO orders about my servants. Dark Star," he said suddenly, thinking quickly about the other man and his place there, hoping he hadn't just alienated him. "The lunar prisoners are of no value to this expedition and are consuming valuable resources. Send them where you need to send them. And no foolish talk! Dragonfly!" he barked, "Take those two," he said, pointing to the two smaller drones who had not spoken, "and take them to the front. See if you can salvage anything from the pilot or the navigation system."

It was a long, difficult night for everyone. The next morning, Edge joined a sharpened-looking Wander around the fire, where breakfast was waiting for him if not much conversation. Red Falcon came with him, and as the rest of the kids got up, ate, and used the facilities behind a nearby clump of trees that had pushed right through the concrete, the Furion showed them some of what had happened to Freedom City via holographic display over the fire. The grim depiction of a dead city, with smaller buildings intact but the larger skyscrapers all replaced with massive black Terminus towers reaching up to the brown sky in a mockery of what the city had once been, was certainly hard to look at, but for all that the scan itself was tactically enormously helpful. "I estimate ten thousand Omegadrones," said the Furion simply, "posted at various points through the city, and at least one Annihilist watching the bomb itself. I don't know who it is," he apologized, "they came at me before we could get close enough to scan. The bomb itself is in...here." Wander recognized Freedom Hall; or rather, the fallen-down, damaged structure it had been on her world before her departure: it was in no better shape now, for all that there were at least two hundred Omegadrones visible on the lawn and inside the windows, with movement to suggest many more. "There's a dimensional weak point here," he said, pointing to a space over the downtown that it took the kids a moment to realize had once been where the Goodman Building stood: a half-visible stump just at the skyline at the edge of the image revealed that the building had been destroyed, but not actually been replaced by a Terminus tower like the other skyscrapers of what had once been Freedom. "If anyone's going to come through, or if we're going to get out, that's the place to watch."

Dragonfly: Dragonfly can see the assimilation chambers the drones are talking about, and they look like fearsome things: ovals about the size and shape of a old-fashioned telephone booth, a glance inside reveals a nightmarish array of blades, probes, and glittering black instruments still sparking with the remains of cosmic power. There's a juuust visible humanoid outline in each where the occupant used to be, and it's easy to tell how deeply the assimilation process violates their flesh: the dead Farsider, with his body warped and penetrated by Terminus steel and high technology, is proof of that too. On closer inspection, all the chambers have been sliced open by something with a sharp blade and high-energy charge, enough to actually melt as well as cut the Terminus steel that sliced them open. On closer inspection, Dragonfly can see something particularly odd about the chambers: none of the drones nearby are particularly tall, in fact, the tallest (the leader) is actually only about her height. The interior of the chambers is even more confined; the armor must give a couple of inches and dozens of pounds at least. Gina: Terminus technology is no easy feat to grapple with, even for a computer scientist as formidable as Gina Evans. But even without knowing the fine details, she can tell this ship is badly damaged. What happened after the crash is impossible to determine with any precision: the central computer seems to have been physically attacked, not just cybernetically, and the relevant parts and memory physically destroyed. But going back to the first available records, she is able to find something useful at first: It's an internal monitoring feed, showing the interior of the transport in the minutes after the crash. Alarms are blaring everywhere and those dead and blasted electronics are alive, the assimilation chambers completely intact. Suddenly, Gina hears screaming: no, not screaming, weeping and cursing all at once, and suddenly a figure lurches into the camera's view: it's an Omegadrone, a big, bulky one like Harrier, not like these sleeker, gracile drones running around the ship. The voice inside is male, clearly enough, and he's crying for mercy in what sounds like Latin as he approaches each chamber in turn. "Demeter, forgive me! Demeter, forgive me!" He strikes each chamber in turn, the electronics inside flaring to life and bursting into flames, leaving behind much of the damage she already saw aboard the craft. Finally, the drone turns his pike against the camera, and the feed cuts out. But there are more records than that, buried deeper in the system...

It wasn't an easy night for anyone, not even when they got into the old camping food Erin had secured for them. It was food, and they had shelter, but it was a far cry from the cozy accommodations back on the disco planet. They were only a continent away from the local Freedom City, but there were literal universes between them and going home. Corbin's fire kept them warm, but it was still Seattle at night, and what a night it was. Laying awake in his tent for a while, Mark mused that under other circumstances, the sound around them might have been pretty. Birds sang where once cars had driven, animals were at play where once streets had been. But of course, there was nothing pretty about it. This wasn't a damn nature preserve, as Wander had reminded them all. This was a dead world, a world that had died slowly and painfully of disease. And they were faced with imminent death in the morning, when they'd all be faced with the greatest challenge of their lives. Maybe of anyone's lives. He had absolute faith in the light at the end of the tunnel, but the road that followed was dangerous. Even with his fatige, it took a while for him to sleep.

Caradoc's shiny silver armor melted away to reveal the cold black steel of the Terminus within. Harrier acted without hesitation as Dark Star spilled the beans: he cracked the crackling tip of his charged powerpike against the back of Dark Star's head, hard enough to rattle the gravitic hero's brain without actually injuring him. "Be _silent_, miserable space thing! Your promises will only earn them pain and teach you the delicious pleasure of the suffering of others." It was a little purple by normal standards, but Harrier sold it, because he believed it, because he'd heard people talk that way his whole life. To the leader of the drones, he said, "My designation is Harrier. My servants and I are here to repair your vessel and take it back to the Terminus. What happened here?" "We...do not know," said the leader, and even in that drone's voice something like hesitation creeped in. "Our vessel crashed while we were in our assimilation chambers. When we emerged, the pilot had ceased to function and our direct connection to the Voice had been severed..." "Our vessel is very heavily damaged," reported the drone behind Broken Spike seriously. "But the pilot's injuries are very strange. It looks as though a power pike was used against it from close quarters. We were not able to solve this mystery." "Harrier does not need to hear about your failures!" said the other, a note in his voice almost like frustration. "We have maintained our ship, and taken prisoners," he added. "We have interrogated some, but none of them could identify how we came to be here, or how we could repair our vessel. Our attempts at assimilation were not successful. Or chambers were damaged by powerpike fire and by the crash."

Sharl headed for the testing control room, flipping through various scenarios while he waited for Miss A to finish talking to Cole. I bet he's going to get a crush on her. A lot of the male scientists who came into the Lab seemed to do that, especially the younger ones. Sharl himself thought Miss A was very beautiful, very very beautiful, in fact, but she was more like his big sister than anything else. Well, Gina's more like my big sister, he amended. Maybe the whole world, or almost the whole world, had no idea who Gina was, but he knew she was the real hero here. She really was more like having another big sister, but this one with access to so many wonderful things. Ooh, I bet he'll like the flying buzzbots...

On further approach to the crashed starship, another signal came through their radio: "Embrace the glory of the Terminus. Surrender to Omega." There was another desultory blast, one that missed the heroes entirely, but this time Caradoc snapped his staff back and replied with a precisely-focused cosmic blast that silenced the offending turret. This time, though in that same mechanical voice, a new message came. "Do not approach this vessel. Surrender to Omega." Was there, perhaps, almost a note of a plea in that dead machine's voice? "They have sustained serious damage to their engines," said Murdock almost distractedly, making a gesture at black scoring along the craft's rear. "As if they were being bombarded from behind..." Suddenly, as if seized by an inspiration, Murdock borrowed Miss Americana's communicator. Aiming it at the Terminus craft, which they were hovering just inches from, he barked with his usual bluntness, his sharp voice practically a shout given his usual flat, dry monotone. "What is wrong with this vessel? Why are you disobeying protocols?" There was another silence, and then, suddenly, the voice broke in, "All glory to Omega. Opening rear entry doors." And with that, as if by command, the doors at the rear of the craft vibrated open, silently in the near vacuum of of space. Caradoc hesitated a moment, looked at the others, and then ducked to fly inside the open doors. At Miss A's signal, however, he drew back and let her go first into the metallic maw of the ship. - Inside, as the heroes entered, they found a grim, chaotic scene. First, the bodies: inside a forcefield cage too small for the tall Farsiders to stand up in, a half-dozen Farsider soldiers lay in various states of injury. Two were obviously dead, one by the unmistakable suppurating wounds left behind by a power pike. The other, left discarded by the opening of the cage door as if he was of no use, had died by what appeared to be forcible cybernetization: implants protruding from his opened skull suggested someone had attempted to replace his brain and he'd died of shock. The other four were battered and bruised and in various stages of injury, all of them bound and gagged in the bargain, but from the movements they made and the look in their eyes, they were all alive. There was another empty cage across the way, one littered with torn rags and miscellenia, but the body of the ship was clear: Omegadrones traveled not in seats, but by directly securing their armor to hardpoints around the ship: it was a bit like a very high-tech subway car with riveted arms in place of straps. The damage to the ship's interior was more visible now even to people not familiar with Terminus tech: the panels were mostly dead and unlit, while the interior lights were an eerie red. Of course, those might have been emergency lights, or simply the local aesthetic. In front of a small corridor leading front, ending behind them in a half-closed metal door, were the occupants of the craft: five Omegadrones, each cast like miniature versions of Murdock beneath their black, spiked metal armor and faceless, dehumanizing bodies. They were more gracile, smaller and sleeker than Harrier's bulky armor, but they were no less menacing behind the armor of the Terminus. As the other heroes entered, one gestured silently to the empty cage opposite, growing increasingly agitated if they did not in fact do so, and only really relaxed when Murdock entered behind them. "All glory to Omega," intoned that leader, identifiable by a broken shoulder spike on his, or her, left arm. "Your prisoners are disobedient. Can they repair our vessel and our dimensional drive?" And from behind Broken Spike, another drone spoke, this one with a voice that was eerily familiar: a flat, dry monotone that was for all that still human. "Can you help us?"

Sharl wasn't very talkative on the van ride to the airport, instead shooting a few wistful looks back at the Lab as they drove away in the school van. Though all three teens could easily have made the transcontinental flight to India on their own power (or in Sharl's case, simply stepped out of any computer in Mumbai), Summers had indicated he preferred they travel on commercial airliner to keep them 'grounded': what had seemed like a wry jest about the nature of commercial air travel these days turned out to for once not be true. The kids had no serious issues passing through security, not even Sharl: the special security clearance he presented to the TSA guys was enough to get the electronic teenager from passing through metal detectors or anything else with a magnetic field. His ID said such would interfere with his pacemaker, but for his companions it wasn't hard to guess that a living computer program had his own reasons for not wanting to be subjected to any kind of magnetic or electrical scanning. And with that, they were all waved up to first class, where they were faced with the promise of a relatively slow but very luxurious flight from Freedom City to Mumbai! Sharl took the food and drink offered but didn't eat, and settled down with his portable laptop: peeking over his shoulder, Corbin and Eve could see that he was futzing around with what looked like a photo-quality clone of the Sims, moving things around a living room on his screen by aid of his mouse. "I won't need to sleep till we land," he commented to the others once they were in the air, "you don't need to stay awake on my account."

Warbird PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 22 (+6) DEX 16 (+3) CON 22 (+6) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +16 Saves: 13 pp TOU +10 (+6 Con, +4 Protection) FORT +8 (+6 Con, +2) REF +8 (+3 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Acrobatics 12 (+15) Bluff 12 (+12) Craft (Mechanical) 5 (+5) Diplomacy 5 (+5) Knowledge (Technology) 5 (+5) Languages 2 (English, Russian) (Base: German) Notice 13 (+15) Pilot 4 (+6) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 7 (+10) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus (Melee) (4) Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Defensive Attack Evasion Improved Initiative Luck Power Attack Set-Up Takedown Attack (2) Ultimate Save (TOU) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 34 pp Device 8 (Warbird Armor) [Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [34 pp] -Communication 4 (1 mile) (radio) (PF: Subtle [encrypted]) [5] -Flight 5 (250 MPH) (PFs: Moving Feint, Move-By Action) [12] -Immunity 3 (environmental cold, low pressure, suffocation [altitude]) [3] -Impervious TOU 6 [6] -Protection 4 [4] -Shield 4 [4] -Strike 4 (PF: Mighty) [5] -Super-Senses 2 (Extended Vision [2] (x100) [2] costs abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 18/72 + feats 19 + powers 34 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: To tell the story of Warbird, you first have to tell the story of the Steel Eagle. A few years ago, NATO decided collectively that West Germany needed a superhero. It was forty years since the Second World War, after all, and the West German population needed a native champion to rally around. There was some controversy about the eventual selection of a West German soldier to wear the Steel Eagle armor, a specially constructed battlesuit shaped like winged medieval armor: the West Germans, especially in the 80s, were not comfortable with many overt symbols of nationalism. But eventually, after proving himself time and time again, Steel Eagle became first accepted, then admired, by his countrymen, and what began as a NATO project from on high has given birth to West Germany’s first national superhero. (After all, the German champions of old were many things, but you could hardly call them heroes.) Warbird is a result of the Soviets seeing Steel Eagle’s success, deciding they had to get in on that, and putting an East German Air Force pilot in the first suit of battle armor they could whip together for him. Warbird is the first native superhero of East Germany, and he’s totally an authentic creation of the people’s will ahaha but seriously folks. Anyway, Warbird’s not actually that bad a guy: he’s mostly a sociable fighter jock type who likes to chat up ladies in his spare time. He’s young, too, and doing his best to grapple with an enormous responsibility. His biggest fear is that he’ll be assigned to guard the Wall one night; he doesn’t want to think about that particular balance of duty and loyalty between job and humanity. Think of him as one of the guys from Top Gun in power armor. Like most East Germans, he doesn’t really give a damn about Communism and would dearly love for the Soviets to get out of his country: in the meantime, though, he’s got this job and he’s going to do the best he can for his people. He compensates for any concerns about his loyalty by being the toughest, hardest fighter he can be: maybe it’s Iron Ghost and Siberian Shadow who talk the biggest game about fighting the imperialists, but like or not Warbird will be the last Warsaw Pact fighter to leave the field. My take on his niche in the Soviet team is that he’s their melee guy: he’s the one who flies in with sword and wing and cleaves through enemy mooks in hand-to-hand combat, he’s also the one who can cut a rampaging Nazi robot apart with a powerful sword swing. With extensive use of Acrobatic Bluff and Move-By Action (not to mention Power Attacking), he’s got a really good shot of catching most of his likely enemies flat-footed and laying them out. With his Extended Vision, he’s also got a good chance of spotting ground-bound bad guys from high up and swooping down on them with glorious golden wings extended before they know what’s coming: those range penalties on Notice really stack up! Discerning readers will notice that Warbird’s armor kind of sucks, especially compared to his American and Soviet counterparts; that’s a deliberate design choice, the Soviets made his armor fast (to copy Steel Eagle) and on the cheap; they’re also not going to give a particularly powerful suit of armor to the East German guy, not when they’re still paranoid about German defection. So I went with the idea that this is a badass guy in a pretty cruddy suit; he’s made a lot more powerful by the armor, sure, but at the end of the day what’s really important about the man is the guy inside the armor, not the cheap costume and imitative style. He’d work fine as the native superhero of any low-rent country you want to put in your game, or maybe a hero who’s recently acquired or inherited a power suit and used it to break into superheroing: I could see this as the suit of a supercriminal who has decided to turn good too. If you do want to keep this as Warbird, it’s up to you what happened to him when the Wall fell: he hated the Stasi like poison, sure, but he was still a symbol of a much hated regime. If you want to use him as a villain, or at least as an NPC antihero, maybe in retirement he was embraced by the former East Germans who got nostalgic for Communism, and has decided to do his own part to further that cause in his declining years just as he did in his yoth.

"I have both projectors, and the solar batteries, and the spares for the projectors and the power source both," said Sharl reassuringly. "And the plans for repairing them if something happens to me and I need someone else to fix the machinery when you're not around." That wasn't a good thought, but he actually felt pretty okay knowing that Miss Americana had planned for this sort of thing. He hefted his bag and gave Miss A a look before going in for a quick hug; he knew how Gina felt about those things, but he couldn't just pull away now. It was a very quick hug. "I guess we could show them...no," he said, obviously working up his courage. "We'll give them a Lab tour when we get back." Facing Miss A, he said, "I'll make you proud. I promise."

A moment to clarify: while the ship is big enough for Dark Star to lift with his Move Object, it's in the rock wall too delicately. Pulling it out will likely cause an avalanche, crushing the ship and destroying all within.

As the heroes approached the fallen object, it didn't take them long to realize what they were looking at: half-buried in the crater wall of the Saha crater was a Terminus spacecraft. Those cold, grim lines that formed into something like a flying space-spider were unmistakable, the red trim on black steel the tell-tale colors of the Lord of the Terminus. It bore no ship name or insignia, of course: Terminus vessels generally did not need to distinguish one from the other, and those who did not recognize a Terminus vessel soon learned their mistake. Caradoc didn't breathe inside his armor, but Murdock felt his blood run cold all the same. Fighting for control at the sight of the craft, its exposed metallic stern gleaming wickedly, he said, "This...this is a troop transport. Short-range, used for interplanetary travel at the most. I don't understand," he confessed, curiosity overpowering fear for a moment. The mystery was greater than the terror. "I see no serious damage. The drones aboard should have been able to repair the ship, or else the internal destruct systems should have..." Suddenly, a flash of energy erupted from the rear of the craft, a blast of sizzling plasma that Harrier cut in half with a sudden swipe from his shining blade; secretly disguised power pike. Before he could speak, a message sounded from below in the eerie, mechanistic tones of a Terminus speaker: "Embrace the glory of Omega. Surrender to the Terminus." The message repeated itself again, then cut off without another word.

Red Hammer PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 40/24 (+15/+7) DEX 14 (+2) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 24/14 (+7/+2) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +5 DEF: +5 Init: +2 Grapple: +13/+26 Saves: 11 pp TOU +15 (+7 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Bluff 13 (+20) Diplomacy 3 (+10) Gather Info 3 (+10) Intimidate 13 (+20) Knowledge: Civics 5 (+5) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Languages 4 (Chinese, French, English, German) (Base: Russian) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Feats: 7 pp Fearless Interpose Leadership Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 62 pp Enhanced Charisma 10 [10 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Hellfire Control Array [32+3=35 pp] Damage 10 (Extra: Area [Trail]) and Flight 6 (total of Flight 7 [1000 MPH) AP: Hellfire Control 15 (PFs: Precise 2) AP: Hellfire Control 10 (Extra: Area [burst]) (PFs: Progression on Area 2) AP: Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 6 (Heavy Load: 180 tons) (PFs: Countering Punch, Groundstrike) Immunity 2 (aging, environmental heat) [2 pp] Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Not Vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [5 pp] Protection 8 [8 pp] Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (holy) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] costs abilities 40 + combat 20 + saves 11 + skills 13/52 + feats 7 + powers 62 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here’s Red Hammer, the commander of the Soviet superteam in the Defcon/Wargames universe. Like Old Glory and John Bull, he’s a WWII veteran, a beneficiary of the captured German Ubersoldaten process as the Soviet Union desperately tried to stave off the tide of German super-soldiers. Unlike his American and British counterparts, though, Red Hammer was the beneficiary of the _entire_ process, thanks to a Thule Society mystic captured by the Soviet Union in Stalingrad who was, let’s say, induced, to part with the full secrets of the process: subjects are injected with alchemical chemicals while being subjected to secret magical rituals, said rituals guiding the process of transformation and allowing the subject to gain powers without going mad or being permanently transformed into a monster. Red Hammer survived war against the Germans and war at home as his friends died first at the hands of Nazi guns and then at the hands of Stalin’s whims as those who had been heroes one year became enemies of the state another. But Red Hammer himself survived; he was too popular with the Army to kill, but not popular enough with the people to be a threat even to the ever-paranoid Stalin. He was a committed Communist, once, but these days he’s a Russian patriot first. He’s seen too many corrupt leaders come and go, seen so many die in the name of one ideology or another, that he’s not inclined to believe any of them. He’s a soldier for the people. _All_ the people. He didn’t bear any ill will towards Iron Ghost when he had her demoted and transferred to the East Berlin team; he’d dealt with young hotheads before and figured she’d either learn some restraint there or she’d wash out. Red Hammer has a secret, though, one even he doesn’t know: his powers came with a price. The Ubersoldaten process required the surrender of the subject’s soul to infernal powers, something the Thule Society sorcerors opted not to tell even their own soldiers, much less their Soviet captors. Red Hammer traded his soul for great power, and soon his time will be up: there is a time limit of some decades on his immortality and invulnerability, as the forces of Hell don’t buy a soul and then make it so that person is never sucked into their ranks. Some time soon, very soon, Hell will open up and they will come for the greatest hero of the Soviet Union. Red Hammer has no idea where his powers come from: he’s an atheist who has no particular belief system, while he’s encountered sorcery in his decades-long career, he has no experience with infernalism (since he generally just punches infernalists in the face rather than talking to them) While he has no objection to dying for a worthy cause, he has no particular desire to spend an eternity as Satan’s warrior, and given the chance will resist paying back the bargain he never knew he was making. This is something of a re-imagining of the character’s sheet, since as written he’s basically a bland paragon. I liked the idea of building a character that’s effectively a satanic Superman, so I went with that route instead to make a powerful brick and blaster who is surprisingly accurate given his massive tradeoffs (i.e., with Precise Shot, he can drop that massive blast into melee and not worry about hitting his teammates). He’s not as good a leader as his contemporary Old Glory, or as good a planner as John Bull, but then again the guys with Inspire tended to get cacked in the fifties by Stalin and he tends to leave the planning to the higher ups: with his high Charisma he should be able to feint and startle easily enough, and then lay enemies out with massive punches or powerful bursts of “hammerfire”. He’s there for his people when they need him, taking big hits and dishing them out in return. He’s also good at clearing rooms, thanks to his long-time experience as a soldier. I think this would be a fun character to play, honestly, but you could drop the Soviet stylings and make this any kind of ex-supersoldier who got his powers from places he didn’t expect. It also works just fine as a build for a demonic character who has decided to get back to his roots and be an angel again.

"That does sound like me," said Mark with a little smile. "Or at least, the person I've turned out to be. It's funny how much high school can change your expectations about the kind of person you'll grow up to be," he said reflectively. "When I found out about my powers, I knew I was going to run off, join the Freedom League, and be a big-time superhero. Now, if I'm working for UNISON, I'll be one of those people who pops up in documentaries about international heroes or stuff like that. Maybe make it onto Freedom League Africa someday." He smiled thinly and finished his tea. "And you know, I'm actually really happy about that. Maybe it's not what I planned, maybe it's all just chaos...but I know I'm making the right choice."