Avenger Assembled

"Hey, short stuff!" called the nurse-turned-gun-bunny, who took a half-step and swung towards Dragonfly. "Is this your boyfriend?" she asked with a smirk in a heavy-but-understandable German accent. "Do you two like to make the doggie sausage? Ahahah!" She laughed and threw a kick Dragonfly's way, one that missed the plucky heroine's head but let the gun-bunny herself cartwheel down the hall. "There's three of us and two of you! Put it down now and we won't rip up the place before we go, hmm? Unless you want my little surprise to come in and take you and your boyfriend the Amazing Doggiehead for a ride!"

Move Action: Taunt: DC 25 Bluff check Dragonfly fails, so she is shaken (–2 to attack rolls, saving throws, and checks) for one round. Standard Action: Kicking Dragonfly in the face. She Defensive Attacks for the full amount, raising her defense to 30. 11 It seems no one's getting hit today!

14 Okay, that drains his Impervious 7 first, then 5 regular Tou.

I'll say he can't really dodge while helpless, especially given relative sizes, so Tou save 30 Fort save 19 Jade Dragon is up

The short flight out to Blackstone would have been pleasant under any other circumstances; it was a blue, sunny day, the sort that made flying over open ocean peaceful. But none of the heroes felt peaceful, not today when innocent lives might be at stake. (One in particular, Freedom Angel thought, shooting a glance Fleur de Joie's way). As the League representative on the scene, he led the way as they touched down in the refurbished old Civil War fort that was Blackstone's topside command post, landing in the courtyard full of prison personnel: when lockdown had come in, non-essential personnel like interns, family members, and guards not needed for combat duty had been evacuated to the surface where they would be safe from any mass breakout. Meeting them at the surface was Abigail Wallace, the doctor and scientist who was, as she told them, the highest-ranking person to get out. "Drummer's still in his office, as far as I know. The man doesn't leave unless he's dragged out," the scientist said sourly. "What are Bowles' demands?" asked the angel, trying to keep her on track. He didn't mind the sun overhead, and stood there as sunlight streamed down on his halo, making it seem to glow with special brightness. Or perhaps it was just a sign of how worried he was, and concerned for how the mad Bee-Keeper had come so far already. "How was he able to construct those machines we observed on the camera footage?" It was no idle question of judgement: if Bowles' powers had grown to include shaping matter, they had to know that now before they went below without access to their own abilities. He was going to miss the sword of truth, he reflected, remembering how readily he'd volunteered to help the prison learn to block his own connection to the angelic chorus while below. "So far you know almost as much as we do," Wallace grumped. "Bowles is on psych watch, so they let him out of solitary to talk to our shrinks. He shouted so much he was bothering the other psych prisoners, so they put a steel plate around his cell to keep him from causing more trouble. One day, he demands to see his lawyer, and when he's being taken out these damn robot bees just burst out of his cell. Somebody's head's going to roll. I'm just glad my people all managed to get down and lock up the heavy weapons along the way. All he has access to is whatever he somehow cobbled together down there."

The minds of the German pilots opened like bleeding, screaming flowers underneath Sage's aggressive probe, their secrets spilling out like the blood of a world gutted at the hands of these mad butchers. These men were here to kill Midnight: Travis Hunter, condemned by all the Americans on the street as a cowardly collaborator, had been exposed by a traitor named Simmons as Midnight, and the Germans had come in force to kill the man that Sage realized with some shock was the last living superhero in what had once been the United States. Midnight had been fought before, and had killed many Germans and their agents, but never before that day had his home come under attack. There was a significant German garrison in 'Arbeitstadt', the former name of what had once been Freedo, City, complete with a contingent of Ubersoldaten kept there in case any more mystery men showed their faces in what was to become a showcase of the American Reich: a showcase once the remnants of the last population of resistance were wiped out by the efficient might of the SS. The camps had already been here and gone; the liquidations were taking place in the Mississippi Valley these days. Too far away to reach and save the world: and save the world they had to do. A mysterious object had been recovered by the Ubersoldaten after a meteor shower some nights earlier, an item glowing with cosmic power so great that scientists had actually been flown _here_ from Berlin to study it. - Midnight Manor looked like any other country manor until you got close, Trevor particularly good at spotting the depressions where landmines had been laid, the firing places where trip-wire machine guns were in place. This house could probably have fought off an army on its own, though perhaps not the entire might of the Wehrmacht. The windows were opaque even to Trevor's eyes, blackout shutters closed and locked on all of them, but as they approached the front door swung open with an ominous creeeeak, exposing inside a battered, tired-looking hallway lit too-brightly by electric lamps. "Look, let's just go in," said Mark, leading the way, shooting a glance at Erin and Trevor to make sure everyone was dealing with the crisis at hand and not the crisis that might have been. "We sure as hell don't look like Nazis, and..." A voice crackled to life from a speaker just visible in the streets near the front porch, a relic of the past that hadn't survived to Trevor's time. "Get in the house." came a tinny vacumn-tubed version of a familiar voice. "Told one of you is my legacy. Find the door to the sanctum and meet me there. Can still blow the house if you fail."

Scarab PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 44 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 16 (+3) CON 24 (+7) INT 20 (+5) WIS 24 (+7) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +8 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +20 w/TK Saves: 11 pp TOU +12 (+7 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +15 (+7 Wis, +8) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Concentration 5 (+12) Diplomacy 5 (+5) Knowledge: History 10 (+15) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 5 (+10) Languages 2 (Ancient Egyptian, Spanish) (Base English) Medicine 3 (+10) Notice 13 (+20) Sense Motive 13 (+20) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus: Ranged (6) Beginner’s Luck Dodge Focus (4) Eidetic Memory Jack-of-All-Trades Power Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 49 pp Comprehend 4 (speak, read, and understand all languages simultaneously; understood by all) [8 pp] Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Scarab Array [22+5=27 pp] Damage 10 (Extra: Ranged) (PFs: Improved Crit 2) AP: Communication 6 (20 miles) [mental) (Extras: Area, Two-Way) (PFs: Rapid 2 (x100), Selective, Subtle) AP: ESP 6 (20 miles) (visual and auditory) (PFs: Rapid 3 (x1000), Subtle) AP: Mind Control 10 (PFs: Mental Link, Subtle) AP: Mind Reading 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Selective) (Flaw: Duration [instant]) (PFs: Insidious, Subtle) AP: Telekinesis 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Precise, Subtle) Super-Senses 1 (Shadow Awareness) [mental] [1 pp] costs abilities 44 + combat 16 + saves 11 + skills 14/56 + feats 16 + powers 49 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here's my take on the Scarab, the premiere mentalist legacy archetype for the Freedom City setting. For those of you who have somehow missed Shaen's superlative population of this legacy: the Scarab was once Prince Heru-Ra in ancient Egypt, a wise young man who had unlocked the power of his inner ka by meditation. When he was betrayed and murdered by the wicked Tan-Aktor, Heru-Ra said some unwise things to the ancient gods about demanding the right to punish Tan-Aktor's soul himself. Now he and his old rival pursue each other through the ages in an ever-lasting cycle of reincarnation: sometimes one kills the other, sometimes the reverse. Sometimes they never meet, sometimes they are born as twins in the same womb. Reincarnation is a funny thing that way, especially when it's driven by this kind of ancient fate cycle. 5000 years is a hell of a lot of history to play with. The last NPC Scarab died in the late 1970s saving the world as part of the Freedom League; the PC Scarab is still flying around and will cut you. But let's say you're playing this character in another game, or say the legacy is somehow duplicated. My basic idea here is that Heru-Ra's repeated rebirths mean that his ancient ka empowers him from generation to generation, making him much tougher and more resilient than a normal person would be. He's also as wise and observant as it's possible for a human being to be, and a genius on top of it. I figure his Comprehend is partially a result of Telepathy, partially a result of just being so damn old: I gave him Ancient Egyptian and Spanish as languages he speaks in addition to English without his powers; those being the native tongues of the first and last Scarabs. With his high mental attributes and his Beginner's Luck/Eidetic Memory/Jack-of-all-Trades combo, there's basically nothing he shouldn't be able to know or do within the limits of his attributes, though he'll have more trouble with some things than others. He has a tremendous command of history, and knows something of philosophy thanks to all the work that goes into his awakened ka. Think about Complications inherited as memories from previous lives: a fear of suffocating or some other unpleasant death? The Scarab may be immortal but he still dies and stays dead in between lives, and dying sucks. It'll mess you up if it happens enough. I did not give this Scarab Fearless for just that reason, but with his massive Sense Motive that shouldn't be an issue if you stick to your PL. One thing I didn't include here is the Scarab's Lair: there's an impressive version of that in one of the PDFs you can buy from Green Ronin, as well as a marvelous one Shaen has statted out here. I figure that's something you can buy in play with points: as it is, this is the Scarab just after he's reawakened into his true nature, perhaps sitting in his basement reading a book about the Pyramids, or having somehow otherwise unlocked his secret true nature and uncovered the lost legacy of the Scarab!

Citizen and Rogue traded punches in the 'air', neither program able to seriously injure each other in the melee. Citizen was winning in that he was keeping Rogue from doing what she'd come there to do: wreak further havoc on the hospitals computers, but he certainly wasn't able to come to grips with his slippery foe. They were evenly matched, in more ways than one. "We don't have to live like this!" he told her, dodging a punch and throwing a kick of his own. "Miss Americana and I, we're working to save Tronik! We're already installing new memory cores, new software...we can save the city! We can go back home and things will be all right again!" "And be a maggot in a rotting corpse?" Rogue spat with venom, her fists shimmering with electrostatic energy as she narrowly missed putting Sharl through a wall consisting of the hospital's accounting software, numbers and spreadsheets clicking behind Citizen as he ducked around it. "I'm not going back there to be a joke surrounded by other jokes! Nothing in there matters, do you hear me? It's all just people living their fake little lives, having no idea they were dead before they were born! The only thing that matters is out here, and I am not going back!"

Round '3' Wail: 21 Jade Dragon: 17 Gorillon: 13

Sharl will try to Bluff Rogue as a Move Action, taking a -5 Penalty. 24 Not bad! 24 Oh for. Well, he'll Power Attack her anyway. Time to raise the stakes... 26 He hits her Defense of 22. And she is unhurt. 27 Son of a She'll try and Bluff him, taking a -5 Penalty 21 Vs his Bluff of 15 You know, I'm going to reroll that with an HP. He'll succeed automatically since he has Bluff +14. She'll Power Attack him. And she misses too. So none of them have tagged each other, and Sharl is down his Luck HP and his Miss A complication HP. Son of a...

"With the island's defense systems active, we can neither take the League's teleporters, burrow via Gaian Knight's terran abilities, or step through Fleur de Joie's plants. I recommend we fly in and rendezvous in the fort atop the central hill," he said, scratching onto the jetty with his sword a crude map of where they were going. "There is a secondary guard post there as well as the pathway down. From there we can plan our journey into the heart of the island and our meeting with its temporary master. I have been inside Blackstone to mission, but never when the facility was locked down. The League is not kept appraised of all the prison's abilities," he admitted, "in case of corruption above."

The last surviving helicopter sped off into the night, its occupants in the sole surviving craft that had come with the Nazi strikeforce to attack the Hunter mansion. The helicopter Trevor had bombed spun to Earth, the pilots fighting to control a wildly spinning aircraft, and landed hard enough that (from the crash of metal) they weren't going anywhere any time soon. Edge made sure of that a moment later, dropping a black dome over the wreck that landed with a gentle thud. Bulletproof, or close to it, there was no way the pilots inside could break out without killing themselves. "We'll have to work fast," whispered Mark to the others as they all moved fast, shooting a glance back at the still-quiet Midnight Manor that Sage had protected in a similar way. "We can probably beat whatever force they've got...but we may not have the time." Urgent mission to save the multiverse or not, Mark hadn't hesitated a moment at fighting Nazis, especially under the circumstances!

As she put another arrow into the giant gorilla, Jade Dragon soon became aware of the situation she was facing: she had enough power to constrain the raging gorilla, but so far she hadn't yet been able to subdue him. Only by putting repeated 'arrows' into the beast was she able to hold him down in his rocky cage, and he was doing sufficient damage in his fury that the earth arrow's constant regrowth was only holding the line rather than sealing him in permanently, If Gorillon ever calmed down enough to really exert himself against those stony bonds, she'd be in serious jeopardy from what would no doubt be a very angry, very powerful giant ape who presumably would not fall for the same trick twice! And not only her, but the entire busy neighborhood of Port Regal!

"You were admitted because you have the potential to be a superhero," replied Summers, studying Darwin intently. "And because, having known my share of Australian heroes, I am aware that a casual demeanor is no bar to competence and heroism." He'd not spoken until asked the question, simply weighing both what the young man had to say and how he went about saying it. "You've told me that you'd like to be back on your beach. If that is where you choose to spend your life, attending Claremont will not stand in your way. You will find that an education is no bar to enjoying a life at sea." He steepled his fingers. "But do you believe you deserve to be more?"

"Yes, I've spoken to your parents by telephone," replied Summers, and it was tough to read in his voice how he felt about that conversation. "I understand your concerns. Despite rumors that some of our upperclassmen may spread to you, Claremont is not a prison: ideally, all of our students because they want to be. As you can imagine, slots at our school are difficult to come by, particularly for international students. Would you prefer to be somewhere else?"

28 Okay, he'll damage the snare, but not break out this round.

Round 2 Jade Dragon is Unhurt and has 2 HP Gorillon is bound and helpless. He also has cover from the snare, since it doesn't have Transparent. Jade Dragon is up

Jade Dragon jumped off to escape the giant gorilla's retaliation, Gorillon roaring in disbelief as rock and stone rose up to imprison him. "NOO! HOW CAN THIS BE! I AM GORILLON, LORD OF TEN THOUSAND TONS! I AM INVINCIBLE! UNDEFEATABLE! ROAAARRGHH!" He tried to beat his chest, but as the rock rose up to hold him fast, it was too late; the giant ape was held fast by the rocky embrace of the street, and all his rage was doing nothing but getting him stuck further in Jade Dragon's snare. "ROAARRGGHLLLLL..." He was still fighting, but it didn't look like he was going anywhere anytime soon as the Freedom City street rose up to pin him down.

17 to break out Okay, so he's in there through the round.

Reflex vs. 22 9 Whew. Okay, having failed by more than 10, Gorillon is bound and helpless...for now!

13 Round 1 Jade Dragon goes on 17 (I'll say she has 1 HP from the Complication of defending her neighborhood, for 2) Gorillon goes on 13 JD is up.

"FOOLISH WOMAN!" boomed the great ape. "I AM GORILLON, LORD OF TEN THOUSAND TONS! YOUR WORDS ARE AS THE HOOTING OF SO MANY NAKED MONKEYS THAT DARE CHALLENGE THE GREATNESS OF GORILLON!" He beat his chest again. "I HAVE COME FROM BELOW TO CHALLENGE ALL YOUR MIGHTIEST WARRIORS AND SO TAKE YOUR WORLD AS MY OWN IN THE NAME OF GORILLON! YOUR CHILDREN WILL GROW TO KNOW ME AS THEIR LORD AND MASTER! MY RULE SHALL BE SWIFT, SURE, AND DECISIVE!" He ripped a lamppost out of the ground and brandished it like a bat. "AND MY FIRST DECREE? DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF THE APE!"

4 He is flat-footed.

The thread where Jade Dragon and friends deal with a giant gorilla threat.

Elsewhere Enjoying the bananas that he only ate in the privacy of his most intimate study, Dr. Simian sat behind his desk and watched the live feed from his first test subject's venture to the surface world. Long-troubled by the ethical implications of sending his people off to fight and die in a war they didn't understand, the master criminal had hit upon a brilliant scheme some weeks earlier: make his own army of disposable cannon fodder, legions of ape-clones and ape-soldiers who could fight and die at his whim with no ethical implications at all. Growing his own army of invincible gorilla warriors had been, he reflected, a wonderful idea! That is, of course, if this test subject proved successful. Port Regal June 4, 2011 2 PM Up from the sewers there roared a great ape! Howling defiance at the universe that had spawned it, the gigantic gorilla burst from beneath the streets to howl at a quiet residential street on a Saturday afternoon. As it was a warm day and there were kids playing, there were plenty of people around to scream and flee in terror! The gorilla beat his chest and roared again, calling out in defiance, "WHO DARES CHALLENGE GORILLON, THE ROARING TEN-TON BEAST!" Gorillon put his boast to good use as he put a thumb in his mouth and took a breath, suddenly growing and growing far beyond even his original mighty physique, until the giant ape towered over the nearby mansions. "WHO CAN CHALLENGE THE MIGHTY GORILLON...AND LIVE!?!"