Avenger Assembled

No serious issues here. So slow! :cry: I'd go ahead and mark the skills you have Skill Mastery in. Yes, I know that's all of them, but you'll be better off not having the ability to forget. (As well as making sure your GM doesn't forget...) I don't have a problem with Pursuit Expert. APPROVED

It was harder than Joan would have thought to face down that regard, but she stuck to her guns, folding her arms and looking Miss Americana straight in the eye. "Sports," she answered, "so she's not trapped inside in front of a computer all day, and so she can have good health and confidence in herself as a person. Boys, or girls!" she added a moment later, "so she can help grow and develop as a person and not just as a...scientist. She's a girl growing into a young woman, she deserves to have a real childhood first. Not everyone has super-good looks and physique as a superpower," she added a little archly.

Harrier's search was exhaustive. The former Omegadrone was taking no chances on the survival of his friend and her habitation, so he went all-out in his efforts to study what had brought the devastation to this world. It was easier than he'd thought: checking the area revealed no Terminus towers, the substance of which would hardly have degraded in these conditions, and blasting away structures to study underneath revealed none of the mass graves of suicides or failed assimilations he'd have expected to find around a Terminus invasion site. And perhaps most importantly, there were no signs of the Omegadrone bodies he'd have expected to find, even after blasting away at the landscape below. After all, it wasn't as if the Terminus would clean those up. When he was done, he flew back to Fleur de Joie. "I do not believe the Terminus inflicted the damage you see here," he said. "There are no signs of attacks against civilians, and no remnants of Terminus technology. You are correct, however, to deduce that there was a conflict here that was part of the initial catacylsm. But...I cannot tell you who that was."

Drummer and the blackguards seemed satisfied at Singularity's condition; Drummer peering through the forcefield to say, "Erin, I'm going to let you get some sleep and have a meal if you want it," he said, pointing to the tray of food left out on the counter. "If you need anything during the night, just call out and one of us will come to help you. Tomorrow morning, I'll bring my friend Dr. Wallace and we'll talk to you about what we can give you in your room, okay?" When he had some sign of acknowledgement, however small, he nodded, and signaled to the guards to deploy the transparent lowering screen as well. When it was done, he sighed and rubbed his eyes, "That went better than I'd feared. I'm glad we were able to keep her conscious."

Joan sighed. "You really don't have to spend all your time on this," she told Miss Americana, putting her hand on her daughter's shoulder to steer her out of there. "This is very nice, and I'm very proud of all the work you did," she said to Lois, and to Miss A she said, "This is not how Lois is going to be spending her childhood. She's ten years old, she deserves to be a child and a young woman before she locks herself in a computer lab all day. There's a whole world out there," she told her daughter, "and you're not going to find it shackled to a computer."

That's a total of 14 with his Init modifier.

The Tulinks were distracted by Sharl's return, occasionally they or Sieva would just turn and hug him, but they did their best to help. A command from Bel turned their tabletop into a computer drawing pad, and together he helped sketch out on a tremendously detailed 3-D map of the city the rumors they'd heard about. Mutant sightings tended to happen in the ground sectors: the surface areas where the travelers from elsewhere had first arrived. That had furthered the conspiratorial angle; people tended to stick to their own sectors and levels if possible, and the people on the bottom had relatively little voice and political power in Tronik's society. "A few weeks ago I was called in for an emergency job on the west coast," said Bel, zooming out a little to show the further details of the Greenland-sized crescent that was the largely uninhabitated industrial 'suburbs' of Tronik Island. "There'd been an 'industrial accident' at the space port where weather satellites are launched. No one would tell me anything, but the entire facility was locked down, and there were militia there with plasma burners incinerating an entire launchway. There were a couple of mutant sightings there later, and one of the men I worked with was...arrested." "I've heard stories of...abnormal births," said Aba, reaching over to hug Sharl and Sieva at the words. "Children who are born changed, or inhuman in some way or another. Like the symptoms I saw in my elderly patient, but advanced at birth. Some of those were taken away, other times they'll destroy a whole bank if they find genetic contamination. But it doesn't make any sense! Genetics doesn't work that way, mutant genes can't infect other embryos, much less gestational equipment! But doctors who ask too many questions...stop asking them. One way or another." Sieva finished the story with, "A friend of mine, you remember Joba, Sharl, was part of a pro-mutant demonstration a few days ago. She said she was lucky to escape without being confined; the militia came down on them harder than even the space activists. They read them the Treason Act and moved in before they could even react." She shook her head and said, "People our age like to talk about the militia like they're all bullies and thugs, but I don't think that's true. They don't come down like that unless they're scared." "The big worry is that something will happen to the lower level of a sector," added Bel. "If what they say about plasteel being contaminated is true, theoretically something could happen in a super-structure and cause a full-scale collapse. They're supposed to fall in on themselves rather than over, but who knows what could be going on if reality itself is rotting?" he said, making a lame joke of something horrible. "And if that happened, millions would die," finished Sharl, looking sick. "A entire sector collapsing would kill everyone inside it, and probably everyone in the sectors next door if it fell the wrong way. Tronik isn't designed to deal with a disaster like that. And if all that happening was big enough that...everything else couldn't handle it, it could be the end of everything." He rubbed his eyes. "Could we evacuate people if we can't fix it?" he asked Ema and May. "Something that..." Suddenly, Sharl was interrupted by a sound from outside: a deep bass series of notes that made all the locals jump. "The militia?!" Sharl headed straight to the window, where sure enough three cylindrical craft were flying by the window on silent anti-gravs. "They can't be coming..." Sure enough, he was right: the militia closed in not on their window, but one further down on the same level. On the family wallscreen, that deep bass sounded again before the face of a helmeted militia officer appeared. "Citizens of Sector 30 Level 8," intoned the militiaman, "there is an anti-mutant raid taking place on your level. Please stay in your homes," he advised, "and wait for further instructions."

As Lois's program played on the big mainframe monitor, Joan found herself fuming over the thought of her daughter wasting her time slaving away in this place all through high school so some scientists could sit around and get rich off their patents. Not that I don't want her to be a scientist, she thought as the imaginary Grue on the screen lumbered along, she can be anything she wants. But she's a child and she deserves to have a real childhood, not stuck in here as somebody's gofer. A science scholarship was a nice idea and all, but her daughter wasn't going to waste her life in places like this. There was sports and activity, a whole world out there she'd be shutting herself away from in this dismal place. Still, she made sure to loyally say, "That's a very nice program, dear." "Can we do it again in slow-mo?" Lois asked Miss A, not paying attention to her mom. "I really wanted to see if it held up even at a slower frame rate."

"Erin," called Drummer as he stepped out of the cell. "I'm going to press a button on this machine," he said, holding up a little remote control. "And it's going to give you a room to live in. It's going to look strange, so I wanted to make sure you knew first and weren't surprised." At his words he pressed a button, and a modest change came over the room: the walls shifted to a neutral stucco and 'windows' appeared, visible outside was what looked like a lush, exotic rainforest. "What you're seeing is an illusion," he told Erin, "it's not real. But it's nicer to look at than bare walls." As he spoke, he nodded to his guards, and one moved closer to the emergency drop for the big front door: there was a faint electrostatic tingle in the air as the force field came on. "I'm sorry there's so little in your room. I'll try and get more tomorrow."

"There have been more and more of them in the last few months," answered Sharl's sister, folding her arms in front of her briskly. "Physical changes, mental abnormalities...some of them are even supposed to be dangerous just to touch. The council only acknowledged they existed about the time Sharl disappeared. We were afraid Sharl had been taken by them, or hurt, or changed. That's one of the things we were worried about; it's why I moved back in here." "You moved back into my room?" For a moment, Sharl looked like any appalled teenage boy would be. Particularly here, where his personal space was something he'd spent many years trying to maintain."But all my things were in there! And all my space!" He gave a look back at his room, as if expecting to see all his childhood toys piled up in boxes along the side, ready for the recycler. He'd gone to a lot of work to persuade his sister to move out to her artists commune. "Your things are fine!" she shot back, sounding like any older sister. "You think we recycled anything of yours?" she asked challengingly. Sharl looked a little stricken at that, and they both fell silent. "None of us have seen a full-blown mutant," said Bel, wringing his hands a little. "But one of Aba's patients was taken away when his symptoms started showing, and some of the contamination has even appeared in my work. The government keeps downplaying it, but we're not stupid. Something's going wrong in this city. People are scared."

First of all: Everyone take an HP for being caught unawares by Guy Fawkes' triggered plastic explosives. This is a Rank 10 Damage effect with a Burst Area. Everyone roll a DC 20 Reflex save, then a DC 25 TOU save. If you pass the Reflex save, roll a DC 20 TOU save instead. If you have Evasion, well, you know how it works. Go monkey go!

The mall parking lot was quiet when the kids arrived there, though as usual the Millennium Mall's lot was packed with cars on such a nice spring day. After all, Easter was coming up soon and who wouldn't want to pass up a chance to shop for pretty Easter things, buy delicious candy at marked-up prices (smart shoppers know that you buy your candy after Easter, when they sell the good stuff for cheap now that candy season is over), or sit on the lap of the Easter Bunny? Rumor had it that the Mall people imported a special Easter Bunny from upstate New York, a particularly charming fellow much loved by children everywhere. It had been in all the papers. (It had been a pretty slow week in Freedom City, honestly). In the lead, Zap pushed open the revolving doors and the glass exploded in their faces with a deafening roar, sending shards of glass blasting through the air and cutting the teens; Wisp and Zap both had cuts and bruises on their faces, while a shard of glass the size of a pencil lead was visibly sticking out Crow's shoulder, having gone right through his coat. It could have been so much worse; if a nearby support pillar inside the foyer, still emblazoned with the pitiful remnants of an ad for Orange Julius hadn't taken the brunt of the blast, they'd all be much worse off! Inside the mall through the broken interior doors, they could just make out a group of civilians down in the food court through which they'd been about to enter, bound together in a frightened little circle and menaced by a strange-looking man in a white face mask, and an eerily smiling figure in blue and brown. Sitting on a throne in the center was a familiar-looking figure; the infamous Angel, debutante heroine turned sleazy villain, and by her side was a half-visible man in spotless white linen robes with a massive lapis lazuli at his throat. Angel on the throne, fired up her surfboard and said, "Oh, geez, we've got company! Somebody get the new pigs in the pigpen, it's almost partytime!"

"Reading material and television will have to wait until we're sure she'll be safe where she'll be," replied Drummer quietly. "Patients who were formerly invulnerable can be dangerous to themselves before they realize that they can be hurt. If they're unstable enough, realizing that they can hurt themselves _is_ a serious source of problems." Eventually they reached their destination, a wide-open door in the wall that was more like a garage. There was a bed and a sink, and all in all it looked like any standard cell except for the hexagonal grid pattern on the walls. There was a meal tray on a table on one side of the wall, all bolted together. "Erin?" Drummer asked as he walked to the half-open transparent door, obviously talking to Singularity. "I'm sorry your space is so empty right now. We'll get more in for you in the next couple of days. Before we do that: would you rather live in a house in the forest, or in the jungle?"

Sharl flew around with curiosity, taking in the sights and sounds of a very different school. So much space, and so few people, for an education! It was a really nice feeling, especially on such a pretty day. He seemed to relax as they flew past the library, adjusting his coat and glasses decorously. "Wi-fi," he commented to Corbin. "It's very reassuring to be connected. I can get around fine on my own, but I feel better being hooked up. Do you have any scientist students?" he asked him. "Really smart super-genius kids, like tech heroes and stuff."

"You have a working voice recognition program that good?" asked Joan skeptically, frowning down at the little robot. Joan actually did know something about speech recognition, given that it was an important tool of her job. She couldn't help but think how much better use that robot's programming might be somewhere more important, like inside cars or home computers. Sure, super-tech was famously hard to replicate for civilian use, but this was just a little robot thing. It couldn't be that tough. She watched as they got the program up, mostly watching Lois for her reaction. To her chagrin, Lois was obviously having a great time, sticking close to her new best buddy like her mom wasn't even there. "So if Lois did work here in high school, what exactly would she do?"

The walking trip was long and steep, tilting downward into the rock deep in the heart of the island. It was a natural way to move a prisoner in a setting like this: Singularity wasn't someone you wanted to back into an elevator, or have behind you on the stairs. From the flicker of electric eyes in the walls as they passed, they were under some very tight security. It was for the best that Singularity was behaving herself so far. As they went, Drummer murmured to Wander, "Tell me about Singularity. We're going to use one of our cells without bars for her, but I need to know what she can see that won't make her upset. What does she like? Jungles, forests, nature?"

"It's...it's more than that," said Sharl, giving his parents and sister an open, almost hopeful look. "All those reports that I was following about aliens visiting the city? Well...well, they were true," he said, growing in confidence. Impossible as the story was, it was true! "I found a hole in our reality and I stepped through it, and that's where I met Mary and Ema. They helped me, they saved me from being lost in the middle of forever, and they helped me survive." Well, it had been mostly 'Mary' who'd done that, but there was no need to single Dragonfly out now. "I've found out how our reality really works, and I've learned how to transcend it. I-" "Oh, it IS the drugs!" said Aba, throwing up her hands in horror. Sharl's mother wasn't usually this emotional, but after his many months away he could understand why she was so upset. "We're lucky the militia hasn't come and..." Sharl suddenly realized he couldn't bear that look on his mother's face another second, and so he flew up into the air. He was surprised when his family didn't react that much, until he remembered belatedly where he was. Duh! Flying wasn't so unusual in a city where antigravs were as commonly available as internal combustion engines on Earth. He threw off his coat, revealing that he wasn't wearing an anti-grav. "Look, I can fly!" he said, "and I can do this!" He put his hand right through the wall for further emphasis. "They had to adjust me a little so I could survive there. But I'm okay, this was just so I could survive. I...I was so scared," he said, landing before his shocked parents and sister. "But I knew I had to come back here. I'm so sorry I left without saying goodbye, it...it was an accident..." After a long pause, and a exchange of looks, Sharl's family stepped forward and embraced him again. "Oh my baby," said Aba apologetically. "I'm sorry I was so angry, I've just been so afraid for so long..." "Tell us everything," interjected Bel, not impolitely. "What happened, exactly? How were you changed?" Sieva suddenly seemed to jump, hand over her mouth. "Wait, don't you see! Does this explain-" She gave Mary and Ema a hard look. "Were there others like Sharl? People who just wandered into your world and got experimented on?"

Harrier didn't comment that his great age meant he could have been part of an invasion a century earlier. It seemed unnecessarily grim in what was already a grim moment. At least by some standards. For his part, Harrier was almost uplifted at the sight of survival among so much devastation, for all that said devastation had yet to be recovered from. "To live is better than to die," he said reflectively. "It will be faster if I fly," he said apologetically, "Will you be comfortable here? I am going to don my armor now." He armored up as he asked, his body briefly avulsing before transforming into its faceless iron self.

Singularity looked miserable, but stayed calm under the influence of Sage's formidable powers. "We have psychics on staff," Drummer allowed. "We can make sure one is available for her care." The door behind him had stayed open, and without the need to focus on the dangerous powerhouse of Singularity, Wander and Sage could see the small group of black-clad guards out there. Given the choice to come in alone or with armed guards, Drummer had chosen to come in by himself. "Erin, I'm going to take you to a place where there's a bed and there's food. Your friends can come with you. Is that all right?"

"She'll need to be evaluated," said Drummer frankly. "If she's too unstable to be housed here, she'll have to be moved to Providence. My first priority is the safety of the staff and our prisoners, and we're not equipped to handle unstable powerhouses like Erin." He softened, and added, "But I know she's also a frightened young woman far from home, and we'll do everything we can for her until then. If we are able to house her, we do have a facility set aside for her that can be converted for long-term stay." He hefted the circlet. "This is a power nullifier. Will she let you put it on her?"

There was an uncomfortably long delay, though that might just have been the nerves of the very, very long couple of days on everyone's mind. Eventually the door slid open and the warden entered: Joshua Drummer was a middle-aged Native American man, stocky and muscular yet inside his armored prison uniform. Perhaps surprisingly, under the circumstances, he came alone, carrying a metal circlet in his hands that seemed to absorb some of the room's bright light. "Hello Wander, Sage," he said professionally. "Yes, Dr. Atom did call in with your particulars, and just in time. It's not every day we accept a class-S inmate on such short notice." He studied Singularity and asked, "Erin, my name is Joshua. I'm here to help."

Trevor had seen Mark talk himself into, and out of, all kinds of implausible situations in the past, and as the boys got the Gravois family out of harms way, the Lucas heir threw himself into the work of making husband, wife, Caryatid, and her younger sister at home in the Young Freedom headquarters. "You guys just sit tight," he told them warmly, "take it easy in here," which turned out to be the little 'living room' style room that was part of much of the underground dwelling, cast in the retrofuture shape of the mid-1970s. "Take anything you need," he added, "our place is your place." What the hell, they might as well get Alex's wealth working for them. "Midnight, why don't you call the League?" he suggested. "I'll get in touch with the school and handle..." He swallowed. "Mr. Summers."

Flying Brick PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 44 p STR 40 [30] (+15/+10) DEX 12 (+1) CON 40 [30] (+15/+10) INT 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +5 DEF: +5 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +1 Grapple: +26 Saves: 10 pp TOU +15 (+15 Con) FORT +15 (+15 Con) REF +5 (+1 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+1 Wis, +6) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Diplomacy 15 (+15) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Languages 2 (German, Russian) (Base: English) Notice 9 (+10) Sense Motive 9 (+10) Feats: 6 pp All-Out Attack Interpose Luck Power Attack Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (TOU) Powers: 60 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Flight 6 (500 MPH) [Dynamic] [12+1+2=15 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 6 (Heavy Load: 360 tons) Immunity 10 (aging, life support) [10 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Extended Hearing [x10], Extended Vision [x10], X-Ray Vision [blocked by lead]) [5 pp] costs abilities 44 + combat 20 + saves 10 + skills 10/40 + feats 6 + powers 60 = 150 pts -- Design Notes: This is my build for Suprema, probably my favorite Alan Moore character. She’s from Alan Moore’s excellent revamp of Rob Liefeld’s crappy Supreme series: Supreme is a Superman expy, while his cousin Suprema was his Supergirl. Moore used Supreme to tell insightful Superman stories that he couldn’t have gotten away with at DC (I really can’t recommend the series enough), and Suprema filled a particular niche: she’d been the cheery Silver Age Supergirl of the Supreme Universe. Always cheerful and optimistic, possessed of great might, she fought for right in a world that rewarded heroes and where the endings were always happy. Until the age changed, and Suprema found herself trapped on the other side of the galaxy. Making her way home, she found herself lost in time: the girl from the height of the Silver Age was plunged into the heart of the Iron Age. The Liefeld Youngblood Iron Age, as a matter of fact! But that was OK, because she was still ridiculously powerful, and she was going to make the heroes of the new age see how a hero was supposed to act. She’s a really straightforward Flying Brick type, a classic sort. She flies in, punches people as hard as she can, and then punches them again; she can also fly in and take the hit for a teammate, absorbing fantastic punishment thanks to her Ultimate TOU. Versus most mundane foes, she’ll All-Out Attack since there’s very little they could do to actually hurt her even if they do manage to hit her. Like a lot of damage-shifted characters, she needs someone around to give her the kind of bonuses (via Teamwork, Master Plan, or Inspire) that let her All-Out Power-Attack all the time and basically destroy anything she gets her fists on. She’s really, really strong. After going back and forth on what Super-Strength power feats to give her, I didn’t use any: power-stunt ones as they come up, and then buy them with PP as you accumulate more points with the PC. Go with what you want! Note that her X-Ray Vision (with the Not Vs. Lead drawback) only costs 3 pp according to our house rules. You lose _some_ of the bite that made the character so much fun in the Iron Age, but I think you can still get a lot of joy out of the culture clash. The Centurion didn’t have a cousin in Freedom City, but I could imagine this as a young heroine who he took under his wing and mentored for many years: perhaps Nova Roma had a native heroine after all. Or maybe she’s the daughter or cousin of the Centurion of another dimension, tossed here by a strange quirk of fate. (She might be the Centuria mentioned in Future Freedom in Worlds of Freedom) Or if you want to make her origin slightly more sinister, maybe she’s from a world canon here on FcPbP: Maybe when Rick Lucas cast a Silver Age version of Freedom City from his own nostalgic memories, one of his creations proved more enduring than most and now she’s loose in a real world she never made!

"I was not part of that invasion," said Harrier suddenly, feeling a stab of guilt at the worry on her face. He knew nothing of this place; he had never been here, and so far he guessed the forces of the Terminus probably had not been here either. "Nor of the previous invasion in the 1960s. My first visit to Earth-Prime was as a free man," he added. "But I...I will recognize an invasion, or an attempted one, when I see it." There were the screams of dying worlds in his ears as he looked up at the sky before asking, "Have you had anyone in to do a global survey?"

Sharl himself was silent as he led the way down the hall, the walls silent and still as they went. In a city so greatly crowded, soundproofing was a very important strategy for sanity. At first it looked like there were no doors at all, but on closer inspection the two tech heroes could easily make out the handpanels evenly spaced in the walls where seamless Tronik-style construction let them hide doors away. At what was evidently his own door, Sharl paused for a moment, composed himself, and placed his hand against the doorpad. "Sharl Tulink," the wall said gently. "You have been away for 8.82 years." And with that the door slid open, and Sharl stepped inside. Despite the tremendous bulk of the massive buildings here, the Tulink family dwelling was small: no bigger than a smallish two-bedroom apartment in Freedom City. Where there were no visible doors in exterior walls, on the inside almost every room was visible: a big master bed in a room on one end and a smaller one at the other, and a big central room with what looked like a tiny, smooth-walled kitchenette, the far wall gone transparent to show the nearest massive structure miles away. Despite the small size of the room, the giant window gave it a feeling of space, along with ceilings cast much higher than they would be on Earth. But Sharl had no eyes for the habitation where he'd grown up, not with his entire family there! A conversation around the table had been interrupted. Aba Tulink, a middle-aged woman who'd gone skinny where Sharl was tall and gawky, stared at him, disbelief written in her eyes; Bel; a bearded man with something of a belly, by her side. At the other end of the small table in the middle of the room, facing him at the head of the little triangle was even his big sister Sieva. She was the first one to say softly "...Sharl?" And then suddenly they were up in a body, and there was tearful embracing, and rejoicing, and then suddenly his mother smacked him in the head! "Where have you been!?!" She stared at him, grief in her eyes. "I've cried my eyes out every night for nearly nine years! We thought you'd gone off and joined the cults, or gotten on the drugs!" "Honey, honey, it's okay," said Bel reassuringly, "Let him sit down and talk. I'm sure our boy has a lot to tell us." He shot Sharl a not-unfriendly look that said he damned well better have a lot to say. "Who are your friends?" "Uh, Mom, Dad, Sis, this is Mary and Ema. They helped me where I was...which is, um, a really long story..."