Avenger Assembled

"...no. No, I cannot allow you to have their faces." Caradoc pointed his sword at the thing in the chair, seeing in his mind bodies burning in the trash pits of Nihilor, the red sky overhead burning with the cold, eternal flame of the Doom Coil. He smelled burning flesh, and felt the pain of tightly-gripped sharp metal in his hands as he'd watched them burn. So long gone now. Alive, even for too brief a moment, in my memory. Unbidden, the thought came to him: What would you think of me now, my January, if you could see what I have become? The tip of his mystic sword began glowing with energy. "Show me your true face, monster, and I will show you mine," he said, his voice growing flat and tinny inside his armor.

Could she have snuck up on me, up on us all, with all of us in this terrible place? Caradoc dismissed that possibility quickly enough. But at the same time...If she is mad, or mind-controlled, to attack her would be a crime. "I see someone over there. If my actions appear guided by illusion, warn me before I can harm anyone." Roaring into the air on a column of black-tinged fire, Caradoc flew up and hovered in the air in front of the red-haired woman, blocking her view of the screen. "Who are you?"

Citizen gave Cobalt Templar a look through his sunglasses, reminding himself that he couldn't expect people who didn't know him to know what he was all about. "I've already gone a lot further than most teenagers ever do," he said. "And I was part of that thing the other week with the alien mental domination." Hands in his holographic pockets, he decided to drop the pin. "Do you think I could see Claremont?" he asked Cobalt Templar curiously. "I mean, I know I'm not a student, but I might be if I finish my education here. And I already work with a superhero, so I won't tell anyone about what I see."

"I...It's Pathos!" Mark called out, even though the voices were surely in everyone's head. "She's in our minds!" Mark always made sure to describe what was going on in case no one else was paying attention. Honestly, he wished more people were that thoughtful in crisis situations. "You think you can tempt me with casual evil sex!?" he shouted aloud. "Welll...for the record, I don't need to sleep with an evil psychopath in order to find personal fulfillment! I've done it with...." And then, horribly, he began to shout names out loud, each time filling his mind with images of what were really an absurdly long list of sexual encounters, drowning out the voice in his head. "And Zarana again, and myself, and then..."

Citizen 7 pp to spend! (and now PL 11, I believe) +2 Base Attack [4 pp] 2 ranks of Dodge Focus [2 pp] 1 rank of Luck [1 pp] Doktor'd

For Harrier: 4 pp to spend Add Second Chance (vs. Fear) [1 pp] Add 2 to his Charisma (raising it to 14 (+2) and his Intimidate modifier to 15 (+17) [2 pp] Add 1 rank of Luck [1 pp] Doktor'd

For Fusion: 6 pp to spend 2 points in base CON (making it 32 [16] (+11/+3) [2 pp] +8 ranks in Gather Info [2 pp] +8 ranks in Intimidate [2 pp] Doktor'd

For Edge: 13 pp to spend! 5 ranks in Protection, raising his TOU to a total of +15 [5 pp] Buy his Charisma up to 24 (+7) [2 pp] +12 ranks in Bluff [3 pp] +12 ranks in Diplomacy [3 pp] Drop the Attractive feat [-1 pp] Use it to buy Languages 4 (French, German, Japanese, Swahili) [1 pp] Doktor'd

Gravity Controller PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +8/+20/+24 Saves: 10 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +6 (+3 Ref, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Bluff 7 (+10) Concentration 8 (+10) Diplomacy 7 (+10) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 10 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 12 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (tactile) Powers: 66 pp Immunity 7 (falling damage, gravitic powers) [7 pp] Impervious TOU 5 [5 pp] Flight 5 (250 MPH) [10 pp] Force Field 5 [5 pp] Gravitic Array [33+2=35 pp] Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 8 (PF: Groundstrike) (Heavy Load: ~360 tons) AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Damaging, Range [Perception]) (Flaw: Up or Down Only) (PFs: Indirect 2, Subtle) AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Area [burst], Damaging) (Flaw: Up or Down Only) (PFs: Indirect 2, Subtle) Super-Senses 4 (Analytical Extended Radius Ranged Tactile Sense) [4 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 12 + powers 66 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: This is my build for a gravity controller, somewhat adjusting him from the bog-standard Energy Controller he appears to be in the book. He uses a low-level Force Field and has some minor Impervious, he's primarily a dodge monkey rather than the Toughness-shifted brute that energy controllers often are. He's fragile for someone so strong; after all, his 'strength' is just a product of greatly altering his localized gravity field. He can do the same thing at range, but not with the same kind of brute force that he can by touch. His primary attack is to fly around and punch people, but with his gravity control he can take out whole groups by slamming them to the ground or up against the ceiling, or he can do the same in a focused attack vs. a singular target. A formidable character, though as mentioned above something of a glass cannon on offense vs. defense. His powers allow for some pretty broad stunting; Teleport with the Portal extra to represent making wormholes? His immunity deserves a little explanation: what I'm saying there is that he has an instinctive ability to slow his own falls enough that even when he's unconscious, he takes no damage from hitting the ground: in short, he's not only immune to gravitic powers, he's immune to gravity itself! (Will this cover the effects of being thrown into a black hole? Well, maybe. Hopefully your GM will be lenient about the definition of falling...but OTOH, if he's making you fall into a black hole, he's probably not the lenient type to begin with. Bring a space suit, since you don't have life support!) He's got the Damaging so he can actually hurt people by smashing them to the ground: note that you do actually have to use the extra by the rules, so consider a Move Object (which is what Gravity Control is) without Damaging if you want to make people faceplant without actually breaking their teeth along the way. Throw in some Insubstantial if you want your character to actually be made of gravity, and of course more immunities if you want him to actually be space-worthy. Gravity seems like a narrow descriptor in the book, but you should feel free to use your imagination. Subtle Create Object with the solidified gravity descriptor? Hey, it's comics, you can be pretty rubber science about this stuff. Go gravity!

Seconds later, they emerged into the underground chamber where they'd planned to make their rendezvous: deep underground and within shouting distance of where Supercape had dropped them off, a perfectly placed location to make their final preparations for departure. It was also deep enough, and armored enough, that containing even a hostile Singularity would have been at least theoretically possible. As it was, though, they were alone in a room with tiled walls and shining lights on the ceiling, the hole in the wall left behind them sealing up as Caryatid gestured at it. A few moments later, she took the liberty of getting away from Singularity, adding, "I'm calling Mind-Master on the mental link he gave me. He says he and Talos are in transit; they're avoiding the subsidence that the incident at the school caused."

Golden Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 20 pp STR 30 [16] (+10/+3) DEX 14 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +22 Saves: 13 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+3 Con, +5) REF +6 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 44 r=11 pp Concentration 10 (+12) Craft: Chemical 5 (+5) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 10 (+10) Language 1 (Greek) (Base: English) Medicine 2 (+4) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 66 pp Alternate Form 7 (Midas) [35 pp] -Enhanced STR 14 [14] -Immunity 4 (own powers, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [4] -Impervious TOU 8 [8] -Protection 5 [5] -Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 6 tons) [4] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Transform 10 (Duration: Sustained) (flesh to gold) [30 pp] costs abilities 20 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 11/44 + feats 16 + powers 66 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here's a lady with the powers of King Midas; whatever she touches turns to gold! Like Marvel's Grey Gargoyle, she turned that power on herself, and she can transform her entire body into living, breathing, walking and talking gold! Both powers are Sustained in duration, to prevent the complications of Continuous Transform when we're talking about 24K gold, as well as the potential hazards of kidnapping by greedy, greedy bad men. She functions decently well as a low-level powerhouse, getting around on foot and punching things, she's also nigh-bulletproof and the like. She's got relatively low TOU for somebody made of metal because gold of course isn't a particularly strong substance; she could also use a little higher Impervious in the process. My backstory for her is that she was a chemistry student exposed to a secret formula for making gold and, having absorbed said formula into her body, she's using her new abilities to fight crime. Play around with a build like this, sticking with the theme of her native metal. Gold has a lot of different uses and legacies! Don't be afraid to stunt things off her big power; more Super-Strength, some Elongation or Insubstantial 1? Either one would fit the power theme tolerably well. Change things up a little by giving her Density; as it is the 'organic gold' that makes up her augmented body isn't appreciably heavier than a normal woman would be. One possible change would be higher Charisma; a person with a gold body might well be quite attractive! (As for her clothes, luckily if she's in Freedom City; she's in a universe where her clothes change with her OR where she's got a good costume to go with it!) You could make her magical easily enough; perhaps she's the heir to the Midas family legacy. (That's why she's got the Greek language, just in case). You could also change up her base metal however you want: a lady made of plutonium would be an interesting character choice, as would diamonds or some other super-hard metal associated with beauty. An iron lady would be good for a British heroine, with the caveat that Margaret Thatcher was a terrible person and you shouldn't go around naming yourself after her. But maybe you got there first, and in the Freedom City universe sued her blind! Being made of a liquid or gas would be interesting too, just make sure you pick a good one!

For her part, Joan was being the good reporter and the good mom, keeping an eye on the situation while she followed the kids around on the tour. She didn't get along well with most of the parents at Lois' school, but she knew Richard, the father of Veronica, fairly well; he was a good guy, and not shy about making sure his kids worked hard too. The Lab here certainly was very impressive, she had to admit as they went through, and Miss A was a great tour guide. You know, she reflected, I can see what Lois admires in her. After all, Miss Americana was tall, beautiful, and athletic, obviously as strong as Joan herself with how casually she handled big pieces of equipment as they walked around. She was very personable as well, definitely something to attract a little girl, and she was, of course, a super-genius! Joan had been around enough super-scientists not to feel insecure as they walked around equipment she really didn't understand, just letting the talk wash over her, glad that the kids were enjoying the show so much. Miss A obviously knows how to take care of herself and do her job; to balance being a woman, a hero, and a scientist. That's not a bad role model. "Is it hard being a hero and being a scientist?" Lois was asking Miss A, having stuck to the beautiful paragon like glue through the whole tour. "I mean, what if something really bad happens when you're in the middle of a really important experiment?"

"I actually brought it with me," confided Lois, who practically lit up under all the attention from Miss Americana. "I was wondering if maybe we could run it on one of the Lab computers to see what it looked like in real 3-D." Lois, who'd written in her attached letter all about her ambitions to one day be a game programmer, had come up with a fairly realistic animation of a big Grue monster (well, for a ten year old on a home computer, working with over the counter software) walking down a busy street and getting smacked in the head by Lady Liberty, complete with little birdies around his head at the end. "Honey," said Joan with a mother's great patience, "I don't think we'll have time for that, Miss Americana and her colleagues are very busy doing their science stuff here at the Lab." Joan was not, as it happened, a great fan of scientists. It brought back some unpleasant memories...not that she wouldn't be happy if her daughter had a perfectly good career in science! "We are looking forward to the tour. Lois has been talking about this for days now, believe me!"

Joan wasn't happy. Well, that wasn't true. She was proud that Lois had won the science fair, certainly; she knew her daughter was smart, and she liked the idea of her competing successfully against a team of other students. But she didn't like all the hours that the work had kept her daughter in front of the computer in this gorgeous spring, especially with the news that Lois had actually managed to get excused from phys. ed to spend all her time in the computer lab! I can understand her computer teacher wanting her to put all that time in but her gym teacher should be putting a little more moxie into it. Of course, said gym teacher was also a notoriously lax coach for the girl's soccer team, so maybe she shouldn't have been too surprised. Still, as they walked into the lobby, instantly sighting Miss Americana, she saw how happy Lois was to be there. As Lois held the zip-drive with her project firmly in her chubby hands, Joan decided not to spoil the day for her little girl. "Miss Americana!" said Lois excitedly, practically running up to her and peering at the tall, glamorous scientist. Lois Collier was short and round-faced, thick glasses perched on the end of her eleven-year-old nose giving her an owl-eyed look. But she had a cute smile, despite her braces, and she looked very happy to see Miss A. "You see, Mom! I knew she'd be here! It's Miss Americana!" "You're her favorite hero in the world," said Joan with a smile, opting not to mention herself. She knew...well, she couldn't really expect to be her daughter's favorite when there were so many others around. And Miss A certainly did have a very forceful personality, and was very pretty to boot. Maybe that was to be expected. At least she was smart to go with it. "Hello Miss Americana. Nice to see you again. This is my daughter Lois." "I read your paper on corralling high-volume datafiles loose on uncontrolled networks," offered Lois. "I didn't understand all of it, but it was really cool. Did you really catch a whole terabyte's worth of virus on your home computer?"

A nat-20! 30

"I'm just a kid," said Citizen, shaking his head, "and I can't live on my own. Miss Americana's so smart and so capable," he said with loyalty and honesty all at once, "she's a lot better at taking care of my needs as a teacher than I would be living on my own. I'm not really old enough, anyway..." He looked down at his shoes, then added, "School sounds...sounds really neat, though. Miss Americana is really, really great, but I wonder what the kids here are like sometimes. Do they let you have visitors there?" he asked Cobalt Templar curiously. "Or is it all locked down, like the military?"

Harrier had no hairs on the back of his neck to go up, but something about the corrupted nature of this place made him deeply uneasy. Magic was one thing with which he had little experience; sorcery was something for an Omegadrone to destroy, not something which they might hope to capture and learn from. Could the unquiet dead make a place such as this? He thought of some imaginary world in the depths of the Doom Coil, inhabited by the living souls of all who'd died in the Terminus, and shook his head. He'd seen too much annihilation to believe, to truly believe, in the existence of some immortal thing inside all that lived. He'd seen far too much destroyed to believe in _that_. For his part, Caradoc said, "I suggest we form a detachment and begin a spiral sweep of the building from our current location. Stay together; creatures who can manipulate perceptions will attempt to separate us in order to influence our perspective." Putting words to a tactical situation was a novelty for him, but he was able to do so with only minimal disruption. "If any of your fellows comes under the influence of the dead, d...er, show him the error of his ways before he can injure anyone. Jack of all Blades and Nick Cimitire, what have you discovered up there?" he called.

Edge turned to the others as they tried to corral the panicking Singularity, at least, that was what he guessed what was happening in the dark: Caryatid could sense the underground vibrations, Midnight and Wander could see and hear well in the dark, but he himself was nearly blind! Midnight's light helped immensely, of course, and by its glow he tried to think of something to say over the roar of rock as they raced forward in the darkness. "We're going to take you away from here, Erin," he said. "It's going to be okay. No one's going to hurt you. You're not going back in the box."

"I don't really go to school," said Sharl, "At least, not like you guys do. I'm Miss Americana's sidekick," he added. "She's a really great teacher, she's taught me all kinds of things about science and computers, but I don't really get a chance to hang out with a lot of kids here." He thought about the friends he'd left behind on Tronik and his own education by computer there. "What's it like going to school with lots of kids and, uh, socializing with them like that?" He'd had friends growing up, but too many kids in one place wasn't how they did things: singular education helped encourage people not to mix, which helped keep them from being too angry at each other.

"Not long!" said Edge, looking up at the falling ceiling. Caryatid screamed as the rocks started hitting near them, and suddenly Mark grabbed her around the waist and spread his hands. "We are not going to die here in some stupid cave!" And then there was a flash of light, brilliant and coruscating, spread out in a variety of colors, and they were all back in the tunnel from which they'd came; heroes, defector, and refugee all. "Wander, hang on to Erin!" he called as the avalanche began behind them. "We need to move NOW! Steer around the city, don't give them a track to follow!" And suddenly they were off, Caryatid hiding behind Edge (and away from Singularity!) as they zoomed through the darkness on a bed of rock and stone!

Some advice: Drop your base defense to +4 and add Dodge Focus 4: that'll give you more points to play with. Buy Impervious. You don't have to be 'bulletproof', you can represent it as the nanites moving out of the way of the attack if you want. (If you've seen Terminator 2; bullets don't bounce off the T-1000, but they don't kill him, either) Sink more points into the Strike; maybe make it Corrosion to represent the nanites tearing something up. That'll give you points to afford a decent array. Make sure you have the range of her Datalink on the sheet when you submit it. (In general, make sure you're using our template when you're at submission time; it's OK to have rough notes at this stage, though!) If you're gonna have INT 18, make it work for you: buy up her skills. You've got Inventor!

Suddenly, with a loud hiss like the world's biggest griddle heating up, the steel walls thrown up by the Marks in their struggle erupted in clouds of shimmering three-colored particles that fell apart into nothingness, energy spattering everything with red, blue, and yellow dots of color. In the center of the cavern Edge and Hex were struggling in hand-to-hand combat, not a strength for either of them, reality around them both shifting and warping, colors tasting on the tongue and sounds tickling on the skin of those who watched, as they punched and kicked each other. "You're nothing but a pathetic waste of skin!" spat Hex. "A weak little nothing with my face and my body, but you're nothing, you hear? You think you're like me? You're just the nothing I crawled out of, and that's all you'll ever be! You're alone, Mark!" he spat. "No one will ever understand you, no one will ever give a damn about you. You'll always be the freak with the insane father with no past, no present, and no future!" "...says you!" said Edge, grabbing his counterpart by the collar. "You're just a jumped-up bully who thinks your powers make you better than you are, but you know deep inside you're just a worthless little piece of garbage who got lucky! I know who I am! And I know who my friends are! And I know that I'm going to save EVERYTHING!" And suddenly the flash of color washed over both young men in an almost-blinding glow, and when it was cleared Hex had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth. "Freedom beats tyranny!"

It was a tough question to answer, Sharl reflected, particularly with everything that had happened recently. As friendly as this guy seemed, he wasn't inclined to share his family life and his whole story right there in the air. "Maybe. My home life is very...very complicated." He looked away for a moment, then focused on Cobalt Templar again. "Are there other superheroes there?" he asked naively. "I know there are many teenage superheroes in the city, but the only one I know doesn't go to school. It must be very tough balancing being a superhero with being in school."

With a slow, measured stride, Caradoc walked to the phone, picked it up, and hung it up on the wall. "We should not let them talk," he suggested, his voice tight. "Nothing they say will be good for us to hear." Inside the armor, Harrier was growing more and more uneasy at the corruption of this place. He had experience with the dead, a very great experience indeed, but this place felt strange even for that. Of course, the dead I have known were quiet...eventually. He imagined this place as if he were hunting the walking dead; those who had survived the initial destruction of their world's defenses and were now poisoned ants wriggling their death throes in the unbreachable edifice of the Terminus. He opted not to mention that metaphor aloud, instead wondering how the dead had come in the first place. "I do not know your history. Has there been some carnage here?"

Suddenly, the Model A behind them roared to life, its headlights like twin angry spots as they glared at the teen heroes. Behind the wheel, a tiny toon woman with a bobbed haircut and cigarette holder laughed as she gunned the engine. "Surrender to THIS, coppahs!" The Model-T roared to life and smashed into Wander with a huge crunch, the front end crumbling as it hit the invulnerable teen. "Aw, raspberries!" she declared from inside. Looking uneasy at this turn of events, Lucky threw down his cutting torch and yelled "All right, all right, I quit! But I won't sing!"