Avenger Assembled

Reality warper faced reality warper, the awesome power to shape and reshape the universe to one's mad whims crashing together and doing...absolutely nothing. "Hah! How deliciously ironic!" Hex put his hands on his hips and laughed. "Our mutual blood keeps our powers from affecting each other. More fitting this way, isn't it?" He raised his fists, giving his counterpart a delicious leer. "Now we can settle our differences in hand-to-hand combat, just like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean!" He winked at Edge, who gave him a scornful look in return. "What, you're evil so you're gay? Doesn't that sound a little cliched to you, Mr. Master Villain?" For his part, Edge was doing his best to form a plan, not an easy task for him under the best of circumstances. What to do when your powers just didn't work? He'd read Daisy's debriefings, and made some inferences from what he'd seen in that room when he'd woken up in this Mark's bed. "But that's all you are, isn't it? Just hurting people weaker than you, and giving lots of lame speeches. Maybe you'd be able to accomplish something with your life if you actually took action instead of just standing around talking about it!" "It's all about freaking the mundanes," said Hex, who was circling Mark like a boxer in the arena. His belt was considerably more padded than Mark's; was he hiding a weapon under there? Or maybe about to produce one? "Don't get me wrong, I love plowing a sweet thing as much as anyone...ah-hah, that got you!" And indeed, Mark's eyes had been widened with disgust at his counterparts words. "I thought that would, after you were so thoughtful to take Daisy with you. Did you get a little piece of that before you-" Edge's blast transformed a chunk of steel wall into dairy products, exposing the rock wall beneath, as his counterpart laughed again. "Guess not!" "You're...you're nothing but an odious little bully!" spat Edge, blocking a return shot from his counterpart with one of his own. "You just talk big to impress people, but I saw your Trevor put you down like a dog before. You're a drunk. You're drunk on power, on irresponsibility, and on your big fat mouth!" Mark felt his anger rising: what was going on with his more violent friends if this version of _him_ was so annoying? "I know you," he said suddenly, fixing his gaze on Hex. "I know why you're such an ass! You went to the Academy before you had any powers too, right? Because of your dad? It must have been Hell surrounded by all those people who got their powers before you did. What were they gonna do, train you to mop floors? Just like your dad, I bet-" "YOU SHUT UP ABOUT MY DAD!" And suddenly, the two young men were engaged in a fight that was all too real!

Sharl stared at Gina, a rejoinder on his lips for a moment before things began to sink in. But...how? Is she a hologram too? Some kind of person-suit? I don't... "Gina, come on," he said gently, focusing on helping his friend. "I...I couldn't stay away. I needed to help you, just like I need to help you now." He left her for a moment, just long enough to wet a washcloth, and then returned. He dabbed her face with a washcloth, not quite prepared to go further. "You're hurt. Is it from the fall? I can't see any place where your skin is broken..." One thing he knew almost nothing about was human internal anatomy. "And then we can get you cleaned up," he offered. Her robots were on the move now, recognizing him, and he heard water running in the bathroom. Had they seen something like this before? He wasn't sure. How long had it been...well, since whenever Miss Americana had first taken to the skies. He remembered hearing through those lovely lips how frightened Gina would be in public, and how unhappy to have other people's eyes on her.

Or Talos, who's come to build Habitat Against Humanity. :o

"Oh sweet [untranslatable], Gina..." He bent down over her, checking her vitals as best his very limited medical training allowed. She seemed healthy enough, for all that he wasn't exactly sure how Earth people were supposed to feel. And surely she couldn't be that healthy, not when she was looking so battered. "What happened? How did your face get-" He remembered what he'd heard on the radio, about the battle and the disabled robot, as well as when he'd been in here earlier. The alien things didn't take her. Everything down here is still intact... "Gina, can you wake up? Please wake up, don't leave me down here alone..."

"...I'll go, but I won't go there," said Sharl, making his decision quickly. "You and Dragonfly make sure Miss Americana makes it back to the Lab in one piece. I need to...I need to see my friend." And with that, Sharl concentrated, reaching out with the same 'senses' that Miss Americana had downloaded into his mind earlier when she was modifying him for the trip out to Lonely Point, and suddenly he was abruptly gone from Protectron's back, with only a faint echo of radio waves showing what direction he'd gone: not towards the island, but somewhere out in Freedom City. Elsewhere, Sharl abruptly spilled out of Gina's holoprojectors in the basement, his image fuzzing slightly for a moment from the sheer force of the strain he'd just put himself under. "Gina!" he called out.

From the other side of the cavern suddenly came applause and a low, mocking laugh. Edge turned, peering into the darkness, but even though he couldn't see in it the way Midnight could, he knew perfectly well who was there. Who else would it be? "Well well well," said Hex as he stepped into the light that had conveniently just snapped on over their heads. "It appears the cats have chosen to take the poisoned bait left for them by...the rat! Nyesss!" He stroked his wicked goatee and glared evilly as he faced the three heroes, a look of malignant triumph on his face. "Uh-uh-uuuh!" he said, waving his finger mockingly at them as they tensed. "Come at me and I'll pull the cavern down on all of us." He pointed up at the ceiling overhead and snapped his fingers, a ball of colored dots appearing between them. "I'll survive, I always do, and the rest of you can be just more grist for the mill." "What do _you_ want?" said Edge, who found himself angrier than he'd expected at the sight of his evil twin. He dropped down to the cavern floor, automatically absorbing the twisted mastermind's attention even as he did his. "Isn't it obvious, healer-man?" said Hex with a leer. "I want you all dead. You especially. I mean look at you! Prancing around in that black costume, going to all this trouble for a little piece of trash from a dimension you've never even seen!" He made a little gesture at the box and added with a look at the ceiling. "Nice technique with the school, though. I've got to admit, I've imagined doing that a few times! Who knew we were quite so powerful?" He grinned. "Feels good, doesn't it? Walking around the streets with abilities far beyond those of mortal men, lording it over the rest of the trash? Seriously, why take that and go prancing around with these people?" "Because it's the right thing to do. Something you'll never understand, because you're too busy prancing around in a cheap suit to do something meaningful with your life." Edge made a gesture, and suddenly the black was gone from his uniform like tarnish, the gold and blue standing out with crystal clarity. "You're king of a rotting palace..." Suddenly, the Marks were interrupted by the appearances of two shadowy figures in white near the cage! Furious, Hex shouted, "No, you're not stealing my monologue! Not this time! You fight your OWN goddamned nemeses!" And with that, suddenly steel walls shot up throughout the cavern, corralling (but not trapping) the teen heroes together with their terrible teen counterparts!

AvengerAssembled, Gizmo, and Sorus all get a free HP.

The Conquering Mind gave a terrible squeal as the mind-warping waves of the nullifier washed over its body, and as Dragonfly watched the writhing, pulsating mass began to fall apart into ever-shrinking clumps of red and black that turned into the blood-red starfishes that she'd seen crawl out of the commander's neck a very, very long day ago. The mass was hideous to look at, but it seemed to have no driving will; it was more like looking at a schoolbus-sized mass of starfish all dumped together on a concrete floor than anything else. Behind her, as she turned, she saw the winner of the Daedalus/Miss Americana fight: the two gadgeteers plunged to earth together, landing with the sound of denting metal and cracking concrete. Both of them lay still, clearly unconscious. - Sharl wound up tagging along with Protectron for the flight out to Lonely Point, clinging onto the robot's leg with a sturdy magnetic grip. The voice of the Mind was gone from the robot's sensors, and now he could hear the voices of emergency personnel coming on the radio asking for status, a couple of shocked disk jockeys who found themselves back on the air, and eventually even Star Knight and Captain Thunder on the Freedom League's radio system reassuring everyone that things were going to be okay now. The Conquering Mind had been defeated!

Mark uses Damage 15 (Area: Shapeable, Selective) and unleashes very bad luck.

"You're not heroes. You're not even villains. You're parasites, feeding off the blood and sweat of good and bad people both so you can make money." Edge concentrated, and suddenly the parking lot came alive, cars rolling forward and streetlights cracking downward like flexible whips, the air darkening menacingly as big hailstones fell from the sky, smashing nothing but bad guys, the universe itself seeming to turn against the bad guys in a very real and meaningful sense. "You can't hide. And you can't run!" Suddenly, from out of the sky, an assembly of red-hot electronics came crashing down from nowhere and hit the hood of their car. "Stop fighting!"

Edge touched Wander's arm just before she jumped. He wasn't much for quiet whispers most of the time, but despite evidence and speculation to the contrary, he wasn't stupid. "It'll be all right," he told Erin, believing it for her when he wasn't sure if he believed it for himself anymore. "You're going to save Singularity. I know it." As to how, well, that sort of thing was never really Mark's area. Especially not now, when he knew what might be required of his friend. He let her go then, down into the dark cavern and the box below.

The work on repairing the Patriot was tough; his parts were at least a decade old, hanging at that thin edge between older and old-fashioned that let them hang even in a brilliant technician's memory hole. But luckily Miss A wasn't just a brilliant technician, she was the best! With Sharl's return with her best toolkit, she was able to get to work on the Patriot, who made no complaints once she'd severed his pain impulses. Without spare parts handy, she did need a source of high-end electronics and cybernetics. Luckily Victory was right there, as were all of his equipment spares after the recent repairs! For his part, Sharl was a silent, hard-working assistant, doing his best to help Miss A in her work and not to gawk at all these strange goings-on!

He gets a 34 (rolls a nat 20!) and survives intact.

Daedalus charges and all out-power attacks Have an HP for her being flat-footed. That's a DC 34 Tou save

That hits! That'll keep Joey Scars and Boss Moxie unconscious. Ox, Lucky, and ??? will be free to act. Go ahead and post, Griff, and then I'll post the results for both attacks in the IC.

The voice in Protectron's head stopped, and so did Siren's struggles: the goddess of the loa suddenly lolling into what looked for all the world like true sleep. Across the city, the animate population dropped to the ground; luckily the ones who fell from the sky were generally tough enough to take it. "Holy cow!" Sharl stepped out of the armor of Star Knight, Maria Montoya inside falling to the ground inside her suit. Blinking, the slightly translucent teen looked from the sleeping heroes to Protectron and back again. "Did we do it?" - Over at Lonely Point, though, the heroes were facing a very different situation. The vast red bulk of the Conquering Mind loomed up as Miss Americana and Dragonfly moved in for the kill, easily large enough to fill the entire hangar below: the need to find a place to land within the nullifier's range forced Miss Americana to slow down: too much, in fact. Suddenly, from rocketing out of the fallen remains of the gantry came Daedalus' battered armor on a collision course with the two stalwart young heroes! Miss Americana had just enough time to drop Dragonfly down as she and the mind-controlled genius traded super-powered punches with a sound like a thunderclap!

That hits. 26 She fails by two and so Protectron has her pinned.

Screaming in frustration, the blank-faced Siren threw a punch at 'Star Knight' that bounced off Sharl's borrowed armor: Sharl's reply was a powerful blast that unfortunately missed her entirely. It wasn't easy navigating inside this borrowed armor, especially with the decidedly odd sensation of sharing space. From inside the suit, Protectron could hear two voices: Sharl's over the built-in radio, and a cursing, threatening voice from within that had to belong to the real Star Knight. "I could use some help here!" he said, sounding worried as Siren advanced on him. Maybe he'd taken her punch, but how long could he navigate outside this armor: if he left it, there'd be two enemies to fight! There was another voice in Protectron's head, too, one not commanding but still very much there. - Meanwhile, across the ocean, Miss Americana and Dragonfly were swooping in on Lonely Point Naval Base. Desultory gunfire from below bounced off Miss Americana's armored body; the superpowered defenders were all gone chasing down Sharl and Protectron: by the time they came back, hopefully the deed would be done. The few sailors still on their feet below were targeting the lovely Miss Americana, of course, leaving Dragonfly free to dodge and weave as best she could as she clung to Miss Americana's back, returning fire herself, as they moved toward the open-topped hangar that Sharl had steered them towards, the red, pulsating mass of the Mind visible from below. And in Mara's mind as well.

Mark power-stunts: Corrosion 13 (Extra: Affects Only Objects, Area [burst], Selective) (PFs: Progression 5 (13 250 by 250 ft cubes)) [70 pp] Bursts on level surfaces (like the ground) create hemispheres (rank x 5 feet) in radius and height. 13 x 250=he blows up the school.

The next morning, after another night in the sewers, this time joined by the Gravois family, the Claremont kids were in uniform and ready for action. With Caryatid in the lead, they would tunnel under the streets, blow up the school, and then tunnel back down to release the captive Singularity and make their escape back to Earth-Prime with the good offices of Supercape! Or Talos, if for some reason their ride were waylaid. But that was the sort of plan Edge left up to the others, because now it was time to remind them why they fought: with all of them there, even the so little terrakinetic Caryatid at their side. They'd moved out of Talos' hideout, so that their tunnel couldn't be traced from whence they'd came, Mind-Master's 'downloaded' map of the Academy in all their minds. As they waited in darkness, Edge said, "All right, Young Freedom, I don't need to tell you why we're here. This city lives under an empire's lash and a tyrant's boot. Most of the people with superpowers are murderous thugs who crush anyone who stands against them. Well, us? We're the other guys. Let's go show them what freedom is all about." Listening to Edge's words, Francois gave a grim nod as she put her hands against the sides of the sewer wall and abruptly the teenagers were hurled through rock itself! They were surfing on a wave of stone and steel underneath the black-hearted city above, and the world around them was an ocean of concrete and steel and stone, the earth looking like they'd never seen it before. They had to be getting close..."Now!" And then they were just breaching the surface, rock wall beneath their feet, the grim, grey confines of the Academy all around them. Just as they'd planned, alarms were going off, sending people either out of the buildings with grim looks or into secured, heavily armored bunkers where they could survive an enemy attack. Mark waited for it, waited for it... Edge closed his eyes and spread out his hands, concentrating, and the air seemed to erupt around him in a fireball of swirling, multicolored bubbles. And then the world exploded. Even Edge cried out as concussions upon concussions shattered the air, buildings collapsing in on themselves like falling cards, hidden fortifications underground catching fire as every window in view shattered and every building broke and crumbled like a shattered child's toy. "Holy freaking...I mean, it's done! It's done!" Mark called over the sound of construction avalanches. "The buildings are going, but the people are okay! Let's move!" And then they were plunging beneath the surface again, leaving behind them the sheer destructive force of Edge's terrible power.

Init: CT: 23 Mercury: 15 Wander: 14 Toon Gang: 10 OK, Cobalt Templar is up.

14 Nabbed! That hits! Bound and helpless!

Edge blinked, "Oh, right! Sure, I can do that. Hang on, everybody." Mark didn't like to think about how powerful he was most of the time, so quite often he just didn't. "Everybody hold hands." Once they were all doing so, Mark closed his eyes and concentrated: they got not the black dots this time, but something else, a pointillistic display as the world seemed to fall apart in a circling pattern of colored dots, then reform itself into the sewers nearby Talos' hideout. The robots, their king, and Mind-Master were on hand to greet the new arrivals, the Gravois family looking ill-at-ease in their new surroundings. Edge wound up moving aside with them and Caryatid to tell them all about the wonders of Earth-Prime. That left Talos and Mind-Master to brief the heroes on what they'd done. "I've constructed a map of the Academy's current structure," said Mind-Master warmly, "which I can show to all of you," he tapped his temple to suggest how, "before you leave. From what Talos tells me, tunneling straight through to the unfortunate Singularity's prison is entirely possible given our resources. What plans have you formulated?" he asked the others as they all bent over a strategy table, robots bustling busily around them. The once-gloomy, rusted place was looking much better in the wake of Trevor's repairs; Talos' headquarters, and much else, had obviously done well out of their visit.

Griffalo, take an HP for the Fiat: give me a DC 20 Tou save for the Tommy Gun This is an Area Burst: the Toons will all be hit but their regeneration will take care of it. DC 20 Reflex save for everyone, and then a DC 25 Tou save if you fail it, depending on Evasion: DC 23 if you halve it. Wander is fine, since she's got more than Impervious 10. Roll for Initiative

"Hey! You mugs tink you can talk to Boss Moxie and the Toon Gang like dat!?!" For all his diminutive size, the animated (_very_ animated) crime boss didn't seem intimidated by all the powerful heroes showing up. "Say hello to my little friend here and what not!" He raised his gun and opened fire on the heroes, squeezing off a volley of gunfire that spattered the concrete all around Mercury. "Joey, give 'em the Irishman's Handshake!" The scar-faced mobster reached out behind him and produced a lit handful of red, sputtering dynamite that he hurled at Cobalt Templar: exploding with enough force to blast all the heroes in a tremendous burst of heat and noise. As the fire alarm went off and the garage shook, the Toon Gang seemed a little less funny.