Avenger Assembled

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.

Down below, the three teen heroes found themselves confronted with among the oddest sights of their careers. At the closed executive elevator, a slick, suave-looking man in a double-breasted green pinstripe suit was working at the door with a cutting torch, his head hidden by big, old-fashioned safety goggles. In front of him stood a mean-looking man with a livid scar across his face in pinstriped pants and suspenders, his shirt rolled up to his sleeves; next to him was a no-neck thug in a turtleneck sweater and denim, his massive arms and torso bulking over his short, stubby legs. Before them paced a stocky man in a fedora and purple zoot suit, his jaw so square you could use it as a stamp. Cigar in his mouth and old-fashioned Tommy Gun in his hands, he looked every inch the 1940s gangster: not that there were many inches. The tallest of the thugs, the muscular one, was maybe four feet tall; the scarred one, the shortest, was closer to three. Not a single one of them stood any larger than a child: their Model T parked behind them, its engine still running, was no bigger than a bumper car. "Nyaah! When Lucky gets through that door, see, we'll all go up the elevator real slick-like, see? And then we'll get us some of those fancy computers, nyaah!" The boss was explaining some things to his cronies, it seemed. "And then we'll see who's old-fashioned, see! When we get those fancy computer boxes, we'll teach that joker Tonifanni that the Toon Gang deserves a little respect! Yeah!" His men grunted acknowledgement of that: they were in on the plan, it seemed, but considerably less inclined to orate.

"Oh, no!" Caryatid went white, and pulled at her sister's arm helplessly for a moment before she subsided. "I mean, uh...I can get us all there faster," she offered quickly, looking at the others. "If I work at it, I can scoop us all up at once, and we'll go right through the sewer walls without anyone noticing. If Midnight can block their sensors the way he did upstairs, it'll be fine." Her parents didn't seem to have anything to add: after all, they didn't recognize Erin, and evidently weren't going to put themselves in the middle of a Syndicate, well, not-Syndicate argument. "I guess we could do that," Mark offered, shooting a look at the others. "If Midnight can block any vibration sensors, and if you're sure you can carry all of us. The last thing we need is to get separated down here, much less bring the Syndicate down on our heads. We've done this, and that's great, but we still haven't done what we came here to do." Caryatid swore she could do so, and indeed seemed very interested in carrying it out.

If you're not familiar with stuff from the setting, Rav, don't pretend that you are. It confuses the newbies. ;)

Many good ideas here! An interesting concept! Pretty dark, but plenty of people have scary stuff in their background. One thing for you to think about why is she a hero? Additionally, why is she not a villain? After all, the daughter of Hades could easily have a perfectly fine place at his side, working with him to pull all the world into Tartarus so that he might reign supreme! An interesting idea, I'd have to see more to really comment. I endorse heroes based off 19th century books, though! You might get some teasing for this one: there's already a psychic Batman in-setting called Foreshadow, and he's a pretercognitive. There's nothing wrong with being in the same niche, particularly since he's just an NPC, but keep that in mind. I like it! A good solid background: speedsters are one archetype we're relatively light on. 3) Horror Scary, but interesting. The alien-invader-turned-hero archetype is as old as comics. As old as the Silver Age, anyway! And we do so little with the Counterverse. Cricket monster, oh no! I always knew this day would come! :o

Above, Protectron found a wild melee in the air: Captain Thunder was in pursuit of what looked like Star Knight, save that from the radio transmissions he could tell that it was the electronic teenager Sharl inside the battlesuit. That wasn't the only signal he was receiving, either; he and Dragonfly both could hear the voice of the Mind in their heads, louder as it raged. "Destroy! Destroy enemies the! This will the to Conquest! shall kings queens the order! All will be yours if you destroy the enemies of the Mind!" The last sentence came through with alarming clarity through both telepathic signal and whatever means was giving Protectron a connection to this bizarre voice: and for a second or two, it was almost a tempting offer. Down below, the steel sentinel could see that civilians were coming, a mind-controlled mob with murderous intent on its face as it came charging towards the previously-deserted Lab complex. Luckily the doors were locked, the building secure, but how long could they hold against an entire city? Together, Miss A and Dragonfly worked like lightning over their magnificent machine: creating a device that would nullify even the fantastic powers of the Mind. Between the voice shouting in Dragonfly's head (as if she didn't have enough of those!), the uncomfortable working conditions for both women, and the stress of time and space, it wasn't an easy moment for any of them. But they had Mavis, they had the finest lab in Freedom City, and together the two women had the sheer scientific prowess that would have let them crack reality itself in twain with enough time and energy: building a machine to shatter a Grue entity's telepathic bonds was practically child's play. But how to deliver it once they'd done it? In the sky, Sharl was enjoying his chase more than he should have been: he was easily outdistancing Captain Thunder in the air, the battlesuit he'd stolen giving him fantastic speed and maneuverability, and even with the occasional lightning bolt crashing past his head and the need to stay close to the Lab, this was shaping up to be fun. Until suddenly a silvery net whipped by his head, and a mind-controlled Siren flew before him. "I know you!" the Mind screamed through her. "I see you in their minds! Citizen of X-024-051, you will be destroyed with the rest of your-" Sharl spun in the air and threw a solid punch that landed right on the heroine's jaw! She was bleeding from the jaw, but still in the air, and soon the others behind him were closing in. "Uh...Protectron...?" came through on the radio.

The Patriot blinked, just once, as Sharl disappeared wordlessly behind Miss Americana. Agent Bonham explained as his team went into action, gathering Miss Americana's needed electronic repair equipment, "Much of Agent Irons' body was built using early versions of Victory's technology. Without rapid access to an AEGIS hospital, he may be our best support for spare parts. With your consent, of course, Agent Victory," he added respectfully. "His access equipment here will give you full internal command of Agent Irons' systems." Luckily conditions had already been set for technical work, so once a static-free sheet had been laid down, a deionizer running nearby, the operation was ready to begin.

The very startled elderly security guard, still in his booth, looked very happy to see them. "Thank goodness you're here! They scared the bejeezus out of me with all that racket! Blew right through the barricade!" It was dark inside the garage, and the Model T had evidently gone surging around corners, but the kids could hear the squeal of tires inside the nigh-deserted building. On closer inspection, though, it looked like the wild driver had done less damage than they'd expected: though the barrier was snapped, it looked broken rather than smashed, with the paint only missing along the bottom. "Darnedest little car I ever did see. You fellas better get a move on or they'll bust up in there...or hit the elevators and make it inside!"

Bonham tensed at the questions, shooting a hard look first at the two heroes, then at their teen sidekick. But when no one looked inclined to flinch, he finally let out a breath. "The incident in 2002 was a cover story. When faced with terminal cancer, Director Simmons chose to perpetuate his own life so that he could continue to serve his country." He looked down at the badly damaged robot at his side, who for his part was looking not at Bonham, but assessingly at the three heroes before him, particularly the ones in all-American colors. "Agent Irons is a one-of-a-kind android body holding the memories and life experiences of the greatest American agent, and the greatest American patriot, of the 20th century. Only a select few individuals even know the true circumstances of the Director's death, much less the true story of his survival. If he dies here, the Patriot dies, for real."