Avenger Assembled

Midnight found a house, and a neighborhood, strangely like the suburbs back in Freedom City. Sure, the gates on this community were patrolled by armed guards and armored cars patrolled the streets, but it was on first inspection no different than a particularly paranoid (if very middle-class) neighborhood back home. Until he looked closer, and saw the thin lenses of pinhole cameras on the fenceposts and the security emplacements near the edge of buildings, perhaps aimed at keeping out thieves and desperados from the hungry masses of much of this place, or maybe just resistance fighters targeting the lackeys who lived in the neighborhood. The American flag flew overhead from a pole, and alongside it the raised fist of the Syndicate and the Latin motto: "Sumus Victum". They were watching from space, or maybe Metropolis was from underground...but if they were, they gave no hint of it, and within seconds, the only people who could see him were the ones looking right at him. And for the moment, on a quiet suburban afternoon, that was nobody.

"Tell me about you and Trevor," said Mark suddenly, realizing this subject was making Erin nervous. "Is he going to apply to the new League, and be on a team the way his grandpa was? It'd be pretty great if the two of you could get hired to the same team. I know most of the Next-Gen who the League picked up still work together these days, so you guys could wind up fighting alongside each other even after you graduate." He smiled. "I think you guys are lucky. You..." His smile faltered a little, but didn't go away, "You have ties that'll keep you together and close by here even after you graduate. Not everyone has relationships like that in high school. That's pretty special."

"Oh, all kinds of stuff," said Mark artlessly. "Ms. Harcourt was saying something about modifying the science lab to accommodate insectile hands, so maybe we're getting some kind of crazy bug as a student, and from all the new cybertech, maybe a robot or a cyborg. Well, besides Blue Rogue, but she's hardly around so I don't think she counts." He hmmed. "And there was something in the gym about equipment for someone who was permanently very small, but I don't know what that's about. Maybe it's the bug person, and they're like a swarm. Or maybe it's just a really tiny student!" He shrugged. "Either way, it's gonna be a great class."

Star Knight, the fastest Leaguer except for Johnny Rocket, is hit and fails her Possession check

Sharl reappeared in a darkened hangar, memories of the much more positive meeting with Victory in his mind as he gazed at what lay within the Lonely Point complex. Great good fortune, or maybe very bad fortune, had put him near what looked very much like the brain of the creature: a great glistening mound of red and black that...No! It was neither red nor black, it was some alien color like nothing the electronic teenager had ever seen: this was nothing new for him in the bright and shining world outside Tronik, but the great writhing mass of brain matter before him was neither bright nor shining. It writhed and twisted spasmodically in on itself, an ever-churning, ever-thrumming mass of pure telepathic brain tissue. But it doesn't affect me, because I'm not real...no, that's not it. He tightened his jaw. It's not real. It's just a freakish abomination of tissue and viruses. I'm the real thing. He ducked into the shadows as more people flew through the holes someone, or something, had blasted in the roof, and tensed as he recognized the growing crowd of heroes, all of them standing slack-jawed and mindless before the Conquering Mind. Captain Thunder, Star Knight...what do they all have in common? It came to him suddenly. They can fly! They can fly in space! If it can't get a rocket, it's going to get enough people here to carry it out there... He felt a sudden surge of jealousy in his magnetic breast: what did it mean for the fairness of the universe that this thing might see the stars before he ever did? But of course, with any luck, that wouldn't actually happen. All the heroes and the Mind stared at each other, communing with a psychic frequency he was literally not on the right wavelength to ever understand. Crap. It can't hear me. I can't hear it. What do I do now? He studied the assembled heroes before him and made a decision. I can't hear it talking, and it can't hear me thinking...but I know it can see me. He studied the Mind closely until he was satisfied that it couldn't talk, that all its thinking was being done for it by the minds all around it. That's got to be it. No one's heard this thing talk at all, not even with the telepathy detector. It's all instinct, all Grue and Legion, and the minds do all the work! That's why it needs to conquer, that's why it needs the Grue! But as more heroes arrived, he soon became concerned with something else. How could the Lab crew beat all these powerful people, even mind-controlled? He'd have to...he'd have to...he caught sight of Star Knight again, remembered her League bio, and made his decision. -- The radio in the Lab crackled to life. "Hey, uh, guys? Can anyone hear me?" It was Sharl's voice, clear as a bell, on an unfamiliar frequency. "If you can hear me, the Mind is in the same hangar where we met with Victory, Miss A: it's a big, pulsating sort of red mound, you can't miss it as you fly in: it's right under some holes!" There was the distinct sound of explosions over the line. "I don't think there's a real Mind behind it. The captured brains do all the thinking. From what I saw, it's just giving instinctual commands! Yeow!"

"Trevor's smart and perceptive," agreed Mark. Even if he'd thought otherwise, he certainly wouldn't say anything different in front of Erin. "Maybe if it's you, me, and Trevor evaluating people, we can make the assessments for the next year. Give Corbin and Eve a vote too, since they'll have to work with these people. Yeah, it'll be great." He was already up on his feet, distracted, if not swayed, by what Erin had suggested. "We can leave a legacy that matters, one that really belongs to the new kids without being taken over by a bunch of freshman chumps. Hey, did you see they have a divine Norse student starting next year? I got briefed on it with the other Golden Age legacies as a precaution. Wild, huh?"

"Well," said Mark automatically, "I've been testing my powers and I can go a really, really long way when I do the colored dot thing, and I can do it really fast. So even after we graduate, you can just call me and I can come get you wherever you need to go. I wouldn't do that for just anybody, but we're friends, right? And I know you wouldn't ask if it wasn't important." He hmmed. "You're right, we can't just hand it off to anybody. I think between all of us, we can put something together. Will Trevor be joining us, or is he still not technically a Young Freedom member? I know he's not handing his house off anytime soon."

"Secret tryouts," said Mark grandly, "and secret adventures. Good call on the publicity thing. That was our problem early on with people like Breakdown and the rest," he said frankly. "People who are in it for pats on the head and attention, not to save the world. The people who want to do the showy stuff, they can be on Next-Gen with the other, uh, dramatic types. That's why I've kept a secret ID, so I can be known for what I do in public, not who am I in private. You have the best ideas," he told Erin. "Just think of it, we could have like a clubhouse ritual at the end, where we secretly induct the best!"

"Yeah," said Mark, obviously warming to the idea. "We could do trials, maybe test the underclassmen out with drills...and even comb some of the freshmen, so there are junior Young Freedom kids coming up year after year! We can't count on one person wanting to follow our dreams, but if lots of people do, we can keep our dream alive!" He grinned, then said, "Hmm, I wonder if we can get Alex to sell us that house now that she'll be moving out of town with Mike..."

Tectonic II PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 18 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 24 [14] (+7/+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +10 Saves: 8 pp TOU: +10 (+7 Con, +3) FORT: +7 (+7 Con) REF: +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WIS: +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Bluff 10 (+10) Disable Device 10 (+10) Drive 2 (+5) Knowledge: Streetwise 10 (+10) Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 7 (+10) Feats: 13 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged 2 Dodge Focus 2 Improved Initiative Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot 2 Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 65 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Immunity 1 (own powers) [1 pp] Impervious TOU 7 [7 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Vibratory Array [31+2=33 pp] Vibration Control 10 (Extra: Penetrating) (PF: Precise) AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Targeted Area [Cone] (+0), Selective) (PF: Precise) AP: Drain TOU 10 (Extras: Affects Objects, Ranged) costs abilities 18 + combat 32 + saves 8 + skills 14/56 + feats 13 + powers 65 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: This is my build for Tectonic, the Silver/Bronze Age Freedom City hero who was a fairly obvious Vibe expy: a trash-talking Latino street fighter with a cocky grin, vibration powers, and who went down like a chump to prove how scary the latest bad guy was. At least Vibe got strangled by a robot assassin; Tectonic got backstabbed by a no-name Katanarchist ninja. (Halogen, the heroine who flew down to rescue him? Also backstabbed by a no-name ninja. What the hell, Bronze-to-Iron Age Freedom City writers, what the hell?) This version would work fine for Tectonic's successor (his brother's kids would be about his age now), a clone (in the boisterous Bronze Age tradition), or even the original himself, perhaps resurrected via an ancient ritual carried out over a mystic ninja blade that captured his soul. (It would explain why the sword was able to carry out the deaths of so many PL 10 superheroes). I've tried to divide Vibration Control from Sonic Control: my idea is that his powers are like (really) flawed Telekinesis, letting him shake molecules apart without actually using sonic waves to do so. He's got a few secondary mutations to represent physical modifications, or mutations, that allow him to channel that much power. High Bluff but low Charisma means he's charming but unlikeable at the same time, perhaps what you'd expect from a young Latino teenager created by middle-aged white guys in the early 1980s. His Precise Penetrating Vibration Control lets him have really precise control over his powers while at the same time hurt even the toughest opponents. And you know, maybe other stuff. He's a devil with the ladies! (In my mind, this character (either as a young man or an adult), is voiced by Erik Estrada. Why did he play up his Latino roots so heavily? Maybe he was proud of his ethnic heritage and eager to show Latino kids that even their people could be heroes; maybe he honestly did have a heavy accent and an outgoing personality. Or maybe it was Obfuscating Stupidity, and he figured that people would underestimate him if he just sounded like a kid from the Wrong Side of the Tracks. Like a lot of Bronze Age heroes, he died young and brash. Maybe all he needs is a little more time, and a little more seasoning.

Mark fell silent for a long time, showing much less enthusiasm about school projects and teams than the usually ebullient Edge did. "I don't think it's up to us," said Mark finally, "I think we should make the legacy available, maybe encourage people to join the way they did for the Next-Gen when Bolt and the others left, but we should let the new kids make their own choices, and their own legacies. We can't live in the past. Though it would be really cool if there's a Young Freedom here next year. Maybe Corbin and Eve will carry it on, and we can help them recruit some of the new kids before we go. We're pretty big stuff around here."

"I'm really glad about that," said Mark sincerely. "I used to worry about you a lot," he admitted, "but I worry about you a lot less. You've come a long way...and I guess I have too." He smiled thinly. "It seems like just yesterday we were squaring off to fight with those jerks in the stadium. Remember when those robots kept exploding? Or those two girls in the cafe, when you and Chris, uh, had that thing." He grinned. "That was pretty funny, at least in retrospect. It's hard to believe those are the people we used to really worry about."

Mark didn't like the comparison between his father and Singularity, but he could see where Erin was going with it. "We can't blame people for what they do when they're not in their right minds...even if we do still have to stop them from doing it." That left open the question of what you did with people who were, by all accounts in their right minds but did bad things anyway, at least what you did when they were family. But there was nothing Mark could do about that, not without taking his mind to places he just didn't want to go. "That makes sense. I'm sorry I've been so depressing lately. You must...actually, come to think of it, you've been pretty good lately!" said Mark, giving Erin a look. "I mean, serious when you had to be, but you look happy most of the time."

Mark had been talking about the idealized world his father had planned to build, but Erin's words brought the reality of that dream back to him. "I remember what it was like," said Mark sharply, putting his hand unconsciously over his chest. "I told you, didn't I? I thought I'd died and gone to Hell, because of the bad things I'd done. Just because I understand what he was trying to do doesn't mean I didn't hate it too. I stood with you, didn't I, even when I thought fixing reality might k-kill me again? I just...I know he didn't mean to hurt my mom and me like that." He squeezed his eyes shut and added, "My dad is not a bad man. He was crazy with power, he didn't know what he was doing. He'd at least have made something better if he did. It was just...just a dream that was really a nightmare. But a real one."

Mark knew Erin had special reasons to know exactly how long bad things could stay with you, and how bad they really could be, even if she'd never told him much about the details. "You're right. I just wish..." He trailed off. "No, I guess I don't, not really. I can't change the past, or go back to an idealized version of it that maybe never really existed. I think about him, you know? Not Hex, the other other Mark. The one in the world my dad made. Maybe he had an easy life in a lot of ways, but he never had friends like you, or Trevor, or Alex, or people who could stand by him for real...an imaginary world is no place to live. Even if it's a softer one than the real one."

"I guess you're right," said Mark, and though he did sound a little doubtful yet he also sounded more confident than when Erin had come in. "And...and maybe, doing enough good things again can make bad things go away too!" He took a deep breath. "That could happen, right? And I know, I know, it's selfish to worry so much about my family when there are so many more important things happening. And people who have it much worse than I do." He gave no sign he meant Erin with that, which was probably for the best. "Just a few more months, and I'll be out of here. We all will."

"I don't know," Mark admitted. "Most of the League, they...they talk about my dad brainwashing her or using his powers on her, but that's just...that's just awful. I know what he did, but that was a mistake, and he'd never do that to my mom." He put his hands on his knees and added, "But that means my mom left because she wanted to, and even if she had reasons, or thought she did...that hurts," he said painfully. "It hurts a lot. Even if it's out of the papers, so many people know it already. I always thought it was a good thing that my family had so much history, even if some people didn't like us very much, that we were just...just relics of the old days. But now I don't know. I don't know how true any of it was."

"Given the choice between living here and coming with us, I'm sure they'll come," said Edge with great hope as he looked at the others. Even down in the depths of the tunnels, Mark's force of personality was tough to beat. "They may live well here, but no one wants to live in a cage. That's why we're here. And even if they do, I'm sure they'll want to follow Caryatid here. No one...no one wants to see their family broken up, especially not in a place like this where keeping families together must be tough enough already. If we make a convincing enough case, if we really believe what we're selling them, I know we can do it. Let's do this."

The young heroes journeyed together through the sewers, Caryatid doing her best to relay all she could about the current conditions of the school as well as her family life. Her father, Gardner, worked mostly out of his home, while her mother Marlena worked the late shift for the Syndicate, leaving in the late evening and coming home with a small escort close to dawn. Her sister Donna went to the Thunderbolt School: an elite Syndicate-managed academy for the children of their most favored lackeys, but dawn classes meant she returned home in the early afternoon. The time to strike would be in the afternoon hours, when the whole family would be together under one roof, and when the traffic on the roads would delay any but a superpowered response directed against the young heroes. Before they knew it, they were there, passing scarred, pitted walls as they reached a passageway that led to the construction site across the street from the Gravois residence.

Sharl reported to the lab to join Miss Americana and Dragonfly, by his timing missing Dragonfly's suppressed desire to tell him off. "I know it's dangerous," he told Miss A as he handed her his emitter, "but I can't just stand here and do nothing. Freedom City may not be where I was born, but I'm a citizen here too. I have...I have people here I care about, people who I want to save, just as much as any of you." It was the sort of authenticity only a teenager could really provide. "Okay, I'm ready." and within seconds the electronic teenager's consciousness was stored inside Miss A's computer as she began working on him, his face appearing as a little icon on her desktop.

"They kept it out of the papers, you know," said Mark, saying something he was sure Erin was already aware of. "Both my dad, and my mom. I'm sure some people remember what happened last spring, but most of them have their own reasons not to say anything. Even now, if it became known that another Terminus invasion might be coming, that the famous Rick Lucas hurt so many people, even if it got better in the end, they think it might make superheroes look bad. Might make other heroes look bad." Mark shook his head. "I don't know what I want. I don't want my dad's name in the dirt, but I don't want him covered up, either...and I wish they'd just say something about my mom, not treat her like what happened to her was just...was just an appendage."

"No, I..." Mark put his hand on the nearest box, then shook his head. "That makes sense," he admitted, "I mean, I can't just keep all this stuff in my room forever. It doesn't make me feel the way it used to, anyway. But if I give it up, it'll be like...like I don't know, like I'm giving up on them ever coming back, or at least I'm thinking they won't be back any time soon. But maybe putting it in storage at the school would be nice. They'd both talked about coming to visit campus more often, back before...back before everything happened."

"Thank you," said Mark, taking a seat on his bed and offering Erin the one by his desk. "It's going okay," he said automatically, shooting a guilty look at some of the boxes. "Mr. Summers and...some of my family's friends came by and helped me move some things here, things I'd moved back to my house after...back when all the stuff started. You know." He sounded much more subdued than Mark usually did, but not on the peak of despair she might have expected, either. He sighed a little. "I just...I do't know if I should have brought all this old stuff back. I couldn't just leave it there, all alone, for however long..."

Sharl drifted around the hangar-lab as Miss Americana worked on Victory, mostly tuning out the technical conversation that was above him. He was there for Miss A when she needed him, quickly zipping down with a tool or with the results of a particular readout, but truthfully Miss A was smart enough that she didn't need a lot of technical help. He studied a holographic projector in the corner of the room with an odd feeling of recognition before turning back to his work. The hours went by and Miss Americana began making progress on repairing Victory's systems, tying the problem not to any defect in the pilot's organic components or his top of the line cybernetics, but rather in the slightly overclocked software that transmitted his wet thoughts to his dry components. As they worked, Sharl noticed a man in the rear of the room take a phone call, then turn hastily to another to talk to each other with some quiet haste. While the scientist worked on the cyborg, other conversations were taking place! But he was busy in the work, and by the time everyone was ready for a break, almost all the observers in the hangar had left!

"Yeah," said Mark, appearing at the door to let Erin in after a few moments. His room was more disorganized than Erin remembered; Mark wasn't focused enough to be a real neat freak, but he'd always cleaned his room and kept it looking pretty much like the model rooms in pictures in the school catalogue. Now, though, there were pop cans on the desk and unopened boxes, all of the memorabilia Mark had gone back to his house to get left tucked into boxes along the bare walls once adorned with pictures of Young Freedom and the old League. "How's it going?" he asked her, a little tiredly.