Avenger Assembled

"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.

March 10 "No sir," said Mark respectfully, sitting in his empty dorm room. Now that Mike was spending so much time over with the Albrights, it had been an easy enough matter to move his stuff back into their own room. He was doing a video conference with Daedalus now, talking to the Greek hero in his office in Athens. "He didn't say anything after that. He just took my mother and...left." He was sitting on his bed, unconsciously hugging the pillow on his lap, as he looked into the camera. "I was hoping you might have some...some idea where he might have gone." Most Claremont students thought that the current Daedalus was the son of the 1960s inventor Daniel Daedalus. But Mark Lucas was not most Claremont kids. "No, Mark, I'm afraid I don't." Daedalus looked fatigued, perhaps as a result of that mind parasite that had been such a problem while the Young Freedom kids had been away on Anti-Earth. "I stood by Richard Lucas during two different Terminus invasions. We were both there the day your namesake died in battle against the lord of the Terminus. I know your mother less well, but I know all she did in those terrible days too. If they have fled...then they're not the people I once knew But your father was a man who kept his own council, always, even when he was the most open of men in other times. As long as I've known him, I can't give you answers for his actions." With a heavy heart, Mark finished the phone call and sat alone in his room. Surrounded by superheroic memorabilia, he suddenly felt alone. What did all these monuments mean, all these pictures and stories, when they hadn't been able to keep his family together? Or with him at all? It was...it was really sad. Unable to cry, unable to give up but unable to find a solution, Mark sat alone in his room, staring at the wall. All the power the school had found in him, and he couldn't even cheer himself up.

"Yes, let's go. We've traveled many miles, and touched many minds today. A little rest is in order...or other things, anyway. I have needs that are not the same as your women." She kissed him again, and the pair vanished in a flare of cosmic energy. Just as they went, Corbin noticed a flying animal deep up against the blue sky of Quo-Dis' homeworld. It seemed flying birds were universal across worlds...or were they? Luckily, he had his girl there to make sure he didn't dwell on the biological dilemma too long.

Sharl landed on the roof just behind Protectron, looking unsettled by the combat in the air, his battle with Electrolux, and by the dire situation they were facing. "If it's a merger of Grue cells and a sentient virus, it's not really alive at all, is it?" asked Sharl over the intercoms. His question didn't sound rhetorical: this was a grey area for the electronic teenager. "When the Freedom League saved samples of Legion, they did it for further study, not for the sake of saving the thing, and those Grue cells didn't even come from a whole person. And real people have been hurt by this thing. Dragonfly almost died. That mom and baby almost died. With those wrecked cars we saw..." Sharl swallowed, a perfectly natural gesture, though a bit odd on the sentient hologram. "What if you sent me over there, while you're working on the calcium oxide weapon? Streamline my program and send me to one of those holographic projectors we saw when we were there with Victory? That way I can find out if it's just a dakavore, er, termite colony, or if there is a real mind behind it. And I can find where the brain is exactly, so you know right where to deliver whatever you decide to build?"

Gunner PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Blast) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +8 Init: +7 Saves: 10 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Bluff 12 (+15) Diplomacy 2 (+5) Knowledge: History 10 (+10) Languages 2 (Chinese, Japanese) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp All-Out Attack Dodge Focus 6 Challenge 2 (Improved Feint, Improved Taunt) Improved Initiative Luck Power Attack Precise Shot Set-Up Taunt Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 62 pp Blast 10 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Accurate 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [metal]) [34 pp] Immunity 10 (metal) [10 pp] Impervious TOU 8 [8 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Super-Senses 4 (metal awareness [mental], Acute Radius Ranged) [4 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 62 = 150 pts -- Design Notes: This is my build for Gunner, the Golden Age kid sidekick hero brutally murdered by the Crimson Katana alongside his brother the Human Tank, the two young men becoming the last members of the Golden Age European superteam the Allies of Freedom to die. I've never been able to figure out why the Allies of Freedom came to such a spectacularly sticky end; surely they could have made Kantor and Nacht-Krieger imposing figures of menace without dumping _everyone_ in the refrigerator! (My favorite 'meta'-explanation for it is that the Allies of Freedom title, always the least-selling title of Freedom Comics' Golden Age-era line, was abruptly switched over to the new fad of horror comics in the postwar period and the writers decided to be particularly brutal in killing off their characters for the switch) Anyway. Gunner has the power of absorbing metal into his body, holding it there, and firing it back at his enemies. Rather than the clunky Absorption construction that this power had in the book, I've given him a straight-up immunity to metal effects: stab him or shoot him a thousand times with blade or bullet, and he'll be just fine. In fact, he can fire those metal bits back at you in a dizzying array of bombardment. He can also find metal even when he can't see it, absorb decent physical punishment thanks to his metal-infused body, and taunt, trick, and set-up like any good Golden Age sidekick ought to be. He's got some Leaping for mobility on the Golden Age battlefields that the Allies haunted so well. This build works just fine for a Gunner plucked from his death at the age of 19 in early 1946 to the modern era, I think with a few modifications it could work for a Gunner who chose to go into retirement under an assumed name after his brother's death. It's also not a bad choice for his successor: as young as he was, it's at least possible he fathered a child before his death, perhaps giving Japan a complicated legacy of a dead American hero and his illegitimate Japanese super-children, just in time for the 1960s! This would represent a later version of that legacy, but one I think no less compelling.

Edge spends an HP for Ultimate TOU and is just fine.

"We have been intimate both physically and spiritually. You are my mate," she informed him. "This is a very serious matter among my people, particularly since you are not like us." Quo-Dis was usually very blunt, but this was something of a compromise. "But our actions were approved, and so everything we did still happened." She smiled at him and said, "It is a very long time back to your home, Corbin, even with your great speed in the air. Shall I take us back there? It will take only a few moments."

"Listen, you little punks," said Edge with more venom than was usually in his voice as he confronted the fake villains. Real villains. Whatever they were. Mark hated bad guys with complex plots! Not only were they doing bad things, they were confusing him too, and that annoyed him considerably. "You're just some small-time hoods with superpowers who think running away to Ashbury makes you smart. Well, you know what? I think it just makes you chicken. All you've done is show that you're too cowardly and too stupid to make a dishonest living in Freedom City. Well now the real heroes are here, and we're going to show you how we do things in Freedom City!" He walked fearlessly up to the goons and yelled, "We're going to beat you and take you to a real jail! That's how!"

Edge spends an HP to Inspire, giving a +5 bonus to all the characters that'll take effect at the top of the next round.