Avenger Assembled

Sharl hesitated at Miss Americana's words, but despite his strong natural urge to head straight for Lonely Point and study the situation in much more detail, he opted to obey his teacher. Remembering the powerful defenses there, not to mention the mighty Victory, he was a little concerned at the thought of being attacked all alone. Gina had put on a rather brutal demonstration of the coherency of his body using a surprisingly realistic simulation some time earlier, and he didn't want to take the chance of running into a magnetic field, or of his intelligence somehow being used against his friends by the alien mind inside Lonely Point. "Acknowledged, Miss A. Faster if I don't fly, anyway," he muttered, and soon he joined Protectron on the return flight to the Lab. Still glowing that peculiar shade of blue, Sharl was just behind the robot as they headed for the roof.

Caryatid said, "Yes, I helped shore up part of the reinforcements after the last escape attempt. It was actually pretty interesting, see, because she'd been digging down instead of up, and using the bones of..." Mind-Master shot her a look and she said, "Uh, but you don't wan't to hear about that. Anyway, I can find the place for you. I can bring it down, too, if you can make sure I'm not taken by surprise while I'm doing it." She looked nervous again before she said, "Are you sure you know what you're going to do with her? I mean, she's, well, I'm sure she's a good person and all, but she's..." "It'll be all right," said Edge, giving the girl a frank, reassuring look. "We're superheroes. Every bad thing the Syndicate does? We do a good thing. Every innocent hurt, every crime unpunished, every sin rewarded? We're the opposite of all that. No, we're its better. The multiverse isn't a very fair place, but we can make it fair. For you, your family, and everyone else we can reach. I promise that we'll do everything in our power to make things right. And our power is vast. C'mon," he suggested, "let's get moving. We can't let Midnight take to the surface without us close at hand behind him."

It was immediately obvious to Victory that there was something different about the teenager: on closer inspection, he wasn't really there at all! Glowing faintly with misplaced radiation, he looked like a living being of pure electricity and magnetism. "I'm Sharl," said Sharl distinctly, wanting to do his part to be Miss A's discreet assistant as he'd promised her. He'd do just about anything for Miss A, except hurt Gina, of course. His grip on Victory's free hand was firm and tingled ever so slightly. "I'm Miss Americana's assistant. I want you to know," he said seriously, "that of all the heroes I've helped Miss A work with, I think you're the bravest. I'm honored to have a chance to work with you." He held back a little as Miss A went to work on Victory, floating up in the air for a better view.

Carytid gave a start and stepped behind Mind-Master at Wander's approach, shooting her mentor a fearful look! For his part, the immortal psychic gave Talos a serious look before eying Wander as well. "It's all right, Carytid. Her mind is nothing like that others'" Cautiously, the young teen stepped out and explained: many of the senior students were away this weekend on a special field trip to Antarctica, where a LIGHT colony had been found by stealth observation and was in the middle of being destroyed. That left only students who didn't generally go with the rest of the class for high-level combat missions: students like the Blank who preferred to concentrate on his own network in Empire City (she gave a shudder at his name too), or students like Hex who were slated for a career path in the city itself. Singularity was kept in an artificially-dug cavern beneath the Academy, dug out by the infamous Earthen Lord himself.

Sharl was briefly concerned by the loud noise, but Miss A looked unruffled so he dismissed his worries. Hmm, let me think...ah, I get it! Somebody must have broken the sound barrier in-atmosphere while using one of their jets. He must be the bravest man on Earth!Sharl let Miss A make the introductions as they landed at the base, playing the part of her discreet young assistant to perfection. He'd done it on various technical projects before. Truthfully, as interesting as the primitive technology was here, he was more fascinated by the sky overhead. It's just so...blue! He'd seen blue skies before in pictures of alien worlds preserved on Tronik, or back home when the weather was especially foul, but the alien skies overhead were remarkable for both their azure color, so unlike the familiar verdigris of home, and their sheer immense _size_. Not many people had an interest in looking at the sky where Sharl was from; you needed to work in the plankton fleet or live near the top of your district, and where Sharl himself lived the sky was always cut by districts rising and antigravs flying overhead. And Miss A flies in that whenever she wants...and her friend flies in it really fast! He was so distracted by that he just managed to pull himself out as he and Miss A were walked into the hangar where Victory was waiting for them.

"Hey! Hey!" It took Dragonfly's mighty brain only an instant to realize that the voice she was hearing was coming over the communicator from the cells, the one carefully screened to make sure no telepathic or memetic commands were being issued by someone with voice powers. "Oh, thank God! It's gone! Can anyone hear me?" On the little visual feed built into the monitor, she could see Blue Wall's face as she peered around frantically. "Hey, listen! You've got to stop that damned thing in Lonely Point. It's trying to get off Earth and take over the Grue! I don't know what it did, but somehow it got its hooks in the whole damn city! If it doesn't get what it wants, Lord knows what it'll do to the rest of us! If it gets all the telepaths it has together and hooks their brains up, it could grab the whole damn planet!"

"I guess the logical thing to do is go at night?" suggested Edge, a little doubtfully. "But going that long might put us in danger too." It was only after years of experience that Mark was able to plan this well, and he was very proud. "If Midnight goes in during the day, though...well, no one would expect someone to be sneaking around then!" he exclaimed. "This isn't a world where the bad guys hide and prowl around. They'll just walk in and bang on the door. It might be different since the Blank is a Claremont student, but if he's got a life outside the school...it'll probably work." He confirmed with Carytid that she'd be able to help: Carytid herself had not officially left the school at all, and Mind-Master's formidable psychic abilities were currently put towards making sure that Mr. Beaumont believed that Carytid was on a special assignment for him in the Fens. She'd already picked up his booze.

Power Thief PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 24 pp STR 24 [14] (+7/+2) DEX 24 [14] (+7/+2) CON 24 [14] (+7/+2) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+13 Melee) DEF: +13 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +20 Init: +7 Saves: 4 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+7 Dex) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 44 r=11 pp Acrobatics 8 (+15) Bluff 11 (+15) Diplomacy 4 (+8) Concentration 13 (+15) Stealth 8 (+15) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 7 Dodge Focus 7 Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 67 pp Container 7 (Power Thief Suite) [35 pp] Fatigue 7 LINKED Mimic 7 (all powers) (Flaw: Saving Throw [Reflex]) Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced DEX 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 24 + combat 24 + saves 4 + skills 11/44 + feats 19 + powers 67 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Transfer is a sucky power, both too complicated and it doesn't actually give you the ability to do what most power thieves can do in comics: grab people, knock them out, suck out their powers, and keep that power working until they're subdued/the encounter ends. So that's why I've built this lady, putting together Mimic and Fatigue to give you something that should let you grab people, 'drain' them, and copy and keep their powers at the same time. Fatigue isn't as severe an impairment as Stun, but it's more long-lasting, and multiple hits or surging will let you knock someone pretty thoroughly out. As for that Mimic, she can get up to 35 pp worth of powers and she can keep them as long as she can keep making Concentration checks when stunned or otherwise incapable of taking free actions. She meets her caps in combat without use of her Power Theft ability, just so you're not stuck in a crisis. No Drain means she doesn't have to worry about her stolen powers fading. She's got the Save Required flaw for her Mimic, representing people pulling away in time to avoid being copied. With her manifold abilities to render someone flat-footed, she should be able to Power Attack most of the time. Even if she can't drain enough to zap someone (i.e, they make their save vs. Fatigue), she still has a chance of pulling out enough of their powers to use in combat against them. Side-Effect is another good one, representing that the consequences of too much energy are frying her own brain! I'm not a big fan of Tainted (you get the drawbacks of the people you copy) or Split Personality (sometimes their personalities can be sucked into your mind too) as Flaws for Mimic: I think the first is a better power drawback, and the second a complication. Given her high combat abilities, she can fight Badass Normals just fine, punching them in the head and even using her powers to knock them out at the same time. She's pretty awesome! Her biggest weakness is that she doesn't do a whole lot besides trick people, sneak past people, and suck their powers out to use against them. There's nothing wrong with that if it's your concept (she's quite good at all those things!), but you might be interested in trying something else. Another possible Drawback is something where she has to get direct skin-to-skin contact on her targets to let her Power Theft work, thus giving people with full body suits or power armor an advantage against her in combat.

February 25 Sharl enjoyed getting out of Gina's house, and he was pretty sure (though he didn't understand why) Gina also liked him out of there. Maybe that was why she'd suggested he go with Miss A on her trip out to Lonely Point to meet and work on a friend of hers. They were together in the sky as they approached the distant peninsula, the mobile emitter in Miss A's uniform letting Sharl keep up with his friend's great speed in the air. "Wow, so he actually has a chemical jet engine inside his body?" She'd been describing Victory, the hero who worked for the national (and what a concept that was!) government, and Sharl himself could hardly believe it. "That's...that's amazing! Isn't he worried about it blowing up?" For Sharl, who'd grown up with antigravs and plasma engines, the thought of a chemically-powered engine embedded inside a living human being was bizarrely fascinating, and very interesting.

Sentient Plant PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 58 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 (+10) INT 14 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +6 Init: +2 Grapple: +24 Saves: 6 pp TOU +14 (+10 Con, +4 Protection) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Intimidate 12 (+15) Knowledge: Life Sciences 8 (+10) Languages 2 (Kaw, Spanish) (Base: English) Medicine 7 (+10) Notice 7 (+10) Search 3 (+5) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 11 pp Attack Focus: Melee (4) Challenge (Fast Startle) Move-By Action Startle Power Attack Quick Change Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 43 pp Immunity 7 (aging, disease, poison, sleep, starvation and thirst, suffocation) [7 pp] Leaping 3 (x10) [3+1=4 pp] AP: Speed 3 (50 MPH) Protection 4 [4 pp] Regeneration 19 (Bruised 3 [no action], Injured 6 [no action], Staggered 5 [standard action], Disabled 4 (5 minutes), Resurrection 1 [1 week]) (PF: Regrowth) [20 pp] Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) [8 pp] Drawback: -4 pp Vulnerability (Fire) (Common, Major) [4 pp] costs abilities 58 + combat 24 + saves 6 + skills 12/48 + feats 11 + powers 43- drawback 4 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Here's my take on the Sentient Plant archetype. Rather than build a Poison Ivy or Swamp Thing takeoff, I was inspired by Sunflower, a memorable (if cannon fodder) character who made an appearance in a recent Marvel storyline as one of the superheroes of Kansas. Sunflower (who has you can see from the picture is basically Bob the Angry Sunflower hepped up on gamma radiation) is something unusual for Sentient Plant archetypes in that he's a straight-up brawler who could go toe-to-toe with a clone of Hyperion before graphically demonstrating his vulnerability to fire thanks to his opponents' heat vision. Still, plant-based characters have a way of coming back from all sorts of damage in combat. Obviously a Marvel Universe character should not appear in our game, but perhaps this character _is_ originally a Kansas superhero who has relocated to Freedom City after an encounter with a Centurion clone? He's pretty freaking tough: he doesn't have the impervious that most powerhouses do, but with his Regeneration it's going to be really tough to put him down in combat. No Persistent on the Regeneration: if you run into someone doing Incurable Damage, just suck it up or power-stunt a healing effect as necessary. Save points by giving him a Flaw or Drawback where his Regeneration doesn't work without access to sunlight: I'd treat the first as requiring unobstructed natural sunlight during the day, the second as requiring being outside. I went ahead and gave him full immunity to various biological concerns that plants generally don't have: if you want him to have those sorts of issues, go ahead and spend those points elsewhere. Having the Complication "But Does Get Plant Diseases" and "But Does Hate Weedkiller" and "Needs Co2" is what I went with here, but those are good reasons to drop or alter those immunities too. He's not a big fan of fire! I went with the idea that he is basically a Bruce Banner expy, perhaps the victim of a weedkiller bomb gone horribly awry. He's not a good candidate for team brain, really, but he's a lot smarter than your average powerhouse, and he can definitely use that to find a niche as a superhero. He's better at taking hits than dishing them out, and might be a good candidate for Impervious Toughness if you've got the points. It's your call whether he's stuck looking that way or not; it would certainly explain why he's so crabby! But OTOH, there is something to be said for being able to enjoy a fulfilling social life. It'd be an easy joke to make a character like this a loud vegan, but OTOH, you'd think he'd want to _discourage_ people from eating plant matter...

"If it's not the vril, then I will not need to worry," said Quo-Dis with a little smile. "But we must be serious if we are to be sure. This is a very grave matter." And with that she took his hand and together they were...elsewhere. Or maybe this time it was more like there was someone, or a great many someones, there with them, a presence in and around his mind that Corbin couldn't quite make out. Quo-Dis was talking to them, he was sure, but he couldn't 'hear' the words of that assembly of ancient, mighty intelligences that were scrutinizing him with eyes he couldn't see and senses he didn't share, deep down to his very core. Finally, though, he felt them pull away. Not with approval, perhaps, but not with scorn, either. For her part, Quo-Dis looked profoundly relieved. "Thank vril it wasn't me," she said, looking very happy. She took Corbin by the face and kissed him. "We are well."

Mind-Master's telepathy, relayed through Sage's mind "to reassure you as to my good intentions," and Carytid's description gave the kids a good idea of what they were in for. The Gravois family were privileged servants like what the Lucas family once had been: they had a home of their own in Ashton guarded by the Syndicate flag flying in the yard and the presence of various super-thugs living in the neighborhood. "We don't have any kind of house security," she said, "I mean, just an alarm system my parents put in to keep out kidnappers." The Resistance, it seemed, occasionally kidnapped civilians who worked for the League for information. "The real problem is the Syndicate system in the neighborhood. That's a really good neighborhood," she said, sketching out a version of suburbia with an APC on every corner, "and it's that good because the Syndicate watches us all the time. We can get there with the sewer, but I don't know what we'll do after that."

Fusion didn't actually leave the room, but she did clear a spot at the table for Fulcrum. "No," she assured the other woman, "this is your table, and your friends. We all have a place here, especially those of us...who actually work here," she added with a whispery little chuckle. She let the much-taller woman take a seat, and pulled up a chair of her own along with a plate of dip and chips. Food's good, and it's cheap. She was more comfortable as an observer, anyway, at least for now. These kids deserve better than what they've got, she thought a little irritably. Don't we all?

Protectron was faster than Sharl in the air, so he let the robot catch the falling bad guy. Electrolux was still weakly struggling, but with a little encouragement from Protectron, it was easy enough to subdue the electrically-empowered (usual) hero. "Okay, uh..." Sharl thought for a moment, then said, "We can't keep him here, you know, uh, over the bay, and I don't think we should just let him go. As long as the bad guys are controlling superheroes, we shouldn't give them anyone back. Why don't you fly him back to the Lab, and I'll try and scout around the naval base? I mean, there's not a whole lot they can do to me, right?"

And Doc, we'll speed things up and say no.

That'll work just fine, Fox.

Edge Seizes Initiative. I believe he currently has 4 HP, TT?

OK, Miss A and Dragonfly are out of rounds and can post freely. Protectron is up in the Sharl/Protectron segment.

Daedalus' armor was in the process of shutting down its connections to the outside of the world, but Gina was able to find one useful thing before she left: the armor had recently uploaded the schematics for the last time a Daedalus built a starship. That was no surprise, she'd seen the ship under construction on the gantry, but not the specifics. This was an interstellar ship, one with range and power to reach the edges of where Earthly scientists speculated the Grue Unity might be. This was no ship for the solar system, this was a ship for the depths of space! And then the connection shut down, returning her cybernetic intelligence to her body.

OK, that'll crush him easily, since he can't beat that check on a nat-20. Now have an HP and go out there and fight bad guys hand to hand, you. :P

Meanwhile, Daedalus arrived on the gantry, half-visible in the security cameras mounted along the sides. Gina's work, through Miss Americana, was doing some damage, and had certainly paralyzed launch capacity for the near future. But someone, or rather, something had figured out the computers were being tampered with, and slowly the systems with which was connected were beginning to shut down. But before they did, she felt another interface in the system: the thing controlling Daedalus was using his armor to try and find her! But luckily it was evidently not her equal, and she was safe inside the system, watching the Daedalus probe hunt for her unsuccessfully, even as it began to shut down around her.

Still supercharged by Electrolux's blast, Sharl threw a wild punch that connected solidly with the blue paragon's jaw: to his surprise, it worked all too well! The channeled energy made a crack like a thunderclap as he slugged Electrolux, the sheer force of the unexpectedly powerful blow knocking the mind-controlled Swede out of the sky. "Oh, crap!" said Sharl, watching him fall. "The fall could really hurt him, even as tough as he is, and I don't know if he can breathe underwater like some of you people can...but he's still conscious...Do you think we should catch him?"

Sharl swings and misses I'm going to say that what they're doing, in particular his rescue of Protectron, activated his Friend complication and gives him an HP. I'll say the same goes for Protectron as he's endeavoring not to hurt Electrolux too badly, thus protecting all organic life. (He didn't get it for Sharl because Sharl isn't organic life!) 21 With the HP, that hits. Electrolux has to make a DC 28 TOU save (he's using his electro-punch, leaving himself vulnerable to a blast) 14 You know, we've been at this guy long enough: we don't want to make the guys look bad! I'll keep that roll. Electrolux is stunned and staggered. He also fails his Concentration check, and starts to fall

Carytid's mind was like a complicated origami sculpture, pulling out a few layers was easy enough, but going too deep would have had serious consequences. Eve found a girl with a mind shaped by years of worry: her father's anxious drinking, her mother's high-strung personality, her little sister's combativeness, all had come together to make a girl much older than her face and body had any right to be. She was in the Academy all right, it was easy enough to find the memories of the tests at school that had found her power potential, the arrival of the men from the Syndicate, the terrifying, near-lethal tests that had awakened her abilities, and then finally the grim, brutal training of the Syndicate's Academy. Mind-Master had found her some months earlier; attacking a group of freshman students, capturing them, and reading their minds to find which one had the most potential for good.

She turned pink, what little of her he could see, anyway. "My people are empowered by vril, the cosmic force that underlies all of reality," she said didactically. "If you've been experiencing energy discharges, I may have contaminated your body with it, and that may be...very hazardous for you. Vril can only be channeled by my people and the mightiest of others. If I have introduced vril into the outside world, it will be...well, I will need to find it out now. Now close your eyes, and take my hands."