Avenger Assembled

"We must go!" She took his hand. "I have to make sure I haven't contaminated you." And with that rather ominous note, her whole body flashed white, and she, Corbin, and his room both vanished utterly. And suddenly, they were elsewhere. A sea of naked white lay all around Corbin, snow and ice stretching off to the hills of the horizon, with only a few sad-looking plants poking through the snowcoat. The sky was bluewhite and covered in cloud, no stars were visible. He might have been on Earth; he might have been anywhere. For her part, Quo-Dis sat down, folding her legs neatly beneath her body, and gestured for him to do the same. "We must commune."

"The program is not in the Laboratory," said Electrolux accusingly. "He has been granted ambulatory capacity. Your intelligence will be destroyed and your technology will be integrated into the arsenal of the Mind." And with that, he hurled a bolt of energy at Sharl, the mind controlling him taking wicked advantage of Sharl's burden to blast him when he couldn't get away! Sharl tensed as the blast approached, all-too-aware of how helpless he was, and cried out "Yeow!" as it struck his beltline. The world blanked out for a second, turning all white, but when it was done Sharl was all right; indeed, now his electronic body was glowing with the same bluish light that Electrolux had hurled at them. "Is that all you've got!?" Sharl taunted the mind. "We're going to get in there and kick your butt! And don't call me Program!"

Electrolux shoots at Sharl Standard: 22 Ouch! That'll be a DC 25 Tou save for Sharl. 27 But he's OK! Protectron is up as soon as I post.

Outside, the glued-up Blue Wall yelled, "You will be Conquered! All of you will be Conquered and serve the Mind!" She pulled back, flew directly into the side of the building, and Dragonfly heard a terrible, final splat! Looking down with the Lab's cameras, though, she didn't need to worry: the Blue Wall had managed to glue herself against the side of the building and was thoroughly, miserably stuck. She was still there when Dragonfly arrived, but now silent, her voice as still as her slack face.

Quo-Dis turned white, putting her hand over her mouth. "Unless...oh, by vril! What if I've..." Her voice trailed off, and quickly she scrambled for her clothes. "Corbin Hughes, you need to dress and accompany me immediately. We have urgent business that must be done. Now!" Within seconds, she was dressed herself, donning not her costume or her regular clothes, but a black jumpsuit like the one Corbin had seen her mother wearing. Where had she kept it? It was hard to say, perhaps folded somewhere in her clothing.

"You have beautiful eyes, Corbin Hughes," she informed him, gazing deep into his with limpid pools of azure delight. She reached over to touch his face, the brush soft and gentle for all the strength she's shown earlier. "I noticed an energy discharge while were in the act of in-er, making love. Has your body begun absorbing the energies of your ring?" She seemed concerned by the thought, and gave him a level look. "Is this something you are aware of?"

Sharl catches Protectron before he can fall, spends an HP to shake the fatigue of his earlier extra effort, and is out of options. Miss A is up.

The blast of electricity flashed against Protectron's chestplate, scorching the armor and overloading circuits beneath the tough outer shell, temporarily disabling the robot's flight computer. He fell...and suddenly a magnetic hand closed on his wrist. "I've got you!" Sharl's elbow shrieked as he caught Protectron in the air, his electronic muscles giving him strength he'd never have had in the 'real' world. "Come on, we can..." Sharl belatedly realized he wasn't at all sure what they could do: his body hurt from exertion, Protectron was so heavy, and Electrolux was still right there, hands glowing with power. "Come on, you wanna fight? Pick on someone your own size!"

Mastermind had been quiet the last few years, his occasional clashes with the Freedom League generally happening outside the United States and thus not making the news. But the immortal genius's silver armor, floating cape, and full-face-mask were still instantly recognizable as he teleported into the brick and steel-lined chamber, the psychic powerhouse the same man who had bedeviled the Liberty and Freedom Leagues over so many years...but of course, he wasn't that man at all. At his side was a very young woman in a green uniform, her black hair cut short and her eyes downcast: on closer inspection, the girl couldn't have been more than fourteen. Mind-Master, as his name was here, bowed low to Talos, and then to the other heroes. "Good morning," he said, a faint, indefinable accent in his ancient voice. "I am Mind-Master, and this is my pupil, Carytid." Somewhat reassuringly, the girl's face was not familiar, though of course the senior Claremont kids didn't spend a lot of time hanging around with the freshmen. "We have come to talk with you, champions of the Mirror Earth, about your plan." "You brought her here?" Talos's metallic face narrowed as he studied his putative ally and the child by his side. "You told me she would remain." "Carytid's fervent desire is to come with you," said Mind-Master, eyeing the teens. "So that she might be liberated from the nightmare that the superpowered beings have brought to this world, learn how to use her abilities for good instead of evil, and then to return to this dimension as a liberator. She-" As politely as he could, Edge interjected. "Uh, sir? If we're going to do that, we need to hear from her, too." Not many people would have casually interrupted Mind-Master, certainly not Mark, but then, this was a serious situation. "Yeah, um..." The girl shrank a little as she looked at the others, not quite ducking behind Mind-Master's cloak, but she still spoke, "Yeah, I can't...I can't stay." She forced herself to look, finally fixing her gaze on Edge. "My name is Francois Gravois. I'm just a sophomore at the Academy. New meat, they call us. Uh, I didn't volunteer or anything; I tested for the metagene at school, and they..." She looked away again. "They did stuff till my powers came up. I'm an earth controller, the way Captain Thunderbolt is for electricity, and now that I can work as part of a team, they want me to work in the sewers. With, um, Singularity," she shot a glance at Wander, then went on, "But I can't do that. I've had to hurt people to defend myself, but I won't just...just destroy them, and their homes, because they're rebels. So I need to leave." "Francois has a family," Mind-Master went on, his face grave. "Her father is an accountant in the Syndicate's employ, and her mother is a computer programmer, one of Daedalus' proteges, and a younger sister. If she vanishes, her family may suffer grievously at the Syndicate's hands. Certainly her sister will be conscripted into the armies of the Syndicate just as she was." "That's...that's why we've got to save them," said Carytid hopefully. "We've got to save my family, and take them to your world. Will you help us?" For his part, Edge didn't even need to glance at his fellows before replying, "We'll do everything we can for your family, Carytid. Nobody deserves to grow up in a place like this, or...or to have to leave their family behind, and not know what's happening to them. We'll save them, and we'll take out the whole Academy while we're at it. I promise."

Animal Mimic PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 26 [16] (+8/+3) DEX 26 [16] (+8/+3) CON 26 [16] (+8/+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 Melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +8 Grapple: +20 Saves: 9 pp TOU +8 (+8 Con) FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2) REF +10 (+8 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Acrobatics 7 (+15) Climb 7 (+15) Handle Animal 11 (+15) Knowledge: Life Sciences 10 (+10) Medicine 6 (+8) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 13 (+15) Swim 2 (+10) Feats: 21 pp Acrobatic Bluff Animal Empathy Attack Focus: Melee 6 Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Climb, Notice, Sense Motive) Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 48 pp Animal Mimicry 2 [18 pp] '10 pp' -Sample Allocation Big Cat: Leaping 4 (x25) [4], Speed 3 (50 MPH) [3], Super-Senses 3 (Acute Tracking Olfactory, Low-Light Vision) Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced DEX 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 9 + skills 18/72 + feats 21 + powers 48 = 150 pts -- Design Notes: Here’s an Animal Mimic, one who is much more competent in many ways than the core book one. Animal Mimicry seems to be built with the assumption that your character will not meet caps and generally be inept: this is not a good thing! So instead I’ve gone with what it should be: this is a version of the character who is in her civilian life a badass adventurer and survivalist, but also happens to have the ability to adopt the special powers of animals! With just a thought she can give herself the speed and elegance of a great cat, the flight and eyesight of an eagle, or anything else you care to name. She can’t quite fully emulate, say, the strength and durability of an elephant, but she can come close with some Impervious and Super-Strength. Remember that realistically, animals aren’t actually that strong (in a superhero setting) and most of them aren’t exactly bulletproof. With a thought, the crushing depths of the undersea or the heights of the sky itself are yours! Abuse Grant Morrison’s Animal Man for power ideas (come for the postmodernism, stay for the animal stuff!) or just watch lots of Discovery Channel shows: animals can do a whole lot of things, and if you can fit it into 10 PP, why not? Blast like the pistol shrimp, survive in space like the waterbear... Remember that animal mimics don’t actually change appearance, but there’ll be some visual signs of her power: maybe glowing eyes or (a look I liked from the DCAU) the outline of the animal she’s emulating appearing around her. It’s stylish! As written she’s got a very strong force of personality, so she could easily be a spokesman for animal rights, or with her strong physical skills maybe even an a latter-day Steve Irwin type. (Aw, I miss ol’ Steve) Animal Mimicry is a free action and Continuous, so she doesn’t need Concentration. The Animal descriptor is broad, broad, broad: use it with as much gusto as you dare, keeping in mind that your Ref will close in on you if you’re going too crazy. Characters like this often wind up with a magic origin (which honestly makes sense), but there’s no reason you can’t make this a character with a science origin, as long as you’re willing to make that science a little rubber. “What’s that, you say, you were injected with the DNA of every animal in a fraternity hazing? Well, clearly that’ll give you superpowers!” Not to mention the famous visit to a radioactive zoo.

13 She fails by 5 and is bound! Pew pew!

Have an HP for your secret ID, Dragonfly! Electrolux: shoots at Protectron again DC 25 Tou save. After that, he'll break off his attack and turn on Sharl. The price of heroism!

The mind-controlled Blue Wall flew right up the Lab, guided far too well by the knowledge the psychic gestalt puppeteering her body had gained from the minds of Freedom City's suborned heroes. As the sonic boom of her arrival faded, the windows all along the block still vibrating, she stopped in mid-air somewhere outside of the building's medical bay. Between her hands, she formed a ball of translucent blue energy and hurled it at the building like a baseball: the force ball smashed into the steel and glass with terrific force, shaking the building and breaking the windows along the front, sending cascades of glass down. And then, she barked in a grim voice, "Come out, Americana! Come out, Hallomen! Come out, program! Come out, and be Conquered! Your minds shall speed the fall of the Collective and the salvation of Earth from the Grue menace!"

Flying all-out again, Blue Wall flies up to the Lab. She surges (have an HP, Dragonfly and Miss A) and flies up to the Lab and blasts it. DC 27 TOU save for the Lab. Assuming it takes 10, it gets a 25 and is injured. Some shaking and broken windows, but so far it's still there.

Miss A's ESP edit hasn't gotten up yet but in the interests of speeding things up, I'll assume you're using it to see what's going on inside the base. Miss A can't get a clear view of what's going on, particularly since the computer she's in isn't actually inside the base, but she can see some things: there are four superheroes still flying over the base; one of whom is either Daedalus or someone wearing his armor. They're looking out, not in. Inside, the base is a whirl of activity, particularly in a series of warehouses near the launch gantry at the far end of the peninsula. There's some kind of reddish _thing_ in there...and outside, on the gantry, a swarm of scientists and naval personnel are working as one to build a rocket! It's no Earthly rocket, either, Miss A is clever enough to recognize Grue technology! It's a big one, too, maybe capable of actual interplanetary or even interstellar flight! Assuming the right equipment is there, that is...

Unfortunately, Electrolux, or at least the psychic gestalt puppeteering his body, proved equally nimble, flying out of Protectron's reach. "Your electronic subsystems are advanced beyond human engineering capacities," Electrolux informed him. "If you are a creation of the Collective, serve the Mind now and you will be rewarded later." There was no distress on Electrolux's face, or any other emotion, but the voice was cold and venomous, the sort that would have made a human's skin crawl. "If you are not, serve me in any case, and I will bring an end to the entity that has so often bedeviled this world." For his part, down below Sharl looked up to see Protectron in mortal combat against a glowing blue electrical man. Oh man, that's Electrolux! He's one of the great Swedish heroes. He must have been visiting here... Sharl wasn't sure exactly where Sweden was, but he knew it was very far away. He can probably really hurt Protectron...and he can probably really hurt _me_...but I can't just let him fight Protectron! Even if he's a robot, he's still a hero! Sharl turned and looped through the sky, pushing himself to the utmost. "Hey, Electrolux! Hold it right there!"

21 hits. His grapple is currently at +9, so he could potentially beat a +23. And he does! 27 Sharl: Free Action: Sharl extra efforts 2 more ranks of Flight, putting him at Flight 3. Full-Round Action: Sharl moves all-out to get to Protectron!

The teens spent a long and busy night down in the sewer, catching what sleep they could, eating their trail rations, when they weren't making plans for what to do on the world aboveground. Edge spent his time poring over the debriefings of the alternate version of Daisy Gibbons, doing his best to try and piece together everything he could about this grim world. It wasn't enough; Daisy had spent little time studying the combat specifications of her school before she was given permanent detention, but it was too much, between the grim alternate history that only reinforced the horrors the League had learned on their visits, the unhappy life Daisy had lived at the school as she learned the horrible things that would be required of her...luckily, they hadn't gone into much detail about her 'life' with Hex. That, Mark decided, would have simply driven him mad. The robots down here were familiar, perhaps too familiar to Midnight who after all was a good student and was at least basically familiar with various Foundry designs. Here were war robots there, infiltration models there...but this Talos was a father, not a builder, his creations were all sentient, though not all intelligent, and they all bore the mark of terrible carnage about their bodies. Repairs weren't that tough, not with his expertise and all the parts available, but there were so many. Talos himself needed significant repairs to his chassis, the results, he explained, of going toe-to-toe with Captain Thunderbolt and Lady Anarchy while assisting a Resistance cell's evacuation down along the coast. "I can build myself another body," he explained, "but until I can do that for all my people...I prefer to use that power sparingly." For her part, casting her mind out into the world was a thoroughly unpleasant experience for Sage, especially when she reached the minds of the students at the Syndicate Academy. She'd seen into places as bad, but seeing so many minds so-familiar gone paranoid and vicious in place of open and friendly, gone spiteful and cruel in place of loving and giving, was an easy enough thing. She found what might have been Singularity easily enough, a layer of numbness over a bottomless well of agonized despair, like looking into the minds of the victims of Dachau, but it was tougher to find the others amidst all the equally unpleasant minds at the school. She found 'herself' with Hex, Mark's mind turned cold and hard and deadly, though no thicker for all its evil, and while she couldn't make out the details, they were enjoying each other's company far too much for her comfort. Pathos was noticeable for the way she glowed like a radioactive sun, a happy, poisonous ball of malevolence that was in the middle of doing things to an unruly freshman that Sage preferred not to think about. As for the Blank, there was no sign of him at all... It was early the next morning that Talos roused the students. "Mind-Master comes, and he brings with him a friend. Come with me."

Two of the humanoid shapes hovering over Lonely Point flew towards Protectron and Sharl, both of them flying fast enough to make mini-sonic booms as they blew past the robot above and the electronic teenager above. One blew past them both, the Asian woman in translucent armor wearing a blank expression and making no noise as she went. The other, a glowing blue man with the same empty look, stopped and focused on the robot. "Artificial intelligences cannot be Conquered," the mind-controlled hero informed Protectron, alien anger in his voice. "Instead you will be destroyed!" And he did his best to make good on that threat, hurling a bolt of lightning directly at Protectron's chestplate!

Blue Wall is going to continue past Protectron, moving all out. With her flight speed, she travels 20,000 ft and will be at the Lab next round. Electrolux is going to attack Protectron. (I'll say Protectron isn't flat-footed for this, since combat is ongoing and he did just see Blue Wall fly by.) 14 Fiat 21 with the Fiat That's a DC 25 Tou save for Protectron, who is up.

Yes

Electrolux: 19 Blue Wall: 23

Sharl thought for a moment as he studied the Bay beneath him, and then suddenly flew beneath the water, the electronic teenager disappearing without a ripple beneath the waves! It was a disorienting experience, but since he wasn't breathing, wasn't really _interacting_ with the water at all except through the tiny friction of his mobile emitter, it was actually an easy enough flight once he got over the psychosomatic urge to fill his lungs as 'water' closed all around him. "I'm okay," he said over his commlink to Protectron, his voice carrying clearly despite the physical matrix in which he was embedded. "They won't be expecting me from this angle!" Sharl had to force himself to focus on the dangerous mission, and not gawp in awe at the bay laid out clearly beneath him!

A few seconds after veering off, the missile exploded in mid-air, a blast that would have been lethal in a city a mere loud firecracker in the sky over the Bay. All was quiet at first, though Sharl took the opportunity to whoop as he headed for the base. Miss A and the others had done it! I should have known the heroes of Freedom City wouldn't be put off by some stupid missile being fired at them! "Woo-hoo! I can see pieces of that thing falling into the Bay!" he radioed to the others, tapping his little holographic commlink. "You did it!" He kept heading towards the base, flying low over the Bay so as to escape detection, and for a little while, everything looked quiet. Meanwhile, still connected to the base computer, Miss Americana detected another missile launch being prepped: this one a much larger cruise missile that would take out the entire block if it hit the Lab! The lab animals, which had started settling down second earlier, were getting mighty upset again...

That'll easily let you take the missile. Give me a Pilot check to see exactly where it goes.