Avenger Assembled

Goats! Sure, that'll work.

Griffon PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 18 pp STR 30 [16] (+10/+3) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [16] (+10/+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +24 Saves: 9 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+1 Wis, +6) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Diplomacy 10 (+10) Knowledge: Civics 5 (+5) Languages 3 (German, Japanese, Russian) (Base: English) Notice 9 (+10) Sense Motive 9 (+10) Feats: 8 pp Attack Focus: Melee (2) Dodge Focus (2) Fearless Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 74 pp Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Flight 4 (100 MPH) [Dynamic] [8+1+2=11 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 24 tons) Immunity 10 (Aging, Life Support) [10 pp] Impervious TOU 8 [8 pp] Luck Control 4 (spend an HP for another character, give HP to others, spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5) [17 pp] costs abilities 18 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 9/36 + feats 8 + powers 74 = 150 pts -- Design Notes: This is my build for the Griffon, one of my favorite characters from the 3rd party Golden M&M supplement The Fires of War. The Griffon is a British paragon, a Walter Mitty type, a boring accountant, who gained his powers one day while waiting for the train. He found himself in a magic cave where a powerful wizard appeared and gave him a magic word to say. When he speaks that word, he becomes an unstoppable champion powered by ancient sorcery, a two-fisted paragon who sweeps the skies clean of Nazi bombers and goes home with a smile at the end of the day. He’s a little annoying to fight alongside; his smile is always a little too white, his manner a little too chipper, and his mood a little too good. He hums his theme music in battle sometimes, and sometimes you’d swear you can hear it around him even when he’s not making a sound. But he’s very powerful and very competent, and there’s no guarantee quite like success. The Griffon’s secret is that he’s crazy. Well, not crazy so much as deluded. He’s actually one of the most powerful psychics on Earth, an incredibly gifted shaper of reality itself who created the wizard, the magic word, and everything else as an illusion because he was bored. That’s how he hits so far outside his weight class, and that’s why he’s so powerful. In his own setting, he eventually transcended into godhood after a bad guy psychic tried to drain his mind and instead awakened something else entirely. But you don’t have to do that, or indeed keep any other element of the backstory: the key thing here is that this is a very powerful man who is not consciously aware of just how powerful he is. With his Luck Control, he can hit hard, knock down bad guys, and shrug off virtually impossible damage saves thanks to his abilities. Buy lots of Ultimate Saves for him, and maybe up his Charisma and Inspire if you want him to somehow be a great leader. This is a good character to build as one of those ridiculous Golden or Silver Age heroes. How he is stunting Super-Hypnotism and Super-Weaving? Well, he’s got really broad descriptors and a ridiculous quantity of HP, the best way to be able to stunt all sorts of madness. If you don’t want him to be a Luck Controller, there are lots of things you could do with those points: more Flight and Impervious? A big suite of super-senses? But I rather like the idea of the overpowered Golden or Silver Age-style paragon. Drop the Britishisms to taste, depending on what you’re going for. He might just actually be British! A modern version will probably not embrace his brand of old-fashioned nationalism.

Sure, that'd be viable. Work up a construction and we'll see what it costs.

"No. No, this is something I need to do. That we all need to do." Mark shook his head. "There are so few people with an interest in saving that world, we've got to do everything we can to make things right." I've got to make things right. Mark thought of his double, the wicked, twisted reflection of himself that had done, that would keep doing, so many terrible things. I wonder if his mother's still there. I doubt it. "We've been down this road before. But this time, we're going on purpose, and with the best of us together. We'll do it." He nodded, then added, "And by the way, the Raven wears a cape, and she does okay."

Sharl flew right up through the biolab floor. "The whole place is deserted," he said, starting a little at how agitated all the experimental animals were. "It's really creepy. It looks like people just sat things down, wherever they were, and left. There's even ramen in the microwave in the breakroom and everything." He knew what ramen was; Gina had introduced a digitized version of it to him first thing. "Man, those guys are really upset..." He flew up to the cages and peered at them, finally pulling away. "Is there a way of building a machine that can receive telepathy?" he asked, flying over to the two ladies. "I mean, Protectron can obviously do it, and he's a robot. Maybe hearing the whole thing will tell us more about what's going on."

"I do," said Mark, "uh, all the stuff I thought I'd need, anyway." He patted the little bag over his arm, looking at Erin's stealthly outfit with a thoughtful look on his face. "Oh, uh, I guess I should dress down too. I don't want to be the guy everyone spots." Normally Mark was proud of his colors, of course, but he didn't want to get everyone else into trouble. So instead he reached down, touched his cape, and with a little ripple of colored dots his costume suddenly shifted over to a black and grey like asphalt. "Good colors, and they don't look like a bad copy of Hex's costume. But do I look depressing?"

"They haven't given me my assignment yet, but it'll be somewhere in central Africa. The people there really need help. They have so little, and up until the elections last year all their leaders wanted to do was take what little they did have. UNISON's got a lot of people there." He hadn't really discussed this with anyone, and here he was using it to pick up a girl. He liked to think James would be proud. "It's not as in the news as Dakana or as exciting as Liberia or Socotra, but it'll be helping the people who need it the most. What about you?" he asked her, "What do you do?"

Centuritron PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 22 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON n/a INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +20 Init: +2 Saves: 7 pp TOU +10 (+10 Protection) FORT +n/a REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Diplomacy 8 (+10) Knowledge: Civics 5 (+5) Knowledge: History 5 (+5) Languages 2 (Greek, Latin) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 11 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2, Dodge Focus 4, Fearless, Interpose, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Powers: 77 pp Flight 4 (100 MPH) [Dynamic] [8+1+2=11 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) Immunity 40 (Mental Effects, Fortitude Saves) [40 pp] Protection 10 (Extra: Impervious) [20 pp] Regeneration 5 (+0 Recovery Bonus) (PF: Regrowth) [6 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 9/36 + feats 11 + powers 77 = 150 pts - Design Notes: This is the ultimate Freedom City legacy. Mark Leeds built him decades ago to act as his agent and to impersonate him when Mark Leeds and the Centurion needed to be seen in two places at once. And then Mark Leeds died saving the world from Omega, and the Centuritrons were left to guard the Sanctum in the Arctic. But something changed for this guy, something made him different (and also less powerful) than his fellows. Maybe an accident transformed his mentality, giving him an intelligence beyond the preprogrammed directives to guard the Sanctum, or maybe a deliberate reprogramming (perhaps by a villain) changed him in more ways than one. Or maybe he was a different model only recently reactivated, and now he's on the loose in the big world! Um. Change the costume. Wearing the Centurion's costume is not appropriate in the Freedom City universe at all, but his colors are fine. People will probably be a little weirded out at a robot that looks just like the Centurion anyway. In my mind, there was a War of the Centurions in 1994-1995 in the post-Terminus setting that ended with the bad ones destroyed or in jail and the good ones retiring or adopting their own heroic identity, with the general consensus being that none of them were the Centurion. Maybe this guy was part of that, and has decided he liked being a hero and has returned in his own costume with a new image! Keep the face if you want, though, most people won't know the Centurion by sight well enough to recognize him in a different costume, and it's one exciting complication! He's got the standard robot powers. That is one of the problems with robot PCs, being a robot costs a lot of points and you don't have a lot of powers for anything else. But hey, he flies around, he's got super-strength, and he's bulletproof and very tough: he's got the whole paragon package. Give him some of the usual robot weaknesses if you want to up his paragon powers, maybe by giving him more Super-Senses. One thing to avoid is a lot of Internet connections, at least without adding more points on. Centuritron here is an old-fashioned robot from the pre-computer age, and he doesn't have your fancy wi-fi connections.

Elsewhere Mark had been staring at his costume for over an hour before he finally put it on. He couldn't dwell on what he'd lost, not even as much as it hurt, not when there were so many people who'd suffered so much more than he had. Into the mirror in his dorm room, he said, "This is for the people who've never had a chance." He touched his reflection and added, "I miss you guys." And with that, he was gone, disappearing by means of his own power rather than the Young Freedom teleporter: he was supposed to be practicing that sort of thing before he got out to Africa, and going to a familiar spot was the best way to do it. Down in the Young Freedom headquarters, Mark appeared in a curl of swirling energy, the transition too fast for him to think about it. He adjusted his costume and gave Erin a little smile, not having seen much of her in the last few days between meeting with the headmaster, the Freedom League, and getting in touch with his relatives outside of the city. "Hey, Wander," he said a little cautiously. "Guess I'm the first one here?"

Cat Burglar PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 56 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+9 Melee/+15 Unarmed) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +14 Saves: 7 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +6 (+3 Wis, +3) Skills: 116 r=29 pp Acrobatics 15 (+20)* Bluff 4 (+7) Climb 10 (+15) Disable Device 15 (+20)* Escape Artist 15 (+20)* Knowledge: Streetwise 1 (+6) Language 2 (English, Russian) (Base: Bulgarian) Notice 12 (+15) Sense Motive 12 (+15) Sleight of Hand 15 (+20) Stealth 15 (+20)* Feats: 26 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3 Challenge 2 (Accelerated Climb, Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Blind-Fight Dodge Focus 7 Equipment 2 Evasion Hide in Plain Sight Move-By Action Luck Power Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Stealth) Takedown Attack Ultimate Skill (Disable Device) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Equipment: 10 ep Binoculars [1 ep] Commlink [1 ep] Grapple Gun (Super-Movement 3 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling) and Speed 1 [10 MPH]) [7 ep] Rebreather [1 ep] costs abilities 56 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 29/116 + feats 26 = 150 pts -- Design Notes: Here's a Classy Cat Burglar for all your stealing needs. She hasn't got any powers, she hasn't got any particular hangups or a Frank Millerian past, and she hasn't got a cat theme. (As a recent Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal showed us, cats aren't actually sexy animals. Ducks, now, they get up to some times) She's smart, she's strong, she's fast, she's got some good gadgets, and she's very, very good at stealing things. Freedom City's Catwoman Expy is Magpie, a dapper, bearded gent who flirts with the Raven whenever he gets the chance: I went with a slightly more classic version of the hot lady thief. She's not a great fighter, but with Acrobatic Bluff, Power Attack, and Takedown Attack, it's not that tough for her to sweep her way through the low-PL security guards and goons she's likely to be dealing with most of the time. With her massive Climb, Acrobatics, Escape Artist, and Disable Device, there really are no locks that can keep her out, and no jail that can hold her if you do manage to put her away. Why Ultimate Disable Device? Disable Device DCs tend to be pretty high, and generally with pretty bad consequences for missing them. She could certainly use Second Chance Disable Device if you get the points for it as well. She's got a custom grapple gun much better than the book version, one that lets her actually do most of the things that comic book characters traditionally do with grappling guns. Hopefully the Ref won't be a jerk and make you go through the hassle of buying it as a Device. Batman's probably not paying Device points for it, man. She makes a fine antagonist for a PL 10 hero, though you should consider putting her up a few PLs if she's interacting with someone above her weight class. She shouldn't be able to beat her Cowl in a straight-up fight, but she should be able to distract, delay, and evade him with lots of tricks and tactics. OTOH, there's nothing to say she can't just decide to be a good guy like Freedom City's own (sadly now retired) Bombshell. Though characters like this are often paired off with male heroes (largely because they dress in particularly tight outfits, are 'bad girls', but don't do anything bad enough to really need to be put in jail and kept there), there's nothing to say they can't be independent agents. Maybe she's a Robin Hood who robs rich criminals and distributes their drug money to the poor, and only reluctantly gets sucked into open superheroing, or maybe she's out of jail and determined to make good for a lifetime of misdeeds. Or maybe she's been careful about only robbing people in places without an extradition treaty.

Mind-Taker PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 50 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 24 (+7) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +20 Saves: 10 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1) REF +10 (+7 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Acrobatics 8 (+15) Climb 3 (+10) Concentration 8 (+10) Disable Device 10 (+10) Drive 3 (+10) Knowledge: Streetwise 5 (+5) Languages 1 (French) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Pilot 3 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 3 (+10) Feats: 21 pp Acrobatic Bluff, Attack Focus: Melee 5, Beginner's Luck, Dodge Focus 5, Eidetic Memory, Evasion, Improved Initiative, Jack of all Trades, Luck, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 22 pp Mental Duplication 7 (Flaw: Side-Effect [stun]) {14} and Drain INT 7 {7} (Extra: Alt. Save [Will]) [21 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 50 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 15/60 + feats 21 + powers 22 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: So you've never seen a PC or NPC with Mental Duplication? Well, you have now! This character has Mental Duplication, a limited form of Mimic that lets her copy the mental skills of someone she touches: in short, she knows everything they know assuming they fail the Will save they get after she latches on. And with that Drain INT, they probably forget whatever it is they knew for a while after she sucks out their intelligence. She's dangerous in combat, especially since she's equally good at just punching bad guys till they fall over: she's not as helpless vs. robots as your typical psi-vampire is. She gets 35 pp to put towards mental skills that she drains, which is certainly more than she's ever likely to need. Remember that being drained to 0 INT knocks you out but it doesn't kill you, so she can use it to disable opponents (and absorb their memories, something she keeps even after their return to the original). With Beginner's Luck, Eidetic Memory, and Jack of all Trades, she can at least pretend to fake most skills, fluffing that as lingering memories that survive from her various mind-takings. I figure she has a background as a professional mind-thief, a bad guy now made good thanks to whatever face-heel turn you wanted her to make. Maybe she wound up reading a hero's mind and absorbed her conscience, or maybe she decided to make a transformation all on her own, to be her own person after having the memories of others for so long. Note that a DC 17 Will save doesn't seem that impressive, until you remember that it's subject to tradeoff feats since it's a melee attack. With her ability to bluff through Acrobatics and her OK sneaking, it wouldn't be that hard for her to catch an opponent flat-footed and take his mind, or just beat him into unconsciousness with her fists and then rip the stuff out of his head the old-fashioned way. Be careful with that Mimic, and hope your GM lets you boost skills in a way that's thematic rather than a direct reflection of someone's sheet. Even with her 10 INT, getting 15 ranks in a Knowledge skill is still going to be pretty freaking handy. Power-stunt a different kind of Drain and Boost if you want to give her different kinds of abilities: an INT Boost linked to her Drain will let her get smarter without tying her directly to skills as such. Drain All Ability Scores will cost 3, and while it would drop the self-improvement angle it would certainly make her all the more effective in combat. Add Slow Fade to make her Drain better at putting people down and keeping them down. Don't forget that people drained to 1 or 2 INT still are conscious and not actually impeded mechanically. They still know who their friends are and who's attacking them, even if they may be easier to fool.

Aqua Tornado PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 46 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 18 (+4) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+9 Melee, +10 Blast/+13 Unarmed) DEF +13 (+4 flat-footed) Grapple: +16 Init: +4 Saves: 6 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +6 (+4 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Acrobatics 11 (+15) Bluff 8 (+10) Notice 7 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Survival 4 (+7) Swimming 3 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 5 Environmental Adaptation 2 (high altitude/underwater) Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 40 pp Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate, Variable Descriptor 1 [air/water]) [22 pp] Flight 5 (250 MPH) [10+1=11 pp] AP: Swimming 10 (2500 MPH) Immunity 3 (cold, drowning, pressure) [3 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Acute Scent, Darkvision) [3 pp] costs abilities 46 + combat 32 + saves 6 + skills 10/40 + feats 16 + powers 40 = 150 pts Design Notes: OK, so I took a bet, and here's the offspring of Aquaman and the Golden Age Red Tornado: an aquatic aerokinetic. She's fast, she's strong, and she can handle herself in both aerial and underwater combat. The Variable Descriptor on her blast represents blasting with either a firehose-type water blast or a focused tornado of air. She can handle herself in the air, and she can handle herself underwater very, very fast: Swimming 10 means she can easily break the sound barrier underwater, which doesn't really work without doing unspeakable things to the local water table, but hey, it's comics. Perhaps it's some offspring of her double heritage, letting her cut through the water without significantly disrupting the liquid around her. She's got the usual immunities I give to underwater characters: as I've said elsewhere, avoid Favored Environment for things like this, it's just not your friend! She can also handle herself in melee and ranged combat, though she's not a true specialist at either. She's not really a master of any one style of combat, but someone who can fulfill many niches is always welcome. Give her more water-oriented powers if you want to play up her father, give her more aerokinesis (or maybe some super-strength or move object to _really_ reflect the Golden Age Red Tornado). One possibility is Tremorsense, which would make sense for someone who can presumably fight in the middle of a thunderstorm or underwater as well, but Darkvision is certainly a handy (and reasonably logical) power in its own right. So how do you spin this in a Freedom City setting? Here's an idea. Her parents were part of a superteam back in the late 80s, champions of elemental justice who united to summon a superpowered champion. They fought terrible enemies and made many environmentally conscious friends, and ultimately split apart...well, some of them did. Others fell in love and had a daughter, taking care of her as best they could when they were just barely adults themselves. Raised in an idyllic community, perhaps the Utopia that once sponsored Envoy, she comes across as somewhat environmentally preachy, but she has a genuine commitment to defending the planet that's sometimes hard to bear for the less green. But there are worse flaws than recycling a little too much!

Space Biker PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 58 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 18 (+4) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Initiative: +8 Grapple: +20 Saves: 7 pp TOU +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+3 Wis, +4) Skills: 36 r=9 pp Craft: Mechanical 4 (+4) Drive 2 (+5) Intimidate 12 (+15) Knowledge: Technology 4 (+4) Languages 2 (English, Galstandard) (Base: Lor) Notice 7 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 12 pp Attack Focus: Melee 2, Challenge (Fast Startle), Dodge Focus 2, Improved Initiative, Luck, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Startle, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 33 pp Container 2 (Spacebike) [10 pp] -Flight 5 (250 MPH) (Flaw: Platform) {5} -Space Flight 10 (1000c) (Flaw: Platform) {5} Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] costs abilities 58 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 9/36 + feats 12 + powers 33 = 150 pts Design Notes: This is my build for your stereotypical space biker: a leather-jacketed badass who rides around on a spacebike and has wild space adventures. The most famous example of this is probably DC’s Lobo, but I’m sure you can think of plenty of examples: the name is big enough that this guy actually got to be a Villanous Archetype. And that’s often the role characters like this have. Characters like this are easy to build and play as ridiculous Iron Age chuckleheads, but I think you can do it convincingly with the right structure. What you really need to do is give the guy a gimmick and figure out what made a free-wheeling adventurer of the spaceways, a rough-edged wanderer and bare-knuckle fighter, settle down on Earth, something of a galactic backwater despite all the beings of great power around these parts, and become a superhero? Maybe he’s a bounty hunter tracking down intergalactic fugitives who’ve gone to ground here ‘south of the border’, or maybe he’s a fugitive on his own from some vicious interstellar empire, fighting for right here now that he’s had to make his home so far from everyone he’s ever loved. He’s a pretty generic low-level powerhouse, running as fast as a car and punching hard enough to break through steel. He’s not a great fighter, but with Startle, Takedown Attack, Power Attack, and his high Intimidate he can brawl and goonsweep in any dive you’d care to name. He can survive the vacuum of space unaided without his bike, and depending on his relationship with the rest of the galaxy he may have actually done so at one time or another. I bought his bike as a power rather than a device or Equipment: I prefer buying something high-tech like that as a power when possible, and it makes it much easier for him to justify having it around all the time. I figure he stores the bike in a pocket dimension when he isn’t using it. The Platform flaw means he can be knocked off his bike if he’s grappled or takes knockback, but since it’s a power, not a device, he can’t actually be deprived of it. A twist on this build would be to make him some variant of Space Cop: there’s no reason why an intergalactic policeman couldn’t be more of a John Wayne type than a bland FBI-middle-manager type like your usual Green Lantern types. (Well, like the most famous one, anyway.) You could give him a Blast for that, or else just assume he’s a two-fisted marshal of the space frontier. My theory is that he’s an alien, perhaps from one of the less-settled areas of the Lor Republic, but you could build him as a character from Earth’s future well enough: who’s to say that there aren’t a few people discontented with the glories of the shiny happy world of the Silver Age Future of the Legion?

She kissed him back with intensity, pulling him close with her strength greater than human. "I can't say I know what that means," she confessed when she was done, laying her hand over his heart. "But whatever it means, for you, and for me...I feel it too. I love you too, Corbin Hughes." She'd somehow wormed her way into a position on his lap, a position she seemed to enjoy quite a bit. "As for my people, I came here to learn about yours. Tell me things." She kissed him again. "Tell me everything."

Dragonfly made her way through the fire stairs and down to Level 25, the eerie silence of the building around like a tomb. The Lab had been mostly deserted with everyone away and a technical crew mostly occupied with following them to the lake, but surely someone would be there. Strangely enough, though, there was no sign of anyone inside the building, neither mind-controlled goons or shambling scientists. The entire building was empty. Once inside the biolab, despite her warnings to Miss Americana, getting set up turned out to be easy enough, despite what turned out to be all the noise being made by the most active things left in the building: something had riled the experimental animals, riled them up but good. It wasn't hard for her to do the scans, despite the fact that this was by no means her area of expertise. What she was looking at from the captured entity was nothing less than a merger of Grue and Legion cells; it looked like she'd have expected a Grue intelligence infected with the Legion virus to look. But on closer inspection, this was something more, something deeper, as if the two had been merged together. Perhaps the only comforting discovery was that there was no mind inside this thing, the wriggling starfish had no more intelligence, though perhaps more mobility than a real Earthly starfish. But it had a brain all the same, a brain that was wired to listen rather than think! - Taking to the air, Protectron was able to get a good view of the world beneath his feet. It wasn't a pretty sight, even for an emotionless robot. The crowd on the street was heading away from the Lab, and in fact making a very deliberate effort to do so: the shambling, mind-controlled civilians were heading away from the Lab like microbes fleeing a drop of penicillin left in a Petri dish overnight. At the very edge of his vision, he could see other people in the sky near the distant shape of the Lonely Point Naval Base at the edge of the city, but so far those indefinable figures were the first superheroes he'd seen. - For his part, Sharl found no one in the Lab either, even when he plugged his mobile emitter into the Lab's systems so he could flit through the floors and ceiling like a ghost from the machine. It was quite spooky for the electronic teenager, particularly since all this was still new to him. "I hope Gina's okay," he said aloud, flitting through an empty janitor's closet in the subbasement. "I wonder she she wasn't moving..." - It was easy to access the League's computers, too easy. Someone had left the 'backdoor' open, the sort of thing you'd do with a system you were expecting to fail, or perhaps that you were trying to leave open for computers elsewhere. The League's files on the Grue and Legion were extensive, of course, but Miss Americana quickly found what she was looking for inside them, perhaps because there were files that lay between the two: there'd been significant discussion between the League and a naval commander named Harrison about a possible joint defense project against the Grue: an intelligence capable of overwriting the commands of the Grue Metamind, a telepathic agent that could seize control of an entire Grue force in a moment!

"No, I mean, I guess...yeah, yeah, we'd better go." Weakly, Mark followed the others outside, turning back to look at the house once they were outside. "Thank you for coming out," he murmured quietly. "I didn't know who else to call." His family's relationships weren't all they'd once been, that was for sure. "I'm glad you guys are my friends." And with that, his head low, Mark turned away from that deserted house.

Hmm. Scarab, Bombshell, Dragonfly, Jill O'Cure...I wonder if there's a book in this. 'Out of the Closet and Under the Mask: LGBT Heroines Speak.' I might be able to get that guy from Lincoln in on it too, hmm...It's probably better if I contact them out of mask, though. She told Sage, "She's a fine young woman. All you kids are, from what I've heard, but she's the one I've had a chance to fight alongside in the most dangerous situations." Without using her hands, she unscrewed a soda bottle for herself, relaxing unconsciously with just the kids around. "You know," she said seriously to Jill and Dragonfly, "there's nothing bad about being gay. I'm proud to be around young heroes like you, standing up for the future like you are. When I was your age...well, I wasn't in this business, but damn few heroes were willing to talk about their orientation, even the ones everyone suspected were in the closet. It's good to see the world changing so fast."

The young Mr. Lucas certainly did seem to be enjoying himself, having swept Chloe out onto the dance floor as soon as dancing opportunities presented itself. He felt a little bad for Trevor having no date, but he supposed Trevor wouldn't have come alone if he minded that. Besides, he remembered prom; Trevor didn't need a girl on his arm all the time to look cool! For his part, Mark liked having a girl on his arm, especially a pretty one. "My name is Mark, I'm a friend of Stesha's from, ah, school." he told Chloe. "I'm graduating this year, so I wanted to make sure I saw this before I went away. I'm going to go work in Africa for UNISON."

As the more sociable kids settled into a conversation, Hope gave Trevor an apologetic look and said, "I'm real sorry if I weirded you out, earlier, honest. It's just, well, Midnight's a pretty big deal where I come from." Sobering up a little, and letting the jokey manner that was an affect from other teens slip, she added, "I guess that's why I haven't said anything to you before. When you spend your whole life hearing stories about someone, trying to live up to their legacy, well...it's a little intimidating meeting him, or at least his heir, in the flesh."

"You really should avoid dating criminals," said Fusion, politely but a little disapprovingly. Well, this new bit of news certainly put Grimalkin's story about being in love with a Japanese cyborg in perspective. "I know bad boys have a certain cachet, but I think that's just a natural response to people who project a certain amount of confidence. There's a difference between being attracted to a man because he seems confident and capable, and being attracted to him because he's a bad guy. If you do have to do those things, at least keep them on the down-low. We need to set a good example for the kids." She hmmed, bet, and winced when her two pair turned out to be a little too low. "Ah, damn. In any event, when it comes to scientific mysteries, I think of my grandfather, who didn't see a...ah, motorized vehicle until he was Wisp's age. There's always new things to discover, and the mysteries of today will be the commonplaces of tomorrow." When Sage spoke, she nodded approvingly and added, "You Young Freedom kids are all right. Do you know Wander?"

Joan knew she had to be careful here. There was no use getting into another shouting match with people about their religion; that was not a problem she'd ever solve over poker and chips. "Magic is just a word our ancestors made up to explain things they didn't understand. Someone like Captain Thunder, or most of us, for that matter, would have been branded some sort of god or wizard a few centuries ago. Because they can analyze the electrical energy stored in Ray Gardener's cells, or the, ah, non-human DNA in mine, we know better. A few more years, maybe we'll know more about how Siren's metahuman powers work. Or Grimalkin, for that matter," she added with a nod the pixie's way. "I don't know about you kids, but I'm looking forward to that day. The more we know about the world, the better it is for all of us."

"Spending time together is good." She batted her eyes at him, a gesture she'd picked up from Zarana. "Between one thing and another, we don't...we don't have as much time to spend together as I'd like. I mean, you'll be graduating next year, and I might be as well if everything goes according to plan. And Corbin," she said frankly,. "odds are pretty good we're not going to see much of each other after that." She reached up and put her hand on his. "So that's why we should make the most of the time we have, don't you think? Like on beautiful days like today, when it's just the two of us."

"Oh, uh, yeah, there's stuff like that up in my parents' room..." Mark led them to the safe in his parents' room, which turned out to be a conventional wall safe in what looked like a conventional 'older people's' bedroom. There were a few of Rick's novels on the shelves, Martha's paintings on the walls, but with the older furniture and wallpaper, this could have been anyone's room. Well, till you opened the safe and found the Lor blaster pistol across the top. Mark took that and cracked it open with remarkable efficacy, checking the safety and putting it, divided, on the floor with the power cell removed. "Here's, uh, all those papers."

Despite all the talk of an evil telepathic hivemind taking over the city, no mind-controlled friends or ground-to-air missiles loomed up at them as they flew over a still and silent Freedom City. Even the animals were quiet, and there were people visible down below who looked (one could hope, anyway) as if they'd just fallen asleep on the streets. It was a warm day, they'd had time to settle down. If they were quite lucky, maybe nobody had even died. The Lab, though, was an exception. The people on the streets were up on their feet and moving: but not _towards_ the fortress of science that it represented. As the heroes made their landing, the crowd of shuffling, mumbling people beneath was heading directly away from them.

Sharl shook his head, listening for an imaginary voice, then listening to the garbled-sounding message Protectron was reciting. "I don't hear anything. I'm not getting any kind of message." He looked at Miss A and said, "Is it going out just, uh, telepathically, or is there a radio message too for Protectron to hear?" Sharl knew very little about telepathy, but as someone who lacked an organic brain, he wasn't surprised that it wasn't a problem for him. So why was it an issue for the synthezoid? "It would explain how everyone was acting together in groups down below when they were, er, swarming me, and what they were chanting, but what are those little Grue mind-things for, then?"