Avenger Assembled
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ooc Return to Neverworld: Never/Forever OOC
Avenger Assembled replied to RocketLord's topic in The Realms Beyond
Intro post coming, initiative is 7 Intro post coming. -
The Marshall house had seemed like a McMansion at first look, an impression that only grew sharper as Merlin and Sparkler made their close approach. Its windows, doors, columns, terraces, and porches might have been well-made on their own, but so many in close proximity suggested that someone had had a list to check off rather than any architectural plan in mind. The house definitely had historic styles in mind; Tudor, mid-century American, but the mix of those produced a feeling of a family with a taste for opulence but not much else. The garage was two stories high too, probably much bigger than anything that an older couple and their late-blooming son needed to store cars. On the other hand, maybe someone in the family was into classic cars; from Merlin's exterior inspection, the big garage was home to some high-end technical equipment in that "Garage Mahal." The garage also had a live security system, unlike the house or even Elric's basement apartment, which as far as Merlin and Raina could tell didn't have anything fancier than good, albeit perfectly mundane, locks, including a sliding glass door that led out to a large pool that took up most of the green space of the lawn. It also, praise the spirits of the Earth, had no magic in or around it that Raina could detect.
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"Vodka! Hah!" That got Casper something like a smile, and then what appeared to be a repurposed glass bottle full of something clear with the strong scent of something high-proof. She walked away, humming something Casper didn't quite recognize under her breath, and began polishing the dark wood of the bar near the other end, where someone had carved "I+B, 1957" some long time ago. "Careful when you drink," said Frost, sitting amiably by Casper's side now that a crackling fire had begun in the inn's hearth. "They brew it from certain local ingredients indeegenous to Siberian taiga. Will curl hair on chest, as saying goes." He settled in, watching Casper watch the place, and said, "So, you spend much time in places like this? Have hangouts back in Freedom City?"
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--Excellent,-- came Tarva's thoughts, as black and rich as the darkest chocolates of Europe. --I wanted to ask you about your relationship with Becky,-- she went on, an image of the wendigo as Tarva saw her briefly popping into her head. She turned to Eve, gesturing with one hand as if she was speaking out loud. --Is everything well?-- she asked with a tone of genuine interest. --Are you confident with each other?--
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Eira blinked and for a moment remembered being ten and presenting Miss Americana and Dragonfly with a tiny scale-model version of themselves, carefully assembled by robotic fingers not nearly as precise as what she had now, smiling as she declared "Look, I am an engineer just like you!" A moment later, pushing aside those memories, she said, "Ryder can...arrange it through Dragonfly, I am sure. And there are many internships for people who are not scientists," she offered Danica, "in public relations, office management, security even...it is mostly electronic filing, whatever the office is actually called, but I am sure you would do fine." she said with a careful smile. "I am glad you like the wheels."
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"Sure," lied Frost cheerfully, "is village full of priests and gentle peasants, nothing to worry about..." The village turned out to be a mining town from what Ghost could see, with cars on a track heading down towards a mine built straight into the side of the hill, and rock-stained workers walking onto the streets to greet the new day. It actually looked a bit like something from the last century; he was pretty sure Russian mining towns didn't look like 1950, even in the backcountry. Frost was greeted everywhere they went with roars of delight and firm embraces; this was obviously a place where he was known and respected. Frost made introductions as they went, but it was hard to tell since nobody seemed to speak much English beyond "Yankee!" and "Coca-Cola!" Soon Frost had led Ghost to what was clearly a tavern, a few bleary-eyed miners stumbling out to greet the day. Frost headed right in and introduced Ghost to the bartender, a one-eyed, fierce-faced woman named Ivanka who peered at Ghost suspiciously before demanding, "What you have?" The room was small and low-ceilinged, the wooden ceilings of the cramped little place almost brushing Frost's head. The latter had already taken a seat by the nearby fireplace and seemed to be trying to spark the coals. The place wasn't clean and it wasn't neat, but it seemed to be the best place to go in town, a sooty-faced Lenin watching them from a picture frame in the corner.
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As the group around the pool got bigger, Aquaria let Baxter go to his usual spot, perched by the water and peering down at the spot where Jessie was still meditating. "Hello, friends!" she called cheerfully. "It is a pool party day!" She hopped around on the floor by the pool, glorious in her dampness, and called aloud "Bluebird, play us a song for a pool party!" That got them two things; the cheerfully-blasting music of the Aquabats and Bluebird herself, manifest in a blue, low-cut battle harness suitable for aquatic campaigns. Aquaria had initially been uneasy around the seemingly-soulless machine, but there were plenty of strange things around here that had turned out to be friends. "Greetings, sisters of battle!" she declared, looking well-pleased with the growing social gathering. For her part, Tarva promptly settled down by poolside beneath the shelter of a large umbrella. She had obviously placed it there deliberately, putting herself in the sun streaming in from the nearby full-length windows and then found shade inside it, but such was her way. She exchanged her usual look with the Furion machine intelligence, then smiled at the sight of Eve. "My lady!" she called with a wave, inviting Eve to join her under the shelter of her umbrella. It was a very big space, with room for three. "I would speak with you," she said, tapping the side of her head.
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I'll sign up Caradoc and Miss Americana, whee!
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Ashley breathed in, then breathed out. Keeping Judy there was the easiest way to ensure they could beat this guy if necessary, but she couldn't keep her ward in danger. "Daystar. I need you to teleport to the bugout office. Tell the agents there that a man calling himself USArcher has identified himself as a government agent and attempted to take a teenager into custody. He has been acting irrationally and I believe he may be dangerous. Do it now." To her credit, Daystar did just that without more than a worried look, teleporting not back to Claremont but to the Secret Service field office in Freedom City where Ashley's backup team was waiting. Not that they can actually do much if this guy really is a damn superhero, but at least she's safe. As soon as Daystar was gone, Ashley said cooly, "Put your weapon on the ground and kick it over to me. You need to demonstrate to me that you are not a threat to these children before I holster my weapon. ID or not, we are in a city with shapeshifting demons, aliens, and vampires and I am not going to let you carry lethal weapons around once I've seen you point them at civilians."
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May 2021 Kingston This had once been a fine place, where Surfacers competed to live in the finest homes and own the finest things. Now hardly anyone lived here, beneath the terrible shadow of the doomforge that loomed squatly over the mostly-abandoned remains of the neighborhood. It made Aquaria sad to be here, sad to smell the death that lingered on the air and hear the mournful, echoing cry of the murdered soul of this place. There was not even anything good to eat that Surfacers had not brought here themselves, all but a few scavenging beasts avoiding the surrounding landscape with the sensible judgement of things that crawled and flew. Surfacers rarely did this. "With these brave heroes at our side, volunteers from Project Freedom," Councilman McGrath was declaring, his round face flushed red from the summer's heat, "I believe we can reclaim Kingston for the forces of life. Maybe we can't stop that - that thing - " he added, making a gesture from his podium at the doomforge as the cameras below flashed, "but we can bury our dead and let the land heal. The wounds of the past can be healed if we are strong enough to look them in the eye!" It was only technically true that Singularity and Sea Devil were volunteers. Ms. Wainwright of Project Freedom, sitting here on the platform with Singularity and Sea Devil, was an ally of George McGrath and had asked two of her most successful graduates to come along to show that McGraths' plan to clear away as much of Kingston as possible to let nature take its course had the support of the heroic community, at least as far as making sure his workers wouldn't be operating on their own. At least the waters hereabouts were clean, Aquaria thought, a little regretfully.
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"Oh I do all sorts of things," said Frost cheerfully. "But here we are in valley of Kondoma River, and is fine place." He walked underneath the curving bulk of an unfamiliar tree, and tapped the bark. "Hills hereabouts kept place ice-free even when the glaciers came. These trees here, the linden, some like this were growing before Ice Age." He put his hands in his pockets and turned, heading down a rough trail in a nearby hill. "Are you expected home soon?" he inspired. "There is business we can conduct in town below if not." The town below looked like a small, lively village built along a river, loomed over by mine tailings and bustling with life. It was morning here, the sun not having banished a lingering chill.
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"Ah, jeez..." Anna looked doubtful for a moment, enough that Raina almost thought the old supervillain was going to object, but then said, "neighborhood like this, they might come out to help a little old lady." The prospect made her look sicker than any talk of her stolen boudoir pictures. "Sure, I can do that. Quarter mile in three seconds still, easy." She did indeed park the car by the side of the too-manicured park grass, shooting a glance at benches that looked a bit too narrow and a bit too curved for anybody to comfortably sleep on. She looked at the wheel for a moment, then turned to her passenger. "Raina, honey," she said suddenly, her old-time Jersey accent sounding especially thick. "I don't know if yer a heroic type, but if it comes down to your neck or those pictures, you let Marshall sell them to some raincoat pervert for all I care. You still get them pretty jewels either way, okay? You don't hafta get yerself hurt because of me."
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"Oh," said Frost, "I am most impossible to annoy. Famous for good temper." He considered a moment, then walked over to one of the paintings on the wall, a scene depicting a wintry mountain scene of no obvious origins. Without comment, he took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and began to sketch around the frame. "Listen, Ghost, your services are most welcome on Freedom League Auxiliary, I am sure." When he had finished drawing a full-on shape around the picture frame, he went on, "but here, come with me," and proceeded to step directly inside the image, vanishing as the canvas seemed to ripple slightly behind him.
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"Hello!" Aquaria boomed exuberantly when her friends arrived at poolside, dripping wet in her leather harness. "Jessie is down there," she added, pointing to the deep end, where Singularity's submerged but otherwise content form could be seen. The Deep One herself was crouched down alongside her and Jessie'd dog, toweling him down with intensity. The smell of wet dog was no more irksome than any other scent produced by mammals in her experience, and they indeed produced a great many scents, but she knew how to be polite. "Baxter has been swimming with us. He is a good dog." The dog gave a greeting bark to welcome the new arrivals, human friends and otherwise of long acquaintance, loud enough to let his regular human know that someone had arrived. The one who wasn't a human never needed such warnings. - "Yet you also encourage me to remove it. Curious." Tarva smiled at Kimber, returning her kiss with a cold fire that was uniquely hers. "Come," she said, "let me take you from your books somewhere more pleasant." She actually dropped her robe at those words, revealing an equally short outfit that managed to resemble a late 19th century lapeled ladies bathing suit while clinging as tightly as only shadow stuff could. "All darkness says it is a pool party day."
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ic Arrows In The Hands Of A Warrior (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Greenbank
"The Dethroner and her allies prefer not to be seen as gods," said Steve diplomatically, stepping in to support Erin's play as best he could, "but as inspirations to the many." That was not technically true but between the three of them, they managed to put aside the Furions' efforts to worship Erin and Ellie. He considered a moment, pondering Ellie's words, then stepped aside to open the door to a small but firm knock. "Red Falcon was known to us," offered Aarden simply, reaching down to ruffle Teledar's hair as the little boy entered the room with an excited look on his face. Scion of a cosmic-god-race or not, he was a child delighted to see his baby cousin healed. As he made sign to Serpa and embraced the baby, Aarden said, "As all will know of this deed, and what you have wrought. We will not be the last who come to look upon you. What is this festival you speak of?" "...you want to invite them to Pride?" asked Ashley hesitantly, her black eyebrow going up. Steve snapped his fingers. "Yes, of course! The Pride festival!" Pride had taken some explanation for Steve before his first visit some years earlier, more to reassure him that it was not a legacy of some past time when same-sex relationships had dominated Earth-Prime than anything else. It had actually ended with him being given a man's phone number, and fortunately Erik had intervened before he had called the man to thank him but to let him know that he was not sexually attracted to men. "A fitting name!" declared Aarden. "You should well celebrate your deed, Dethroner, and all. You are wise, Doctor, and we give you thanks. We will come, when the war at the end of time permits." She hesitated a moment, then embraced all of them, one after the other, and if she was a giant space goddess she was also a grandmother who whispered in Erin's ear "you are your legend in the flesh." "Well...okay," said Ashley, figuring that space gods at Freedom Pride were a matter for the Freedom League, not her. A little hesitantly, she accepted Teledar's hug, then said tentatively, "I've only ever gone for work. You might not see the, ah, Dethroner much, though." What the hell, if that's her supername, that's her supername. -
Tarva "ALL BEINGS MUST SUFFER TO BE MADE PURE! ALL BEINGS MUST SUFFER TO BE MADE PURE! ALL BEINGS MUST SUFFER TO BE MADE PURE!" With a sigh, Tarva dismissed the Chorus of Shadows and the forest of chanting faces around her kneeling form disappeared into the eldritch sigil at her feet. While their chants could be soothing, elementary spiritual truisms were not what she had in mind today. She pulled on a translucent black robe, the short one that wrapped around her knees, and slipped her feet into black slippers adorned with the blood-colored leaf that was the symbol of Kimber's homeland, and walked out of the small room attached to the space she occasionally shared with Kimber. She hmmed, looking down thoughtfully at her feet. The flag reminded her that there was someone else of Kimber's nation nearby, one whom she should speak to at the soonest opportunity. While she had spoken only at times to the Wendigo, Aquaria reported that Becky was not merely a friend but one who could be trusted to be reliable, having secured her pledge to eat her flesh if she should die upon the Surface. One who could do such a service...well, if the luck of darkness was with her, perhaps she would have a chance to have that conversation soon. As it was, she went to find Kimber, having a pretty good idea where she might find her boon...
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The rest of the collaboration went more smoothly, with Eira communicating by hologram as she moved around the floor and monitored the creation of what did indeed turn out to be an impressive Segway. Between Eira and Ryder and Voltage, with Danica's input they were able to design a down-to-the-screws holo-diagram of her new Segway, and even produce a small quarter-size model to give her proof of concept of the final version. With a customized camo ability that could be adjusted to multiple colorful presets, a limited ability to magnetically hover over rough terrain and up stairs, a polymer plastic frame that weighed far less than the original, and a universal 'plug-and-play' system that even the most outdated repair shop should be able to fix, it seemed to match just about everything Danica had wanted. As the 3-D printers came to life, Eira remanifested into her synthetic flesh and spoke loudly over the humming machinery. "At a mundane facility, this would be the work of weeks at the least, but with Archetech facilities the final work will be completed..." She looked up in the air as if checking an invisible clock and said, "at a time when you will likely be asleep. You are welcome to sleep in one of the break rooms," she offered, "but it will be better if I bring it to you at campus tomorrow."
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Anna assented to the plan, though in a tone of voice that suggested she might do something very different than call in Talya for backup. But her money was certainly good, as she was happy to demonstrate on the car ride over to the suburban neighborhood where Marshall and his parents lived. The Marshall house turned out to be a substantial one, the sort of big suburban mansion that was actually rather familiar to Raina from her earlier life. Roger and Jane Marshall lived in the substantial three-story house and commuted to their legal jobs in downtown Freedom every day, while Elric lived in what was actually probably a substantial basement apartment under the main building. (Luckily Raina and Anna, two blonde white women driving a stick-shift rented sedan about as old as Raina herself, were not the sort of people who would attract attention even in a nice neighborhood like this.) "This was a little farm town when I was a girl," said Anna suddenly, looking out the window as she drove. "My old man used to come out here and trade sausage for cheese from Old Man Polanski. He...jeez, I guess you don't need to hear about that old malarkey. So where do you want me?" she asked Raina. "I can probably park this old thing anywhere."
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Meanwhile, elsewhere The waters of the unchlorinated pool were not as deep or as wide as the chlorinated one on the other side of the big room, but Aquaria far preferred them. She crouched in the shallow end and sang a little song, basking in the comfort of water on her skin and the sounds echoing off the walls. Then she opened them and laughed as she heard a familiar splashing. "Look at you, Baxter!" she croaked as the dog trotted down the small ramp into the water nearby. "Good dog!" Baxter carried the blood of many animals of his type, she knew, one of which had been bred to hunt game in water. Aquaria had never actually tried that, but Baxter was happy to be in the water. "Have some meat!" From inside her harness she produced a liver treat the dog always iked.
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The days of auctions of naughty pictures being secretive affairs carried out in dark rooms was a thing of the past, which certainly made tracking them easier. The rights to Clock Queen's 12 pictures were being sold through a Ukrainian cash app, on a remote corner of the Dark Web which explained why no computer people working with her son's old TV show had tracked it down. Though the proposed payment was in anonymous bitcoin, the actual pickup was going to have to be in person here in Freedom City once the bidding was complete, or by snail mail if the bidder was willing to pay a more significant fee. The alleged seller was quite firm that there were no electronic copies of the images as of yet, just hard copies, and only a physical exchange would be possible. This had limited interest given the risk of a sting, but the interest was indeed there. By Merlin's estimation a few thousand dollars had already been spent, and more was probably coming. There was a single image from the collection to tantalize the buyers; a black and white shot in a tight white sweater and half-pulled up ski pants that displayed just a little butt, winking saucily at the camera. Behind her a just-visible calendar for 1963 said "JANUARY." "All right, I can...do that," said Anna doubtfully, "but I gotta warn ya, yer better off with Hercules the Monkey Man over there if ya need actual expertise on those things. I can use 'em but I'm a little out of date on the new stuff. We could get..." She looked away for a moment, then shook her head. "No, better keep this one between us mere mortals."
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Frost concentrated a moment and the cold around him seemed to fade until it was only his grip that was icy. "Is direct connection to other realms," he said, stepping through the table with great interest, watching as his undead flesh and hands passed right through the wood. Once he was fully through, he released Ghost's hand and experimentally tried the table again. "Hm. Effects of being so stranded?" he asked curiously.
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"Isn't it-" Anna broke it off, shaking her head, and said, "Sure, this ain't exactly my first time; and I know you don't necessarily want me running in there fists up and ready to scrap. But, uh, won't the gear be all...monkey-sized?" she asked. "Unless you got more like that laptop over there. Geez, isn't that heavy for you? Uh, sorry there buddy," she added apologetically in Merlin's direction. "I just don't think I could fit my fingers onto little monkey-sized keys and the like. Is he like a super-strong little monkey?" she whispered to Raina.
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"Well..." Anna touched her purse, seemed to consider something, then said, "I better not scrap with no superheroes, and not just on account of my criminal record, but I can handle myself in a scrap against a bunch of robots." She looked at Raina and temporized, "Bout as fast as a race car if I'm runnin', sonic if I don't mind spittin' blood afterwards. Up in Bedlam sometimes I go out in bad neighborhoods and make sure people there respect a lady. Still got some gas left in the tank, anyway." Her smile turned brittle for a moment before she said, "So what's the play? We know where he lives, we gonna go give a little wackadoo?" She ended that question by finishing off her sugared-up coffee.
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ic Return to Neverworld: Best Intentions
Avenger Assembled replied to RocketLord's topic in The Realms Beyond
Eira had done it. When her power had failed she'd powered herself, either from a dynamo she'd hammered together or from simply capturing the lightning overhead. When her mood or mind had wandered she had reminded herself of her all-encompassing goal; a mechanical army that would destroy her enemies, protect these people, and prove to everyone once and for all that she was...well that she had done all this. She had changed once the work was done, doffing her lab coat and transforming herself into a feminine being wrapped in a flowery dress that bared her shoulders and arms, a feathered hat on her head and an umbrella under her arm. She was, yes, she was the Rococo Basilisk, and she loved every inute of it. "The freedom to do as I wish," she told the old doctor, "and to never again be held back by...anything.." She looked away, then said, "But my payment is due only when services are rendered. That is what a hero would do, yes? Come; let us fight."