Avenger Assembled

"This is really weird," said Sharl unhelpfully, looking down at the unconscious naval officer. He'd hit people with intent before, but never someone who'd been a friend just a few minutes earlier. He clammed up under Dragonfly's words, taken together with Miss Americana's reminding him of what an emergency this was! He bent down and actually grabbed one of the team's medtechs, and soon was in the air speeding towards Miss Americana. Sharl wasn't as fast in the air as Protectron, but he was no slouch either. Soon enough he had landed by the open cabin door, going to assist Miss Americana. "Oh, man..." He went automatically to help with the baby, helping get the sleeper off the baby, then feeding it again, the medtech moving in to help with the injured woman. Which was good, because even when she tapped directly into the landline at the Motor Lodge, there was no answer at 911. It wasn't that the line was busy or disconnected, either. The phone was ringing. No one was picking up. Over by the lake, luckily the commander's gunfire hadn't actually hurt anyone, with the exception of Pablo Austin, the poor technician who'd gone to Dragonfly's aid and gotten a beating for his pains. He had several bad bruises, but he'd be all right, and in fact looked a little sheepish for his intended heroism. The computer where Dragonfly had been working was a total loss, having taken a heavy-caliber slug right through the hard drive as well as the shattered monitor. If anyone less protected than Mara had been sitting there, if Harrison had been a little quieter in drawing her gun, something much, much worse might have happened. Under the lake, the water was cold! And as Protectron moved closer to the satellite, he was able to make out the etched-in labels on the inside of where the biological containers had once been: and next to it, more ominously:

"Oh, man! On my way!" said Sharl, belatedly adding, "Stay here, Protectron!" The heroic teenager rocketed out of the water in a smooth, nearly motionless flight that didn't do more than make the faintest of ripples on the lake. He was just about to grab the medic himself and fly over to help Miss Americana with the medical emergency when he saw Commander Harrison pointing a gun at Dragonfly! The smell of cordite and broken machinery was everywhere, and people were running, one of them down on the ground! Without hesitation, Sharl flew in and punched the naval officer in the back of the head, his solid blow connecting with a loud THUNK! She dropped, her face not changing expression, and face-planted in the dirt. "What's going on?"

Harrison gave no reply to Dragonfly, instead opening fire again. The bullets continued to bounce off Dragonfly's shield, but the ricocheting slugs were at least as much a danger to the fleeing support staff as the cold, flat-faced naval officer. But Dragonfly wasn't actually abandoned by the staffers, one actually tried to rush their erstwhile employer as she reloaded! Without hesitation, she brutally pistol-whipped the man across the face and continued what she was doing.

That misses.

Flying over the Jersey Devil Motor Lodge, Miss Americana quickly triangulated the source of the crying to one of the freestanding cabins. Inside, she found an eerie-looking room. The lights were on, water was running in the sink for who knew how long; the 'evacuation' had evidently happened incredibly fast. And in the back of the room, she found the source of the cries: a red-faced, thin-looking tiny baby was crying fitfully alongside a screened-in window. It was a warm February, but February nonetheless, the baby couldn't have been left there long and be so active...but perhaps it hadn't been. Alongside the Pack 'N Play which held the baby lay a young woman face-down on the carpet, breathing fitfully. She was pale and her breath shaky, a large contusion on the back of her head covered in half-matted blood. Someone had hit her on the back of the head, very hard, sometime the previous day. - Sharl tried talking under the water, and to his surprise it worked! His voice sounding not in Protectron's auditory sensors, but in his comm systems, he said, "You should take the external scans first," he suggested, "then go all the way in. That way, we'll know for sure we have all the information we need out here before you go in there. If there's a radiation leak, you don't want to risk overheating your plasma coils." He tried to talk with authority, the way Miss A would have, bu instead he revealed that he was familiar with the functioning of equipment that few typical teenagers of his demonstrated intelligence would have been. Still, he was Miss A's assistant. - Commander Harrison had been away trying without success to get her radio to work, and when she saw Miss Americana flying away she asked one of the support crew about the noise and where she'd gone. When she got an explanation from that tech, she made a face. She then pulled out her service pistol, a big, custom job she'd shown to the science heroes on the way in, and opened fire on Dragonfly. The spray of bullets missed Dragonfly, but the high-caliber ammunition tore its way into the computer panel where she sat, shattering tens of thousands of dollars in valuable equipment, and also posing some risk of shrapnel to the nearby civilians. Her face an emotionless blank, the officer ejected her pistol's magazine and began to reload.

As they went to work monitoring Protectron and Sharl's transmissions, Miss Americana and Dragonfly heard a sound from the distance: a very strange, peculiar sound. It was a distant sound, too, but clearly audible. With Miss Americana's amazing robo-hearing, she was able to pinpoint the sound to the abandoned motor court.

Sharl joined Protectron for the trip underwater, the magnetic teenager passing through the water as if it wasn't there, which it really wasn't for him. It was more than a little weird to interact with the water like this when he couldn't really feel it, particularly since all the silt down below did partially obscure his vision, but he made do. Down below, he let the more experienced robot look closer at the fallen satellite, still sorting out the very strange nature of life down here under the water. "Hello, can you hear me up on the surface?" he asked into his commlink, standing by to let Protectron work. "We're down here and we've found the satellite. It's, uh, kind of half-buried in the muck down here. The water's really thick." He relayed his robot buddy's news up to the surface for a moment, then belatedly remembered that Protectron could actually talk and let the synthetic man explain the situation. With his ability to make out heat patterns, Protectron had an easier time taking in the bulk of the satellite. It looked relatively undamaged, minus the open hatches and compartments where Commander Harrison's people had likely come and gone. The main challenge would be to lift the satellite out in a body, so that none of the extraneous fragments snapped in the process.

At that juncture, Fusion dropped down next to the others, a look of triumph visible on her masked face and two chunks of crumbled steel in her spare tentacles. "Okay, I just ripped the guts out of some kind of psychic entity that was possessing the van. It was pretty fierce, but I took it out. The van crew is safe, I made sure the cops were on their way before I came back here. They're just waking up, but I think they'll be all right. What's going on over here?" Fusion's voice was full of the fierce joy of battle, and she crumbled the fragments of the van like paper cups as she talked.

"Maybe you are," said Citizen, glaring up at the lizard man, "but there's something you should know." The leather-clad teenager jumped in the air, coat billowing behind him like a cape, and landed on the subway car floor with a clang. "I'm not _from_ Earth." He drew back his fist and hurled a devastating left hook that sent the serpent priest sprawling backwards, taking the archvillain completely off-guard with his powerful blow. "I'm a free citizen of the Internet," he added belatedly.

"Okay," said Sharl, tearing himself away from the scenery by sheer force of will. He didn't want to disappoint Miss Americana, after all. He couldn't stop himself, though, from bending down and probing the soft, spongy earth beneath their feet, his eyes wide behind his mirrorshades. "Real, natural earth. Amazing. And look at this! Grass and little pebbles, and insects!" Thoroughly pleased with himself, he joined Protectron in pulling the collapsible skiff out of the truck and unpacking it. Taking the boat out made sense, Miss A having explained that getting too close if there was a leak might damage either himself or the synthezoid. "Can you believe how beautiful everything is? Just look at all the algae and silt in that lake!"

There was a great deal to do, and not a tremendous amount of time in which to do it! Soon the Lab was busy at work as the various science heroes went about summoning the civilian support staff who'd work well as their assistants in the field, building the tools and equipment they'd need for this mission, and generally getting ready for what promised to be a very profitable, if very mysterious assignment. For his part, Sharl spent the afternoon hanging around Miss A's lab, occasionally fetching things that he could get to faster than a computer. He'd been experimenting with his ability to 'clip' these days, and could actually hover off the ground while remaining solid enough to grab things off distant shelves. He still couldn't carry things through solid objects, as Miss A occasionally had to remind him with some little heat. The next morning, bright and early, everyone packed into the small Lab convoy (mostly for extra equipment) for the trip out to the State Forest, while the heroes with the ability to get there faster took a shortcut off into the hill. They found themselves deep in the heart of the New Jersey wild, the pine trees rising on either side with the sort of stillness that made it hard to believe they were just a dozen miles or so from Freedom City proper. But this far from the interstate, maybe that wasn't so surprising; Wharton famously was an island in the suburban sprawl of New Jersey, a long green finger of the Pine Barrens to the south. The trees hereabouts were oak and pine both, a landscape with relatively few fires and thus significantly denser trees than elsewhere. The lake that held the fallen satellite was near an empty tourist lodge, the old-fashioned motor resort the sort of thing that Gina's grandparents might have stayed in on a cross-country trip; there'd been a family reunion there on the night of the falling star, and the people there had been among those (as Commander Harrison explained) who'd been evacuated out to Freedom City after the crash. The lake, a natural body of water, was of respectable size, some twice as large as the big ornamental pond in Freedom City's largest park. The water was still brown and silty from the impact, but as the heroes studied the water, they could see the occasional fish swimming in the lake, and the steely grey husk of the fallen star itself nearby. They were indeed in a dead zone of cell communication, leaving their little team cut off from the rest of civlization. The lodge was deserted, the woods were deserted, and for a second before everyone went to work, all they could hear was the sound of wind and lapping water.

14 DC 26 Tou save HP Reroll: 24 DC 26 Tou save.

"I've spoken with the Blue Rogue myself," clarified Fusion. "She remembered me from previous encounters with Takashi, and knew I have the most experience dealing with him in the US." She made a small hissing noise, her tentacles under the table twitching with suppressed anger. "That poor kid. It wasn't easy fighting Takashi fair, the next time we ran into each other." At Grimalkin's words, she said sympathetically, "I'm sorry, kid. He sounds like a good man, and it's a crying shame how our society treats people with mechanical assets. As for the Yakuza, they're the worst kind of crooks. I hope you caught the guys who did it and made them pay." She hesitated a moment, then turned to Wisp. "Hey kid, you gonna ante?"

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Levicorpus There's nothing wrong with using fake Latin for your spells. But please, try not to take your character's enchantments directly from Harry Potter.

S-A, This is a novel concept with an interesting backstory, and it'd be fun to get a Duplicator running around (and around, and around, in as many places as possible). The students who know what Overshadow looks like will not like him. This is, assuming all goes well, a good source of conflict. That said, you're going to need to rework some things about this sheet. Claremont is not going to let their students armor up like a SWAT officer or combat soldier, much less base their schtick around pulling out guns and shooting people with them. It's a high school for superheroes, not a training academy for supersoldiers. (Even if this was an adult character, it's a little too generous to let a Duplicator's Summoned duplicates walk around with perfect copies of all his equipment.) My advice is, make him a hand-to-hand combatant. That'd fly perfectly well. Also, we're pretty leery of 'emotional distance' here. This is not a setting where gruff loner types play well at all.

Counterverse Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 36 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 16 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+11 Melee/+15 Unarmed) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Grapple: +16 Init: +7 Saves: 9 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Bluff 4 (+6) Intimidate 8 (+10) Investigate 4 (+5) Notice 12 (+14) Sense Motive 12 (+14) Stealth 8 (+10) Feats: 20 pp All-Out Attack, Attack Focus: Melee (3) Attack Specialization: Unarmed (2) Dodge Focus (7), Evasion, Improved Initiative Move-By Action, Power Attack, Startle, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 41 pp Alternate Form 8 (Dimensional) (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PF: Innate) Affects Corporeal on Unarmed [5 pp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 10 (Life Support, Starvation and Thirst) [10 pp] Insubstantial 3 (dimensional) [15 pp] Super-Senses 8 (Hearing and Vision Penetrate Concealment) [8 pp] costs abilities 36 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 12/48 + feats 20 + powers 41 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: The Counterverse isn’t quite like Anti-Earth. Sure, it’s run by a cold, militaristic empire with grim prospects for the future, but it’s not just a moral or historical inversion of our own world: it’s a physical and spiritual one as well. The colors even _look_ inverted to our eyes, the world resembling a fascist dystopia cast in a flipped color photograph. But things go deeper than that: the instinctive hostility that the Counterverse feels towards us and that we feel towards them is the instinctive _hatred_ that one feels towards their mirror image. And when the same people from the Counterverse and our own universe meet and touch, the subsequent explosion is a grim reminder of what happens when matter comes into contact with antimatter. This fellow must have had potent reason indeed to come to our dimension, allowing his scientist friends to _alter_ him, to make him a man made of the strange stuff between dimensions, a being of neither one universe nor the other. My idea is that he was a policeman in his own world, an honorable man despite the brutal nature of its society, and from underneath that white sky dappled with black dots, he came to our world to catch criminals from his own. He has formidable abilities given that he exists between dimensions, letting him look and listen through walls, fly, and even pass right through solid objects. He’s a formidable fighter as well, a skilled boxer whose abilities make him essentially impervious to mundane threats. He makes a striking appearance, doesn’t he, with a body that perpetually looks like a reversed negative and powers that make him function like a ghost? Play that up. He’s a man made of slightly altered antimatter, play that up as well. He’s far from home, fighting for justice in a world that fears and hates him. A classic for a superhero. Perhaps he’s here to catch Negator, the Counterverse madman and criminal who has bedeviled the police of two worlds. Another possible tweak: maybe this guy is actually a Silver Age refugee, a hero empowered by the 3RD DIMENSION! Owweeooo! (In that case, you should make sure to put on your red and blue goggles whenenver he’s about to go into action, so you can get a better glimpse of the action.)

Illusionist PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +8 Init: +7 Saves: 10 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +6 (+3 Ref, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 48 r=12 pp Bluff 12 (+15) Computers 6 (+6) Concentration 8 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 6 (+6) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp Distract (Bluff) Challenges 2 (Improved Taunt, Improved Trick) Dodge Focus 6 Improved Initiative Luck 2 Second Chance (Illusion checks) Set-Up Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 62 pp Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Hologram Array [45+1=46 pp] Illusion 10 (all senses) (PFs: Precise, Progression 4 [100 ft radius]) AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Damaging, Range [Perception]) (12 tons) (PFs: Indirect 3, Precise, Subtle) Immunity 5 (Magnetic Effects) [5 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] costs abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 10 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 62 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: This is my build for an Illusionist, a character who specializes in fooling the mind and tricking the senses. The discerning reader will note that her sheet looks different than your typical Illusionist build: rather than a psychic or mystic as are the Instant Superheroes and Archetype Archive version of this archetype, I’ve gone with the idea that she’s a variant magnetic controller: her illusions are basically Star Trek holodeck-style projections that she controls. Unlike most illusionists in the book, she lacks both the Selective Extra and the Phantasms Flaw on her Illusion. This means she can affect machines and zombies and other mindless creatures, but it also means her tricks are going to fool the people around her, including allies who can’t see through them. This is a potential problem, but one that can easily be handled by the player being smart and using some complications when necessary. I figure her damaging power (so that she can inflict direct damage and affect the world as more than just a con artist) is illusory constructs that walk up to someone and punch them in the eye; or a bombardment of particles from her hand, or anything else she wants it to look like (that’s what the Subtle is for on her Blast.) It’s not an Illusion as such, so it shouldn’t be that tough to see through, but I think it’s thematic with her powers. It’s Move Object so those figures can push and pull things around, and do a decent stand-in for Magnetic Control. Note that while she doesn’t have to make an attack roll for her illusions, she does if she wants them to, say, pick up a car or bucket of nails and hurl them at her opponent. (Why do that? Well, maybe they’re immune to magnetism but not immune to a bucket of nails upside the head.) Her magnetic powers let her have her immunity and protection, and give her the ability to fly around as well. Hey, flying is awesome! I figure with her background, she’s maybe a computer tech in the special effects business? Movie stuntmen and the like have a decent presence in the world of superheroes, though I don’t think we have any PCs with that background. Ooh, maybe she actually makes money using her special talents in her work, and her superheroing is a way for her to feel like a better person. (This is not a setting friendly to super-sellouts, though we don’t _discourage it either. As is so often the case with characters, it’s all about the backstory! And the Benjamins. Which she can make appear.) Negotiate with your GM about how you’re going to police Illusion, it’s potentially a very broad power, and could arguably do the jobs of some others without too many mental gymnastics.

"Isn't it exciting?" exclaimed Sharl. He took a seat around the table himself, the seat bobbing beneath his magnetized holographic body. "I mean, we're going to see a satellite that's been in real space! And had real alien stuff inside it! I mean...OK, maybe that's all old to you guys. But I think it's so cool! And in the middle of the forest with a big lake, and real trees...wow! This is going to be the best weekend ever. What do we need to do?" he asked Miss A. "Just tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it."

"Honey," said Fusion, sounding half-amused and half-fatigued, "I appreciate your open-mindedness, but when you've had a chance to see up close and personal that Solo Takashi's robots really are anatomically correct and he really does do with them everything his sicko freak mind can imagine, we'll see how enthusiastic you are about embracing robots built by sex freaks. Don't get me wrong," she added, "I've marched in my share of Galatea Parades. Sentient AIs deserve the same rights as anyone else with intelligence and self-awareness, and I think it's a damn shame this country makes it so tough on them. But that means the bad ones get the same treatment that bad humans do, whether that's lockup or just people like us tearing them a new one when they're causing trouble." Joan hmmed, not wanting to make an enemy of a kid who was guilty of nothing other than having some passion. "Like what you and Jack of all Blades did to those robots at the bank robbery last month. That was some really fine work, especially when you backed up the new guy like that. Not a lot of heroes your age have what it takes to be part of a Daring Duo."

That's a crit. DC 35 Tou save for the poltergeist.

"The only place I'm going to let you out is Hell! And my fists are going to send you there!" And with that, Fusion planted a chunk of Detroit iron in the ground before her as a marker and raised her fists. "Come on! Don't stand up if you aren't prepared to jump up!" When the poltergeist got close, she drew back her limbs and lashed at it in a hurricane of blows! "You think you can scare Freedom City's journalists from telling the truth? Well let me tell you, mister! THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD!"

If a 13 hits him flat-footed, that's a DC 26 Tou save. If not, grr!

Citizen sat up, having fallen much too close to the electrified third rail for his own comfort. Holy! That could have hurt me really, really badly...or worse! He opted not to mention that close call to Miss Americana or Gina, the last thing he needed was either of his mentors corralling his nighttime activities and keeping him from adventures like this. Even incredibly dangerous ones. With just his upper torso sticking up through the car floor, he advanced on the Serpent priest. "I am really, really getting tired of dealing with you freaks!" He threw a clumsy punch and said what sounded like a bad word. "Somebody take this guy out already!"

Fusion gave Grimalkin a look, the huge white eyepieces over her face narrowing as she studied the little pixie suspiciously. "I didn't know male robots were even _made_ in Japan, much less ones with interest in 'dating' human women. In my experience, half the AIs that come out of Japanese-influenced technological systems were programmed by some poorly-socialized otaku with his own perverted image of what femininity should be. Sounds like you got lucky if you found one worth your time." To Silhouette, she added, "You're damn right. The problem is, there are too many people with incredible talents and powers without the morality and basic human decency to back it up. Those skeezy superscientists are the worst. I'm glad we've got men like Viktor Archeville here in Freedom City to set things straight."

Mark raised his glass too, cheering along and happily clinking it afterwards to get another round of smooches from the bride and groom. When they seemed suitably entertained by the smooching going on, he let them get to their feet, casually getting up himself as the dancing started so he could study Chloe more closely. She really was very cute, he decided, though she'd tarried to snap pictures with an instant camera as her sister and new brother-in-law took to the floor. When she was done, Mark sidled up close to her and murmured, "Hi, I'm Mark. You're very pretty." He gave her an ingenous smile, not wanting to come across as too forward. "Do you have anyone to escort you for the wedding party dance?"