Avenger Assembled

Anna shifted in her seat uncomfortably, then said suddenly, "Scuse me, I gotta callanature." Despite her age and claims of slowness she actually did move pretty fast when she rose to her feet and walked into the cafe's ladies room. She was gone for one minute, then two, not really that long for an old lady in the bathroom, before she arrived again at the table opposite Raina and Merlin. "This is...not the first time I've met him," admitted Anna. "Not, you know, face-to-face or anything, but the guy, he...well he managed to find my mailing address through a friend of a friend, and he sent me these letters." She made a gesture with her hands, then added, "Who sends letters anymore, right? So I thought I'd read them. Not, you know, perverted stuff or nothing, but really...nice stuff. About what a role model I was for young people with superpowers, fighting the Centurion while raising my boy and all, and how he thought I was real glamorous, and how it was a shame they didn't make them like they used to anymore. I told him I for sure didn't want no meetup even in a secure location, but he still wanted to talk, and..." She hesitated a moment, then admitted, "People don't, uh, usually say nice things to the likes of me, so I let my guard down and I wrote him back. Nothing that could get traced to me, mind, I ain't stupid or nothing, but I thanked him and asked him if he wanted to talk more, and he did. I was the one who told him about how some of my old things were going up for sale if he really wanted a piece of Clock Queen, not knowing the dresser with my old scanty pictures was in there. Next thing I know, the little bastard tells me he has them, has a little surprise, goes dark on me, and then I hear about the auction." She smiled tightly. "Fifty years ago, I probably would have wanted to break his goddamn legs, but like I said, it's not the first time a man trifled with me. Nice to know somebody still cares, I guess." Meanwhile, Merlin had one more discovery about Elric Marshall, thanks to a leaked password here and a shared email address there. Someone with Elric Marshall's contact information was a regular poster on reddit forums and the like, where he was a devotee not just of tech groups but especially those that talked about the supervillains of days gone by. In all those forums, every one, his avatar image was that of Anna Cline, Clock Queen, resplendent in the glory days of the early 1960s.

Anna blinked, looked at Raina, and said, "Ohhh, I get it." She reached into her purse and dug around for a minute, then came up with a bright gold ring with a pea-sized stone that glittered at its top, a gem like a translucent opal that shimmered like nothing Raina had quite seen before. "That's yer down payment. They can't make me put it in no museum if there ain't nobody left who remembers the place, right?" She smiled tightly. "There's more where that came from if you keep this just between us girls. There are things you wouldn't want...you know, your girlfriends to hear about. Even if they have known you a long time." Meanwhile, Merlin had found a solid biography of Elric Marshall, who it seemed was quite the little tech-head from his home in Grenville, or rather from his parents' home where he lived in a first-floor apartment. There were pictures of him; with his raggedy beard, glasses, and knitted cap and sweater, he seemed almost the stereotypical geek. Marshall really was, as far as Merlin could tell, an engineering genius; some of the devices he showed off on his Youtube channel like a talking robot dog that could order pizza for you, a security drone that could call the police while pretending to be you, and a few others actually showed real genius. But whether for lack of ambition or some other reason, he'd seemingly never gone further than that. Maybe it was the shyness that made him stutter and avoid eye contact with the camera, even in what had to be edited videos he'd posted himself. The strange thing was, as such things went, Marshall didn't seem to be much of a super-geek. Oh he had the usual posters of Miss Americana on his wall and had a couple of videos where he spoke with great admiration of the teenage robotic heroine Angelic, but his interest seemed to be primarily in technology rather than superheroes or villains

She did, but she came back! That's why Ashley is annoyed with her just now.

Okay! Between the racist pig, the need to protect Judy, Luke, the cyborg, and the invocation of her mission, Ashley should probably have a lot of HP active right now beyond the 5 on her sheet. I will let you adjudicate the specifics I'll actually roll her Intimidate here: 17, definitely worth an HP to reroll 30 with the HP, now that's more like it. She is attempting to Intimidate him into lowering his weapon. If a message is being conveyed, it is "whatever you want to happen in a fight is not going to happen." She readies an action to shoot this guy in the face with her pistol if he doesn't lower his weapon. https://orokos.com/roll/887850 = 30 Okay, with her Improved Crit, the subsequent Toughness DC for the attack is 29. She'll be Interposing for Judy if any combat breaks out.

At that moment, there was a flare of rainbow light behind USArcher that was certainly distracting in the small space, and a wash of electrostatic that briefly blocked any hopes of Ashley calling anyone. Resplendent as a rainbow sun, Daystar sounded distinctly apologetic. "Ah'm sorry, Ashley, Ah couldn't just leave you here without any help, and nobody was answering mah-oh mah gawd!" Judy backed up, her hands raised automatically, but there was only so much distance she could get while inside the Panera Bread meeting room. Ashley took a mental note to have another talk with Judy about how she was supposed to stay away when she was working, but for the moment she concentrated on the hostile target in front of her. She was between Luke and USArcher, which meant that arrow was pointed right at her. Her pepper spray had been replaced, in USArcher's moment of inattention, with her blaster pistol, and it was aimed at him too. As if she was reciting from a script, she said, "If you do not lower your weapon, I will consider you a hostile meta-threat in the presence of a protectee and use authorized force to stop you. This is your final warning." It was Secret Service-speak for a threat to do something that went beyond the things done by metahumans in their conflicts with each other, and her posture and body language told USArcher she was going to do exactly that.

"Honey," said Anna gently, "I like the way you think, but this is not the first time I dealt with a man taking liberties with me. There ain't a lot of honor among thieves. I ain't gonna go in planning to kill anybody or do any maimin' Besides, I got grandkids, you know? They don't want their old nana going up the river because she killed some guy." That was all she was going to say on the subject, especially under the circumstances, so she said, "I just want to get back what he took from me, and I want...I want to show him I'm not some old broad he can just push around. I may be old and...slow," she admitted, a revelation that seemed to be a harder tell than the idea that she'd been robbed, or that someone else was viewing images of her semi-clothed body, "but I'll be in my grave before I let somebody play with me like that. Hell, I'm double-mad figuring out that he's just playing with me for some other stupid reason."

"1963. V-February, 1963," Anna said with great firmness. "Just for the record, _I_ was just in skirts and pigtails when the Second World War ended, unlike certain elderly British dames I could name..." she added grumpily. Annoyed or not, she listened to the girl's words and found herself nodding along. "Yeah, all right, I can see that. You are a real smart cookie." She hmmed. "I ain't what you'd call loaded, seeing as how most of my worldly goods got sold off the last time I went up the river, but I ain't poor, and...my boy's got money. Not that I'd take one nickel from him for this, let me tell you." She added that while her contact wasn't Freedom-local "and that's all I'm sayin' about that", she had been able to figure out that the guy was named Elric Marshall, he was active on Youtube, and Anna's friend had tracked him down from location data from one of his videos and several local phone calls. "Even found where his parents live, but that ain't a conversation I'm gonna have neither. He put them robot guards on his Youtube video but I bet he's got more he didn't show."

Fairly good skill-mastered Notice and Sense Motive - is Ashley being set-up for something, or does he just seem like a stupid thug?

"They ain't exactly nudes, per se," said Anna, waving her hand a little. "But they are, uh, of the burlesque variety, I'll put it that way. Like, you know, Bettie Page?" she hazarded, looking at Raina for understanding. "I did 'em when I was young and hung onto 'em afterwards, there's some...personal stuff on 'em. They were seized back in the 80s when I was, y'know, incarcerated for a time in Blackstone. Luckily they were in a safe place in my old dresser or those dirty pigs would have gotten their filthy mitts on them back then." She frowned, real venom in her voice when she talked about the police that Raina had never quite heard from Talya. "The dresser got sold a couple of times, and I actually thought they were gone for good, but my friend heard about them being found and some guy here in Freedom City planning some kind of pervert sale. Wouldn't even take my freakin' calls..." She sighed. "I know you can't unring a bell, Raina, but those are my damned pictures, and even if he does make a million copies before we can stop him, I can take back what those...men took from me."

"Ah jeez, he is a monkey! Hello there!" said Anna in surprised delight. "I mean, ah, sorry, I didn't want to make a thing about that," she said, pulling her glasses back on. "I used to know a chimp who'd curl your hair..anyway, business, yeah." She fidgeted in her seat for a moment, then said, "Listen, the stuff that this collector guy has, it's mine. It's stuff I helped make, and I'm..." She hesitated again, obviously thinking, then said, "You like taking those...selfies on yer phone, yeah? And you probably, you know, heard about girls who took, ah, personal pictures, and somebody came in and took them?"

"Sure, I heard about the Science Monkey; I'll throw some bananas his way too. I'll be over in yer neighborhood in one. Well...ten, maybe." Anna wound up needing the actual street address for Taza Temprana from Raina, a rarity that required Merlin to actually look it up, then thanked Raina and Merlin before hanging up. It was an easy enough matter to get herself dressed, zip out of the hotel, and then find herself in a West End that really had changed a lot since the last time she spent a significant amount of time there. (She'd stopped by for visits to Talya's place from time to time, of course, but only to catch up and play girltalk. They had not been the closest of friends back when they'd been young and the world was new. The fact that Talya, who was a couple of decades her senior, now looked some thirty years her junior, and had a couple of kids in the bargain...well it had been a while since she'd caught up with the cat burglar.) When the time came she was sitting at a table outside the little coffee place, one of Freedom City's finest papers on her table as she sipped the cream-topped Mexican coffee she'd ordered. In a tourist's blouse, slacks, and dark sunglasses, she looked like any other single woman of mature years as she waited for her contact.

"Ah, jeezenheimer..." Anna's voice trailed off for a moment before she said, "All you gotta help me make it in past the security on this guy's place. He's got some kind of robot guards or something, I don't know, I ain't no kinda tech person. You don't even have to talk to the guy, pretty sure he's off doing god knows what to some damn funny books at that convention for weirdos in the civic center. I'll do anything technically actionable, you're just helping a senior citizen, right? Heh. But yeah, I should tell you what it's about. I happen to be in Freedom City right now, and I could meet yez somewhere in the West End? That is a neighborhood that has changed a lot since back in the day, sweetie, let me tell you!"

"Hey, that's great," said Anna breezily. "I'm Anna Cline, but you may know me better as Clock Queen!" Raina had in fact heard of Anna from Talya, who had evidently been the "brick thrown through a window at high speed" to Talya's more delicate operation back in the day. She had to be at least...70? 80? "Anyway, I have an object, or really a collection of objects, see, that was taken from me some years ago, and I need help getting it back from the pervert holding onto it right now. It's not stealing because the stuff is mine." She said the last words with great emphasis.

Summer 2021 When Raina's phone rang, it was from a contact she'd actually picked up from Talya - the one Talya had just dubbed Anna. "Hey! Is this, er, a secure line?" The woman on the other end had a heavy, old-fashioned Jersey accent, the kind that Raina associated with very elderly people or cartoons. "Because I got yer number from Talya, see, and she said you were the right person to help me with a job."

"Oh, is that how it was?" croaked Sea Devil, a distinct bass echo of suspicion creeping into her tone. "You built in their territory, and so they became angry." She struck the ground with the butt end of her trident. "And now we chase them away for you." She was beginning to think that perhaps a conversation without teeth needed to be had. "We shall see what they do." And with that, she took off into the sky with a pleasant thrum of energy coming from the armor that seemed to clash oddly with her demeanor and build. She knew Jessie could follow her, so she kept things slow enough and low enough that Singularity could match her by leaping if she wished. "I am suspicious!" she bellowed for the benefit of the others.

"A cable is not so primitive," whispered Eira firmly, her left dataspike tangled around her fingers absent-mindedly as she spoke. "A universal port is an easy exercise and will allow for a backup if Danica takes her machine into desert backcountry towns and other regions with an underdeveloped technological infrastructure. She could even connect through a ground-based telephone line, if you could...find such a thing..." She sounded faintly baffled as she spoke in Danica's direction. She nodded in response to Ryder's question and said, "Chameleon circuits will fit easily under the outer plating. You can make it white, or green, or whatever color you desire," she added, pointing with a tool for emphasis. "But we have had enough talk. I will begin programming the printers. Let me know if you have any other ideas. Do not touch me," she added firmly, even as her dataspike slid back into place in the computer panel before her and her head slumped.

Steve had watched, fist pressed against his mouth, as the demonstration of life and light and power played out; but when Erin spoke, he jumped into action, stepping forward to pull a bottle of water out of the infirmary's refrigerator, then moving to Copycat's side just as the latter sprang to life too. "¡Ah, chingado!" Ashley jerked as her body hit the bed and almost fell down, before grabbing onto Erin to help the latter steady her. "Thanks, uh, buddy," she murmured. I am not calling her Dethroner unless I have to, I don't care if that's her new name. Gratefully accepting the bottle of water from the Omegadrone, she looked down at the bottle, then began pulling on the bottom part of her mask. With a hard yank, she pulled off the cat face entirely. Underneath was an Asian woman with short-cut pink hair and a domino mask with opaque, iridescent lenses over the eyes. She looked at the celebrating family before them, who seemed to be engaged in a collective act of wordless prayer, and smiled slightly. "Demonios si...well that's not so bad. I didn't even puke inside the mask this time.." Glancing at Ashley's vitals on the bed's automatic readout, Steve gave Erin a reassuring nod. Whatever had happened to Copycat didn't seem to be too bad. Aarden did not take to her knees, even the Nomads among the Furions do not do that, but she did bow, along with Serpa. "How may I serve you? All of you?" the former asked, her tone sincere and not at all resentful for the question.

how the hell could she tell i'm bi "We've got a _hell_ of a lot of temporal refugees who we can't just leave wandering the Arizona desert now that they've traveled seventy-five years into the motherf*cking future!" if a job is worth doing it's worth doing well if a job is worth doing it's worth doing well "Because part of love is respect, and I think I would respect your choices, because I love my sister. If loving...her made my life harder, that's what I'd do." god i hope we save this kid i haven't done this in so damn long "I am so proud of you, honey." i'm just so tired but mary in heaven somebody has to do it As the power poured out from Jill O'Cure, Copycat found it and matched it with her own, the psychic powers that never made her as good as Psyche, or Blue Fox, or anyone else with her particular gifts roaring to life as the Espadas's powers were mirrored by her own. Ashley could feel the effort pouring through her, her lent strength helping Jill throttle her own energy, pouring power into the wide-eyed staring baby. Jill was powerful, a lot more than the half-grown teens at Claremont who were the last people she'd actually used her superpowers on, and channeling her was exhausting. But with one deep inner effort, she reached inside herself and added her own fire to the power pouring into the baby - There was a brief flash of white and suddenly Lightbrighter was crying lustily, waving his fat little arms and legs and wailing to beat the band. Her eyes wide, Serpa leaped from her seat and scooped up her baby, clutching him to her chest with a look of one who had truly seen a miracle. "It is done!" declared Aarden. "I can feel the cosmic balance restored in him! Oh by the Silver Tree and the Nameless Gods, the Dethroner and her champions have saved him! Thank you, Doctor, thank you, Dethroner, thank you - oh dear is that-" Copycat wordlessly tilted forward, her mask striking the table in front of her with a thunk, and began the process of bonelessly sliding out of her seat and onto the floor.

Eira Katastroff began cracking her knuckles as she spoke, a distinctly metallic sound at odds with her humanoid appearance. "The same can be done with the electronic onboard systems. Everything can be made plug-and-play, yes? So that you can replace things that are broken without needing to get your hands dirty." She turned her back on Ryder as she gestured at the machine and said, "That way you can make the small repairs on your own, and even the complex ones can be made without the direct input of super-science. This will come in handy in the Southwest again, yes?" She smiled at Danica, then turned to the 3-D printers across the room. "We can begin work on the outer casing now, and then develop the smaller parts on an individual basis. What color do you prefer?"

"Ah, no," said Riley, shifting where he stood "I mean, that wouldn't be safe. She's got a big secret ID thing, and I wouldn't want her family getting outed if something happened. But she looks like..." His eyes flicked to Raina for a moment, he seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say, "but she's about six feet tall, natural blonde, and hot damn she is athletic. She swears she is not a meta, but...hot damn." He grinned real big and realized he'd finished his root beer. "Scuse me, I'm gonna get some more of this..."

Armored Costumed Detective "Actually, I'm surprised I lived this long." Abilities: 0 + 6 + 8 + 10 + 10 + 0 = 34PP Strength: 10 (+0) Dexterity: 16 (+3) Constitution: 18 (+4) Intelligence: 20 (+5) Wisdom: 20 (+5) Charisma: 10 (+0) Combat: 12 + 12 = 24PP Initiative: +3 Attack: +6, +10 Suit Array Grapple: +6/+18 in suit Defense: +8 (+6 Base, +2 Dodge Focus), +3 Flat-Footed Knockback: -10,-6, -5 flat-footed Saving Throws: 4 + 5 + 3 = 12PP Toughness: +12 (+4 Con, +2 Defensive Roll, Protection 6), +10 flat-footed Fortitude: +8 (+4 Con, +4) Reflex: +8 (+3 Dex, +5), Evasion 2 Will: +8 (+5 Wis, +3) Skills: 60R = 15PP Acrobatics 5 (+8) Computers 5 (+10) Craft (mechanical) 5 (+10) Intimidate 10 (+10) Knowledge (history) 5 (+10) Knowledge (technology) 5 (+10) Language 3 (Cantonese, Japanese, Spanish, Base: English) Notice 5 (+10) Search 5 (+10) Sense Motive 5 (+10) Stealth 7 (+10) Feats: 9PP Benefit 1 (Wealth) Defensive Roll Dodge Focus 2 Evasion Jack of all Trades Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge 1 (auditory) Powers: 56PP Detective Beyond Suit 14 (70 points; Flaw: Hard to Lose) [56PP] Detective Array 12 (24PP; PFs: Accurate 1, Alternate Power 1) [26PP] BE: Enhanced STR 20 (to STR 30/+10) + Super-Strength 2 (Effective STR 40, Heavy Load 3 tons) {24/24} AP: Blast 10 (boomerangs and lots of them, PFs: Improved Crit 2, Indirect 2) {24/24} Enhanced Feat 1 (Eidetic Memory) [1PP] Feature 1 (Cellphone) [1PP] Immunity 9 (life-support) [9PP] Flight 3 (50 mph / 500 feet per Move action, PFs: Move-By Action, Moving Feint, Subtle) {9/9} Protection 6 (Extra: Impervious 6) [12PP] Super-Senses 11 ( Blindsight [radio; Extended], Direction Sense, Distance Sense, Infravision, Radio, Time Sense, Tracking [infravision]) [11PP] 27 + 1 + 1 + 9 + 9 + 12 + 11 Drawbacks: (-0) + (-0) = -0PP Totals: Abilities (34) + Combat (24) + Saving Throws (12) + Skills (15) + Feats (9) + Powers (56) - Drawbacks (0) = 150/150 Power Points Design Notes: Batman: Year One came out in 1987. If Bruce Wayne was 25 then he was born in 1962, which means he'll turn sixty next year. Makes ya think! This guy was a weird avenger of evil back in the 1980s or 1990s, a gritty vigilante who took the fight to the bad guys with nothing but his wits, his fists, and his wealth. (That's the best superpower of all!) But eventually he got older and he settled down. Maybe he finally caught that clown guy who killed his parents, or maybe he married that cute jewel thief, or maybe a serious injury knocked him out of the game for good. So he settled down, concentrated on spending his money on charitable causes, maybe let his sidekick take over, and just enjoyed his retirement. But something's gotten him back in the game. Maybe that clown is _back_ after all this time, and he knows he's the only one who can bring him to justice. Maybe he's got a grandkid getting into the superhero game themselves, and he couldn't let them go out without some help. Or maybe he just looked in the mirror one day and realized that there are more years behind than ahead, and he'd better make something of the time he has... You can still see the ghost of a Costumed Adventurer's skills and feats here, though he's obviously been out of the game for a while. His armor won't let him go toe-to-toe with a paragon, but that's okay, he shouldn't be trying to do that anyway! He's got enough Impervious that thugs with guns won't hurt him, but he's in trouble if he runs into a more serious opponent. You might want to put earned PP into some Concealment, and maybe more technical skills. Or maybe just start dusting off all that stuff that's been decaying in his basement for the last twenty-five years...

"It can be at the prototype stage before you leave here today," Eira assured Danica grandly, "and finished before the end of the weekend." She stepped backwards and seemed to merge into her body, the gynoid coming to life as her projected consciousness disappeared. She added with a snorting laugh to Ryder "Oh yes, I am sure you have no, heh heh, personal reasons for studying gravitics. I will say no more of your interest in Nat's gravity wells. As for accidents, I am sure there is no risk of Danica doing that, especially not with the hover systems installed, yes?" She hmmed and fixed her gaze on the tortoise girl. "The charging port is a fine idea, Voltage, but we should ensure it is truly universal, so make sure Danica can find energy everywhere. And Ryder does raise an important subject about home care for your machine...how handy would you say you are?"

Ashley tensed inside the costume. I don't care what Aggie says, I do not give off 'powerful bisexual energy'. That's not even a thing! Probably! Dammit is actual gaydar an actual superpower because that doesn't even make any sense. Wait, she didn't actually say anything outright; maybe she's just really flirty. And now they both caught me hesitating. Dammit! After a moment, she decided to play it the way she would have with one of Judy's friends. Well, assuming it wasn't one she felt allowed to curse out anyway. "That's...for off the clock," she finally said. "...and you're not my first rodeo, O'Cure," she added, confidence growing in her voice once they were on professional ground. "You just try not to faint when I'm inside your head." She smiled, realized it wasn't visible behind the stupid cat mask, and took off her gloves. Her hands were strong and looked like she worked out with a punching bag, which was certainly true; she wasn't wearing a ring but her short-trimmed nails were a bright shade of pink that matched the current color of her hair. Lightbringer was freshly nursed, and had the familiar, wriggly look of a baby getting sleepy. With the support of the Dethroner and of the Doctor, grandmother and mother were willing to assent to the 'operation' on their scion, though they seemed a bit more skeptical of the mask-wearing, nom de guerre using Copycat than they had been of the two other champions. "Still," said Aarden, "you show bold choices - and that shows the promise of truth." Copycat took her seat on Jill O'Cure's left side, Aarden and Serpa on the other, the baby in front of Jill with dark eyes that seemed to ask the eternal questions of the small and helpless. He stuck his left fist in his mouth and waved his legs back and forth.

A time-traveler! How exciting! =D APPROVED

"Putting on the costume doesn't put you above the law," said Ashley coldly. She lowered her stun spray but didn't put it away. Her eyes narrowed behind the helmet as she studied the card, and she decided to keep her own helmet on. She did not respond to the taunt about bodyguards, but she did find herself interposing between Luke and the new guy. "Okay. So you're a fed. Do you have a warrant to arrest this child?" She reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. "Why don't I just call the assistant director and we can check your story, hm?" She pressed a button on her phone that would call the assistant director of the Secret Service's Protective Intelligence Operational Center.