Avenger Assembled

Earth-Prime With Edge behind the wheel and the Young Freedom kids strapped into the double-row of seats behind him, Nancy Gardener stepped back to let them work. "Good luck!" she called. "I'm going to stay here with Alexander and work on cracking open the rift we have now. If he's right, we can get a better idea of exactly what happened to the League!" And with that, following a helpful computer instruction, the ever-prepared Mark pressed a few buttons. The 'drill' at the head of the machine began to spin, first slower, then faster, until finally it hummed and whirred with blinding speed, the vibrations shaking the whole experimental craft. Purple light began to flash at the drillhead, glowing brighter, until it spilled out into a circular shape. Before the rest of Young Freedom could do more than react, Mark threw the throttle forward and they disappeared into the glowing purple madness of the rift! Earth-Paragons Daedalus gave them all a look before he explained, "I've been working on an experimental procedure," he finally said, "using what I've studied of paragon powers relating to mass movement and particle bilocation. In layman's terms," he said when he got baffled looks from almost everyone, "I've developed a matter transporter: a machine that transforms physical objects into a transuniversal state, transports those objects at superluminal velocities, then reconstitutes them into normal space-time. In short, I want to send you...all of you, through the rift and into the Imageria. Once there, you can find the Tiger and whatever shadow of himself he's allied with, and use your powers to drive him out of the Imageria and prevent it from completely overwhelming our reality. I'll give you this,' he said, handing a cellphone-sized device to Wander. "That's a transmitter I can use to home in you here. I'd...I know we should be sending adults," he said frankly, "but Vanguard is busy evacuating the President, I need to stay here to run the machine, the League is gone...and that makes you kids our last hope.'

Edge seriously considered protesting, perhaps even showing Trevor some of the elaborate scenarios he'd written up for a Hunter/White wedding, or even better, the fanfic that sometimes he wrote and posted online. But somehow he had a feeling Trevor wouldn't appreciate either, so instead he simply grinned and said, "OK, fine. Just make sure I'm invited, all right?" He briefly entertained visions of Zarana in a skimpy jungle wedding dress and shook off that thought with a little laugh. His sometime-girlfriend was fiercely loyal in her own way, but her relationship with him was driven entirely by the fact that they wanted no commitment greater than occasionally breaking curfew together. Which they hadn't done a while yet. Mark was eighteen; his mind started to wander.

The Grue ship was old and busted, as decayed and battered as the carrier itself. That was reassuring, at least, it meant that the Grue had come and gone long ago. Indeed, as old as the ruins hereabouts were, perhaps they'd come and gone in a time that had nothing to do with the carrier's destruction. Down below, it was easy to see what had happened and what the bees must have seen: whatever had torn away most of the flight deck had gone all the way down to the reactor vessel, leaving the containment shield open to the air and the radiative symbol clearly visible. He was quickly able to determine that the reactor itself hadn't broken, leaving him with just the challenge of getting it free and into space!

Edge was surprisingly sober for the remainder of the team's stay in the other world, sitting quietly by himself and watching the sooty smoke of a million factories rise ever-higher towards the dark skies overhead. Somehow watching a father's death and a family torn apart by grief and revenge had touched him, maybe more than he'd have wanted or expected. He thought of his own father, far away doing God knew what, and his own grief and rage when he thought about the way the universe had so pitilessly abandoned him and his mother to their fates. _I guess this is a good reminder that other people have it worse_, he reflected. _Maybe I need to lighten up a little._ Still, he was quiet before they left, and as soon as they were back he disappeared again.

"Just curious," said Sharl with a little shrug, perhaps a little too artlessly. "I've learned about the Grue and the Lor from Miss Americana," he said, "but there are so many other kinds of aliens out there I'd like to learn about. The universe...the universe is much bigger than we can imagine." He seemed to find that amusing, and had a little smile on his face through the rest of the visit. When he was done, and back near the elevator with Miss Americana, he said, "Thank you all so much for having me here. I've learned a lot about computers and science, and it was a real pleasure to meet all of you. You're my first real people besides Miss Americana!"

Everything was normal, perfectly normal, and they were a happy family. Of course it couldn't last. Joan automatically looked to Charlie and Lois when she heard the crowd around them fall silent, and felt a shiver of liquid rage and fear curl in her chest at the sight of her husband and little girl staring off into space as if hypnotized. They'd been part of her world before, and suffered for it, but that didn't make it any easier to see happen again. Not this time, she thought fiercely, This time I'm thinking of my family first! Joan vanished in an instant, her skin shifting color to match the set around her, her dress wrapping around her body and shifting into the black and white colors of the mighty Fusion! As long arms slipped out and waved in the air around her like a shroud, she scooped up Charlie in one arm and Lois in the other, and then dived off the stage for a firedoor in a leap that would have been impressive if anyone had been there to see it. Outside, she laid Charlie and Lois out on the stoop, curling her baby against her husband's body. "I'll be back soon, my loves," she promised, kissing husband and daughter on the cheek. "But I've got to save the day. And save you." And with that, still invisible to all and sundry, she leapt back inside the building!

Fusion: 15 Ouch! She'll spend her Luck HP and make that one automatically, since she'd hit an 18 at a minimum. Charlie and Lois: 6 and 5 It was worth a try, but they're done. Fusion: Free Action: Total Visual Concealment Standard Action: Grab the family. She has Additional Limbs and Super-Strength, so she can carry them both easily. Move Action: Alternating between Speed and Gliding, she'll head to the nearest door and outside, so she can deposit her family outside the building.

Energy Draining Paragon PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 20 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 10 (+0) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 18 pp ATK: +5 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+2 flat-footed) Init: +0 Grapple: +25 Saves: 16 pp TOU +10 (+3 Con, +7 Protection) FORT +8 (+3 Con, +5) REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 28 r=7 pp Bluff 3 (+6/+10) Gather Info 4 (+7) Intimidate 7 (+10) Languages 1 (French) (Base: English) Notice 6 (+8) Sense Motive 6 (+8) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus [Melee] 5, Attractive, Dodge Focus 6, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 78 pp Drain CON 8 (Extra: Aura [+3]) [32 pp] Enhanced STR 16 (to STR 30/+10) [16 pp] Immunity 3 (own powers, suffocation) [3 pp] Flight 5 (250 MPH) [Dynamic] [10+1+2=13 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 5 (24 tons) Protection 7 (Extra: Impervious) [14 pp] costs abilities 20 + combat 18 + saves 16 + skills 7/28 + feats 11 + powers 78 = 150 pts Design Notes: A familiar and classic archetype, this lady looks like your typical paragon; she flies around, punches people through walls, lifts heavy objects, and is mostly bulletproof. At least until she takes off her gloves or removes part of her form-fitting full-body costume, at which point she can suck the life out of anyone she touches. Her Drain Con isn't quite up to caps, but since she's throwing a DC 25 Tou save and DC 18 Fort save on people she's hitting when she goes all out, it's still super-effective. It's also a serious freaking error for anyone but another paragon to try grappling her, given that her Drain is a full-fledged aura, and grappling her for more than a few rounds will leave anyone without a good Fort save completely in the dirt. That fast-talking French acrobat had better think of something clever to do before he loses a valuable body part to his romantic foibles. (Is there a message to comic book fans about the frequent stories revolving around the lethal power of touching girls? Hmm) Note that she's got a Drain rather than Damage aura, so she can still touch objects bare-handed without frying them. I haven't given her any drawbacks on her Aura, but you could easily justify the Full Power drawback for her, or something where her Drain requires direct skin-to-skin contact. Personally, I think it's more fun to treat those two as complications. (The second also lets her get by with those kicky yellow gloves as her cover). Her Aura is Sustained by default, but with a complication that it comes on whenever its going to cause a problem for her. I went with a good solid Drain Con, so her touch is potentially lethal to all but the hardiest types, particularly if she's actually power-attacking them or grappling them. Another easy way to get points for her (and maybe buy her Drain up to caps with a little tweaking elsewhere) is to put a Side-Effect flaw on her Drain where if her target passes their Fort save, she has to make a Fort or Toughness save herself to represent the backwash of power into her body. Give her a different Drain if you want different effects, obviously; drop the Aura if you want to make her even cheaper. A serious shuffle of the sheet will let you make her a straight Transferer, but given the expense of Transfer it's a much better idea to treat 'absorbing memories/skills' as plot-devices, which indeed they usually are in stories like this. Characters like this have occasionally been written as angsty types, but I prefer the classic paragon-with-a-twist version: fly around and punch bad guys and look good doing it, keeping your little secret about how your powers work to yourself. How did this unlikely set of powers come together in the first place? Well, maybe she absorbed too much from another paragon and picked up those abilities, or maybe she's a paragon whose powers went crazy. Or maybe she powers all that flight and super-strength off the energy she sucks up from others...

Undead Sorceror PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 12 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 16 (+3) CON n/a (-) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +8 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +4/+20 Initiative +3 Saves: 7 pp TOU +12 (+4 Protection, +8 Force Field) FORT n/a REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 20 pp=80 r Bluff 7 (+10) Concentration 7 (+10) Diplomacy 7 (+10) Intimidate 12 (+15) Knowledge: Arcane Lore 12 (+15) Knowledge: History 5 (+8) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 12 (+15) Languages 4 (Ancient Egyptian, Arabic, Greek, Latin) Notice 13 (+15) Sense Motive 13 (+15) Feats: 14 pp Attack Focus: Ranged (6) Dodge Focus 2 Eidetic Memory, Master Plan, Move-By Action, Ritualist, Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 77 pp Flight 2 (25 MPH) [4 pp] Force Field 8 [8 pp] Immunity 30 (Fortitude saves) [30 pp] Magic Array [20+2=22 pp] Blast 10 ‘mystic force’ AP: Insubstantial 4 (incorporeal) 'ghost body' AP: Telekinesis 10 (12 tons) 'mage hands' Protection 4 [4 pp] Regeneration 6 (+0 Recovery Bonus, Resurrection 1/week) (PF: Regrowth) [7 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Mental Awareness (mental)) [2 pp] costs abilities 12 + combat 20 + saves 7 + skills 20/80 + feats 14 + powers 77 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: Traditionally presented as antagonists in a superhero game, here’s your Hollywood classic undead sorcerer as a PL 10 starting PC. Call him a lich if you want; it’d certainly fit. He’d be a good antagonist for a low-level character, or a perfectly viable concept on his own: perhaps a variant of the Mummy archetype I posted upthread? He’s structurally not all that dissimilar from your average mystic in that he flies around, blasts people with arcane sigils, constructs rituals, and generally can do most of the things your average comic book mystic can do. He’s just also undead, and immune to many of the usual physical concerns that can lay sometimes fragile mystics low. OTOH, he doesn’t have Impervious, so he can take a lot less punishment than those other guys can physically. So how did he come to transcend the bonds of mortality? Maybe he wants to live forever and is only halfway through the necessary magical quest (and fights bad guys because a quest for immortality doesn’t necessarily equal being a bad guy yourself), or maybe he’s the victim of a spell gone wrong? Perhaps _this_ isn’t what he studied magic for, and he’s desperately working for a cure. Or maybe the character is even older: perhaps he is a mummy sorcerer of ancient days, now walking the Earth to set right what he once set wrong, or just to battle against evil as he did in days long past. You definitely want to have a good lead on that sort of thing before you start running around casting spells, as an undead mystic may make many of your fellow heroes blast first and ask questions later. The obvious twist is to alter the immunities in some way. Or cobble together enough points to buy real Con (maybe drop the flight entirely and add it to the regen) and play a character with both a Fort Immunity and a Con score. Expensive, but that way you’re technically alive even though your body is entirely armored against some kinds of damage. Good for you! Another way to do it is change up the powers and descriptors; he’s currently a pretty generic mage outside of his immunity powers. Maybe give him a focus on necromancy to go with the fact that he’s a dead guy himself? Merge him with my Necromancer build thread for loads of good fun!

Earth-Prime "We can do it," Edge promised Atom and Gardener right away, looking from one to the other heroes. "We've fought cosmic bad guys and world-conquerors before," he said with the fearlessness that only teenagers bring to the party. "We'll send Overshadow, or whoever that is, back to whatever pit he crawled out of." Mark punched his fists for emphasis: Mark was one for providing extra emphasis. "Do you have a way of getting there?" he asked as an afterthought, with the full confidence that the super-scientists had already provided just such an instrument. "We do," said Mrs. Gardener, her face tightening briefly. "It's, ah, what the League was coming back for. Follow me," she said, "and I'll help you all get into the machine. Alexander, you keep watch at the Goodman Building. If this doesn't work, we'll need you to build another dimensional mole machine." She led the way down below the building, the elevator passing through bunkers full of refugees, before finally reaching the basement and the small cylindrical craft the size of a light airplane that pointed straight down at the Earth below. "Can any of you pilot an airplane?"

Zoom Survivor PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 64 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 30 (+10) CON 30 (+10) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +14 Grapple: +20 Saves: 4 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +10 (+10 Dex) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 48r=12 pp Acrobatics 10 (+20) Drive 5 (+15) Knowledge: Pop Culture 6 (+6) Notice 6 (+8) Sense Motive 6 (+8) Sleight Of Hand 5 (+15) Stealth 10 (+20) Feats: 16 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee (6) Evasion, Dodge Focus 2, Fearless, Luck, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Seize Initiative, Takedown Attack 2 Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 30 pp Leaping 2 (x5) [2 pp] Super-Speed 1 (10 MPH) (PFs: Wall Run [Free], Water Run) [6 pp] Super-Senses 1 (Vision [Radius]) [1 pp] Zoom Array [20+1=21 pp] Add Extra: Autofire and Penetrating on Unarmed AP: Add Extra: Targeted Area [burst] and Selective on Unarmed costs abilities 64 + combat 24 + saves 4 + skills 12/48 + feats 16 + powers 30 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: You used to run with a bad crowd. A _really_ bad crowd, ravers and E-kids, a world of loud music, bright clothes and lights, and no real soul. One of your friends eventually brought something new to the parties: Zoom. Zoom was a sweet, sweet drug, pushing you to new and unexpected heights. Taking Zoom let you run faster than a car, faster than any human being ever could, and slowed the world down into a slow, beautiful dance. You and your friends took it all the time, running through the park at night almost faster than the human eye could see. And then came the nightmare: the day you took too much and collapsed, twitching madly as blood gushed out your eyes, nose, and mouth. Your friends ran off, leaving you to suffer and almost die before a superhero found you and took you to the hospital, where the doctors in the ER saved your life at 3 AM. You reevaluated your life, learned to walk and talk again, and were released...only to find that more things had changed than you expected! Your body had absorbed the Zoom permanently, giving you superhuman speed and reflexes. Determined to pay back the good deeds done on your behalf, you put on a costume and became a superhero. Perhaps this is Seattle's best hero, pretending he got his powers from coffee so he doesn't lose any endorsement deals? Call this an experiment; what do you get if you build for superhuman _reflexes_ rather than superhuman _speed_? Note that Super-Speed 1 is still pretty darn effective in an urban setting, given that you can run down any normal human being on Earth, think and act twice as fast as a normal person, and your reflexes mean you can match all but the fastest people even with higher levels of Super-Speed. You've also got fantastic endurance and strength to propel you at your speed, and you're capable of being a straight-up wrecking machine given your ability to punch as fast as a machine gun fires and take out a whole baseball stadium of thugs in an action. (Well, if they're really packed in there...) You can also run up walls and over water, because you're honestly kind of a chump if you can't do that, even with very low levels of speed. The radius sight comes from constantly 'checking your six.' If you want more speed or quickness, stunt it off the character's Zoom array. With the massive amount of PP sunk into that, it really shouldn't be that hard for you to get all the speed and quickness anyone is ever really going to want. Take a complication that you can't do the ridiculous physics-bending stunts that those other speed guys can do, but OTOH you can take a punch flat-footed a whole lot better than they can, and (since you've absorbed the Zoom into your body, making it a natural part of you) you're still a straight-up murder machine even when your powers are nullified. And you have CON 30, so you don't have any problems with stamina. In bed. Yeah, I went there.

"Speaking of aliens, have you ever heard of the Curator?" Sharl asked his three guides as they reached the public rooms. He'd already had a conversation something like this with Gina, and devoured everything he could find online, but the alien despot (or so he figured him to be) who was responsible for the current state of Tronik wasn't a very famous figure among the common media of the world. He assumed that so big a threat had to be kept secret, so no one panicked. "A very powerful alien machine intelligence," he explained. "The Freedom League has fought his robots."

Earth-Prime Dr. Atom nodded at their description, his holographic brow wrinkled with what was evidently growing alarm as the Young Freedom kids told their story of what had gone on near the rift. "It's settled, then. I've been greatly concerned at growing levels of chroniton and thanatosian radiation leaking into our universe's plane in the last few weeks," he said, using words Wander vaguely recalled from her journey to Earth-Prime. "And the disastrous climactic events of the last few days have only exacerbated my fears. Now that there is genuine leakage between the two universes, we have reached a crisis stage. I believe that Overshadow and that other gentleman, possibly his double from another universe, have managed to slip the boundaries of our reality entirely and infiltrate one of the key cornerstones that uphold our multiverse..." Atom proceeded to give an explanation, and what an explanation it was! When the science was digested, he had said that there were several key structures in reality that were neither universes, the Zero Zone, nor the Terminus; more like the ribs of a great zeppelin, or the control booth of a speeding racetrack. "I have recently articulated a theory," he said seriously, "that universes can be understood in some ways as living organisms. They brush past each other all the time," explained the scientist, "exchanging information and material, changing in the process. What has happened here is..." He sketched on the holographic blackboard he'd summoned next to him. "Overshadow and his twin have stopped our universes in their tracks, pinning them together like touching soap bubbles, causing the vibrations and disasters we've observed, disasters which will only get worse. What we need is a team to go into whatever structure they've hijacked and drive them out, allowing normal multiversal reality to reassert itself and saving both universes from the men who threaten to destroy them." -- Earth-ND Midnight and Sage found it surprisingly easy to get upstairs once they were there, perhaps because all the security staff was down below dealing with the rioters and the growing storm. Trevor was even able to find a cargo elevator for his motorcycle, thus preventing him from having to abandon the machine. Sage would certainly hear about breaking and entering from Mr. Summers later, but this was after all an extreme emergency, and it had been so even before the League died! Upstairs, Daniel Daedalus looked haggard as he led the kids to the sheet of butcher paper he'd stretched out over a nearby tabletop, pen in hand as he sketched out the implausible scenario he'd uncovered. "All right, well...everything you've said only reinforces my worst fears. I'll need to talk to your psychic to know for sure, but...I believe there's a storm in the Imageria." The crack of lightning overhead punctuated his words, and the room briefly flashed into darkness before emergency generators kicked in. "In...the Imageria?" Mark, as ever, needed more information. "The theoretical realm of human imagination that's the source of paragon powers? How is that even possible?" Edge scratched his head, shooting a glance at Wander to make sure Erin wasn't mad he was talking. Sometimes she got annoyed with him when he talked too much on missions. But he did know a lot about paragons at least, and the rumors of where they'd come from. "I've heard stories of people visiting there, but it's just been dismissed as their powers giving them really vivid hallucinations." "I'd have thought so too until yesterday," said Daedalus. He turned his head as Sage and Midnight entered, gave the two teens a tired look, and went back to his work without so much as a greeting. It was a stressful day for the genius inventor, especially now that he was alone. "But some of my experimental paragon sensors have been going crazy. It's why I stayed. Why I wasn't with the League, when they flew to consult with the Vanguard." He muttered a curse. "Archeville at CERN, Evans in St. Louis, they all say the same thing! Science is breaking down! And so is everything else!" He slammed his fist on the table, shooting a hard look at the kids. "And...all I can tell is that somehow, the Imageria has begun leaking into our world. There's been a collision between imagination and reality, the chaos of the mind vs. the laws of nature. And chaos is winning. That's why someone, anyone...needs to go into the rift and figure out what's causing this. If we can stop the storm in the Imageria, we can prevent the kind of global catastrophe that would make 9/11 and Black Saturday look like a walk in the park."

"That's weird," said Edge pensively. "They must be pretty small-time if they're causing trouble in a town like this." Mark meant no insult by it; Ashbury Park was obviously smaller and less developed than Freedom City. "Do you know who any of them are for real?" he asked, shooting a look at the other hero. "I mean, if you've been bringing Rocky Balboa here in and all, they must have gotten him in the national database, much less those other guys. Are they local metas gone bad, out-of-towners, or are we dumping our garbage on your lawns?"

Whatever had killed the carrier had happened many years earlier: Victory wasn't a Navy man, but he knew years of water-borne corrosion when he saw it. The flight deck was pitted with holes brought about by sea and spray, but other larger ones, with corrosion around the edges, showed him evidence of bomb blasts, areas where the metal had been blasted aside many years earlier. His armor's senses clicked warily as he made his landing; whatever had happened in this carrier had definitely left it radioactive. Maybe it wasn't on the surface, but what might happen below the decks? He was just heading towards the gap over the area where he judged the reactor was likely to be when his eyes focused on an oddly-familiar shape in the rotting rubble on deck. Amid the broken remains of American military hardware, organic debris long since decayed, lay a single alien but oddly familiar sight: the curved, wickedly sharp chassis of a Grue landing craft!

Mako PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 28 pp STR 30 [10] (+10/+0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 [10] (+10/+0) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 20 (+5) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +16 Saves: 7 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 16 pp=64 r Bluff 5 (+10) Diplomacy 2 (+7) Handle Animal 1 (+6) Intimidate 15 (+20) Knowledge: History 4 (+4) Knowledge: Pop Culture 4 (+4) Languages 2 (Chinese, English) (Base: Japanese) Perform [Acting] 10 (+15) Notice 5 (+7) Sense Motive 5 (+7) Survival 5 (+7) Stealth 5 (+7) Swim 1 (+11) Feats: 20 pp Attack Specialization: Unarmed (2) Distract 3 (Bluff, Intimidate, Perform) Dodge Focus 4, Environmental Adaptation (Underwater), Fascinate 3 (Bluff, Intimidate, Perform) Improved Grab, Improved Initiative, Luck, Power Attack, Startle, Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 55 pp Enhanced CON 20 [20 pp] Enhanced STR 20 [20 pp] Immunity 4 (aging, cold, high pressure, suffocation [underwater]) [4 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Acute Accurate Tracking Olfactory, Low-Light Vision) [5 pp] Swimming 5 (50 MPH) [5+1=6 pp] AP: Leaping 3 (x10) and Speed 2 (25 MPH) costs abilities 28 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 16/64 + feats 20 + powers 51 = 150 pts --- Design Notes: That's right. This is a build for the late Mako Iwamatsu, pioneering Japanese-American actor most famous to my readers as the star of two hit animated series: Samurai Jack and Avatar: The Last Airbender, as a shark. Don't judge me. You don't even know me! (I'd been thinking of reasons to build a shark totem for a while, and this one said to me "Why not?") He's a charismatic actor with a wonderful voice able to make himself very scary indeed, both through sheer force of personality and because he is in fact a shark. How did he get that way? Maybe a dying old man took an experimental treatment to cure his cancer, or maybe he's _always_ been a shark. He'll make chum out of bad guys! Note like most of my aquatic builds, he's perfectly competent on land. With his Speed and Tracking (given a shark's sensitive nose), he can follow a trail almost anywhere, and handle himself fairly effectively in combat when he gets there. He's very good underwater too, where the environmental penalties underwater make him the kind of monster that a man-shark should be. Shark biology is still a little mysterious, but I think I've covered most of the powers a shark should have: note that he doesn't have a Strike, because that's not very heroic! Think about giving him Corrosion to represent chomping down on something, preferably not someone's arm. OK, so you're an old man with restored youth, superpowers and a formidable presence: go nuts! Faking his own death is one hell of a Complication, as is going from being a celebrity actor to a superhero. He's also an international hero, with ties to several countries and a role that makes him a symbol for Japanese-Americans: superhero! Does he try to balance all the sides of his life, or concentrate on one side of his career at the expense of another? I think you _can_ do a story about someone who prefers not to be a hero, so long as the Call comes frequently and they answer it with no more than a little bit of grumbling. Maybe all he wants to do is retire to his tea shop, but there's so much he has to get done first!

"Weddings are really great," said Mark, thoughtless of the implications of his words in another history. "I'm not one for a lot of fancy ritual, not for normal things like this, but they're really special. A symbol of people committing to each other, a hope that there's something more between people than just hormones and feelings." He thought of pictures of his own parents wedding, and what Trevors' folks' might have looked like (probably not in a shadowy, smoke-lined cathedral, despite the image that gave him), and sighed softly. "Let me know if you do," he said with a little smile. "I've got plans, man."

With Lois chomping on popcorn and peering at the stage through her thick glasses, Joan put an arm around Charlie, enjoying the family bonding as they watched the spectacular show. Her other arms carefully folded around her midsection, she reached over and took Charlie's hand. "This is spectacular!" she said, applauding from her seat even when other people jumped to clap. Charlie stayed down with her, something she appreciated. "Reminds me of the gymnasts in the Olympics!" That was a good memory after all this time, and they smiled at each other. Things were going well.

Joan normally didn't approve of the circus. She'd been active enough in animal rights circles for long enough that she'd encountered many horrible stories of animal abuse and bondage, enough to convince her that wild animals had no place being trained to perform for human beings. And how much of that is being able to remember the aquarium? she thought, repressing that thought as quickly as she could. But the Carnivale Sérénité had enjoyed nothing but good reviews, and of course its focus on human and powered acrobats and displays meant that there were no animals being tortured here. It was even a good place to bring the family. She and Charlie had been reconnecting since her incident with Otaku some months earlier, and she was feeling closer to her husband and daughter than she had in months. Moving carefully in her constricting dress, she, Charlie, and Lois wandered through the Dome, taking in sight after sight. Lois was ten now, but she wasn't too big to like the circus either!

Mark confirmed for Brian that the school had an active intramural scene, and offered to show him the field as they went. "We have some issues with competition with other schools, as you can imagine," he said with a wry little shrug. "Things were different back a few years ago when we had more mundane students, but a lot's changed since the Grue invasion. Not this last one," he added, "the one back in '03-04." Inside the Jasmine Summers administration building, Brian was quickly ushered into a meeting with Duncan Summers. The serious-faced old man was cordial, welcoming Brian to the school as he leaned on his cane, shaking his hand with a grip that belied Summers' age, which had to be over 70. "From what I've seen of your records, if you take the opportunities given to you, you'll have a satisfactory experience at the school." It was hard to tell, but that seemed like a complimentary remark from the hawk-eyed old gentleman. "Did you have any questions for me?"

Mark turned out to be a surprisingly well-mannered seatmate for Trevor, both babbling and poking much less than Midnight might have expected. Truthfully, he seemed a little awed by the situation, and busied himself with reading through the wedding program and occasionally adjusting his tie. "Man, this looks like it'll be a nice service," he finally murmured quietly. "I can't believe Alex and Mike are going to do this soon. You think you and Erin are ever going to get married?" he asked quietly. "I mean, you guys seem pretty serious, and she's not going to college, I think..."

Sharl was a good guest as he walked with the science heroes through their various labs, asking occasional questions but mostly just watching. For all that he was a computer program himself, the young man (if you could call him that), was clearly no scientist, asking the sorts of questions that an enthusiastic if not terribly bright amateur might inquire about. Despite his own status as an artificial intelligence, he showed very little interest in questions of that nature, instead focusing on what was evidently his passion: aliens. "As long as I can remember," Sharl told his guides truthfully, "I've always thought aliens were really neat. They seem so exciting." He hmmed at that, and murmured to Dragonfly and Miss A. "Do you think that, er, Protectron might be an alien robot?"

"WOAAAH!" The bees all looked very impressed with Victory's speed, punching each other on the arm gleefully, then swatting at him with giant limbs to do the same. "THATZ ZOME FAZT FLYING MAN! YOU'RE OK IN MY BOOK, EVEN IF YOU ZTILL BETTER ZTAY AWAY FROM OUR FEMALEZ!" Given the way they all broke into a hideous chorus of buzzing roars at that which might have been apian masculine laughter, it sounded like they were teasing him good-naturedly. It was more comforting to think so, anyway. The ocean was not an entirely pleasant sight for Victory flying overhead, even with the jocular company: the color of the water was browner than he remembered, as if undersea beds had been stirred up distantly and never settled down, and he noticed a distinct lack of fish. Things really weren't that great this far from where Fleur had made a home for the bees. Eventually, the rust-brown island that was the carrier came into view, and the bees pointed "YEAH THERE IT IZ MAN. IZ NOT A GOOD PLAZE."

Quo-Dis shot a look at her mother, who didn't seem to blink as she continued to drink what looked like absolutely pitch-black coffee, and spoke, "Well, ah, I suppose my favorite teacher is probably my uncle. He's a sculptor," she explained, "he makes these gorgeous images out of the material outside the city where I grew up. When it's dark but the Moon is light, they shine with the most beautiful radiance. It was part of the reason I came here," she admitted. "I don't have Uncle's talent for art, but he's visited your world to study your greatest artists. He taught me that there were things worth seeing out here." The latter was a slight jab at her mother, but it seemed like a friendly one. I'm sorry, she thought, a slight edge in her mental voice. I'm as embarrassed as you are, but I can't control what my mother does and doesn't do. Things will be fine as long as no one gets set-off again. If she does ask you, give her the same speech you gave me. She'll understand that it's your culture at work.

Earth-Prime A tight-lipped Nancy Gardener was waiting for the kids when they got to Freedom Hall, accompanied by a holographic projection of a face familiar to all the kids, but Wander in particular. His beard white and his body just a little transparent, Alexander Atom flickered slightly as a particularly bright and loud flash of lightning-thunder echoed overhead. Young Freedom's finest were all soaked to the bone, but as they walked into the empty foyer, the water in their costumes and on their skin was sucked away as if by magic into the sides of the security scanner they'd entered through. "Hah! Hydromagnetics!" The image of Dr. Atom clapped his hands together soundlessly. "I knew that would work." "There's no time for that now," said Nancy Gardener not unkindly. "Thank the Lord Young Freedom is here," she said, lumping in Midnight and Cobalt Templar without hesitation. "There's no one around right now who's more experienced with dimensional crises," she said, "not with the Atom Family dealing with the Azores crisis." "Azores crisis?" asked Edge, looking grateful to be dry. "The island of Las Palmas, at the center of the Azores in the mid-Atlantic, has begun to erupt," said Dr. Atom frankly. "It's been extinct for centuries, but hours ago it flared up again with a new, unprecedented intensity. If my grandchildren fail, the entire island could fall into the sea, creating tidal waves all through the Mid-Atlantic." He didn't sound worried about that, trusting his family, but he did sound worried in general. "But that's not what's important right now either. What matters is; you were there for the rift? You saw the temporo-dimensional barriers breach? I need a full description right away. If my theories are correct, time is even shorter than the world realizes. Were any of you able to probe the rift?" Notably there was no mention of Overshadow's ultimatum: this was a serious crisis, but the veterans in the room had all heard this kind of talk from world-conquering despots before. As Dr. Atom talked, the kids could hear the sound of voices above: it didn't take them long to realize that the League had taken in refugees displaced by the flooding. Maybe there was nowhere to evacuate, but the people of Freedom and their heroes could save the day. - Earth-ND Freedom Tower was normally an optimistic sight to the kids of the Claremont Academy: a shining symbol of hope restored and faith rewarded after the horrors of 9/11. But today that shining silver tower was swaying ever-so-slightly in the breeze against torrential rains, lighting crackling around it...and of course the Freedom League that made its home there was gone. The kids had heard about Vanguard, the US national team, being deployed, but they were further down in the East Coast: the kids of Young Paragons might well be the most powerful paragons in the city right now. It was a frightening thought for all of them. On the roof level, the kids were all soaked as they came inside, greeted by Daniel Daedalus out of his armor just inside the fire stairs. All of them dripping wet, he led them down to what was obviously his lab, brimming with various hi-tech inventions."So it's just...just you kids, eh?" He pulled his short beard and said, "All right, well, we can deal with this. Is this everyone who was there at the Imageria eruption? Were any of you able to see any details?" Down below, Sage and Midnight drove into a scene of chaos: protestors were beating at the gates of the Tower, kept away only by the League's substantial private security forces, some of them with angry voices. "Where's the League!? Why aren't they stopping the storm!? Somebody help us!" But with the League gone, no help was being given, especially not with their headquarters way up on the top floors of the huge skyscraper. The two kids on the bike hadn't been noticed yet with the focus of the crowd, but getting through the crowd and upstairs, especially in the torrential rain, wasn't going to be easy, even with Sage in her Claremont uniform.