Avenger Assembled

Earth-Prime Corbin had seen pictures of dimensional rifts plenty of times; documentaries about the Terminus Invasion, pictures in his Claremont textbooks, and even live simulations of them in the Doom Room. (He hadn't taken the Advanced Physics class that gave students an opportunity to make their own rifts in the lab) But this one was like nothing he'd ever seen, a shimmering, formless mass of purple-grey light that got even stranger as he got closer: the colors were cold to look at, as if they had a physical presence beyond the visual, and the faint scrittching coming from the rift itself made him taste purple too. He was educated enough to know what synthesia was, and as he got closer, he realized that's exactly what the rift was causing. As he watched, peering through the heavy storm, he saw drops of water hit the rift and vanish utterly, without so much as a sizzle. Were they going elsewhere? Or being disintegrated? In response to Sage's question, Edge turned and shouted through the storm: "Call Nancy Gardener at Freedom Hall! She runs things when the League's away!" It had been quite a while since Mark had met Captain Thunder's wife, before his father's disappearance and his bitter rivalry with Bolt, but soon an image of the nice lady who worked monitor duty when the League itself was gone popped into his mind. "I don't know if anyone else is still in the city. She's our best contact person." Down below, Wander and Edge working together succeeded in shoring up the levee: if a collapse did come today or tomorrow, it wouldn't come here, despite the disaster that had happened overhead. With a look of relief on his face mitigated only somewhat by what a rotten day this was, he went to give aid to the few wounded who still needed it, trusting that Cobalt Templar would be able to get a good look at the rift. Things were bad, that was true, but he was sure things were going to be all right. Earth-ND Mark was scared, there was no other word for it, but he was doing his best not to show it when Erin and the other teens were around. He'd just seen somebody's powers used to blow up the Freedom League, in the middle of a week when terrible things were going wrong all over the nation. His powers were to make himself and other people lucky: but today he didn't feel lucky at all. He nodded with a feeling of relief at Wander's words, and soon was on his cellphone back to the school, trying to relay over one of their earth-manipulating friends to help patch up the damage. The problem, of course, was that there were so many things going wrong, and only so many supers to fix the damage. He quickly figured out that his headset phone could be worn while he worked, and soon he joined the others in helping to get the wounded away from the levee. They were succeeding here, but who knew what was happening elsewhere? The rift, or hole, or gash, or terrible thing was like nothing Corbin had ever seen before, a swirling mass of colors that froze and sounds with flavor. He'd seen pictures of superpowers in action and read some theories about them, but nothing that matched the grim reality of this sight. Despite the bizarre, alien nature of the thing he was looking at, Corbin felt a strange connection to the gap, as if some part of it was akin to some part of him. If it was, though, it was certainly a very alien part, one that he wasn't immediately familiar with. The blue light of his powers was, however, distinctly brighter around the rift, even against that strange glow. Working down below, Wander was able to help Edge get the wounded away from the weakening sandbags and earth, the rain still beating down on everything. She'd seen worse disasters on the news, but that was a far cry from seeing one up close and personal. Moving through the debris on land, she almost stepped on a battered black box she recognized as a still-active sat phone. "Hello, Ray? Beth? Can any of you hear me?" She recognized the tinny voice from inside as Daniel Daedalus, the armored paragon of the League. Sage and Midnight zoomed through the streets of Freedom City, only Midnight's bike letting them stay mobile in the chaos. Between the falling rain and the frightened people on the streets, particularly after the explosion in the heart of town, things were getting bad: lightning strikes in the sky providing a noisy percussion to all they said and did. Things were bad, and it looked like they were getting worse. But there was a light of hope, at least; they could see the shape of the blue and yellow Claremont kids as they got closer to the crash site. They weren't alone, even if all they had were kids.

Sharl had a brief, irrational vision of his mom at those words, but luckily he quickly dismissed it. "It's true," he said with a little nod, "I'm not anyone's property. I thought I might be before I met Miss A," he confessed, "but she took care of me and got me started here. I owe her a lot." He slid his glasses back into his jacket and slid his hands into the pockets too, taking them out again after a second. "Are you guys all superheroes?" he asked, echoing his earlier question to Protectron and expanding on it. "Because that's really neat. I've seen superheroes online before, but seeing them now...that's even cooler!"

"I've never met Dr. Atom," said Sharl, "but I've heard of him." Reading about Dr. Atom had been reassuring for Sharl; here was a human being who'd been uploaded into a machine, and his intelligence was as respected as everyone else's! On the other hand, he thought, Dr. Atom had at least once been alive, while he wasn't at all sure the same could be said for himself. Do I mean anything if I'm just a machine inside a machine? Dismissing those thoughts, he said, "Ah, well, that's about as long as I've been in the real world too! So maybe we have the same birthday!" He smiled. "Are you a superhero?" he asked the robot, reminding himself to be polite. "Because they're totally cool!"

"That's right," agreed Sharl, wincing briefly at how he'd almost given himself away. A citizen of Tronik, familiar with synthetic life from early childhood, would have had very different knowledge of the world compared to a creature of this world's Internet. "I'm sorry if I sounded strange," he apologized. "Things are very different here than how I'm used to. Miss Americana's been helping me understand the way things are in the real world. She even programmed this body for me! Not bad, huh?" Nervously, he took the shades out of his pocket and started toying with them. Facing Protectron, he added, "You really are sentient? That's amazing!" And it was; though he knew some worlds had built synthetic intelligences, such things had never developed on Tronik: they had a bad reputation. "Were you once a person, or have you always been...artificial?"

"Oh, hello Protectron," said Sharl politely, if a little distantly, to Protectron. "I didn't know you had talking synthezoids," he commented to Miss Americana. He was familiar enough with the concept, but he didn't think Gina's world (as he still thought of this place) built that way. He did bear a slight resemblance to pictures he'd seen in history books. "You're very articulate!" he commented. "I've never met a synth who could talk as much like a person as you." A little belatedly, he added, "I'm here to meet people and see the world, but if life needs protecting, I'm happy to do that too," he said with a smile. "Freedom City has so many superheroes, and I think they're great."

"I'm here," said Sharl, tapping the projector inside his pocket. "But most of my files are in Miss A's computer, too," he added. "Just as, you know, backups. I'm really excited to be here!" he said with a smile. "This is my first time outside Miss A's headquarters. Outside further than just talking a walk, anyway. It's my trip where I can see people and move around. Miss A found me on the Internet!" he offered. He walked around, unconsciously showing off for the girl paying so much attention to him. "This is the first time I've ever been in a physical library. It's really cool. Did you write any of these books?" he asked Dragonfly, taking another off the shelf. Watching, she could see the patterns of energy that made up his body shifting as he hefted the weight in his hand.

Automatically, Sharl looked down at himself to make sure his display wasn't flickering. _How did she...hmm, maybe she's got superpowers! Like supervision!_ "Hologram and magnetic fields," offered the electronic teenager, gently, if somewhat awkwardly, sliding the unfamiliar shape of the book back onto the shelf. "Hello," he told her with a wave, keeping his distance. He was used to giving people their privacy, and until he knew differently, he'd give this new girl the space. "I'm Sharl! What's your name."

"Okay," agreed Sharl, murmuring quietly as he walked around the room. "This is really amazing," he murmured to Miss A, just loud enough for her to hear. They didn't have libraries where he was from, not like this, but they had museums and art galleries, places where quiet contemplation was best. He picked up a technical manual and held it in his hands, marveling at the weight of the metal-bound volume. "I can't believe you can afford to have so many hard books," he murmured, shifting the volume from hand to hand as his internal magnetics shifted. "Are they from the town library?" He'd seen plenty of those on television!

Earth-Prime It was a grim scene, but it could have been much worse. Edge's fantastic powers had deflected most of the falling debris, leaving the rescue workers at the levee shaken up but mostly unhurt. The tornado and lightning storm that had brought down the Pegasus continued to flash and roar in the sky, but they stayed offshore, instead dancing in the river as if mocking the heroes and any hopes of rescuing the League. No bodies were visible in the wreckage that had fallen onshore, but from the sheer power of that explosion, who could say what might have been destroyed and what hadn't been? Dominating the sky was that bizarre purple rift, a jagged tear in space and time that sizzled with energy that made it hard to look at. It wasn't particularly _bright_ so much as it was simply _wrong_: it didn't look like pictures of the Terminus, though, or of incursions by magical entities they'd all seen in class. It looked like something else entirely. Edge stared up at the rift, rain running down his cape, then called to the others, "I don't know what that is, but we've got to get in touch with Freedom Hall! They need to know about this, and maybe get some answers!" With a gesture, a giant wall of earth sprang up behind the levee, helping reinforce the structure before it could begin to crumble. Earth-ND It was a grim scene when the Claremont kids (and Midnight) arrived. Edge's powers had let him save many people, turning what could have been a disaster into a crisis, but things were still very bad. The exploding debris had showered down on the all-too-human rescue workers like a flurry of knives, killing some outright and leaving others very seriously hurt. Edge was doing his best to tend to them, but the plucky team cheerleader was obviously under stress himself: and no wonder, with the League's plane exploded just overhead! Dominating the sky, more frightening even than the tornado and lightning bolts striking the water, was the jagged purple _hole_ in the universe, gazing down at them like the eye of an angry god. It was obviously the product of paragon powers, but who knew anything more than that? _This isn't supposed to be our job!_ thought Mark desperately, letting his gloved hands brush away the shower of broken glass on his back. He couldn't see any costumed bodies around him; there were already too many bodies for his taste. "Oh thank God!" said Mark, a look of profound relief on his face as everyone got there. "I don't know what happened! It...it just blew up when the lightning hit! I couldn't catch all of them..." But there wasn't time to worry, not when there were people who needed their help and a levee that needed reinforcing!

Sa-Ur sighed. She didn't look angry; it was more the face you gave a child playing a frustrating game of tag than anything more rageful. "I understand," she said to Corbin. To Blake, she said, "Yes. We prioritize honesty in our society. I can understand how that might be intimidating to people from other cultures, especially younger ones like your own. I certainly don't want to be an impediment to your socialization." And with that, much to Quo-Dis' relief, the older woman stopped talking, instead concentrating on her coffee and occasionally sending her daughter up to get more.

The bees did their best to show Victory where they'd found the carrier, but it wasn't easy. For a man used to interpreting visually-oriented maps, understanding the gyrations and pheremone secretions of a sixty-foot honeybee and transforming that into useful information wasn't easy. Finally, the bees offered to provide Victory an escort to the carrier. "IF YOU THINK YOU CAN KEEP UP THAT IZ, HEH HEH," said one bee, buzzing around like a low-flying jet. "YOU THINK YOU CAN HANG WITH THE FAZTEZT BEEZ IN TOWN?" Beatrizz furiously protested on Victory's behalf: "CMON GUYZ, YOU KNOW HOW FAZT ZUPERBIPEDZ GO! I BET HE'Z REAL FAZT!"

Sharl let out a low whistle as he walked into the Lab alongside Miss A, impressed at the sort of luxuries they had available this far down. _Don't be silly,_ he reminded himself as he looked around the elevator, _This isn't the lower depths for them, it's a, whaddyacallit, skyscraper!_ Sharl didn't know much about Terran computers, but looking around the fancy elevator even he could see how impressive this place was. _I bet I'd be more impressed if I knew what half of it was!_ he thought wryly. On the other hand, he supposed, maybe this was just a fancy elevator. Not everything about a fancy science lab had to be high-tech! He was doing his best to concentrate on the elevator, truthfully, so he didn't keep staring at Miss A. Gina had some...some pretty hot friends, honestly!

"Oh, we've got plenty of structure," said Mark with a little wince. "Sometimes more than some of us would like," he added, shooting a grin the teacher's way so she wouldn't be annoyed. "But it's 3 PM on Thursday, so most people are out of class. The blue and yellow is the school uniform," he said, pointing to several kids dressed like that, "It's also some local football colors, so you may not have noticed." Several kids were indeed wearing blue and yellow jumpsuits, with parkas over them to match. "If you want to see some training and structure," he suggested, "I can take you by the gym as we go?"

Gourmand Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 16 (+3) DEX 18 (+4) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Blast/Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +9 Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+5 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +5 (4 Dex, +1) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 52 pp=13r Bluff 8 (+11) Craft: Chemical 8 (+8) Knowledge: Physical Sciences 8 (+8) Knowledge: Technology 4 (+4) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 19 pp Accurate Attack Attack Focus (Melee) (4) Dodge Focus (4) Improved Initiative Luck (2) Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot (2) Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 54 pp Immunity 4 (disease, poison, radiation, starvation and thirst) [4 pp] Impervious Toughness 8 [8 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Nuclear Furnace Array [30+2=32 pp] Matter Eater 10 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Precise) and Healing 10 (Flaw: Personal Only) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) AP: Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit 2, Precise) AP: Corrosion 10 Protection 5 [5 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Acute Analytical Olfactory) [3 pp] costs abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 8 + skills 13/52 + feats 19 + powers 54 = 150 pts --------------------- Design Notes: As per an old request of Shaen’s, here’s my build for a hero with Matter Eating, the ability to eat and digest anything so long as they can fit it into their mouth. The power is named for the most famous hero to have that ability, the eponymous Matter-Eater Lad pictured above. (Look, the High Silver Age was a weird era. Everyone did things they’re not very proud of.) Despite the character’s reputation as a goofy refugee from the Silver Age (recently rewritten as a badass), Matter Eating is actually a pretty useful power if you flesh it out and give it the right descriptors, as I’ve tried to do here. Matter-Eating is Immunity to what’s in your mouth [5 pp] +Drain Toughness, in case the mechanics are puzzling to anyone. My assumption is that this character has an internal nuclear furnace, one that lets him consume anything that can fit inside his body. He can heal his injuries by consuming matter and integrating it into his body-mass (suggesting a resilient, perhaps alien anatomy, with plenty of useful immunities), shoot blasts of radioactive energy from his mouth, or just fry things with a touch of his mouth. He can also leap and run faster thanks to his internal furnace, shrug off much damage thanks to skin hardened enough to hold the furnace burning inside him, and his experience with eating all sorts of things lets him determine a great deal about a object by eating it. (‘Taste’ in M&M is scent+taste; if it matters that his super-senses technically only work on what he’s nomming, give him an HP for it, unless you actually want his nose to be as sensitive as his tongue) I figure he has the Bluff and Taunt because a guy with a goofy power like that has got to have a sense of humility about himself; he can take blows of his own and give them back to others! He’s got the Blast so you don’t go around trying to bite chunks off people with your superhero character, despite a hilarious moment the character got in a recent comic, that’s not cool! One possible way to tweak this would be to make his powers magical: perhaps he’s a wendigo from the frozen North, or otherwise possessed by the Spirit of Hunger itself. If this guy _is_ a time-traveler from an insane Silver Age future, perhaps going to an era where his abilities actually matter, you’ve got a whole host of potential complications for him.

"Wahooo!" Sharl exclaimed, shouting excitedly in an alien language before shifting back to the English he'd picked up along the way. The alien city beneath him was a carpet of sights and sounds, tiny houses cast even smaller beneath him, trees like tiny plants far below, cars and people moving, a spectacular sight cast beneath the strange blue light of an alien yellow sun. "This is totally grrrreat!" he exulted, unconsciously sounding like the cereal-hawking tiger he'd seen on TV. "I see the Pyramid Plaza, and clouds, and...wow! This is beautiful! Thank you, Miss Americana!" Never let it be said Sharl had no manners, even when he was excited. The flight was a little strange, the air half-rushing through him and half-blowing his hair back, but he was paying far more attention to the world around them to notice that for more than a moment.

"Hey!" Edge frowned at Rook, thinking dismissive thoughts about what jerks heroes could be outside of Freedom City. "We had that guy, you know." He wasn't pleased; who could possibly fail to recognize all the awesome heroes assembled here. He was sure Fleur's entirely accurate chiding didn't apply to him. He'd made some hilarious puns and blast an obvious bad guy, not kept kicking a guy when he was down. "We're here from Freedom City," he added, trying not to sound annoyed. "We heard your city was having problems, and from the looks of things with Monolith there, we were right. What's happened lately?"

"The Lab sounds good," said Sharl readily, the teenager having a very positive opinion of Freedom's science heroes. "So, uh, how should we do this? I can't send myself on the Internet," he said, "it's too dangerous. I guess you could carry my projector, but it'd be even more fun if you carried me!" Soldiering on, he added, "That way, it'll be like I can fly, and I can see everything, just like a superhero! It'll be great." Sharl had flown in sky-cars, even sat behind the wheel of the family craft under his father's patient tutelage, but flying under his own power, or under someone else's, sounded great!

_Think clean thoughts,_ he told himself. "Well, uh, Miss Americana, I'd like to meet people. Maybe other superheroes first, people who won't freak out if something weird happens with my program. Maybe more science heroes like Cyberknife? Or you, I guess." If she knew about his program, she had to know about matters scientific. "And regular people too, like other teenagers, or just people on the street...and the zoo! I'd love to see the zoo," he added. "I mean, people and super-people are interesting, but I don't want to forget about all the animals!"

Sharl briefly thought about calling out to Gina, feeling momentarily funny at opening a door in her house, but he shook off the impulse. He'd practiced enough with local doors that he knew how they worked, and so with a smooth economy of motion he walked over to the door, fiddled briefly with the knob, and soon had it open, his magnetic fingers sticking slightly to the metal. "Miss Americana! Hello!" He smiled at her, gesturing inside. "My space is your space," he said automatically. "Well, er, it's not actually my space, but you know," he added with a little shrug. She really was very gorgeous, and he had to make himself look her in the eye and not anywhere else. "Uh, hi," he said, offering her his hand. "it's, uh, really nice to meet you."

People meet, they greet, all on the first of February.

February 1, 2011 Earth-Prime This is exactly where Young Freedom belongs. It's been raining for days now, what was once drizzles transforming into thick, heavy drops that come as part of a torrential downpour, turning what should have been a lovely flowering of spring into a cold, sopping wet bog. Exposed grass is wet and the earth beneath it muddy, and the city's levees have been shored up along the Wading River. All that wouldn't be so bad, except that's not just happening here. What was a joke for meteorologists last week has become all too serious today: it's raining everywhere. All through New Jersey, all through New York; across the East Coast and across America. The entire continental United States is under the biggest storm system anyone's ever seen, maybe ever heard of, and the rain is getting worse. The natural assumption, of course, is that culprit is the villainous Dr. Stratos, the wicked weather manipulator. The League is off dealing with that, leaving the city in the hands of its teen heroes. Edge stood by the levee, watching with worry as the river level slowly rose. He was doing all he could to keep the water level down, standing on the dam and draining away the water as it came in, a thousand improbable accidents sending the water cascading downriver and into the Atlantic, but he wasn't powerful enough to stop a storm this big: maybe no one was. Trusting that the rest of Young Freedom was busy, either helping with the sandbags or assisting the engineers reinforcing the seawall in other ways, Mark looked up to see the familiar shape of the Pegasus spaceplane dipping low through the storm, heading for nearby Freedom Hall. _Thank goodness!_ Edge thought. _The League is here!_ That was when a tremendous lightning bolt came ripping out of the storm, heralding a massive tornado that came roaring down after it, and before Edge could do anything, bolt and tornado both struck the plane, shattering it to a thousand pieces in a jagged-edged explosion that tore open a violent hole in the sky. As the engineers and volunteers around him started to panic, Edge threw up barriers in the sky, falling debris vanishing in circles of mist as the Pegasus came tumbling down, shouting to his teammates for help... --- February 1, 2011 Earth-No Designation (aka, 'Earth-Paragons') "Oh my freaking God!" As the League's plane broke into pieces and vanished, leaving behind a shimmering purple void that had to be provenance of paragon powers, Edge shouted in surprise as pieces of the falling plane began tumbling to earth all around him: he pushed his powers to the utmost to deflect them, sending showers of debris falling away from him, away from the hard-working engineers and volunteers below. It had been an awful few days as unprecedented weather disasters swept the nation, as rumors of terrible paragon powers unleashed began to terrify a frightened populace; he'd seen reports of lynchings in Texas and Arkansas, and televangelists speaking grimly of the End Times. It wasn't the end for Mark, but despite his best efforts, people around him were dying, even as the scream of the waterspout in the river filled his ears. It was all over in a few terrible seconds, and though he'd saved many people, he was surrounded by disaster! Whipping out his cellphone to call up the linked phones of his teammates, Mark yelled, "Listen, you guys! I need help in City Center right now!" Claremont's young paragons had been divided up through the city to help deal with the rising water, the better to promote their individual Q-ratings while each of them combatted the threatening disaster that was so baffling to both the Freedom League and the Vanguard alike, indeed, to all the scientists and supers working for the government. "The Pegasus just blew up!"

PARAGONS-MIDNIGHT

PARAGONS-SAGE

PARAGONS-EDGE

PARAGONS-COBALT TEMPLAR