Avenger Assembled

"Hm." Jack's whole body language seemed to change as he studied Trevor, back slumping, shoulders going up, and a feral look in his eye. He cleared his throat, then said, "Yes, you have quite a look about you. It's hard to tell without seeing the eyes, but I think I can take the measure of a man from the way he stands. It's good to see someone young willing to work in the rough side of the business. It's all poorly-socialized types like Arrowhawk and myself doing it these days, outside of Raven herself. How do you feel about magic, Mr. Hunter?"

"D-no, Truth!" said Mark, waving his hand. "Everyone thinks I'm too drunk to bubble everybody to Dakana, so I won't do it. I believe in practining safety and ood judgement, thank you! Gimmie the truthiest truth you've got," he said, waving his hand in Trevor's general direction. "I'm not too drunk to teo tell you the thruth about stuff and junk." He nodded, pulling himself up before his head disappeared under the water entirely, waving back and forth as he sat on the edge of the jacuzzi. "Yeah. Lay it on me, baby!" He giggled.

A civilian would have screamed and run from the monster. Even a hardened soldier might have done the same at the sight of a superpowered individual, particularly a cyborg so like the Omegadrones, dripping with the terrible power of the Terminus. A more experienced superhero would have bantered with Vanquisher, perhaps throwing an insult about his ugly face out as he prepared for battle. Murdock simply charged, armor exploding from his body in a shower of slick and blood, smashing shoulder-first into Vanquisher's chest, his jetpack roaring to life as it erupted from his back, letting him slam Vanquisher against the wall behind them hard enough to crack the brick. Harrier didn't talk, he didn't banter: he brought the sharp end of his pike up, the end shrieking with rapidly cycling electrical charges, and smashed it into Vanquisher's chin. He wasn't trying to knock him out or stun him; he was trying to put the blade through the soft, vulnerable tissue beneath the jaw and shove it up through the brain. He'd done it before, too many times; the fastest, easiest way to kill a humanoid with a powerpike in melee. Harrier was no killer, not anymore. But he'd made the natural assumption that this was Victory as an Annihilist, a version of his friend corrupted by the powers of the Terminus and sent to bring him back to Omega. And to prevent that, he'd kill, oh yes. When the blade scored off Vanquisher's armor, simply slicing him across the face rather than through the soft parts of the skull, Harrier swung the blunt end around and smashed it into Vanquisher's midsection, once, twice, until he heard soft, vulnerable flesh crack inside the armor, through not a deep enough crack for the internal bleeding and ruptured organs he'd hoped to inflict. Smash the organs at center mass, break the heart and lungs; another fast way to kill. But not this time; fate seemed to favor the monster as he grabbed the blade, deflecting it before a fatal blow could fall. Harrier heard the whine of his enemy's energy capacitors charging to fire, and spoke for the first time just before the blast came, defiance in his voice. "My. Name. Is. Harrier."

All right, Harrier can't make that save, so I'll just let him be Dazzled till he rolls Fort next round. Posting IC...

Surge! (will be Fatigued next round without spending an HP, as usual) 22 OK, hit him exactly! That's 15+12=DC 27 TOU.

Harrier stabs the SOB again. Move Action: Startle 11; ouch. Well if he was scared of Omegadrones, I guess he wouldn't hang out in the Terminus! Standard Action: Attack! The first one misses so HP for a reroll: 28, so that hits That's DC 12+15+3 (the +3 is from the Autofire that I forgot to add during the Surprise Round, since Harrier exceeded Vanquisher's DEF by 6) DC 30 Lemee know how that goes...

"Me me!" said Mark, drunkenly waving his arm. "I'm full of hilariousness, and also booze!" He was getting a little sloppy by dipping into the champagne, but still was vaguely coherent. "Wow, I don't think we've all ever been drunmk together like this before! Pretty wild, huh? I guess it's the pause that refreshes. Or no wait, that's Coca-Cola. Anyway, I think American drinking laws are dumb now! This stuff isn't so bad, and I don't feel impaired at all. In fact, I bet I could..." He looked out the window, a speculative look in his eye. "No...no, not till after the game," he decided.

Sneak Thief PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 42 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 24 (+7) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+14 melee/pistols) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +11 Grapple: +21 Saves: 9 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +10 (+7 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+3 Wis, +3) Skills: 16 pp=64 r Acrobatics 4 (+11) Bluff 13 (+15)* Disable Device 13 (+13)* Disguise 4 (+6/+31)* Notice 7 (+10)* Sense Motive 7 (+10) Stealth 8 (+15) Feats: 31 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee (6) Attack Specialization: Pistols (3) Challenge (Fast Taunt) Defensive Attack Dodge Focus (7) Equipment (3) Grappling Finesse Improved Initiative Power Attack Second Chance (Disable Device checks) Skill Mastery (Bluff, Disable Device, Disguise, Notice) Sneak Attack Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (Auditory) Powers: 18 pp Morph 5 (any form) (PFs: Attractive, Covers Scent, Precise) [18 pp] Equipment: 15 ep Dual Machine Pistols: (Blast 4 (Extra: Autofire): 12 ep Grapple Gun: (Speed 1 (10 MPH) and Super-Movement 1 (Swinging): 3 ep costs abilities 42 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 16/64 + feats 33 + powers 18 = 150 pts -- Design Notes; OK, here’s my take on a sneaky femme fatale-style sneak thief. She’s got a lot of options, putting her somewhere between Catwoman and Mystique on the scale of “cool things I can do.” She’s a pretty good anti-tech thief with her Disable Device Skill Mastery and Second Chance, but she’s _really_ good at subversion. Why break into the bank when you can seduce the bank manager, knock him out, and show up looking just like him the next morning? It’s a matter of taste, and this is definitely a character who may be popular with the fellas on both sides of the law. Is she a reformed bad girl made good, or an honest lady who just happens to have powers that make her very, very good at sneaking around and getting up to business? Morph is a fun power. Is she naked all the time or does she have clothes? Is she as hot as Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in blue in her natural form, or does she look average (or not like a woman at all!) when her powers are turned off? I gave her Morph for any form: it lowers the overall rank, but she really can turn into ANYTHING. You can drop it to humanoids to make her better at Disguise if you want, that’ll raise the rank and thus give her a higher skill total. Or keep the relatively low rank and spend the points elsewhere. She’s a little ‘powers-heavy’ for a character like this, and might benefit from some higher skills. She’s a good combatant, though very squishy, and vulnerable to being caught flat-footed. She can handle herself in melee, but works quite well as a two-guns-blazing gun-fu martial artist. It’ll be very easy for her to make a target flat-footed, especially if she’s made herself Attractive to them ahead of time; between her machine pistols and her martial arts skill, it won’t be hard at all for her to take the bad guys down if you play her as the smart, fast fighter she’ll have to be. Give her a complicated relationship with the local Cowl, natch...

1 more rank of Luck for Avenger [1 pp] +2 Fort +2 Ref +1 Will for Edge [5 pp] Strike 2 (PF: Mighty) for Harrier (to represent punching with a spiked fist; this doesn't stack with his pike) [3 pp] +2 Charisma [2 pp] Fusion: +2 Attack Focus: Melee [2 pp] Edits done by Geez3r

"So, Trevor," said Jack, giving the young man a searching look while Erin took the baby from Taylor. "Erin tells me you're very responsible. Do you have any experience watching children, or other dangerous animals?" He grinned at that, perhaps off just a beat, as the baby gave Erin a hopeful look before bursting into loud fusses when he realized she had no bottle. Or did she? He was too little to snap, but not too little to show teeth as he threw his head toward her, closing and unclosing his jaws with a sucking noise.

Joan listened to the boy natter about how she should be talking about the government cyborg and felt pity, then anger. Criminy, is that how they teach kids to talk at Claremont? I thought that was supposed to be an elite prep school, not just another diploma mill for poorly socialized children of the elite. Maybe he's a legacy, she thought, and that nice Erin girl I met is a scholarship candidate. I'll have to do more research. If he was ten years older, I'd rip his skin off, but I'm not going to get in trouble with Fletch because I got into a fight with a stupid kid. She hmmed inside, still listening as the boy went on and on about being polite to ladies and the mean old journalists who dared take a picture of the underage boy partying with scantily-clad adults at an alcohol-fueled party for the rich. God, just think, in twenty years, he could be President, and Lois could be getting drafted to go fight whatever war his rich backers want our children to fight. Don't do it, baby! "That's very nice, Mr. Hughes," she said, all daggers in her smiles. "I'm going to go talk to Ms. Loeb over there in the corner," she said politely as she left the pair behind. "You have a lovely rest of the evening."

"Good evening, children!" exclaimed a voice from the upper stairs. Just coming down into the hallway as Trevor and Erin entered was Jack Faretti himself, looking dashing in a rather romance-novel cover sort of way in his poet shirt and tight leather pants. Somewhat ruining the image, or maybe helping it if you were into that sort of thing, was the round-faced baby in his arms. "Jack Jr. and I have been having some father-son bonding time up in the library. He's a sweet boy! Aren't you sweet?" The little baby gave a half-smile to Trevor and Erin, but Erin knew the face that said the baby wanted his bottle and then his blankie before bed. "You must be Trevor," he said, shaking the boy, no, young man's hand as he got closer. For his part, Jack didn't look to be more than a few years older than Trevor himself. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Erin says nothing but good things about you. Are they true?"

SURGE! (spending my new HP next round to cancel the fatigue) Standard Action: Strike 25 Darn, I missed critting by 1! 15+17+1=DC 33. Don't forget that he's flat-footed and down -1 Tou from being injured. OK, the DC to hit Harrier is now 17. Go ahead and post OOC, and I'll get the IC post up.

14 Surprise Round: Free Action: Pop Armor Free Action: Pop Staff, setting it to an electrical descriptor. Standard Action: Strike Attack: FAIL with a 13 Standard Action: Reroll with HP...That's a crit, oh yes And with an All-Out Power Attack no less. OK, that's DC 15+17+5+1 (since it's 15 for a Tou save, 17 for the Power Attack, 5 for the Crit, and +1 because it's Electricity) so DC 38. Harrier is frightened enough to do lethal, so that's what he's doing. OK, let me know how that turns out, and I'll post IC.

"He's a government-assembled cyborg," agreed Joan. "I've met several models of a similar design in Japan, but he's among the first to be presented openly to the public in the United States. That's where I first met you, Dr. de Haviland," she added, "when I was writing for the Japan Times. But I doubt you'd remember me. That was a crowded press conference," she added with a thin smile. Shooting a look at Corbin, she added, "Yes, I saw you were having some trouble with those paparazzi. Ghastly stuff, not the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a credible newspaper. Did they give you any reason why they were harassing you?"

Fusion looked up at the ceiling, her tentacles sliding through the air soundlessly, and reached up to press them against the ceiling overhead as she felt for the source of the vibrations. "I heard it, but what did we hear?" the inquisitive octopus asked. "It's amazing what the power of psychological suggestion can do," she said with determination in her voice. "A couple of guys with hammers in a so-called haunted house can get away with murder. Though I don't think that's exactly what happened here..."

"Oh, uh..." Mark coughed. "I can take us anywhere we need to go, assuming my powers work that here." He snapped his fingers, there was a flare of black bubbles over his body, like a swirl of spilled ink, and he disappeared, bringing a halt to his band's playing in surprise. Before they could do more than blink, though, Mark had returned, this time carrying behind him a fluttering American flag, complete with five-foot pole, the flag flapping in the dramatic breeze that had blown up at his arrival. "Yeah. They do. Okay, Ms. Wells, I can take our entire party anywhere they need to go. Gentlemen-" He turned back to the band. "Remember that the East doesn't matter. The West doesn't matter. The music matters. People matter. Buy the world a song, and teach them how to SING!"

"Oooooh!" said Mark. "That's pretty! You should be a street performer! You could act like it's some clever smoke machine doing all the work. You could do it in between cleaning up the streets of criminal scum!" With anyone else it'd have sounded mocking, but tone shifts like that were part and parcel of dealing with Mark, even while drunk. Maybe especially while drunk. He pointed to Trevor, waved his hand, and said, "Aaa...nah, I was going to suggest something, but you're already doing pretty good. Hey, this one time the other day, when I was messing with my powers, I created life! It was cool. But not as cool as those animals. Can you do one of you and Erin?"

Costumed Detective PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 36 pp STR 30/20 (+10/+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON 30/20 (+10/+5) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Unarmed) DEF: +7 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +6 Saves: 7 pp TOU +13 (+10 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +6 (+3 Ref, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 14 pp=56 r Bluff 8 (+10) Intimidate 8 (+10)* Investigate 8 (+9)* Knowledge: Streetwise 8 (+9) Notice 8 (+10)* Sense Motive 8 (+10)* Stealth 8 (+10) Feats: 16 pp All-Out Attack Attack Specialization: Unarmed (2) Challenge (Fast Startle) Dodge Focus Improved Initiative Fearless Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack (2) Skill Mastery (Intimidate, Investigate, Notice, Sense Motive) Ultimate Save (Toughness) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 56 pp Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Impervious Toughness 10 [10 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Strength 5 [Dynamic] [Heavy Load: 24 tons] [14 pp] DAP: Flight 5 (250 MPH) Drawback: [3 pp] Vulnerable (vs. magical damage) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] costs abilities 36 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 14/56 + feats 16 + powers 56 - drawback 3 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Anyone else a fan of Superman: Speeding Bullets? No? Well it wasn't a great comic book by any means, but the conceit of the flying brick costumed adventurer was one I liked. So here it is, a grim and gritty avenger of evil, wearing a dark costume with a somber attitude, who just happens to be able to fly supersonically, survive a tank shell to the chest and shrug off bullets, and generally ignore the sorts of problems that used to bedevil Batman on a regular basis. He's quite a surprise for people expecting a Squishy Wizard-type Costumed Adventurer, as well as people expecting a friendly, cheerful Flying Brick. (He might work as an Iron Age variant on Superman or what have you, but here I assume he's acting as a straight Batman-type) Why impersonate a masked detective? I can think of a couple of reasons: maybe he doesn't want the attention that a Flying Brick would get, particularly if he's in a corrupt city (or part of the city) where the media might find out all sorts of dangerous information about him. People expecting a guy they can just shoot won't go looking for his secret ID: with that magical vulnerability, he takes magical hits as if they were double in power: a rank 10 Magic blast does +20 Damage to him! Good thing he's got that Ultimate Toughness if he does run into a wizard who he can't intimidate into stepping aside. Or maybe he just likes the dark costume and the rooftop vigilante lifestyle, as well as the LOOK criminals get when they shoot him in the chest and nothing happens! Does he have a Cave, a car, a teen sidekick? You can give him all those things and more if you want, not to mention variants on the usual paragon powers: it's just a matter of shuffling his points around. He should probably have a nice mansion, at least, or some other way to showcase his wealth. (Which I'd say he has, even if it's not useful enough to be a benefit to him) As it is he's a decent blend of both worlds. You could easily shave things here and there to make him particularly good at one or the other; maybe he's just a mean paragon, or maybe just a costumed detective with a high TOU who can fly. I suggest a background where his adoptive parents were murdered before his eyes by criminals, or maybe one where his whole planet was shot by an Earthly thug before he himself was blasted into space. Either way, fun times!

Mark slapped himself in the face and laughed. "Hah! That's...that's pretty tough. I wasn't laughing at you, Mike!" he added amiably to where his friend had just disappeared under the water. "Just the situation. I mean, you wouldn't expect Alex to talk about..." He mimed what she'd been talking about, and this time he broke into a fit of giggles that nearly made him go under the water too. "Hah-hah! Good stuff. Okay, Alex, whose turn is it now?"

Phalanx, have an HP!

"Hm." Murdock studied Victory uncertainly, feeling an unsettling twinge at the back of his spine, as if his armor was begging for release. "Can I help you?" he asked, his voice not rising above a stage whisper as he spoke to the armored figure. Victory wasn't normally so careless about his flight in the city, which made Harrier especially nervous. Was there an emergency? Or was something else happening entirely? "Is something wrong?"

A flash of smoke and clap of thunder made Jimmy Lucas and his Genie both people-sized and among the heroes on the ground, the elder Lucas arriving just as his grandson swung in beside them. Jimmy looked from face to face, his eyes wide and his grin huge even in the middle of the battlefield. "Oh boy! New heroes! I'm Jimmy Lucas, nice to meetcha!" He shifted his cigarette holder back and forth as he talked, his profile vaguely reminiscent of FDR. "And this is Al-Azim, the Genie of the Lamp! He's my best pal!" he added, introducing the genie. Al-Azim and Edge exchanged two _looks_, the genie frowning and Edge tensing, but Jimmy didn't notice, soon moving on to Legionnaire and Cannonade. "Oh boy! The famous Legionnaire! You know, just the other day, my pal the Centurion was saying that you're one of the toughest guys on the Western Front. It's keen to meet you!"

17, ouch!

"Mr. Hughes, Dr. de Havilland," said Joan politely as she joined Corbin and Estelle for the walk out to see the show. "I'm Joan Collier with the Herald. It's a pleasure to meet both of you," she said, giving a quick, firm handshake to both. "I'm covering the society beat for Fletcher Beaumont this evening. Isn't this a lovely party Mr. Fassbinder is throwing?" she asked gaily, by all appearances the perfect, if slightly plastic, society journalist. "And with the government providing the entertainment. He must have even more friends in high places than we knew about!"