Avenger Assembled

Those of you got above 20 Notice

"I will," Mark promised. He studied Erin closely, thinking about her for a moment. As with all of his female friends, he'd occasionally wondered what it would be like to be with her. He was fiercely glad at this moment, though, that there was nothing between them but friendship. "Thank you for coming out and helping me tonight. Thank you for being my friend," he told her. "I'll see you tomorrow, Erin." And with that, he began the slow walk back to his house.

Mark studied Erin as she told him something that cleared up many of the mysteries that still surrounded his reserved friend. Well, some of them, anyway. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, the two of them alone in the dark of his lawn. "Thank you for trusting me with that," Mark added softly. "Not everyone trusts me with...with important things like that." He swallowed hard. "I can't ever compare what happened between us," he said with a single headshake. "But the Terminus took both our fathers away. My dad left the day I died, and he never came back." He scrubbed his eyes. "I should go."

Mark hesitated to ask the question, genuinely frightened of making one of his best friends and closest emotional allies angry. He felt truly, monumentally alone just then, the betrayal of everything he'd thought he believed about his family and his relationship with his father still ringing harshly in his ears. When he'd worked up the courage, he finally closed his eyes and asked, "How did your dad die?"

"I wanna go back home," said Mark quietly. He followed Erin without saying much outside, the strangeness of riding on her back muted after so many practice sessions together. He didn't say much on the short trip home, but when they did reach his dark and silent house, he asked her, almost fearfully, "Erin, can I ask you something? Something really personal?"

Through A Glass The sky was gray with the dust and smoke that came with a collapsed building, billows of it that turned everything it touched a waxy, corpselike white itself. The invasion was over, but at the moment it almost seemed like the least of their troubles. This time, unlike in the invasion of hell, the damage remained behind after the invasion was over. And there were a lot of people who needed help. Right now, many of them were waiting outside of a hastily erected barricade, watching her silently and begging them with their eyes to make things better. Erin did the best she could to walk lightly in the rubble that had once been a five story apartment building. Psyche, working remotely from halfway across the city, had assured her there were people alive in here, people who needed help. There were dogs and equipment, not to mention other heroes on the way, but it might be too late on a day like this with so many disasters. One superhero at the right time could make all the difference when lives were on the line. She reminded herself of that even as her stomach churned and twisted, the acrid smell in the air triggering sense memories she couldn't afford to go back to right now. The job was the thing now, and saving lives, and not letting all her power be for nothing this time. “Hello?†she called, straining her ears for any noises. Her ears were her best sense, but she was no Psyche and no search dog. It was almost worse to walk through this carnage and know that there were living people somewhere nearby, that she could help them but only if she didn't screw up. She was listening so hard that at first she thought the noise she actually heard was a figment of her imagination, it was so faint. But it was real, a scratching from halfway across the collapse site, as of someone trying to move the debris. She resisted the urge to leap, unsure of what a landing would do, and instead raced as quickly and lightly as she could to the source of the sound. “Can you hear me?†she called. There was a murmur from the families watching beyond the barricades at her sudden movement, but they quieted quickly, knowing that their silence was her success. “Here!†came a voice from down in the piles of rubble. “We're down here, help us!†Young, Erin thought, sounded like a kid. God... “It's all right!†she called. “I'm Wander, I'm from Young Freedom! I'm going to help you! Just hold on and be brave, okay?†Working quickly and carefully, she sorted out the massive pieces of fallen building, pushing them aside carefully so as to try and disrupt the pile as little as possible. She'd had extensive training in disaster relief as well as combat; she knew what a shifting field of debris could do to a trapped victim. It was an endless five minutes before she opened enough of a clearing to see through to the victims. Two boys, she realized, one maybe twelve or thirteen, the other younger. It looked like they'd gotten lucky, wedging themselves into a closet that had collapsed into a protective triangle over their heads. “We're okay,†the older boy said, his arms wrapped around what had to be his younger sibling. “Kind of... my leg hurts,†he admitted. “My mom... my mom was over in the kitchen, just next to us,†he told Erin urgently. “We heard her yell out when everything was falling. Is she okay? Did she get out?†From where she was, Erin could only see a little bit of the rest of what had once been a decent apartment. She shifted just a little bit to get a better idea of what was around, catching a glimpse of a metal sink and pipes that said kitchen. “Just a second...†Sliding her way across patches of crumbled drywall, she made her way over there and shone her flashlight into a gap between joists. Her light picked up the blood first, and then the casualty. Adult female DOA, Erin told herself, making herself be clinical about it. She had work to do. Returning to the boys, she blanked her face to impassive concentration. “I'm going to get you out of there,†she promised again. “You're going to have to be very brave.†It was only much later, long after the boys were reunited with their father and that building and many others like it were cleared that she allowed herself to acknowledge how long they were going to have to be brave for.

Martial Artist " Abilities: 52 pp STR 26 (+8) DEX 24 (+7) CON 26 (+8) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +6 (+12 Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +14 Saves: 6 pp TOU +8 (+8 Con) FORT +8 (+8 Con) REF +8 (+7 Ref, +1) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 11 pp=44 r Acrobatics 8 (+15) Bluff 9 (+10) Diplomacy 9 (+10) Languages 1 (English) (Base: Chinese) Notice 6 (+8) Search 5 (+5) Sense Motive 6 (+8) Feats: 16 pp Acrobatic Bluff, All-Out Attack, Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3, Benefit (Fame), Dodge Focus 4, Evasion, Luck Move-By Action, Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 37 pp Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Regeneration 34 (Recovery Bonus +1 [+9 total], Bruised [3] (no action), Injured [6] [no action], Staggered [6] [no action], Disabled [8] [no action], Resurrection [10] [no action]) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [36 pp] --- Design Notes: OK, this guy's powers got reworked, so let me explain: this is a very 'cinematic' take on the Martial Artist archetype, a nigh-invincible action hero who shrugs off any damage he takes (save ability drains) with no action. Kill him, and he's up and again the next round! Note that he's _not_ immune to being unconscious, though, so the way you lay him out is give him a savage beating till he's knocked out, then you tie him up or something. He's not the world's greatest martial artist, but with his ability to take ridiculous punishment, lay his opponents out flat-footed, and then punch them really, really hard, who cares? Put him up against my Ninja build to drive said Ninja insaaane! (As mentioned, though, he has no real defense against Drains beyond an OK Fort save, and his exotic saves are a bit low (though not as low as some of my builds!) in general. He's tough, but a smart fighter can lay him out.) The default assumption here is that this IS a certain Hong Kong action star-turned-superhero, using the abilities that made him such a talented showman to fight crime. Maybe he decided he wanted to be a hero for real after pretending to be one most of his life, or maybe what was supposed to be a publicity stunt for his latest movie got out of hand in the most delightful way. Another idea is that maybe something darker happened: maybe as he got older his body started giving out on him, and he turned to drugs and secret treatments to be able to do all his old stunts. Riven by guilt, he decided to make up for one mistake by doing more good deeds! You can make his high ability scores Enhanced if you want: I went with the assumption that he really is incredibly strong, fast, and tough. Tweak him however you want to give the concept a little more bite. Maybe he's an aging American action star like Bruce Willis, maybe he specializes in something other than unarmed combat. You could make a tweak on the Living Weapon archetype by totally dropping the Hollywood angle, but I rather like making this sort of character a spinoff of the Martial Artist type. And hey, who doesn't like this guy? He's got a lot of Regen, don't forget his Regeneration only works one condition at a time. He might be moving again one action after being dead, but it's a couple of rounds before he'll be back to his usual self.

"It's nice to meet you too," said the white-haired old lady. "We'll talk more later," she assured Erin. "When I've had my rest and my pills. Good night," she added, before letting her eyes drift shut. Within seconds she was asleep again, and Mark reached down to gently dab a little bit of drool from her face before he and Erin walked out. Only once he was in the corridor did his steps get shaky, Mark heading wordlessly towards the elevator, his tear-streaked face visible now in the light.

Mark wept softly, covering his face in his hands, managing to stay upright through sheer force of will. "It's not fair," he murmured to himself, his voice thick with pain, "It's...it's not supposed to be like this, uhhh..." The words broke up into soft, undramatic sobs when he couldn't talk anymore. When it was done, he pulled himself away from Erin and took some soft, pained breaths. And then came the singing, in a thready old woman's voice, from the bed. "You make me happyyy, when skies are grey..." Stephy Lucas blinked at both of them. "Markie? Honey, you're crying." She reached up a frail old hand to touch her grandson's face, Mark reaching down to take hers. "I'm all right," she said reedily. "It was just the angina." "I know, Gramma, I know," whispered Mark, "but I love you, so I was worried. That's what family does." "Oh, my poor grandbaby..." Stephy patted him lightly on the back of the head. "It's after midnight, Markie. Why don't you go home and sleep, and I'll call you and your mamma in the morning? Who's your friend?" she asked curiously. "This is my friend Erin," said Mark, hugging the frail old woman gently, then looking at Erin. "She's a superhero too, and she came to help. You get some more sleep, Gramma." He smiled at her as he pulled away.

"That's not quite it, is it, Dad?" asked Mark, looking at his father with new eyes. "You don't want to come back because you left in the first place. All my life, you told me to face my problems like a man, but you ran away, without any word, and now you can't come back without everyone knowing what you did, and that you couldn't deal with it, because everything you taught me was..." "No. Not all of it." The grief was written large on RIck's old man's face. "Just the parts about me. Just the parts where I thought I was good enough to be your father." He looked up suddenly, the darkening shadows in the room seeming to thicken. "Oh. They're coming for me soon. Listen to me, both of you," he said desperately, rising to his feet as he stretched across the bed. "There's something coming, something I'm forbidden to stop. But you can, both of you, and your friends. It's the Terminus, they're planning to-" A gravely whisper spoke from the darkness, one Mark and Erin both recognized as the genie who'd adventured alongside Jimmy Lucas for so many years. The real genetic father of Rick Lucas. "It's time to go, son." Rick's face almost crumpled as he said aloud, "You're. Not. My. Faaaaather..." He started to disappear at the last words, and, too late, Mark reached desperately across the bed for his father's hand, just brushing it as his father vanished into a cloud of darkness over the echo of his last despairing word. Mark stared at the place where his father had been and covered his face. He breathed a single, pained syllable. "Ohh..."

Rick hemmed and hawed at that for a moment, before the hard, painful look from his son got him talking. "I'm no longer from this place, from this world. Maybe I never was, really, but it didn't matter until I changed things. The world is very...protective of itself, when it comes to magic. Coming here alone, for family, is all I can do, and even that's so...so difficult. The world resists attempts to change it, especially from someone who's already done it once." "Well...give it all up," said Mark suddenly, giving his father almost a pleading look. "I know you were just trying to save me, Dad. I don't blame you for what happened; I never could. Those things that happened were just mistakes, or accidents. That's not the real you." "Isn't it, son?" Rick's eyes hardened, or rather, seemed to turn inward. "Maybe I didn't mean to do all those things, but I still wanted them. Wanted to shut that pompous bastard Ray Gardener up forever, wanted to kill those monsters who abandoned your friend..." "What, Trevor's parents?" "Parents who abandon their children don't deserve to live," said Rick fiercely. He calmed himself, looking away, then said, "And...and maybe I didn't mean it, not for it to happen the way it did, but how could I look them in the eye afterwards? Forty years in the business, twenty-five years with the Centurion, and one terrible day wipes it all away."

When Mark opened the door, Rick Lucas was sitting at his sleeping mother's bedside. He looked up at the teens as they entered, and Mark let out a soft, painful gasp. Rick Lucas had remade himself while he was gone, the old man in his mid-sixties now a youthful-looking, vigorous young man in his twenties. He looked like Mark might look in another few years, or like Rick himself had looked many years earlier. Back when the League was formed. Back before he knew Mom, Mark thought painfully. He and his father locked eyes as age blended back onto Rick's face, until by the time Mark spoke a clear doppleganger of his father was still standing there. "What are you doing here?" he whispered, his hands clenched painfully into fists at his side. "Exactly what it looks like," said Rick, leaning back to study his son, still in the 50s leather jacket and jeans he'd started out wearing. "Your grandmother is sick, so I'm paying her visit." "You didn't visit her before," Mark shot back accusingly, "Or me. Or Mom!" Stephy Lucas stirred at that, but didn't wake up. "Mark, you know I can't do that," said Rick, trying to sound in control of the situation and failing. "Even being here now, is so hard, I...I'd have come if you or your mother were in danger, just like this."

Edge stared at Grim as if she was speaking Martian when she talked about actions having consequences. When she was done, he added, "No, see, it's OK. That's why I didn't make them fake pounds or anything, because that would be counterfeiting. But everyone can use precious metal! It's a universal currency." With that, he snapped his fingers and was briefly colored with a swirl of black bubbles. When he was done, Mark was dressed in a good copy of Sidney Paget's Sherlock Holmes, who was the only Victorian character Mark could identify by sight. Adjusting his Inverness cape and deerstalker, Mark slipped his pipe into his breast pocket. "What's next, guvna?"

Mark scrubbed his eyes and took a deep breath, listening to the gentle singing of that so familiar, now lost voice. "He used to sing that to me when I was going to bed," he murmured quietly, childhood memories thick in his throat. "Every night when I was little, or couldn't sleep. I guess he learned it from Grandma Stephy." As if making a decision, he got to his feet and headed for the corridor. "I'm going to go talk to him," he finally said.

"The more the better," agreed Mark. He did his usual ritual of dumping in sugar and creamer, and together they both sipped the coffee silently until suddenly a voice came over Mark's beacon. It was a man, singing "You Are My Sunshine," in a low, gentle voice. Mark's hand turned white on the cup, and he nearly dropped the coffee before setting it aside. "That's not my grandma," he whispered to Erin, his face white and voice strained. "That's my dad..."

"Yeah, I mean, we've got to pay the bills. We got a lawyer, uh, Lady Liberty, actually," he added in a murmur, "so we can access my dad's savings, but we don't know how long it's going to be there. He made a lot of money, but we can't just blow through it. She was just about to run through her script backlog, and she couldn't just let it go, even if her editor was very sympathetic." He chuckled faintly. "Comic book editors aren't very heroic. I guess it's the nature of the job."

"One Woman and a Truck, huh? Sounds catchy." Mark grinned, and teased a little, "Hey, maybe you can get Trevor to build you a truck that expands in the back, so you can take it from panel truck to pickup and back again. He seems, uh, pretty handy." He hmmed, not wanting to embarrass Erin when she was being so nice to him. She was a little shy about her relationship with Trevor, for all that they were freaking adorable together. "I guess he's probably going to college."

Gie' us a Notice check, me hearties!

Mark swung in, a white-faced Daisy clinging to his arm, and coughed as he adjusted to the environment of the sewer. With a gesture, he sealed up the hole where they'd come from, momentarily leaving things in darkness. "Anyone got a light?" he joked, peering into the gloom. "As for the rebels," he said, "the way these things work, they're bound to find us if we're rattling around in their territory. If they don't know who we are, well...we'll have to explain it to them. I'm sure they'll believe us..." From behind his back, he produced big, thick torches, burning with a bright white flame that gave no smoke. "Classic stylings," he said distractedly.

Avenger (NPC) House Calls Edge Mind Games (mixing GM and player posts) Brit Machine Outing Heroes of Our Past A Trip Between Two Worlds (mixing GM and player posts) Freedom Angel Swordology Fusion Entangling Alliances Preventative Measures (mixing GM and player posts) Rocket Man

Bee-atrice curtseyed to Quentin before saying, "I ZZZZINK I'M GOINK TO GO HAVVVE ZOME MORE TO EEEAT." Giving a gigantic insectoid smile at Fleur, she said, "YOUR DRONE IZ NIZE! MUCH NIZER THAN THE BBBBOYYZZZ HERE!" Distantly, a passing bee exclaimed "HEY!" "ITZ OK, LARABEE," she said "I'M JUZT KIDDING!" Whispering back in a voice like a bomb, she added, "NOT REALLY."

"OHHHHHHH YEZ!" exclaimed Bee-atrice loudly. "ZEY ARE DELICIOZ! WE WILL GET ZO FAT WE WILL NOT FLY!" She made a great screeching buzz that it took a moment to recognize as a laugh, seeming to regard that as the height of merriment, waving her arms and swooping around in the air overhead. "ZOMETIMEZ WEEE WIZH FOR A BIGGER HIVE," she confessed, "BUT WE ARE DOINK OK FOR OURZELVEZ."

From the sky, an enormous bee, easily the size of an 18-wheeler, descended from the sky to confront Supercape and Fleur de Joie. The great insect studied them with eyes nearly as large as their bodies, arms longer than they were tall waving in the breeze, before saying in a jovial, buzzing voice that boomed in the air: "HELLO! WELCOME BBBBACK TO BEEDOM VALLEY! I ZEEEEE YOU BBBBROUGHT A DRONE!" Stesha recognized Bee-atrice easily enough. "NIZE TO MEEEET YOU!"

"What about you?" Mark asked Erin, trying to deflect attention away from his own doubts about his family's long and complicated history. Erin's life was easier to think about than his own, at least. "I mean as strong and fast as you are, you could do almost anything. The League would hire you on in a minute, and places like UNISON take strong people too. Your powers are good anywhere."

"Not yet," said Mark, looking down at the brochure. "I haven't, uh, talked about it with my mom yet. I don't know what she wants. Sometimes she wants me to stay close at hand, in the city or even living at home, other times she says I should be off adventuring in the world. She's worried about me, and I'm worried about her. I think she'll be happy, but I guess I'm afraid of her freaking out or something. But...but I really think this would be something good to do. I want to have a life besides the one in costume. A life that helps other people just the same."