Avenger Assembled

Archer goes on 19 Beaumont goes on 17 Da Goons go on 8 Top O' The Round: Wander has just burst out of her cage, fighting mad. She and Mark are standing inside a clear space of about ten foot square inside the midnight mist. The room is about eight hundred square feet; the cube was about ten foot by ten foot. Midnight is standing next to Beaumont; Rift and Kid Cthulu are behind him. Erin is up. (Since Rift can't possibly go ahead of her in init)

Mark Seizes Initiative (by spending an HP) He Transforms a volume of midnight mist around him into air. (Standard) He surges, switches his array, and Power Attacks the cage. The DC 38 Tou save he inflicts with Autofire 2 is enough to break open a hole big enough for Erin to break out of, given the damage she's already inflicted on the Impervium. Everyone, roll Initiative.

Though never quick on the uptake, Edge was willing to roll with his friend's sudden attack. After all, they had to save their friend from these monsters! The problem was, as usual, Mark couldn't see a damn thing when Trevor was using his mist. Luckily, though, a brilliant idea came to him! The mist around Mark blurred as he concentrated, the gas around him luckily fading early at just the right moment. Exerting himself, he lashed out, concentrating on the dent in the big impervium cage, urging it to give way just as Erin's next blow came ringing in. I've broken impervium with my head before! This isn't so tough! And sure enough, it wasn't, the impervium caving in just as Erin kicked her way out!

That did the trick; he is demoralized. (With his +11, he can't resist, not that I'd try with a nat-20!) Between being shaken and flat-footed, he is rolling a +1 on his Tou save. Holy cow! Mark definitely spends an HP to make him reroll that. Son of a-! OK, Beaumont is bruised and stunned. Gizmo, have an HP back for that piece of annoyance. Go ahead and post IC. =)

Archer is caught flat-footed, and that hits. But he rolls a nat 20 and is left bruised. Beaumont once saw the Praetor rip a guy's head off just to see how far the blood spattered, and resists the Demoralize. A 16 fails to hit even his flat-footed defense. Go ahead and reroll as necessary via HP: I'll say you've got two additional ones thanks to your various complications. I'll wait till you're done to roll initiative.

Trevor and Shinnosuke's brief standoff at the Singularity bunker was interrupted by the arrival of several familiar faces; a scantily-clad Daisy Gibbons in bizarre fetish gear, and just behind her came warped versions of Mark, Warren, and Blake. Mark studied the white-clad figure holding the defiant-looking hacker at knifepoint for a moment, thinking fast. Solid colored outfit...real tough-looking...doesn't like L33T...Ah-hah! It must be Trevor! He gave a nod and a wink to Trevor, not knowing what better signs he could give, then walked right up to the guard post. "We're here as ordered. What's going on with Singularity?" The thing about Mark was that he usually had no idea what was going on; this made it much easier to pretend he understood what he was doing there. The guard, who luckily wasn't someone Mark recognized from his own world, responded by pressing a button on his walkie-talkie. "Imperials are here for the weapon. Should I send them in?" Fletcher Beaumont's whiskey-soaked voice ordered the man to do so, and soon the teens, sans Daisy and Shinnosuke, were all being escorted inside the heavily-reinforced building. In the middle of the central room was a large white cube, the outside covered in equipment, the cube itself shaking ever so slightly as a dent appeared with a GONG on the outside. Before Mark could do more than react to that, he caught sight of two people: a clearly-recognizable (despite a mechanical hand) Mr. Archer in red and black, barking orders to a team of uniformed goons setting up a light machine gun nest aimed at the growing dent in the side of the cube. The other was Fletcher Beaumont, looking a strange combination of haggard and fierce. The gentle man Mark had grown up knowing looked more like an old, dangerous wolf than anything else. At the sight of the boys, he growled, "Your pet is getting angry." He pressed a few buttons on the computer screen nearby, popping up a multi-angled image of a frightened, furious Erin White, screaming wordlessly as she attacked the walls of her confinement, whereon horrible images of agonizing blood and death were being displayed. "Knew it was a mistake for Thunderbolt to take Pathos to Farside," he purred. "Now we've got to calm down the wrecking machine in there, or we've got to put her down. I won't lose more men, Lucas. Not without compensation." His face pale, Mark improvised. "You think I can't handle this? I've dealt with her before," he said, folding his hands behind his back in a gesture he'd unconsciously copied from Duncan Summers. "And I've got my boys here with me," he added, jerking his head back at the others. "We can handle anything. As for compensation, well...would you have spent this much time and effort on her if she wasn't worth it? Turn off those images and let us talk to her, and we'll talk her down." Beaumont's eyes narrowed. "She knew your name, boy. All of your names. You boys haven't been slipping in and sticking it to her on the sly, have you? Trying to get your own pet death machine for real?" He gave the Blank a speculative look at that one before going on. "You know you don't get to have her till you graduate. Till you're Syndicate, I own _all_ of you."

"We don't need to dwell on the details," said Fusion, her tentacles writhing all around her as she paced. "I'm Fusion," she added a little distractedly to Grimalkin, recognizing her both from her recent 'appearance' as well as stories about the Interceptors. "None of us think Fleur de Joie is any kind of assassin." She'd picked up on Gabriel's name drop of the heroine's secret ID, but she was far too professional to make an issue of it. "We're going to keep that timeline from happening, even if it was just a fabrication. Right now we're trying to get to Blackstone Island to interview a prisoner who might know something useful." She quickly shared with Grimalkin Red Bolt's story. "Fleur, I know you're a teleporter," she said to the plant manipulator, not wanting the other woman to think she was actually uncomfortable with her. "Can you get us all there? There are plenty of plants on the island outside the prison, if that's your medium."

Daisy pointedly looked down when Warren looked at her, studying her feet in Mark's boots for a moment before Mark prompted her with a short "Keep moving." Daisy was their only guide to campus, and Mark watched as she led them across the quad. A few sneers were shot her way, but no one said anything with Hex and the others right there. Something very bad had happened to this Daisy Gibbons, something that had her dressed like a starved harem girl and scared to make eye contact with anyone other than Mark as they went. Did I...no, HE, do this? What happened here? The campus was a horrible parody of itself, the American flag flying overhead by the usual flagpole just made everything worse. Glad to see that Warren and Blake both seemed to have come through intact in the journey to the other world, Mark thought fast. It wasn't hard to guess where they were and what was going on. There were many Claremont students smarter and more knowledgeable than Mark, but few with an incredibly detailed geekery about anything and everything done by Freedom City's superheroes. But if this is really Anti-Earth, why didn't we explode!?

"Yes ma'am," said Mark cordially, a winning smile on his face. "Freedom City, New Jersey." Edge looked the woman over carefully, suddenly getting a nagging suspicion in his mind about where she might be from. Weird technology, talks like Mary Poppins, thinks we're a colony...Oh crap, the timestream! I might uncreate myself if I say the wrong thing; or indeed, uncreate the entire world! "Would you happen to be from the United Kingdom, Ms. Wells?" he asked politely, falling back on all his training about how to deal with people from other eras. "I'm sure everything here must seem very confusing. How did you get here?"

Swinging through the air on his grapple line, Edge made a neat landing as he found himself surrounded by...well, something oddly familiar! Not any of the technological stuff he was watching, naturally, given his ignorance of such things, but rather a sudden eruption of chaos that reminded him very much of how his own powers worked. He studied the bizarre figure in the weird car for a moment before he opted to make first contact. All of the damage seemed harmless enough, and could be repaired later. This was one opportunity that he couldn't pass up. "Hello!" he said, raising his hand like a cowboy in a Western serial. "Welcome to Freedom City!"

Fusion: 7 pp to spend Insubstantial 1 'octopus body' (PF: Subtle) [6 pp] Regeneration 0 (PF: Regrowth) 'octopus regeneration' [1 pp] Edits done by Geez3r

DC 20 Sense Motive checks from Rift and Kid Cthulu, please

There was no auditory response to Erin's words, but she could just make out a few mechanical clicks in the walls all around her. As she watched, a screen appeared in the wall in front of her, a screen that actually included much of the doorframe she'd just been able to pick out. The technology was impressive; she'd seen enough super-tech at Claremont to know this was something like the morphic molecules of her costume, but built directly into the solid stuff of the door. A moment later, she wasn't thinking about that because a life-size image of her sister appeared on the screen. "Erin! Save me!" she screamed, a crowd of zombies growling around her, howling as they streamed towards the little girl that frantically clutched a stuffed pony to her chest. "Save me!" --- Trevor realized something as he pressed the blade to Koyama's throat; there already was a knife scar at the spot he'd picked, as if someone of his exact height and build had put the teenager in a similar grip just a few months earlier. "Fine, fine," hissed Koyoma, giving Trevor a defiant look. "You want spectators, I'll be happy to watch you fall, new powers or not." He led Trevor out the library door, onto a grim, militarized version of Claremont's campus. They were just getting started heading towards the headmaster's office, or where that was on Trevor's world, when he heard a series of short beeps from the sensor built into his mask. He recognized the code from his grandfather's Morse series. ESCAPE. But of who? A moment later, his communicator flicked on in a harsh, military note. "Blank. Report to the storage facility immediately. There's a problem with Singularity." Koyoma laughed bitterly, but didn't look back. --- Mark was making his excuses to look around campus, trying to disengage himself from a Daisy Gibbons who was downright frightening in her loyalty to him. It wasn't that she _was_ loyal, though, Mark realized as he saw through the desperation in her eyes. She was trying to _show_ him her loyalty, even if it wasn't something she necessarily felt. He felt sick, and was terribly grateful when the communicator built into his uniform beeped. He answered it automatically, without debating how to use the system. "Lucas," he said, skipping over a codename that didn't come naturally to his lips. "Report to the storage facility immediately. There's a problem with Singularity." Mark was one of the few Claremont students who'd be able to immediately recognize the voice of Fletcher Beaumont II: the former Bowman III, even over a commlink. After all, Uncle Fletch had been a friend of the Lucas family for many years. Uncle Fletch didn't sound friendly now. "On my way," said Mark, getting to his feet as he thought fast, his heart pounding in his chest. He'd seen Singularity's name among the many pictures and placards on his wall, one of which had included a picture. Erin... Were all the friends he'd shared that dream with somewhere on this world? That answered one question...but he had no idea where the facility was. He looked at Daisy, grabbed a leather coat off his chair, and tossed it to her. "You're coming with me. We may need help." She gave him a blank-faced look and pulled on the jacket, Mark's coat looking bulky on her thin frame. "Okay," she said after some hesitation, evidently not sure of what to make of this idea. She seemed particularly surprised when Mark made sure she didn't just walk out of his suite of rooms in bare feet, instead digging a pair of work boots out of the closet to follow him out the door, a bizarre figure in her harem outfit, Mark's jacket, and heavy work shoes. It was a challenge to get her to lead the way. As they reached the hallway, he caught sight of Warren and Blake, just as their communicators chimed in. "Prince in Yellow. Thrash. Report to the storage facility immediately. There's a problem with Singularity." Mark met their eyes, though of course that was never easy with Blake, and said "Well. It sounds like we're all going to the same place to see how our little Erin is doing, heh-heh-heh," he added. "I wonder if she had a bad dream."

Eventually Mark did find clothes, though he wondered who but a villain could dress in this obnoxious red and black leather? Of course, looking on the walls of his suite, he could make that leap easily enough. He was familiar with encountering doubles from other universes, after all, he'd just had a very close encounter with one earlier in September. He studied the pictures on the walls carefully, taking note of the warped reflections of his teammates, lingering in particular over the odd-looking copy of Erin, but just had time to grab a book off his desk before he heard Daisy coming back in. Mark joined Daisy over breakfast, his mind whirling desperately as he tried to figure out what was going on. Why couldn't I be Psyche, or Midnight, or Rift? Someone who could tell what was going on? By a palpable effort, he kept his mouth shut and tried to encourage the usually-voluble Daisy to talk, a task that proved easier once he'd persuaded her to sit down and enjoy breakfast with him. "You made it, you deserve the fruits of your efforts." She gave him a sardonic look at that, and took a sample of eggs, toast, and bacon for herself. "Aren't we a little past this by now, Hex?" she asked him, something like hope in her voice as she ate. "After all the work I did learning to cook, I'm not going to backslide now and try to poison you, right?" She gave him a smile just shaky at the edges. "See, it's good. I'm not stupid, I'm not going to throw away a good thing now, just when things are getting good." --- "Gah!" Shinnosuke glared at Trevor, and did something unexpected: he blew him a kiss. "You decide to talk to ME, huh? Must be my lucky day! How do I know where your little combine harvester is?" He was scared, evidently, but he chose to express that in a way very much unlike the shy hacker Trevor was familiar with. In a low whisper, he added with a hiss, "Did you let her _out_?" he asked, suddenly, a smile on his face as if in dawning realization. "Oh, this is too good. I can't wait to see YOU get fifty lashes! I bet you're a groaner. Maybe Beaumont'll let me hold the cat!" --- Peering out the window, Blake and Warren could see a much-warped Claremont campus outside. The buildings were almost all a collection of blocky, ugly brick cubes that reminded them of pictures of old Soviet-style architecture. The exceptions were what looked like the library, now cast as a grim, Gothic building complete with gargoyles and looming statuary, and an outdoor field that looked more like a military parade ground than a high school's soccer field. Most of the people outside were in black and red uniforms, but some were in more distinctive costumes vaguely recognizable as warped versions of the students they knew from back home. Others were in shabby, utilitarian clothes of brown and grey. All of those in the slave uniforms were busy doing something: some carrying books, others pushing heavy carts, and some running messages or other errands. As the two teens watched, a hatch opened in the ground, disgorging several adults in uniform and a handful of adult and teenage slaves. A uniformed adult smacked a teenage slave on the side of the head, making him jump and run faster as he carried a pack loaded with equipment into a building marked "Science Department." --- All was silence in Erin's confinement. It was a decidedly unpleasant sensation. She heard a sliding noise inside the top panel of her bureau, but by the time she got there whatever door had opened had closed. Instead, it seemed that breakfast was served as she looked down at the dish of food there waiting for her. The food looked bland and uninteresting; a bowl of oatmeal with a plastic spoon, a large Styrofoam cup full of water, and a single carefully sliced apple. Before she could take the food, she heard a mechanized, but human, voice say "Can you understand me?"

Another trip

In our world, when his son and his friends rejected the Utopia he'd built, a grief-stricken Rick Lucas recognized the error of his ways and fled into the multiverse in shame. But in a world perilously close to this one, when his son and his allies attempted to overthrow the worldwide dictatorship he'd constructed in order to put the Lucas family in command of the world, a bitter, vengeful Rick Lucas fled into the multiverse to plot revenge on his wastrel son and his callow gang of hooligans at the Syndicate Academy Two Weeks After the Events of 'A Trip Between Two Worlds' Duncan Summers listened as a rather battered Psyche told her story, the young telepath recovering far better than most students would have after the experience she'd had. Erin's sudden nighttime assault had nearly killed the sleeping Alex, only Psyche's incredible mental speed letting her reach into Erin's mind and shut down her attacker. It had only taken him a few minutes of evaluation to confirm what Nurse Joy and Ms. Harcourt had already told him: this Erin White, with the blood under her fingernails and haggard face, even in psychically-induced sleep maintained by the best psychics at the school, was not the Erin White of their world. And that particular disease seemed to be catching. Luckily, the school was prepared for that. Though dopplegangers of Kid Cthulu, Rift, Midnight II, and Edge had all appeared in bursts of magical energy around campus, the new inter-universal security system that Mrs. Harcourt had installed in previous weeks had worked like a charm. Though the dopplegangers had unfortunately escaped from campus, he was completely confident that Young Freedom, the Alterni-Teens, and the Next-Gen would track down the warped, morally inverted doubles of his students. It's a good thing we're prepared for incursions, thought Summers, bending down to pet the unhappy cat curling his orange tail around the headmaster's cane. If we were oriented towards offense rather than defense, who knows how long they could have kept up the imposture? -- Mark Lucas rarely had particularly elaborate dreams. Indeed, usually he didn't remember anything about them. Tonight, though, his REM visions were exceptionally unsettling. He was confronted by a vision of his father: not the father he knew, but a grim, furious version of Rick Lucas with a goatee and eyepatch, wearing a black and red leather uniform as he confronted his son. His 'father' informed him that he and his friends were being tested, tested to see if good really was better than evil, if courage was a stronger talent than cleverness. He wasn't alone, he realized: Erin, Trevor, Blake, and Warren were all there too, each as paralyzed and mute as he was in the dreamscape! Before he could respond, he was suddenly plummeting into a deep black void... -- Mark woke up in bed, starting awake with a cry, and then nearly fell out of bed entirely when he realized he wasn't alone in his room. Or his bed. "Dreaming about that witch again?" asked Daisy Gibbons. The beautiful blonde prom queen yawned and stretched, giving Mark a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Don't worry, Pathos and Assault aren't going to harsh your buzz today, not unless those Loonies get their heads handed to them ahead of schedule. Are you getting up?" "Uh...yes?" Mark looked around wildly, staying in control of himself by sheer force of will. Don't panic. Figure out what's going on. Daisy wasn't actually naked, thank God, but she was in a skimpy harem-girl outfit that didn't look like comfortable pajamas. She had scars on her body that looked new, some on her stomach and some on her back, where a large S-brand was clearly visible. A more thoughtful man might have panicked, but Mark was all about rolling with what was going on. "All right," allowed Daisy, her bare shoulders relaxing as she slid out of the king-sized bed and headed for the kitchen. When the hell did I get a kitchenette!?! thought Mark as Daisy went in, the door she opened showing that Mark and Mike's dorm room had been transformed into a suite as big as a luxury hotel's. "Bacon and eggs as usual, and..." She stuck her head back in the room and gave Mark a stare. "When did you shave off your beard?" she asked him. "I'm trying something new," Mark improvised as he sat up, trying to figure out where his pants were. Surely all this black leather couldn't be his. "Do you like it?" he asked her, giving her a half-smile. "I like anything you do," Daisy told him without hesitation, something behind her eyes closing off as she stuck her head back in the kitchen. Something in her eyes even got through to Mark, and he felt a little sick. Oh God, did I actually go to Hell this time? C'mon, none of it was illegal and everyone had fun! When Daisy was gone, Mark started looking for his clothes in a hurry, and his commlink to go with it. Last time he'd gone to Hell, his friends had come to rescue him. If that dream had been a reality...well, he owed them all his life already.

"Having a legacy is hard," Edge agreed. "Wondering all the time if you're living up to your family's past, wondering if you're as worthy of being part of the story of Freedom's heroes as they were. The worst thing, though," he added darkly, "is when you find out that the people you've admired all your life were just as flawed as anyone else. Someone once said, I don't know who, that no man is a hero to his valet." Mark looked up, raising his head suspiciously. "No, it just seems quiet...wait, that IS suspicious, isn't it?" He jumped to his feet, looking around. "Who'd cause trouble here!?" he demanded angrily.

Fusion was on the phone longer than the others had expected, Joan having called her daughter and husband both just for a few moments. But despite her own upset, she was on the clock: she had to work. And that meant doing some research thanks to her intern Jeff at the office, following up on a nagging hint the recording had placed in her mind. "OK, OK, I'll use my ID to get in there. Thanks, Jeff." Hanging up and tucking the phone into her costume with one long suckered limb, the octopoid heroine rejoined her colleagues. "Fleur, Gabriel, I've got a lead. Whether that Fleur de Joie was a Grue or not," she said, nodding to Fleur, "she was using language that's already in the system. Back in 1985, just before Franklin Moore was elected Mayor, a former superhero called Red Bolt broke into the Lonely Point Naval Base back when they kept nuclear missiles on the subs here. He killed the captain of the Rhode Island, the ship he was trying to hijack, and almost got the launch codes out of the first officer before the Centurion stopped him. All he said at his trial was 'The Shepard must purge the world for his flock.'" She looked at the others. "Red Bolt is still here, right here, in Freedom City. He's been held at Providence Asylum since 1985."

Elsewhere Still As lightning boomed behind Mark Lucas, he laughed a deep baritone laugh and stroked his stylish goatee. "Nnnyeesss! Soon, my friends, soon," he said, turning to his allies-cum-minions of the Young Imperials. "We shall return to our extra-dimensional investigations and open up a doorway to that soft, weak world of fools and cowards we saw the other day! And there we shall have a conquest just as...pleasant as the one we just left," he added with a lascivious smile, "but far more BLOODY! Bwahahahaha!" He coughed, then looked at the others as they stared at him silently. Well, one couldn't stare, given that she was inside a box and not looking at anything except the blood on her hands. "We'll work on that later."

A good character, but you need to make some adjustments. Please put in her ability modifiers: i.e.; Notice is 12 (+14) thanks to her +2 Wisdom. Good news: Fades is a flaw, not a drawback on Speed! Your combat math is off. +8 attack costs 16 points, and +7 Defense (your base defense) costs 14 points. You need to specify what her shield actually does, since you haven't finished inputting that. I wouldn't build it the way you have: Deflect is overpriced and not actually that useful for you.

APPROVED

APPROVED

Mark and Marcie had a surprisingly quiet conversation with Hypatia where they confirmed that no, there was no chance the force with their powers trying to get into Earth-Y was Mark's father, or Marcie's mother, for that matter. Thanks to all the emotions dredged up, they were both a little keyed up as they said their goodbyes. Marcie threw caution to the winds and grabbed Mark by the lapels, pulling him in for a passionate kiss he returned with gusto, momentarily distracting even the millennia-old Hypatia from her work. It was quite a kiss. "It was really fun, Mark," she said, stepping back herself to stand alongside her teammates with a satisfied look on her face. "Your team is always welcome on Earth-Prime. Maybe next time we'll do a real adventure and beat up some real bad girls!" "Yeah!" said Mark exuberantly, heading back to join his own team. "We'll show them that you don't mess with Young Freedom on any world!" He grinned at the others, then said, "Thanks for taking us in! Maybe next time, we'll get together on OUR turf! There's always room for justice!" Mark beamed, then added, "And whatever that was out there, even if he's some kind of other us, I bet he doesn't have friends like these backing him up! Friends to the end!" And with that, at Hypatia's signal, they were gone! - Earth-Prime The three Claremont kids reappeared in the classroom they'd left, Mark and Erin standing together in front of the quiet dimensional gateway, Mrs. Harcourt in the corner where she'd stood, and Trevor in the rear. It was dark in there, naturally, despite the daylight hour. The doors were sealed up the way they usually were in these situations of misplaced students and faculty, covered in magnetic NO EXIT tape to keep out trespassers, and Ms. Harcourt went to call campus security and let them know that the dimensional travelers had returned.

"Wait..." Fusion looked at the others, taking several deep breaths before continuing. "Look, Gabriel, Grimalkin...Joan," she said, pain in her voice as she studied her double. "Look at this. Look at this story." She held it up so they could all see. "Do you know what this means? It means that history can be changed! You were right! We can stop this without shedding blood, because you've already changed things! You're all heroes. And whatever has happened, that's still true. We can do this without any more innocent blood on our hands-" "NO!" The other Fusion screamed. "No, I won't be cheated again! Not after I promised my baby girl!" And with that she leaped for Fleur's throat, tentacles extended, and vanished in a sudden puff of light. Her last cry of "Loissss!" echoed on the wind as the other time travelers looked at each other. "She went through first," Grim called, "so she must have gone back first..." The others were all fading now, though more slowly. "The PDA is tuned to this time. It'll stay here till history changes!" said Grim, vanishing back to the grim world that had spawned her. As for Gabriel, he looked at them all before saying simply: "You have a chance to fix things. Deserve it." Fusion almost dropped the PDA before handing it to Fleur, a stricken look visible behind her mask. "Look, I'll...I'll plan with you guys in a minute. I need to call my daughter's school and make sure she's okay." And with that, she took a few steps to the side, pulling a phone out from inside her costume.

Eventually they made contact with the Harcourts, Mrs. Harcourt having evidently stayed over at her doubles' house the night before, leaving the teens to wonder what Mr. Harcourt's wife and kids had thought about that! Mark and Marcie wondered, at least, shooting glances at each other and occasionally holding hands when no one was looking. The Harcourts were interested in the kids' theories, encouraging them to continue their speculations. Mark and Marcie both spoke up a lot, the better to distract attention from other stuff. "It has to have been more than just luck that brought us all together," said Mark uncharacteristically. "I just...It seems like something else has to have been going on." Sure enough, Hypatia had a lot to tell the kids. "I've found both how to reverse your polarity and return you home, as well as the source of the interference that pulled you to this axis." The armored immortal heroine looked at the Young Freedom members carefully before saying, "There was an attempted incursion into the noo-dimensional space of Earth-Y. The energy frequency matched that of the two Lucases, pouring through the holes opened by the half-completed dimension doorway, leading you to this world. The good news is, the security systems that the Harcourts were building did block any further incursions on that frequency. Your world is safe from...that particular method of dimensional incursion."