Avenger Assembled

Great sheet, love the background! Go in and add your heavy load with super-strength and your leaping distance. Don't forget to add your descriptors. (Mutation, presumably?)

"It can be soothing," said Freedom Angel, smiling faintly. "There is infernal activity enough, and pure mortal wickedness, to give anyone a great sense of satisfaction in a job well-done in this city. And with those who've chosen sin, and do so knowingly and willingly, for reasons beyond despair and fear, well...I feel a great swell of pity for them. _After_ the battle, when they can no longer harm innocents." He studied Gavriel's champion for a moment, then asked, "When you spoke to the archangel, what did he say to you, exactly?"

"I've had worse," said Joan, frowning a little. "But you're right. God knows worse things could happen to me, or any other hero." She laughed a little, and added, "Hell, you saw me going through some of that the other day. I'm just glad your friend Alex was there. I tried contacting her for tonight," she added, "but apparently she's at a business meeting." She hmmed, then added, "So, long as we're telling war stories, did I hear you say something about getting sucked into other dimensions? I met the male version of myself once, but I've mostly done globe-hopping not dimension-hopping."

Half an hour later, Erin had finished her pie and was onto the really good, Seattle-style coffee that Joan had made. She hadn't had to say more than a few words. "And so it is really difficult. Between the barely-supers like Bombshell, who think they need to earn the respect of men by dressing up for them, and the ladies who make a big show of their whitebread lifestyles so they don't have to deal with the catcalls in their own way, it's not easy. Even the ones I don't like at least have the freedom to make their own choices, though, so I have to respect that. Even if they do make things tougher for the rest of us, particularly with all the super-fetishists out there." Lois had cleared away from the table by now, as had Charlie: evidently they'd heard this kind of thing from her before. "I'm sorry," she said, "am I being too blunt? I know you're just a kid, but you've seen some of the weirder crap out there. And then they have the gall to hide behind freedom of the press."

Joan didn't press that subject, not wanting to scare off the girl who'd saved her life. It was evidently an awkward one, and the last thing she wanted to do was hurt her feelings. "When I'm older, maybe," she said, shooting a look at her husband who carefully concentrated on his pie. "Right now this is where I'm working, and Charlie's working, and Lois is going to school. We can't keep moving her around." Lois piped up then with some stories about being a little kid on Macek Island, a fascinating place that sounded like it had a lot of aliens on it. When she was done, Joan asked Erin, "Do you find it's tough being a teen superheroine in today' society? I've seen some Young Freedom coverage and I've noticed how much press the boys always get."

"I know the feeling," Joan agreed whole-heartedly. "Freedom City summers are the only thing that's seriously made me contemplate just vacationing from my ID for a few days." That sparked a conversation between her and her husband as he came back with the pie; it sounded like that was something of a sore subject. When they'd gotten that straightened out, and everyone was eating again, Joan studied the girl, putting some details together about her backstory. "It's a long way from here to the West Coast. We're going to have to pay to fly Lois' grandma out here rather than everyone go there for the holidays this year." It wasn't hard to make some guesses about the girl's life, given where she was during the summer. "Were you able to make it home over the holidays?" she asked gently.

Superior takes another bruised, leaving him at -2. Midnight is up.

Geckoman: 22 Phalanx: 21 Edge: 18 Wander: 17 Midnight: 17 Rift: 8 Hellion: 8 The Centurion goes on 28; Superior goes on 11 The Centurion takes a move action to fly over and punch Superior in the face. He hits Superior's Defense of 22 DC 40 Tou save from the All-Out-Power-Attack He is bruised and stunned No knockback, to save time. Phalanx is up. Phalanx is up, since technically all this happened on his turn.

"You cannot carve the heart of sin from man," replied Heyzel gently. "If the Creator and all his angels couldn't do so, why believe that you can? Or should?" He shook his head, giving Gabriel a sympathetic look. "To save one life is to save your own, Gabriel. Don't imagine that you've fallen because you haven't already saved the world." He sighed, and admitted, "We cannot save the world alone. We need other striving with us for love and justice; not just people in costumes and masks," he added, the sunlight gleaming off his silver armor, "but the men and women on the street who do all they can to make this a better place. Think of this city," he said, gesturing to the view around them. "Besieged a thousand times by terrible fiends, each time barely rescued by the good auspices of its heroes. But the people here live, and love, and know joy. Not because of anything we do, but because they are who they are. That they can know love and happiness here, and the mercy of Heaven, is the finest reward for our work I can imagine."

Decided I'd kept you guys waiting long enough. Everybody, have an HP and take whatever actions seem appropriate.

"Fool! You'll never penetrate the mad schemes of Dr. Stratos! His genius is-" That voice, that very familiar voice, was too easy for the boys to recognize. In a flash of light, the robot vanished entirely, the illusory construction leaving behind no traces in its wake. The impervium hallway in front of them was scarred with the marks of Rift's blasts, as well as a circular hole in the wall where blank white walls were just visible on the other side. Just past that, standing before a giant black machine that twisted bizarrely through a thousand impossible shapes, cables leading from it into the white room, stood an abashed-looking Sebastian Stratos, his small frame ridiculous in a huge winter overcoat, while a white-faced Medea stood carefully behind him. "Well, crap," he said, his words punctuated by a ripping sound from behind the teens as Wander and Hellion's fists and sword broke through the impervium door behind them, reuniting Young Freedom as they stood together at the edge of tomorrow. "I am so mad at Simian right now! Him and his fool Auto-Illusion can go piss up a rope!" He tore off his ski cap and jumped on it, then added hastily, "But he'll be pissing up that rope as a king! Because do you know what, children? Medea and I have done it! We've cracked the doors of Creation and freed a being with the power to bring you heroes down to where you belong! I give you...SUPERIOR!" And then, while Medea cast a glowing white shield to temporarily block the heroes attacks, Stratos reached inside himself. The mad genius pulled on decades of hate and loathing for the costumed clowns who'd taken away so many of his dreams of respect, of power, of world domination, and poured it out in one magnificent eruption of lightning, the sheer power of the actintic bolt nearly blinding the onlooking heroes as electricity rushed from his body and blasted deep into the heart of the great machine, then rocketed from there into the heart of the Zero Room. "FOOLS! NOW YOU'LL ALL PAY!" He paused a beat, peering into the glowing white man-sized hole he'd carved in the wall. "Hey, who's-" Then the room went mad. A blonde figure in a black uniform came blasting through the hole, slapping Stratos aside. The mad scientist smashed into the wall with a loud crunch, staggering as he tried to right himself. Superior, his eyes wide and staring, blinked rapidly until he pulled out a set of black goggles from his Nazi-cut uniform, pulling them over his eyes. "Damn this brightness...out of my way, you fools!" He spat as he flew at the kids. "Don't you know who's behind me?" Behind him, his uniform battered and torn, his handsome face half-hidden by a cybernetic harness around his neck and back, a very, very familiar figure appeared. "Not this time, Kal-Zed!" called the Centurion. "The young heroes of Freedom are here to stop you! And so am I!" And with that, he flew in and landed a devastating punch in the middle of Superior's chest, the KOOM of impact like a sonic boom that blurred the air, sending the Nazi superman back into the impervium wall behind him, his super-tough body cracking it as surely as Edge's had a few minutes earlier. "You'll never win, Kal-Zed!"

Mark led the way as they headed downstairs, animatedly telling the story of how he'd found the ticket for the taffy contest in a shirt he'd been planning to donate to Goodwill. "Alex has me volunteering at soup kitchens some nights," he said, almost walking backwards as he pedeconferenced his way out the door. "You guys should try it sometime, it's pretty fun! Well, not that fun, I mean, I feel really bad for those people, but it feels good when you can help them out." He smiled. "Sometimes when they don't have food, I make my own! I should cook for you guys sometime, make something better than what we ate before we went to the Arctic. How you guys like the weather?"

"I am no man," the angel reminded him, "but I would be happy to help." He landed, folding his wings behind him, and peered at Gabriel. "You are uncertain about your mission," he said after a moment's contemplation. "You wonder why the power of Heaven would be made incarnate in mortal man, particularly in a world where power flows so very freely." He made a gesture to the sky, where a distant superhero flew. "It is a difficult question. As Heaven's ambassador to Earth, I am often faced with the same," he confessed. "It's why I've acted as a superhero," he said, "and why you should do the same, even here. People understand you better that way. It's easier to...fit in."

Eventually Charlie got up to get dessert out of the oven, a chocolate cream pie that everyone seemed to be looking forward to. "Charlie's a great cook, you'll love it. He learned a lot of new dishes when we were in Japan, and I think it really upped his culinary talents. We're really eating well these days." She laughed, then said, "Erin, you mentioned you were from Seattle, yes?" She'd picked up on the tension in the girl's voice at the thought. "Did your family send you out here so you could get hero training in Freedom? I know we're pretty thin on the ground in parts of the West Coast."

"Actually," said Mark, "she's a millionaire! She runs the AEON Corporation, I dunno if you've heard of that." He smiled. "She's pretty fun, we're on Young Freedom together. That's one of the teams here at school," he added. "We're not supposed to go out and adventure in costume, so we only do it if we're needed. Or if we need to patrol," he added. "I mean we need to practice that kind of stuff. Now that you're here, we can patrol the whole world!" Not wanting to neglect Tasha, he added, "Have you met my friend Bankshot? She's visually impaired as well, but she's got this cool radio power that lets her be a really great shot! You should meet her sometime. In the meantime, I'll give you a tour too!" Back at Dimitri, he added, "Sure, I'll give you the GPS." He pulled it off his own teleporter and read it off to him.

In a flash of light, an angel appeared before him. This was less surprising to Gabriel than it might have been to most people, but this was an angel he'd not seen before. This was Heyzel, the angel of Freedom, a member of the Freedom League. For his part, Heyzel gave the man a careful once-over. So this was the candidate Gavriel had chosen to bear a tiny fraction of his awesome power? He looked a man of faith and devotion, but what had made the regent of Heaven empower him? "I come in answer to your prayer, chosen of Gavriel. I am Heyzel, the angel of Freedom."

"That's one reason why I've tried to be on teams," said Joan with a little laugh. "Or live in a place like Freedom, so I can trust emergencies are being taken care of if I can't get away. As for the rest, well, I just have to be careful. It helps that I can turn invisible, and keep my costume on under my clothes and put it on without thinking about it." She demonstrated, letting black, shiny cloth flow out from under her clothes, then back underneath in between bites of salmon. "Morphic costumes are a godsend. Best money I ever spent in our line of work. And," she added, meeting her husband's gaze for a second in what was obviously a private joke, "it helps that my job puts me in harm's way. Or at least gives me an excuse to be there. I actually got my powers through a workplace accident."

Joan hmmed, considering how much to weigh the girl's words. "It's very handy," she agreed. "And a sacred trust," she added. "Scarab pitched a fit when she talked to me after the article, as you can imagine, but one thing she couldn't say was that I'd threatened her identity. I think you're forgetting, though, that superheroes are technically the same people, whether they're in masks or not. I didn't hurt the reputation of Scarab's ID, but I did cause problems for her in costume. Because her judgement was impaired, and that was where she needed to worry."

"Actually, a lot of us have personal teleporters," said Mark, cheerfully whipping his own out and tossing it from hand to hand. "They're pretty nifty, I've got to say! I got this from my friend Alex; she's a genius! It must be really handy to do it without needing a mechanical aid, though," he added. "They, uh, usually don't make us pay for lunch," he added with a wink. "We're already all on either scholarship or whatever our parents can afford to pay, right? We could go to that little cafe off-campus if you don't want to eat in the cafeteria. It's pretty nice."

"Hello!" A cheerful voice boomed from behind Dimitri! Turning around, he was confronted with shiny white teeth, bright blue eyes, and a tall, thin young man with a jovial look on his face. "You must be Dimitri. I'm Mark Lucas, I'm your tour guide today. I know you're just commuting, but it's still good to know where everything is." he said cheerfully. "I'm semi-commuting myself, though I don't have the advantages you do." He laughed. "I can still give you some ideas there, i guess. Or we can just hang out and see the place." Mark's cheerfulness wasn't quite overbearing, but he evidently had a very strong, very happy personality. "Hey there," he added to Tasha, giving her a friendly wink. "I don't think I've seen you around here before."

"It's not easy," Joan conceded. "Especially when you've got four extra arms that don't go away," she added, one idly poking up from under the table as they talked. "But I have a morphic costume that helps me cover my face and conceal my identity, and I dress up like Scarlett O'Hara most of the time when I'm not in costume." She sighed a little and added, "I envy you kids a little, it must be nice to be able to blow all that off. But I've made a lot of enemies over the last few years, and I can't let Charlie and Lois get in trouble because of that. For that matter, I don't know how many heroes would spend a lot of time talking to me if they knew my job. I'm a columnist," she added, "for the Ledger."

"The fifth grade," said Lois, surprising Erin given how young she was. "I was born real early, so I've usually been a year ahead. And the lessons I took in Japan let me test out of American fourth grade." She smiled nervously, her round cheeks blushing slightly under her faintly bronzed skin. "It's tough being small, but at least I'm way ahead of all the dorky kids my own age." "Honey, they can't help they weren't as lucky as you were," said Joan gently, not wanting Erin to think Lois was any more spoiled than she already was. "Lois and Charlie came out with me when I was working with the Defenders in Japan, so Lois spent three years in Japanese-style preschool and elementary." "And I got to be a house-husband," said Charlie with a chuckle. "Those were the days, huh?" It was hard to tell if there was a tension there between husband and wife, but Joan did change the subject in a hurry, reaching for a plate with an irritated flick of her long, suckered tentacle. "How do you find balancing hero work and being in school?" Joan asked Erin.

"Yeah, she's pretty cool," said Lois, who wasn't quite old enough yet to be jaded about her mom's accomplishments. "We haven't had other superheroes over for dinner since we moved into this house! It's cool!" At the table, Joan kept her promise and made the flowers a centerpiece as they all sat down around the salmon casserole that Joan herself had learned to cook in her native Portland. They passed the dishes around so everyone could get some of Joan's heaping portions, and everyone dug in without much fanfare. "I noticed how strong and fast you are, Erin," Joan commented as she ate, "Do you work out a lot at school?" She gave her daughter a suggestive look, earning her just the faintest trace of an eyeroll. Maybe she's getting older faster than I thought, Joan thought wryly. "I'm just saying, doing sports and physical activities can be very important."

"Thank you," said Joan, taking the flowers and smelling their daisy fragrance. "I'll put these on the table for the centerpiece. Come inside, and I'll introduce you to the family." Her family didn't usually eat many sitdown meals, but tonight was a company night. The Collier house was a small one, smaller certainly than the Albright manor or the Lucas suburban dwelling, but the little rowhouse was cozy with flowery wallpaper and high-quality yardsale brand furniture, though most of that was modified to accommodate what Erin quickly realized were her host's appendages. Joan sighed with relief as she let her arms wiggle free, the limbs poking out from under her dress. "I hate, hate, hate the summer weather out here," she admitted. "Keeping myself under wraps is not easy. Ah, here they come now." A smiling, bespectacled man and a round-faced girl of about nine came over to say hello. Charlie was a balding, bespectacled man of about thirty, his slight paunch and soft hands showing he worked indoors much more than his wife. "Hello, it's so nice to meet you," he said, a little formally. "Welcome to our home." Lois, Joan's daughter, still hadn't shed her babyfat, and peered up at Erin through thick glasses before saying, "It was really cool what you did to that shark guy! Thanks for saving my mom!"

"Oh, wow! You got new powers!" Mark smiled, trying to comfort Trevor at a moment when he was obviously stressed out. "That's really cool. I mean, I know looking funny is weird," added the gorgeous, incredibly handsome heir to the famous Lucas genes, "but I'm sure you'll be able to get that figured out. I mean, it only just happened, right? We're teenagers, it's sort of like super-powered puberty." He clapped Trevor on the shoulder and added, "You should go see Nurse Joy, man. She can look you over and see if what happened will stick, or if you need to go see one of the regular super-scientists like Viktor Archeville to see what's really going on. I mean, that's why we have nurses and doctors who know about this stuff!"