Avenger Assembled

49. He is pinned!

She's going to Pin. Next round, though, things will be different!

Fusion's Skill Mastery on Sense Motive means she makes that Intimidate save automatically. Standard Action:She hits him with her Dazzle effect. Free Action: She switches the Dazzle array to Super-Strength She surges and spends an HP to cancel the fatigue Standard Action: She all-out power attacks and hits him with all her tentacles. That's a total DC 46 Grapple check. Assuming she wins, she chooses a Pin.

"AAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!" Fusion screamed in automatic reply, vomiting up another huge cloud of ink directly in the giant monster's face. Hissing defiance into that terrible face, she lashed out with her tentacles a moment later, wrapping them tight, tight around Megalodon's cartilaginous midsection, her tentacles scraping against the shark's scales. "You want a piece of this!?! I'll give you more of me than you can handle!"

The bees are snared! Freedom Angel takes no actions. Dark Star is up.

Dr. Archeville's cunning use of magnetism ensnared the bees as fast as a bee falling into amber, earning feet-kicking hysterics from the now-very angry bees as the mad scientist flew up to inspect the altered angel. Freedom Angel was in a bad way from the effects of the blast, his transparent wings buzzing with an almost deafening chorus. "Azzz he died to make men holy, let uzzz die to make men beeeee...." His voice was half-angel, half-buzzing insect, human eyes dotted with hexagons as he glared at Archeville. "WRETCHED STINGER!" He shouted, his voice an angelic, insectile chorus, "THE WORLD WILL BE CLEANZZED....heeeellllppp..."

For a second, Erin thought Summers was going to shake her hand, but that impulse seemed to pass quickly. "You can thank me by giving the League's facilities the same extremely high levels of commitment you've given this school over the past year." He smiled, very faintly, then added, "I'll see that you're briefed about training in subsequent weeks. Good afternoon, Ms. White."

Mad Dog misses. Avenger misses. The Astronaut uses a rank 7 Mental Blast against Mad Dog. DC 17 Will save.

Nimble despite its bulk, the Astronaut ducked and weaved, Mad Dog's stun collar failing to close on its armored neck. "FOOL!" It shouted. "IF I CANNOT HARVEST MY CROPS, I SHALL DEVOUR THE PESTS THAT HAVE TAKEN THEM FROM ME!" It raised its arm, hands glowing with awesome cosmic power, but had its aim thrown off by Avenger, whose kick at its face knocked it off-balance. Avenger's blow had been a glancing one, though, and the monster didn't look hurt. "I SHALL COOK YOU BOTH WITHOUT RESORT TO MY PLASMA RIFLE!" And with that it concentrated, pointing at the interloper, and Mad Dog felt his body begin to heat up!

Summers hmmed. "That tells me everything I need to know. Ms. White..." He put his hands down and gave her a level look. "I want to commend you for your heroic actions," he said, in the same tone which he'd used to interrogate her earlier. "Not only did you do your best to restrain your classmate, who I've already spoken to about his self control, you did so in the safest, least violent way you could have under the circumstances. Following that, you placed yourself in harm's way to help rescue fellow students." He nodded in satisfaction. "I'm going to put a commendation in your school file, and move you to advanced combat training in Freedom League-maintained facilities. You only have one more year here, and I want to make sure you have experience working alongside the adults who will be your professional colleagues upon graduation. Did you have any questions for me?"

"I did," said Summers, meeting Erin's eyes with his usual unreadable expression, his face like the carved totem poles from the Northwest she'd seen as a little kid. "Tell me everything that you recall from the evening of the junior prom. You can trust that I've spoken to your colleagues, so you can be assured I've been fully debriefed on any information you inadvertently omit."

Hey, I'm not one of those anti-esper freaks, thought Joan equitably. I was just letting you know I could tell you were in there. She paused a moment, had a deep inner monologue, and made a decision. You're going to trust me with your story? Well, I guess I'd better trust you with mine. She smiled, and suddenly rippled into invisibility in a very familiar pattern, her skin shifting to perfectly match the park behind her. When she was visible again, black morphic molecules had poured out over her skin, leaving her clad in a black ridged costume, a white biohazard symbol on her chest as she peered at the Scarab through two big, expressive eyeshapes in her full face mask. You'd better be worth it, sister, she thought with a laugh, before leaping through the hole.

Under the water, mighty tentacles lashed, cracking muscular limbs against the fragile cartilage of the sharks. "I! Hate! Sharks! So! Much!" she shouted under the water to no one in particular. Maybe Fusion was new to Freedom City, but she was a veteran hero, a skillful fighter with extensive knowledge of underwater combat. "If you weren't endangered, I'd go eat so much shark-fin soup!" She was careful with the shark-people, trying to stun the mutates rather than actually hurt them, the better to get them back on land afterwards.

Now that they're all within melee range, I hit them all! Fusion isn't blinded, since she has an Accurate sense in a radius. She takes ten, since they're minions, and Power Attacks. DC 30 Tou saves for all of them. If my takedown attack is down since that was a stunt earlier, I spend an HP to have it back.

"As you interview them, Ms. Albright, I invite you to consider this." He folded his hands and studied her. "With the exception of a few sociopaths, every inmate at the Foucault Facility believed they were acting in the best interests of someone there: their family, their religion, the greater good of mankind, or even their own pocketbook. Choosing between the right and the just is a difficult decision. I encourage you to find the path that lets you choose both." hmmed as Alex rose, then added, "Send in Ms. White when you see her. She is the last bit of business that must be completed about that night."

"Excellent." Avenger was behind Jack of all Blades with no sign of how he'd got there, though Jack was certainly appreciative of how efficiently his counterpart had gotten past the opposition. "Suggest we take the elevator. Best if not winded on 14th floor. Can make sure no one comes in." They both got in, and Avenger pushed the button, letting his leather gloves hide fingerprints. Cheesy Musak played as they rose. "Nice mask. Store-bought?"

TK 13 and then Transform 9!

"Just one more thing needs doing." Edge concentrated on the decapitated Centurion statue, the head rising in the air and landing on the neck. With a slow grinding sound, the two pieces cemented themselves back together a little awkwardly, prompting a wince from Mark. "Well, that's not that great...but Dr. Metropolis can patch it up all the way." He scratched his head. "I think we're ready."

For his part, Mark excused himself upstairs, returning just a few minutes later in his familiar costume with a comfy-looking fur parka over it. "I've got plenty of winter gear! It'll be a breeze, guys! Let's go!" He gathered everyone up and took them upstairs, unlocking a heavy steel door and letting them all into his father's Trophy Room. It was a strange place. There was something bizarrely mundane about being among so many monuments to famous past events in a suburban rumpus room: there was a convincing copy of Horus the Avenger's Ankh, there was the Cosmic Rod the Centurion had pulled from the hand of Omega when the Terminus invaded in 1965, there was Mark's dad's college football jersey, what looked like pictures of baby Mark winning a reading contest, there was Hades' Helm of Invisibility, and Lady Liberty's white costume from the 1970s. "Okay, guys!" said Mark, digging in the closet. "I've got the teleporter in here somewhere..."

The bee dropped 'Fleur' in the Bee-Keeper's arms, bringing a terrible laugh from the villainous madman. "Bwahaha!" He shook his fist at Dark Star as he swept her up in his arms. "I have your woman now, alien! Soon this world will belong to the Bee-Keeper! Bwaha-what, what are you doing!?! Nooooo!" For even as he clutched the fake Fleur to his breast, twenty gigantic bees overwhelmed his defenses, punching him and smacking him around, battering the Bee-Keeper like a hornet intruding on a hive. "Ohhh nooooo!"

One of the bees flies up to the Bee-Keeper, giving him "Stesha". He grapples her. The others attack him! Mind Controlled as they are, they're not smart enough for Combined Attack. Half use their stingers and can't hurt him; half try to hit him unarmed. With his low Defense thanks to his recent All-Out Attack, virtually all hit. Rather than roll for a mass attack that would end the fight right here, I'll say he's bruised, stunned, and staggered. He's hurt pretty bad, but he's not out of the fight. Have an HP for the Fiat, Stesha! Doc A is up.

APPROVED

Any reason why he has such a high base attack?

Moving into action, Mad Dog was just about to reach the scene when suddenly everything seemed to explode. A black-clad figure moving with near-impossible speed fell among the thugs, fists and feet flying, and within the space of mere seconds the gangsters and their cronies were all down for the count, groaning in pain as they lay in puddle of their own blood, bodies battered and beaten by Avenger's onslaught. With the thugs down, Avenger stood proudly on the field of battle, thinking now about what to do with all these dogs. A moment later, though, the scene changed: in a flare of light just behind Avenger, a humanoid figure appeared: clad in a shiny silver space suit with a heavy bubble helmet, it looked like nothing from this world. The Astronaut blurted in a mechanical voice "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS! WHO HAS TAKEN MY PAWNS!?" With that, it fired a devastating beam of sizzling plasma at Avenger, scorching black leather and dead flesh as the vigilante rolled and took shelter behind a crate. What the hell was going on?

Avenger sets his Vampire Array to Visual Concealment+Speed. He uses Wall-Crawling to get down the wall and across the street, falling in among the thugs. He Power Attacks and takes 10, hitting all the thugs for a DC of 30. None of them can make that save, so they're all down. The alien teleports in and sizes up the situation. Mad Dog and Avenger both get an HP for his catching them by surprise. He shoots the now-visible Avenger.. DC 29 Tou save. 16, yikes! With HP...Ouch! Avenger is injured.