Avenger Assembled

Get there with a move action Drop Concealment Use Dazzle (her Dazzle is a Reflex/Reflex save, since it's an ink she sprays in the monster's face) DC 20 Reflex to avoid, since it's a Cone Area (note that she's in front of Valkyrie and Divine, so she won't hit them. And then surge and a punch in the snoot for DC 25 Tou.

Whew. Godly neighborhood. Reminds me of Hachiman. Fusion was an atheist, but not a fool: it was hard to ignore divine power when it was right there in front of you! She swung up as close to the beast as she could get, still invisible to normal human eyes, and studied the situation briefly. Big son of a gun. Better get him as weak as I can before I hit him! And with that, she did something she usually hated: appearing in a blur of black armor and whirling octopus arms long enough to reach past the ceiling, she opened her mouth wide and vomited out a jet of inky black fluid all over the monster's face in a huge cone of octopus ink. From there, she swung further forward and punched the fallen-down thing right in the face!

Jack shifted, looking a little uncomfortable at this line of talk. "Well, I mean, we don't know for sure there's a parallel of me there. I'm not even from Freedom City, so I'm sure there are plenty of worlds where I just don't live here..." Taylor looked skeptical at that, and rightly so, given the close parallels she'd observed between that world and this one. "In any event..well, I guess we don't know more till we actually look there, either with your spells or Hellion's super-science." He thought for a minute, listening to the others, then admitted, "I've seen Grue who've been turned into vampires. I think he was a leftover from the invasion back in '04," he said out loud. "As for demons...I don't know. I have seen undead demons before. We'll have to be careful."

Fleur de Joie: 23 Beeeees: 16 Doc Arch: 8 Freedom Angel: 6 Dark Star: 5 Bee-Keeper: 5 Ace Danger: 4 Fleur is up

Fusion failed the Reflex save, but passed the Fort save: 23

Fusion goes on 16

"Aw, honey," said Charlie Smith, looking up at his wife Joan Collier as she rose from the dining room table, her arms thrashing as they emerged from underneath her dress. "Do you have to go now? We were about to go ta bed..." The Smith-Collier family had sat down to eat dinner earlier, the beer-can chicken Joan had prepared transforming into Scrabble night when they were done. And as usual, Scrabble generally meant fooling around afterwards. "Charlie, we've got to take care of the neighborhood. This is our neighborhood now, which means I've got to keep an eye on things." She patted them on the shoulder from across the room and said, "I'll be back real soon, I hope." And with that, she let her costume spill over her body, transforming Joan Collier, spunky reporter and homemaker, into the mighty Fusion. She swung off into the Freedom City night from her window, concealing herself against the background as she disappeared from view. At the sight of the huge hellhound, she said a bad word and swung closer. Great...

"Don't thank me yet, Mr. Harris," said Summers, smiling faintly. "You're already on the list for meditative therapy; you should keep that up. Beyond that, I want a ten page paper on my desk at the end of the week laying out the history of the Centurion's battles with mind control and other emotionally affecting issues. Use the school archives if you want to go beyond the public record. See if you can get a better idea of how to deal with situations like that in the future. In the meantime, send in Ms. Albright when you see her, would you?"

Base Attack Score is too low: you need to have at least a third of your total ATK bought up under our house rules: needs to be at least four. Could you maybe do something with this guy so that his background isn't "I'm the guy who fights. I fight all the time." Maybe actually say something about where and when he's from, etc?

"Well, uh..." Mark cleared his throat. "I know I've been really distracted lately, guys, but I've had a lot going on. I'm sorry I haven't been there for you all as much as I should have been," he admitted. "I've had a lot going on. I guess we all have. So that's why I want you guys to come with me up to the Arctic Circle." He let out a breath, then added, "Uh, I guess I should explain that. Well, when my dad left, I...I inherited a lot of things from him. And one of those is that every year, he used to go up to the Centurion's Sanctum and check the machinery there. It was one of the only jobs he still did for the Freedom League, even the new League. And since my dad's gone now...well, that's my job now. And I'd like you all to come with me to the Sanctum this year." The Centurion's Sanctum! Instantly recognizable to those raised on tales of the Centurion, much less those who knew his story more personally, the Sanctum's tale need not be told here. The home-away-from-home for the greatest hero of the universe, buried deep in the Arctic ice, had become a museum and monument to his greatest works, preserved with care by the Freedom League in the memory of their greatest champion. Who wouldn't want to go? Or so Mark hoped, ayway.

"None of us are," agreed Summers. "But when you put on that cape and those tights, you're wearing his colors even when you're not wearing blue and gold. You can't be the Centurion, Mr. Harris. But you can be the man he'd wanted you to be. And that's the most important thing, Mike," he said, his voice softening. "Don't try and be a great man. Be a good man. The rest will follow from that."

Heroes' Knoll wasn't quite where Joan would have preferred to meet. There were few discreet places to sit out in that public view, not when she was trying to conceal the number of limbs that hung low off her midsection, and just standing there for however long she'd have to sit through the Scarab lecturing her on how this one was different and was trying to chaaaange, singing an old song she'd heard plenty of times before. For that matter, the clothes she typically wore in her civilian identity were usually uncomfortably warm outside. But she visited after working hours and found a bench with a seat low enough that she could sit with her heavy cotton dress draped over her hips and thighs, and then came back around 11:30 to wait for the Scarab. Carefully taking a seat, she took out her legal pad and ink pen, turned on the sound-activated dictaphone she'd concealed in her dress, and waited for her interlocuter to arrive.

"Mr. Harris, I want to show you something that will not leave this room." Reaching into his desk, he pulled out a series of photographs, both black and white and in color, and spread the grainy old images on his desk. As Mike studied the pictures, he realized they were all of the Centurion, but none of them were like Mike himself had ever seen: there was the Centurion attacking Americans in WWII uniforms, there he was with an alien slug on his head chasing Lady Liberty, and here he was punching through a National Guard tank in front of the Pyramid Plaza. "1941, 1967, and 1979. The Centurion was mind-controlled more than once in his career, but those were the times it stuck the longest." He touched the last one with a grave look on his face. "In 1979, he was part of a mind-controlled group of Leaguers that tore their way through an AEGIS team and a National Guard regiment. The Centurion himself didn't take lives....but he watched, and helped, as others did." Summers gave Mike a frank, completely honest look; the effect was a bit like sticking one's head over a blowtorch. "When people with your powers lose control of themselves, they become a danger to themselves and everyone around them. I don't need to tell you the potential consequences of what might have happened. The cape you wear and the reputation you carry is a proud responsibility. I will not see it sullied by juvenile public brawls." Before Mike could despair at the headmaster's harsh words, Summers went on. "Mr. Harris, the measure of a man's greatness isn't in the mistakes he makes. It's in what he does afterwards. You made a mistake last night, one that you'll feel guilty for for quite some time. The question you must ask yourself is, what are you going to do about that?" he asked him, a serious challenge in his voice. "You can wallow in guilt, denying yourself happiness as well as denying your talents to a world that needs men of your courage and power. Or you can be something better."

"All angels can sing," said Heyzel with just a little pride, "though I am no more inclined than the average. I once sang in the Celestial Choir," he said, "but I was only one voice in a chorus of uncounted vigintillions. To sing with my own voice alone would be...well, it would be very fine." He shot a look at the arguing teenagers and said, "I'd planned to sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which was always one of my favorites. And you?" he asked Talya and Ace.

"What!?" Jack sat bolt upright in bed. "Wesley Octavius Knight, did you tell Lynn and her...bunch that we murdered someone for that head!? It was a pig! It was a pig that you changed with your powers to look like a person! Aw, and now you've got Taylor looking at me like she wants to...Oh, that's real nice, honey." Avenger snapped. "Lord, no wonder she thinks I'm a psychopath! Sorry, honey, sorry, I'm almost done here...look, Wesley, we'll be there, okay? I'm sorry you've been so messed up. We'll talk later. And don't tell anyone I murdered people!"

"Well, it certainly is very crowded in here." Seeing two faces he recognized, the angel of Freedom made his awkward way through the crowd to Ace and Talya. "Hello," he said in a sociable way. "There are many more teenagers here than I expected," he commented quietly when the music stopped. He winced as he studied the relationship between the young man and young woman. "Ah, something vile happened there..."

"Aw, Wesley..." Jack winced, getting The Look from Taylor on his end of the line. "Six months of nightmares, really?" He thought back to the sound the knife had made cutting through the altered pig's neck, the look on Wesley's face as he dissolved the remains of the mutated animal with his powers. Chewing his lip, he said, "C'mon, Wesley, you remember how happy Lynn was that she didn't have to worry about her landlord anymore. And believe me, she really doesn't have to worry about him anymore. Look, I sort of assumed she'd talked to you about it, and so she would be able to just...laugh it off. Did you really have nightmares for six months?" He had only an abstract understanding of those, anyway.

The bees go on 16

Let's have a Stealth check, Ace and Stesha, assuming you're trying to stay hidden. It's DC 20 with the range and size penalty on the Bee's Notice.

OK, I guess Dark Star, Freedom Angel, and the Bee-Keeper are currently in initiative. Go ahead and roll, Dark Star. Freedom Angel: 6 Bee-Keeper: 5

"Yeah, that one looks really nice on y..." Jack took his hand off the phone. "Oh, jeez, Wesley! She must have called you first! Sorry about that, man. Yeah, I tried giving her the head as a joke, but she just about had a heart attack. After I mentioned your name, of course." He paused for a minute, then said, "Say, Wesley...you did eventually TELL her about the head, right?"

Jack rejoined the others, a chastened look on his face, growing paler as Taylor repeated what she'd seen about the other world. "I've heard of places like that," he said, his face almost, but not quite, expressionless. "Places where there was an upsurge of necromancy, or a successful takeover. Nevermore, the mystic who used to, uh, work for Melinda, he said he always wanted to retire there someday." Till I staked him and locked him in the basement of my office for all those nuns he used to eat. Oops, better not say that out loud. "I'm, uh, really glad to see you all here today," he said quickly. "Especially you, my friend," he added, clapping Samael on the back.

Avenger disappears with a DC 38 check, and goes hostage hunting.

With a chuckling laugh, Avenger feinted at the evil shapeshifters, then simply disappeared. Though daylight denied him many of his greatest powers, Avenger's ability to hide truly was unmatched, even in brightest day. Your minds are nothing. Your powers are nothing. And soon, very soon, when the heroes of Freedom City have their way with you, you will BE nothing. He headed for the hostages as Scarab had suggested, traveling as a ghost on the wind amidst the noise and fuss of battle.

OK, Sand and I have talked this over in the OOC, and this is over the line for both of us. I know your character has super-science super-guns that don't actually work like real guns, but he's still hiding in a dark patch of woods pointing a sniper rifle at other superheroes: in particular, he's brought special bullets so he can kill one of them better and faster. This is really not suitable for the tone we're trying to set on the site. And yes, we're all playing superhero characters who aren't actually going to fight with each other, but this is still something that we're uncomfortable with. A thought: why don't you do something where Colt is standing there, guns akimbo, standing guard over his lady? That way you get the same character placement, and he doesn't come across like a lily-livered varmit? (To use cowboy parlance.) ;)