Avenger Assembled

Failed the first save badly, so I'm spending an HP: 20 Injuredx2 and stunned. Craapp. Spending my last HP to shake the stun, I guess. Holding my action till all the shark people are within the range of my Dazzle, then giving them the ink!

The angel of freedom appeared beside the Devil's aviary within just a few feet of Dark Star in an eruption of holy light, casting his gaze around briefly as he sought to sort out the situation. When he had, he hesitated only a moment before the shield of faith appeared strapped to his arm, the sunlight gleaming brightly off the ancient symbols of his faith. "Strike quickly," he told Dark Star, "and I will guard you from any more of his attacks. Together, we can defeat the madman!"

"AIEEEE!" The bee that had actually stung Dr. Archeville gave a satisfying shriek as the powerful blast of electricity rocketed through its insectile body, sending the gargantuan yellow and black bug crashing into the lawn behind it with an enormous thump. The other two bees, though, were unhurt despite the powerful shock they'd taken, and now with all their hairs sticking akimbo they glared at Archeville. "YOU ZZZZTUNG BBBBARRY!"

The bees all fail their Reflex saves. Two are unhurt, one is unconscious, because he bee a minion Freedom Angel teleports in and gets ready to Interpose for Dark Star, who is now up.

"You said a mouthful, sister!" Fusion hung from a street light by a muscular suckered arm, dangling low to look over the fallen bystanders, some of whom were still covered in ink. She could sympathize: she knew how foul the stuff tasted. "Anyone call the EMTs yet? That was one mother of a roar that thing put out, and some of these people got it a lot worse than any of us did." She swung around and dropped down in the middle of the group. "I'm Fusion," she added, giant arms whipping around her body as they retracted down to the length of just a few feet.

OK, Doc is up

Flowers exploded everywhere, pollen and scent erupting in the car-sized faces of the gigantic bees! The vast majority of them were hit dead-on by the eruption of pollen, and soon they were shaking their heads and droning even louder, their massive bodies waving back and forth in the air as they hovered in place or made slow, lazy circles in the air. Frantically, the Bee-Keeper danced, waving his armored torso around in the air as his armor sprayed chemicals to speak directly to the bees around him. One landed obediently, giving him a worried look. It was surprisingly easy to see expression on the faces of the gigantic honeybees. But some of the bees had _not_ been affected by Fleur's flower power, and soon they were moving into action, following the commands of their leader. Three of them surrounded Dr. Archeville, one in particular giving him the stink-eye from giant, multi-faceted lenses. Unexpectedly, the gigantic insect spoke! "INTRUD-ERZZZZ WILL BE ZZZZZTUNG!" And with that, it swung its huge stinger around and jabbed it into Dr. Archeville! The scientist was nimble enough to avoid being impaled, but not so nimble as to avoid the sting of venom! At the same time, two more of the bees surrounded the fake Fleur de Joie, bypassing the suddenly mobile forest that was guarding the carefully hidden genuine variety. "THE QUEEN THE QUEEN! MAZZZTER WILL GIVE YOU HIZZZ ROYAL JELLY!" And with that, one of them reached down with a giant foreleg and neatly, delicately, scooped Ace-as-Fleur close to its gigantic, loudly thrumming and pollen-coated breast.

That gets all but six of them. They'll follow your command after your next turn. The six bees: Three of them are going to attack Doctor Archeville, as he's the only intruder they can see, and who they can hurt, who isn't Fleur. Two of them Aid (an action they can't miss on), and the third stingsDoctor Archeville: DC 22+5 from Autofire is a DC 27 Fort Save to avoid Drain Dexterity 12. One is going to stay adjacent to the Bee-Keeper. The other two are going to gang up on 'Fleur de Joie' (aka, Ace) and try and grapple her, as they've been instructed by the Bee-Keeper to do so. One's going to aid the other: 27 That hits. That's a DC 55 Grapple check, which Ace can't beat. IC post coming.

"I'm fine," said Mark, cocking his head and studying Zoe uncertainly. "Psyche healed me up, so everything's better." He patted Zephyr on the arm, a little awkwardly. After a moment, Zoe realized that Mark had no idea she'd actually tried to hit him. He rubbed his jaw, hmming. "Could it have been the Grue coming back? Solaar returning to burn the world?! The ancient Egyptian gods of the sun here to burn us!" With Mark, as ever, it was hard to tell when he was joking.

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..."