Avenger Assembled

"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.) ;)

"Oh hey, that must be Warren!" said Mark, smiling. "I invited him along too; I figured we should give him a shot at Young Freedom." He hadn't brought that issue up with Trevor, trusting Erin and Trevor to take care of that themselves. Heading for the door, he let in Warren, reaching out to shake the other boy's hand. "Hey, Warren, come in. We were just sitting down with some snacks before I told everyone what's really going on." The inside of Mark's house looked oddly old-fashioned to Warren's eyes, a bit as if it had been built in Warren's own parents day and never really redecorated, for all that it had a new TV. Who still had a working VCR these days?

Every piece of electronic equipment on Eddie's body suddenly stopped working with a hiss of white noise. For those looking, the harried expression on Mark's face suddenly turned into a flash of grief and anger, his eyes flashing an all-too-familiar black for a second. "Goddamn you, Ozan. Goddamn you," said Mark, all the anger at the world he'd been repressing for weeks blasting out at the nearest convenient target. "You go home every night to parents that love you, that give you everything you want, that let you run around buying beer and working in a real job! You're a superhero who goes to school with the greatest superheroes in the world! And you spat in the face of that, of everything, because your girlfriend screwed another guy?!? You ungrateful bastard." His voice shaking, Mark turned to the others, seeing the faces of friends with strong emotions wrapped across them. "I've stood by all of you through the worst times of my life. And the best. We're all tired, and angry, and hurting right now. I'm not going to stand here and scream at you about that. Because if there's anything I've learned in the last few weeks, it's that...it's that words don't make any difference. It's what you do that counts." He looked at some of them, the door where Zoe had gone, James, and Mike, then let his eyes cast over the people who he thought had actually done the deed. "You're better than this. All of you. So be better. You can start by finding whoever put the hacker up to this and knocking her, or him, on their butt and dragging them into see Summers." His watch blinked, and he looked down. "Time's up! I need to get back before she...ahem!" He gave everyone as serious a look as he could muster before hurrying out the door as fast as he could go.

Avenger circled around behind JJ and picked up the poker from the fireplace. Iron wouldn't hurt a vampire, but the metal at the end, once a Crusader's sword that Melinda had stolen back in the good old days, certainly would. "We need answers," he said with a slow, flat calm, peeling off his mask to reveal Jack Jr's father's face. This was the look he got when Mom usually chased the kid out of the room. "And we're going to get them."

"Hey guys," said Mark warmly, "why don't you all come in? I've got the house to myself this weekend," he added as he let them all into the kitchen, where the several Hamburger Helpers he'd laboriously prepared (then kept warm in the oven) over the last couple of hours. Mark had never actually had to cook for himself, but he didn't want his friends to know that. "My mom's over visiting my aunt in Camden." He cracked open bottles of Diet Dr. Pepper and Diet Pepsi, kept cold in the fridge, and let himself believe it was a real party for a second. "I'm really glad you guys could make it. When we've all had time to eat, I've got a proposition for you." Mark hadn't bothered to try the Hamburger Helper, since he'd generally followed all the box recepies, but he'd tried the chips and dip he'd bought from the store, and the nachos and guacamole were all delicious.

The message came from a world ruled by death. The power of the Necro-Kings was in full flight there, necromancy empowered and all other magics left weakened. Undeath had come there, grim and terrible, and devoured life. The world itself wasn't dead, but the cancer of undeath was burned into its breast, slowly preparing to spread. This was no world of Freedom heroes. It was a world of Freedom vampires.

Avenger was soon on the phone to Dead Head, the Revoltin' Revenant having gotten a cellphone by the simple expedient of Jack buying one for him and slipping it onto his person. "Dead Head, it's Avenger. We need your help at the mansion right away. There's an emergency between dimensions, and we need our best rotting man on the case." He wasn't sure if Atlas would pick up the phone, but he left a message there anyway, trying to get everyone on board with what promised to be an exceptionally dangerous mission.

"I did," agreed Duncan Summers. The old man's lined face was a mask, making him look vaguely like a cigar-store Indian in a very nice suit. "Why don't you sit down and tell me what happened at the junior prom, Mr. Harris?" He seemed like he was being polite, even courteous, but it was always difficult to tell exactly what the Old Man had on his mind. "Assume that I am familiar with all your fellow students."

Dark Star: Have an HP for roleplaying your complication. You'll need it, because you just got shot pretty good. That's a DC 39 Toughness save (Rank 14 blast+5 Power Attack+5 Autofire) Eek!

For his part, Heyzel was suitably horrified at the insectoid horror that had overtaken the Freedom League. He felt a great swell of pity for the man so mad as to appear before the city in that outlandish costume with those bizarre demands, but not so great as his desire to stop that man before his madness hurt any more innocents. He was already flying overhead the tree when Dark Star confronted the Bee-Keeper, having flown there at the speed of Heaven to make sure that the heroes of the city could unite together against the menace. "Ace!" he called from his post above the trees. "Dark Star has let valor overcome strategy!" -- Bee-Keeper quailed briefly at the sight of Dark Star, but then rallied, an arrogant smirk on his face as he studied his former enemy. "Buzz off, ALIEN!" he spat, before raising his fists and firing wave after wave of bees at Dark Star! Dark Star was just about to dismiss the silly threat when he realized two things: one, the bees were outlined in black, shimmering energy the same color as his own body, and two, they were glowing white! "Bee seeing you!" the Bee-Keeper gloated, as the bees burst inside Dark Star's insubstantial body. They hurt!

Best if he starts on the satellite if you want him at a League headquarters, since Freedom Hall is covered in bees! And if he'd been there, Doc Arch would have noticed something happening.

Though denied his full speed in daytime, Jack was still at his wife's side with remarkable speed, the sleeping baby well-guarded by ghostly sentinels in his own room. "What is it?" he shouted, diving into the room with a cleaver from the kitchen in his hand, a look of murder in his eyes. "What's going on?" He shot her a look, knowing how fast her magic could spill forth in a crisis. "Is it the dimensions again? Because I'm really getting sick of them breaking during our me-time."

Just when everyone thought Mark wasn't going to show, the luckiest boy in the world came running up to Alex's office door, looking as if he'd been in a fight himself. His suit jacket and tie were gone and his shirt half-open, his hair mussed, and it looked like something had scratched the side of his neck. "Guys, guys, I'm here!" he said, sounding a little out of breath. "She...I mean, I've got exactly FIVE minutes!" He burst into Alex's office. "Made it!"

Hey, give Mark a chance! =D

Nah, I'll just let it go, then.

If I need to, spending an HP for Subtle on Mark's Damage there.

"Okay!" said Edge brightly. Suddenly there was an eruption of magical energy all around the young man, invisible to normal senses but almost blinding for the magically inclined. At his words, suddenly twin flowerpots fell from an overhead window Jack and Ace could both had sworn was closed a minute ago, each bashing the two thugs on the head. "Got 'em, Mr. Danger!"