Avenger Assembled

"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!"

"Yessss," Avenger agreed, glad that there hadn't been any more blasting than there already had been. "In any event, I understand the local werewolf pack has recently had a change of leadership. We shouldn't need to worry about that thing." He shook Rouge's hand. "Thanks for coming in on such short notice. I guess it's good to get...everyone together."

Young Freedom takes a little trip.

A couple of weeks after prom, Mark invited his friends over to his house. Well, the people who still were his friends: he wasn't really talking much to Eddie these days, but most of his colleagues from Young Freedom were on the list. He was standing outside the door of the Lucas house to greet them when they arrived, the lawn looking just a little grubbier and the house a little dingier than when the Young Freedom members had been there last. Mark himself was out of costume, but also out of the black, depressing clothes he'd been wearing most everywhere but prom for the last couple of months. In a white shirt and slacks, he looked downright respectable.

This is the OOC thread for the Claremont kids to talk to Da Boss. Phalanx is up.

Duncan Summers was unavailable the weekend after junior prom, calls going to his voice mail and emails getting the "I am Out Of The Office" auto-reply, letting the accumulated messages about the prom pile up there until Monday. Late that afternoon, without any prompting, an email from him arrived in Mike Harris' in-box, along with a phone call on his machine in the room he shared with Mark Lucas. "Mr. Harris: Please come to my office at your earliest convenience so we can discuss the events of this weekend. Yrs, Duncan Summers."

This is a closed thread for the PC Freedom League members.

On a clear August morning, Freedom Hall exploded. People on the street screamed in terror as gigantic insectile faces erupted from the windows of the headquarters of the world's greatest superhero team, the gouges in the side of the building erupting into great rifts that spewed forth dozens of gigantic bees, an apiphobe's terrible fever dream that erupted into the skies over the city, followed shortly thereafter by uncounted billions of regular bees that formed clouds in the sky over Freedom Hall thick enough to blot out the sun on the ground below. Within minutes later, a bizarre figure burst from the middle of the bee-cloud and landed on the roof of Freedom Hall; his face and body hidden beneath thick, bulky-looking armor painted in black and yellow, antenna bouncing above his head as he raised a microphone to his lips, shouting as his voice came bursting from every radio within a square mile:

This is a closed thread for the Midnighters' trip to Earth-V-AB+.

Earth-V-AB+ Inside a cell deep inside the ruins of Freedom Hall, the Serena Vervain of Earth-Prime shakily worked her fingers free from the rusty iron chains that held her in place. Ignoring the soft noises from the other cells where her teammates were still struggling, or worse, not struggling at all anymore, she drew upon her innate reserves of magic to cast a spell as powerful as it was subtle. The wards in this room were powerful, fueled by the blood of hundreds of mages, maybe even her own twisted reflection in this terrible place, but the vampires who'd built the place hadn't blocked every exit. In particular, they'd left open one door for their own use that Serena herself was now taking advantage of. Across the Cosmic Coil, her words seeped into the minds of two people: Hellion, her fellow Claremont alum and powerful mystic, and of course, Phantom, the chosen of Heshem and guardian of dimensions. My name is Serena Vervain. Some of you may know me as Seven, practioner of the mystic arts of the Old Faith. A few nights ago, my friends and I from the Next-Gen recieved a distress signal from our counterparts on Earth V-AB+, claiming to be survivors of a mystic holocaust that destroyed life in this world's Freedom City. In a moment of foolish pride, we followed those calls without contacting the Chosen of Heshem or warning our fellow Claremont students. Little did we know that a trap awaited us, a trap most terrible... She heard a whisper in the halls, and realized that she hadn't quite been subtle enough: her counterpart was there, and no doubt reading the mystic warpings of the Cosmic Coil Serena herself was using. Do not follow us! Do not send a rescue party, lest the doom that struck this world follow us back to Prime! For they have this city and all the power there, and THEY ARE HUNGRY- A moment later she heard the counterspell outside, and then her cell door swung open. The 'other' Serena smiled a terrible smile as she floated into the room, cape billowing behind her, the blood of Ray Gardener Jr. on her lips, and said, "Now it's my turn to play."