Avenger Assembled

"This one looks good, with the religious symbols," said Heyzel, pointing to a design that would take a great deal of work but would be gorgeous at the end of it. "If you can get this done in the time allotted, that would be best. But if you can't, this simpler one should be easier." He sighed a little, shaking his head. "Is this a good price?" he asked her seriously. "I don't spend money much, and I want to make sure this is a good deal."

Remember that a lot of her powers aren't Subtle by default, so something weird happens with her Strike and such. But if that's what you're going for, that's great. APPROVED

Concept looks good. Number seem to check out, but don't quote me on that. You had to cut some corners here and there, I see, but that's necessary for such a widely-spread concept. Maybe think about an Enhanced STR AP of the magic? But that's a different issue... Approved

"A better world," Jack agreed. "Something I don't think I could have done without you." He studied her for a moment, then admitted, "That's the hardest thing for me to accept about your work," he added. "The knowledge that there's only one world, anywhere, where you and I are together." And with that, he swept her up in his arms, bestowing a long, slow, deep kiss.

"It was the first thing that came to mind. I didn't have a lot of experience with presenting myself as a normal man." He smiled a little. "It was a nice dinner. I still feel bad about lying to your family, and that's not usually an issue for me. It's funny. You appreciated me for where I was normal, and I appreciated you for...well, the parts where you're extraordinary. I don't know anyone else I'd trust to do what you do."

"I never really understood why," Jack admitted. "I never thought of myself as a very likeable man." He grinned. "As for you, I've got to admit, my initial interest was entirely of the physical nature." He put his hand over her heart, a rather intimate gesture under the circumstances. "I'd never appreciated anyone on a level beyond that...before you." He paused, then added, "So, was it my butt? I thought those leather pants I was wearing would come in handy."

"A dozen touches: that's less than they use in regulation fencing, as I'm sure you know, and it's two for each of your team, assuming you opt to stretch it out between each individual piece on the board. If not, there's no reason why a small group can't do all that in a few minutes. Might as well give everyone a chance to compete. And of course I'll call in and let you know ahead of time that I'm coming. That wouldn't happen in real life, of course, but I think it's a deserved favor for you." When the negotiations were done, Jack perfectly willing to negotiate with everything Erik wanted, Jack did just as he'd promised and paid Erik's bill, flashing a row of crisp hundreds in the process, and Jack watched as Erik rose to leave.

"At least you can make your own clothing," Jack teased in return, "and not hide in the corner nude all day." He grinned, putting his big hands on hers, as he looked around. "You know, I was thinking tonight that if I'd known what our relationship would become, I'd have picked a more appropriate spot for our first date...but now that I think about it, I think this place is very appropriate for us. Just look at that night outside."

Durf, To answer your question, in discussing how immunity to interaction skills worked, apparently the system isn't quite granular as what I hoped. So I went for a straight Immunity to one particular interaction skill instead. I think it's a logical extension of how I've been playing Jack, representing a predator's instinctive knowledge of the true nature of its prey. If nothing else, it's a good source of HP when it needs Fiated away!

Freedom Angel -5 points to spend 2 points in Strength to 24 (+7) (2 pp) 1 point each in Dodge Focus and Protection (2 pp) Takedown Attack (1 pp) PL 11 combat caps, yay! Done by Sandman XI

Make the edits I've requested for Edge already, please. In addition to those, I have five points to spend. Buy Gather Information 12 (+18) (3 pp) Feats: Improved Defense (1 pp) Well-Informed (1 pp) DONE BY SHAENTHEBRAIN

Avenger's edits: spending 5 pp [b]Immunity 2[/b] (Bluff skills) (Flaw: Limited: Not In Combat) =1 pp spent here -Because he's a vampire, and I've been playing him as increasingly difficult for humans who don't know him to read, as well as having trouble interacting with normal humans most of the time. [b]+2 to Dexterity for a total of 26[/b] =2 pp [b]Grappling Block[/b] =1 pp -Because caps have gotsta be met! Will meet caps next month 2 pp here-1 from the array slot I'm dropping=1 pp spent here Terrifying Vampiric Array of the Undead 15pp + 8 APs=23pp BE: [b]Concealment 10[/b] (all senses) ([i]PFs[/i]: Close Range, Selective) ([u]Flaws[/u]: Phantasm); [u]Extra[/u]: Linked [b]Flight 1[/b] [10 MPH]: [b]PFs[/b]: Subtle] and [b]Leaping 1[/b] (x2), [Drawback] [15 pp]] AP: [b]Vampiric on Unarmed Damage 8[/b] (Bite) ([i]PFs[/i]: Improved Critical 2, Incurable, Precise, Reversible, Sedation, Subtle) [15pp] AP: [b]Insubstantial 2[/b] (gaseous; ([i]PF[/i]: Selective]; [u]Extra[/u]: Linked[b] Flight 2[/b] [[25 mph] [i]PF[/i]: Subtle; Drawback: Not during daylight]) [15 pp] AP: [b]Drain Constitution 4[/b] [u]Extra[/u]: Insidious, Flaws: Requires Grapple ([i]PFs[/i]: Precise) LINKED [b]Emotion Control 15[/b] Extras: Duration [Continuous], Insidious, [u]Flaws[/u]: Limited to love, Range 2 [touch], Requires Grapple) ([i]PFs[/i]: Mind Blank, Subtle) [14pp] AP: [b]Drain Constitution 5[/b] (Extras: Insidious, Flaws: Requires Grapple) ([i]PFs[/i]: Precise) LINKED [b]Mind Reading 15[/b] ([u]Extra[/u]: Sensory Link)([u]Flaws[/u]: Range 2 [Touch], Requires Grapple) ([i]PF: Subtle[/i]) LINKED [b]Super-Senses 4[/b] ([Postcognition, [u]Flaws[/u]: Medium [Blood]) [14 PP] AP: [b]Drain Constitution 15[/b] (blood drain, [u]Flaws[/u]: Requires Grapple) ([[i]PFs[/i]] Improved Crit, Reversible, Precise, Slow Fadex4 (1 hour), [15pp] AP: [b]Mind Control 15[/b] ([i]PFs[/i]: Mental Link, Precise, Subtle), [u]Extras[/u]: Conscious, Duration [Sustained], [u]Flaws[/u]: Action [Full], Distracting, Sense-Dependent [Auditory]), Unreliable [5 uses a day] [11 pp] AP: [b]Concealment 8[/b] (All Visual/Auditory/Olfactory/Mental/Radio Senses, ([i]PF[/i]: Close Range) [u]Flaws[/u]: Limited [While Moving]; [5PP] and [b]Speed 10 [/b] ([i]PF:[i]Subtle), ([i]Drawback[/i]: Not during daylight) [10PP])- Speed of the Dead [15pp] AP: [b]Obscure 4[/b] (Summoned Bat/Rat Swarm, 1 mile, All Senses, [i]PF[/i]: Slow Fade [1PP/one minutes], [i]Drawbacks[/i]: [Not during daylight hours], [u]Extras[/u]: Independent, Total Fade, Flaws: Action [Full], Range [Touch]) and [b]Immunity 1[/b] (own powers) ([u]Extra:[/u] Affects Others, Ranged) [15 pp] -Because caps have gotsta be met! Done by Angrydurf

Mark Inspires as a full-round Action. That's +5 to Phalanx, Wander, Geckoman, Hellion, and let's say Fulcrum and Sparksmith, if they can hear him? Sure, why not. He surges for another standard action, switches his array, and drops a Blast 12 Selective Burst Area on every Grue he can see, whether in the air or in the sky. With the Progression he's got, it shouldn't be too tough for hit the entire area and more besides. Remember, that's a Selective effect: he isn't hurting any of the heroes.

Young Freedom's commlinks all suddenly crackled with Edge's voice, their putative leader's words strong and sure. "Our grandparents beat them once. Our parents beat them twice. The Freedom League beat them just six years ago! This isn't an invasion, it's an insult! Just some stupid aliens who like getting beat up! Well if they want to get beat up, by Jupiter, we'll beat them so hard we'll be telling OUR kids about it! C'mon, Young Freedom! LET'S GIVE THEM WHAT THEY DESERVE!" And with that, Mark concentrated, tapping into the core of energy at the heart of his very being, and the world exploded. Everywhere there were explosions: cars erupting in gouts of flame to scorch the Grue on the ground, windows bursting to send showers of glass erupting through the flesh of the Grue in the air, the big behemoths tripping and falling under the own weight, as an eruption of sheer terrible misfortune for all the enemies of Freedom came erupting from the center of Mark Mason Lucas. It was a glorious moment, and he was smiling when he finished.

"I think it makes more sense to make it a group activity. It's supposed to be a team-building exercise for your group. I'm sure you're all more than competent in our own individual areas of expertise." He resisted the urge to speculate in that area, going on to add, "I'm sure you can suggest a trophy better than I can. If it's something a normal-sized person can get out of the building and into a car? It wouldn't be very fair to you to have it just be "Give it to Avenger and he disappears," I think."

(14:09:25) Ecalsneerg: But it's Friday night >.> (14:09:28) quotemyname: So, Shaen, wanna tell me which counts are off? (14:09:40) ShaenTheBrain: Ask Geez. He hand-counted most of them. (14:09:52) ShaenTheBrain: Fair enough, Ecal. Fair enough. (14:09:58) quotemyname: He told me the first page checked out. (14:10:22) quotemyname: Then he had to sign off halfway through the second (14:10:40) Ecalsneerg takes his life and RUBS IT IN YOUR FACE (14:10:54) quotemyname: L_S let me know when you've put your threads up so I can count them (14:11:04) Ecalsneerg: ... did I just get rejected four times in 60 seconds via text?

Freedom Angel is my only character who can perform, so sure!

Down below, Fusion was just about to leave when something crossed her mind. That was the Scarab! The last Scarab was on the old Freedom League: what's this one up to? Giving into what she liked to think of a natural journalistic urge, she let her skin change color, her costume and flesh shifting appearance to match the mirrored building beneath her, before she began a slow, deliberate climb up the side of the building to catch wind of what was happening above.

Jack started briefly, his face hidden by his lack of reflection. Recovering quickly, he said, "As I recall, you seem to like it best when my hands go where you can't see them at all." He turned his head and looked down at her, leaning forward to rest his hands against the glass. "You going to pat me down for weapons? Or just do a strip-search?" he teased.

I'd thought him a coward and a bully before, but now... Jack hmmed inside his head, listening to those sweet words from Erik Espadas. This is really no different than how he acted at the fights, he remembered. When that teenager in green and I confronted him on how he was acting, he backed down there too. But somehow I have a feeling that if I asked him today if he was right to spit in that child's face, he'd still say the same thing. Despite himself, Avenger had to admit they had something in common there. Never back down. Not and mean it. "None of you are children, and neither am I. If you don't do anything that'll keep me from walking home at the end of the night, we can call ourselves settled. Now, the terms. I was thinking that engaging all of you in personal combat would be a little silly, so why don't we make it capture the flag?"

Give us a Bluff check, Shaen?

"I don't need to do those things," said the angel simply, "nor would I want to. If you live a life of love and justice, then you do it in the Creator's name, whatever you choose to call him." He gestured to Valkyrie, then deliberately turned his back on her. "As for her patrons, they are powerful, yes, and well-worthy of respect for that power. But they were banished centuries ago for what they hoped to do to mankind, and can no longer return to the plane of mortals unless summoned by a worshiper. Do you remember your history in the Second World War?" At Gigawatt's look, he answered, "Decades ago, the Nazis used dark magic to summon the Norse gods to fight alongside them in their evil works. Donar, the one called Thor in English, and a Valkyrie too, both came to Earth and fought alongside Hitler and his Ubersoldaten. The Centurion himself traded blows with the so-called god of thunder." He nodded at that, and added, "When the Centurion defeated that monster, a sounding joy repeated all through Heaven, and the world of men and women as well. The angels have always stood alongside the heroes of this city, even if I am the first to do so openly."

Fusion made a face behind her mask. Great. "So I just hand her to you and you take her to the cops, huh?" She tossed Bombshell idly from arm to arm like a child playing with a toy. "All right, I guess this is your turf." She wrapped just the tip of one arm around Bombshell's waist and handed her off to Scarab, waiting till the legendary esper could take her. "You see!" she called to Bombshell as she started to slide down the edge of the building. "You can throw yourself at the men all you want, but it took two ladies to bring you down, sister! Woo!"

"My name is Fusion," explained the tentacled heroine, hanging easily off just one gigantic limb as she dangled Bombshell from three. "I've been working in the Pacific Rim for the last five years, but I'm new to Freedom City," she admitted. Focusing on Bombshell, she said, "I've wrestled slipperier snakes than you, honey. Try playing hunt and peck with a couple dozen Krait cultists and we'll see how wriggly you feel like being."

With a look of deep disgust on her face, Joan leaped off the roof and swung them towards the Pyramid Plaza, faster now that she wasn't playing around. Use me as your errand girl like I'm some C-lister. Lock you up in Scarab's basement, she thought peevishly, dance around like that so all the little girls think it's so cool to look like Bombshell, the hottest thief on Cellblock C! When she'd reached the Pyramid Plaza, Bombshell still held in two big tentacles, she leaped from a smaller building in the complex to the side of the north tower, where she clung, spread out across the glass as she folded her human legs beneath her and hung on with her two free arms. For lack of a better idea, she yelled, "Hey, Scarab!"