Avenger Assembled

At the sight of the local center of industrial development, Eira accelerated her flight considerably, the high levels of steel and iron in the local construction allowing her to reach high subsonic speeds. She made her entrance in dramatic fashion, a three-point landing hard enough to crack the ground in front of the royal palace, spreading her silvery wings high. She looked back with silvery-white eyes the direction she'd come for a barely perceptible moment, then raised her ungloved hand, showing the silvery jointed fingers within, and called loudly enough for everyone to hear. "CITIZENS OF THAM! I HAVE COME TO AID YOU IN YOUR HOUR OF NEED! I AM EIRA KATASTROFF NATT OCH DAG - AND I WILL GIVE YOU SCIENCE!" She looked around and nodded, then walked straight up the steps of the elaborate vaguely neo-Classical building, nodding in cool satisfaction at the reaction of those around her. If this didn't get her royal patronage, hardly anything would. This will be a success! she thought fiercely, clenching her bare fist before blinking. Wait - what is - my thoughts are - she didn't quite have a word for it, and the moment was enough to unsettle her enough to keep her from storming straight through the front doors.

Ashley felt a pleasant warmth wash over her as Fa'Rua and her brother took control of the situation and (for a little while, the squabbling kids), cocking her head to study her girlfriend through her helmet. God, I love this woman, she thought to herself, a realization that was a little frightening but mostly very pleasant. "He knows how to keep his mouth shut, believe it or not," she said, too good-naturedly to actually sound menacing. "So you actually can send all the kids home? Thank God." She considered a moment, then took off her helmet, shaking pink-dyed hair loose in the sea breeze, and shot Fa'Rua a distinct Later smile. "But our families are Republic criminals," said the boy, giving Jolan a skeptical eye. "My mama says we're not bound by the ancient laws of a doomed nation." "We know them from helping me with my powers," Judy explained to her friends, "They helped me figure out exactly where they came from...there's something you should know," said Daystar, who'd beamed (quite literally) at Fa'Rua's praise before sobering a little. "There is a Stellarian on that ship. He thought...Ah think he just thought it was funny to try and play with us, because he didn't care about those little children at all."

Okay, @Nerdzul, you're up!

The undead captain hissed and called Wraith something in his native tongue that she couldn't immediately understand but that from its dry, slithering tone was probably rude. Probably. It was hard to tell with the speech of the undead. Sea Devil feinted with her trident's crackling tip at the witch, then spun in a fine imitation of Singularity's fighting style with her bat and smashed the witch across her midsection with a crunch that suggested there was no normal human woman underneath that costume. The witch laughed and straightened, a black fluid leaking from the corner of her mouth that hadn't been there before. "The fiend and the predator! How delightful!" She pointed at Nightscale and said "Just let me drink the blood of this virgin boy and I can entertain you properly!" A spiraling black ribbon of energy leaped from her fingers towards Luke, one quickly intercepted by SIngularity's body. Jessie could feel the touch of the magic, unwholesome and unsettling, as it passed over and through her skin, but it didn't seem to be hurting her.

Sea Devil: stabs the witch! https://orokos.com/roll/876482 = 30! A palpable hit. Tou vs 27 https://orokos.com/roll/876483 17 Injured x 2 and staggered The Witch: Blasts Nightscale with a Drain effect. (and E and I both get an HP since she's still fighting) https://orokos.com/roll/876484 33! Okay, that's a DC 22 Fort save vs. a Tou drain of up to 12, unless someone wants to Interpose for him!

Mindstone “Rocks in Your Head!" Gaian Knight/Hologram Power Level: 10 (150/150PP) Trade-Offs: None / -5 Defense/+5 Toughness (Diamond Skin) Abilities: 0 + 4 + 0 + 0 + 6 + 10 = 20PP Strength: 10/30 (+0/+10) Dexterity: 14 (+2) Constitution: 10 (+0) Intelligence: 10 (+0) Wisdom: 16 (+3) Charisma: 20 (+5) Combat: 12 + 10 = 22PP Initiative: +2 Attack: +6 Base, +10 Powers Grapple: +6/+18 Defense: +10/+5 (+5 Base, +5 Dodge Focus), +2 Flat-Footed Knockback: -2/-12 Saving Throws: 6 + 6 + 7 = 19PP Toughness: +10/+15 (+2 Costume, +8 Defensive Roll/+13 Protection [impervious 10]) Fortitude: +6 (+0 Con, +6) Reflex: +8 (+2 Dex, +6) Will: +10 (+3 Wis, +7) Skills: 52R = 13PP Bluff 4 (+9/+13 Attractive) Concentration 3 (+6) Craft (Artistic) 5 (+5) Diplomacy 4 (+9/+13 Attractive) Gather Information 7 (+12) Knowledge (Earth Sciences) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Pop Culture) 8 (+8) Notice 4 (+7) Perform (Turntables) 5 (+10) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Feats: 9PP Attractive Benefit 1 (Wealth 1) Connected Contacts Fascinate (Diplomacy) Luck 2 Taunt Well-Informed Powers: 30 + 33 + 4 = 67PP Psionic Array 13 (26PP, Power Feats: Alternate Power 4) [30PP] BP: Damage 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit 2, Variable Descriptor 2 [any psionic]) [26PP] (telekinetic blast) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Alternate Save [Will], PFs: Incurable, Reversible, Subtle) [23/26PP] (mental strike) AP: ESP 4 (Auditory + Visual Senses, 1 mile, DC 14 Notice; Extras: Action [Free], Duration [sustained]; PFs: Fast Task 4 [Full Action to search 1-mile-diameter area]) {24/26} (clairvoyance) AP: Mind Control 10 (Extra: Instant Command, Flaw: Action [Full], PFs: Insidious, Mental Link, Mind Blank, Subtle) {24/26} AP: Psionic Empowerment (24PP Container [Active, Sustained], Power Feats: Accurate 2) [26PP] Enhanced Strength 20 [20PP] + Super-Strength 2 (Effective Strength 40, Heavy Load 3 tons) [4PP] Terrakinesis Array 16 (32PP, Power Feats: Alternate Power 1) [33PP] BP: Rocks in Your Head 6.4 (32PP Container [Active, Sustained]) [23PP] Enhanced Feats 9 (Defensive Roll 4, Dodge Focus 5) [9PP] (rock shield) Move Object 8 (Heavy Load 3 tons; Extras: Range [Perception], Flaws: Limited [Earth], PF: Precise) [17PP] (terrakinesis) Flight 3 (50 FPM/50 MPH) Extra: Affects Others Flaw: Platform) (rocky platform) [6PP] AP: Protection 13 (Extras: Impervious 10) [23PP] + Immunity 9 (life support) [9PP] (Diamond Skin) Device 1 (5PP, Flaw: Hard to Lose) [4PP] (costume) Protection 2 [2PP] Enhanced Feats 3 (Fascinate [Bluff], Quick Change 2) [3PP] Totals: Abilities (20) + Combat (22) + Saving Throws (19) + Skills (13) + Feats (9) + Powers (67) = 150/150 Power Points -------------------------- Design Notes: It was a difficult conversation. "Son, your older brother is a psychic speedster." "Sure." "Your older sister is a speedster psychic." "Right." "Your stepbrother has no powers because he's your grandfather who turned himself into a baby." "Sure "So, well, have you ever wondered why you're a psychic terrakinetic?" "..." "....Well sometimes when you go back in time together, idle hands, etc." Here's a build for Mindstone, the son of Gaian Knight and Hologram, a psionic terrakinetic with a lot of punch! (I borrowed a lot from Gizmo's old Rarity build for this one.) He's fun and not just because of the joke about rocks in your head, combining great personal charisma with lots of raw, broad power. He can surround himself in diamond armor while reading your mind, or punch you with psionic armor while surrounding himself with rocks as a shield! Multiple descriptors make it hard to nullify his powers and means he can do a lot in a thread. I figure he's a cool, mellow California guy who spent some time in a monastery near LA and came away with no real angst about how he was made - he's going off to explore the world now! I think if I was going to play him I'd spend PP towards letting him be a better martial artist. Right now he's a great faceman and a lot of other things, but he's probably not going to mix it up in melee combat as much as your typical "super-monk." One thing he doesn't have is a lot of Super-Senses just yet, maybe because he grew up not digging too closely into his family secrets until he couldn't ignore them. Maybe he should work on that!

"I was on an AEGIS mission, helping deal with a collection of Foundry holdouts who didn't get the memo about their boss playing king instead of warlord." The Patriot smiled bitterly. "Sad, isn't it? Old machines still acting on their programming instead of adapting to the real world." His smile faded as he added, "But it wasn't just a collection of drones; it was Keres and some ambassadors from Rurland. It turned into a firefight and I almost lost my team." He looked up at his invisible interrogator and said, "You know, if this is Archetech, you could just look into my mind and get the whole story there. But as far as I can tell, you haven't even tried."

Seething, Angelic paced as Holmes and Watson spoke - though she did look notably abashed by Pan's words. When everyone else had finished speaking, she said, "I will not allow this dimension's only technological civilization to fall to barbarism - when it may well mean my own destruction if we linger. I cannot live here forever on Micah's charity! We must build allies, real allies, if we are survive and ever escape this place. It is as simple as that, no?" When she spoke, her wings spread behind her, silvery bright and crackling with electric fire. "I know that I cannot stop you or turn you from what you think are your tasks. So I will say instead to meet me there, in what I will build," she suggested, "when you have finished your quests. We will find our way homes together." And with that, she took off into the sky ahead, crackling lightning behind her as she rocketed back towards their only hope of escape.

What Ashley wanted to do was take off her helmet, pull Fa'Rua in for a long kiss, and maybe let her put aboard that ship and fly her back to CoVic Station for a few days. (Or honestly just climb into her arms together) But she was working and so all she did was smirk inside her helmet, the kind that came through in her voice, and said, "Glad I've got you here watching my ass, space-cop." She spread her arms just a little, a swagger that was only a little complicated by standing inside the howda of a sixty-foot wooden elephant. To Jolan's practiced eye, the children following Danica out from her shell seemed like the sort of motley crew you'd expect from a ship full of families. In the aftermath of the Incursion, some refugee ships had been preyed on by pirates - others had become pirates themselves. "Arr!" declared one boy, a green-eyed, green-haired humanoid who looked to be about twelve. "Have you come to throw us in the hold, ye Republican dog?" "Hey Fa'Rua!" said Judy cheerfully, glowing brightly from where she had been on the opposite side of the shell. "Ah guess space isn't that big after after all!" She looked from Ashley to Fa'Rua and back again, showing much more confidence in her powers than the last time Fa'Rua had seen her in person, and perhaps a moment's "If anybody's in trouble it's me," she said suddenly, "Ah was the one who wanted to get back to Earth tout suite. But it should just be a matter of getting these kids home, it wasn't that far when they beamed all of us down here..."

"Oh all flattering ones I assure you," Comrade Frost lied with the easy neglect of someone who obviously knew his lie was being detected. He stepped away for a moment to speak quickly into his telephone, then with a look of satisfaction placed it into the breast pocket of his old-fashioned suit. Calling up louder to Ashley and Judy as well as Pan, he added, "I have good news children! As it happens Lor vessel was already in area to deal with pirate problem, so they can stop by and pick up displaced children. Ah, such a coincidence, eh? And you will get to see that space is not all full of criminals and malcontents..." Having finished her meal, Lucy began slowly striding up and off the beach, though fortunately she seemed to be taking an access road rather than trying to crush the historic boardwalk beneath her legs. She was heading for her usual resting spot, and luckily the road was wide enough (and still roped off) that she could slowly wander over there without stepping on any cars or banging into any buildings. Secure behind her mask and riding on the back of what had turned out to be a rather sedate and docile wooden elephant, Ashley wasn't really worried until she saw the familiar spaceship coming in overhead. "Ashley...?" asked Judy, who had eyes even better than hers. "Lots of ships like that," Ashley murmured - a moment before her phone chimed with a message through ErosUnlimited that said "Spacecase" was in Earth's atmosphere...

"Yeah. Yeah, I know about the past." Richard looked down at his left hand and squeezed it tight, the scar of an Omegadrone's pike across the back flaring white for a barely perceptible second. "But...anyway," he added, falling back into 'character' with the long practice of someone who'd seen difficult topics come and go on the show. "They shut us down pretty hard when we tried to go looking for alien tech a couple of years ago, but I bet more doors are open now. We'll take a look. You know, I think I actually met somebody connected to that Swedish thing," he said, snapping his fingers as he remembered Miss Americana's sullen intern. Hey I'm not as smart as Paige but when introductions take so damn long, you have plenty of time to learn everybody's name. And Miss Americana was married to a cyborg, and a technopath herself, and had mentioned not doing any deep inspections of her husband upon his return either. "I'll see what I can do. You know," he admitted, "you guys are making some pretty good points. Maybe we should have had you on the show before this!" he added, only half-kidding in his apology.

Eira watched Pan sing, her lips pulled back in a smile, and looked enormously pleased with herself and her boyfriend as she headed over to join the small party by the cookie tray. "Ryder's work is more than acceptable," she said cooly. "He may be the most intelligent boy at the school." She blinked a few times, then zeroed her gaze in on Ryder. "Wait, you fought what? Why have I not heard of this before today?" She sounded more scandalized than angry, but it was sometimes hard to say. Nearby, Judy was watching Micah play, a soft smile on her face for a long time, before she turned back to her friends and declared under the sound of the music, "Isn't he just the best? Ah can't believe he never missed a note while he was playing for me!"

It took a little while to form Irons' "consciousness", but in the hands of the world's greatest cyberneticists it honestly wasn't much of a challenge. He snapped awake at once, bolting upwards like a man awakening from a dream. A normal man might have been confused by his situation, but he had been an uploaded mind for quite some time. He walked to the edges of the room even as his consciousness pushed against the edges of the programming holding it, then looked up at the ceiling and raised his voice. "This isn't the AEGIS mainframe," he commented with a faint smirk, "and somehow I doubt this is how the Foundry treats its 'guests'. Who do I have the honor of speaking with?" Pale-faced, Eira pushed open the door to the lab, carrying the equipment Miss A had asked for earlier and looked about to say something before she caught sight of what was going on. Silently, she handed the boxed gear to Miss Americana, a rattled look on her face.

Luckily for Ashley, it was about that time the Freedom League descended on the briefly-displaced heroes and their alien charges. Unluckily for Ashley the hero on the scene happened to be Comrade Frost, a Russian agent who was decidedly not aware of who she and Judy were. Daystar and Watchdog thus hung way back as Frost briefly glad-handed with Forever Boy with the air of a long-time politician just meeting a promising new recruit for the party. "Forever Boy! Ah, all the stories about you are true, I see. Delightful, delightful! Ah, Chelone," he added, keeping a distance from the reptilian heroine with the practice of one who knew a great deal about such things. "Well you four seem to have situation well in hand. Watch children for a moment while I call friends in space, yes? And keep eye on elephant!" He stepped back to make a few calls. A crowd was definitely forming of police, tourists, and a great many others, and the alien kids were starting to look decidedly nervous, clinging close to Danica, Pan, and the sparkling rainbow figure of Daystar, and murmuring softly, worriedly to themselves about what was going to happen to them now. Lucy the Elephant was wandering slowly up the beach towards the road, but was in no danger of reaching there anytime soon. She stopped to scoop up an empty lifeguard's tower and shoved it into her mouth, chewing with the noisy sound of crunching wood.

Freebooter (NPC) PL 10 210PP Abilities: 4 + 10 + [-10] + 16 + 4 + 8 = 32 pp STR 14 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON - (-) INT 26 (+8) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 16 + 16 = 32 pp ATK: +8 (+15 melee) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +17 Knockback: -5 Saves: 4+ 3= 7 pp TOU +5 (+5 Protection) FORT - (-) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+5 Wis, +3) Skills: 124R=31 pp Bluff 13 (+17) Computers 16 (+24) Concentration 8 (+13) Craft (electronic) 10 (+18) Craft (mechanical) 8 (+16) Diplomacy 8 (+12) Disable Device 12 (+20) Intimidate 8 (+12) Knowledge (technology) 12 (+20) Language 3 (Arabic, German, Japanese), Base: English Notice 2 (+7) Sense Motive 8 (+13) Sleight of Hand 10 (+15) Stealth 10 (+15) Feats: 28 pp Attack Focus: Melee 7 Challenge (Fast Taunt) Connected Contacts Dodge Focus 7 Eidetic Memory Evasion 2 Improved Initiative Inventor Second Chance (Concentration checks) Skill Mastery (Bluff, Computers, Disable Device, Knowledge [Technology]) Startle Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 74 pp Arc Welder Array 5 (10 PP, PFs: Alternate Powers 2) Damage 3 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Indirect, Mighty, Precise, Variable Descriptor 2 [any energy]) {10/10} AP: Drain TOU 5 (Extra: Affects Objects +1]) {10/10} AP: Stun 5 {10/10} Datalink 1 (radio) [1PP] Comprehend 2 [Codes, Machines] [4PP] Immunity 40 (Fortitude Saves, Mental Effects) [40PP] Impervious TOU 5 [5PP] Protection 5 [5 pp] Regeneration 5 (Recovery Bonus +0) [5 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Infravision, Radio) ---- And a day came when Jared McGinnis, aka the Freebooter, scourge of the 1% and the occasional superhero, was confronted with the reality that he was going to die. He made great plans to go out in a blaze of glory (or at least cash) along his friends from the Crime League, but his old archnemesis and crush Miss Americana intervened to save him from himself and the genetic disorders that had left him paraplegic from an early age and only gotten worse as middle age approached. There were bad times, and a lot of them, as his body slowly died. But he had friends, real friends, for the first time in his life. High-powered lawyers working for Archetech got charges against him dropped thanks to his giving up a life of crime, turning on former allies, and his physical disability. He found Cyberknife again, his erstwhile partner and maybe but never quite more, and if she'd moved on with her life she hadn't forgotten about him either. His new body wasn't like any of the ones he'd built before; certainly less suited for combat (but no slouch, either, given the number of people still gunning for him), but it let him keep his connection to machines, display an arc welder from his fingers he could use for combat, and it let him get up and walk. Late last year, a few months after his 40th birthday, he left behind the organic shell that had held him back for so long - and was reborn for the better. Jared McGinnis has the desk job he always thought he'd hate at Archetech, but as Director of Sustainability, he's charged with keeping this big, scary corporation honest, maybe because he's one of very few employees on the premises who isn't afraid of the boss. Only a select few employees understand that the middling-height, blonde and blue-eyed middle-aged desk jockey isn't just another cyborg using assistive devices - but an actual uploaded mind. The Freebooter is sailing new seas these days. Most of the time, he couldn't be happier.

"This is...this is stupid," Angelic spat. "I will not be a - puppet of dead men's dreams." Her eye twitching briefly from an internal power surge, Eira extended her degloved hand towards Micah, spreading her palm wide as she shrugged off Pan's arm. "The power node in my hand is designed to absorb direct electrical discharge. Hit me." She turned and looked at Pan, her neck twisting further than a human's could have. "Come with me," she urged him, and Micah too for that matter. "Even without access to the Internet, it will be a simple matter to technologically uplift the Victori civilization. If we cannot build a return device to Earth-Prime we can surely build a beacon for them to find us. They have not forgotten us! We must not forget them!"

Judy moved around the room, singing to her friends and with Micah, and seemed to be throwing herself into the song. She didn't stop, didn't pause for breath, she just belted out her feelings and her emotions to her friends through the music of Taylor Swift. "And the players gonna play play play and the haters gonna hate hate hate..." She got a few people to join her on the clapping beats of the song and faltered for a barely perceptible instant when singing about her ex-man and his new girlfriend bur she smiled and pushed harder, singing because she was happy and with the people that she loved, and she didn't have to be afraid anymore. Eira let Pan chase her for a while, then let him catch her, pressing herself against him as the music finished and giving him a long, warm kiss when they were done. "Maybe country is not so bad, yes?" she admitted with a grin and a soft whisper. "Perhaps you should take the microphone and try next."

"Pfftah!" Riley burst out laughing and barely avoided spitting out his root beer, the former not a usual sight when he'd been a high school student. "Ha! Assless chaps..." He shrugged. "Funny. Would look good with a beard and cowboy hat," he added to Matt, gesturing with his root beer as he stroked his goatee. "Good look for a man. Shetlands too cold," he said to Cathy. "No offense." He grinned, tossing the cold bottle from hand to hand, then commented, "If you think you can handle the swamp, I've got a cowboy hat. Took it off a guy."

is he emitting any radio signals, like a recorder or a tracer? Judy and Ashley have the senses to spot it.

Eira Katastroff looked unwell, her hair flat against her head, her skin an odd shade of alabaster white. There was a very good, very sound reason for this. Her body ran off an internal chemical battery, one that could be supplemented with solar power but that required occasional connections to the products of an industrial society to power her. She had been vocally reluctant to leave the Victori behind, for all that she'd been vocally skeptical of their construction methods, and had brooded silently all the way to their newest destination. "Pathetic," she pronounced suddenly, her voice a low hiss. "Pathetic reflections of the imagination of a dead Englishman." She shot a blue-eyed glance at Pan at that, briefly, then focused again on the detectives. "And I am no child, fool, but the dead born again in metal flesh!" At these words she dramatically pulled the outer layers of seeming flesh off her left hand, revealing within the metallic digits of a machine. Pointing with her silvery finger, she went on. "If you can only babble such nonsense, we should leave you behind and begin our work."

"You'll do great, Micah," said Judy reassuringly. "You can do Taylor Swift, right? Ah'm just gonna do Shake It Off, everybody likes that and it's good dance music." She smiled. Taylor Swift had been her little secret back home, but here, as with so many other things, she was allowed to be herself. She looked the beautiful boy in the eye, smiled, and raised her mike. "Hi everybody!" she said over the speakers. "Welcome to the party! Danica's got some great music keyed up for us, but right now Micah and I are going to try a little song!" She took a breath and began to sing - "I stay out too late!" Judy didn't quite dance but she did move cheerfully around the room, making full eye contact as she sang the song from memory. Judy actually was a very good singer, hitting the notes perfectly and seemingly not needing to pause or waver for breath. - Eira nodded, a finger on her chin, and said "Yes!" It wasn't really a partner-dance song but she stuck close to Pan all the same as they moved out onto the little dance floor, recording his face as much as she watched everyone else. She and Pan were out first, even though the music was decidedly not her scene. "You are so jävla beautiful!" she whispered in his ear before stepping back just a little, inviting him to chase.

That hits https://orokos.com/roll/875720 = 15! The gun is Wraith's.

"Nice. Take pictures," suggested Riley, nodding with approval of Fred's thoughtful gift. Damn, that actually is a good idea! If I had any damn money I could get a spot at one of the places down in the Panhandle. "Did some of that myself this summer. These little cracker horses down in the swamp." He smirked a little, looking around at his friends and then at himself, then said, "Hm. Not like that." He sipped his root beer, then said, "Got a cowboy hat out of it. That's what you need, Matt."

Tou vs 30 23 A solid hit, injured and dazed (as she is undead) @Fox, Wraith is up.

@Fox, just bringing this to your attention.