Avenger Assembled

"Foolish woman," said Dracula with a shake of his head. "I am my offspring. And soon, the world will know the sheer power of my blood!" He made a gesture, and suddenly a shower of black, clotted blood erupted from Jack's pores, driving him to his knees before his progenitor. As Jack fell, Taylor heard a growling from behind her, and realized that the bats had come again, this time forming themselves into the shape of terrible black-furred wolves with red, staring eyes. "I had hoped to take your child's power for my own, but it seems you've chosen to OUTLIVE YOUR USEFULNESS!"

"What kind of world are you offering?" Jack asked suspiciously, shooting a reassuring glance at Taylor as he spoke. Surely it couldn't hurt to hear the king of the vampires out, not when they were both in such peril just being close to the man. "A world where we never again need cower in fear like so many rats from petty godlings in gaudy costumes," hissed Dracula, circling them both as he spoke, a tiger with two cornered leopards. "A world where my great-grandchildren and their heirs rule the night as the kings and queens they are, not the pale shadows of their former glory. This has been my great work since I first awoke unto this blasphemous century." "Your way has too many dead bodies behind it," said Jack, after a moment's hesitation. He'd have hesitated longer, but Taylor was right there. "And I think it would be insulting to suggest that the king of the vampires has changed his ways. Dracula's battles are won through bloodshed." "Oh yes," replied Dracula, a glint in his red eyes. "I never said blood would not be shed, my great-grandchild. It was merely a question of whose." He made a gesture, and suddenly Jack's eyes widened, his always-pale skin turning an alarming shade of white as he staggered back. "Did you never wonder how your power grew so great, so quickly? How the merest stripling with a half-decade of undeath could hold his own in battles against the gods? Pfagh, I see you didn't." He scowled. "It was _I_ who gave you that power. And I who can take it away, and all else my blood has given you since you died in that filthy alley at the fangs of my grandchild, begging her to end your miserable mortal life quickly."

"Pfagh." Dracula gave a slow, quiet laugh. "If the gods of old could strike me down in my sin, they would have done so centuries ago, foolish child. The very Pact you honor gave the world to men, not to God, Heshem, or any of the other dusty old names of power." "You didn't leave your castle and come all this way to bandy insults with my wife," said Jack, his hands tightening into fists as he felt the scorching power from the thing before him. A deep well of pure vampire, a thing with roots to the darkest places of the world beyond anything he'd ever felt before. "No, I didn't," explained Dracula, "I have come for you, my grandchild." He extended a hand. "Come with me, and your wife and son will be safe. I have nothing but praise for your choice to sire a child on a witch of such power, and the blood in his veins will make him a king in the world I am building."

"You're different," said Jack suddenly, accusingly. "I've seen paintings of you from your visit a few years ago, when you fought with those teenage-" "Be silent." And it was done, as surely as if he'd clamped Jack's mouth shut. "A name can have...so many implications." Folding those long fingers behind his back, cape billowing behind him, Dracula hovered in the air, the night around them all still and quiet. "So. My grandchild and the chosen of Heshem have become husband and wife." He spoke with the faintest trace of his Balkan heritage in his voice, the tone deep and gravely with the curl of ages. "How marvelous for you. Tell me, Ms. Chun, does Heshem know that her champion is a-" He used a word in Old Bulgarian better-suited to a peasant than a nobleman. Unexpectedly, Jack found the strength to speak. "She is no whore. And the blood in my veins is a coincidence," he spat defyingly at the old count. "Nothing more."

"I just feel unsettled tonight," Jack admitted as they walked out of the crowded, well-lit lecture hall into the quiet darkness of a Campustown sidewalk on a weeknight. "It feels as if the whole city has gone quiet," he said, frowning at the half-moon in a sky with just a few visible stars beneath the light pollution of the city itself. "The night feels darker than it should." He walked Taylor to the car, reached into his pocket for the keys, and looked over her shoulder. "GET DOWN!" He pushed her aside, trusting to her phasing instincts to get her the rest of the way out of danger safely, just as an enormous cloud of screeching, madly flapping bats burst from the shadows of nothingness, erupting over his body and hurling him backwards into the car with enough force to stove in the driver's side door in an eruption of glass and steel. The 'bats' erupted backwards, reforming a moment later into the figure of a singular individual. The creature was tall and angular, its white hair cut short in front and hanging long in the back; its pale mustache long and droopy. Folding long-nailed hairy fingers over its chest, clad in the opera-coat and tails of a previous generation, Dracula had opted to adorn himself with a diamond-pinned cravat of the finest silk. He eyed Jack, now recovering himself, and then Taylor. "So."

Date: April XX, 2010 It was a typical April night for Avenger and Phantom, or rather, Jack and Taylor. One of her old professors was lecturing at FCU, and even with swollen pregnant belly she'd gone along to show support for Dr. Thomas. Jack had gone with her, even though he didn't really understand anything about ancient Chinese dragon-bones and how they were arguably a representation of ancient Shang Dynasty contacts with an extra-dimensional civilization of magically-empowered dinosaur offshoots. It was apparently a controversial theory, one that he was sure was completely fascinating. The truth of the matter was, despite his personal experience with the supernatural, Jack just wasn't as smart or as thoughtful as his wife. He was comfortable with admitting that, even if sometimes he felt stupid listening to her talk, or defensively stupid when he listened to her talk magic to someone with a lot of life experience like Ace. At least the lecture had mostly been full of mundane people, those who wouldn't know a real figure of magic like himself and like Taylor if it bit them on the neck. And that was sorely tempting too, these nights, when he was living off supplement that was like living for eternity on processed Cheese-Wiz and hot dogs when there was filet mignon so close for the taking. It was hard being around Taylor and not being able to taste her, much less being around all these people. Even though he still kept a spare costume in the car, he hadn't really suited up since the invasion. Taylor needed someone to watch her, especially after the attack on the shower. He, they, had enemies everywhere. So maybe it wasn't too surprising that he started joggling Taylor's elbow not long after she'd finished talking to Dr. Thomas at the reception and come back from the bathroom. "We need to get out of here."

"I don't do a lot of my own decorating," Jack admitted. "I mean, I had people bring in a lot of this stuff," he said with a general gesture towards the apartment. "But I guess this is important enough to do ourselves." He ducked quickly into the bedroom, coming up with some of the masking tape they kept in the utility box near the bed. "I guess this'll do the trick?"

Avenger made a small noise. "We've made a child together who stands on the doorway between life and death. Little late for us to have reservations about each other." He crept his way along by Dead Head, his voice drifting in and out of shadows that were opaque even to Dead Head's eyes. "The dragon sleeps. But his plans are many, and he'll strike any day." For just a second, Dead Head caught a glimpse of Avenger perched in a tree. "Only met my grandsire once. A terror, by any imagination. Can't imagine what made him."

"Maybe we just need to give it time," suggested Avenger, standing with his head downcast over Stesha's body. "Coming back from the dead takes longer for some people than others." He bent down over the earth, lightly touching the green shoot with his finger. "She could probably use some water, Dark Star."

APPROVED

Make it clear that she's got a (common, minor) Weakness to electricity, and I think you're good.

"You married?" Avenger murmured quietly to his counterpart. The question had been nagging at him ever since he'd met his doppleganger; just how parallel were their lives? Was Taylor right about the lack of her on any other world? That got him a suspicious glare from the half-visible creature in the shadows beside him, who murmured back, "No. Never had time for it. With the work, and all." Avenger eyed his double carefully, and knew that he was lying, but there wasn't time to say much with the recruitment of the last member of their party. Avengemouse had been fooling with the detector, and hissed quietly, "Foalcrum. Here. And not too far away..."

Happy birthday, sweetie!

Looks like your grapple is off yet. Still working on this, Rav?

"They, uh, got them from Blackstone," said Mark, slowly and carefully walking back with the baseball in hand while everyone else got equipment from the small shed by the side of the field. "This is what they use on prisoners with powers. It doesn't always work on everyone's powers, but I guess they've had time to study our powers in school." He tossed the ball in his hand up and down, looking relieved when it didn't bite him in the face. "Okay, I'll take the mound on this one."

OK, here's your first APPROVAL

"Take that under consideration." said Avenger blandly, even as Jack mulled over what promised to be a deeply difficult conversation. Taylor never did like talking about his previous encounters with women. "And see, there's where the confusion sets in. Honesty. Not something I have a lot of experience with." He cocked his head, shooting a glance behind him, something Dead Head was beginning to realize Avenger did a lot when he wasn't being invisible. "Seen too many friends die from it. Especially in their relationships."

"Won't deny what you've suffered. Your condition is worse than mine." Certainly, Jack wasn't so stupidly self-involved as to flagellate himself around a hideous reflection of undeath when his own version of the condition made him a handsome, popular man. "The violence was just a red herring. Hoped that i everyone thought I was a thug, no one would show any interest in teaming with me. Find out what I was. Same with the voice, the mannerisms. No one seemed to care. About that, or about other things." He looked up at the Moon overhead, easily visible beneath city lights. "It's difficult for me to relate to people. What they're thinking; what they want. Thought processes are not really the same anymore. Can't understand it sometimes. Not even the people I love." He looked down at his hands, and pictured them covered in blood. "Taylor's never even mentioned the people I've killed."

That's a DC 32 to avoid being rushed off the side of the building. Spending an HP to surge Power Attacking for 5 Spending an HP to reroll my attack If I get my Sneak Attack bonus (I do have full Visual Concealment and we are falling off a building), that's DC 30 Tou, plus whatever damage he takes when he hits.

Avenger had watched a lot of movies with Taylor in the months they'd been together. One of his favorites, given that it was after all the story of a monster in love with a beautiful woman with a penchant for classy outfits, had been King Kong. Invisible even in the glaring, maddening sunlight above, Avenger tackled the monkey, plowing it right over the side of the building itself. Without hesitation, Avenger went right with it, only belatedly remembering he couldn't fly or grab the walls! Crap! I HATE the Sun! Stupid daylight! Why can't we blot out the Sun like civilized people! Hissing defiance as he went, he slammed his fist into the monkey's head even as they fell.

In a corner of the living room, Jack watched Ace's shudder with narrowed eyes. He'd opted to just conceal himself here quietly, his misty body invisible in the wash of the apartment's heating and cooling unit, and as usual with Ace he didn't really like what he saw. It wasn't that he objected to Ace's familiarity with Taylor; he knew that was simply the way the immortal adventurer operated. It was just that sneaking suspicion that told him that it was done for his benefit, to annoy him and bedevil him, that was so irritating. But that was all right; he was used to that sort of baiting from Ace. He'd just sit here in the corner and make sure the party went on smoothly, and that none of the intruders in his family's territory went where they shouldn't. It'd be fine.

Math is looking better. Low defense is low; you really want to hit PL caps at PL 6. If you lose some of your redundant feats, you can come in hitting combat caps (which you really want to do) and buy them later with XP.

The math is off on the drawbacks section, you can't have more than your PL in drawbacks. You need to add her ability modifiers to her abilities section. Glancing at Malcom, the math is off on his skill modifiers.

Mark power-stunts the following off his Probability Control array: Nullify 12 [all firearms] (Extras: Duration [Concentration], Burst Area, Selective) (Flaws: Distracting) (PFs: Progression 6 on Area, Precise, Subtle) (60 pp) This should shut down every gun in the bank!Mark will spend every HP he has (he has 7 base and several more from his complications to his Young Freedom allies like Eddie, Mike, and Chris) to make any guns inside the bank that pass the save fail with Luck Control. Boo-yah!

"Okay, fine," said Mark. "I'm going to make all their guns not work anymore. If it doesn't work, you'll have to move in really fast and stop the bad guys before anyone innocent gets hurt." And with that, Mark concentrated carefully, reaching out to tug at the strands of fate and chance the way he'd only recently learned how to do. "Breakdown, you remember in history class when they told us about the first time somebody tried to kill the President? And the President lived because both the guy's guns jammed in a one in a million chance?" Mark closed his eyes, and then opened them wide, spreading his hands. "What are the odds that every bad guy's gun fails at the same time!?!"