Avenger Assembled

Mark repressed a brief surge of empathy with Wander. Game or not, seeing Phalanx slam his friends around brought back unpleasant memories of Mike's anger. But with Wander evidently in hand, Mark decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. He concentrated on Psyche, who Mark knew was the biggest threat right now. He drew on the mental training she herself had taught him, reaching down to the very core of his inner nature to find something to protect both himself and Mike. "C'mon c'mon c'mon..."

Surprisingly, that didn't hurt!

I am flat-footed

16

"No. God, no." said Jack, shaking his head. "As if my little faction wasn't small enough." Freedom City, never a terribly inviting destination for vampires, had thinned out considerably in the last few months. "I don't really have anyone I could tell. God, the last thing we need is any vampire, anywhere, finding out about this. There's a difference between having enemies and having every hand raised against you."

Jack took a step towards Taylor, acutely conscious of his own failure to appear in the machines she was standing amongst. All those reflective surfaces showed just two human beings in the lab. "Doesn't sound like a place that provides a lot of life for itself," he said quietly. "Or for those who pass through it. I almost have to believe that anything we passed through hapened here."

"Okay," said Edge cheerfully, raising his voice to get the room's attention. "Computer! Run Program: The Edge of Reason!" The air around them began to ripple as a new program began to settle in, the walls moving around with the finest holographic technology the 1970s could muster. As they did so, he winked at Phalanx and added, "Don't worry, I never use any of those boring strategy programs. This is about Action!"

"Beats me!" said Mark cheerfully, having spent his training session practicing with the throwing disks he'd added to his equipment a little while earlier. No one else on Young Freedom could really understand how he threw what were effectively poker chips with any kind of accuracy or damage, but he always seemed to find the weak spot, at least in softer targets. "I sort of did some random selection. All I know is it's team-based. That's why I'm wearing my colors. Hey Mike, wanna be on my team?"

DC 28 Intimidate.

Silence, darkness, solitude. With the cold calculation of a predator, Avenger knelt down and cold-bloodedly broke the legs of one of the cultists he'd knocked down, crippling him for the moment and leaving him unable to join their fellows in whatever escape he was sure they were planning. The other one, he pinned against the wall, positioning him so he could see the body of his fallen foe. There, Avenger splashed sewer water on his face until he woke up. When Jack spoke, it was with cold, flat, deadly menace. "Tell me what your people are doing or you will remain here."

"I have been dispatched by Those Above as Ambassador," said Heyzel simply, radiating calm and confidence in a sharp contrast to Taylor's internal stress. "Heaven will no longer allow Earth to suffer the machinations of the Adversary unassisted, nor will it allow faith, hope, and justice to go unaided in this world. The wisdom of the Creator has not yet been forgotten, nor shall it be now that I'm here." He smiled. "As for myself, to walk among the Created has long been my greatest dream."

Psyche's mental reply was a good deal more ominous than she'd hoped. She found dead silence when she reached mentally for Mark, and a grey patch around the mouth of the volcano when she followed the mental map left behind by her exploration of the Serpent-Man's mind. Whatever was up there, going as far as the line the Serpent-People had been able to cross, she was confronted with a grey void like static in the landscape of the mind. As she approached that void, her mental ears caught a strange sussurus of voices, whispers in the darkness of the soul that faded away whenever she listened too closely. It was like trying to catch voices on the wind, or the whispers of dead ghosts. Those looking for travel could see no particular sign of Mark or whoever had taken him, though what was evidently a recent battle had happened on this very spot. Without a more intensive search, it would be difficult to tell exactly where Mark had gone. With her experience in escape routes and lines of attack, Wander could easily make out the paths that the Serpent-Men had picked, their inhuman footprints on the soft jungle soil, as well as those paths the humans with the White Lion had taken to get here. The White Lion embraced Edet as a son, a determined look on his face, then said, "I am afraid I have not seen your friend. But if he has been taken by the force holding the mouth of the volcano, then I fear something dire may befall him. My investigations there have been...impossible," he admitted unhappily, "given my injury, but there is outworld activity there, and not from Earth Prime. As for the Serpent-People, I don't believe they are the true enemy here. The war here has been one of survival, two proud peoples pushed together by a common enemy, but unable to unite against them." He shook his head sorrowfully.

Let's call that a Super-Sense power check, Cy. DC 25. After you do that, I'll get the results up and then move the thread along.

"God..." He closed his eyes, lowering his head till it touched their hands. "God, I love you so much," he said distinctly. He looked up at her then, raising his head with a smooth economy of motion. The image came into his mind again, vampire claws digging their way out of Taylor's belly, then, worse, fangs in her lovely mouth. But this time, he managed to push them aside, focusing on reality instead of a legion of potential horrors. "So...we made a baby." He laughed, quietly. "How many people know, on your end?"

"Taylor..." Jack closed his eyes and sighed softly, taking stock of his own feelings on this momentous night. "If...if that's really what you want, of course I'll go there with you." He opened his eyes and looked at her, his pale brow furrowing. "But do you think this is something that should be?" he asked her seriously. "The dead bringing life is a mighty thing. This is bigger than the two of us."

Jack hmmed at that, leaning down to whisper warmly in Taylor's ear. "You always make it hard to choose," he said with a predatory smile on his face. His mouth right next to her ear, so that the vibrations of his voice fell on her teasingly-covered neck. What the hell; he was in a good mood. "I think I'd rather know that there's nothing down there but qi-pao and your lovely legs, and that soon it'll be even less." As it was Taylor's idea, he let her make the announcement while he moved over to gather up a nearby chair for the ritual of the moment.

Electra and I are going to be gone for a bit while we do...stuff. ;)

In his crisp, elegant white dress shirt and black slacks, his glossy dark hair just reaching his shoulders, Jack looked the very picture of elegant grace as he reached over to take her hand in return. Only the look of worry and sympathy on his face broke the mask; this was one time when he couldn't hide his emotions behind vampiric elegance. The truth of the matter was, this was one time he didn't want to. "What are you thinking?" he asked her softly, hoping she'd found more answers than he had. "What do you want to do?"

....ye dread dhampyr must be destroyed by bell, book, or candle; i.e. by the vibrations of the mightiest bell in the greatest of cathedrals, holy prayer most fell and powerful, and finally by the pure flames of Hell that spawned it... Jack bolted his gaze up from the book before him, fixing his eyes on Taylor's. I don't know why I even read at all some days. Gently closing the volume of arcane lore that he'd borrowed from a subordinate who collected such things, he pushed the leather-bound volume aside and smiled at her. "I always have time for you," he said mildly. "Come in," he offered, an automatic reflex from vampire society, and rose to his feet to pull a chair out for her. "How do you feel?"

Jack shook his head. "It's dangerous to feed on pregnant women," he said. "I wouldn't do it anyway. The shock of the bite, particularly when transmuted into pleasure, can be enough to..." He shot a glance at Taylor, bloody images again superimposing themselves over her, and amended his words. "Well, it's not good, is what it is. Can you tell if Taylor is safe?" he asked the doctor with concern. "If this is hurting her, or endangering her?"

The 'Gate of Light' was awfully cheery for a void in the universe. Glowing with a warm yellow radiance that looked like nothing more than bottled sunlight, the half-circle shaped hole in reality looked downright welcoming if you weren't conscious of its true nature. Stepping through the tree-clad gate took Young Freedom across the border between dimensions in an instant, carrying reluctant and enthusiastic alike suddenly to an entirely different jungle. As each young hero stepped through, they were confronted with a lush tropical paradise rawer and richer than the world they'd left behind. The trees seemed to rise impossibly high overhead, the smell of raw, unspoiled nature palpable in their nostrils as the buzz of a million insects and the roars of long-extinct animals reached their ears. Wherever they were, they certainly weren't on Earth; those who'd heard their fellow student and Edge's former girlfriend Zarana talking about the world she'd left behind were all reminded of stories about the Lost World, a dimension where long-extinct animals and a mishmash of Earth and Serpentine cultures lived together in violence. There was a familiar face there to greet them, or at least a familiar costume, standing amid the scene of a recent skirmish alongside the jungle path. "Your majesty!" Edet's joy at seeing the White Lion, unmasked and unbowed despite the splint on his leg, quickly faded to subdued relief as Africa's greatest hero and his traveling party, standing over several fallen, unconscious Serpent People, looked at the teenagers with concern on his handsome face. "You're the rescue party?"

Increasingly conscious of the lack of family at this party, Jack decided it was high time to get things moving along so the festivities could reach their happy conclusion. A whispered suggestion brought an agreement from Taylor, and soon they were commandeering the DJ's space to proudly announce where things were going. Jack took the lead, neatly scooping up the microphone. "All right, everybody, it's time for your favorite part of the wedding! The bouquet toss. I want all the single ladies out there on the dance floor, ready to catch the bridal bouquet!" They'd debated a garter toss, but Jack had persuaded Taylor it was just about objectifying women. The truth of the matter was, he didn't like the idea of the other men getting to look at Taylor's legs.

All characters with Magical Awareness, take an HP.

"Oh, c'mon," said Edge breezily, "a lot of people have captured me since I started being a superhero and I turned out fine. It happens to everybody a couple of times. I heard the famous Rick Lucas got captured by Hades, Omega, and the Grue Meta-Mind before his 30th birthday," he added with a subtle little cough. "I'm sure you'll do okay with the locks and stuff, Mr. Arrowhawk. I know all kinds of stuff about picking locks and opening things," he added with perfect confidence. "It's just a matter of messing around till it pops open."

The flaming sword of pure righteousness disappeared into the void from which it had come, a frown briefly crossing the angel's face. This is not going well at all. I had looked forward to speaking with the mystical authorities, but not like this! Heyzel did not separate goodness and the law in his mind; the laws of the universe were good. "I would be honored to speak to Heshem's champion," he said cordially, speaking like her in the language of the Ancient Near East where the Logos had once been spoken by man. "I was merely speaking with this unfortunate being about ways to liberate him from the prison of his body."