Avenger Assembled

"No more. No more." Jack tore off his mask and advanced on the scientist, his eyes flat and cold. "You bastard. You BASTARD." He grabbed the man by the throat, hard enough that the sound of breaking skin was clearly audible to the two women, and slammed him backwards into the panel behind him. A look of dead fury in his eyes, he squeezed harder."No more lies. No more violations. You open that door right now or I swear by God that I will tear your head from your shoulders."

Sense Motive=20

Sense=13

(17:21:23) FreedomBot: AvengerAssembled rolls 1d20 and gets 2. Edge has no idea what's going on, but is glad Dark Star made the ladies better.

Jack's eyes snapped open soundlessly, and he jerked upright before consciousness returned. There was, as ever, no rush of air into his lungs or beating of his heart. There was only the taste of Taylor's blood in his mouth, and the memories of a dead world in his mind. Gone. It's all gone. That world, that life was dead. He took in the scene slowly; the man held at gunpoint by the familiar woman in green, the blasted Taylor..."Phantom!" Avenger's voice came naturally as he reached his feet, his mind already turning. If this is the man who did that to me, I'm going to break him in two.

"Aw, they're beautiful," said Mark with a smile. "And so are you. I like that outfit a lot." He hugged her, planting a chaste kiss on her cheek. They'd done more than that, naturally, but like any teenaged guy he didn't want to be all over his girlfriend with his parents around. "Dad's out back with the grill and my mom's just finishing in her studio." He'd mentioned his mother's work in the comics industry a few times, and had a few original paintings of hers up in his room. "Let's go around the back." His hand in hers, he led the way around the plush, highly manicured lawn to the brick patio and man behind it. Wearing a Kiss the Cook apron with a white chef's hat on, Rick Lucas looked like a man out of time. In his early sixties with a greying haircut that wouldn't have looked out of place on James Dean, he was still tall and handsome, his build showing that the author of men's adventure novels kept in shape. He looked very much like all the pictures Alex had seen from the sixties and seventies, just with the greying and thickening of age. At the sight of his son and his girlfriend, Rick gave a cheerful wave and smile, instantly giving Alex a picture of which parent her boyfriend favored. He had a deep tan, probably from his summer in the tropics. "Hi guys! Come on over! Burgers are almost ready!" To the house, he called, "Hey honey! Our boy's girl is here!" He swept Alex up in a hug when she got close as if he'd known her for years. "Hello there, Ms. Albright! Well, look at you." He grinned, his teeth perfect, white, and straight. He did look a lot like his son. "You look just like your mother did at your age."

Blew the first one all to heck and gone, so I'll reroll with HP 33, woo! I'm not sure how you see me rolling a Fort save, Durf, given my immunity thereto. ;)

Answers: Everyone's at full HP. You'll need them. Doc, you've got time to jury-rig something; go ahead and make the relevant rolls and description for that. Doc did successfully tap into the cameras, giving him a good view of the security pathways up to Arachnos' level. (They're generic sci-fi-ish corridors that stink bizarrely of magic in the corners.) There are no cameras on the top level, where Arachnos himself is.

"I am nothing like you!" Screaming with rage, Jack smashed the flagpole against Melinda's face. He and the Scarab were locked in mortal combat now, the guards around them having backed away when their bullets proved useless against him. Of course they were. Bullets don't hurt me. "You're nothing but a monster! A petty, useless thing who cares only about power and lust!" "Am I, Jack?" She laughed malignantly, her tentacles rippling through the air as she lashed at him. "Taylor, Stesha, Elena...Do I need to say all their names? How many women are you going to hurt, Jack? How many lives are you going to ruin?" Her lip curled malignantly, her fangs monstrously bared. "You don't really think you'll be able to stop yourself when the time comes. How long is it going to be before you kill again, Jack?" Her fangs spread monstrously wide, toothed tentacles from her back opening up on either side of her. Jack felt waves of guilt crash through him, his face warping with shock and grief as memories came flooding back. He was so very close to breaking..."Maybe that will happen," he admitted, his face set with a look of cold, murderous fury. "Maybe one day I will be a monster." He raised the flagpole in his hands high. "But until then, I'm not a monster." He was dressed in black now, a white mask falling over his face like a knight's full plate helmet. "I don't take lives. I save them. I'm a superhero. And my name is...AVENGER!" And with that, he vaulted into the air and thrust the flagpole in his hands through the Scarab's heart. With a sudden shriek, she imploded in a shower of ash and blood, the explosion blasting Jack to the ground again as the room around him screamed and writhed in agony. A moment passed, and then another. Jack was sitting on the stage now, surrounded by death and carnage, his mask gone and his hands covered in the blood of the Scarab. "Of course it ends this way," he said aloud, looking down at his hands. "Everyone's dead. But I'm still here." Blood dripped down off his hands. "And it's all my fault." "

Sound off; Quark and Goassamer, I know you guys are mulling NPC status. Are you actually in the thread or not? :)

With a few lucky hints from Edge, who'd watched a whole lot of movies about bomb disposal and such, Geckoman was able to pry the dimensional modulator out of its housing. With a rumbling, dissatisfied roar, the great machine before them ground to a halt, a deep, alarming whine beginning to develop from somewhere deep in its midsection. The guard Erin was holding twisted his head to look, horror on his face. "Ach, nein! You fools! We shall all die!" "Of course it is," Edge muttered, a look of calm, reasoned sureness on his face. "This is how it always happens. Everybody out, let's move!"

Okay, unless anyone has any objections, I can write the post that gets you guys to North America?

Well that didn't work. Hey Durf, do I have any HP left?

"Oh, you want more? Come get some!" With a sudden roar of defiance, Avenger turned from the thugs he was battling to hurl himself at the brute again, throwing a wild punch that unfortunately missed by a mile. Faster than he looks. Got his attention, at least...wuh-oh.

With the old lady clearly no threat, Avenger disappeared into smoke and fog, joining Scarab inside the library after a few moments of awkward searching. He started a bit at the sight of Bombshell, but opted to let Scarab speak first. He'd been hanging around superheroes long enough to know that you didn't stand between someone and their arch-nemesis, even one as annoying (and kind of hot) as Bombshell. He did get between her and the door, though, ready to spring if whatever the Scarab had in mind didn't work.

"Goodbye, Stesha," said Jack, watching Stesha depart before turning to Taylor. "Sorry I couldn't get here sooner, but I had some stuff to deal with. I saw Ace while I was packing all this up, he was a big help." He set a few things down, then put his arm around Taylor. "He sends his best. What can I do to help?" he asked her, sincere concern in his eyes. "Tell me, and I'm yours."

Edge Moves to land next to Blink and her friend. He forfeits his standard action to try and help; do I need a Notice or a Medicine check? (Edge will be horrible, just horrible at both.)

"Hey!" Edge's sense of honor is outraged at the sight of a would-be superhero opening fire on fleeing civilians, especially girls! This is what happens when people from the 90s don't retire, he thought dismissively. You get people who have no idea what's going on! He fired his grapple gun and swung, leaving the car behind and landing among the two fallen ladies. "Are you guys okay?" He knew very little about medicine, but he could try to help, anyway!

September 5, 2009: Alex pays a visit to the parents of her boyfriend, the patriarch and matriach of The House of Lucas

Alex meets Mark's folks.

The return of Mark's parents from their sudden trip to Brazil had taken Mark out of school for a couple of days, the joyful reunion of the Lucas family celebrated with hugs and kisses, home movies and board games, everything a normal family did when they were reunited after a long departure. But Mark had missed his friends at school and didn't want the trouble of moving out again, so he'd opted to keep his dorm room with Mike. An unguarded discussion of his social life had let his parents know about his new girlfriend, and Mark himself was very stoked about the chance for Alex to meet his parents. His family was perfectly normal and average outside of their cool stories, of course, but it was still an important step. He'd made arrangements to meet Alex at his house for an afternoon picnic with the family, something his father had insisted on upon hearing whose daughter he was dating. One lazy afternoon while his mother worked in her studio and his father flipped burgers on the grill, Mark sat out on their big front lawn, watching and waiting for Alex's car. It was a good day, and by all accounts promised to be an even better one. An apple fell from the big tree he sat beneath, and he caught it neatly as he reached back behind him. The house itself was a two-story cottage, a bit old-fashioned for its time, the suburb around it a place of straight roads and white picket fences. It was, he decided, a great place to come from.

I have PMed Psyche. The rest of you go about your business. ;)

Thisisntrightthisisn'tright... Despite the cavalcade of confusion and fear boiling inside him, Jack rose with the other prisoners to take the traditional benediction of the Scarab. One by one the prisoners walked up to the stage, passing between the line of the Scarab's guards, where she drove her glowing tendrils into their flesh, transforming and warping them into massive scarab beetles that took their place on the stage with her. Jack's feet moved in a metronome's rhythm as he made his way up onto the stage, watching as the friendly young man with the dreads who'd shared the cell opposite him was transformed into a hideous beast. He'd never bothered to learn his name. On stage, surrounded by scarabs and guards, Jack alone paused in the mechanical line of prisoners. There he met Melinda Ainsley's eyes square on, speaking again in that alien voice. "You're not the Scarab." She smiled beneficently at him and floated down to Earth to meet him, her eyes glowing red. "I'm the voice of the people, Jack," she teased him lightly. "I am the monster who slays other monsters. I turn what's dark in men into good by showing them what's worse." Her teeth narrowed alarmingly. "You can't say you disagree, can you?" In his ears, Jack heard the heartbeats of everyone in the room; men and monsters and Scarab alike. It took him a moment to realize that the only one he couldn't hear was his own. When he spoke, it was with his own voice. "You don't help them. You hurt them behind the guise of love. You feed them false gods and want them to love you for it." "They do love me for it, Jack." She smiled again, her serpent's tongue extending. "Do you love me, Jack?" "I..." She was so beautiful. She was so right. Jack looked down at his hands again and saw the slow, deliberate slickness there, the red liquid clinging to his fingers. "My hands are covered in blood!" he exclaimed, only after a few moments realizing he'd spoken aloud. "They are," she agreed. "But I can clease you of that." Her tentacles waved in the air, making a low sussurating sound. "Come and join me in the black hole, Jack. Come be a man." Jack looked down at his hands again, then looked up at the Scarab. When he spoke, it was with absolute, ironclad conviction. "I. Am. No. Man." With a roar, he spun and grabbed the flag of the Empire, sweeping it low across the armed guards of the Scarab, knocking them down onto the massive insects that had once been his fellow prisoners, pinning them down as he leapt into the air and hurled the pole directly at Melinda!

For heroically coming to the aid of your friend, and for...stuff, everyone take an HP. Also, I need a DC 16 Notice check from everyone. whistles innocently

It sounds kind of useless. With how rare crits are here, why bother to take the feat at all?