Avenger Assembled

"I'm up for a long fall," said Mark cheerfully, leaning away from Alex as he put his hand on hers. He decided to deal with Eddie's good-natured teasing in the time-honored fashion of high school kids, just grinning and squeezing Alex's hand a little tighter. "You just gotta keep up with the times, man. One day it's Top 40, the next day...rhythm and blues." He wasn't at all sure when R&B had become the music of dating, but the metaphor made sense to him. "If you want to eat first, the chili dogs here are great. They've got an old guy here from Sicily who's been making them the Freedom way since 1959. They've got a picture of him with the Centurion and everythng!"

Okay, durf, you're up. (Wander and the Strongman will hit the water at the end of the latter's turn.)

"Then you won't hear a word about it from me," Jack promised. "When we're together, I always have other things on my mind, anyway. Bad guys and one good girl, to be precise. I'll be there at six for movie night, right? I'll even bring the popcorn," he promised, having already worked out the details of that little maneuver already.

"Now we take our tour," sad Ms. Dugan pleasantly, the assistant principal having assumed control of their meeting with the departure of Mr. Summers to complete some office business. "I believe you asked to see the science labs first?" she asked as she led the lovely Dr. de Haviland downstairs and out onto the lawn again. "One of our students has volunteered to come with you today as part of her training, so she'll be coming with us on the tour...ah, there she is now!"

Jack smiled, pleased to hear that he was interesting enough to keep Taylor in town. "I'll have to make movie night especially memorable, then. My night is...busy, unfortunately. Not even Avenger business, either, which sucks." He laughed. "I don't suppose you know anything about industrial medical supply contractors, do you?" he asked. "Because let me tell you, they're not nearly as sexy as they sound."

Ah, that's where the problem was. The front door _is_ the door that would make you run through the security gamut. (Why? Because if a prisoner _is_ escaping, they'd rather he be running out the back door than through the nice front lobby of the courthouse with the valuable hostages. And also artwork. Though Ronin's explosion broke all the windows there anyway, so so much for their plans and schemes. ) Rather than get into a lot of NPC combat in a thread that's supposed to be about the PCs, I'm willing to just assume that Knievel has been clever enough to go out the back door rather than charge into a barrage of baliff bullets. Now that we've got our locations settled, let's hammer out HP. I believe Scarab, Ronin, and Arrowhawk are out of HP, while Dark Star and Ace currently have 3 in reserve? Knievel has a good quantity as well, he's had some good rolls so far. Was that three for you as well? Malice, as far as I've followed, you haven't spent any out of your starting total yet, is that right? Once we get all these in place, I'll start keeping a regular list of both init and HPs for your uses. Again, my bad; first mass combat thread and have had a lot going on. - And to answer your question, quote, you certainly can surge, even spending a VP on it if you like. I can't think why you wouldn't be able to concentrate really hard (i.e., surge) to avoid being distracted by Ace Danger and his WEB of LIES. You're still a target of that effect, though, so you're still Distracted if your second efforts to resist fail.

"I don't know how she could have gotten that from Moira. She is very...capricious, so, so maybe Moira told Stesha one thing and meant another. As for your vacation, go somewhere nice," Jack suggested. "There's got to be a dimension that's all beach and all daiquiris," he said with a small laugh. "And people interested in being very nice to their guests. You've got the whole multiverse as your oyster."

"I don't think Stesha's lying to you," said Jack honestly, trying to avoid the deeply embarrassing topic of his sex life as much as possible. "Like I said, she'd been drinking heavily, and I admit I gave her strong reason to dislike me. She may have assumed that Moira was drunk as she was, or that I was so depraved that I would take advantage of someone intoxicated. It just...it just was a thing."

Jack would have blushed under other circumstances. As it was he squeezed the bridge of his nose before saying, "People who are too intoxicated to consent generally don't make the first and last moves. Or tackle you to bed at an early moment in the evening's festivities." He really didn't enjoy sharing the gritty details of his personal life this way. "Trust me on this, Taylor. What we had, on that one night, was decidedly a mutual thing."

Unseen, Jack's face worked itself through a variety of different facial expressions. "I...well, that's a surprise." He frowned. "I wouldn't have thought Stesha would jump to conclusions like that. I certainly don't work in the porn industry, and there was hellacious consent when Moira and I had our...thing. Stesha herself was pretty drunk, so she may not be remembering it as clearly as she thinks she does. Why does she think I'm a pornographer?" he asked her, sounding more baffled than anything else.

She did get Jack, as it happened, this being one of the best times of day to call a daywalking vampire with many, many new responsibilities. "Hey, Taylor," said Jack cordially, leaning back at the desk he'd built into his home office/headquarters. "Nice to see your number pop up. How's it going?"

"Like what, the Olympics?" asked Jack, his eyebrows furrowing. His knowledge of Greek mythology mostly came out of Hercules and Xena reruns, but he was a little embarrassed to admit that around his well-read girlfriend. "If so, I just hope they don't make us wrestle lions or whatever they did in olden days." He quirked a smile. "I'd do it for a friend and everything, but I'd rather not fight off a Nemean lion or whatever."

Phalanx's mighty muscles were sufficient to stop the falling airship, his powerful strength easily able to foil the plummeting airship, the flames burning on it foiled by his hardened skin. A few hundred yards away, things were getting exciting for the falling Wander and Strongman. "Argh! Traitors all! Aieee!" The Strongman gave a horrible yelp as he fell further and faster, the water rushing quickly beneath them. He desperately fired a shot from his blaster rifle at Erin, the powerful blast ricocheting off her super-tough skin.

While the two super-brains talked, Ms. Harcourt excused herself. "If you two gentlemen will pardon me for just a moment, I'm going to see if I can get in touch with Ms. de Haviland so she can join our brainstorming session." She suction-cupped herself a foot or two away, then took out her super-advanced cell phone to dial Claremont's newest and loveliest science teacher.

"So you can't hurt me and I barely scratch you, eh?" said El Diablo. "Maybe I give you something better to deal with. Fix this, hero!" And with that, the demonic supervillian hurled a massive ball of fire at the still-falling airship, causing the flying machine to explode in a massive shower of debris. The super-structure stayed intact, though, and as the others watched they saw the burning skeleton of the craft spin in the air and change trajectory from the sheer force of the blast, sending it hurtling down towards a freighter below. "Deal with that!" At that, he turned and began zooming off on a column of fire away from the two teenagers, callously abandoning his employer to the mercy of the fall.

"Mm, so bad idea." Jack leaned back, distracting himself with the pleasant sight of Taylor. He thought for a minute, scratching his chin. "You know, Scarab's mentioned to me that she knew Horus the Avenger back in the day." There had been some early miscommunication about the source of Jack's super-name. "I know that's a different pantheon and everything, but maybe they know each other's phone numbers?" He was a little out of his depth here. "Or maybe I'll just help you carry your spellbooks." He grinned slightly.

The Panamanian Strongman said nothing other than "Ack!" and "Blah!" as Wander pulled the bat tight against his neck, but it wasn't hard to guess what he was trying to signal. They weren't in free fall, really, but the parachute was overloaded and they were going down fast! Just as the airship was headed down towards the large lake far beneath them, so too were the falling Wander and her heavily battered prisoner.

Jack and Taylor didn't spend much time working on Moira's behalf over the next little while, but Jack didn't have many complaints about that, despite the small spaces in Taylor's apartment. He'd reaffirmed that Taylor hadn't lost interest in him after learning about his relationships with Moira and Stesha, and the two of them had spent a pleasant little afternoon while together. Truthfully, he wasn't at all sure what he could offer Taylor's research...but he could at least make her feel better. And with enough steam in the shower, the mirrors were delightfully fogged up. Afterwards, he headed out in a towel to take a breather, glad his skin was now flushed pink and very warm. There were advantages to fooling around in the daytime; it was easier to repress certain urges. Right now, he didn't feel any guilt at all. "Hey Taylor, do they have defenses? I mean, I've known magical artifacts that can go from one dimension to another. Would they take it amiss these days if we just showed up there and asked to talk to Moira?"

Not sure quite how much he and Taylor had patched things up, Jack repressed the Apparently your work ethic is the one enemy I can't defeat at the back of his mind and stood up as well. He popped his back with a relaxed look on his face. "I could use one of those myself," he said, letting her judge that however she wanted. Not sweating didn't mean dirt didn't accumulate on you, not to mention the fact that keeping his body temperature was always a good idea. "What's our agenda after that?"

"Mmm." He kissed her again, and again, his arm going around her waist to balance her light weight as she sat on his lap. "I'm sure some of your 'thugs' are the sort of blasting wizards I usually leave to the Freedom League. I'll get the barracudas off your back if you bring down the sharks." He smiled at her. "Not that I won't help with the sharks. But I know where my talents lie." He demonstrated with more affectionate kissing, tuning out the world and the argument they'd nearly had as best he could.

Jack avoided the subject of the dress, despite temptation, not wanting to get drawn into a discussion of why he couldn't join her in church. "And I'd be there. In a heartbeat." He leaned over and kissed her, stroking the side of her face. "Let's talk about things we can change," he suggested. "What do you say to a Halloween patrol together?" he asked her. "We can spend the night chasing down thuggish occultists, and the day doing...you know, whatever." He smiled slowly.

"Demons, eh?" Jack remembered the open gates of hell before him, the weight of the demon in his arms as he lifted him high and hurled him into the gates of Perdition, the monster's lying tongue flying out of his head as damnation claimed him. "I've got some experience with those, but only from the more necromantic sorts of hells." He looked at her. "I'm here, whatever you need. But that must make life hell," he agreed. "If they're hitting you in your secret identity. Any incidents with your family?"

"Dark Star had...well, you'll probably sympathize with this. He spent a good twenty years off-planet as far as I know, and I guess that much time out in space with just aliens to talk to will change your perspective on things." He sighed a little. "I can identify with him too," he admitted. "But for different reasons. Life on the street, or anywhere else that takes you away with face-to-face interaction with people, is always going to change you." He put his arms around her as she sat with him. "And I heard that story earlier. Who did it to you? I promise, I won't go beat them up unless you ask."

Jack laughed a little. "Yeah, well, I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind." He grinned up at her. "I was a little worried about Dark Star, though I'm not sure why in retrospect. I swear, he's a good man and everything, but sometimes I think he's a little too accepting." I mean, look at everything he did for me. There was that guilt again. "So how did you get hurt this morning?" he asked her.

"It wasn't your fault," Jack told her, leaning back with some satisfaction as she touched him. Here comes the guilt. "And it wasn't Stesha's fault, either, it was just...one of those things that happens, between people. If I'd been a better man to begin with, none of it would have happened." He looked up at her. "You handled yourself pretty well. Hearing that about everything can't have been easy." He reached up and squeezed her hand. "Not to mention standing up for your principles. That was something too."