Avenger Assembled

21

Edge gave a big thumbs-up to their teacher, signalling that they were more than ready to deal with the bad guys, then lowered himself back down to ground level. He ran quickly up the stairs after Phalanx, Psyche, and Wander, getting a look for himself at the threat they were facing. When he heard Mike's fears, he did his best to assuage them, clapping him on the shoulder as he crouched beside him. He kept his voice quiet, speaking just to him rather than broadcasting it over their link. "Phalanx, I know you wish the Freedom League was here. I wish that too." He looked the other boy in the eye. "But they're not here. We are. It's our responsibility to stand up and help these people. A hero is a person who stands up when they're needed. Are you going to be a hero today?" Edge closed his eyes for a brief moment and saw his grandfather in battle against the Ubermensch, remembered his father's stories about standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Centurion the day the world fell in that last great battle. Turning back to the psychic link they all shared, he did his best to come up with something coherent. OK, people, here's the plan. He did his best to sound brave and certain, for all that he was winging it desperately. Gecko, you go in from the air, try and distract them. Be really showy with the Pitchoo. If they're focused on you, they won't be focused on us. It sounds like the rest of us had better go in, take out those demons, then get in and hit the machine. He did his best to visualize things the way Psyche was. Wander, you're the best fighter we've got. Hit those groups right in front of us and clear us a path as you make your way down to that machine making that paralysis field. We'll rendezvous with you there when we hit the field. Breakdown and Phalanx, I want you guys in the air together taking out the demons and robots on my left from above. Give Geckoman backup in the sky if he needs it. Hellion, you and I will swing around from the right and hit the bad guys there. Psyche, you hang back. You're our coordinator, we can't have you get knocked out. Do what you can to probe the bad guys mentally or drop a hammer on any demons near you. Remember, hit the bad guys in the stands first. We need to make sure they can't hurt any innocent people before we hit them directly. Above all, make sure they're focused on us, not on the civilians. Are we all ready? He looked around, then said out loud, "1...2...3...GO FREEDOM!""

All seemed quiet when Ace walked into the nursing home's lobby; the air conditioners and the gentle sound of 40s Muzak the only sounds he heard at first. There were a few residents sleeping in wheelchairs by the door, and a secretary hard at work at her desk. He was just walking up there when she picked up her phone and said, "Shady Acres, how may I help you?" She hung up the phone, smiling perkily, and went back to typing at her computer. A few moments later, she picked up her phone again and spoke in the same inflection. "Shady Acres, how many I help you?"

This thread is not finished and should not be locked up.

"Yeah, it's pretty sweet," agreed Mark with a grin. "You can't really take any liberties because some of them have X-Ray vision and super-strength, but it's still pretty handy." Together they walked into the dorm lobby, a quiet place where a couple of kids were playing video games and another group was rocking out on the air hockey table. "It makes life a lot more interesting having them around...and everybody else, too. C'mon, I'll see if they're in." He headed for the girls' floor first, assuming his guest followed him in.

The redhead didn't look particularly happy with the comment about her makeup, but she smiled anyway. It didn't look like she was letting a bad moment get in the way of her flirtation. "I'm Candy," she lied with a sultry smile. "The makeup's not really my thing," she said truthfully, "it was my friend Deidre's idea. We were gonna meet here, but she blew me off to hit up another party." Her smiles, at least, were real, and she gave Chris another one. "It looks your table's pretty full. There might be more room over here." She pulled over a seat for Chris, her muscles flexing underneath her clothes. Nearby, Mark was peering over at the girl now that his friends had prompted him. "Huh, she does look a little funky," he murmured, rubbing his jaw. "Do you think he can handle it?"

Shady Acres proved to be something of a low-rent retirement home, the sort of place that had claimed a depressing number of Ace's contemporaries in the last few years. The lawn was brown and the building itself old, its institutional style dating back several years. But the place looked clean, anyway, and it was in a decent enough neighborhood. Poverty didn't always mean neglect. As the police mobilized in the neighborhood, Ace pulled into the parking lot to see a red Corvette in the lot, one parked with careless ease in the handicapped spots. The lobby doors were closed, as one might expect in the hot weather, and the hum of air conditioners came from most of the rooms. He couldn't see inside the windows from the outside.

All righty, dun dun dun.

Spending an HP for the Quick Change feat. Using Fortune to give all my allies within fifty feet a minimum of 7 on all rolls they make for the next little while. What happened to our adult escort in the van?

"Oh my God..." Mark didn't try to get around the fast-moving Wander, he'd seen her run enough to know how impossible that was. "All right, the cops just got here! I, uh, need some action here, people." Dr. Marquez thinks I'm leadership material; oh God, I can't let them see that I have no idea what's going on. Despite his own pulse-pounding alarm, Edge was for a few moments in his element. "Psyche, you go after Wander!" he called. "Phalanx, follow her! Get in the air if you can, tell me what's going on inside the stadium. E, uh..." Not knowing Eddie's super-name, he pointed at him. The two young men looked at each other for a moment before Eddie yelled, "Breakdown!" "All right! Good! Breakdown! See if you can hear anything happening on the radio, either on the stadium's system or what the cops are saying, or something..." Stay calm, he reminded himself. Stay calm. Remember what Lou Gehrig said. "Geckoman, can you call the Pitchoo from here? We may need something faster than the van in the next couple of minutes." He studied James for a moment, realized he had no idea what name the other guy was operating under either...or what his powers were, for that matter. "You! What are you looking at over there?" For his part, Mark removed his baseball cap and tossed it aside, then pulled off his jersey with a single dramatic gesture to reveal his costume underneath. Pulling his goggles down over his head and dropping his cape behind him, blasters standing out like lines of hard muscle on his forearms, grapple gun at his side, he looked for a single instant like the superhero he'd always wanted to be. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes and cocked his head, thanking his good luck that he'd thought to wear all this underneath his baseball outfit. "As for me, I'm..." Crap! "I'm getting a look outside." He fired his grapple gun up at the ceiling, neatly pulling himself up to get a look out the stadium entry-way windows at the cops outside.

"Go to Dr. Archeville," said Avenger implacably. "Verify his condition. Come back quickly." He glanced at Scarab and Phantom as they communed with lands and places beyond. "These two may be a while. Will watch the big one and the small one." He shot a look at Ray and Rachel, who mastered themselves with great effort under the circumstances.

Phantom, the rifts are closing as easy as pie.

I'll hold off on posting till I see what I see, I think.

Notice: 27 Do I have...7 HP? Oh my.

Ronin: Scarab's Attack is lower than yours. Her Defense is lower than yours. She looks well-armored, but squishy on the inside. You've dealt with people who relied on Force Field for defense before. You now have a standard action only for your round when it comes up. Vestige, you're up.

Go ahead and edit your posts to reflect the fact that we are at the school, not at the stadium, if you have not done so. Is after the 13th Ok by all?

Yes, yes you do. EDIT: Just for funsies, let's say you hear Arrowhawk's warning but don't recognize Malice. (Have an HP for the Naive complication.)

"Oh, I don't know," said Mark with a smile at Alex and Eddie, "I think there are lots of ways of appreciating music. There's getting up and thrashing and dancing around, and that's cool and all, and there's just sitting around with friends and having a good time. Nothing wrong with either of those." Though he hadn't thought to plan it out in advance, his seating arrangement had luckily put him right next to Alex. There was a brief interruption as their waitress brought their drinks and snacks, breaking up their little tete'a'tete for a moment. - At the nearby table, Chris (and Erin, watching nearby) noticed a couple of things about the pretty girl who was flirting with him. What they'd both mistaken for blushing was actually skin color, the girl he was talking to had noticeably red skin only half-concealed by an intensive makeup job. Her skin was oddly shiny, too, looking either artificial or the victim of an unfortunate skin condition. And while she was definitely flirting with Chris, the meek, shy persona she was projecting wasn't her real personality. She seemed more...intense than she was allowing herself to appear to be, harder and sharper-edged. Something else was going on.

Susanna evidently didn't get the reference Eddie was making, cocking her head and looking at him quizzically before addressing the group again. "Well, I'm sure you'll have a lovely time here. This is a fine school, much better than the others I've had to attend over the years." She caught Eddie's eye and yawned, stretching her long arms up to the ceiling for a moment before she turned. "Now come along, Squeaker, we're going to be late for hunting practice. Let's see if we can get those pigeons this time..." As Susanna left, Mark coughed again. "Susanna's trans-dimensional," he commented, "she's from a very tropical world, very...uh, she says Tarzan was based off the adventures her great-grandfather shared with Edgar Rice Burroughs when he was visiting Earth-Prime back in the 1910s. Anyway, let's get out of here. I've gotta drop off my bag," he said with a quick smile. "You can show me what you've done with the place, Mike."

There are six guards escorting you, each armed with blaster rifles and wearing body-armor. (Why? Because you're Captain Knievel! They should insult you by giving you Roz and Bull from Night Court?) At this point, I can't tell you where you'll be when Initiative starts, because our mystery guest hasn't arrived yet.

Most of James' paperwork had been done ahead of time, so it was just a matter of signing a few relevant forms and taking his room key as they headed over to the Carter-Kord dormitories to find his room. With both boys half-listening to Father Guimont's story about the history of Claremont dating back to its earliest foundations in the 19th century, Mark leaned over James' shoulder to look at his assignment. "Sweet, you did get the other room. That'll be awesome." He grinned, clapping the other boy on the shoulder. "We're friends with the girls down below us, Alex and Erin, they're pretty cool. Just watch, this is gonna be a great summer."

"You're welcome to trade with me if you'd like, Alex," said Mark, gallantly offering her his tickets. "I know Mike and Erin are your buddies." He grinned. "I'm sure I'll find my way into good seats one way or the other. 'Sides, you've got the seats next to the concessionaire's, so I can get my hands on those Midnight Nachos I've been hearing so much about. They're loaded with midnight cheese."

Vestige: 22 Ronin: 21 Someone else gets 21 as well; Ronin goes first Captain Knievel: 18 Dark Star: 17 Scarab: 13 Ace Danger: 11 Malice: 8 Vestige, you're up.

ESP power check=36 Continue. :twisted:

Together, Phantom and Scarab pierced the dimensional bonds between worlds, their unified psychic link allowing them to penetrate the very stuff of the multiverse itself. They saw many strange and bizarre things as they penetrated through that space together, their linked minds passing through a vast white fog of time and space full of strange floating obelisks and bizarre, magnificent ruins left behind by some ancient civilization. As they reached the very edge of the other universe itself, passing along their inevitable journey between dimensions, they were confronted, to their surprise, by a threat at the very edge of reality itself. Neither man wore a costume immediately familiar to the two heroes, but they both, particularly Scarab, recognized the face of the Centurion. One version of the Centurion was a black-haired, malevolent-looking figure in red and gray, the symbol of Omega on his chest an foul obscenity beneath the face of Mark Leeds. His costume was clearly recognizable as the Centurion's, though in its colors and symbolism was an obvious inversion. The other wore a costume closer the legendary Doc Prophet than anything else, his muscular torso exposed, stripped to the waist save for a few small scraps of armor. But he was clearly Mark Leeds as well, though his costume bore no resemblance to the Centurion's. "You fool!" the pulp-Centurion was shouting, "I'll never let you through! If you break through the barrier, you'll loose the Zone into the city!" "You're the fool, Gladiator," spat the other man. "The more destruction, the better! For I am-" And then they were through, having passed between the two titans like phantoms, in the skies over a city that bore a heart-breaking resemblance to Freedom City...if you ignored the single, terrible tower built where Freedom Hall was supposed to be, rising higher even than the nearby Pyramid Plaza. - Back on Earth-Prime, Avenger drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment, then suggested. "Grimalkin. Need a favor done. Can watch these two. How fast can you travel?