Avenger Assembled

Ace's skillful navigation put him well ahead of the game, letting him weave his sports car in and out of traffic, shooting across the bridge like a bad-ass driver out of a James Bond movie. By the time he'd made it onto the streets of the South Side, his computer had dug up something very interesting for him. The Shady Acres Retirement Home in Bayview had a partnership agreement with the Psychiatric Nurses' Union of New Jersey, allowing for low-cost care for aged union members in return for inexpensive labor there from nursing students associated with the Union. Remembering Marionette's comments about the hospital where she'd died, it wasn't hard to guess some of her intentions.

Nice.

Since Shaen did say he was including everyone in his collective who wasn't specifically resisting, I'll say we all heard Arrowhawk's shout going through the Collective. I know Hawky's fairly close-minded about such things, but even if he's not in the Collective everyone heard his shout through Dark Star's ears. Avenger spends his action rescuing kitties! And does pretty well, too. The crater is fairly deep; non-fliers are going to need a Climb or Acrobatics check to get down to the bottom safely. Sen, you could indeed do that. If that's what you decide to do, give me an Acrobatics check. Dark Star, you're up.

"Hey, Alex!" A cheerful Mark strode up behind her, looking jaunty in a Comets cap and wearing a jersey bearing the name of Bob Smithee, one of the greatest ballplayers ever to come out of Freedom City. "I had to go get my Comets swag. I've been cheering these guys on since the '93 re-opening." That game, of course, had been the famous match against the Mets that had reopened Freedom City's baseball stadium after the damage inflicted on it by the Terminus Invasion. He grinned at her, his height letting him stand out a little in the crowd. "'Course, I'm a lot bigger now. I think I saw our usual crew around here somewhere."

Count me in!

"My folks decided to head off to Brazil for the summer," said Mark with a wry smile. "Second honeymoon, who knew? So I get to go back here and help out for the summer session. My classes don't even start up again until fall." He cocked his head, studying James for a moment. "We've got a lot of kids here who've got family trouble. You won't be the only one like that." He didn't draw out on that line long, though, too much deep study of someone else's character not really being his bag. "Anyway, there's a lot of cool stuff going on right now. You're actually gonna be across from me from what I've heard; we try and keep everyone together in the summertime. My room-mate's Mike; he's pretty cool."

Oh, and War? That was some mighty fine villain smack-talk. Have an HP.

Why whatever do you mean? :P

"He, uh, bit me once, but he's nice," agreed Mark, suddenly blushing even in the dark of the stairwell. Despite his fearsome, tiny mien, Squeaker turned out to be quite acclimated to people. He sniffed Wander's fingers curiously, then began licking at them with the mannerisms of something more dog than lizard. Squeaker chittered at all of them, a curious look in his eye, as if expecting more treats."His owner should be..." No sooner had Edge started talking than the woman who was evidently Squeaker's owner arrived. Susanna Challenger had the voice of a proper English girl, but was dressed in...was that a fur-lined bikini? Why yes indeed it was, with boots and wrapped hands both; Susanna looking far more like the star of the latest Tarzan movie than the upper-class English girl she resembled in voice. She was no model, either, her muscular frame was built for the outdoors. Squeaker scrabbled up her wrapped arms, settling in on her bare shoulder, while she squeaked at him and kissed his nose. A little belatedly, she seemed to notice the new arrivals. "Oh, hello!" she said with a smile at the new arrivals, completely unselfconscious of her revealing outfit. "You must be new. I'm Susanna Challenger, it's a pleasure to meet you all." She looked at Mark and gave him a different kind of smile, like a jungle cat eying a potential competitor. "Hello, Mark."

I need something to counter a Bluff check from Chris, and a Notice check from him as well. Wander, I need a Notice check from you as well. Though Mark is looking that way too, I'm going to rule that he auto-fails. Edge is a character who rarely Notices things unless it's an emergency. Ecal, you can spend one of your good buddy Mark's HPs on either one of those rolls. The DC of both is 20.

"Yeah," said Mark, staring straight at Eddie, "it's funny how those two things both happened to us." Unable to keep the serious face on more than a couple of seconds, he grinned and scooped up a napkin, tossing it at Eddie. "You're not biting on me, are you, Eddie? Next thing I know you'll be moving in with Mike and trying to steal my grapple gun." He punched Eddie lightly in the arm in that way guys do when they're bonding with each other, and leaned back with a relaxed expression on his face. "It's all right, man. There's enough luck to go around." He studied Chris' approach to the table for a moment, then pulled out a nifty little pair of sunglasses he kept in his front pocket. Donning them, he pointed straight at Chris and fired his finger like a gun. Nearby, the pretty redhead looked up at Chris with a smile on her face. "Uh, hi," she said, still blushing. "Sorry if you saw me staring..."

Ronin: 21 Someone else gets 21 as well; Ronin goes first Captain Knievel: 18 Dark Star: 17 Scarab: 13 Ace Danger: 11 OK, Arrowhawk, Malice, and Vestige?

OK, so Scarab is giving the other dimension a probing it won't soon forget. Phantom, are you assisting your hopefully-soon-to-be team-mate in this endeavour? (She could say with perfect validity that she is already familiar with the basics of that dimension.)

Give us a Drive check, old sport. And a Gather Info while you're at it.

OK, before we begin: I'm going to say that the HPs from the previous thread don't roll over for Arrowhawk or Malice. New thread, new HPs. Malice, I'm going to say your Unreliable flaw applies to each use of the suit itself. Containers; the devil's mistress! And are you still disabled? Well, hmm. Arrowhawk: 26 Avenger: 21 Sen: 20 Ace Danger: 13 Dark Star: 7 Scarab: 6 Phantom: 5 Malice: 4 ...you know, I feel kinda bad. Spend an HP and a Healing power-stunt, and I'll let you recover on your turn. Arrowhawk, you're up.

Thanks to Eddie's quick thinking, he reappeared right in the middle of a huge arena where, to his amazement, he saw babies being made to fight each other for the amusement of a jeering, malevolent crowd! It was all implausibly horrible, and fortunately snatching the originally stolen baby out of the hands of the thief brought an end to the deeply unlikely simulation. As the simulated baby cooed up at him with a big smile before fading away, he was left alone again in the middle of the testing area as Mr. Archer nodded approvingly. "Good work, Eddie! You really showed your flexibility there. All right, we've just got one more part to the test left. Are you ready?"

...if you don't have Subtle on your Emotion Control, yes it is Noticeable.

The little dinosaur, which was indeed what it was, obediently came forward and snatched the food right out of Alex's hands. Holding it between its forelegs, the little dino began eagerly nomming the stuff down with a look of adorable greed on his little face. At the sight of the dinosaur, Mark gave a resigned half-smile. "Oh hey, I know this guy." Unconsciously, he reached down and rubbed his ankle as he waved at the little dinosaur. "Hey, Squeaker. Did Susanna let you run around in the library? Isn't she worried you're gonna eat a pigeon right in front of everyone again?" Sure enough, from down below came the voice of a refined, well-bred English lady as she called from the first floor of the stairs, "Squeaker? Oh Squeaker? Where are you, my little fox? What did I tell you about running away when Mommy was busy training?"

"We, ah, try and make sure all our students get a good reception," said Guimont cordially, "especially the ones who come in during the summer session. It gives us an opportunity to really...get to know our young people, one-on-one!" He talked expansively about the role of teachers at Claremont, a smile on his face and song in his heart, as he led them towards the Administration building. Mark, ever the good chum, helped carry James' bags out of the car. Sensing that maybe the new arrival was getting a little bored with this, Mark leaned close to James and murmured, "He's not so bad once you get to know him. He mostly does counseling for the kids who don't like Dr. Marquez. It's not like we're still a Catholic school or anything. So you're a Freedom City boy too, huh? What brings you here in the summertime?"

"You'll love these guys," said Mark confidently. "Whatever happens tonight, we'll have a great time." He smiled at Alex, then leaned over to Chris. "I think the redhead at the table across from Eddie likes you," he murmured. "Did you see the way she was looking at you when you came over here? She's got kind of a...thing, going on." Sure enough, the pretty redhead with the freckles did indeed shoot a look back at the handsome young men at the other table and then blush, looking away again.

Done and done. (It's July 11)

July 11, 2009: Horrible things happen when the Claremont kids try and take in a show, just horrible! Out Tonight

So what does happen now, chums? ;)

Rachel had not, in fact, had her car lo-jacked, much to her obvious chagrin. She had put a GPS inside the car and the phone, though, and by the time Ace had reached his own vehicle they'd set up a tracker for Rachel's car as it sped west down Route 4 down into Southside. Given Ace's long career and reputation, the police deferred to him on this issue. There were patrol cars in the area, but as Ace himself had said, Marionette's powers could easily turn standard assets deployed against her into assets of her own.

21 Avenger is, however, going to be out of the fight for the first couple of rounds. OK, who's next?