Avenger Assembled

OK, you resist Intimidate by rolling Intimidate, Sense Motive, or Will. If you roll below Eagle's 28, you're shaken (-2 on your attacks, saving throws, and checks) for one round. That's a DC 28 Toughness save, GG. Just for simplicity's sake, we'll say Eagle isn't trying to inflict knockback on you. Both of you get a hero point because I fiated for Tyranny Eagle. Golden Guardian, you're up. You roll attacks in Invisible Castle, then post them in the IC by putting them in URL tags. For example (url=theurlforyourattackroll.com)Guardian attacks the Gorilla(/url) Except that you use []'s instead of ()'s.

"Fools!" The great winged ape spat a ferocious curse at the two interlopers, a look of malevolent fury on his simian features. "When the age of the Ape begins, your kind shall be naught but zoo animals, lab specimens, and my delicious dinner!" He roared, exposing impressive fangs, and for a few startling moments the bizarre being actually did look really remarkably scary! A moment later he threw a massive fist Golden Guardian's way, his huge gorilla-sized hand plowing into the champion's chest.

Hey guys, just a reminder that initiative goes in the OOC, not the IC. Tyranny's Eagle's Initiative is 25 Golden Guardian: 18 Dusk-Stalker: 2

Hooray! We knew you were there for us, D-A.

"Fail to impress me." It was Avenger who spoke through the radio this time, the hockey-masked vigilante's voice cold and uncompromising. "Not so righteous you couldn't put your fist through the side of a skyscraper. Innocent people in there. Not much of a hero." Avenger's words did make Rant hesitate a moment, something like guilt flashing in his eyes before he spoke. "Oh...oh yeah? Well you know what? All I see in this world is people too stupid to appreciate their heroes! I read your history books. The Scarab died defending the Pyramid Plaza, there should be a statue of him in there bigger than me! But no, it's just in the hands of parvenu who'll roll over and die as soon as Omega shows up again! You'll let your dimension fall because you won't stand up for yourselves and do what's right!"

There was a mental silence from the former dark detective of the night, one matched by few other men. Scarab...you were a hero to the end. You forget, I was there. I came down from New York for Alexander's funeral. And of that poor kid Bob Barton. The images of a grieving Freedom League, of a grieving Freedom City, were sharp-edged in Summers' mind. You died to keep mad Egyptian sorcerer-cultists from using the Freedom League to summon a monstrous god into the world of the living. Don't diminish the good you've done because there was evil still in the world when you left it. I've never questioned your courage, or your heroism, or your honor. He reached over and clapped a hand on Scarab's shoulder, neither of them having spoken during the exchange. As for Callie...she's her mother's daughter. For someone who knew Jasmine Summers, and who knew the way Duncan saw her, the words were description enough. The past is the past, Scarab. Let the heroes who came before us be remembered for the heroes that they were. I'd like to talk to you about the future.

I never had a lot of heroes. Before I met you...ah, dangit, came Jack's mental voice, a tone of rueful amusement in his mind. Hard to leave things unspoken when you're not speaking aloud. Sympathy wasn't an easy emotion for him to feel, but it was hard not to sympathize with the magnitude of Scarab's loss. Everyone had lost something when the Centurion died, but the Scarab had lost a friend...even if she hadn't known it at the time. Jack would have continued if not for the presence he suddenly sensed at his hip, and turned to find himself facing the watchful gaze of Duncan Summers. The two men looked each other in the eye. "Hrm." :bat: "Hrm." It was Jack who ultimately looked away first, nodding a polite parting to everyone else before heading over to the bar again. That left Duncan Summers in intimate proximity with his former ally, now in a new body. :bat: "Scarab. I would say you're taller...but it's more likely I've shrunk." He met Scarab's gaze levelly, only Heru-Ra's intimate familiarity with the man letting Elena see the smile tugging at the edges of Summers' lips. Over on the other end of things, Fletch Beaumont was suitably sympathetic to the unhappy Geckoman. "Yeah, we had some punks back in my day," he said with the indulgent smile of a young man remembering his own not-very-long-gone high school days. "Ask Mr. Hawke sometimes if he remembers the time Kid Mesmo got his hands on the Mind Matrix. He won't," Fletch added, a wry grin on his face. "But Mesmo got what was coming to him anyway."

Akmenos, you still up for this? It's up in Kingston.

Akmenos, you still up for this?

"Well, we're going to give you a chance to show us what you can do," said Archer with an easy smile as he led the boy into what looked like a supply closet. "There's no way to fail these tests; there aren't any wrong answers. You're going to show us your skills and your powers, so we can find the best way to teach you how to use them safely and properly. Mind the step." He closed the closet door behind them, and the closet rumbled before Breakdown felt a sinking feeling in his ears. They were going down!

Sure enough, Doctor Archeville's 'Science' was more than enough to make White Knight and his cronies scamper for the door. That left the heroic scientist alone with the dying woman, giving him enough time to perform a thorough investigation of her body. Looking over the dying Dryad, Doctor Archeville noted that her body seemed badly in need of energy to absorb to reanimate her vital essence. He was reminded of a classic experiment performed by a German scientist of a few generations earlier. But wouldn't they call him...Mad?

Count me in for keeping going, if someone to run the show can be found.

Bamf! I'm going to say that Dark Star blasts Vestige through the ceiling, leaving a Wiley Coyote style hole, then sends him flying about fifty feet up and out of the building. Vestige needs to make a Toughness save vs. DC 25 from the hit and has to spend at least a move action getting back into the fight, and Dark Stark can have an HP for the scenery working against him like that. Bamf!

June 28, 2009: Breakdown dances the grim fandango

Lord_Fell, after a consultation with the other Refs and taking your OOC remarks in-hand, we've decided that it's better if you don't post in this thread again. The posts you've already made will be counted towards your total for the character at the end of the month.

Just what it says on the tin.

When Eddie arrived at the Jasmine Summers Administration Building for his placement test, he found the gym teacher there ready to greet him with a smile and a handshake. Alan Archer was a big guy with faded blonde hair, with the athlete's build and weathered face of a lot of veteran gym teachers. "Hey there, Eddie, nice to finally meet you. Did you have any questions before we head down and get your test started?" He walked into the building with the young man as they talked, the hum of air conditioning the only real sound inside. Things were quiet in the summer around here!

This is the OOC thread for the Golden Guardian and Dusk-Stalker's battle with Tyranny Eagle, a terrible supervillain from Anti-Earth-Ape.

It was a typical Tuesday morning at the First Bank of Kingston, a small regional bank with branches extending throughout the suburbs of Freedom City. There were students dropping off their paychecks, people coming in to make withdrawals at the start of business, children playing in the little puzzle and game corner where they kept themselves busy while their parents waited in the long, roped-off bank lines. And then the flying gorilla in the hawk costume crashed through the front window in a shower of glass, sending people running and screaming in terror! Even the guards stood stock-still, frozen in shock as the bizarre monstrosity landed on the counter, flapping its mighty wings and sending a terrible glare down at the hairless mutants, aka Homo sapiens, all around it. "I am Tyranny Eagle! Deliver me your valuables, or I shall smash this building to the ground!" By way of demonstrating his power, Tyranny Eagle punched right through the bulletproof glass surrounding the tellers, a look of fury on his simian face. "This will be the start of my new empire! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!"

Ray flinched again, ripping off his mask suddenly to glare up at his invisible tormentors with a naked face. "They were right about you people from the beginning. No wonder my double's a villain on this world." Inside Ray's mind, Scarab found something...odd. There were heavy blocks in place, put there by a mind far more powerful than the one before him, but he could find the gaps. The mind here wasn't the mind he associated with Rave; the moral sense there was far too strong...for certain values of strong. It was more like reading Fletcher III before his alcoholism, or the current Bowman today.

Warmonger, that appears to be the wrong link above. ;)

Other immortals, eh? I have a feeling I don't want to know. I've gotten to know enough immortals in my time. Jack's thoughts were quiet at first, his mind quiescent enough that Scarab was about to terminate the link before he suddenly asked, You knew the Centurion for a lot of years, didn't you, Elena? The image in Jack's mind was a strong one. Immortal undead or not, he was a young man; the Centurion had been the golden, shining hero of his boyhood who had died saving the world just when he was old enough to understand what that meant. What was he like? While Jack thought, the party kept moving all around them. With a look of monumental disgust on his broad face, Leeroy Hawke was engaged in the business of discreetly escorting out both Clarence Beaudrie and Daisy Gibbons, the latter still a lovely picture of sadness even though her eruption of palpable grief had come to an end. He made eye contact with Geckoman as he went, something like camaraderie passing between student and teacher for a moment before the trio disappeared. "Hey, I saw what happened there," spoke up Fletcher Beaumont IV, the former Claremont valedictorian having come up to Chris with a concerned look on his face. "You all right? You need something to settle down with?"

Jack dropped to the ground, blinking back tears to find himself looking up at...Melinda? He was back in the ballroom, now brightly lit and crowded with most of the city's vampires. The humans were gone, banished now that there was serious business to be done, and it looked like Melinda had summoned every vampire in the city as her defenders. As Jack had just magically dropped into the room in a flash of mystic light, that meant he was surrounded by deeply hostile, very surprised vampires. He raised his hands high, his fingers covered in the unmistakeable life's dust of a dead vampire. "He's dead. I killed him." Melinda stared imperiously down at him and said simply, "Tell me everything." Jack did indeed tell her everything. He told her how the Elder had taken him away for torture and murder, how he'd planned to deliver Jack's head to Melinda and Claudia as proof that she couldn't protect her subordinates. And he told her, too, how he'd defeated the Elder in hand-to-hand combat and then been transported back here by some mystic artifact; possibly something the obviously older vampire had stolen before coming there however he had. "I see. You defeated him in battle." She ran pointed fingers over Jack's neck, dangerous passion in her eyes. "You defeated the monster that killed twelve of our people." God, twelve? "How did you do this?" "I ripped out his heart for you, my lady," Jack replied. "And so that no more vampires would die again tonight." "No more will die tonight, child," replied Melinda, turning to face the crowd of elders. "Never again will we be taken by surprise!" she shouted, her eyes turning red. She rose in the air as she spoke, her long dress trailing behind her like a demon's wings. "I have made sure there were no wars in this city! I have brought order to chaos! We are the gods of the night in a city where costumed humans rule the day! And one of you...or one of your allies," she added, pointing to each and every underling, "has sent an assassin to try and kill me! Only thanks to the loyalty and sacrifice of our young did we win this night!" Her voice hardened into a growl. "This night will not happen again. Things are going to change."

"Why?" "Because it's wrong," Jack replied, his voice suddenly choking up faster than he'd expected. "Because killing people. is. wrong. And if I don't live by that standard, how am I going to live by any other standard? You...you know what the society of vampires is like. If we don't stop ourselves from evil, there's no stopping us from doing anything. Centuries of life with the devolving morality of a toddler. I...I won't live like that. I won't go through eternity like that." "So you do not kill for the sake of others; you do not kill for the sake of yourself?" At Lantern Jack's words, Jack thought he was going to die. "I am a sinner," he finally agreed. He looked the ghost right in the eye, mastering his fear as he thought of all the horrors he'd faced to bring him this far. "They say you can see into the souls of men. Or otherwise. Does the good I've done outweigh my sins?" The ghost said nothing for a moment before raising his lantern high. The lantern's white light burned bright in Jack's face, almost blinding him with its pure clarity. "Do not return to Lantern Hill." sounded in Jack's mind, clear as a bell, before a flash of light took him. With the sound of thunder in his ears, Jack Faretti disappeared.

The words weren't spoken; they simply seemed to appear on the edges of Jack's mind. "Murderer. You have killed tonight." The ghostly lantern rose high and pointed straight at Jack, the dead colonial ghost staring deeply into Jack's soul. Despite his own surging, pounding fear and physical pain, Jack forced himself to speak rather than running or launching a suicidal attack. "That thing down there died centuries ago. Uh, sir," he added, not at all sure how to address the mystical guardian of Lantern Hill. How many vampires have you killed? Pumping magical sunlight through them until they imploded; century after century? Lord, I'm so stupid! "He was an escapee from Hell itself. I wouldn't think a man like you would care about that." "But murderer you are, Jack Faretti. You have taken lives by your deeds and by your hand. You prey on the living and are intimate with the dead." It took Jack a few moments to realize that Lantern Jack was speaking socially. "Do you go after everyone who's killed?" Jack replied, mastering his fear as best he could. "Or just vampires?" Lantern Jack didn't reply, forcing Jack to continue even as the animal part of him wanted to run and flee from that implacable gaze. "Because I know people who've taken more lives than I have. A lot more. And they're superheroes. And...and maybe I am different. But killing isn't something I do anymore."