Avenger Assembled

"Of course it is a challenge - if you are brave enough." Eira rolled her eyes and made a dismissive snort. "You are just afraid that you will vomit in front of us. Hah!" She smirked and slipped her arm through Pan's. "But if you want to ride on the little rides for children, feel free - we will meet you when we are done." By her grin, she didn't quite mean it the way she sounded - but it could be hard to tell with the robot sometimes.

The Cowboy Universe (replacing Earth-XX) In another universe than this, it's 1878 and the Claremont Institute for the Gifted is in Freedom City, a small settlement on the west coast of North America. The transcontinental railroad was finished about ten years ago and the Civil War ended a few years before that. It's been an eventful 19th century in the frontier, what with the Faithful settling in the mountains in the Far West and building the Desert Republic, vampires revealing themselves to the world during the Civil War and then fleeing west after General Grant drove a stake through the heart of their rebellion, and most recently the Day of Fire in the Black Hills that led to the creation of the Seven Fires Republic. Maybe the US isn't quite as big as the dreams of Manifest Destiny once had it, but that's okay - the nation is better for the Changes in every way. Things aren't perfect. There's poverty and racism and gender discrimination, and many of the evils we associate with our 19th century but things just aren't quite as bad as they were. You can ride a dirigible from San Francisco to New York City for a princely sum, but it's still cheaper to take the train even with the Zeppelin Company stations every few hundred miles along the tracks. There's a steam man of the prairies out there, and renegade scientists and preachers looking to carve a little of their own space out there in the West, a little piece of God's country. And there are monsters too, some of them that look and act just like men - others that didn't need a human to tell them how to shout and kill. The generation that came of age during and after the war went through some changes. Maybe it was the power of the Faithful in the mountains of the West, reshaping the land in their image, or maybe it was the unholy magic of the vampires who fought for the Confederacy, or maybe the magic of the people who always lived on this continent. Who can say? The Changed are different than you or me; they have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men and women, and they aim to use them to change the world for the better. Some of them are the sons and daughters of people Back East who want to spread the benefits of civilization westward, some of them are the children of the Faithful looking to keep what they have, some of them are from the people who always lived here. That best and brightest of the Changed generation tend to wind up at the Claremont Institute out in Freedom City, just north of San Francisco. It's an experimental school in a lot of ways, where girls and boys take classes together (though of course they sleep in dormitories on the opposite side of campus) and learn how to get along in the new world that's being made out here. Even if some of them want another world entirely. It's a school that teaches them how to master their gifts for the betterment of all mankind - but it's not always an easy task...

Eira's eyes widened as she briefly made eye contact with Miss Americana. Her report had not included the fact that Shift's last contact with their parents had been only a month and a half ago. Luckily, Eira was not one to stay silent when there was a question on the table. 'Luckily' "...too much storage can be inefficient if there is limited space," she agreed softly. "Especially with your neural framework's operating principles" She hesitated again, then hazarded bluntly, "Surely someone can find your parents? The authorities will understand that they were forced to become criminals, yes?"

Sounds good! Okay, can you go through and bold and underline your powers as in the sample sheets?

"Here you can make as many backups as you need," said Eira, her arms now so divided that on peering closely one could make out the table beneath them as they submitted their inner workings for the ultraviolet scanner. "Between Lortech and Miss Americana's genius, there is enough memory here for a lifetime," she said, quoting something Miss Americana had once told her though of course there was no way for Shift to know that. "Isn't their integument fascinating?" she said to Miss Americana, sounding like an eager child talking to her favorite teacher even as an eighteen year old. "From my analysis I believe there is room to install an upgrade so Shift can directly interface with other electronic systems, possibly along the side of the neck where the connection to the inner neural network is the thinnest..."

Judy shot a look up at the sky, hanging onto Lulu's hand as they spoke. "You're a good friend." As she spoke, her eyes glowed faintly with rainbow light as she looked at Lulu. "It's not fair how things are sometimes, but we just have to make the best of it, Ah guess." She ran her free hand through her shortened hair for a moment, then said, "That's what my parents would say, anyway." She smiled tightly, then added, "Sometimes the things we want we can't have. That's just the way it goes."

"I can't make out any words," Judy admitted, "just the meaning. They sound like..." She looked up at the window again, almost out of Abby's view, and raised a hand that was glowing a faintly iridescent rainbow light. "They sound like they're calling to me..." She shook her hand, quickly, as if to banish the light glowing from her fingers, and said, "Ah...ah know that sounds crazy, but that's what it sounds like." She looked into the camera, shifted a bit, then said, "Ah don't know if it's them, or something speaking through them, or what - they just...they just sound like they're talking, and they're calling to me. T-to join them."

Eira made a dismissive snort Davyd's way, rolling her eyes and muttering something that sounded rude. As she focused on the others, she added. "If we can be assured that the honey and the eggs have been procured ethically, I have no objection to using them - but I will not partake except to ensure the proper flavor and consistency has been reached." She considered a moment, then said, "Americans love thick pancakes, yes? We could prepare a pancake in a pan, like so." She opened her hand and demonstrated by displaying a holographic depiction of pancakes being cooked inside sheet pans. "If the base itself is vegan, you could customize the individual pancakes with whatever additions you think is...appropriate." She waved a hand, dismissing the image, and added, "There is a bottle of agave syrup in the kitchen stockpile."

One big difference between Dieselpunk’s home world and ours, is that it’s actually a science fiction setting that’s going through a super heroic phase. So even though it’s just 1942, a lot of super Tech is leaking out into the main stream - not the sort of thing we think of as high tech, but the sort of thing that would have looked like high tech science fiction in the early 1940s. That’s why there is so many jet pack Nazis where he’s from - and why the whole dimension looks like something out of a raygun gothic retrospective.

Eira wrapped her arm around Pan, grinning at him. "I have my suspicions..." She rolled her eyes at the boys as they approached, but didn't actually seem bothered by their words. "Pfft, you had better behave. We are supposed to be on our best behavior in public, yes?" She winked, showing she definitely didn't seem to mean it, and went on, "You will like this place. I came here when I was ten and it was very fine." Her blue-painted lips pulled back from her teeth as she added, "I had never actually been to one of these before." There was a line but not as much as there had been earlier in the year, not with the fall weather beginning to cool down here along the beaches. Eira studied the smiling families and their children for a while, a few near to tears with anticipation, and wrapped her arm around Pan's as they got their hands stamped and headed inside the amusement park. She looked around and said, "The Delirium is a a spinning pendulum on which 40 riders are strapped into their seats and face outward on a giant ring while they spin...let us do that!" she said. "Unless you think you are not strong enough..." she added to their guests, a challenging smirk on her face.

Dragged down below, the thing blinked a few times and tried to pull away from the entangling shadow - before Watchdog came up behind it and shot it through the body in a single flash of ruby-red laser light. Shot through the midsection, the little drone fell to the ground and its lights went out, Ashley nodding with satisfaction. "Good catch," she complimented Pan. "This way it won't track us." She considered for a minute, weighing the extent of her knowledge, then said diffidently, "Well, uh, Chelone, there's a lot going on in near-Earth space right now. The Lor government is still stretched thin after the Incursion, and a lot of aliens who don't know much about Earth think this is the perfect time to count coup and hit the place with all the demigods." She hadn't really been paying attention to anything other than Fa'Rua's hands on her feet the last time she'd heard anything about space...which luckily the kids didn't need to know anything about. She didn't seem excited or afraid, just - resigned. "I...oh! No, can you hear me?" Daystar was exclaiming out loud, then she looked at the others, backing away into the shadow of the nearby elephant. "I just...I just heard a voice talking to _me_." She gabbled nervously, stumbling over her words. "It said 'I'm sorry, I didn't know you were there. I'll take care of the others and then we can talk.'" Sure enough, there was the distant rumbling sound of metal sliding against metal near where Pan had pointed out the exit sign; peering that way, the heroes could make out a dimly-lit corridor behind, and a trio of alien figures entering the cargo bay, talking to each other in clicking tones. Gods what a day said the one on the right, her red outfit tight and leathery over her reptilian skin. This had better have been worth all that time on silent running. Jubat don't worry about it, said the other reptile on the far left, we'll scan the prize, make sure there's a good holo for the boss, and then get some meat! The one who didn't speak at first was in the middle; a slim, furry and vaguely wolfen-looking fellow. Turn on the translator, would you? With a sigh, Jubat did just as the Wolfman asked, reaching over to hit a panel on the wall. "Why are you so interested in talking, Lon?" she asked, the first thing anyone other than Pan could understand. "You expecting the idol to talk?" "Well you never know," said the wolf, smiling mysteriously (and toothily) as the cargo door closed behind them. "Let's get to work."

Eira blinked a few times, looking levelly at Micah and said, "Mount Washington is closer and more geographically visible but mounted by a working observatory. Mount Mitchell is further away but the top is less populated. High Point State Park in New Jersey is 175 miles to the north." She considered that, then said, "I will be on the roof when you boys are ready. See you soon." She smiled at Pan and blew him a kiss before abruptly winking out into nothingness.

Eira obeyed Miss Americana with alacrity. She didn't look afraid so much as focused, as she would if she'd been caught outside in a thunderstorm. She sat down in a nearby chair and rolled up the sleeves of her lab coat, exposing forearms adorned with a pattern of what at first like thin scars but then opened up like the petals of a flower, skin and flesh rolling away smoothly as magnetic patterns rearranged themselves, exposing internal workings that gleamed with liquid silver as she raised her hands and placed them inside a glowing ultraviolet chamber before her. She titled her head forward, silent as the black light inside the chamber shone down on her writhing dataspikes as they were subject to levels of intense ultraviolet light that would have been a serious hazard to anyone organic in the room. Anyone normal, anyway.

The group of heroes and their escort arrived at the medbay to find it a wild scene; lights flickering here (though only the lights, not any of medical equipment), efforts being made to pack up a sick, frightened little girl as her father hung close by her side - and then when the heroes arrived, said father turned and pointed at them, a look of sudden, desperate accusation on his face. "You! Damn you, how could you do this?! Some heroes you are to frighten an innocent girl!" Eira had held tight to Pan's hand on the way in, looking more and more nervous at the flickering lights and equipment malfunctions as they went - but at the accusation, she "We have nothing to do with this!" declared Eira, pointing at the labcoated scientist, whose military escort seemed as surprised as he was. "Someone here stole from-" "It was me! As if you didn't know! Just please, stop," he said, arms around his daughter, who looked pale and wan and certainly afraid. "All I wanted to find a way to save her life! Were those ashes so precious to you?" Eira flinched backward at that, shooting the child a horrified look, and seemed thoroughly at a loss for words. "My name is Dr. Simon Hvarlik," said the bearded man in charge. "I am the director of this project - I...I hired the thief who came to your house. I wanted to use...to use our resources to save my little girl's life. Please, Magda is sick; and her time is limited, I thought...I thought if I could reconstruct her DNA, I could use it to figure out the secret of neural uploading, and save her life! Please, I just wanted to save her - call off your monster!" "...your story is very sad...but you are the one who stole..." The ghost was coming into view now, for everyone but Eira, anyway - a vaguely feminine sprite with ethereal blonde hair of perhaps eight or nine, striding up beside Eira in a circle of swirling discarded paper to glare at Dr. Hvarlik and declare in a loud child's voice that was suddenly all-too-familiar to all the Claremonters. "...from my grave!" Eyes went wide among soldiers and civilians alike, Dr. Hvarlik protectively throwing himself in front of his daughter, shielding her from the ghost as it stood and pointed at him with a single spectral finger. "What?" Eira asked."What are they looking at?"

After a short trip, the elevator took them upstairs to a private corridor that looked to be high security. Knowing where they'd planned to meet, Eira led the way past Miss Americana's office - which she would hardly use for meeting a new synthetic form of life for the next time. Instead they went to another door, a small metal sliding door that one would hardly know to look at led to one of Miss Americana's private laboratories - and stepped inside. Eira didn't bother to call or message ahead; knowing Miss A would already know Shift's story and why they were there.

That will catch it, I will cover it in post.

"Judy doesn't know about the secret," said Ashley softly. "I wouldn't tell her something like that." It was hard to keep just a little judgement out of her voice, even now. "But she was asking why there was tension around birthdays, so I told her what happened. About what made the Raven...the Raven." She sipped her ginger ale and called out, "Ani DiFranco! That's what she puts on for quiet times." She turned to Alek and said, "She used to try really too hard to be folksy; she'd put this stuff on when I was cooling down after a workout and ask if I wanted to talk. I was like "No, I don't need to talk," and I don't think she liked that very much..."

Dystopia: The regime that governs Dystopia's homeworld seems sloppy when you think about it. Sure there are drugs in the water supply that control behavior and sap free will. Sure there's censorship of books and other kinds of media - sure there are big red-eyed cameras out in public recording your every move. Sure the regime's proscribed manual for personal conduct, fashion, and love seems pulled from the 1980s - and a particularly conservative vision of it at that. But there are ways around all of this - rain and river water is unpolluted by the sopoforics, there is a lively underground trade in forbidden texts, the cameras can be fooled, and love is love is love even in the worst dimensions. But of course they do. You see, what if a regime's goal wasn't to control their people - but to make them _know_ it? The cattle make things easier if the regime's leaders are looking for slaves, or sacrifices in dark, secretive rituals, or any number of other terrible things: but the rebels, oh, they have possibilities. A being of free will driven to madness and desperation, turning to any power source to fight back, embracing whatever acts of chronic and sustained wickedness will keep them free, or fully aware of the horrors around them, feeling the bonds of love break as they realize their enslaved loved ones love the regime more than them - now that has possibilities. Possibilities for their master. At the head of the table of the regime, whispering in the ear of politician and metahuman alike, is the being that has been this world's master since the mid-1980s: Mr. Infamy.

For the first time since Shift had known her, Eira seemed unsure of how to respond. "She...well." She shrugged. "You might as well as if the sky is nice, or the Atlantic ocean, or a thunderstorm. She is what she is. But she will help you improve yourself, and care for you when you suffer structural or software damage, and she will do it because it is the right thing." The tone in her voice wasn't fear, exactly, it was awe, and love, and many other things all mixed together. It was the way Shift had seen religious people talk about God. And then they were there, pulling up in a parking garage at Archetech near one of the elevators with a direct line for Miss Americana's office.

"Your clothes do not matter," said Eira frankly, "but they are fine. Come, the car will drive us." She sat in the back seat, leaving space for Shift - the car shifted under the other robot's greater weight, but didn't wobble nearly as much as other cars of its size Shift had ridden in. This one was obviously built for durability. "I have asked Miss Americana to be ready with a standard survey - an analysis of your neural networks, possible construction of backup subroutines, the feasibility of upgrades, etcetera," she said seriously. "I sent her the blueprints I made after my initial scans, so you will not need many complicated or personal examinations," she said reassuringly. By this point the car had started with no visible driver, playing a pleasant music that Shift recognized as one of Freedom's Top 40 stations as it zipped along at speeds just below the legal limit for this part of Freedom. "Do you have any questions before we arrive?"

"I do not sleep," said Eira, "but I do have an inactive recharging phase. I generally spend that time working on projects..." The robots talked for a while, girl and Shift, before Eira's roomate returned and it was time for them to part ways. Eira made sure that Shift had stored the date and time of their next meeting - and then they parted... Around 2:30 that Saturday, Eira leaned against a Archesmart Car parked outside Claremont's front gates, her dextral dataspike buried in the car's exterior access port as she waited for Shift. Eira was dressed professionally today in a labcoat and slacks, blue hair pulled behind her in a ponytail and dark glasses on her face.

Okay, well! You see: It's dark enough you're having trouble seeing clearly, but the walls are an odd mixture of different kinds of metal. All in greyscale, but different shades of grey, as if whoever put the place together didn't care enough to put it together. You can make out the alien writing on the walls too - I don't remember if your Comprehend works on written languages but if it does it says WATCH OUT - CARGO DOOR one way and EXIT the other way. Because of all the time you spend with Eira and all her talk about robots, you spot the hovering, glowing thing passing by overhead with a faint whirr, though you can't tell if it saw _you_ yet. You know that you have been taken by _pirates_ - it's just in your gut somewhere. But where rae they?

Prime - The Centurion died saving the world from Omega in 1993. Honor his sacrifice by living up to his example. XX - Centuria died saving the world from Omega in 1993. Honor her sacrifice by living up to her example. Solarpunk - Centuria died saving the world from Omega in 1993. Honor her sacrifice by living up to her example - building a sustainable, finer world for everyone. Apocalypse - Centuria gave her life detonating the EMP Bomb in 2010. Honor her sacrifice by giving all you can for those who need you. Mirror - The Centurion died saving the world from Omega in 2001. Geez, what a mensch! Now back in line, prole. Dieselpunk - The Centurion died saving the world from the Martians in 1938. Honor his sacrifice by smashing Nazis! Dystopia - The Centurion died saving the world from Omega in 1993. Honor his sacrifice by reporting any outsiders, citizen.

On Earth-Prime, they're a student at Claremont Academy. Everyone knows about their problem here. On Earth-XX, they're a student at Claremont Academy under the tutelage of Headmaster Carlton Summers. Everyone knows about their problem here. On Earth-Solarpunk, they're a student at Claremont Academy, a gorgeous set of Art Nouveau structures built directly into a reclaimed hillside in Freedom City. Thanks to artfully placed trees and stained-glass windows, you can wander the garden streets without any sign you're near a fairly large city. Everyone knows about their problem here and the locals are eager to help the new arrivals find shelter. On Earth-Apocalypse, they're a student at Claremont Academy, one of the last relics of the old civilization here in Freedom City. There are no more secret identities now barring very special cases but there's still a need to train the Earth's surviving metahuman population - both to shelter the survivors and to fight off threats from outside like raiders and the Infected. You can see the metal desert across the river from anywhere on campus. Everyone knows about their problem here and it's actually not so bad - the trade in contraband alone has made them popular. On Earth-Mirror, they're a student at Claremont Academy. The League is civic-minded - the next generation of metahuman rulers need to learn how to use their powers in a controlled environment, learn the basic skills they'll need for their new lives, and learn how to exercise authority over those beneath them. The campus is big and Brutalist, with the favored students living in skyrise luxury, the unfavored students in barracks, the proles in their own housing. The Mirror authorities are aware of what happened and they are actually not unsympathetic - metapowers can have so many consequences, and someone so powerful young could be an ally when an adult. That doesn't mean they'll get any protection, though. On Earth-Dieselpunk, they're a student at Claremont Academy - an elite private high school that also has a substantial Hero Reserve Program! The young patriots of Claremont are trained by the finest teachers in the land to battle Fifth Columnists, all for when they turn eighteen and are old enough to ship off to Europe and Asia. It's a Claremont with a huge American flag overhead, slick and streamlined, with geometric shapes and clean parallel lines constructed of shiny metal and glass, lit prominently by neon. Keep an eye out for Martian infiltrators too - you never know when they'll want a second round vs. us human beings. Everyone here knows about their problem; maybe it's a good sign that the bad guys lost in every universe so far! On Earth-Dystopia, they're a student at Claremont Academy. Everything is fine here. Metahuman children need to learn the skills to get along with their peers and make sure everyone is safe just as much as their regular counterparts do - maybe even more! They've managed to keep the secret in this universe...they're pretty sure? You never know. Metahumans are watched especially closely. As long as they remember to dress and act the same, everything is fine. Everything is fine. (Don't drink the water.) The buildings here look like institutional buildings built in the 20th century, red brick generic. Everyone dresses the same. That's fine.

The group settled on meeting over the weekend at the Ocean Heights Amusement Park, a place often frequented by Claremont students. (It helped that Eira and Pan were both 18, at least theoretically, and so had more freedom than the younger students.) Since it was easier than finding a place to land, Eira chose to arrive by the means of taking the bus, riding by herself. That was easy enough when you projected the aura of palpable disdain she did today, ring through her nose and pentagrams in her ears, blue hair arranged short and spiky, dark makeup around her eyes and a scowl on her pretty face as she listened to loud pumping music through headphones she didn't actually need. When she stepped off the bus, she stuck her hands in her bulky jacket pockets and walked away from the bus stop towards the amusement park, keeping her pale blue eyes peeled for the boys - and for any other opportunities.