Avenger Assembled

And I would say stunned works the standard way.

Ouch! Well, Moira is stunned and bruised. It might or might not be a good idea to spend one of those HP to shake off the stunned effect; your call.

Searching Search checks for the 3rd Bedroom to be searched.

Ouch! Poor Scarab! ;)

"Geez, what'd he do, take a bat to his face?" Lieutenant John Barnes peered over the still pictures of Thomas Eagleton Ewing, the serial mugger who'd turned up outside the 9th Precinct in the Fens beaten into unconsciousness. Barnes was a veteran officer, but the wounds were severe. Most vigilantes didn't coddle criminals, but it looked like whoever had taken this one down had broken more than his share of bones on the way to bringing Ewing down. "Nope," said his partner, Sarah Pendleton, shaking her head as she pointed out the shape and pattern of injuries. "Bare hands. Left a pretty good impression on Eagleton's jaw; looks like he wears motorcycle gloves or something athletic." She sighed and lit a cigarette, profoundly glad for the precinct's lax enforcement of the department's anti-smoking policy. "We got a picture this time. Sounds like our cape goes by Avenger." "Hits like a brick and just as crazy, huh?" He looked over the picture snapped by the station's surveillance camera, nodding a little at the gleaming eyes caught in the black and white image. "I've heard of this guy. He turned up in the South Side, Greenbank, and here...he's getting around. Maybe the capes around these parts aren't as territorial as we thought they were. You'd better watch your step, Avenger," he said with a wry look, putting the pictures down. "Stick to fighting skells."

OK, make a Will Save at DC 20.

Targette's eyes widen at the sight of Moira's rage, but a moment later she practically bares her teeth as her eyes flare yellow in a sudden, malignant glow! As she does so, Moira can feel that same glow inside her head, a flash of pure electric pain ripping through her very soul! Nearby, Sidetrack spits, "You take her, chica!" before leaping nimbly off the bar, landing nimbly on an empty table. "Come out come out wherever you are," she taunts the still-hiding Jack, "before I come out there and beat you!" By way of encouragement, she throws her fist into the wall, the glowing glove on her hand punching right through the wood, leaving behind a deep crater. By way of response, Jack appears behind her and grabs for her throat, growling menacingly. He misses by inches, but she's distracted enough to turn from smashing up the place to fight him. Heroic, yes. Smart...not so much, Jack thinks as she smiles triumphantly.

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were waiting for me. No, your attack roll missed.

These are Sidetrack and Targette, two young supervillians who've tangled with various superheroes over the years. Recently, they got into a big fight with Nightrival over a crack house they helped destroy. They are associated with the occasional kidnapping-for-hire, so seeing them here isn't too surprising. Sidetrack's the teleporter and blaster; Targette specializes in blowing fools' fool heads off. They are a mysterious pair; that's all you get! (Some people say they're lovers, but that's a common rumor about supervillianesses who work in pairs, so who knows?)

For ease of reference, we'll say that happened in the second or two between combats. You're up!

Jack waves at her, a tense expression on his oddly-feral face. "Listen, didn't you hear that one call for backup?" he asks Moira as their armor gives way beneath her feet with a crunching sound. His eyes widen a little as she so easily shatters metal and plastic, but he's a man with secrets of his own. "We need to-" For the second time in the space of a few seconds, events cut him off as two women appear over the bar in a flash of light and noise, sending glasses tumbling to the ground with a tinkling sound. One is a tall African-American woman, covered in a tight blue and brown bodysuit that exposes one muscular thigh and one muscular leg, shining metal gloves on her fists; while another is a short, equally-fit Hispanic woman with the remnants of tattoos visible on her square, silent face. "All right, ladies," says the African-American with a smile as she raises her glowing fists and her friend levels a heavy blaster pistol, "I'd say you should surrender, but I'd rather hurt you. Mi corazon here likes to play fair. What's it gonna be?" Jack is taken aback by their sudden appearance, but does his best to recuperate. With a feral snarl, he disappears again into the darkness.

Have an HP for the setback of not being able to put those guys down. :)

I am pretty much done with this thread, but Lullaby and Hellbound are welcome to go nuts in it. :D

New combat! Roll for initiative, plz. Jack: 22

With a sickening crunch, both men fall like broken dolls as Divine hurls one into the other like a bowling ball and pin, a single gunshot going wide as it ricochets off the ceiling. The last soldier left standing is about to break and run when a dark voice comes hissing from the shadows behind him: "Tell your friends..." Jack emerges from the shadows in a blur of speed, smashing his fist into the back of the man's head with a crack of metal and plastic. The final goon drops without a word, head snapping back as he hits the ground bonelessly. "The party's over!"

It lasts for one round.

The two with handguns are about five feet away from Moira, and about five feet apart from each other. The radio guy is about five feet further back.

Moira is a very scary godling. :)

Heh, this is true. I'll say Avenger delved into his stolen medical supply bag stock for today, given that he thought he might be around a really bloody crime scene. (Avenger rarely steals blood from blood banks; that's unethical! There's a blood shortage!) Heh. If my informants aren't pop-culture savvy enough, it may not be a matter of knowing the difference between the three. Okay, here's my result for searching the Master Bedroom. And the two upstairs bedrooms. I'll let you actually describe them, since you actually know what they look like. ;)

OK, that's three rolls of Knowledge: Streetwise, Arcane Lore, and Gather Information, taking 10 on each for a total of 16, 12, and 16, respectively, taking up most of the first day of Avenger's investigation. It helps not having to eat or sleep.

It was late at night when Avenger arrived at the Dickson house, the costumed adventurer lurking in the dark overhang of a nearby tree as he studied the house. There were a lot of good reasons to be here; Avenger needed some crime-solving cred if he was going to work well with the police, and Jack needed to find out if a vampire was behind these brutal slayings. More to the point, though, the pictures of the Dicksons reminded Jack far too much of his own long-dead mortal family. He'd grown up in a neighborhood not too different from this one, though out in the suburbs almost to Bedlam, and it was easy to put the faces of his own mother, grandfather, and teenaged self over that dead family. So he'd made what inquiries he could, finding out all he could learn from the neighborhood, the police, and his own supernatural connections. That had all been in the daylight, of course, well before sunset brought out his full vampiric nature. Now that he could do that, it was time to go looking on his own. Gotta make you guys proud, he mused as he slipped into the night, a puff of mist in the air as he drifted in through the Dickson attic window, far above and away from the police tape and cordon line below. It was time to hunt for answers at the scene of the crime.

Okay, great. I am definitely looking forward to seeing what you come up, Doc.

As one of the two still-conscious bar patrons tears through their men like a hurricane and another shouts with the authority of an angel and fury of a god, the three remaining soldiers step back with shocked looks on their faces. "Geez, they're supers!" calls one, slapping at a red button on his chest. "We need backup in the West End, now!" The other two drop their shock prods and pull out handguns, pointing them with shaking hands at the unconscious Stephanie and the bartender. "You'd better back up, or they're history! I mean it; put your hands up!" The men with guns are focused on Moira, the infuriated goddess, so it's the guy with the radio who calls out, "Pluto's might, where in Hades did the other one go?" Sure enough, Jack has disappeared entirely.

You can take 10 when you're attacking minions, fist-to-face or otherwise. And so far I think I've done OK running the minions; these are just low-level goons in body armor with shock prods using a slightly modified soldier template. I have a feeling Moira will take them down pretty easy. If you want to, though, lemme know!

Avenger is indeed a dark, gritty vigilante, a fierce predator of the urban jungle who preys on the criminal element. Mwahaha! :bat: But he is not averse to working in teams, under the right circumstances.