Gizmo

"Mean...?" Pique gave the bald man on the roof a closer look, something cool and dissecting about it in contrast to the Frenchman's effusive, even exaggerated geniality. "There is a story there I think I would perhaps be gladder not to hear, oui? Allow me, alors, to speak as plainly as I may." He gave Steve a little mock bow that only partially hid a change in the lines of his face that made the swordsman seem suddenly much older. "I am not a good man. I could give you excuses, certainement, 'mitigating factors', mais laisse tomber. There was a time I believed this could change, that I could live a different life but not so. Then I thought it better that Jean Pique should fade away, for their safety but this, too, was foolish." He gestured downward to the residents of the building they were standing atop and turned away from Steve in the same motion, less eager now to make eye contact with the stoic guard. "The politics, eh, I will not bore you but to attack my grandchild? Unforgivable!" Hands clenching into fists, he turned the word into a snarl, a history steeped in violence and retribution bubbling to the surface. "To underestimate an opponent is a grave sin, mon ami, but to go so far...! Bref, I should have been there. I could not take that risk again." Squaring his shoulders and composing himself, Pique turned back to Steve with a hard, almost challenging look, steeled against whatever the larger man might say.

Rock Initiative: 1d20-2 13

Trevor made a soft sound that might have generously been interpreted as a murmur of agreement before looking up at Erin. He watched her for a moment, normally piercing eyes slightly unfocused as he removed his sunglasses in the relative privacy of the secluded room before looking down at the plate on his lap as if only just realizing what it was. "Oh. Yes." He took a bit out of a slice of cucumber and finished it in another, dimly realizing that he was indeed hungry. He finished the rest of the plate not ravenously but with a pointed efficiency. Setting the plate aside, he looked about the room for a long moment before letting out a sigh. "Can we leave, do you think?" he asked Erin, unsure of his own judgement but feeling some of the emotional distance he'd build up around himself as insulation starting to crumble and not wanting to be in a public place when it collapsed. He gestured through the wall to the gathering at the reception but also more generally about the whole building and its proceedings. "This... nothing to do with him."

Not far off across the gravel covered lot they'd pulled into another nondescript van was parked, its opened back door facing toward the newly arrived heroes. A cursory look was enough to confirm that it had been similarly retrofitted as the one they'd commandeered, though this vehicle had a different set of metal braces installed instead of extra seats. It was a bit of a leap but from their curved shape Wildcat suspected that until recently they'd been supporting barrels or cylindrical tanks. Leaning against the hood of the van was a heavyset man dressed in the same black tactical gear as the thugs from the strip mall, too engrossed by his phone to have noticed their arrival yet, while his partner paced near the entrance to the water treatment plant, his back currently turned to them.

"Oh, child, just stop," Set sighed into the receiver, conveying an exaggerated eyeroll with his tone. "Be this truly what passes for avant-garde in this age? Tis a jest about 'phoning in' here but I expect the wordplay to be wasted upon your narrow, pedestrian sensibilities." In the hotel room the godling shot Sharl a significant look, eyebrows raised, looking for some indication of how long the trace was going to take. "Do you know who was to blame the last instance I had to suffer through this sort of 'poison a celebrity' tripe? The Tik Tok Doc's little minions. Not even the man himself, Marvelous. He could not be bothered and he literally had as much time as he liked. Truly, what theme are you clumsily grasping for here?" He let a brief laugh of derision bubble to the surface. "Worship of false idols? Addiction? You be no Pollock, girl; you cannot toss random colours against the canvas and charge admission. Tis all a waste of both our time. Feel free to call back when you have something of interest to say." Receiving a nod from Sharl he unceremoniously hung up the phone without letting Marvelous make a rebuttal. "And not a word a lie," he told the others in the room conversationally.

Ghost GIrl was about to zip off after Wraith and the others to engage the Communion forces when the technicians they'd brought with them caught her eye. We can't just sit here and let those fake zombies gather together and gang up on us. Corbin would say the important thing was keeping civilians safe and Eve would say that you need to recognize the real win condition and go for it! Circling back around to the Coalition scientists she waved and smiled in what she hoped was a fairly universal gesture. "<I know you can't understand what I'm saying but hang on!>" With a wave of her hands she lifted the whole group into the air, taking them out of reach of the groundbound antibodies and hurrying them toward their goal. If they could get the information they needed all the actual fighting would be unnecessary.

"Lord forbid a child be born different," LaMarr drawled, his deep bass an ice cold rumbling tide. He understood where Honey was coming from, understood that she'd been through personal trauma in order to stand by the man she loved. He'd been there for at least one panic-drenched night that had ended with ol' Bottlecap just barely rescuing a hostage they'd all guessed was someone important to him. Any patience he'd had for that kind of talk, however, had been spent decades prior and something about her talking about Jav in the same breath rankled. Turning his attention to Harry he continued, "This is fun but I have essays to grade. You called me." He didn't bother making it a question this time. Harry wasn't much a of liar and LaMarr found himself increasingly unconcerned with upsetting Honey's sensibilities. "That have something to do with the missing pet posters up and down the street?"

Mole-Slug Toughness Save vs DC 35: 1d20+17 24 22 - Roulette - Uninjured, 3HP 21 - Corona - Uninjured, 0HP 19 - Eclipse - Uninjured, 1HP 17 - Wander - Uninjured, -2 Defense, 3HP 14 - Heavy Antibody Brigade - Disrupted x4, Staggered, Disabled > 05 - Squad C - Unaffected 05 - Squad E - Disrupted x1 05 - Squad W - Unaffected 05 - Squad R - Unaffected 02 - Giant Mole-Slug - Dazed, Staggered

Heavy Antibody Brigade Toughness Save vs DC 24: 1d20+9 16 22 - Roulette - Uninjured, 3HP 21 - Corona - Uninjured, 0HP 19 - Eclipse - Uninjured, 1HP > 17 - Wander - Uninjured, 3HP 14 - Heavy Antibody Brigade - Disrupted x4, Shaken, Staggered, Disabled 05 - Squad C - Unaffected 05 - Squad E - Disrupted x1 05 - Squad W - Unaffected 05 - Squad R - Unaffected 02 - Giant Mole-Slug - Uninjured

Is it worth having Kimber pick up the technicians telekinetically and flying them where they need to get? She can lift up to 400lbs altogether. Alternatively, how far away are those flying ships? She could fly up to fight them but she only has Flight 1 so she'd probably have to let them come to her.

Antibody Regiment 4 Toughness Save vs DC 30: 1d20+4 8 22 - Roulette - Uninjured, 3HP 21 - Corona - Uninjured, 0HP > 19 - Eclipse - Uninjured, 2HP 17 - Wander - Uninjured, 3HP 14 - Heavy Antibody Brigade - Disrupted x3, Staggered, Disabled 05 - Squad C - Unaffected 05 - Squad E - Disrupted x1 05 - Squad W - Unaffected 05 - Squad R - Unaffected 02 - Giant Mole-Slug - Uninjured

Antibody Regiment 4 Toughness Save vs DC 27: 1d20+5 21 They're invincible! Heavy Antibody Brigade Toughness Save vs DC 27: 1d20+10 26 I dunno what to tell you, Turk! 22 - Roulette - Uninjured, 3HP > 21 - Corona - Uninjured, 0HP 19 - Eclipse - Uninjured, 2HP 17 - Wander - Uninjured, 3HP 14 - Antibody Regiment 4 - Disrupted x6, Shaken, Staggered, Disabled 14 - Heavy Antibody Brigade - Disrupted x3, Staggered, Disabled 05 - Squad C - Unaffected 05 - Squad E - Disrupted x1 05 - Squad W - Unaffected 05 - Squad R - Unaffected 02 - Giant Mole-Slug - Uninjured

"Rock."

"Touch...? Oh, is this a powers thing?" Ghost Girl asked, catching on quickly to Hestina's meaning. "Well, you can't really touch me at all, no. Ghost stuff! But telepathy works on me if that's what you're thinking! Hee! Telepathy, thinking..." The translucent blue girl bobbed in the air with a grin that slipped from her face as a particularly loud moan drew her attention back to the shambling group of veterans and their families. They'd stopped wandering aimlessly and we beginning to congregate around a figure she couldn't make out from where they stood in the graveyard. "Uh oh. That can't be good. If you're gonna try something, go for it!"

Jill slammed the heel of the palm into the van's horn again as she took them rocketing through a yellow light, heading south. "The important thing is keeping the poison out of the water, 'Cat." Even with her foot pushing the gas pedal to the floor the medic's voice was steady, any pretense of levity or teasing gone from her tone. "I want to nail this scumbag to the wall, believe me, but that has to come second to keeping everyone safe." The calm, controlled training of an emergency responder had taken charge over the swashbuckling flair for the dramatic. At the pace she was setting it didn't take them long to reach the border between Grenville and Greenbank, the van shuddering as they crossed train tracks and the South River came into view and with it the water treatment plant. "We're here."

Kimber opened her mouth to remind Tarva that half of them were telekinetic and the other half possessed well past human levels of strength but quickly closed it again, second guessing herself. If the shadow witch wanted to be helpful surely there was no harm in letting her? At least she was introducing herself as their friend even if it didn't really sound like she meant it. Baby steps. Instead she focused on Indira's comment and nodded with an upbeat energy that was only a little bit forced. "Right! If we fly and whatever once we get to the woods we oughta be able to make pretty good time! I know where we're going this time, even!" Looking around the group something occurred to her belatedly and she bit her lower lip and looked to Becky. "Um. Did you bring a lantern or flashlight for Eve?" It was sometimes easy to forget that not everyone sound see in the dark quite so easily. "I figured she could just hold my hand," the taller young woman teased, looking entirely too pleased with her girlfriend's state of distraction. "But yeah, I've got some lights in there along with everything else, no worries. The truck's parked nearby, c'mon." The truck in question turned out to be a candy apple red pickup with an extended cab allowing for three people to squeeze into the backseat, a covered rear compartment stocked with duffel bags of supplies and True North's logo emblazoned on the doors. Becky opened the passenger door for Eve before hopping behind the wheel, leaving the others to work out the backseat's accommodations amongst themselves.

Aboard the Horizon's bridge Rock looked at the tactical readout with an expression that was stoney even for him. The Communion destroyed planets outright when it suited its purposes and converted them into glorified server space otherwise. The Gorgon encased planets in an endless living death of frozen amber, 'preserved' in only the most perverse sense. He'd seen the handiwork of both up close and personal and he genuinely wasn't sure which he found more disturbing but there was little argument that the Gorgon under the control of the Communion was even worse than either of them separately. Getting Paradigm's attention with a wave the towering mercenary pointed to the Communion ships on the holographic representation then to himself. "Rock." "Oi, what?!" Nae-Dae objected from the pilot's seat. It had taken some cajoling to convince the XXX to take the Horizon on another mission immediately after dropping Star-Khan off with the Coalition convoy but she knew as well as any of them that they couldn't afford to sit back and let the enemy make the next mode unimpeded. Had she known they were going to be running into the Pit forsaken Gorgon Rock suspected she would have never initiated the take-off sequence. "Yer not serious, like?!" "Rock?" "No, I ain't got a better-- That ain't-- Argh!" Throwing two of her arms up in the air, Nae-Dae used the others to nose the ship toward the enemy, knowing when she wasn't going to win an argument with rough-edged partner.

Set Bluff Check: 1d20+16 25 Set is going to try to keep Madame Marvelous on the phone long enough for Sharl to trace her.

The troopers formed up behind the front line formed by their commanders and poured steady fire into the unrelenting tide of antibodies clawing their way forward with harsh, electronic screeches. "There's no way we have the firepower to chew through a whole city's worth of these monsters," Ron-Digo grunted over the pounding of laser discharge, focusing low while beside him the Grue Jy'mm aimed high. Splattered with silvery ichor and struggling to see out of one eye, Ekna Veiu the farmboy turned soldier felt oddly calm, keeping track of Wander's rampage more by the rent limbs tossed over the tops of the horde's heads as she dipped in and out of view. "If you were planning on living forever I think you may have gotten on the wrong ship," he called dryly, voice cracking in spite of him. Clearing his throat with a rough cough he raised his voice and shouted to his squad, "You gonna let the commander do all the work, you roo'tch spawn?! Fight like Terrans! Ter-RAH!" His guttural shout echoed by the rest of the troopers the bony young man led the charge forward in a wedge formation, taking the fight right to the antibodies and impossibly pushing them backward. For a moment, at least. Ultimately it was a battle of dozens against thousands and Ekna saw a Lor from Roulette's squad stumble and fall under the claws of an antibody rebuilt with cybernetics into something larger than a Broan, then saw lean, canid trooper from Corona's squad empty a full powerpack into the skull of a drone that have sunk jagged teeth into his calf. The wedge began to falter and the green teenager knew with a strange certainty that he was living his final moments. With a sureness of motion that surprised him dully he picked up the Lor's rifle and mashed the triggers of both on his weapons, screaming at the top of his lungs. It seemed like the thing to do. "Pull!" Over his head a trio of small, fist sized objects flew only to be struck precisely with three bolts of laser fire and explode into the enemy mass, tossing antibodies back in their shockwave and sending loosened bits of computronium raining down. Behind Ekna the combat engineer named Jacia readied another trio of half-disassembled grenades, mouth full of stripped wiring as she made a last minute tweak. Beside her Bleed shouted again. "Pull!" Jacia tossed the new batch of grenades overhand and the elf-like bounty hunter picked them off again, detonating them at exactly the right moment for maximum impact. The explosives had been meant for the comm tower but as Eclipse's second in command Jacia had made the executive decision that they materiel wouldn't do them much good if they all died in the canyon first. With the antibodies reeling Grunt and his firing squad sprinted forward, the stocky fighter giving Ekna a feral looking smirk as they joined him at the tip of the wedge, working their way toward the channel Wander had carved for them. Not far behind the canid - Ekna resolved to learn his name if they actually made it through this - was using what had recently been a spindly antibody limb as a makeshift crutch and doing an admirable job of keeping pace with the others. He paused and looked over his shoulder, however, as the sound of glassy computronium cracking and smashing against itself came from behind them. The titanic mole-slug had caught up to them and was reducing the pathway behind them to rubble and slurry more quickly than they were pushing through the antibodies. "Argh, kark karkin' everything!" the canid snarled before redoubling his pace forward, beating an antibody back with his crutch before unloading three bolts into its neck.

Trooper Squads C, E, W & R Attack Heavy Antibody Brigade: 4#1d20+5 24 13 17 12 Heavy Antibody Brigade Toughness Save vs DC 29: 1d20+11 15 Giant Mole-Slug Initiative: 1d20 2 > 22 - Roulette - Uninjured, 4HP 21 - Corona - Uninjured, 0HP 19 - Eclipse - Uninjured, 2HP 17 - Wander - Uninjured, 3HP 14 - Antibody Regiment 4 - Disrupted x5, Staggered, Disabled 14 - Heavy Antibody Brigade - Disrupted x2, Staggered, Disabled 05 - Squad C - Unaffected 05 - Squad E - Disrupted x1 05 - Squad W - Unaffected 05 - Squad R - Unaffected 02 - Giant Mole-Slug - Uninjured

REFORMAT COMPLETE - Fox Jack of all Blades / Jill O'Cure No mechanical changes here, just fixing the formatting that was broken in the site upgrade and updating a couple bits of background information like their ages.

The OOC! Vicki raises a good question! There's no way for her to physically touch Kimber but Touch Range doesn't necessarily necessitate skin-to-skin contact. She can certainly get close enough to Kimber and it's a voluntary effect so I'm inclined to be flexible. Based on your own concept of how Vicki's powers work do you think she'd be able to use her telepathy on Kimber or not?

Heavy Antibody Brigade Toughness Save vs DC 36: 1d20+12 16 Oh, for... Have an HP, Electra. Toughness Save vs DC 36, GM Fiat: 1d20+12 30 The Antibodies are Shaken and pass their turns, leaving the troopers up. Go ahead IC, E. 22 - Roulette - Uninjured, 4HP 21 - Corona - Uninjured, 0HP 19 - Eclipse - Uninjured, 2HP 17 - Wander - Uninjured, 3HP 14 - Antibody Regiment 4 - Disrupted x5, Staggered, Disabled 14 - Heavy Antibody Brigade - Disrupted x1 > 05 - Squad C - Unaffected [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] 05 - Squad E - Disrupted x1 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] 05 - Squad W - Unaffected [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] 05 - Squad R - Unaffected [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Sounds like a good plan! I'd like to see Alan's History section fleshed out some more, with an eye towards his earlier life and his more recent motivations. We're dropped in when he's 23 with no sense of where he came from; that's old enough to have already graduated from a four year university program if he pursued a degree after high school. Did he go straight into the workforce after school or just bum around and only decided to go to university after getting his powers or is he pursuing a second degree? Maybe he dropped out originally? There are a lot of ways you could go there and each one would suggest a different personality for Alan. The martial arts classes seem like an odd non-sequitur. I get that you want to justify his more than competent fighting skills but I'd either drop that bit and just play up his training as a security guard or else expand upon that point. Was another student injured by Alan's accidental use of his powers making him reluctant to try hero work in case he made another mistake? Did he get into an argument with his teacher over a point of principle? Right now it's a throw away line that tells us why Alan has a +10 attack bonus but nothing about him as a person. His complications say that he has a strong need to protect others but it sounds like its taken him five years to decide to actively use his abilities to become a hero. He left his family behind for Freedom City, was that because the job opportunity as a security guard his dream job, was he desperate to get out of his small town, was he hoping to meet other people with powers? How did he randomly run into a cult? Was it in the course of his job, his first foray into costumed adventuring, trying to convince a friend not to join up? He's been in Freedom City for three years now, but we're not told in his history if he's been fighting crime or training or biding his time or focusing on his studies. Imagine that the History section is Alan's first, solo movie, your chance to tell his origin and/or his first big adventure and sell the audience on him as a character so that they're excited to see him in the big team-up movie that comes next. You need to convince the reader that they want to see more of this guy! From there you should be able to expand upon Personality and Motivation, too and it wouldn't hurt to add another Complication or two, especially since you won't get an HP for his magic vulnerability when you're already getting PP back for the Limited Flaw.

I'll follow Morrison's lead and suggest Wail as a possible associate and guest star. He's someone the team could run into from the 70s onward and he'd certainly understand the desire to change the past. I'd also be happy to run Set's elder, villainous self if it comes up!