Shofet

@Heritage @Avenger Assembled @RocketLord @Tiffany Korta @Tarrakhash Behold, the thread is born! For Tarrakhash, I think Black Mamba works, and I'm down with Merge joining if you want it to be Merge, Tiff.

Freedom City Friday, July 26 5:58 PM Donahue’s Dockside Bar was not exactly the most glamorous of establishments. The outer walls were coated in flaking black paint, the sign that announced the bar’s name was a harsh neon red, and the windows were tinted in such a way that peering inside was at the very least difficult. On the steel front door was a sign which declared in hastily scrawled letters “closed for a private party”. The interior was not much better.The tables were made of old, battered wood, and the chairs had clearly seen better days. The lights were dim, as if to enhance the melancholic mood of anyone who happened to drink there regularly. The only thing really livening things up was a cloth-covered pair of tables, with a bright sign saying “free food - take what you like”. A few pieces sat under cloches, and the smell of hot sauce was strong in the air. Serena paced back and forth in front of the bar, rubbing at her temples. She was dressed in her Corona costume, a grey set of tights with black trunks and a leather jacket over top, along with a pair of welding goggles resting on her forehead. She sighed to herself. “Do you think anyone’s gonna show up?” she asked. Lester Donahue looked up from the glass he was polishing behind the bar. The muscle he had possessed in his teenage years had long ago turned to fat, and now an enormous belly hung in front of him, but he still possessed the orange fur and wet black nose that had come with the transformation that had given him inhuman levels of strength. He frowned at her, his yellow eyes following the superheroine as she moved back and forth. “It’s still two minutes to six, give’em time,” he said. “Besides, at least some of them are gonna show up for the free food alone, always do.” Serena looked over at him. “Well, that’s great but I kinda need superheroes.” Lester shrugged. “Superheroes like free food too. I mean, you’re mooching off of me right now,” he said with a slight smirk as he looked back down at his glass. Serena huffed. “Not mooching, I will pay you back.” Lester waved his hand at her dismissively. “Myaaaah, it’s fine. This is sticking it to Wu, it’s on me since I can’t uh… Well with my back injury and the heart condition…” Serena smiled sympathetically at him. “Thanks, Les.” Lester shrugged again. “Eh, it’s fine. EY! I think that’s the first person now!” he said, gaze drifting towards the window.

Hello there! I am looking to form a team with my character Corona, and would love to see some players join. Not especially picky with members, because Corona herself wouldn't be. Any PL is acceptable, though very high PLs might have less to do with the first storyline. Which brings me to my next point - the team is being formed to deal with something I'm calling the Kingmaker Saga. A ghost from Corona's past has come up, and she needs help to deal with it. It's going to be a multi-thread affair, so there will be a lot to do, and depending on how much interest I get, I might be able to run multiple threads for people at once. It deals with a rogue super-power bestowing geneticist, evil half-clones, and a rogue psychic who is quickly becoming more than what her master can handle. Technically, you don't have to join the team permanently to take part in the storyline, though the offer will be extended in character. In character, Corona has put this ad up in the Daily Herald:

Serena gawped around at the scene as she walked into the Vault, obviously impressed. Mia herself seemed slightly less so, but nodded in approval. Serena moved off into the centre of the place, then turned around to face Lynn. “You know, I’ve been embroiled in super stuff since I was a teenager,” she said, smiling. “But… Magic, it always wows me.” Mia shrugged. “I can make a pocket dimension too.” Serena rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a competition, honey. Besides, yours is… Spooky. And unstable.” Mia frowned. “It shot stuff out ONE time.” “AT LIKE A HUNDRED MILES PER HOUR.”

GM For Bee and Miracle Girl, it turned out pretty quickly that the Mega Society was not an on-campus club, but instead a society for those who scored in the 99.9999th percentile of intelligence, literal ones in a million. As smart as you could get without being literally superhuman like Terrifica was, with only 27 members in the entire world. However, they were stopped by a young South Asian woman with deep bags under her eyes and ratty hair. She looked as though she might be pretty under more normal circumstances, but stress had made her face greasy and her expression tired. Her t-shirt was stained, and her jeans were similarly in disarray. She was wearing worn flip flops. “Hey,” she said softly. “…You guys are superheroes, right? Are you tracking the people who hurt my brother? Mohinder?” Her voice wavered slightly, and there was both hope and fear in her eyes. This girl had clearly been through the wringer. For Corona and Sandman, the first crime scene was located in the universitys greenspace, marked by a cordoned off section near a tree surrounded by police tape. The students seemed to give the area a wide berth, making it seem particularly isolated. Though it had been some time now, there was at least one sign of a struggle in the form of a slash in the bark of the tree. They were now left with an option to either investigate here, or move onto one of the other attack scenes. The scene was the oldest, but perhaps it would turn up something, yet there was a chance newer attack sites would turn up something more fruitful. Terrifica found herself near the special care centre, which was ominously flanked by two armed guards. Professor Xiu had given her a pass, but the guards did seem fairly done with things, with stony, almost unpleasant expressions. The sound of frustrated screaming emanated from inside, almost sounding like an argument between a child and an adult, except the child’s voice was that of a grown woman.

Serena pressed into the darkness alongside her two companions, keeping the beam of the flashlight ahead of her. When she heard the sound, it was immediately familiar to her. She followed the noise, heading towards an overturned desk drawer. Lowering the beam of the flashlight, her eyes widened at what she saw. She gasped loudly. “Babies,” she said in a loud whisper. Immediately, she crouched down, and went to take a look at them. As gently as she could, she went to try and pick up one of the kittens, aiming for the tabby amongst them. “Oh helloooo,” she cooed softly. “C’mere, c’mon, it’s okay.” She sounded almost like she was talking to an actual human baby at this point. “Little kittens,” she said. Serena had always possessed a weakness for cats, ever since she was young. She liked dogs too, but she gravitated towards cats. At home, she had a fat, pleasant cat named Beelzebub, who she so named for his destructive tendencies as a kitten and black fur with red-orange accents that appeared like sinister eyebrows.

Serena smirked. "I can get the lamb later," she said with a shrug. "I think hitting the beach sounds good to me." She looked Lynn over, then looked back towards the parking lot. ”I filled up the meter so the car should be good for a few hours, so we don't have to rush or anything." Mia looked between the two adult women, and stretched out. “I’m pretty ready to hit the beach, too. It’s way too hot today,” she said. Serena smiled at Lynn. “So, let's put the stuff away and head on out."

Searchable Profile [A woman in a sweat-stained tanktop and torn-up jeans with heavily tattooed arms playing on an electric guitar while singing into a microphone, her right eye obscured by her black hair. She is cast in orange-red light. ] [Same woman in a bar setting, wearing a flannel shirt. She has a warm smile on her face. There’s a half-drained pint of a dark beer next to her. You can now make out her olive skin and piercing grey eyes.] [Same woman at a beach concert, dressed in a black bikini covered in little skulls-and-crossbones. She is smirking confidently at the camera. A tattoo over her heart is partially visible.] Name: Serena Gender: Female Preferred Era of Pop Culture: 80s and early 90s, especially the punk scene. Also still pretty good at Sonic. About you: I’m a musician and have been since I was young, play guitar and sing. Still play bars sometimes. I’m pretty active, do a lot of patrols around the city. I’m also politically active and opinionated, so if you’re not about that, you should probably move on because I will quote Emma Goldman at you. Atheist, but don’t mind religious partners. Have a teenage daughter, and she is the world to me. Really love craft beer and whiskey. Just trying to make the world a better place. Full disclosure, since it’ll inevitably come up: ex-supervillain. Looking For: I’m pan, so I don’t discriminate too much on that front. Man, woman, anything in between is all good. Not interested in anyone younger than 30 - not gonna have much in common. Partner Goals: Wouldn’t mind something serious, but I’m not opposed to something short-term either. Either way, gotta respect that I have a kid and that she takes priority. Fun Prompts! My Favorite Thing About The Place I Live Is.… The taco trucks. Seriously, they’re really good for an East Coast city. Most People Who Know Me Would Say I'm… Super passionate about what I believe in. My Favorite Childhood Memory Is… Going to the waterpark with my mom for my fifth birthday. Five Things I Am Not… Obedient, timid, boring, introverted, a lightweight Private Letter to ErosUnlimited

Not great, not terrible. 1d20+5 = 16

Corona glared at the man hounding the prisoner, her hands ballling into fists which made a distinctive constricting noise in her fingerless leather gloves. She felt her teeth clench together. She looked to Talon, and raised her hand, gesturing to the man with the gun, then pulled it back, starting a countdown from 5. When the countdown was concluded, she blasted the gun with a precise beam aimed at the barrel of the gun, before throwing herself into action, leaping into the air once more. She wasn't letting any civilians het hurt on her watch.

Corona is gonna blast that dude's gun with disintegrate, taking 10 to get 18 since it's a medium weapon. Disintegrate 6, and it automatically fails its fort save, meaning that the weapon is probably slag.

Serena looked toward the place Sea Devil was headed. She couldn't hear a thing, but Sea Devil said 'small things', which made Serena think of children, and protective instinct take over. She fell in line behind them, getting ready to move into the building. To prepare, she pulled a flashlight free from her leather jacket, and clicked it on. She didn't know if Sea Devil could see in the dark, but she was pretty sure neither she nor Facsimile could, so it wouldn't hurt. Not like she was particularly stealthy anyway. "Right behind you, SD," she said. "Just stick close so I don't lose you in the darkness."

“Oh, crap, I am so sorry,” Corona said, her eyes going wide. “I should know better than to assume, I… Yeah, really sorry. It won’t happen again.” She rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. Then, her focus turned to Facsimile, and her face faltered even more. “I don’t… Even know why I’m here. I didn’t help when all this was happening… I wasn’t even a superhero yet, just… Most I did was keep my family safe. I coulda done more, but I didn’t because I was scared about people finding out about who I used to be.” She sighed, kicking at a stray rock. “I guess I’m coming out here to sort of remind myself what I coulda helped stop. Beat myself up a bit. I don’t know if I coulda made a difference, just one lady, but I guess I’ll never know now.” She looked out over the empty buildings, frowning and folding her arms. She chewed her lip, staring into the empty window of an abandoned… she didn’t even know what it used to be. A shop? An apartment? Hard to say. It was like Terminus had actively stripped a piece of the world’s history away when it invaded. “Sorry,” she said. “How you doing, Facs? No sign of Wu since we last spoke,” she said, then looked to Sea Devil. “We, ah, we had a thing last month. Fought an evil half-clone of myself. Was weird, little traumatizing, but that’s superheroing.”

Serena stared at the armoured being for a moment in awe. A suit? That made a lot of sense. Just someone in a robot suit. Who made weird frog noises and had a massive murder stick. That was fine, he seemed friendly enough. Definitely not something to be alarmed about. “Well hey there, Sea Devil,” she said, then turned to Facsimile. “This is uh… Well, says his name is Sea Devil.” She turned back to the armoured being. “I’m Corona, I’m a superhero. Kinda. Uhm, you’re a singer, huh? I’m a singer too. Musician in general, really. It’s good to meet you.” She looked at the armoured hands, and then at her own, squinting. “Uh, I'll shake your hand, if you do that. She turned to Facsimile, gesturing for him to come on up. “My friend over here would definitely love to introduce himself as well, wouldn’t he?” she said, side-eyeing Facsimile and desperately hoping he wasn’t going to punch the Sea Devil or anything like that. She got the terrible feeling that making it mad would be a devastatingly bad choice on either of their parts.

Corona Serena blinked at the tiny woman, then generated a small bit of plasma around her hands. "Yeah, that's exactly it. I figured, uh, well... Well it seemed to suit the whole shtick I got going on." She tilted her head. Honestly, Bee was the first one to actually get what she was going for out loud and point it out. Most people assumed she was named after the beer, for some reason. Which was immensely frustrating, but hey, she only found out what a corona was after googling "star stuff" to find a name for herself. She then saw the other young woman approach, and decided to make her exit. "Right, well, I'm gonna go. Stay safe." With that, she moved to try and match the guy in the cloak's pace.

It used to be that Serena tried to avoid places like Kingston. The haunting presence of Terminus rattled her; she wasn’t normally someone who put stock in the idea of evil having an actual, physical presence but something about the air here made it feel… tainted. It didn’t help that the Doomforges still lingered here, a terrible reminder of the destruction that had been wrought there. She hadn’t been able to do much when the invasion happened. Or was it that she simply hadn’t been willing to do much? She didn’t like to think too hard about it. She was doing things for the city now. That was what mattered. No way to change the past, anyway. Serena was pulled from her reverie by a haunting sound. It sounded almost like a croak, but… deeper. Stranger. She considered turning around right then and there. But no. She had done nothing before, she owed it to do something now. She began leaping towards the sound, moving over abandoned buildings and dusty streets. As she moved, she gained a greater appreciation of the desolation that was here. Deep down, she found herself wondering if any of this was ever going to be fixed, or if the city was always going to have these scars. She also wondered if there was going to be any more damaged. She thought about Mia having to deal with Terminus, and her heart started thumping in her chest. She dismissed it. No use psyching herself out. She stopped moving when she found the source of the sound. A strange, gigantic machine looking thing. Just by a fountain, singing. She considered her options. She could just bean it with a plasma ball and hope that worked, but what if it was friendly? Sure, it looked rather spooky, but so did a lot of heroes in Freedom City. Heck, who was she to judge? She was an ex-supervillain. Whole slew of people got jumpy when she showed up. This is probably a bad idea, she thought to herself. “Uh… Hey,” she said, landing near the fountain. “…Whatcha doin’?”

Corona Serena shrugged. "Nah, I got one at home," she said. She walked with him out into the playroom, and saw that both the SEGAs were entirely fine, although the TV had been wrecked. She looked on over at Facsimile and shrugged. "Looks like they're fine. And yeah, Joe's sounds fine." She smirked at him. "Hey, if you ever wanna work together, even when not dealing with Wu, I'm all for it."

Corona Serena watched the imprint of where the young woman had been for a moment, a bit stunned. She had no idea what she was going to do with the kid if she had actually gotten her out of here, but to be robbed of the chance to do anything... It stung a bit. She sighed, and then looked over to Facsimile. She blinked, seeing his new form, and forced a smile. "Hey, you're actually kinda a cutie, my daughter would be crushin' on you," she said. "...And sure, have my number." She showed him the number on her flip phone. "As for coffee... Sure, I s'pose it wouldn't hurt." She looked out into the main room. "You know, if it isn't broken... There's a classic SEGA console in there, if you wannit."

GM "You really are dim, aren't you?" crackled a voice over an intercom. "Like I said, I am miles away, in a secure location." He paused. "Sorry, I am a little frustrated, given you just pounded my superweapon into the dirt a few seconds." He sighed. "Now I'm going to have to bring her back, tinker with her... All so bothersome. I would seal all the exits and vent out the oxygen but unfortunately there are too many holes in things now, so it's pointless." A sudden sphere of light encased White Rook, and in a moment, she vanished. "So, so troublesome," the voice continued. "Alas, I don't think I have anything more for the two of you. Still, I expect you should be hearing from me sooner or later. Especially you, Serena. And Mr. Blockhead? Next time you cross me, you will die." "Anyway, ta-ta for now."

Corona Serena felt a chill run up her spine as she gazed upon the fallen form of the young woman. She felt a pang of guilt for the poor girl, seeing her features become so much more innocent in her unconscious state. She saw some of Mia's features in that face. And more than that, some of her own. She walked over to her, and knelt down, running the back of her knuckles across her cheek. "...This is really messed up, Wu, even for you," she said quietly. She sighed, looking down at the girl. "...Just a kid..." She chewed her lip.

GM The young woman's eyes went wide as the stony man bared down on her, and tried to raise her arms to block, only to receive a boot to the stomach. Her eyes widened as all the air was knocked out of her, and the pain make everything go black. She crumpled into the ruins of the wall behind her, eyes shutting. Then, there was silence. Dust motes hung in the air, captured in little pillars of light. It seemed as though for now, the heroes had won.

Welp, looks like Facsimile ended this combat pretty quickly.

You succeed!

Taking a 10 to bash the goon who just hit her, and going for a search check. Unfortunately, it's not great at 1d20+3 (with the bonus you gave me) = 10

Serena turned to stare at the goon, and glowered at him. "Seriously? Literal bullets haven't managed to hurt me and you thought...? You know what? Nevermind." She unceremoniously gave him an explosive punch to the gut, angling him towards the walls of one of the shipping containers, before popping hopping off into the air, not even bothering to check if she actually managed to knock him out. She soared over the ship deck, headed towards where the other hero had pointed out. Idly, she wondered exactly where the police presence was at this point, considering she hadn't exactly been quiet and there had been plenty of gunfire. Then again, she wouldn't put it past the FCPD to be slacking, given their reliance on superheroes. Maybe I should count myself lucky, pigs still don't like me very much, she thought to herself. Then again, she didn't really like them very much either. A wonderful hate-hate relationship, while she did their jobs for them. "Hey guys, whatcha doin'?" she called out, hoping to attract the attention of the men opening up shipping containers. "Given your track record tonight, I bet it's really dumb!" She looked around, eyes fixed on the ground beneath her to try and spot any people below.