Avenger Assembled

Okay, good. This is something I planned for, this is something I can handle. "Despite what those stupid movies say, the government doesn't take a lot of interest in the personal lives of metahumans." Most of the time. "It's not a good idea to piss off a bunch of walking nukes if you can help it, right?" She hesitated, "The Freedom League knows about me, that was part of joining. Fleur actually recognized me from Claremont if you can believe that..." She looked away and snorted, thinking about the plain and simple fact that the Interceptors have been on a government watch list ever since their leader had brainwashed them and used them for an attempted seizure of global power. "Obviously there have been some concerns, but whatever interest the government has in you, it's definitely not in your kids. Good, happy super-kids who don't think Uncle Sam is looking over their shoulder means everybody's better off." She considered what to say to Mara, then said, "I've heard worse. 'The Patriot's a ball-busting bitch,'" she ticked off on one hand, "'the Patriot's a fascist pig', 'the Patriot's turning our kids gay...'" She smiled thinly. "The rest is stuff that's been screamed at me since before puberty, so you know, whatever." She hesitated, then admitted, "That's, ah, why we're going to try and start a family after the wedding. Because I realized if I spend the rest of my life like this," she said, tapping the helmet, "the only way I'll ever get anything normal is if I reach out and take it." She breathed out, then said, "But listen to me; I sound like the Raven. Little kids send me pictures they drew of me, girls say they want to be me when they grow up, and I volunteered for this. What am I doing bitching about it."

yay!

Ashley smirked a little. "I'll have you know I already met the government doctor who'd be extracting my eggs and he was a perfectly nice man...and yes it was weird!" she added, with a faint blush in her bronze cheeks, remembering the conversation where she'd met the Lor military physician who handled 'frontier medicine' out here in the Sol System. Technically they hadn't directly brought up fertility issues between two women, but Fa'Rua had been ready to talk about it on the way back. "Landing a big family is nice. She's a lucky kid; even if she doesn't always tell you that." She remembered being that age - and being around people that age not too long ago. - Cold Jersey weather or not, Ashley felt good on the walk home. Ellie and Mara were proof that it was possible to make a relationship work long-term when you were a superhero; something that nobody, not even her friends in the Freedom League, had been able to do - and they were more evidence to the case that superheroes actually could be good parents despite how weird their lives were. She listened to Ellie and Mara talk with one ear open and hands in her hoodie pockets, letting herself think about the future. Now all I need is a yes...and maybe things are actually going to start to get better. Back at her house, she hesitated just a fraction before she said, "Okay, uh...this has been a really great evening," she said, reaching out to squeeze Mara and Ellie's arms, "and I'm so glad you took me up on this. I really want to do this again, and...if everything goes good, you'll both have an invitation to my wedding. But there is one more thing I wanted to talk about. Here, I've just got it inside..." Inside, she headed for the duffel bag she'd left along one side of her couch and started fiddling around with it. "Now, before I do this, I..." She stopped, flipped on the overhead light, a yellow LED bulb, and went on, "Ellie, I know you're a civil libertarian with your hero work, and that's fine," it wasn't that fine but plenty of her friends had different lifestyles than she did and she didn't judge too much, "because you and your team have made that work. So we may have some differences here, but..." She hesitated, hands in the bag, and said, "Lately I've realized that this super-woman of mystery bullshit might be fine for my job, but it's no way to live. Not with friends, not with family. So, without further ado," she reached into the bag and pulled out a blue and white helmet, then a matching dark blue bomber jacket with a white star over the chest, adorned with a series of metal pins. "You know I said I work for the government, right? Well - I am the Patriot."

With a distant sound that distinctly echoed like the opening bars of It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas, Paper brought the giant guitar down on the Spider Queen's head - with fantastic results. "Noo! Noo!" she cried in a chorus, "not the beats of that infernal music! Aieee!" And then suddenly, the Spider Queen fell apart! What had appeared to be an exoskeleton and skin turned out to be an outer casing holding in a truly vast horde of black spiders that spilled out and onto the ground everywhere in a vast, scuttling wave of arachnid life, fleeing the heroes up the walls and towards the opening in the ceiling like a tide going upstairs. Eira wasn't upset to see them go; and neither was anyone else. Well, except for one. Santa Claus had escaped his bonds and stood, holding a single black spider in his work-roughened hand, a sad look on his bearded face. "Oh Spider Queen," he said, making an unhappy noise at the back of his throat, "you just couldn't let anyone else be jolly when you were so miserable yourself." He set the spider down, letting it scuttle away to join its peers. "And now, my friends!" he said, waving his arms at Leon and his crew. "Look at you! The hero children who saved Christmas." For her part, Angelic approached Percy, the man-sized elf who'd been captured alongside Santa Claus. "You look well, yes?" she asked tentatively. "You see I told you she couldn't stop me, whatever spell she used." "Ah, Angelic," said the elf playfully. "So serious now!" He stroked her pale cheek and smiled. "I knew you'd come for us. For me." Eira sucked cold air through her teeth and shot a glance at the teens. "Well. It has been a day."

All right, she fails that save and goes down! Let me get an IC GM post in.

Angelic whipped another rock at the Spider Queen's head, not surprised somehow when she missed again. Why not, since everything else was going wrong today. At least the distraction seemed to be helping the hostages escape. Both Percy and Jultomten were wiggling their way free from their bonds now that the spider's web had been so damaged, Jultomten with a look of uncharacteristic seriousness behind his jolly white beard, Percy with a look on his face like - well, there was no reason to dwell on that! Maybe he hadn't pushed the button after all. "If anyone is going to do something," she called once the two hostages were finally free and running away from the spider, slip-sliding on the ice and snowy ground as they went, "better to do it now!"

Angelic throws another rock at the spider queen. https://orokos.com/roll/979028 another miss! Paper is up as soon as I post for that and for his attack vs the web.

He's gonna try and Bluff the duplicates into getting out of the area - and then he's gonna do this Teleport 12 (1200 ft/20 million miles) (hasty light of the Pleiades; Extras: Affects Others, Area [burst]) {48/48} He is going to teleport back to Melissa's parents house - taking her with! The duplicator guy might come too, depending on if they get fooled.

Despite all the tough talk, Fast-Forward had to admit he was running out of ideas. That was the problem with super-speed, you had all the time in the world to think up battle strategies but you could run through most of them faster than the speed of sound. He could just run away, he supposed, but that would just leave poor crazy Melissa stuck here to deal with who-knows-what. Maybe she was paralyzed in time but there was no reason they couldn't just put her over their shoulder and do - God knew what. Not the thinking part of the group here! Then an idea came to him; maybe there were ways to run away without leaving the world behind. "Hey dumb-dumbs!" he called as he ran through the group of duplicates, dodging their blasts by the skin of his teeth. "I'm about to drop the mystic power of the star Sirius on your heads!" He flipped through the pages of the Tome of Theurgy as he went, chanting under his breath with a sound like the unzipping of the sky itself. As he ran, light lit up under his feet, tracing the mystic patterns of the Behenian stars. "Now I'm no science jockey, but I think that's gonna really fry your cannolis! So you'd better get out of here while you still can!" He ran all the way to Melissa, frozen in place like a statue, and touched her. "As for me, I'm gone." And then they were.

Don't forget you can spend an HP if you like, @Nerdzul!

The Spider Queen had taken some damage now between the paper and the cat claws, her giant body bleeding and bruised in several places. But she wasn't out of the fight yet. "Send all your lost toys against me!" she bellowed in chorus - "you'll never win! I'm a queen and I say it's time we DANCE!" And so she did, stamping her giant limbs in a rumble of rhythmic movement that produced a sudden fall of rocks, snow, and ice from the roof of the cave. Angelic took a big hit from a lump as big as her body that turned out to be mostly snow and ice, scrabbling her way out in moments with a snarl on her pretty face. The others all took hits too, some of them big ones - it was clear the ice cave couldn't hold out forever. "Oh dear!" called the roly-poly figure in the web. "Spider Queen, this is no way to make your children love you! You have to treat them with respect and kindness, or they'll never learn to love you back!" "Shut up!" bellowed the furious giant spider. "Angelic!" called the other elf, shooting her a misty-eyed look like a romance novel hero. "I know times were dire - so I used your transmitter-" and there it was in his free hand, beeping red at one end "to call for aid!" "Agh!" responded the furious android heroine.

That's right! Okay gonna post IC, then Nightscale will be up.

That hits! Tou vs. 23: 14 Another bruise and dazed! Okay, she's up - I'll give everyone who dazed her an HP. She stamps on the ground with her mighty legs, causing everyone to have to make a reflex save vs. 20 and then a Tou save vs. 20/25, depending on if you passed the Reflex save/have Evasion (make sure you check your sheets!) Angelic: 17 Tou vs 25: 19, w/HP 31 Okay, rolls from @Spacefurry @Nerdzul and @MoonSimplyplz!

Tou vs 24: 15 Bruised x2 and dazed! Okay, new round - @MoonSimply, La Puma is up!

That hits! Okay, what attack are you using on your sheet - and what's its save?

better roll and see! =D

sure, but you'll have to be careful so you don't hit Santa or the elf. bad for your Christmas karma!

Angelic, the woman of steel, faster than a speeding railgun projectile and more powerful than an electric train, faced down the giant spider and - threw a rock at her. The rock whizzed past the spider's head and buried itself in the ice wall like a hot projectile into butter, producing a throaty contralto laugh in stereo from the spider-queen. "Oh, did the little lost toy princess miss?Pathetic! Why don't you come over here and give mama a kiss-" Eira responded by saying something in Swedish that sounded truly obscene, circling behind her friends as she glared at the spider-queen.

Angelic: Throws a rock - and misses! @Spacefurry, you're up as soon as I post IC

That hits! Okay, that gives you the full +5. Tou vs 29 https://orokos.com/roll/977835 = 25 She is bruised! Okay, I'll do my thing after you post IC

The Spider Queen hissed as claws tore at her flesh, but didn't seem actually hurt by La Puma's blow. She grabbed ahold of the web with her front limbs, standing above all the heroes, and bellowed in a multi-part throaty contralto. "You want me to let them go, do you? Well then I WILL!" Up close, the spider-queen looked oddly - well, not humanoid, she was a giant spider after all, but the two eyes she stared at the heroes with looked like giant human eyes if you ignored the fact that they were all black. Angelic saw the spider-queen's mouth open and cursed before yelling "Cover your mouth and noses!" Soon the reasons for her warning became clear as the spider-queen vomited forth a horde of black, scuttling spiders that swarmed all over the heroes. Eira had dealt with this before and had the advantage of no access to her interior from the exterior, but the sensation of the spiders pouring over her skin was still perfectly noticeable - and she had no way of knowing how this would affect her organic teammates. Quickly, she began wiping the spiders from her face, easily hurling them aside as they failed to find purchase on her skin.

Okay, @Nerdzul, Nightscale is up!

She's flat-footed, and that hits! Tou vs DC 23 (she's still PL 8, right): 29 Oh no! She sprays everyone with a little effect I'm going to call Cone of Spiders! This is a general area effect so everybody roll your Reflex vs. DC 20. If you pass, roll a DC 15 Fort save. If you fail, it's DC 20 Fort. Evasion and Evasion 2 have their usual effects. Angelic is immune to Fort saves - robot!

All that training with the Patriot is paying off! La Puma Negra: 34 Spider Queen: 19 Nightscale: 11 Angelic: 11 Paper: 9

Initiative time again!