Avenger Assembled

A little subdued, Mark followed the others out of the building, for once letting other people take the lead. "I'll join you guys," he said to Mike and Erin, "baseball sounds pretty fun. I mean, I might-woah!" Mark put one foot on the building's steps and fell, tripping over his feet as he tumbled down the stairs and landed face first on the sidewalk below. He was dead silent for a moment before he said in a low, pained voice. "Ow...ow, that really hurt..."

Mark led Trevor on a walk around campus, taking things a little more seriously now that he'd had the disquieting thought that the first Midnight must be dead. After all, Travis Hunter had been older than Mark's grandpa Jimmy, who'd died well before Mark had even been born. He must have inherited his grandpa's legacy, poor guy. "Most of the super-stuff is underground. You've already met with Mr. Summers and the psych people, right?" he asked casually.

Suddenly, the two heroes heard a terrible crash from over their heads! Looking up, the two teen titans spotted a small plane in the process of crashing to the ground in the blocked-off street in front of them. It didn't take them long to recognize the Atomcar, the flying craft the Atom Family used to get around when they were out of the Nucleus, or recognize the green-skinned hulking figure pounding at the windows. Gamma, the Atom-Smasher, was in full rage, his body glowing with radioactive power. "I'll kill you!" he yelled as the plane hit the ground. "I'll kill you, then find your mommy and daddy's graves and kill them too!"

20

"Man's power is great. But so is his power to sin." Freedom Angel looked Arrowhawk over and suggested, "I've only partnered with a superhero once before. I would like to join you in the South Side." As he spoke, a flaming sword shimmered into life in his hand, the blade glowing with the pure, white flame of truth. "Those who see me will repent...or else assume simply that because they've seen one champion of justice, that they've seen all of them."

Jack hugged Taylor gently, then looked over at Stesha's dead body. "We need to bury her," he said quietly, "before we do anything else. Dark Star may be far away, and Stesha deserves something better." He rubbed his eyes. "I know a funeral director who can make all the arrangements. But someone should probably talk to her family while all that's going on."

"Come with us, and I shall tell you a tale!" Mark threw his arm around Trevor's shoulders like they were boon companions. "Are you in the Kord Dorm?" he asked. "It's pretty sweet in there, that's where most of us hang out. We can go through there, see if anyone's hanging out...or we can hit the ball field, see if you've got any moves, or maybe one of the classrooms so you can see Claremont in action." He blinked, and suddenly looked more serious as a thought crossed his mind. He took his arm off Trevor's shoulders and added, "Unless, uh, you want to do things more quietly. Under the circumstances."

Avenger: 4 pp to spend +4 to Favored Environment (Nighttime) This moves Avenger up to Attack +18 at night. Remove the Mighty Strike from his Vampire Array, freeing up 1 point. Spend it on another rank of Luck. This brings Avenger up to PL 14 caps on both offense and defense. If someone could fix the many typos that have crept into his feats, skills, and powers, that would be great. Edge: 1 pp Buy Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Knowledge History, and Notice) for 1 pp Freedom Angel: 1 pp 1 rank of Luck for 1 pp DONE BY SHAENTHEBRAIN

"A new Midnight?" Mark put his hand over his mouth, his eyes widening, then clapped the other boy on the back. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this day!" He grinned hugely. "We could start...Liberty League! Liberty League II! Just like...the Big One!" He laughed, not looking serious. "Come on, Eddie and I will give you the Dutch tour. Between the two of us, we know all there is to know about this place."

Since we've got some dissent on this one, I'll start a RefCave thread.

Early that morning, the battered, semi-conscious bodies of Dr. Stratos and Fear-Master were found, bound and gagged and wearing prison-issue underpants, outside a police station in Kingston. A couple of days after that, Blackstar attacked a prison convoy and liberated the two men as they drove to a prison hospital; the three villains escaping just before the Freedom League could arrive. Just another day for Freedom City law enforcement. Jack Faretti took his wife out for spaghetti that night. It was a good weekend.

Whatever else could be said for Stratos, he wasn't a fool. A genius, a mad scientist, yes, but no fool. Already planning to slowly electrocute the man holding him, roasting him over several hours, he said, "I'm listening." Avenger tightened his grip, glad Taylor was visiting her mom tonight, and said, "It has come to my attention that you people have lost your respect for me. That my service battling monsters and street thugs has left you supervillains without the proper respect for my abilities." Terrified though he was, Stratos replied, "If...if you want me to beg, I will. Or let you join the League. You seem like you'd be a good...awk!" The hand had closed on the hose that fed oxygen into his mouth. Avenger held it just enough to keep him from panicking and launching a lightning bolt in self-defense. After all, so far he'd kept that from happening by showing what would happen if anything electrical hit him or Stratos. Besides, they were in the living room. That would mess up the TV. "You insult me. I am not a fool. If I take you to prison, you will escape. You people always escape prison. But you will not escape me. You will never again allow any of your people to purvey your filth in Midtown, the Fens, or the Southside. Or I will find you. And I will punish you again." "S-sure," said Stratos, doing his best to keep the tattered remains of his dignity intact. "Sure, I'll make sure we don't-" "Sebastian." Avenger put his mouth next to the mad scientist's ear. "Glory. Beauty. Little Sebby. I saw the news about their fight with Bolt last year." He gave a cold, terrible laugh that carried right through the thick, inert gas that filled the room, his voice particularly deep and malevolent. "Sebastian, prisons are designed to keep people in, not out. When a man becomes a father, he is never again truly free.Tell your friends. The weakest among you. The strongest among you. If you cross me again, none of you are safe."

A few hours later, Sebastian Stratos awoke with a jerk, rising before dawn as had been his habit since his undergraduate days in the 1950s. He sighed as he slid out of bed, cracking his back and slipping into his slippers, listening to his robot servants recite the news of the day as they slipped a robe around his skinny shoulders. "Yes, yes," he said, waving his hand as he headed downstairs, wincing at the ache in his body. He was getting a little on in years these days, and his powers and genius hadn't yet found a cure for something as basic as a slipped disk. I bet Gardner doesn't have back problems. That $($)#@ gets his $#($... He entertained himself with thoughts about how he'd get his arch-nemesis one of the days all the way downstairs. With GLADYS, his robot servant, busy polishing his Jaguar, he opened his refrigerator, took out a bottle of Ovaltine, and gave a sudden shriek as the man standing behind the refrigerator door smashed it into the back of his head. As the world went dark, he listened as his defenses sprang to life. This intruder wouldn't get far! - Sebastian Stratos awoke in chains, and in a cold, still darkness that was the most terrifying place a weather controller could be: a room with no air. He found himself gasping for air, struggling wildly, and suddenly felt a mask close on his face as strong, merciless arms wrapped themselves around his head. "Sebastian Stratos." The voice was barely audible, tinny and distorted through what he realized was an atmosphere of some gas no man could breathe. He heard a raspy voice behind him, and felt another mask press into his back. "We have to talk."

"They don't teach nearly enough history," said Mark immediately, "but I know the Night Cycle real well." He smiled, his teeth dazzling white. "And all the great heroes of the past. Like Midnight, and the rest of the Liberty League. I was lucky enough to have a family member there as well," he hazarded in a lucky guess. "I'm Mark Lucas."

"Vincent Blume." Avenger squeezed his hands into fists, glaring down at the contemptible little man beneath him. Vincent Blume, the mighty Fear-Master, had gone down like a house of cards once he'd snuck into his den of filth and watched him until he was alone and off his guard. "Do you know who I am?" Fear-Master met his eyes...and looked away. "You don't scare me, man!" He spat back, lying through his broken teeth. "Go ahead, do your worst! At least Raven's got some tits to make it interesting!" Avenger bent down over the villain and took the man's face in his hands. He squeezed, casually, feeling battered flesh give way beneath his leather-clad fingers as the man whimpered. "My worst." He laughed, and it was a terrible, malevolent laugh. "My worst! My worst is the sweet sound of your screams in my ears and your flesh adorning my wall!" He met Fear-Master's eyes with absolute, terrible intent. "Am not like the others. Raven. Wants information. Foreshadow wants to break up your operation. Arrowhawk wants to liberate the poor stupid children in your grasp. I want to hurt you." "You're...you're a superhero!" Blume suddenly fired back, his voice muffled by the hand on his face. "You can't really hurt me!" "You stupid, stupid man." Avenger reached down and ran his hand over Blume's chest, repressing a twitch of revulsion as he felt the man's heart pounding beneath such thin skin. "Let me show you what I am." He hurt him, then, hurt him until Blume had moved from defiance to terror, until he'd gotten the screams he'd promised from the man's now raw throat, until the master of fear was a whimpering, weeping mess. "This city, you know? Avenger gave a terrible laugh. "They love their heroes, don't they? I could do anything to you, anything at all, and no one would ever believe you." "P...please," Blume sniffed, his face covered in snot and tears, pain shooting through his body. "Wh--what do you want from me!?" "You are a member of the Crime League Unlimited. You will give me the current whereabouts of Sebastian Stratos." "No way, man," said Blume, his makeup smeared to unrecognizability, his wrists and ankles chafed to bleeding from the way he'd tugged at his blonds. "Stratos messes traitors up bad, man, he'll..." He looked up at Avenger and said,"He's out of the country anyway. "Vincent." Avenger took him by the head. "I saw the things you did tonight. And who you did them with. You're coming with me when we leave this place. The question is, in how many pieces." When it was done, and Fear-Master had spilled his guts, Avenger knocked him out again. He had some traveling to do tonight. He needed to call Taylor and tell her he'd be late.

Vin Blume sat like a dark godling amongst his pathetic lackeys, watching with perfectly constructed disdain as a hottie with skin painted white and hair dyed black ran her hands across his chest. With the tight corset cinched around her tattoed body showing off already ample endowments, she was everything he wanted in a woman: sexy, gothy, and completely subservient. "Ooh, Fear-Master," she cooed, "You're _so_ sexy." She looked around the abandoned nightclub, which was filled with various Gothic wannabees, the gang tats on the most menacing still visile behind their poorly-applied greasepaint and ill-fitting latex. "And you took this whole place all by yourself?" "Let's just say I gave the original owners...a good scare!" said Blume, laughing malevolently at his own joke, his cronies following along a few moments later. It was a good start to a good night for Fear-Master, he did some high-end coke, screwed an underage teen wannabe behind the bar, and recruited another half-dozen thugs to join his ranks, lured by the promise of cheap sex, drugs, and a city terrified of them. Finally, at the end of the night, a slightly inebriated Fear-Master stumbled to the club bathroom to relieve himself before bedding down. He stepped inside, the door closed behind him, and he heard a voice. "Vincent Blume." An instant later, a leather-gloved hand grabbed him by the back of the head and smashed him into the bathroom tile beneath his feet. Fear-Master started to cry out, but his breaking nose and teeth cut off his cry entirely as the world faded into darkness. - He awoke, a long time later, in pain and bondage. He was on a roof somewhere in Freedom City, the sky above him dappled with stars, the Moon leering down at him malevolently. He was in his underpants, stripped of armor and weapons, and bound, painfully, his arms and legs stretched out, to the floor behind him. A grim, faceless figure stood above him, straddling his bound form, meeting his eyes with a cold, malevolent gaze. "Fear-Master."

"Is that...is that the Midnight Cycle?" The sound of the old-fashioned engine had lured Mark over across the quad, and the sight of the familiar bike, once he was close enough to recognize it, had made him run. "The same Midnight Cycle driven by the grim avenger of evil himself in the 1940s? It is!" The tall, handsome young man with the winning smile looked thoroughly delighted at what he saw. "The one he rode while battling der Eisenfuhrer in the invasion of '43! And again when he leapt over the Grue Juggernaut at the end of the Invasion of '47, spraying it in the face with his powerful Midnight Mist and allowing the Centurion to deliver the knockout blow!?" He grinned, taking Trevor's hand and pumping it enthusiastically. "That's either the best replica I've ever seen...or you've got some powerful friends."

If this is limited to one rank for any character, and requires the Innate feat, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

AvengerAssembled Avenger: Furry Fracas: 7 One Of These Things 3 GUV 2 We Rise Together 1 Edge: Day Without Powers: 4 (1 GMing) Beach Party in Winter: 4 Freedom Angel: Childhood Dream: 0 posts, 2 GMing Song of Songs: 4 GMing: Kick Open the Door: 4 posts Rats in the Mall: 17 posts Fatherly Advice: 6 posts -

Hey all. I'm not going to be around much this week. Some v. bad professional problems have come up.

Avenger and Freedom Angel, plx.

I'd like to volunteer a character for this, leaving open which one depending on what niches are filled.

"Hi, Faith," said Mark weakly, putting his arms around her. He felt decidedly odd, inside and out, which puzzled him. His powers weren't supposed to make him feel this way, were they? It was a scary thought. A really scary thought! He hugged Faith tight, turning pale, as Ms. Harcourt explained that today was a typical day for all of them. "You're all excused from powers training, of course, and any scholastic events that would require the use of your special abilities. But any commitments you have, I want you to do your best to meet. That's what being a hero is about." She smiled faintly, then added, "But since most of you are on spring break anyway, I trust that you'll all be able to use your time wisely."

"Pfft. Like you could get to Star Island with all the defenses we have." Thunder turned pink at that, but just for a moment, and began tugging at his bonds in a very serious way. "Now, let me out of here, so I can beat you to the bloody pulps you deserve!" Overhead, there was the distinct sound of thunder. "NOW!" He was pulling hard at those vines, and if something wasn't done soon he might well be out!

"I'm glad to hear that," said Mr. Summers seriously. "I think you'll find the school has many opportunities for you." He looked from Blake to Blake's uncle and said, "Given Blake's academic and artistic achievements, as well as your family's financial state, the school will be willing to offer a full scholarship, as well as room and board on campus. If you're willing to part with your nephew, that is." "Oh yes," said Blake's uncle, his eyes lighting up at the prospect. "I really want to make sure Blake gets what's coming to him." "Quite," said Summers, giving the other man a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.