Avenger Assembled

Jack laughed a little. "Yeah, well, I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind." He grinned up at her. "I was a little worried about Dark Star, though I'm not sure why in retrospect. I swear, he's a good man and everything, but sometimes I think he's a little too accepting." I mean, look at everything he did for me. There was that guilt again. "So how did you get hurt this morning?" he asked her.

"It wasn't your fault," Jack told her, leaning back with some satisfaction as she touched him. Here comes the guilt. "And it wasn't Stesha's fault, either, it was just...one of those things that happens, between people. If I'd been a better man to begin with, none of it would have happened." He looked up at her. "You handled yourself pretty well. Hearing that about everything can't have been easy." He reached up and squeezed her hand. "Not to mention standing up for your principles. That was something too."

"I can't promise I'll never hurt you," he admitted. "We're both adults; that doesn't really happen even when two people have something special." He smiled, though, and put his hand on hers. "But I can promise you that I'll still be there even when you've hurt me, or when I've hurt you. That's what relationships should be about. Maybe I'm not the perfect man," he added, "but no one else is, either. I can just be...me. You know, what I am." He smiled at that.

"We didn't really talk about it much after it had happened," Jack admitted. "Moira can be very...intense. Both in her desires, and in her achievement of them." He drummed his fingers on the couch. "It wasn't an experience I'd care to repeat, for several reasons. But yes, we had a night together, and we both certainly seemed to regret in the morning. I know I was sorry for how things had happened. I definitely did _not_ have a threesome with Stesha, or whatever it is Ace thought we'd gotten up to."

"I met Stesha through my work, hiring her for a shower for a friend of mine," Jack told her carefully. "We went out on a date, and it didn't go very well." He smiled thinly. "Even though we beat up a couple of thugs together; that abortive museum robbery a couple of months ago? That was us. It just didn't...work out, you know?" He shrugged. "It happens. I admit, I was kind of a jerk in breaking it off, which must have been what prompted her and Moira to show up drunk at my door a couple of nights later to have it out with me."

"I think I lost my appetite in there," Jack admitted unhappily, slumping down on Taylor's sofa. Deciding to lay his cards on the table, for certain values thereof, he looked up at her. "I'm sorry I made things sound so weird in there. I'm usually much more composed when it comes to my personal life." He forbore to point fingers at whose fault it had all been; he was fairly sure it hadn't really been his. Not about the important stuff, anyway.

"Yes," said Jack, looking deeply relieved at the idea. "This has been one hell of an afternoon." He sighed. "Do you want a ride back? It might be faster if we go your way, my car still smells from work." He frowned. "Let's just say that wasn't a good start to the morning either. Though nothing as bad as this."

Malice is currently Gravity-Controlled into the ground, Scarab.

Man, why can't the good-aligned schools get that kind of teacher-student ratio! ;)

Er, Avenger follows Scarab? He has nothing to add. :)

Actually, quote, I'm not quite sure how to do this. If you can do a post where we see Eddie's morning, we can move onto him listening to the music. I don't know his home life well enough to write it. :D

"Oh, yes..." Dryad opened her mind wide, closing her eyes as she reached out to touch the doorways of Arboreal Heaven. "I can see everything. Everything. There is a champion coming to the city soon, who..." She shook her head. "Yes, they are all around in the warden's office, and there is much shouting. Oh my goodness, there is talk of shooting the hostages!" Her eyes widened. "Wait, no, the other has talked them out of it. They are still very bad, though. It looks as though most of the bad men who are loose are around the warden's office. They feel safer with the hostages."

Let's see that Computers check, D-A.

Scarab's mental probes awakened most of the children, some of them fearful but others rising with evident relief as they heard the voice of someone safe in their minds. "Can you see my children?" Magpie whispered urgently in Scarab's ear. "There's a boy, Tommy Morgan, with brown hair and a birthmark on his cheek, and my girl Lilly, she has green eyes and sleeps with a teddy." Rachel Trask had a mother's worry on her face, nothing more, but there were definitely more children in these corridors than hers. The guards didn't seem that interested in their charges, thank goodness; the small staff at the guard station near the elevators seemed to be reading or watching television rather than monitoring the cameras in the hallways. There were, perhaps surprisingly, no cameras in the rooms of the children; one small concession to humanity in this inhumane place. - Down below, the staff on the prison level were considerably more alert...but not so alert that they could see through Dark Star's concealment of energy. They actually passed Columbia's cell on the way in, the powerhouse sitting quietly still, her head bowed as she contemplated her fate. At the computer terminal a mere arm's reach away from a guardsman checking his monitors, Dr. Archeville was able to make a computer connection and learn some fascinating things.

Cool cool. Take your time, I guess. :D

"I'll help with that," Jack suggested immediately. "I know something about arcane magic, and I could really work to your advantage." He stood up, unconsciously dusting off his lap as if to get away from a conversation that had been at once frustrating and rather creepy. "If nothing else, I'll be another pair of eyes and hands with the books and such."

Locations first: Ace and Knievel are at a security door at the edge of the prisoner transfer area, leading to an alley abutting the courthouse. They'd have to go down a fairly long driveway/sidestreet to get down to the street in front of the courthouse where the super-big action is. (Where are the cops who are usually here? As long as it may have taken us, the fight itself has not been going on that long in real time. Plus, the superheroes are here to save the day. Or not. ) The Vestige is in a jail cell, unconscious. Ronin is on the roof of the library across the street, face-planted. Malice is on the ground in front of the courthouse with a significant quantity of debris on him. Scarab is still in the hole in the ground where Malice blasted her. Arrowhawk is on his back in front of the courthouse. Dark Star is the only person out front of the courthouse still up. First, we sound off. Are all these things correct? ;)

Strongman is staggered and stunned. Mike, I need a DC 17 Reflex save to avoid the Area attack, then a DC 17 Reflex to avoid the Dazzle. You're blinded for one round if you fail. (You make your FORT save to recover on subsequent rounds.)

Wander's powerful blow caught the Strongman off-balance just as he tried to bring his blaster rifle to bear, his head rocking backas she wrapped her arms around him. Her grip was such that it was impossible for him to get loose, and indeed as he wobbled in the air, the hardest part for either of them didn't seem so much how to get loose but how to get down! Well, besides the obvious. "Maybe I give you something else to worry about, hotshot!" yelled El Diablo. With a shout of rage, he zoomed backwards in the air and hurled a massive ball of flaming death at Mike; not at his midsection this time, but instead directly at his eyes in a huge ball of pure red light!

Wander's up. On _this_ round, with as fast as you're falling, you can jump up and make a melee attack to catch the Strongman; same same with El Diablo. Note that despite the damage you've done, the airship is still intact; it's just going down.

Despite Mike's best efforts, the villian held out against his attack, sneering arrogantly at him. "Oh-ho! Not so strong, are we? Maybe you'd better run home to Mommy and see if she can make you any stronger!" Just nearby, a soaking-wet, hopping-mad Wander had just torn off the Strongman's door and set it hurling away. Just as she prepared to dive inside the craft and pummel its occupant, two things happened; first she felt the craft lurch beneath her feet and begin plummeting downward; a moment later, an explosion just in front of her showed her a quick glimpse of the Strongman as his ejection seat rocketed high up into the air above her! His parachute deployed a moment later, leaving him several dozen feet above the action and getting further away.

If El Diablo had been a hero, he might have gone to his compatriot's aid as Wander ripped the door right off the flying machine, but as it was he was far too focused on eliminating the teenager who'd made him look so incompetent. (Not that it was, evidently, a very difficult task.) "Eat hellfire, stripling!" he shouted imperiously, hurling a blast of liquid flame at Phalanx that struck him across the midsection, a fire burning with incredible blazing fury.

You're too far away to use Inspire on the street, Ace.

El Diablo nimbly dodged Mike's seeking arms, though from the look of fury on his face he was growing increasingly frustrated at the utter failure of his flaming aura to hurt either of the two teenagers. "Aah! Why won't either of you fall down!?" He readied another attack, fire crackling on his hands, a look of murderous fury on his face. He was distracting in his comical rage, maybe so distracting that Wander failed to notice the hole opening in the machine right in front of her. The Strongman pilot of the flying machine couldn't use any of his destructive weapons so close to his own machine's body, but he was evidently willing to use his other defenses. Suddenly, an enormous gout of water came pouring out of the machine at Erin, blasting her powerfully in the face and knocking her off her feet, away from the hole she'd punched in the side of the airship's hull. Soaking wet, she did managed to right herself without falling off despite the powerful water pressure and strong winds battling at her as the airship flew, her feet dangling just a few inches above the long, long fall to the ground.

Give me a DC 23 Toughness save, Mike.