Avenger Assembled

"Eh, whatever floats her boat. I went for a ride to the Lighthouse for my sixteenth, but my dad had to pull a lot of strings for that." Mark shrugged at James. Having dried off quickly in the sun, Mark was more than ready for a few board games. "Ooh, I think we'd better go check that out," he said to James and Erin. "Did I hear someone say something about Candyland?"

This looks much better! Approved

OK, I know folks are getting a bit restive here. Give us a TOU save, Malice.

OK, looks like Ace Danger is up.

In what way is the character's Initiative +10? Also, I'm not real thrilled at a character who has lots of happy-fun-ball perception area attacks and virtually no attack; note that my own character (Edge) with a Burst Area Attack is at +10 Ranged Attacks even though he uses his ranged attacks only for Aid actions. Ouch! I know the character is a child, but you really should contemplate raising his exotic saves. Powers: 102pp ...Kavos, you've indicated that you'd like this character to be a member of one of the Claremont super-teams. Given the number of melee fighters on the team, we're not going to want to play with the guy whose main attack is a non-Selective Area blast. My suggestion to you is this: drop the Perception extra (it doesn't really fit the character, and you really want to avoid being the Bathroom Plasmacist) and replace it with Selective. That way he can make ranged attacks right into the heart of melee, be very effective, and not have to worry about obliterating his hapless teammates. Also, Dazzle is not a flaw on Stun; Stun doesn't inflict a dazzle effect. If you want to dazzle someone, buy Dazzle. Were you thinking Daze? A Perception extra doesn't appear to make sense for Environmental Control. Also, as you're the only character I can think of with fusion-based powers, you're better off saving the Nullify for extra effort. And again, you can probably spend your immunity points better elsewhere. Maybe an immunity to heat damage as well as plasma damage? That way your character can have Cool Moves like be the One Guy Who Can Take the Heat. You don't need Permeate with Insubstantial 3. I like the backstory!

Jack leaned in and kissed her soundly, a long, slow deliberate kiss that took all the liberties it could get away with. When they parted, he smiled at her with his sloe eyes, a warm smile on his lips. "I'll see you Saturday," he promised her, his voice a little slurred. (From the intensity of their kiss, or so he hoped she'd think.) "I can promise you an evening you'll never forget."

Edge Init: 12

Robot Initiative: 23

"Saturday," Jack promised. "I'll call you and we'll figure out our schedules, and figure out show times." He looked down at her and said with the serious air of a teammate discussing a serious situation, "Taylor, I was planning on putting my arms around you and kissing you deeply before we leave, but I don't want to startle you." He smiled. "Would that be all right with you, Ms. Chun?"

In a move that was a victory for Jack's peace of mind, they eventually left the alley and resumed the walk back to Taylor's apartment. The streets were dark this late, but neither of them were particularly fearful. After all, they were superheroes. They kept on flirting as they headed back, the dark promise of the night quite pleasant for everyone involved. Or so Jack hoped, anyway. "Schedule or not, we should set a date. How are you this weekend?"

"I'm fine," said Edge, shaking his head with a bemused expression on his face. "Wow." He grinned at her, walking past the unconscious aliens to slap her on the shoulder. "That was pretty sweet, Wander. We took them out like a house of cards. You're pretty darn good with that bat, too." He curiously picked up one of the death rays the aliens had dropped, studying the machine, just in time for Edge's comm unit to beep urgently. When he answered, he heard the simulated voice of Captain Thunder in his ear. "Edge, Wander! We've stopped the Destroyers, but they had time to beam down one of their big guns! It should be emerging from the ocean near your location at any moment. Bring it down if you can, or hold it off for us till we get there!"

"That all depends," said Jack with a challenging smile as he looked her over, the light in his eyes saying how much he liked what he saw. "What exactly are your intentions towards me, Ms. Chun? Because I already know what my intentions towards you are, and let me tell you...I think you'll enjoy them." He looked down at her, careful to keep enough distance to not actually be threatening. He could practically hear the pulse in her neck, and remembered other nights in dark alleys. But contrary to what certain popular fiction said, that wasn't actually a sexy memory!

"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you have very nice legs," Jack informed her unashamedly, a teasing smile on his lips. "I don't think it's in any way a sin to appreciate a beautiful woman. That is, if she appreciates you in return." He met her eyes in a very male sort of way, a challenge as he raised an eyebrow. "And as for the hockey mask, it was supposed to keep people away from me. For all the good that did."

Saves vs. Edge's attack Alien 1: Knocked out by Erin Alien 2: Knocked out by Erin Alien 3: Knocked out by Erin (with help from Edge) Alien 4: Knocked out by Erin (with help from Edge) Alien 5: Knocked out by Erin (with help from Edge) Alien 6: Knocked out by Erin (with help from Edge) Clean sweep. Wander is up.

"Seems appropriate, given the circumstances," Jack mused aloud as he studied the amulet. Not her neck. Not her neck. Aw, man, that's a nice neck. "And personally, I think you look great in a leotard. Cloaked, or otherwise." He gave her a cheeky smile, carefully handing the amulet back. "It's always nice to see a magical artifact that's being used for good deeds. I've run into too many bad ones over the years. " He studied her. "So you had no option to say 'No'? No chance to say, "'No thanks, I'd like to finish college before I guard the multiverse?'"

The aliens successfully disintegrate the barrier. Edge uses Teamwork 3 to automatically give Wander +6 on her next attack vs. the aliens; he then surges to drop his Selective Area Blast on them. Some of them pass the Toughness save, some of them fail it. Some of them fail it badly enough to be stunned and staggered.

"Ready," called Edge, just as the aliens opened fire on them! The combined blasts from their death-ray guns struck not the two teen heroes, but the HVAC unit, making the metal glow red, then white hot before it vanished utterly before Edge and Wander's eyes. "Surrender, Earthling!" came the voice of the lead alien invader, the biggest and most formidable looking of the lot. "Hit 'em with your best shot!" Edge replied Wander's way, firing a pew-pew blast from his blasters to help her out as he rolled for cover himself. He helped her out too with a blast of bad luck that rocketed through the alien horde, their guns wildly misfiring and their suits popping as energy shot through them. Two of the six were knocked down, though not out, and another two staggered as the blow struck them. Those still standing, though, brought their weapons to bear on the newly-exposed targets!

The aliens' initiative is 21 Edge's Initiative is 12 Erin Aliens Edge

"I dunno," said Edge with a shrug. "You never know with Mr. Archer. If it does take that long, I hope we get lunch after this..." As Edge continued talking, Wander noticed six columns of energy forming on the roof of a nearby warehouse, the shapes coalescing into the twisted, menacing form of alien invaders carrying massive, power-packed blaster rifles that glimmered with energy. The transportation had been a stealthy one; no one but Wander seemed to have noticed!

"It's iconic," said Jack with a grin, relaxing a little beneath Taylor's sparkling good humor. "I mean, you see a hockey mask, you know the guy wearing it isn't to be messed with. I didn't have a big budget starting out, so I had to go with cheap stuff. Hockey mask, ski mask, faux-leather clothes, the whole nine yards. It seemed to work really well for the image I was trying to convey. How about you?" he asked her. "Where'd the cloak come from?"

"I don't mean every word all the time," Edge admitted unexpectedly, watching the skies nervously. "I mean, I'm not Pollyanna; I didn't just jump off the pages of Freedom Friends or something. I know not every fight is perfectly right, and that not every battle is going to be won." He looked down at Wander feeling a little better for his teammate's presence. "But I do believe the meaning behind it. I do think that at the end of the day, on a broad enough scale, the good guys are always going to win. It's just sometimes...you know, the day, or whatever, is long. And the scale can be too broad."

"My earliest nights behind the mask? That's not actually that long ago. I only started this thing back in January." He smiled a little, remembering those rough early days with a great deal of fondness. "I still remember my very first battle. Guy was a mugger who went around rolling junkies in the Fens to get their stash and what little money they had. It was pretty darn satisfying to put him down for the count." He smiled a little wider. "I kept expecting someone to come along, see me beating on someone, and call the police. But I guess the guy was known in the neighborhood, and a mask and cape let you get away with a lot. Even in the Fens."

The next few parts of the simulation seemed to go by very quickly, certainly much faster than they were likely to do in reality. Edge reflected that it certainly made things easier to skip over some of the worrisome, stressful bits of waiting and planning, but it wasn't necessarily the most realistic way of doing training. Still, he supposed that this was one way to keep them from spending all day in the machine and still get the feel for the scenario. When the aliens touched down at Lonely Point, he and Wander joined them for a quick consultation. The Freedom League had spoken to the aliens inside the Destroyer, a starship of their own making, and learned of their dire intentions for the Earth. The team would go into space alongside their new alien allies to battle the aliens inside the Destroyer, but Edge and Wander, along with other ground-based heroes, would be charged with the defense of the base at Lonely Point where the Friendly alien spaceship had landed. "The aliens in the Destroyer have teleporters, and this will be a natural place for them to seize if they do get close enough to land invasion troops. It gives them the opportunity to cut off our mundane defenses and to capture a great deal of super-science technology." Edge took the opportunity, finally, to speak to Captain Thunder and the rest of the team, telling them how safe he felt in their hands and how sure he was that they were going to prevail that day. "This world may never have faced a threat like this before, but I'm sure the heroes of Freedom will prevail." The speech was evidently an inspiring one; there was some scattered applause from the assembled heroes before the fliers and their allies took off into space. That left Edge and Wander, and a few others, down in the naval base with the US Marines while the flashes of light began in the sky.

Peering up through the depths of space, Wander was able to make out a large, murky form like an asteroid cast out of black fog approaching through space. With a little help from her alien friend, she was able to adjust things to tell that the large body wasn't quite as big as it looked: closer to several blue whales than a whole city. Of course, that meant it was considerably closer than was any idea of safe. When she came back down to give that news to Edge, he'd already had time to contact the Freedom League for instructions. "They've been in contact with the alien mothership, and they just picked up the Destroyer. They're going to be meeting us at Lonely Point to figure out what we're going to do." He gave Wander a quick half-smile. "They say good work on making friends."

He put his hand on hers as they went, enjoying the moment of warm contact. "I could just tell of your eyes, radiant as the moon overhead, or of the way your smile speaks of so many unfettered joys." He grinned. "I consider myself exceedingly flexible, either way." The moment was an unusual one for Jack, especially in the wake of recent events, and so he decided to simply enjoy Taylor's smile and warm company for a little while.