Avenger Assembled

"I'm sorry about our date," Jack admitted, looking at the drunken Stesha as he joined her and Moira on the ground. "I had a nice time with you, but it was a mistake. I shouldn't have asked you out. I was just...lonely, and I thought I could be a good boyfriend to you. But I can't, because I'm not a very good person. I'm sorry, Stesha."

"Well yeah, I guess if you're a Prophet you know about growing up around heroes." Mark laughed. "All kinds of people used to come over for my dad's barbecues." He worked the weight back and forth, not wanting to seem like he was bragging about his family. "We have a pretty good time around here." He shot James a look. "So, you think you're gonna go into the business? Be a superhero?"

Fearlessly, Jack walked up to Stesha and poked her. "Stesha? Stesha, are you okay?" He did seem genuinely concerned, and he was. His experiences with drug overdoses had been fairly negative, all things considered. "Do you need to cool down?" What did you do with a drunken plant controller early in the morning? "Stesha, I'm sorry about what happened."

"Aw, it's all right," said Jack, reaching out to pat Moira on the arm. "It's just...it's been a very surprising evening." He felt bad before her sadness, and smiled at her. "I'll go find Stesha." And with that he disappeared, heading off down the corridor at top speed to try and track down whatever had become of the drunken plant controller. He headed outside first, as that seemed the most logical, picking the back way out of the two possibilities. "Stesha! Hey, Stesha!"

Arrrgggh! Jack entertained many bad thoughts about the problems with being the only sober one in the room for several long seconds. "Okay, maybe we shouldn't be giving mortals the drink of the gods," he suggested irritably. "In the meantime, why don't you stay here in case she comes back, and I go outside and look for her? If she went to the nearest large plants outside, she's probably in the begonias in the back, or the cedars up front. It'll just be a minute."

Jack carefully avoided thinking about seeing the Scarab's face earlier, or the nasty taste of her blood in his mouth. Instead he thought about comradeship and duty, about the need for cooperation he'd had so nakedly exposed earlier. He might have killed those boys without another hero around...and for all that he'd wanted to alienate other heroes, he realized today that he needed their help. He studied her for a long moment, face implacable behind his double masks, and reached up to pull off first the hockey mask, then the ski mask underneath. The face of the grim, gritty vigilante the Scarab had become acquainted with over the last few days turned out to be a handsome, fine-boned Caucasian man in his early twenties with warm eyes and slim features, his luxurious hair running down the back of his neck and his face pale. "Well," he said with a half-smile, his voice entirely different with the mask gone. "now you see me."

Jack closed his eyes and concentrated as Scarab's empowered blood filled his body, and suddenly there came a great transformation in him. As Dark Star and Scarab watched, his wounds knitted up like a fast-motion film, dead flesh knitting itself back together in a sudden, eerie process of change. The great open wound in his chest healed up last, first the back knitting up, then the front as the massive, gaping hole in his body vanished. When it was done, he sat up, carefully removing the needle from his arm. "They're my friends, Elena. Friends who've stood by me before." He looked down at his newly-healed hands, gathering his words as never before, then looked up at his two friends. "I never had a great, defining moment where my soul was restored to me or some afterlife fantasia was confronted with the imminent reality of damnation. I just...I just chose to do something better. To be something better. If I can make that choice, the vampires of Freedom City can make that choice too." If they can make the choice...to be like you. He flexed his newly-healed fingers, perfectly immaculate after falling a hundred stories and landing on his hands. "You asked me a minute ago if my family could protect itself, Elena." He put his newly-refreshed hand on Elena's shoulder, then put the other around where Dark Star's was. "My family's right here."

"Dang it, Moira, this is no time to blame me!" Jack exclaimed. He ran his fingers through his hair. "OK, uh, Lord, she...she mentioned she could do something like that. Something like teleporting." He forced himself to remember every detail of his very scanty conversation with Stesha some days earlier. He shot a look at his own houseplants to see if she'd popped out of any of them, but his sad little African violet didn't seem like they'd disgorged anything in particular. "Ah, man...how much has she been drinking? And what is that stuff, anyway?"

"OK, fine," said Jack, holding up his hands. "I'm sorry about our date." This time, he was telling nothing but the truth. "I used you, and I shouldn't have," he said apologetically even as he remembered the taste of her blood in his mouth. (It hadn't been very good.) "Now are you going to get out of here, go home, and go to bed? You need to be sleeping off those stings, and...that." he added, shooting an accusative look at Moira's bottle and her both.

"That was not an orgy party," said Jack firmly. "I can't expect you to understand the way my..." Uh... "...religion works, but I would have thought you wouldn't be so judgmental." He folded his arms. "As for me, I'm glad you fought a supervillian. I knew you'd make a perfectly fine superhero," he told her. "But, uh, I'm sorry you got hurt. Are those...bee stings?"

Struck to the core at this double-assault on his inner sanctum (for all that he'd let Moira and Stesha in to protect his privacy against nosy neighbors), Jack stared at Stesha before inspiration struck. "Stesha...what happened to your face?" he cocked his head and looked her over, genuinely concerned (for certain definitions thereof, anyway.) "Are you okay?" She'd definitely been drinking, but he didn't think that was the cause of it.

"You...she..." Jack looked wildly from Moira to Stesha for a moment, his eyes wide. Looking right over Stesha's head, he exclaimed, "Moira! You told her where I live!" He looked thoroughly appalled. Looking down at Stesha, he added, "And that...that is a breach of florist-client confidentiality, I bet!" he lied, flustered as he was by these unexpected arrivals. "That's what's rude! Showing up at my doorstep like this. You two should be ashamed!"

You know what? We all get a Hero Point now. (We'll need them. Oh yes.)

On any other night, Jack would have looked through the peep hole before opening the door. But he couldn't live in paranoia and fear forever, and his time in his civilian identity was his time to relax. He set his drink back in the refrigerator and wandered over to the door, opening it curiously. After all, it wasn't as if he had to be afraid of burglars. What could be out here?

Yes, you should be. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, er, actually you bypassed the part of the adventure where that was going to actually happen. ;)

"That's the important stuff," said Mark. "Uh, don't sneak into the girls' floors after lights out, and no using powers on someone else without their permission. They tend to frown on that." He grinned. "They're pretty easy-going here. They want us to grow up the right way, and if you teach kids that rules suck, they're not gonna want to be superheroes. They'll be, I dunno, super-tax assessors or something." He wandered over to the weight machine himself and picked up a few free weights, showing that apparently super-strength was not included in his power set. "I spent a lot of time around superheroes when I was growing up, so I think about them a lot. My dad was in the old Freedom League," he added with a note of pride in his voice. "The real one, back when the Centurion was around."

Also, the language you've bought is actually English, not Russian. (Since Russian is her base.) How does she feel about the motherland these days?

Mm. Just a few general concerns. At the age your character is at, she can't have fought the Centurion; she's much too young. (He died in 1993.)

"I don't actually have a lot of skill," said Mark with a rueful laugh. "And Mr. Perry's always reminding me that my powers aren't going to be there forever. I can't say they've ever really let me down, though," he added as he caught the ball. He fired off another shot, this one bouncing several times before just hanging off the rim and falling into Erin's hands. "There, see?" he said with a grin. "When I actually aim for the darn thing, I can't hit it." He caught the ball she tossed back to him, though, then turned to James. "It's not like my powers are on all the time. And they're not just for me. I can even make you a better shot."

This character is cool. Approved

Dr. de Haviland arrives at Claremont in this thread.

New students got faculty and students together to greet them when they arrived at the school, but potential faculty was something else entirely. When the taxi from Hanover left Dr. Estelle de Haviland off at the front gates of the Claremont Academy, Dr. de Haviland was greeted at the door by the headmaster of the academy himself. "Hello, Dr. de Haviland. Welcome to Claremont Academy." The old man's grip was firm as he shook Estelle's hand, his hair grey but his back straight and eyes perfectly alert. "Let me offer you a belated welcome back to Freedom City." He was friendly, but it looked like he was making an effort.

Alder, you're up.

Sword accidentally going in his face is just a descriptor for Edge's Area Blast o' accident. So bad things are also happening to all the bad guys within fifty feet of them.

With the robots around him destroyed, Edge grinned. "Bad luck playing against me, boys." He pulled his grapple gun again, firing a shot into the rafters of the stadium that he used to swing up and around, making a neat landing next to Erin as she faced off against the evil mad scientist with the lightsaber. "Well, well, well. Hey Obi-Wan! Stop hitting yourself!" Edge concentrated, his eyes glowing white, and suddenly the sword in Tech Guy's hand snapped around to slice right at his own face!