Avenger Assembled

Oh yes, I actually had quite a bit more in mind. Make a Notice check.

Shaking in terror and isolation as painful as her brother's had been, Rachel Trask tumbled out straight into the waiting arms of her brother. They embraced each other, the two of them looking around at their opposite numbers for a few wild moments. "Is this it?" asked Rachel. "I had a feeling it would end like this." She stepped in front of her brother, and was about to launch into a rousing speech before Ray took her aside and explained all that had happened. She watched, wide-eyed, then looked back at Scarab and Phantom with a new look on her face. "So w-what happens to us now?" she asked both her brother and the others. Meanwhile, upstairs, Avenger's attempts to hail Dark Star hadn't gone any better than his attempts at calling Doctor Archeville. "Can't be a coincidence." Avenger leaned over and pressed the intercom button. "Scarab. Matter requires your attention when finished." He turned to Grimalkin. "You want to beam them out? I've got to get this wrapped up."

Marionette dropped into sleep immediately at Ace's words, the pretty blonde's blue eyes fluttering as she slumped into unconsciousness again. The police arrived not long after that, STAR Squad in their usual heavy uniforms. The officers were pleased, though not too surprised, to find that Ace had taken care of most of the problem for them. While the paramedics looked Rachel over, the cops slapped a psi-nullifying helmet on the still-sleeping Marionette and turned it on. "Lord, talk about one for the history books, huh?" said Lieutenant Kanigher, shaking his head as he took Ace's statement. "Who'd have thought we'd see a second Marionette?"

To the...other thread!

"You bet," replied Mark, who didn't stop for a minute to analyze Eddie's attitude. "I was really lucky." He grinned, then turned to Alex, his smile broadening. "I would love to give you guys a tour. You guys wanna see the only place on campus where students aren't allowed to go? Don't worry, I won't get you guys in trouble, I swear." Though Mark was a fairly careless guy, in several senses of the word, he was savvy enough to know not to show the really forbidden stuff to really new students.

OK, just so I'm clear: which alternate form does Eddie have active right now?

OK, our Initiative Order is Breakdown: 24 Dr. Darkness: 19 Eddie, you're up.

Initiative: 19

When Breakdown was ready, Mr. Archer stepped aside. "This is going to be a straight combat test to loosen you up, Eddie. I'm going to give you an opponent who's fighting on your level, so you can show me how you'd take him down." When Breakdown signaled he was ready, Archer called out "Run Program: The Greatest Show On Earth." The room rippled around Breakdown until he found himself standing in the middle of a flat rectangle vaguely familiar to him from television, surrounded on four sides by red, white and blue ropes. Standing opposite him, wrapped in a green tunic and "iron mask", was Dr. Darkness, the most famous "supervillian" wrestler of the XWF! "Yer goin' doooown!" jeered the wrestler, pointing directly at Eddie. "You may be Breakdown, but you just stepped into the arena with the King! Of! Smackdown!"

OK, team, that's a Pop Culture or History DC of 20 to recognize the name of the Silver Age Freedom League's mascot. I mean, uh, least powerful member.

"Sweet," said Mark, casting a slightly negligent eye over the iPod before handing it back to Eddie. It was a cool thing, but he wasn't much to linger over anything in particular. "It's been known to happen," he agreed easily to Eddie's teasing, a ready smile on his face. "You might say it runs in the family, really. I come from superhero stock myself. My dad's Rick Lucas," he explained, the modesty in his voice giving way to the obvious pride he felt for his family name.

"Ah." Was that...disappointment in The Archeville's mechanical voice? "I had wondered if your control over gravitic energies would allow you to penetrate my admittedly flimsy disguise, mein herr" Archeville said to Dark Star with mechanical politeness. "I have assumed a disguise for your benefit, it is true. Looking at the two of you and remembering especially my own thought processes before the current situation began, I think it is quite likely you would find my appearance scientifically as well as ethically distressing. I doubt that we have time for such distractions given the urgent nature of your situation. Let us discuss our situation, and then we may deal with the ramifications of what I am and what that might mean to you, Viktor." Archeville scratched the back of its head, an oddly human gesture that would have been far more reassuring if the sound of two-handed typing hadn't continued unruffled even with one hand visible. "As for Arachnos, I admit my own research has been sketchy. As with any conqueror you have the stories of the lost foundling discovered by a princess, the misplaced son of a king who rises to power himself. He is a mystic, that much is known, the son of a wizard and witch who perished under mysterious circumstances when he was but an infant. He has claimed they aroused the attention of the late Dread Malador, but the general consensus is he used such a story simply to rally support for his own battles with the dread wizard as a young man."

"Hey, Eddie," said Mark with a grin, shaking the other boy's hand. "Nice to meet you. Always good to see another new guy around here, even if I've been at the school for a while. "Hey, is that the new sixteen-gig iPod you've got?" he asked Eddie, a look of admiration on his face. "That's pretty sweet. You must have a pretty good music set-up with quality merchandise like that." It was mostly a lucky guess, but Eddie struck him as a music kinda guy.

"Ah, I'm sure it's got a stealth mode, right, Chris?" said Mark without a care in the world as he strode up the gangplank to check out Geckoman's sweet ride. His eyes lit up inside, and he clapped the other boy on the back. "Dude! This is awesome! You need to charge for rides in this thing...next time, though," he added with a laugh. "I'm sure there's a way. We can always just set it to hover where no one but fliers and leapers can get."

"Viktor, you will find the answers to your questions are one in the same." A smile moved across The Archeville's lips, an oddly artificial one given the humor now coming through its synthesized voice. "I am opposed to the Eagles because I am opposed to the one world government, and they are its pawns and lackeys. I have had the good fortune to have the best of Europe here to stand with me against them, improved, of course, by my genius and expertise in technology and biology. The other continents have been less lucky. I believe he has the Americas most firmly under his grip, with pockets of resistance yet in Southeast Asia and the sub-Continent. Those Vedics," The Archeville said with something like admiration in its mechanical voice. "Superstitionists or not, they know how to defend their freedoms." Shaking its head with an oddly slick noise, The Archeville continued. "I am disappointed to find you here, Viktor, even as I am pleased to meet my doppleganger. I had hoped that Arachnos would attempt to consolidate his control over this world before expanding his realm to another." Dark Star saw...something. Gravity wasn't the most precise instrument when it came to measuring biological creatures, but even so there was something terribly inhuman over there. He saw the body of a man, yes, but strangely distorted and warped, with more limbs than there should be, contorted in ways no man's body should be able to. "I take it your...interview with Odysseus went poorly?"

Jack, that's another HP for the Guardian for my use of GM Fiat. I need an opposed grapple check from you, then I'll finish Tyranny Ape's action.

With sirens arriving below and Dusk-Stalker flying up beneath him, Tyranny Eagle knew he had to work fast if he wanted to defeat these two heroes. Just avoiding the Golden Guardian's punch, he taunted, "You'll have to do better than that to defeat the Ape-King of the Skies!" He threw out a mighty fist and grabbed the Guardian by the shoulder, his giant ape fingers clenching hard against the Guardian's armored body.

Yay! We are glad to have you back, Q.

Just a bump, and a hope I can get this character approved shortly. :)

Dr. Archeville knows synthesized speech when he hears it. Dark Star, are you going to use your senses to get a better look at The Archeville?

The appearance of the two formerly invisible heroes certainly startled the soldiers below; either Archeville's counterpart had been honest about not knowing exactly where they were or simply hadn't had time to inform his soldiers what was going on. Still, it wasn't long at all before Dr. Archeville and Dark Star (though in the latter's case it was mostly for form's sake) were in the back of what had formerly been a French army jeep speeding into the darkness of the mountain around them, their driver and armed escort both calm, professional soldiers with tentacles for hair. As they went, Dark Star could feel the size of the fortress around them; from the local gravity field, much of this very tall mountain had been transformed into a fortress. There were probably thousands of people living here. It wasn't long before they found themselves reaching a broad double door that opened at their passage, the two soldiers stepping back to speak the longest sentence they'd yet used to the two new arrivals. "The Archeville is this way." Inside the room, the two heroes found...darkness. The room was lit very poorly, with only a single figure visible, an individual the size of a man but with certain other irregularities about him that were surely just an artifact of the deep darkness. There were few lights in here, the mountain around them blocking all light that didn't come from the omni-present computer screens. All Dark Star and Archeville could see clearly was a face that looked just like Dr. Archeville himself, with the singular exception of perfectly flat, black eyes. "Ah, Viktor and your friend!" The Archeville smiled. "A pleasure to see you. Please, don't come any closer," he urged politely as the sound of limbs tapping on keyboards came through clearly. "I am currently coordinating our counter-offensive against the cowardly fools in the EDF. I am pleased to see that you found me so readily." The German accent he'd spoken with was gone, his voice now sounding flat and neutral, though polite.

Rachel was obviously hurt, her nose still bleeding and her eyes turning pink in a really quite alarming way. Fortunately, Ace was familiar enough with medicine to know that his niece wasn't actually in mortal danger. She'd obviously burst multiple blood vessels in her head, but from the look of things they were all minor ones that were just bleeding a lot. With proper medical care, she'd be fine. As Ace heard the sirens arrive outside at the street, Rachel began to revive, looking up at Ace with wide eyes. "She...she said she wanted to talk to me about you," she murmured, "and then she made me go out...Ace, who was that?" Ace distinctly saw Marionette's eyes open, but there was no sign of other movement from the formerly Communist mind controller. Up close, he could definitely see that that woman looked nothing like Allison Gellar...but then, Allison Gellar had been dead fifty years.

Avenger's all "Sorry, guys, I ain't Adam West."

There was some serious debate about what to do with the guy in the flower, with some of the officers opining for taking him down to the police station before they ever let him out. But thanks to Stesha's sweet talk and the lucky arrival of a STAR Squad van, the officers opted to let the Bee-Keeper out of his confinement. A burly officer in heavy armor pulled open the petal at the top of the flower, disgorging a very unhappy Bee-Keeper right at the feet of a large contingent of heavily-armed police officers. Though he'd managed to break his bonds while confined, the Bee-Keeper chose the better part of valor when surrounded by so many cops who looked like they'd be inclined to use punitive measures if he didn't get out. "Fine! Fine! I zurrender!" They pulled off his helmet and forced him out of his suit, exposing a skinny, balding man veering towards middle age. "But that's just because I'm a good sport! You can't keep the Bee-Keeper down for long!"

"A hero, eh?" The officers changed their tune on hearing that bit of news, giving a very watchful eye to the lump inside the flower. "We'd better take this down to the station. Who was it?" The younger officer asked her, looking sympathetically at the bee-stung Stesha. "Aw man, those bees got in everywhere! Better make sure there's a paramedic in there too." The older officer was busy radioing for backup, something which this time, at least, arrived with a pleasant bit of alacrity while the younger officer took Stesha's statement.