Avenger Assembled

"Yes, by all means, let us fly over the city," said Odysseus, suddenly shooting a hard look at his wife. He pulled her away from the two men to have a hard, quietly spoken conversation with her, the former Greek witch looking down contritely and then walking away with her face downcast to join her attendants before Odysseus rejoined the two men. "Yes, shall we fly? I shall take you across the city." To Dark Star, he added, "By all means, fly where you wish. I only ask that you make sure to not present an easy target as you go. If you can listen and fly at the same time, I shall tell you both the story of how we came to be unified." Athens was a glorious Greek city beneath the heroes as they took off, a study in contradictions as ancient monuments and ruins lay among skyscrapers as modern and gorgeous as anything anyone could hope to find in Freedom City. "Our world was like yours for many centuries; divided, torn apart by war and strife, with heroes and villians tearing the world apart in their foolish struggles for power. Many things here were the same, though others were different. It was _I_ who Posiedon cursed with immortality, not my friend Daedalus, gone these forty centuries now. And later, we had a Gladiator where you had a Centurion," he added, "though unfortunately my friend was killed in his last great battle with his old enemy August Roman. That was...the beginning of things, I think."

When Scarab opened her mind to the dangers of other dimensions, she found first a burning city. The consciousness of Heru-Ra had seen plenty of cities aflame in four thousand years, but never before had any of Elena's previous lives seen such an explosion of misery and disaster. Freedom City was burning, and the people there were dying. She pushed forward automatically, but found her impressions unable to go any further than the day of the grim and terrible disaster alarmingly near in the future. Something was blocking her. Pulling her mind further back, she found impressions of a city taken by surprise on all sides, sudden attacks on the Goodman Building, Freedom Hall, and Claremont Academy that struck every hero in the city like Pearl Harbor. The enemy's forces wore black and grey; soldiers with blaster rifles and jetpacks mixed with superheroes who were bizarre reflections of the heroes Elena herself knew. If only there was some way for her to peer between dimensions and see where they'd come from...

"We're going to build your testing area together," said Seven in Psyche's mind. She could feel her TA in the room with her now, the psychic presence of the older student helping her construct a room out of the walls of her mind rather than the walls of material around her. For the most part, their mutual efforts were a huge success, the two teenagers working together to build a floor of smooth, polished wood, walls of soft-toned marble and glass, and a ceiling made entirely out of..."Huh." Speaking 'aloud' now in Psyche's mind, a 'physical' presence in the mental room they'd built, Seven looked up at the ceiling. "Ah well, I guess we'll work on that." The ceiling was made entirely out of a poster of Michael Harris! "All right, take a breath, and we'll get ready for your real test."

"Run program Save the Baby," called Archer when Erin was back on her feet, changing the room again now to a rooftop high above Freedom City. There were three "people" up there with them, a woman in pearls and a dress right out of the 1950s, a menacing-looking fellow in a black and white striped outfit and springs on his shoes, and a poor, helpless little baby. "Oh, won't someone save my baby?" The woman screamed, just as the criminal laughed malevolently and bounded right off the rooftop onto the next one. Erin leaped after him, running quickly to catch up as she jumped from rooftop to rooftop. The man in front of her looked back and cussed, leaping straight off the side of the building! Erin threw herself after him, landing in a perfect tuck and roll on the ground some ten stories below, and leaped up after him again as he bounded up onto a high skyscraper, this one with a shining metal roof that was almost impossible to cling to. Getting closer now, Erin leapt forward after the man, pursuing him as he bounded up the side of the building, until he was all the way up on top of the skyscraper's aerial! As he balanced on the very tippy-top, Erin climbed all the way up and grabbed the man by the foot, hauling him down with one hand while she deftly caught the baby with the other. Before she could decide whether or not to drop the criminal, the laughing baby and cussing spring-footed thug disappeared into the ether. "100%, Ms. White!" called Archer. "Good job!"

Four Acrobatics checks. Your DCs are 10, 15, 20, and 25.

Archer took a few steps back and called out "Run training program Lola!" At his words, the walls seemed to ripple around Erin, transforming themselves into solid, flat steel dotted with big bolts like armor plating. When the steel cage came down above her, she moved fast, diving away and tucking a neat forward roll as she leapt away from the falling cage. Her quick save was good, but unfortunately as she jumped forward the ground beneath her feet vanished! Just as a wide pit opened up beneath her and her heart skipped a beat, the "room" faded around her, and she was back in the Doom Room with Mr. Archer. "Hmm, well, we'll work on that," said Archer. "Don't worry, it's your first time down here. Take a breath, and we'll run an acrobatics trial."

"Asgard!" boomed Magni at the door, making it slide obediently open for them. Inside the two young men walked onto the grid-patterned room, the seemingly-innocuous room practically humming with power. Once inside, Magni clapped Mike on the shoulder and said, "Michael, our first test shall be one of valor. You must face a fiend most foul in personal combat and not turn away, whatever sights you see. Are you prepared?"

Okay, Psyche, give me four Concentration checks. Your DCs are 20, 25, 30, and 35.

All right, Erin, give me four Reflex saves. Your DCs are 15, 20, 25, and 30.

You are correct, Dark Star. (Even this Medea isn't very nice, and is inclined to think that obvious non-humans like Dark Star are inferior in one way or another.)

"Good." There was a smile with the thought, and Alex recognized the 'mind' of her TA Serena Vervain. "Because of how your powers work, our usual testing protocol is going to be a little adjusted. There are some things you can't fake with solid light technology. If you can sit down in lotus position on the floor and make sure you're not disturbed, we can begin. You're a mentalist, so your tests will be of the mind."

"Alan Archer, running training exercises for Erin "Wander" White." The words were enough to get the big doors to slide open for Erin and Archer, exposing a big, square room marked with squares on the walls. Pop culture on Erin's world had been similar enough to this one that she was familiar with the concept of a holodeck, though here the walls and squares were grey and darker grey rather than yellow and black. "Erin, the first thing we're going to do is a physical test. What I want you to do here is avoid the physical situations you'll see without fighting back directly. Imagine you're breaking into a highly protected supervillan's vault, and you need to keep moving past the booby traps without setting off any alarms. Do you understand?"

"Aye, we have a special test in mind for you," said Magni, throwing his arm over Phalanx's shoulder like a Viking warrior with his blood brother. Magni really was very strong, and probably a bit better at using his Strength than Mike was. "Never before have I been invited to take part in the exercises of my handfastmen...er, students. The honor for both of us is truly magnificent. We shall have a magnificent battle together." They headed down four levels in the elevator, coming down somewhere entirely different. The subbasement, or at least level four, turned out to be very different from the organic, old-fashioned school upstairs. The walls were polished steel and the floors bright white linoleum, with frosted glass panels put over every door that they walked by. "Welcome to the greatest training ground for warriors in the universe," boomed Magni as they started their walk down the corridor, "I know well that you shall keep the secrets of the school, as you have sworn." They passed by a huge gymnasium as they went, the half-open swinging doors big enough to show a space as big as the entire gym upstairs all squirreled away down below. The hallway brightened as they approached and dimmed as they left, leaving student and teacher walking in a bubble of light in an otherwise dimmed corridor. Eventually they reached their destination, a big set of sliding doors marked with "D-R" on each one. "Welcome to the DOOM ROOM!" exclaimed Magni, giving Mike a look. "Need you water? The refresher? Enjoy them now; you will find neither within those doors!"

"Don't worry," said Archer with a reassuring look, "this isn't like one of those bizarre psychological tests where everything you do and see and say is part of the experiment. You get enough of that manipulative stuff in high school as it is." They headed down four levels in the elevator, coming down somewhere entirely different. The subbasement, or at least level four, turned out to be very different from the organic, old-fashioned school upstairs. The walls were polished steel and the floors bright white linoleum, with frosted glass panels put over every door that they walked by. "Welcome to Sub-Basement Four," said Archer as they started their walk down the corridor, "I know you had the confidentiality talk with Ms. Dugan when you joined the school." They passed by a huge gymnasium as they went, the half-open swinging doors big enough to show a space as big as the entire gym upstairs all squirreled away down below. The hallway brightened as they approached and dimmed as they left, leaving student and teacher walking in a bubble of light in an otherwise dimmed corridor. Eventually they reached their destination, a big set of sliding doors marked with "D-R" on each one. "Welcome to the, uh, training room," said Archer, giving Erin a reassuring smile. "If you need a glass of water or to use the bathroom, now's a good time to do it."

But are any of those really that likely to come up? Like you, I'm not necessarily comfortable with an outright ban, but I do think double-dipping is a bad idea. It might work best to put "double-dipping" in category of stuff you run by a Ref before you try it, but otherwise don't do.

"It's going to be fairly rigorous," Archer told her honestly as he led her further into the building. "You'll be tested mentally, physically, and emotionally. There is one thing I want you to keep in mind before we start," he added as they walked down the hall to the administrative offices. "Nothing of what you're going to see is real," he told her, "so that when you're being tested, you can be honest with your reactions." To Erin's surprise, Mr. Archer led her into the staff library, where no one looked particularly surprised to see her. He bent down before a panel on the wall, holding his finger there and keeping his eye still. As Erin watched, the wood paneling parted slightly to reveal a laser scanner. "Hot Rod," said Archer clearly, his words causing a whole panel in the wall to slide open and away, revealing an elevator inside. "Let's go."

This here? I like it. Approved

This is the OOC thread for Psyche's placement test.

Alex was in her room one day, thinking about the relative merits of studying telepathic ethics vs. getting a Coke, when she felt a knock at the doors of her mind. There was a psychic presence reaching out to hers, a nearby one that seemed interested in a mental conversation. She was left with a couple of options, ranging all the way from hurling the intruder out to inviting it down for tea at the edges of her mind. Before she could make up her mind, the voice resolved itself into words, still a message rather than a probe. "Greetings, Alex. Are you ready for your tests?"

This is the OOC thread for Phalanx's Placement Test.

Mike got the message about his Placement Test from his RA, the vociferously hard-charging (if oddly-spoken) Magni Thorson. "Greetings, Michael!" boomed Magni as soon as Mike opened the door at his knock one Saturday morning, the big, beefy teenager with the lineman's build and heavy-metal-guitarist's hair length looking uncommonly cheerful today. "Come with me and we shall grapple together for the benefit of Mr. Archer! Aye, he aims to take your measure this very morning, and has sent me to fetch you for a test of strength most...profound!"

Aight, there's not really a point to running this thread for just one PC, so we'll lock this up now. If you guys would like to do a thread where Quark and Erin interact in the aftermath, by all means, hint hint. ;)

Dr. Marquez didn't do anything to stop Erin from leaving, indeed, he discouraged any of the students there from intervening as she went out the door. No sooner had she disappeared then Hope Rogers rose to her feet and announced, "It's not fair for us to be one short, anyway. If I go, we'll balance out again." With that, the angry teenager from Erde stormed out the door too, to considerably more eye-rolls than had been seen when Erin left. Maybe it was just because they'd all been around Hope enough to get a little tired of all her troubles. To the others, as the door closed behind the two girls, Dr. Marquez was seen to sigh just a little before he assigned the new team structure. Angsty superpowered teenagers who didn't want to play by the rules were just part of life for the Claremont psychologist.

This is the OOC thread for discussing Erin's placement test. This takes place roughly a day after the Sweet Science.

It was a fine day in early June, not long after her shenanigans with Coach Jones and the punching test, when Erin got the message from Mr. Archer about her placement test: the equipment was ready and it was time for her to take her turn! She'd been invited to meet with Mr. Archer in the Jasmine Summers Administration Building, the intimidatingly official structure where she'd first had to sign all the forms that had helped her become a student at the Claremont Academy. Fortunately, Mr. Archer was there to greet her at the door, a relaxed smile on his face. "Good morning, Erin," he told her sociably. "How do you feel?" he asked as he pushed open the door for her.