Avenger Assembled

For ease of reference, we'll say that happened in the second or two between combats. You're up!

Jack waves at her, a tense expression on his oddly-feral face. "Listen, didn't you hear that one call for backup?" he asks Moira as their armor gives way beneath her feet with a crunching sound. His eyes widen a little as she so easily shatters metal and plastic, but he's a man with secrets of his own. "We need to-" For the second time in the space of a few seconds, events cut him off as two women appear over the bar in a flash of light and noise, sending glasses tumbling to the ground with a tinkling sound. One is a tall African-American woman, covered in a tight blue and brown bodysuit that exposes one muscular thigh and one muscular leg, shining metal gloves on her fists; while another is a short, equally-fit Hispanic woman with the remnants of tattoos visible on her square, silent face.

"All right, ladies," says the African-American with a smile as she raises her glowing fists and her friend levels a heavy blaster pistol, "I'd say you should surrender, but I'd rather hurt you. Mi corazon here likes to play fair. What's it gonna be?"

Jack is taken aback by their sudden appearance, but does his best to recuperate. With a feral snarl, he disappears again into the darkness.

Have an HP for the setback of not being able to put those guys down. :)

I am pretty much done with this thread, but Lullaby and Hellbound are welcome to go nuts in it. :D

New combat! Roll for initiative, plz.

Jack: 22

It lasts for one round.

The two with handguns are about five feet away from Moira, and about five feet apart from each other. The radio guy is about five feet further back.

Moira is a very scary godling. :)

Well, there is something Avenger needs to "eat"...

Heh, this is true. I'll say Avenger delved into his stolen medical supply bag stock for today, given that he thought he might be around a really bloody crime scene. (Avenger rarely steals blood from blood banks; that's unethical! There's a blood shortage!)

Streetwise check tells you that Joan, the mother, used to be a meth head, but she kicked it some years ago. The check also tells you that Richard had recently (a few months ago) gotten into the Goth or Metal or Punk scene (you couldn't pin down which, or it may be he's getting into two or even all three).

Gather Info confirms this, and tells you that Richard had been looking into all three and hadn't really settled to any one.

Heh. If my informants aren't pop-culture savvy enough, it may not be a matter of knowing the difference between the three.

Arcane tells you that something supernatural may was probably involved, but you don't find any more than that. Once you actually get to the house, though... well, make some Search checks, bearing in mind that each Search check only covers a 5 ft. x 5 ft. area (so completely searching, say, a living room would call for several checks).

Okay, here's my result for searching the Master Bedroom.

And the two upstairs bedrooms.

I'll let you actually describe them, since you actually know what they look like. ;)

OK, that's three rolls of Knowledge: Streetwise, Arcane Lore, and Gather Information, taking 10 on each for a total of 16, 12, and 16, respectively, taking up most of the first day of Avenger's investigation. It helps not having to eat or sleep.

It was late at night when Avenger arrived at the Dickson house, the costumed adventurer lurking in the dark overhang of a nearby tree as he studied the house. There were a lot of good reasons to be here; Avenger needed some crime-solving cred if he was going to work well with the police, and Jack needed to find out if a vampire was behind these brutal slayings. More to the point, though, the pictures of the Dicksons reminded Jack far too much of his own long-dead mortal family. He'd grown up in a neighborhood not too different from this one, though out in the suburbs almost to Bedlam, and it was easy to put the faces of his own mother, grandfather, and teenaged self over that dead family.

So he'd made what inquiries he could, finding out all he could learn from the neighborhood, the police, and his own supernatural connections. That had all been in the daylight, of course, well before sunset brought out his full vampiric nature. Now that he could do that, it was time to go looking on his own. Gotta make you guys proud, he mused as he slipped into the night, a puff of mist in the air as he drifted in through the Dickson attic window, far above and away from the police tape and cordon line below. It was time to hunt for answers at the scene of the crime.

Okay, great. I am definitely looking forward to seeing what you come up, Doc.

As one of the two still-conscious bar patrons tears through their men like a hurricane and another shouts with the authority of an angel and fury of a god, the three remaining soldiers step back with shocked looks on their faces. "Geez, they're supers!" calls one, slapping at a red button on his chest. "We need backup in the West End, now!" The other two drop their shock prods and pull out handguns, pointing them with shaking hands at the unconscious Stephanie and the bartender.

"You'd better back up, or they're history! I mean it; put your hands up!" The men with guns are focused on Moira, the infuriated goddess, so it's the guy with the radio who calls out, "Pluto's might, where in Hades did the other one go?" Sure enough, Jack has disappeared entirely.

You can take 10 when you're attacking minions, fist-to-face or otherwise.

And so far I think I've done OK running the minions; these are just low-level goons in body armor with shock prods using a slightly modified soldier template. I have a feeling Moira will take them down pretty easy. If you want to, though, lemme know!

Avenger is indeed a dark, gritty vigilante, a fierce predator of the urban jungle who preys on the criminal element. Mwahaha! :bat:

But he is not averse to working in teams, under the right circumstances.

Yes, well. Jack usually doesn't think, "Boy, I sure hope no one can tell I'm the undead!" while he's in costume. Usually, anyway.

"Dark down here. No windows." Avenger thinks for a moment, then says, "Stay behind cover, out here. Goin in through the ducts. I'll be back in a minute." With that, he reaches over and flips the row of exterior light switches off, plunging the stairs and the room beyond into darkness. A moment later, while his ally's eyes are still adjusting, he drops down into mist and fog and rolls right underneath the open door, taking a moment to suss out the situation beyond before taking action.

I'm sold, this is definitely the sort of thing Avenger would get involved in. He and Scarab would make an interesting pair of comrades.

Multiple attacks on minions in the same round is a function of the Takedown Attack feat. You should be able to do the first one easily enough, though; it's a full-round action to hit one guy, grab him, then chuck him at another one.

Okay, joshie, we're waiting on you here.

I am in agreement with the sentiments expressed above.

1 HP spent to temporarily acquire Takedown Attack. Moira, you're up!

Jack squares off against the men surrounding him, the tall, slim guy bending down in a wary wrestler's crouch. The goons surrounding him evidently realize quickly that he's not going to surrender without a fight. Two of them jab at Jack, sizzling bolts of electricity stabbing at his face and midsection as he ducks and weaves. Jack's new to this sort of combat, though, and doesn't realize it's a feint until the third goon strikes directly for his heart with his sizzling stun gun. The third soldier misses too, though, Jack dodging out of the way of what would otherwise might be a painfully punishing blow.

"You have no idea what you're dealing with," growls Jack, his deep, menacing voice a sharp contrast from the charming pretty boy only a few minutes ago. He could kill these men in a dozen ways; lay them low in a dozen more, but so very many of them would involve revealing his vampiric nature to them and to the nearby Moira. "You think I'm just going to stand here and let you hit me?" He lands a sudden, solid punch to the face of the soldier who attacked him, the man's face visor cracking as Jack punches him out right through his helmet! Jack keeps moving, too, lights from outside cutting odd shadow shapes against his pale skin as he suddenly leaps up into the air and simultaneously kicks his two other attackers in the face in a bit of super-fast kung fuery worthy of a John Woo flick.

They fall, too, their helmets bouncing as they come in for a very uncomfortable landing, and Jack lands on his feet in the darkness.

The once-familiar bar is lit only by the terrible glares of the spotlights, casting it into a bizarre combination of bright light and truly black shadows. Since you passed the Fort save, you can see okay; it's just very...evocative.