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OOC for this A short action scene, followed by some social interaction! Feel free to make any reactions, no need to roll for iniative just yet!

GM Friday, July 15th , 2016 One of many Starbase Coffees, North End, Freedom City Noon It had been an average Friday so far. The weather was nice, and so were most people. It had been rather quiet here in the North End recently, not a whole lot of news-worthy ongoings. The fact FCU’s semesters had ended probably played a major role in that. July was usually when the North End was most quiet, and quite a few locals were aware of that. Still, during lunch there was not a whole lot of action. A few people walking around the streets, most of them sitting in one of the many restaurants and coffee stores. Amongst them, Dimitri Peshkov and Leilani Keli'i , member and mentee of the Freedom League Auxiliary, enjoying some time off. While some people probably realized who was currently sitting over at that table, nobody brought it up. The few other people in the store seemed content just enjoying their own coffee, some typing things on their Laptops or Tablets. Among said other people, Cassidy Bauer, Freelance Photographer and secretly super-hero/villain/terrorist, depending on who you asked. The past few weeks had been rather quiet, which while nice for his health, meant that money wasn’t something he could easily spend. So, Starbase Internet it was. And then, what nobody except one person in the area looked forward too. The very distinct sound of something smashing into a stationary car with high force, and the alarm sounding off afterwards. And then, just a second later, a rock flying through the Starbase’s Front Window, fortunately missing everybody inside.

Leilani sat crosslegged in the passenger's seat, somewhat impatient with all the traffic clogging the streets of Freedom City. "How does anyone get anywhere in this?" She protested, waving her hands towards what seemed like an endless sea of cars in front of them. Although her frustration was palpable and she wiggled one knee until they could finally park, the temperature didn't even tick up a notch. Despite her self doubt, she really was mastering her strange abilities. Still, as soon as they had come to something that could be called a stop, Leilani was out of the car and onto the sidewalk in front of the DuTemps building. She tipped her head back to stare up and up - completely unabashed in her moment of tourism. "Is that a real castle?" She asked Dimitri, even though with all the ambient noise, she'd probably not be able to hear him until he was much closer. "Why is there a castle?"

Adjusting to the sights and sounds of Freedom was talking some considerable adjustment, let alone the various changes that had happened over the last fifty-odd years. There was a long list of technology and changes that she'd not yet mastered, from the computer to figuring out Freedom City's mass transit but the television she'd at least got the basic hang of. She was in the middle of expressing her dismay at the television when she had been rousted for something like practice - or maybe just walkies. Leilani wasn't entirely certain, and sometimes the latter could prove taxing enough to her minimal control. "But... someone just shot J.R.!" It wasn't so much a protest as commentary to the message alert letting her know that one of the Freedom League was there for training time. Fortunately, training was interesting enough take her mind off of Dynasty at least for a little while as the one upside to her rather unfortunate set of meta-abilities came with an ability to glide - at least when she focused enough to do so. This section of the waterfront was either uninhabited enough - or inhabited by those willing to look the other way when a girl went surfing through the sky as if she were riding a board made of fire. Technically, she was gliding on superheated air currents but it felt enough like the sport she loved that the movements tracked well enough to it and Frost's ability to detect heat waves let him know well in advance when she was losing control so it was no surprise when her laugh turned into a yelp and she plummeted out of the sky like a rock. Really, like a literal rock as her transformation remained tied to her flight or fight responses and when she hit the waves, the hiss of water turning to steam was audible as she sank quickly to the bottom. The heat trail of her walking towards the surface was clear from the broil of boiling sea water above her head as she slogged towards the docks, specifically the shore underneath them. Fortunately, Leilani didn't need to breathe when she was made of rock and lava, so there was no real concern of drowning in the time it took her to walk up the bottom of the sea floor and hopefully the sight of a lava monster emerging from the waters of the Atlantic only frightened a few drunks lingering outside the steps of the nearby and largely empty bar.

May 2016 "Hello, children!" The famous, or more likely infamous, Dr. Dimitri Peshkov was waiting at the curb when the Claremont shuttle bus arrived - all smiles beneath his parka's raised hood. "Welcome to headquarters of the Freedom League!" He sketched a courtly bow to Fred as she stepped out, then gave Ardent a warm, almost predatory smile as she joined the Chinese alchemist before doing the same thing. "I am Comrade Frost, and I will be your lecturer for special study session on heeero history today. It will be exciting times, sure," he said, pulling his heavy gloves back on. "Did you have pleasant ride?"

Here it is

Tuesday April 26, 2016 3PM Palermo Time - 9AM Freedom City time There's an English-language newscrew in Palermo this afternoon, the BBC crew's report on Italian tourism having been transformed into a worldwide spectacle by means of the Internet. "Some sort of hideous monster moving its way through the city-" A hazy image of a warped parody of a man, some eight or nine feet tall and nearly nude, dressed only in rags and covered in hideous, pustulating boils. "seemingly emerged from the bay and is now making its way through the heart of this beachside community-" It becomes abundantly clear as it, he, passes, that whatever he is is infectious - a wave of that giant fist, and a barricade of the city's Carabinieri, military police posted here for anti-Mafia duty, are on the ground, screaming and writhing as boils erupt from their own flesh. "rampaging through this historic city like nothing we've ever seen before-" He doesn't even bother to knock down the house at the end of the seaside street, instead simply powering through it as he heads into the older, more built-up, more populated parts of this city over half a million. It's abundantly clear that there is no power on Earth - or at least no power in Palermo, that can stop him. "With the current Papal crisis occupying Italy's defenders, we may be alone. This is-" The newscaster screams, his handsome face writhing in agony as the boils erupts from his flesh, and the camerawoman drops her camera and screams as well, catching one last image of the monster leering at them as he passes by. - This is the fourth day of the crisis. By the time the Freedom League arrives in Palermo, everyone knows what they're dealing with. This is Shkhin - this is the Plague of Boils.

Date: April 1, 2016 Location: Hilo, Hawaii It being April 1st, the early reports of 'nightmare creatures disgorged from the seabed' were assumed to be prank calls especially since these particular calls came from a less populous corner. It was only when the wedding party showed up for their sunset pictures that the panic truly started. While most of the white sand remained lovely and pristine, close to the water's edge it began to blacken, smoldering in the heat. At first glance it seemed that an odd fissure had opened up in the beach, disgorging lava from some previously unknown magma tunnel - boiling the water that touched the edges of the disturbance and sending plumes of smoke into the air. It was only when the lava groaned and then rolled over that true hysteria set in. Across the country, the Freedom League's headquarters lit up with alarms and reports of monsters and nightmares and living lava from panicked officials that were not sure exactly what governmental service one called for that sort of thing. Thankfully, there was always the Freedom League standing ready. Of course as the panic was happening in the late evening in Hawaii, the League got the alerts a little before 4AM by Freedom City's clock. A hero's work was never done!

Okay, initiative time! That's a DC 20 Tou save for Titan, Avorez.

February 2016 Late evening It was not too late for a pregnant woman to be outside with an ice monster. Or so Dimitri was sure. "<That's his apartment!>" Dimitri was declaring from inside the frosted-over windows of his Freedom League Ford Escort, pointing up at the third floor window of the small apartment block. "<He just walks around in there with Henry Griffin's face! It's awful! Goddamned Americans.>" He parked the car, carefully, mindful of America's bizarre mirror-image streets. "<I told him we're coming. I think you can get more out of him about his origins than I can - he's a trusting sort, but you know how I can be...>" - Klara had gotten the message by telephone, or rather on her cell's voice mail, - Dimitri Peshkov wanted to meet her in Kingston to discuss old times at a certain third floor apartment.

GM post Sunday, February 28th 2016 10:30 AM Espadas School of Self-Defense and Swordsmanship, Private Apartments "It is still early for a Sunday Ma'am." the personal assistant suggested quietly, the protest fell however on deaf ears. "Marjorie, If this was not time sensitive I wouldn't be bothering the poor woman." came the reply clipped but not cold, "Besides they have children and I have raised enough of those to know late mornings are likely the least of their concerns." She added a bit more warmly, "Make the call please." Thus on the crisp february morning the phone in the apartment housing the ever growing Espadas family began to ring. The number was blocked, and at a very high level though expertise such as the household AI like as not could break it in short order and reveal the call as originating from Danger Internationals sprawling Hannover Campus. When the phone was answered Marjorie spoke in a bright and clear tone, "Good morning, I'm trying to reach a Ms. Rebecka Danvers." she requested politely, "Is she available?"

December 1, 2015 Thrude had already had a busy day fighting some sort of horse-headed creature from beyond the dome of lopt when she detected the spell - ancient, powerful Norse words were being spoken by a caster with formidable arcane powers, words designed to summon a being of Asgard to the side of the caster! The spell was a dangerous one, a summoning without a binding, the sort that would likely get some fool killed and unleash any number of powerful creatures upon the innocent people of Midgard. Luckily the nearest creature to them was Thrude herself, and she was unlikely to smite even a mortal sorcerer so badly that he would not regret the error of his ways. She followed the 'signal' to a beach at the edge of the city proper, absolutely deserted by the cold-hating locals given the time of year - i.e., what felt like a mild autumn day to one who had taken the battle to Jotunheim itself. Standing amid a rune that spelled the letters of her own name stood a figure wrapped in the chilly mist of the coldest Scandanavian winter, a creature of death and a mockery of all that lived - a man in a blue parka and green uniform she recognized as Hel's representative on Midgard, Comrade Frost! "Hello!" he called up to her in a heavy accent like the scion of Rurik he was. "You got message, good! You want parley?" he asked, waving his hand. "I got guy who made me some mead under floor last year!" he went on, pointing to a nearby orange and white beverage cooler. "Is supposed to be pretty good!"

Talya's directions had them parking well away from the school. The racy sportscar was more suited towards the life that went with the high end apartment building than her West End activities so she never parked it in the same place and never close to the school. Walking wasn't exceptionally onerous, after all. When she stepped out of her car, she pulled a different jacket over the top of her blouse, modernizing the pencil skirt enough to distance it from the tailored retro style she favored in public appearances. As Talya's quick changes went, it was relatively minor on the spectrum of what Dimitri had seen before as far as Talya's efforts went. There was no wig and only very minor make up and clothing adjustments. He was well aware that there was probably no less than four or five very different disguises in the trunk of her car. She threaded her hand through Dimitri's parka covered arm, her Russian still flawless despite the definitely loose swing of her hips and the roll of her steps. She wasn't sober, but it would take a discerning eye to notice such things. Talya put on a very convincing facade of sobriety, aided by the fact that she could probably still scale the building in her heels and narrow skirt without missing a step. Fortunately, that wasn't necessary as she fished a key out of her pocket to unlock the closed door to the front of the dojo, "We ought stay down here. If the girls are asleep, I don't want to wake them." Talya said as she opened the door and then locked it behind them, "But, I can show you where I'm spending my time, nonetheless. You can tell me what you think of the very minor addition I made."

Pushkin’s Restaurant, West End, Freedom City Friday 3rd October 2015 5:30 pm The last dregs of Summer had began to peter out and the sky was overcast over Freedom City, whilst most of the Restaurants had chair set up outside few bothered to sit outside. A few stubborn souls were however “enjoying” the weather, being use to much worse this time of year. “I do not know why I miss this food at all, it’s nothing like the sweet food or Ayrag of home.” Klara spoke between mouthfuls of Shchi “Maybe because you love all food even my feeble attempt at cooking and I’m no Mary Berry.” Tracy still had a strong Lancaster accent even after all these years At first glance it looked like a, admittedly tall, daughter was taking her mother out for a meal. Tracy looked about twice Klara’s age, and was in fact even older than that. But if you watched closer you could see that there was something else there, from the little looks they gave each other to way they would softly touch each other hands. “You are beautiful tonight my darling and you grow even more so with every passing year.” “You a lying old bugger you know that Klara, but I’ll take the compliment as it was intended. Now the kid are left we need to have that talk you know, unlike you I’m not going to live forever.” “You know there are ways around that, people and places that grant eternal beauty and life.” “Seems to me that immortality more of a burden than a blessing, look at that bitter old man you use to work with in the People’s Heroes. I ain’t planning to end up like that, rather go now.” It was an old conversation that Klara wasn’t keen on having right now, she just wanted a nice quiet night out with her wife, so she subtly changed the subject. “I can’t tell if it’s from living among the Russians or the English's but when someone mention him I can’t help but assume the worst is about to happen...”

Of course, she was sleeping. Sure, it was the middle of the day, heading towards afternoon, but contrary to the image Talya tended to put out into the public realm, even she had to rest sometimes. Thankfully, part of what she paid the unholy rent for was to have doormen that notified her when people were in route. So, when the phone rang, Talya reached out a hand to try and turn the alarm off only to eventually grope for the phone. She answered in a cool, crisp voice that sounded nothing like she was currently buried in layers of bedding and gave permission for guests to come up just as smoothly, despite the reality that she'd not yet gotten both eyes open. After she hung up, Talya laid there for a long moment before kicking the covers off. The woman who answered the door, however, showed none of the signs of having just rolled out of the bed. From her on point pin curls to the peep toed shoes, Talya was in full hostess mode when she walked to answer the door for a 'Dimitri and guest'. "Dimitri, honestly, I know it's hard to fathom but I really am a mere mortal that actually sleeps sometimes, and--" Talya broke off before she could get to the point where while the vodka really was very good, sometimes one needed to recover to stare delightedly at Set, "This is Set. The Set. Well, the latest incarnae. You Egyptians and your reincarnation. Come in. Do come in."

There was a field trip. To the Hunter Natural History Museum no less, which was basically from what Huang guessed a visit with his namesake minus the chance at decent dim sum. Reasonably enough he found both reason and means to evade the buddy system and do some research of his own. It was like ferris bueller's day off meets the craft, so bound to be full of awesome right? The sun overhead was still too bright as he slipped unseen out the employee entrance to the Hunter museum and jogged across the street toward the park. Pulling his sunglasses from the void, with some aid from the ever helpful denizens that allowed him to find his things despite his corner of the void looking precisely as one would expect a realm of chaos and shadow imprinted by the mind of a sixteen year old boy, he gathered his bearings. Finding a likely gate he began to make his way through the tree lined paths towards heroes' knoll hoping to use the sympathetic energies of the hero statues therein to trace a theory he had developed about the mysterious Hepcat. Of course keeping his eyes from the sky avoiding the brightness of the sun he took no notice of the gathering of unatural shadows over the knoll nor the slow thrumming build of dark magics in the heart of the monuments.

The OOC! To start off with the DuTempts Building crew are already at the ice rink with Kimber any everyone else can begin arriving! Nick, Equinox and Frost should all have a general idea of what Kimber's been working on since she'd have asked them for their professional opinions along the way. I'll leave it to each of you how complete a picture of the final goal you think they'd have. She'd have likewise let Temperance know she needed help with something involving Jotunheim and made a weak attempt to coach the whole thing in technobabble for Citizen's peace of mind. Papercut and Revenant may only know that Kimber asked for their help and that there's a non-zero chance that there's going to be some monster fighting involved. Kimber's friends from True North are stuck dealing with another Igneous (lava men) crisis, which Frost and Blue Fox would certainly know about, if it comes up.

July 11, 2015 Kimber finished etching the last rune into the surface of the ice with a telekinetically controlled chisel before floating a few meters into the air to survey her work critically. After the better part of two years of preparation and careful work she wasn't going to let the arcane ritual equivalent of a typo ruin everything now, especially now with so many of her friends on the way to help pull off her plan. Indira and Eve were already waiting on the bleachers on the other side of the plexiglass, the latter having been convinced to rent out the indoor ice rink for the day with only a minimum of pleading. Kimber had asked Tarva to head up to the announcer's booth so that she could double check the complex circles of inscribed sigils that made up the first step of the day's undertaking. Satisfied with the results, the poltergeist nodded and turned to her friends, hands on her hips. "Good to go! Just in time, too! Everybody should be getting here pretty soon!"

Okay, go ahead and give me whatever Well-Informed/Online Research checks you're using here.

July 1, 2015 Barton's Antique Store Comrade Frost pushed open the swinging glass doors of the antique store and walked inside, the bell jingling as he entered. He stood out in his blue parka, especially when you saw his pale white flesh and felt the chill in the air as he walked by. Over his shoulder was swung an axe, its handle an exotic dark wood and its head an unfamiliar red-grey metal. He was careful how he held it, keeping his gloved hands on the handle as he walked up to the front counter. "You!" he declared. "Antique dealer! What do you mean by selling cursed objects to civilians? STOLEN cursed objects no less!" His Russian accent was especially thick today; his red eyes flashing especially bright. "What? How dare you!" declared the antique dealer, shooting a nervous glance over at his customer. Throwing a rag down on the counter, he pointed at Frost, his bald head flushing red between a greying tonsure of receding hair. "I run a reputable shop, and I would never sell stolen goods! I got that from a very reputable supplier, you frost-faced goon!" "Oh-hoh!" declared Frost, dropping the ax on the counter significantly. "You just happen to have reputable supplier who sells you Ax of One Thousand Murders! What a country!" Meanwhile, the axe was audibly whispering, "Murder! Murder! Cut off his head, boss! Cut cut cut cut!"

Give me a DC 20 Fort save, Tesseract.

June 1, 2015 At the end of a long shift, just when she'd made it back to her apartment, Sarah's phone rang - her caller ID reading FREEDOM HALL. When she picked up, an unfamiliar, accented voice spoke, "Greetings. I am Dr. Dimitri Peshkov, but you may know as COMRADE FROST of the Freedom League. I am calling because of Claremont alumnus agency placing graduates with temporary work. Can you meet with me in person to discuss matters? I can pay for your consultation time to the sum of..." He named an amount equal to what Sarah would have made with a solid week of work and good tips.

Rolls and suchlike involving bells and Soviets.

Omni Parker Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts Friday, 5 June 2015 Noon The historic facade of the Omni Parker House overlooked the historic stone King’s Chapel and the historic green burying ground. It was a normal, busy day in the heart of Boston, and the hotel was busier than it usually was with men and women in neat suits filing into the entrance. In the middle of them were a few types that particularly stood out; like the man in the long saffron robes, or the woman in buckskins, or the man in a long cassock have a quiet, heated argument with a woman wearing a Catholic nun’s habit. The crowd flowed up the stairs and into the mezzanine spaces, congregating around the Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Harriet Beecher Stowe rooms. With its doors opened to the 23rd Interreligious Convention, the staff at Parker House were continuously updated to the different dietary requirements the speakers and registered attendees had indicated. The lunch they had laid out for the first day of the convention was blander than they usually strove for, but each steamer platter was still delicious (and had its ingredients cleared listed). Siobhan Drake found herself in line, staring at a starched wimple and waiting for her chance at the crab cakes. While she suffered in a non-smoking room, she felt a tug on her sleeve. She turned, and saw a young man in an old man’s body smiling at her. He was her height, balding, slim, his wrinkled face pulled into a bright smile, and a vibrant energy burned from every pore of his body. “Professor Siobhan Drake? I must say, I very much enjoyed your paper about occultism in post-war Western countries.” He smiled broadly and rocked on his heels, evidently pleased with himself at pronouncing ‘Shiv-awn’ properly.

April 1, 2015 3 AM Outside of Wittmund, Germany Alone, Dimitri Peshkov stood in the shadow of history. The Allies of Freedom monument, erected in 1953, loomed behind him, commemorating the heroic sacrifice of Lady Celtic, Renard Rouge, and Spitfire Jones on one terrible night seventy years previously. It did not depict the last surviving member of that tragically crushed superhero team. In 1953, no one in West Germany had wanted to praise "The Ice Commissar" as he had once been known. Comrade Frost lit a cigarette, its glow bright in the darkness against his pale skin and hood, and stared up at the monument, pacing back and forth beneath its shadow, heedless of the municipal airfield nearby. The airfield that had once been the airstrip that Wilhelm Kantor had escaped from - after his cold-blooded murder of the finest men and women Dimitri Peshkov had ever known. Silently, he remembered the past - and opened a thermos of piping-hot vodka laced with human blood. April 2, 1945 Outside Königsberg, East Prussia "WHERE ARE THEY!?" Comrade Frost grabbed the big SS officer by the throat and began to squeeze, feeling blood and flesh begin to freeze to ice beneath his cold grasp, mist billowing from his eyes and mouth as his eyes burned red and his fangs bulged horribly. "WHERE ARE KANTOR AND NACHT-KREIGER!" He released his grasp and let the man babble, pleas for mercy, apologies, telling the angry ice controller he had no idea where Kantor had gone, he was just a low-level Thule Society member, he really knew. Frost grabbed the man's head and squeezed until his pleas stopped, then turned to his Red Army escorts, who were looking with a mixture of fear and awe at the Soviet champion. "The rest are as useless. None of them know where Kantor has gone." He pointed to the white-faced SS prisoners and then said, "Sh...no, even better. Strip them of their weapons and give them to those Jews they had made their test subjects. See what _they_ make of them." - April 1, 2015 3 AM Outside Wittmund, Germany The orders had come in from the usual sources, for all that the orders themselves were unusual. Titan had been dispatched to guard the Allies of Freedom monument in Wittmund, Germany on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of their deaths. There were evidently concerns about vandalism, concerns that seemed justified as he approached the monument by night (as per his orders) and found a man shouting at it in Russian, waving around a cigarette in one hand and what looked like a hip flask in the other. But why had he been pulled out of the United States to come here, halfway around the world, even to guard an important historical treasure. "<You would have given them a soldier's death, yes? Told me that we were defined by how we treated our enemies and that barbarism was no solution to barbarism.>" He waved in the general direction of the statue of Renard Rouge, his movements violent and his voice full of grief. "<But you were a hero, Amelie, a hero to the end. And I am, and ever shall be...FROST!>" Frost stomped his foot. "<A creature with a heart so cold!>" Titan knew this man. Comrade Frost; a Soviet hero and a brave man, a self-described 'ice monster' who had gone from an enemy agent to a loyal, trustworthy ally who was like his "least favorite brother." But he also knew he had never seen him before in his life.