Representative Aaron Walsh (PL8 NPC, Tier 2)

[Avenger Assembled]

Aaron Walsh, Antagonist NPC

Abilities: 40 pp

STR: 16 (+3)

DEX: 16 (+3)

CON: 16 (+3)

INT: 18 (+4)

WIS: 14 (+2)

CHA: 20 (+5)

Combat: 30 pp

ATK: +7 (+10 Ranged)

DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed)

Init: +7

Grapple: +10

Saves: 18 pp

TOU +5 (+3 Con, +2 Shirt)

FORT +8 (+3 Con, +5)

REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3)

WILL +12 (+2, +10)

Skills: 26 pp=112 r

Bluff 12 (+17)

Diplomacy 12 (+17)

Gather Information 13 (+18)

Intimidate 12 (+17)

Knowledge: Business 10 (+14)

Knowledge: Civics 10 (+14)

Languages 4 (Greek, Polish, Russian, Spanish) (Base: English)

Perform [Political Bluster] 13 (+18)

Notice 13 (+15)

Sense Motive 13 (+15)

Feats: 31 pp

All-Out Attack,

Assessment,

Attack Focus: Ranged 3,

Benefit 4 (Security Clearance, Status, Wealth 2)

Connected,

Contacts,

Dodge Focus 4,

Equipment 4

Evasion 2,

Fascinate [bluster],

Fearless,

Improved Initiative,

Move-By Action,

Power Attack,

Second Chance (Interaction Skil Resistance)

Skill Mastery (Diplomacy, Gather Information, Notice, Sense Motive)

Takedown Attack,

Uncanny Dodge (auditory),

Well-Informed

Powers: 5 pp

Immunity 5 (Interaction Skills) (Flaw: Half-Effect) [3 pp]

Immunity 2 (Mind Control) [2 pp]

Equipment:

Heavy Pistol (Blast 4) [8 pp]

House (as Sanctum Sanctorum) [9 pp]

Undercover Shirt (Protection 2 (PF: Subtle) [3 pp]

40+30+18+26+31+5=150 pp

-

“Heroes in Uniform” is one of the more memorable images of the Terminus Invasion: foot patrolman Aaron Walsh grappling with the Omegadrone that had just broken through the police barricade outside the Our Lady of Charity Elementary School, putting human courage and ingenuity against the unstoppable killing machine of Omega’s armies. What makes the image all the more memorable is that Walsh survived his battle with the Omegadrone. Despite a near-miss blast by the ‘drone’s power pike that left him permanently scarred, the young officer managed to wrest the weapon away from the armored fiend and decapitate it with a backswing. The photographer Li Quan won the Pulitizer for the picture, while Aaron Walsh became a hero to the FCPD.

Walsh had always been a little odd; a stubborn autodidact who worked his way through night law school while walking a beat, a man of rock-solid integrity who’d spent the last years of the Moore administration in increasingly low-status, high-danger posts like the traffic patrol because of his disgust at the department’s corruption. But the damage sustained during the Terminus Invasion and his own injuries solidified his stubborn integrity, coupling it with a deep, abiding skepticism of the heroes everyone else admired. Why had they run away under Moore, leaving thousands of civilians and dozens of his brother officers to die before their so-convenient triumphant return? But opinions like that weren’t credible in Freedom City in 1993, so the hero cop kept his head down, instead collecting money and using it to pay for his law school career, then his hiring by the state prosecutor's office. Assistant State’s Attorney Aaron Walsh was a memorable figure in the courtroom, the hair on the left side of his head permanently white, the ear on that side scarred and damaged, his flinty courage and sense of justice propelling him to victory after victory.

Ultimately, Aaron’s fame was enough to propel him into the halls of the US Congress, elected in 1998 as a Republican. Walsh was not a great Congressman; not good at playing politics, not good at dealing with lobbyists, he survived thanks to the support he enjoyed from the Southside where he’d grown up, as well as the universal support of Freedom City’s (and New Jersey’s) policeman’s unions. No one has been a better friend to law and order than Aaron Walsh, and if occasionally he compares police and firefighters favorably to “those with superpowers”, well, no one is going to get that upset about praising policemen and firefighters, especially after 9/11.

He’s getting older now, into his mid-40s, and unlike many of his fellow Congressmen has shown no interest in seeking higher office. He might have spent his entire career as a Congressional gadfly and stubborn defender of “the little man, the forgotten champions of justice, the silent majority of hard-working men and women who only want to sleep safely in their beds at night”, attacking corruption and what he sees as ‘coddling’ until the recent emergence of the Terminus Babies.

At the news that the heroes of Freedom City were allowing children with Terminus powers to fly around unguarded and untrained, the Congressman from the Southside went ballistic, all his old paranoia and superstition erupting in full bore, his feelings growing even sharper after the rumors that an actual _Omegadrone_ was acting as a superhero! The Terminus was coming back, and Freedom City’s heroes were spending their time enjoying their parades and applause while once again the hard-working men and women of the city are at risk! Someone had to do something. _He_ had to do something.

Aaron Walsh is the worst kind of government-backed opponent for superheroes: an honest man, a fearless patriot, and a savvy politician who just happens to be stubborn, misguided, and wrong. He can’t be bribed (though offers to do so will make the papers through his friends at the Freedom City Herald) or intimidated (same same). He lives in a bungalow in the Southside that has one of the most expensive security apparatuses on a civilian structure in the city, but is otherwise completely honest. It’s tough to brand a man so popular as a hero-hater, especially since he famously weeps every year at the Centurion’s memorial service.

If publicly taunted or called out, his rhetoric will get sharper: what are the Terminus brats hiding that their lackeys have to try and make him look bad? If actually attacked, he’ll resist to the best of his ability, and do everything in his considerable power to bring his attackers to justice. Legislation requiring genetic testing at birth for Terminus powers will be introduced in Congress some weeks later. If he's attacked again, it will get worse, oh yes. He doesn't want to 'tear superheroes down to his level' the way his old nemesis Franklin Moore did; he's not jealous of them in some easily-exploitable way. He thinks they need to be watched, for the good of all of us.

There’s essentially no dirt on the man (indeed, given his famous reputation for stubborn integrity and powerful media ties in Freedom City, even faking some will be nearly impossible), and he has few weaknesses to exploit. He has no ambitions, no big dreams, except protecting his family and keeping the people of Freedom City safe. Nearly every cop on the beat loves the guy who got them their over-sized pensions, and who personally funds most of the local charities for the families of slain and wounded officers. He runs a mile every morning and lifts weights every night, and is still a crack shot with the Police Special .38 he's carried since the late 1980s. He's in fantastic shape, and could easily live another fifty years if he doesn't get capped or blasted first.

He’ll be highly uncomfortable with the idea of private meetings with Terminus brats: after all, if they’ve brainwashed so many superheroes, how could one civilian be any better-protected? He’ll generally disregard anything they have to say on general principle. Aaron does, however, have one weakness that savvy, investigative heroes can find:

He has one son with his wife Chloe (the sister of Herald publisher Lana Loeb, and the source of the Walsh family money), David, who’s sixteen as of this writing. Dave is a spoiled, though amiable young man who plays football at his local prep school, calls people brah when he’s been drinking, and has no ambitions greater than to maybe follow his father into the law and politics. Dave has carefully not told his father about the telekinetic abilities he began manifesting last year, particularly since the visible manifestation of such matches that of the Golden Guardian, the menacing henchman and stooge of Shadivan Steelgrave who nearly tore the Loeb family estate down in 1993.

If Aaron finds out that his son is a Terminus brat, he will embrace the boy, burst into tears, and abandon his anti-Terminus crusade the next day. He’s a stubborn man, a difficult man, and a dangerous opponent, but he loves his family more than anything. Even his own pride.

Yes, he still wears those 80s glasses in the picture. They were a gift from his wife, who thinks he looks adorable in them. The immunity to Mind Control comes from a CIA contact who supplied him with certain drugs as a way of making sure THEY didn't tap into his mind, and the Interaction skill half-immunity he earned: he's just that good.

[Dr Archeville]

Bureaucracy-Man!

Fluff's good, numbers add up.

:approved:

[Ecalsneerg]

Approved... for JUSTICE!