ic [Gorgon] Latchkey Kids (IC) (GM)

[Avenger Assembled]

On the other side of the door, a mechanical humanoid lurched about awkwardly, its eyes glowing with an eerie blue glow. It took Koshiro, a student of history, a moment to recognize what he was looking at: one of the first-generation battlesuits of the 1960s, perhaps one of the very first made by the original Daedalus. It seems Daniel Daedalus kept his father's designs around, because that was definitely an old system lurching towards the door with all deliberate speed. As the frog scuttled back towards Koshiro's side, the battlesuit just behind it reached the door: it was time for him to make a decision and quick!

[Fox]

If it was at all possible - and it was, because she wasn't so terribly bound by physical limitations as her bodily-limited companions were - Wraith's eyes went just a tiny bit wider, and she turned her head to glance around with a great deal of caution. She had the distinct feeling that she was two steps away from being prey, rather than hunter, and she wasn't sure she liked that much.... "Rojan Lhar," she quietly supplied to Cobalt Templar, turning a bit to cover his back as he and Ghost Girl faced off against Hiroshima Shadow. "I think that you call him...what was it? Blackstar."

"Blackstar! I thank you for your offer, but I cannot accept," she continued, louder, as her form shifted into something leaner, with long, whip-like tendrils that ended in heavy-looking clubs. She stood steady, black eyes scanning the area in the hopes of catching sight of anyone trying to get the drop on her and her team, but she sounded a little less sure of her ability to stand against an ex-Star Knight than she looked. "My place is here, and I have given my word to protect it."

[Gizmo]

"My outlook on death is just fine, thank you very much," Ghost Girl replied to the Shadow primly, still giving him a disapproving look. "It hasn't made me a big, selfish jerk, for one thing! I don't know what a yūrei is, but I bet it's mean..." the translucent phantom muttered crossing her arms. "The whole world's in trouble, everybody, and all you and your friends can think about is looting? How is that okay? You should be ashamed of yourselves!" She unconsciously floated a little bit higher into the air as she admonished the radioactive specter.

[Electra]

Koshiro took a hasty few steps backwards from the door even as he summoned his birds. They came fluttering from his bag and the pockets of his hoodie, till soon he was surrounded by a fluttering white cloud of paper. "Don't come any closer!" he called defiantly through the doors. "Young Freedom is here, and we're ready to kick some ass. You don't want any trouble, you'd best get back where you came from and leave this place alone." He clenched his hands into fists, ready to face whatever came through the door, willing himself to not yelp or scream or make any other embarrassing noises.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hmm," hissed Hiroshima Shadow, the embodiment of nuclear destruction eerily calm and collected in the face of Kimber's defiance. It wasn't as if it was ignoring what she had to say, rather, it seemed to be giving Kimber's words serious consideration. "I understand now. You're very young, and you know very little about the world. Allow me to instruct you in the FRAGILITY OF LIFE!" And with that, the radioactive creature of rage and revenge put its hands together and hurled a ball of scorching green light at Cobalt Templar, a ray of destruction that seemed to chew right through his armor and scorch the body within! With that done, the Shadow laughed and dived into the floor beneath its feet. "Catch me if you can, children! Give me a story to tell over your irradiated bones!"

Behind Wraith, suddenly the darkness coalesced into a muscular, bearded man in a black costume, shadows curling from his wrists and up and around his arms: this, and no less, was Blackstar, greatest of the Star Knights and now the sworn enemy of the cosmos. "I'm sorry, Kinigosi," he said, almost apologetically, "but you gave me no choice!" Suddenly, the shadows over Wraith's head resolved into a solid shape, a sphere coming down to catch her beneath the same shadowy globe that had entangled the entire building!

-

"Papercut?" The mechanical voice sounded like it was coming from an old-fashioned speaker system, but was eerily familiar all the same. Suddenly, the door swung open, and the giant suit of armor loomed down at the Detroit teen before it said, "It's me! It's Citizen, in here! I jumped in here before something, I think it was a lightning bolt, fried every circuit in the building? Where is everyone and what's going on?"

[April]

-Got it, Templar. Moving to support Papercut.-

Sage took off at a dead sprint through the corridors of Freedom Hall, making a mad dash toward Papercut's--the corner of Eve's mouth twisted in faint amusement at the name--last known location; Ghost Girl, Cobalt Templar and Wraith where with each other she reasoned, while Koshiro was alone.

She hurtled through the halls at breakneck speeds, taking corners at such velocities that she had to run across the walls themselves to keep up her momentum,

[Gizmo]

"H-hey!" Kimber cried in surprised indignation as the Hiroshima Shadow abruptly disappeared through the floor. "You don't get to just be all rude and then run away!" Flying a little higher into the air, she turned end over end and dove headfirst after the glowing apparition, sinking through the surface below her teammates' feet. The translucent apparition made a blind swipe with one chilling hand as she went but the villain was already well ahead of her and easily avoided to clumsy attack.

[Avenger Assembled]

"It's me, it's me!" declared the suit of armor, waving its hands. "It's Citizen! I jumped in here when they fried the main computer. I didn't even have time to jump into my emitter." Sharl had damn near gotten killed by that massive EMP pulse, or at least thoroughly discorporated, and he was not happy about it. He thought of Miss Americana, not for the first time, but knew that he was needed here far more. "Sage, where are they? Let's go!" He took off at that, boot jets roaring, and though his flight was clumsy (and, much to his chagrin, rough on the interior of Freedom Hall), he did make his way there, his noisy, crashing star letting everyone know he was coming and leading the way for the others to get back in the fight.

Hiroshima Shadow dodged Ghost Girl's hand, shaking a finger tut-tuttingly. "I am nuclear fire and death made terrible life, yurei. What are you going to do, poison me?" It laughed an evil, hissing laugh and focused its attention on Cobalt Templar. "Let me show you how easily they DIE!" As it turned out, they died pretty tough as the Shadow's burst of radiation sizzled past Corbin's face so close he felt his skin break out like a suntan. "Well, I suppose I deserved that. Never mind. I'll be there to kill your grandchildren, fool!" The Shadow spat at Cobalt Templar with uncanny foresight.

[Electra]

"'Sall right, Sage, it was just Citizen screwing around," Koshiro called to his diminutive teammate, even as he whipped a piece of paper out of his pockets. In moments he was surfing through the sky on a paper airplane the size of a cafeteria tray, following Citizen down the hallways of Freedom Hall with substantially more grace. He was brought up short, though, when he realized exactly who they were facing off against. He'd heard of Hiroshima Shadow, of course, but hadn't really ever expected to meet the villain in person.

Koshiro stood still for a moment and watched the villain, even as his collection of paper birds began to fly one by one out of his knapsack. "Guess this is sort of appropriate," he muttered. Grabbing the nearest crane out of the air, he took a pen from a pocket and scribbled a few characters across its wings. Suddenly the whole flock seemed to glow faintly golden as they raced through the air towards the nuclear-powered villain.

[KnightDisciple]

Hiroshima Shadow dodged Ghost Girl's hand, shaking a finger tut-tuttingly. "I am nuclear fire and death made terrible life, yurei. What are you going to do, poison me?" It laughed an evil, hissing laugh and focused its attention on Cobalt Templar. "Let me show you how easily they DIE!" As it turned out, they died pretty tough as the Shadow's burst of radiation sizzled past Corbin's face so close he felt his skin break out like a suntan. "Well, I suppose I deserved that. Never mind. I'll be there to kill your grandchildren, fool!" The Shadow spat at Cobalt Templar with uncanny foresight.

Corbin's eyes were wide as he felt the heat of the blast narrowly miss his face.

Then Hiroshima Shadow threatened his grandchildren (never mind Corbin didn't even have kids yet), and Cobalt Templar saw red. His face twisted into a snarl as he swung the large weapon strapped to his body around, the glowing muzzle pointed directly at the spirit of nuclear death. He all but roared his next words.

"You'll never touch them, you monster! Let's rock!"

The weapon made an odd chattering sound as it sent out tightly-packed pulses of firey energy. Any one of the pulses was likely enough to knock an average, full-grown man unconscious for a couple of days. CT only hoped it was enough to knock down Hiroshima Shadow.

[Avenger Assembled]

"You have great power, boy," came a voice in Cobalt Templar's ear, so close that he could feel the heat of alien breath across his face, as he realized that in the middle of his great raging fury against Hiroshima Shadow he had forgotten about Blackstar! "But you must always beware the unexpected stroke." Blackstar placed his shadowbands directly against the helpless teenager's back, firing a devastating blast of pure darkness that tore open the teenager's armor like so much shattering blue glass and scorched along his skin, only his power ring keeping him from an attack that would surely have killed the already weakened boy. "Now, what have we learned today, hmm?" he asked, spinning in the air to stand between Cobalt Templar and Hiroshima Shadow.

[Fox]

Not that she'd ever admit it, but who they were fighting had given Wraith a little pause as fighting erupted. Monsters in the forest, fine; would-be big time villains in Detroit, sure. But this? She wasn't as familiar with the Crime League as she probably should have been, but Blackstar she knew, and if they were hanging out with Blackstar....

She shook her head, hunching a little and narrowing her eyes. In a flash - or what probably would have been a flash in any city with a lower population of speedsters - she was gone, traveling low to the floor in a beeline toward Blackstar. The last of his monologue was barely out of his mouth when she rose up and plowed right into him, her club-tipped arms having shortened a few feet and apparently put all that heavy, metal mass right into their business end. "Something about the unexpected stroke, I believe," she mused.

[April]

Sage didn't stop running, rushing past Papercut and Citizen, giving both of them a faint nod acknowledging them as she adjusted her course to sprint down the hallway toward the rest of Young Freedom. With Citizen and Papercut she rushed down the hall, sometimes telekinetically anchoring herself to the wall (and in one instance the ceiling) so she could keep up speed and pace.

As she ran an orange mist formed near her right hand and in the space of a few heartbeats that mist condensed and formed itself into a slender triangular blade; a blade that the telepath thrust toward Hiroshima Shadow as she rounded the corner.

[Avenger Assembled]

Though Citizen had studied extensively about the supervillains of Freedom City, most of his work had been with Miss A and so it had focused on technical criminals like Scrounge or Dr. Stratos. Though he recognized the former Star Knight from his own studies of aliens on Earth, he had no idea who Hiroshima Shadow was. And so it was that, jet boots blazing, the armor of Daedalus came roaring into the fray like a bat out of Hell and flew right through the battered Hiroshima Shadow and out the other side. "Well, crap!" yelled Sharl, his voice muffled and tinny by the armor as he just managed to avoid crashing into the far wall. "Stupid old armor!"

"Stupid is turning your back on me!" yelled Hiroshima Shadow, waving aside nagging cranes as he fired a blast of pure radiation at the armored figure, one that did absolutely nothing to the living computer program inside the suit, who lacked an internal anatomy that the Shadow had a chance of affecting. The Shadow spat a terrible Japanese curse and, still wobbling, faced off against Papercut again. "Nisei scum! I'll show you what I do to traitors!"

[Electra]

Papercut raised his arms, making the flock of glowing cranes rise into the air and regroup into a single mass. "That's Gosei, you stupid f---," he snapped, "and I'm proud of it! Better than some punk murderer cheapening the deaths of thousands of innocent people! I'll wipe you off the face of the earth and it'll be a better place." He brought his arms down like a conductor striking the beat, and in an instant the cranes were arrowing down like a cloud of tiny knives, digging their paper beaks into the insubstantial flesh of the villain.

[KnightDisciple]

When Blackstar struck, Cobalt Templar staggered forward, his gun-construct disappearing even as a hole was torn in his armor. His eyes clenched shut for several moments in pain, before he heard the radioactive ghost threaten his friends and teammates. Suddenly the expression of pain shifted to rage, and he shot through the air with a roar erupting from his mouth.

"YOU WON'T TOUCH THEM!"

Instinctively, he seemed to grip thin air, before a katana of blue light formed in his hands, ghostly flames rolling off the blade. With a wordless cry, he brought the blade smashing down right next to the green ghost's neck, pouring all his pain, his anger, and his desire to protect others into the blow.

"HA!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Aiee!" Under attack from all sides, Hiroshima Shadow screamed in pain between the righteous cranes and glowing blades tearing at what was supposed to be his inviolate radiation form. The radioactive ghost enjoyed tormenting others with his incorporeal body and deadly blasts, but now he was being beaten down by all these teen heroes and with nothing to show for it. As Cobalt Templar's blow hit, cutting deep in a flash of malignant radioactive light, the cowardly Shadow decided he'd seen enough. "Blackstar, I'm going to get Stratos! You hold them off!" And with that, bleeding a foul radioactive ichor, the green-tinted ghost fled through the floor, thoroughly out of the fight.

"You coward!" spat Blackstar, wrapping himself in a powerful cloak of darkness as he pulled away from the teen heroes. "Come back and...well, it seems his real color should have been YELLOW!" he cursed. "Now," he added, painfully studying the others. "Who wants what I just gave your friend with the sword?"

[Fox]

Wraith watched as her teammates sent Hiroshima Shadow packing, running off to get someone called 'Stratos'. She wasn't really sure who that was, and she wasn't really sure she cared, as long as he wasn't any worse than Shadow and Blackstar were.

Well, just Blackstar, now. Wraith turned her head back to face him, her three eyes looking particularly...predatory. Her body shifted, arms losing their bulk and clubbed design as she stretched, flowing and lengthening and growing entirely new limbs as even those flowed and lengthened, a mass of strong, solid, silvery tendrils reaching and coiling all around the dark villain, locking him down in a terrible metal embrace. "I think we have had quite enough of what you are giving out, thank you. Please do not make me squeeze. I am not entirely sure how strong the bones of hardbodied children are."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I am no human, fool!" hissed Blackstar, but as his shadowy blast missed Wraith entirely, instead chewing wood and steel out of the ceiling, it looked as though it was the former Star Knight who was the fool! Without space to maneuver, his aerial mobility meant nothing now that he was fully pinned. "You have made a terrible enemy today," he spat, a taunt that would have been far more intimidating under other circumstances.

"Yeah, well, you tried to kill me!" yelled Daedalus' armor, Citizen's voice filtered through the old speakers. "You and your stupid Crime League and your EMP. Is this really the best a Star Knight can do? Robbing somebody's house when they're out saving lives? You should at least have some freaking class."

[Electra]

As the villains dispersed, Koshiro called the flock of paper cranes back to him. For a moment they swirled around him in a glowing blue halo, till with unerring accuracy he reached into the swarm and plucked out the single lettered crane. A couple of careful gestures had it collapsed, paper head under folded wing. The blue glow died away from the entire flock as Koshiro slid the crane into his pocket. "Who's Stratos?" he asked the others. "We going to have to worry about another fight now?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Dr. Stratos, the head of the Crime League," said Citizen, scanning the suit's memory banks for everything he could find. "Blackstar can 'port through shadows, and Hiroshima Shadow can fly through walls...but Dr. Stratos is a flying blaster. And mad scientist." Miss Americana had had quite a bit to say about Stratos, a man whose main scientific talent was 'coming up with new and exciting ways to be publicly humiliated', but he was a very dangerous man, especially given the damage electricity could cause to someone like Sharl. "They've got to be up there! Sage, what can you see?" Maybe Citizen himself couldn't benefit from what Sage could do, but in a crisis he could remember how powerful she really was.

At his words, Sage scanned the building, revealing on the roof the familiar figure of the sinister Dr. Stratos, using careful electrical bursts to cut free the big, stealthily-emplaced laser cannon mounted to the roof of Freedom Hall. The battered Hiroshima Shadow was indeed up there, and in between cutting free the cannon Stratos was shouting curses at his cowardly crony. The Shadow, glowering, leaking radioactive ichor, was in position to blast anyone coming up through the main rooftop access door.

[KnightDisciple]

Cobalt Templar waited a few moments after Hiroshima Shadow fled, and he was sure that Black Star was still secure in Wraith's grasp, before he allowed himself to relax. At the moment, "relaxing" meant leaning against the nearby wall taking deep, pained breaths as he let his armor slowly rebuild itself. He was still a bit weak from the combined efforts of the Shadow and Black Star. He nodded as Citizen briefed the others.

"Yeah. These canes timidi can't bear the thought of actually facing their enemies alone. Or face to face."

He sent Blackstar a glare.

"Yeah, let me tell you, you're real scary, Mr. "Attack from behind". Truly a terror of the cosmos. Bah. I've fought scarier."

Then Sage relayed what was going on on the roof. CT frowned.

"Hm. So that's Stratos, Blackstar, and Hiroshima Shadow. We can't leave this guy alone. Um...."

He thought toward Sage.

-Maybe we leave Wraith and Papercut here, to keep an eye on Blackstar, maybe with Citizen as well, then you, me, and Ghost Girl go up to take out Green Spooky and the Rain Man?-

[Gizmo]

"Oh gosh, is Dr. Statos still around?" Kimber asked as she floated back over to the others, still a little miffed over her exchange with Hiroshima Shadow but quickly regaining her sunny disposition. "I think I remember seeing him on TV when I was still alive. Wouldn't he be totally old by now?" The translucent young woman floated a bit over everyone else's heads, looking down at Black Star with a bit of a huff, though she refrained from comment, evidently striving to take the moral high ground. "We should probably try to catch that high-and-mighty green windbag before they can team-up, right?"

[Fox]

Wraith glanced up toward the roof, dipping her head in a bit of a frown. "I...do not know how old he would be. If this is a common event in Freedom City, I really do think I will have to learn more about your-" She turned her attention back to Blackstar, the frown turning into a scowl, three black eyes narrowing at his mostly-unseen struggles. "Stop that - I am fairly certain that I am stronger than you are. If you do not remain still I will be forced to--"

She sighed, cut off by him apparently not stopping, and shifting a bit of her mass to the floor so that she could pick the rest of him up, turn him upside-down, and thump him head-first against the ground. And then a couple more times for good measure.

Silvery metal unwrapped the unconscious villain and she pulled herself back into a more bipedal form, though she still had a few extra tendrils coming down off her upper back. "I think that that will take practice; I did not want to damage the floor."

[Avenger Assembled]

Up on the roof, the kids kicked open the door to reveal Dr. Stratos nearly finished with the process of removing the rooftop-mounted laser from Freedom Hall. At their approach, Stratos shouted a word to Hiroshima Shadow, who simply ducked and flew off the edge of the roof, leaving just the weather controlling mad scientist confronting the team of teen heroes. Still surrounded by a blanket of shadow, the roof of Freedom Hall was lit only by the emergency lights that Stratos himself had assembled and the flashes of the mini-lightning storm he'd thrown up overhead.

"Well well well!" shouted Stratos, a look of fascinated glee on his face as he glared at the heroes, his eyes big behind his thick glasses. Though rain was everywhere else on the roof as if from a vigorous fall downpour, Stratos himself was bone-dry. "If isn't the next generation of Young Freedom. I've heard about all of you, you know, such a _unique_ collection of specimens." He grinned malevolently, electricity playing around his fingers. "I was hoping I'd get a chance to see one of you, but instead I have all! Ring-bearer, circus freak, revenant dead and human-raised Kinigosi, magic paper boy...and you." Stratos gave a particularly fascinated look at the animate suit of armor Citizen was occupying. "I wondered if you would survive. Tell me, are all your people so resilient?"

There was dead silence on the roof for half a second as lightning rumbled overhead, and then Sharl raised Daedalus' power fist and blasted Dr. Stratos' head off with a wild shot of gravitic power. There was a shower of sparks and mechanical whines, and staggering and sputtering, the Stratos automaton fell backwards and stopped moving like a puppet with its strings cut, the mechanism inactive and dead. With the Stratos-robot down, the darkness that had surrounded them all began to fade, the shadows parting and storm disappearing, revealing overhead the blue sunny day they'd all left behind and a wet rooftop occupied by a damaged laser cannon and a thoroughly inactive robot.