MISSION REPORTS 7The Man In Grey investigates the Crimson Plague. They're an evolved-supremacist organisation with a tight pyramid-shaped hierarchy. They started out in the South and have quickly spread. Their MO is entering a town, undermining its infrastructure and institutions, recruiting sympathetic local villaisn to their side and brainwashing the rest. They'll often put sleeper agents in place before entering town. Cities are left to their own devices in the face of these ravages, the federal government refusing to step up. Obvious collusion at the very top, The Man in Grey surmises.
Locally, upstate is overrun with them, and the nearest city, Stoney Island, is completely controlled by them now. Once achieving supremacy, they have their preferred leaders 'step in', their gangs take over policing (or infilitrate existing police) and then normality more or less returns, but with any opponents to their agenda brutally supressed, and their members able to act with complete impunity. Their goal is to allow members of the Crimson Plague to be able to act out whatever whim they have, as the designated superior species.
Many of their core members will migrate from city to city, opening up the new fronts. Zircon is especially rife with heroes and villains, and represents a tumultuous staging ground in their campaign.
Most important perhaps, he learns something of the current leader of the Crimson Plague: Justinian the Bloody (see Rogues' Gallery), a man who drains his enemies' blood with a single thought.
***
The Spork disassembles the power-nullifiying belt, learning how it works and how to build more. Using a handheld power-suppressing massage tool he builds, he strips away the excess layers of the Tin Soldier's metal crust, freeing up his legs and at long last revealing his natural eyes. He then hooks up proper neural-controlled protection belts, which can suppress the absorption part of the power while not immediately shedding metal layers.
Tin Soldier gains trait "Respects Spork", loses trait "Blind", gains increased control over metal absorption power.
The Spork gains Techsense power understanding "Knows how to create power nullifying technology"
***
Pincushion sees how he might be cured of this "brainwashing" which he doesn't fully believe in himself. See next opportunity phase.
Picture this: Frostara, ice blue skirt billowing, 60 feet in the air, ice-pistols blasting at the clock-faced head of the giant robot that is clasping the old lady Dr. Hijank in one claw. Far below, Ectoboy's bedsheet costume is ablaze as he brawls with the other child hero, Spawn of Satan, who is himself on fire; Monkeypaw is desperately swatting a tiny Bitter Candy with a stun baton. In the background Reverso, in his swirling vortex suit, is pulling himself out of snowbank.
"It's definitely E Corp tech!" Dr. Hijank screams down to the others, hoping to be heard. She'd know the signs anywhere, having taken apart enough of their lasers. She had decided to risk getting a closer look and had been captured for her trouble.
Frostara, having just been hurled skywards by Reverso (with permission), sprays a curving spray of ice downwards straight at the robot. She skates a loop down this ice swirl, blasting the face of the robot. Hijank had told her that its sensors were all up in the face. This should blind the megalithic robot.
Down on the ground, unfortunately and unwillingly possessed by the vengeful spirit of Antonine, Ectoboy is trying unsuccessfully to murder Spawn of Satan. Spawn is recklessly trying to burn the other boy, while Monkeypaw spams the area with enough bad luck that no one can get a decent hit in, including Bitter Candy who has been distracted from dealing with the robot by the need to save his teammate from immolation. This bad luck multiplies as the robot towering above them blindly dumps a huge snowbank on all four of them, dousing the flames and burying the fighting heroes.
Frostara hits the robot's face and slides down the ice, leaping onto its arm. The arms are flailing wildly, despite the layers of ice Frotara tries to put on it. Hijank, a pocket blowtorch in her teeth (she keeps one in her top pocket, and a pair of screwdrivers as hairpins), is cutting herself free. She burns her way clear through the metal locks holding the clamp that makes up the robot's hands. Reverso is ready and reverses her gravity at the last moment, cancelling out the momentum. Hijank hobbles clear as Frostara kicks out focused blasts of ice from her feet, ice-stepping on pillars of decreasing size until she reaches the ground.
Blinded, and no longer able to convincingly pose as a tool of the Watch, the robot tries to transform into its truck form. Frostara layers on the frost around it, freezing it in place. So it instead explodes, catching Frostara in the blast of boiling water.
In the commotion, Bitter Candy leads his wayward ward away from the scene before he gets in any more inexplicable fights.
OUTCOME
Mission: Route Horizon: Success. The Watch: Mixed Success. Cursed Legacy: Failure. Spider Knights: Abject Failure
The Watchbot is killed.
Ectoboy: Gains trait "Possessed by Antonine". Gains +1 infamy. Gains temporary power: "Perfect Accuracy". Back at base he asks HellTooth, "Can I get a gun?"
Bitter Candy: Gains trait "Hates Cursed Legacy". Gains +1 infamy.
Reverso: +1 fame
Frostara: +1 fame. Gains injury: Steam burns. Gains power: Ice Jets: "Frostara can propel herself in the air with the power of her ice blasts."
Hijank: Gains trait "Enemy of the E corp". -1 fame, after appearing as the damsel in distress
Spawn of Satan and Monkeypaw are injured in the explosion and will miss the next mission.
Team Rewards: The Watch and Route Horizon gain +1 rep in Hermitage. The Watch lose 1 Team Infamy [Robot Rampage over].
Twelve villains were escaping the Zircon County Penitentiary in Greenbelt, through a succession of smashed walls and melted fences. There is Lazard, who has the nasty habit of shooting barrages of lasers, summoned first as glowing balls of energy then blasted rapidly as beams at everyone and anyone. Someone had slipped his control unit and it was easy enough to blast through the rest of the prison, releasing the other high profile inmates in the unit at the same time. With him were three other longtimers, Zirconia with her diamond-like skin; Muskrat, surrounded by his toxic yellow gas; the unfortunate Public Enemy, hiding behind Zirconia; and Reinita, the unageing female serial killer who looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
Of the other eight, there's the new inmate, Escher, already increasing the distance between him and everyone else through warped geography. In a daze, trapped in the body of the Prelate of the Zircon Cathedral, Vile Viola wanders through the flaming ruins of the prison, as guards scream and lasers blast around her. Wielding a stolen gun from a smouldering guard corpse, Slugnut jogs out. His friend Keros is sitting on his shoulders. Making a break for the hole in the fence and the woods beyond, is Sanguine, the blood-controller. Her crony, Phlegm, has thrown back in with her, and is keeping close. Sanguine has already taken control of that wall of muscle, Choler, once again. The blood deep in his system makes him ever susceptible to her commands. Cackling madly, Marion Man is jogging out, surrounded by the corpses of several guards, hastily appropriated as puppets for his protection.
Void and the Miraculous Mirror Maiden are first on the scene. They're immediately met by a barrage of laser fire. Void sucks it in and blasts out solar flares, hemming in the escapees. The lasers bounce of Miraculous Mirror Maiden's mirror suit. She sends a volley of lasers back at the escapees, reluctant to really hurt them, but hoping to pin them down.
It's not long before Endless Horizon and and Longfire glide in, hitting a ramp on the Greenbelt border, and hurtling through the air the rest of the way to the prison. Longfire from up above lays down a series of fires to cut off the escape routes. Lazard sends a barrage of beams at the car. Inside, safe in his suit, Longfire is unharmed, but shards of glass from the smashed windowpane lacerate Endless Horizon's face. He brings the car safely down inside the prison's main fence with a great sonic boom that sends most of Marion Man's corpse puppets flying. Endless Horizon blasts his horn, smashing the rest of them to the ground and sending Marion Man flying.
Slugnut lays down covering fire, deliberately not aiming to kill the heroes who have his mentor Hijank in custody. The villains all slip through a shortcut opened up by Escher connecting one part of the prison yard to a shed in the woods half a mile away. Outnumbered three to one, the heroes valiantly fight to hem the escapees in while keeping their distance from the horrible effects of the inmates. They're hampered by an overwhelming tendency to want to fire at Public Enemy, leading to his shield, Zirconia, being constantly barraged by laser beams and solar flares. In the end, they succeed in keeping Public Enemy, Zirconia, Lazard and Marion Man pinned in. The rest of the villains escape through the spatial warp created, and then closed off, by Escher. The woods are quickly an unnavigable nightmare zone of trees branching up through one another at all angles, and the villains are long escaped.
Longfire sets several trees ablaze in frustration and vows to not go so easy on any of the escapees should he catch up with them...
* * *
In a diner, miles away, a few hours later, wearing a stolen red dress, Sanguine sits down to dine with an enslaved Choler and a languid Phelgm. They're sitting with the person believing herself to be Vile Viola, but looking like an ordinary middle-aged man. She stares blankly, sometimes mumbling about the Exalt Project. They wait until the waitress leaves with the pot of coffee.
"You don't seem to be a very happy man," Sanguine says.
"I'm a woman, but the Project want you to think that's why Suffrage did this to me she was put up to it by the Project..." Viola mumbles.
"Which is exactly what we need to complete our foursome," Sanguine continues, taking a sip of coffee. "You are now Melancholy."
"I'm not—"
"You are Melancholy," Sanguine repeats, knowing that she'll get her way. Bad Humour is back.
OUTCOME
Mission: Route Horizon: Mixed Success, The Watch: Success.
Lazard, Zirconia, Muskrat, Reinita, Public Enemy join the rogues' gallery.
Muskrat, Reinita, Escher, Slugnut, Keros, Sanguine, Phlegm, Choler, Vile Viola (now Melancholy) all escape into Zircon City.
Miraculous Mirror Maiden: +1 fame
Void: +1 fame.
Longfire: +1 fame. Cohesion check: [2+5+1=8]: Longfire gains trait, "Vengeful".
Endless Horizon: +1 fame. Gains trait "Disfiguring scars". Cohesion check: [5+2+1=8]: Endless Horizon gains trait, "Worried about Longfire".
Mission Rewards: Route Horizon and The Watch gain +1 rep in Greenbelt.
Retry, Saluki, and The Chorist stand around the corner from a warehouse complex teeming with armed goons. The whole of Cutting Edge stand nearby. Retry, with a pad in hand, recounts what she's learned from probing the defences and running in with her armour. Retry explains in writing that in all timelines, at least one of the others get shot.
"And Mari?" Saluki asks.
Retry glances at The Chorist. Codenames are for these settings. She writes that Chiffon is locked in a kitchen on an upper-level, and that they've also got Marigold locked in a basement. Her gold power must be how they're funding all this. The guards have a ludicrous amount of countermeasures. Retry has seen foamcannons, anti-laser shields, lightning rods... Bill Cleaver is definitely expecting Evolved to attack. They even have password protocols to stop mind controllers. And then a lot of them have unpredictable power effects on top of all that.
"But no headphones?" The Chorist asks.
Retry writes that only a handful do, and at irregular intervals, about every five minutes, a single siren blasts. So even if the Chorist does get them to sleep then they wouldn't have long.
"We're not giving up," Saluki insists.
Retry nods. They don't have the power to take them all out. Still, a plan is formed to save Chiffon and Marigold.
With special speakers bought for the occasion, The Chorist waits for the siren to ring then booms his song over the whole compound. Saluki, wax in his ears, speeds in, as goons drop asleep around him. He runs through a yard filled with crates. There are numerous locked doors in the compound, but Retry has given him directions from numerous attempts of where he might find the right key cards. With hardly any time to spare, he unlocks the final lock on the kitchen and grabs Chiffon who is slumped over asleep in a spread of flour on the counter. He throws her over his shoulder and quickly retraces his steps.
Meanwhile, Thornrose, Harpoodle and Gaffer of Cutting Edge make their way through to the basement. They encounter resistance on the way, deep out of hearing range of the Chorist's speakers. They fight their way through to the final room, a lucious windowless apartment where Marigold has been kept comfortably against her will. Soft furnishings, fine art, and a thick carpet await them when Gaffer erodes the doorlock with his sandsaw (a saw-shaped tool of glass with a rotating loop of sand sped at high speeds by his power).
"It's a trap!" Marigold cries, as she gets up from a chaise longue where she had been lying, languidly passing the time reading French poetry.
Three men in armoured stealth suits shimmer into existence and point laser rifles at the three heroes. They raise their own weapons, ready to counter-attack. It's a standoff.
Upstairs, as Saluki gets to the yard with the crates, the siren has sounded and goons begin picking themselves up from the ground. A couple take an opportunistic shot at Saluki as he whizzes past. Bullets fly around, but they only graze the hero.
Retry and Chorist meanwhile are ducked in an alleyway, hiding from a wave of headphone-wearing gangsters who have fanned out in search of the Chorist. Saluki pages the all-clear, and Retry leads the Chorist to safety, threading a path through the tight Warren streets that avoids the searching gangsters.
Chiffon wakes up a few streets over. "Thank you, oh thank you!" she says. "I'm so so sorry for the trouble I've caused... we've got to save Marigold!"
Saluki catches his breath and smiles at her. "Don't worry, Cutting Edge have it."
The Chorist is pleased about the good that he managed today. He truly is blessed. And, after all, it wasn't such a bad thing if he got no huge credit. The important thing was someone was saved.
Retry is antsy. She doesn't want to rewind a lose this narrow chance at getting Chiffon back... but there's still no sign of Marigold. She's weighing up what to do, when she sees the ex-hero run down the street past where they're hiding. They all catch up with her and she doesn't talk to them, instead Marigold just counts under her breath.
"OK, it's safe now," she says. "Bill Cleaver said he'd kill them if I didn't stall you out for long enough."
Retry's eyes widen in horror.
"Yes," Marigold says, sadly. "Cleaver has Cutting Edge. So long as they stay useful, he shouldn't kill them..."
OUTCOME
Mission: The Watch: Success. PUNCH!: Success. Cutting Edge: Overwhelming failure
Retry: +1 fame.
Saluki: Loses "Obsessed with finding Chiffon". Gains "In love with Chiffon". Gains injury: "Bullet graze"
Chorist: Loses trait "Image Obsessed"
Cutting Edge all gain trait "Forced To Work For Bill Cleaver"
Mission Reward: Chiffon and Marigold are free. New service: Random Edible Powers.
The Crooked Hook is a novelty British-themed pub, serving traditional ales, scotch eggs, and pickled onions. It has a very low ceiling, and by an elaborate set of loop holes, patrons are allowed to bypass local clear air ordinances and smoke so long as they only use pipes and the pub's own blend of pipe tobacco that has been legally reclassified as a fumigant. The entirety of Protection Inc burst into the pub and the barman points to a stack of forms on the bar that they can sign to become temporary registered pest controllers in order to smoke.
Peering through the thick fog of sweet-smelling pipe smoke, Mentat, Crackler, Camarada, Película and Nitrox make their way to the backroom. Nitrox wants to stop and get a pint in, but Mentat heads that thought off and pulls him back on track.
Passing through a narrow corridor, past little drinking nooks where shadowy figures make illicit deals out of sight, the team enter into a larger drinking room.
Sitting around a low table, they see the Crimson Plague's recruiter, Master Tusk. Despite Zircon's permanently inclement weather, Master Tusk is shirtless, wearing only a pair of tight-fitting sportspants. He has the physique of a Greek statue, and he wears no mask, instead hiding his face behind a very bushy moustache.
The would-be recruits are sat back in arm chairs, drinking beer. There's Johnny Knifehands, a pickled onion skewered on the end of one his blades (recently sharpened); Spyte, looking embarassed to face off againsts Protection Inc. so soon after being beaten; the one-time hero Dangerfield, who has been activated after sleeper training, a dull look in his eyes; and finally, a villain they weren't familiar with, Ponche, a masked woman dressed in a supersuit with the shading, colour and rough shape of a pomegranate.
"Crimson Plague aren't welcome in this town," Mentat says, his team fanning out around the small room, sizing up their opponents. He scans his opponents for their intentions and as the two sides begin their fight he shouts out warnings to his team about what to expect.
Spyte leaps at Nitrox. He instinctively backpedals upwards and bangs his head on the low ceiling and falls down on the former hero. She jabs him with her poison barbs but she struggles to get through his reinforced suit.
Johnny Knifehands lunges at Crackler, hoping to take the electro-shocker out before he does them serious damage. Crackler's suit is design to deflect bullets, but Johnny sees a joint he can ram a blade into. Mentat warns Crackler in time and he crackles out a bolt. Johnny moves with Crackler's hand gestures and the bolt misses him. Instead it fries the bulb and shorts the electricity in the pub, plunging everyone into darkness!
In the dark, Master Tusk extends a poison-tipped staff to stab at Crackler's face. Crackler, after all, being a known enemy to his organisation. Camarada steps in the way, redirecting the staff to the side where it stabs Spyte who is climbing to her feet in the dark. Spyte is knocked clean out. Mentat uses the positions of people's minds to continue warning his team mates, and keeping his distance.
Película creates a lit up illusion of herself on the otherside of the room, which is immediately skewered by spikes from the floor sent by Dangerfield and engulfed in a belch of flaming alcoholic vapour from Ponche. In the dark, Película slips through the brawl and smashes a chair over the back of Ponche's head. "¡Lo siento!" she apologies.
"De nada," Ponche croaks before blacking out.
Mentat steps back in the dark away from a stab from Johnny Knifehands and straight into a spike Dangerfield had skewered up from the ground. As he's overwhelmed by the intense pain, he broadcasts it out, for the first time letting others know his experience instead. The villains are met with a wave of pain that doubles them over.
"Thirty-Six!" Master Tusk shouts in the dark. He opens a rear door and some of the villains run through, as Dangerfield lays down spike-traps behind him, forcing the heroes to go the long way around. Nitrox, weakened by Spyte's poison and in a critical state is unable to follow them from the skies. The recruiter had escaped with Dangerfield and Johnny Knifehands, leaving Ponche and Spyte in custody.
BUT THEN the League of Paradise showed up on a nearby rooftop. Spotting the fleeing villains, and recognising their old foe Master Tusk, all five active members of the League of Paradise gave chase!
There's the young Spit Feathers, trailing feathers across the roof tiles. Floating nearby, several holes clear through him, is the very sedate Wiffle. Songstress, dressed in long white robes, is singing loud and clear with an angelic voice. Old Windbow is drawing his bow. And Mapsona, trying hard to concentrate despite the singing, is standing behind them, palms outstretched.
Mapsona touches Spit Feather back and she disappears from the roof. She reappears directly in front of Johnny Knifehands. She sprays a thick cloud of feathers at the villain, disappearing him entirely.
Wiffle floats over in front of Dangerfield. Various spikes shoot up from the ground, but Wiffle just bounces harmlessly over them. While he's distracting Dangerfield, Windbow skewers the would-be villain to ground, arrows catching the folds of his army surplus trousers.
Songstress's song is now catching over the area and Master Tusk is compelled to stop and join in.
"We will stop you, oh villains three!" Sonstress sings.
"Oh no, you shall never catch me!" Master Tusk replies with a passable baritone.
"Why are you singing, what sort of game is this?" Dangerfield sings from his place on the ground.
"Mphh mphh shmpp mhhmmm mihis!!" Johnny Knifehands continues the verse, swallowing even more feathers.
Windbow knocks Master Tusk's staff from his hands with another arrowshot, and Spit Feathers covers the prone Dangerfield in a thick layer of feathers.
Mapsona, unable to teleport himself, clambers off of the roof and walks over to wear the villains were caught. Master Tusk tries to engage him with a chorus, but instead he teleports all three villains to a holding cell that Mapsona has practised sending people into it.
OUTCOME
Mission: Protection Inc: Mixed Success. Paradise League: Success
Ponche, Spyte, Johnny Knifehands, Dangerfield and Master Tusk enter custody.
Ponche and Master Tusk joins rogues' gallery
Johnny Knifehands and Dangerfield join Crimson Plague
Mentat: +1 fame, Injury: "Skewered foot". Gains new power: "Weaponised Telepathy: Mentat can share his own thought and feelings with others in his vicinity, including making them feel his own pain."
Camarada: Gains trait: "Respects Mentat", Gains trait "Reckless"
Crackler: Gains an additional opportunity. Gains trait "Poor Aim"
Nitrox: Gains an additional opportunity. Gains injury "Poisoned", Gains trait "Weak".
Película: +1 fame, blamed for smashing up the pub, Protection Inc gain -1 rep in Mireton
Mission Reward: Protection Inc gain +1 rep in Mireton. Protection Inc gain temporary +1 team fame "Stopped Crimson Plague Recruitment".
The headquarters of Advanced Widget Enterprises is a very tall tower in Atomic Heights. Taking vertical integration to new levels, materials are mined by the company in a series of tunnels under the building, smelted in the lower levels, and every aspect of fabrication, design, electronics, marketing, and so on happens on its own floor in the building. This includes the storage of its experimental prototypes. Overseeing this enterprise is the openly-Evolved inventor, Don Jetman.
Anuran (formerly Mr. Spawnman) arrives in the lobby of the tower, he is met by general disarray. Smashed furniture and computer parts, aircondition tubing spilling out of torn ceiling panels. Clawmarks and feathers strewn everywhere clue him into the delicious enemies he faced before. Round two.
Not long after Anuran arrives, the Dandy Lads appear in force. Jack Dandy and Lotus Petal enter the lobby at great speed through, followed by Haste, moing more sedately. The three enter the elevator and arrive on the sixth floor.
There the experimental testing labs are overrun with hundreds of small foul makeshift creatures. Anuran is sitting back in one corner, bloated, queasy, feathers and greasy fur smattered about his big frog mouth.
"Just... uh... just, just give me a moment..." the frog man says grabbing his stomach and ambling off to the restrooms.
"May my blade be true!" Lotus Petal said, drawing a knife and throwing it at the nearest creature, killing it instantly.
"I hope you brough more knives..." Haste mutters, before speeding up her colleagues. They quickly got into a routine: Lotus would dispatch about five at a time, while Jack ran around fetching the blades and stopping the creatures from attacking Haste. Haste just made it all go a lot quicker, and even sped up Anuran when he returned from the bathroom for another round of eating.
At length the remaining creatures were all dispatched, with only a few escaping out the ducts to return some spoils to their masters.
Don Jetman is pleased with the results and gives the teams some new gear.
OUTCOME
Mission: Dandy Lads: Success, The Watch: Success
Don Jetman enters recruitment pool
Jack Dandy: +1 Fame
Lotus Petal: Gains an additional opportunity
Haste: Gains +1 fame
Anuran: Loses trait "Hungry"
Mission Reward: Dandy Lads and The Watch both gain an Electrogirdle: wearer gains powers "Super Strength", "Super Jumping" and trait "Tires easily" while it is worn.
Most of the Bro Club comprising The Advisor (AKA Chase Brody), Bolt Blue, Joshua Tree, and Brouhaha drive into Sandup. The streets in the northwesternmost neighbourhood are already flooded. They could see Bittern in sky, shielding her eyes from blinding rays reflected and intensified by nearby buildings. Cocoliztli had changed the surface appearance of a block of apartments to reflect light to a certain point. From the ground floor, it looked like a giant mirror. There were many such alterations in the neighbourhood: many mirrored walls, walls made to look like alleyways, road signs turned near-invisible. All to catch Bittern out as she flies around the neighbourhood. If that wasn't bad enough, the water level everywhere is rising, as Bittern tries to draw Cocoliztli out.
"House prices just went to shit," Brouhaha points out.
"I can see Bittern," Joshua Tree says, pointing to the sky. "She's like a cherub with her wings, raining holy terror on this vile Plague."
"Is that what cherubs are meant to do?" the Advisor wonders. Sunday School was a long time ago.
"I'll whip up a wind to clear this water, you lot find Cockadoodledoo?" Bolt Blue suggest.
"Cocoliztli is an ancient Aztec word for a plague," says Lexicon.
Bolt Blue got himself to the top floor of a reflective apartment block to better control the weather. He didn't want to accidentally catch Bittern with an unwanted storm.
The others set off in search of the Crimson Plague villain. They spread out through the neighbourhood, chasing after changing walls. The side of nearby streetsight turned into an inverted mirror, concentrating a beam of light directly at the Advisor!
The team leader gave a cry as singing beam of light cutting his left pinkie finger clean off. Instantly cauterizing, it was still intensely painful and he screamed out. Time for him seemed to slow down. So used to placing suggestions with his words, he followed the waves of his scream to the ears of his hidden enemy.
"He's hiding over there!" Advisor shouted pointing out a plain wall. Looking closer, they could just about make out the thin outline of a man in a skintight suit, stood still, camouflaged against the wall.
Brouhaha blasted a sonic a boom at , smashing him into the wall. Joshua Tree followed up, spreading vines all over the villain.
Lexicon jogged over with cuffs and was blasted with the villain's power, transforming his suit and exposed skin into a perfectly reflective surface (luckily not including his eyeballs).
"We don't need no cuffs," Brouhaha says, smashing the villain's head back with another sonic boom.
"Let the land be cleansed of this foul stain," Joshua Tree says, pulling Cocoliztli in two with tearing vines and spreading a thick mat of flowers over the flesh until there's nothing left by petals and leaves.
A few hours later, Bolt Blue comes down from the tower, his work finished. Everyone else has gone home.
OUTCOME
Mission: Bro Club: Mixed Success
Cocoliztli is dead
Advisor: Gains extra opportunity. Gains trait "Missing finger". Gains power "Sonic Psycholocation: Advisor knows the location of those who can hear him speak in close auditory range."
Bolt Blue: +1 fame. Bolt Blue gains trait "Feeling unappreciated".
Joshua Tree: Gains extra opportunity. Gains trait "Known Killer". Gains +1 infamy.
Brouhaha: +1 fame. +1 infamy. Gains trait "Known Killer"
Lexicon: +1 fame. Gains trait "Uncomfortably Reflective". Gains power "Reflective: Lexicon's suit and exposed skin reflects all light, giving him laser protection and weak camouflage."
Mission Reward: +1 rep in Sandup. Bro Club gain Crossover: Bittern
The hostage mission fell apart before it even began. Entering the foyer of the large theater, Bloodmoon and Cephala walked in through one set of double-doors, Helltooth and Swan Dive through the other.
"So where's the stage where these guys are at?" Swan Dive asked.
The others weren't listening. As soon as she saw HellTooth, Cephala went into murder mode. She activated the stealth on her suit and blended in with the concession stands. HellTooth, heavily bruised, fangs dripping, waiting for a tentacle to appear.
He didn't see it coming from above. Swinging from her tentacles from the chandeliers, Cephala grasped HellTooth and smashed him against the ground to bleed out.
Swan Dive, assuming this was Cephala going rogue, glided across the room to grab HellTooth and bring him to safety. But Cephala saw this coming and snatched the bleeding hero off the ground. He weakly tried to bite at her but couldn't as his face was covered in a wrap of tentacles, choking him out.
"Are you just going to stand there?" Swan Dive asked Bloodmoon.
Bloodmoon shrugs. "He had it coming. Didn't those guys attack your team too?"
"Before I joined," Swan Dive said, running up some stairs to the upper floor of the foyer to get height to glide at Cephala. By the time she got there though, Cephala has ghosted out and HellTooth was a corpse on the ground.
During the kerfuffle, learning that no mental manipulators had been drawn out by the ploy, Dr. Black escaped out through the labrynthine backstage area. Some of his 'gunman' were rounded up, but it turned out they were actors given fake guns who thought they were taking part in an experimental production.
OUTCOME
Mission: Abject Failure
Swan Dive: +1 infamy (bad press). Cohesion check: [3+4+2=9]. Gains trait "Hates lone missions"
Bloodmoon: +1 infamy. Gains trait "Indifferent"
Cephala: +1 infamy. Gains traits "Known killer", "Broken Probation".
HellTooth: Dies. Spider Knights must either pick new leader or disband.
Mission Reward: None.
No one attended. It's an overwhelming success for the Legion of Wickedness as they go a step further and clean out the pet store of all animals, steal all the supplies and cash register and safe, and then trash the place for good measure.
+1 Infamy for all members
Baron von Woof gains trait "Dog companions"
Buzzoff gains trait "Animal-Lover"
Gigaman gains trait "Animal-Lover"
PB spreads out across the roofs of the warehouses and wharfs, surrounding the area where the sale is going down. Below, in a parking lot, two vans face each other and a Marmalade negotiates the sale, backed up by three heavily armed Marmalades behind her. The sellers, burly men in ill-fitting suits, push a huge crate of heavy weaponry. They inspect the cash.
"Help me grab him!" PB hisses to Luke on a nearby rooftop, as they spot a sniper Marmalade lying on the edge of the roof, looking down on the proceedings. PB creates a garotte with his gadget arm and quietly extends it out to loop around the sniper and yank him away from the edge. While the Marmalade struggles to catch his breath, PB forcible absorbs him!
After the crunch of flesh and bone snapping and sucking into him, PB stretches and grins. "OK, I know what he's planning."
"You can just absorb the clones and know what they know?"
"Marmalade has managed to absorb anyone, that's how they got so good at shooting... I think I can absorb anyone too," says PB.
"Take that knowledge back to PB-Prime," Luke suggests.
And so that PB went back to the main PB safely waiting back half a block away, allowing himself to absorbed. Then with the knowledge of Marmalade's plan and position, the PB's spread out to ambush at the exact right moment.
At a pre-arranged signal, the Marmalade's started firing on the gunsellers, a pre-arranged betrayal. They were fired back on, taking out a few acceptable losses. What wasn't acceptable to them was an army of PBs taking out the various sniper nests and firing on the Marmalades below.
Within the hour, the docks are littered with dead clones, the gun runners are dead, and there's a huge suitcase of cash and a crate full of guns which the PBs bundle into Marmalade's van and take for themselves. They've just got one last thing to do.
A few blocks away, waiting in an alley, in a clean hand-off van, the original Marmalade is pacing. Where were the clones? What was taking them so long? There was a knock on the door. Finally.
Marmalade opened it and was met by Luke's tazer attachment on his extending gadget arm.
"Time to come home," PB said, before forcibly absorbing his final rogue clone.
* * *
Later when they returned to the dockside to account for all the corpses, someone had already cleaned up. Little did they know that House Edge had made another enemy that day...
OUTCOME
Mission: House Edge: Overwhelming Success
Marmalade is dead.
PB: Gains power knowledge "Can absorb any living person". Gains trait "Crackshot". +1 fame.
Luke: Gains an opportunity. Loses trait "Serious team doubts".
Mission Reward: House Edge gain +1 income, and asset: "Loads of untraceable guns".
At the bomb workshop there are fifty people in a community hall gathered around different demonstation stations showing various bombs in various states of creation. Lord Bombarrel is in his element flitting from group to group dispensing his hard fought wisdom. As lucid as he currently appears, his explanations use terminology Bombarrel invented himself to cover the evolved understanding he and he alone possesses.
Sally Sixpence is rushed off her feet making things safer. Removing detonators, keeping wayward limbs away from delicate parts, covering over bubbling vats of chemicals only Lord Bombarrel could understand.
Sally notices the final problem. When focusing, all things drop away, the moments slow as she analyses every part of the situation, breaking up its constituent elements, really noticing what there is to notice. And she sees the bulge of the grenade in the pocket of a man come to see the demonstration. She sees the awkward gait and dead look in his eyes, the signs of some kind of brainwashing. She sees him eye up the main demonstative bomb: harmless on its own, but when met with his grenade, sure to set off a chain reaction destroying everyone. She calculated the space between her and the man and the likely spot he would throw the grenade. There was only one thing for it.
Time unslowed, Sally jumped on a table and leaped through the air, catching the grenade in midflight. She smothered the grenade with her body, so when it exploded, no one else died. The bomber was apprehended by the crowd, Lord Bombarrel was incandescent. And Sally was dead.
OUTCOME
Mission: The Watch: Pyrrhic Success
Lord Bombarrel re-enters custody.
Sally Sixpence: Gains trait "Heroic". Dies.
Mission reward: The Watch gains +1 rep in Montgomery. The Watch gain temporary +1 team fame "Averted Montgomery Explosion"
The worst thing about club music is that it's too loud. The second worst thing about club music is that at Hypnobeat's club night you can be brainwashed into believing in Evolved supremacy. Steeled against this, it was nevertheless harrowing for Mistress Extra and Princess Professional when they arrived in the club.
[Extra cohesion Check 6+5=11; Princess cohesion check 5+6+1=12]
Even with earplugs in, they still wrestled with the feeling the bass was attempting to programme into them. They swallow them down, there is unbreakable bond of trust between the two women. They walk through the crowd of clubgoers with determination, heading for the DJ booth.
A skinny topless man with spiral-patterned dark glasses and lime green hair grins at the pair as they come up to him.
"You want to chill babes," he says.
They did not, in fact, want to chill. They don't let the mental suggestion take hold. Instead, Mistress Extra swiftly incapacitates him with a nightmarish vision which she steps into and directs from the inside for maximum damage.
Princess Professional secures him as a prisoner and shouts to him over the music, "If you want this nightmare to end, you'll reverse the beats."
In a haze of skincrawling horror, Hypnobeat puts on a Shania Twain album and turns on all the lights. Unimpressed, the crowd soon clears.
OUTCOME
Mission: PUNCH!: Overwhelming success.
Hypnobeat is apprehended.
Princess Professional: gains trait "loyal". Gains +1 fame. Gains opportunity.
Mistress Extra: gains trait "Respects Princess Professional". Gains trait "Mental fortitude". Gains +1 fame.
Mission reward: PUNCH! gain +1 rep in Dusk Beach. Gain temporary fame +1 "Apprehended Hypnobeat".
Lynxxx follows the mayor around for a week. Her presence at his side draws rumours in the gutter press, but it also appears to put off any would-be assassins. There are no attempts on the Mayor's life, but nor does Lynxxx get any closer to finding out who was after him from before. She does, however, get to know all the local bigwigs.
OUTCOME
Mission: Spider Knights: Success
Lynxxx gains trait "Connected"
Mission Reward: Spider Knights would gain +1 income. They're already opulent, so Lynxxx spends it automatically on improving her body-armour. Lynxxx gains trait "Bullet-Proof Armour".
Author
Topic: Superhero Manager - Season Three - End Game Completed! (Read 23216 times)