A cold wind blows across the wharves and warehouses of the Docks. A great hulking cruise-ship, twenty storeys high, lists in the port, as thousands of men and women armed with guns and bats teem off it. This is an invasion.
Whiffle from the League of Paradise floats serenely above it all with his hollow shell of a body, taking it all in and radioing back to his team what he can see.
"They're splitting into three groups, with a fourth on the boat. Each group has a mob with it and three villains," he reports. "Someone's shooting at me from the first group. The bullets are coming in from all angles here... I'm OK. I'm OK."
Everyone sees a purple-black beam blast out from the boat and strike Whiffle clean on. His costume instantly rots away but his body is fine. The beam passes clean through him, with no force to it. What does have force is the supervillain Comette flying from second group, raining down sparks on the warehouses below. She smashes into Whiffle, arresting Comette's momentum, and knocking the hero flying across the horizon. Sometime later he'll land on the pebble beach of Stoney Island, but for now he's out the fight. Comette flies back down to her group: Black Rat and Flea.
From the neighbourhood edge, the heroes watch this unfold. Retry tries a few different futures before explaining the situation through Psyla XI. She communicates the plan with a psychic link with Psyla, who relays it to the others before they head on. They'll need to split up to catch all the groups. Some are more deadly to some of the heroes than others, so she advises the groupings that will keep enough of them alive to stop the villains and get to the cruise ship.
"If we chop the head of the snake off, we can stop their army without having to fight all the non-Evolved," says old Windbow of the League of Paradise, having fought the Crimson Plague for many years.
Tin Soldier of House Edge says, "My team can handle bullets, so we'll take on Team Range."
Endless Highway, from inside in his mysterious helmet says, "Now Whiffle is gone we're the only fliers, so Route Horizon will fight Comette and her Team Pest."
"We can move fastest, so the Dandy Lads will stop those villains who have got furthest into the city," Jack Dandy says.
"I wouldn't say the fastest..." Saluki says, "LOP and Watchtower will be recon and backup, and support any team that is struggling. Triple-M is our ultimate trump card."
The Miraculous Mirror Maiden smiles winningly.
"Retry and I will also backup," Psyla says "And whoever of us makes it to the ship can face Justinian and his Inner Circle."
With plans made, the hero teams split up and move out across the expanse of industrial buildings, heading in the direction of the sea.
* * *
Tin Soldier, bullet-proof, takes the lead heading towards the warehouse where Team Range are positioned. They've taken over a high roof with sweeping views of the area. Bakal is watching the rear, multiple PBs are fanned out around to watch for different spots, and Spork and Bombarrel are tucked away behind a dumpster, priming various devices.
While the others stay out of sight on the ground floor by the warehouse wall, Tin Soldier climbs up an external fire-escape onto the roof, ready to tackle them head on. On a raised platform in the center of the flat warehouse roof, Knoll Shot has set up a nest of long-range machine guns. The villain is dressed in a long black trenchcoat and has pistols attached to his sleeves. Karma Kid is next to him, a boy of 14, in a suit embroidered in an endless knot. The Kid spots Tin Soldier as he gets to the top of the ladder. Instead of using the machine guns, Knoll Shot shoots Karma Kid in the head with one of his pistols. The bullets duplicates and strike from multiple angles. Instead of Karma Kid being injured, the effect he would have suffered is transferred to someone he can see... Tin Soldier.
Tin Soldier's head explodes from the effect of bullets. While his head is bullet-proof, Karma Kid's isn't and so the effect transfers. His lifeless corpse drops down in the alley. The Spork yammers wildly at Psyla in his head for a redo. The backup team is moving slowly through the center of the district and Psyla gets the message and passes it to Retry. She undoes a minute and tells Psyla in her head what happened, just in time for Psyla to tell Tin Soldier to hold tight and not poke his head over the edge of the roof.
Instead they went for a different approach. PB wasn't keen on his clones dying unnecessarily, but he sent out waves of them to nearby rooftops and other spots with a line of sight. All heavily armed, they exchange gunfire with Knoll Shot. It an unfair fight as the Crimson Plague have the high ground and can duplicate bullets arbitrarily. Still, it's enough to keep them occupied while backup arrives.
As Tin Soldier and the others are waiting down at street level for the push they hear a scrape of metal and large crunching steps. Suddenly the warehouse wall smashes open, and out climbs a man in a giant armoured suit. Easily fifteen foot tall, with limbs like tree chunks, The Mangler II isn't messing around. This Mangler is a mad engineer who has constructed his suit in homage to the powers and appearance of the famous supervillain (suffocated by Bloodmoon after a prison escape).
Tin Soldier had faced off against the original Mangler back in the early 2000s. The Mangler back then was in his prime and could have torn Tin Soldier's limbs off quite easily. This new Mangler is a mechanical marvel, bigger and stronger than the original... but mostly made of metal. Under his plating, Tin Soldier grins.
"I'm going to enjoy this," he says, shortly before Mangler II shoots a rocket from his arm directly at Tin Soldier. He absorbs the shrapnel from the bomb but the blast still sends Tin Soldier crashing back. Out of the hole in the wall, a large crowd of fighters spill out, armed to the teeth, and ready for action. "Can we get some smoke?" Tin Soldier shouts to his team.
Spork and Lord Bombarrel glance at each other, sharing a moment of understanding.
"No smoke without a FIRE!" the Spork screams, lighting up his flamethrower and keeping the mob at bay with immense jets of flame. He hates giant robots so he advances with menace at the Mangler II, who is unharmed by the flames.
Lord Bombarrel pulls three bombs from a line of them on his belt and throws them haphazardly: one of them up onto the warehouse roof, one at Mangler II and one at the crowd. They explode in ear-shattering booms, spilling purple smoke, radioactive butterflies and emetic glitter around the place.
"BWHAHAHAHA!" Lord Bombarrel laughs as chaotic substances rain down around them.
Bakal stares on in horror. "I'm too old for this tae..."
The fighters scatter, clutching their heads, fending off mutagenic insects, throwing up. On the roof, above a cloud of purple smoke and PB covering fire, Anuran the frog man flicks his tongue out and steals Knoll Shot's pistol. Saluki speeds across the roof and grabs Karma Kid by his costume and steals him away, isolating Knoll Shot on the roof.
Throught the flames and glitter, Tin Soldier smashes into Mangler II, absorbing a huge chunk of the suit's leg. Collapsing down on one knee, the Mangler II grabs ahold of Tin Soldier.
"TIME TO MANGLE!" the suit bellows, beginning to crush the older hero. But his attempts are in vain: Tin Soldier absorbs the metal of the arms, and redistributes it in a ripple across his whole body, gaining another foot in height. He then bearhugs the giant suit, ripping away the frontpiece. Spork shoots his grapple gun at the emaciated man inside the suit, yanking him roughly to the ground.
Up on the roof, the PBs manage to get the upperhand on Knoll Shot. While dozens of PBs die in the attempt as bullets are doubled every whichway, eventually a stray shot gets through, killing Knoll Shot outright.
"Who gets the FLAME now?" The Spork asks.
"If I had you as a partner twenty years ago, I would have been a hero all this time!" Lord Bombarrel laughs, slapping the Spork's back.
* * *
The Dandy Lads are the next to face the enemy, with Jack Dandy, The Man in Grey and Lotus Petal sped up by Haste, who races alongside them on a moped (customised with extra storage space for loot).
They drive into a yard lines with shipping containers. Moving through the shadows of the containers, a mob of hundreds pour out. In among them are three members of the Crimson Tide: Weeping Pus, Wispa and Woodchunk. Team W.
Weeping Pus is a man whose body is covered in groteseque wounds that will not close. He can take any amount of punishment and keep going, his body filled with redundancies. Wispa is just a shimmer of a woman. She's incorporeal, phasing through solid surfaces or entering them and exploding them from within. Woodchunk is a low-rate comedy villain dressed like a giant marmot. He's clambering along the side of the shipping containers at speed, his huge maw ready to render limbs.
"Shit, shit, shit," Haste says, screeching her moped to a halt.
Jack Dandy punches his way through the crowd at speed. Lotus Petal delivers non-lethal but debilitatingly painful cuts to dozens, her knife returning back into her hand. Even the Man in Grey walks unheeded, fading out of view as enemies come near and reappearing behind them with a nightstick to the back of the head.
"Hieronymous!!" Woodchunk screams.
Lotus Petal goes stiff as the activation word triggers deep programming within. A second later she throws a blade at the Man in Grey. He fades from view before it strikes (unfortunately for a nearby marauder). She throws the knife again at Jack Dandy. With his enhanced speed he dodges away, and instead of landing in his forehead, the knife nicks off his left ear.
"LP has turned on us," Haste thinks loudly to Psyla who is maintaining a psychic link to each of the hero teams.
Mapsona teleports Psyla to the scene. The psychic emerges on the other side of the fight. She focuses on her link with Haste and draws an invisible line of repulsion, slamming hundreds of fighters aside in a bloody crush. Woodchunk leaps in the air out of harm's way. Weeping Pus just picks himself up, one big graze. Wispa is untouched.
This isn't all of foes. A few dozen escape the net and surround Haste's moped. She tries to rev away when one catches her with a chain and yanks her bodily onto the ground.
"Slow down!" she shouts.
And they do. She expands a new power, a wave of slowness around her that holds her attackers as if in treacle.
Jack Dandy isn't faring so well. Woodchunk lands on him and pins him to the ground. As fast as he, Jack barely has the strength to keep Woodchunk's jaws from his head.
"This isn't you," Psyla says in Lotus Petal's mind as she aims her knife at Jack.
"You're right," Lotus says. "This isn't dandy at all." She hurls her knife at Weeping Pus instead. It doesn't slow him down. She throws again and again and still he keeps moving.
The Man in Grey shouts a warning to Lotus Petal. She dodges away in time as Wispa attempts to phase through her. The Man in Grey races over at high speed and phases out. Wispa phases too. Somewhere, unseen, they battle in the space between reality.
Jack Dandy feels his life flash before his eyes. He was in a lot of good movie roles, so the footage is quite entertaining. Woodchunk's teeth get closer to his neck. The stress induces a new capacity... Jack throws off the villain with a perfectly executed judo throw. Woodchunk grabs a discarded wooden bat and chucks it at Jack. Jack limbo ducks, rolls, then trips the villain, grabbing his arm and putting him into a submission hold.
Weeping Pus grabs at Lotus Petal. She wriggles free from his bloody graps and stabs him a few more times.
"That just tickles!" Weeping Pus laughs. He backhands her, bloodying her nose.
Lotus Petal senses a spot in his left armpit, not far from his heart. She stabs and twists her knife three times. It's his one weak spot. Weeping Pus seizes up as his arteries twist around themselves.
Wispa appears bound and unconscious, a victim to the Man in Grey's superior speed. The Man in Grey reappears and glowers with mistrust at Lotus Petal. Haste finishes up tying the slowed people around her. Those that survived Psyla's onslaught have ran off in panic.
"You need patching up," Psyla says to Jack, his head bleeding copiously, his ear lost.
"What?"
* * *
Swan Dive was flying along with Endless Highway, feeling the air rush over them. Far below, they tracked the souped up car which Longfire was driving along with Ponche.
They saw Comette flying out of the clouds above. Silver dazzling shards spilt from behind her. In ancient times, a comet would foretell disaster, and like those comets of old, Comette spelled misery for many. Her sparkles had the power to alter those that they touch, making them more irritable, impulsive, confused. Letting Comette fly over the docks equivalant to amplifying Monkeypaw's bad luck aura over the whole neighbourhood, it could spell disaster for the heroes. She had to be stopped at whatever cost.
Endless Highway directed himself and Swan Dive directly at Comette. The three of them speed around one another in a dazzling, supersonic dance that takes them over the water in a long circuit for miles around. Comette speeds back to the docks, making a bee-line for the main cluster of heroes making their way through the neighbourhood. Swan Dive knows what she must do. Going too fast to explain, she uncouples from Endless Highway, leaving him with a fold-out glider to safely glide down, and she speeds after Comette. She's willing to sacrifice herself for the team, she just needs to catch up with the villain.
Endless Highway, a determined leader, bold and heroic, is not going to let Swan Dive do this. The wind whistles past his helmet as he hurtles headlong past Swan Dive. He's close to blacking out from the speed when he slams into Comette in midair. The pair tumble through the sky and Endless Highway turns up the speed. There's a sonic boom as Comette and Endless Highway slam into the ground.
Meanwhile, Longfire and Ponche are driving along when someone lands on their roof. Flea, a nimble man with super-jumping, lands onto the roof. He cuts open the metalwork with his beam-cutting arm-blades. Ponche belches out a ball of flaming vodka at him as he stabs down at her. His blade sinks deep into Ponche's side. Longfire slams on the brakes and the burning Flea falls off the car. Longfire gets out to check and is blindsided by Black Rat, a poison-bladed knife artist. Her knife almost catches Longfire's ribs but the hours of fight training pay off and Longfire deflects the blow.
Bleeding profusely, Ponche staggers out the car and takes a swig of her hip flask. As her lifeblood flows out, she joins Longfire in slugging it out with Black Rat who ducks and weaves away from punches and flames alike. At last Longfire makes Black Rat stagger with a fire ball, and Ponche slugs her unconscious, before collapsing, bleeding in the street. As Longfire cradles her, Flea climbs up from the tarmac, a new power coursing through him. Longfire teleports a fireball on him but he's already weaving away, draining Ponche's fight technique with his new power, and using it to hold his own against Longfire, despite the horrific wounds he's suffered he's still able to hop around and swing his beam blades with renewed skill.
It's going badly for all of them when Swan Dive spins down from the sky and lands on Flea, flattening the villain. Longfire immediately turns back to Ponche but its too late. She's bled out.
"It's all gone to shit!" Longfire wails.
"It's fine, I've got the line to Psyla, we'll get Retry..." Swan Dive says hurriedly. If she could just get Retry to rewind then maybe she would be the one to sacrifice herself against Comette. Maybe Ponche wouldn't die.
Psyla thinks back at her instantly... "I can't get through! I can't get through to Retry!"
Panic rises between Swan Dive and Longfire, and it is then that a wave of hundreds of non-powered fighters appear further down the road, moving towards the pair.
* * *
A number of heroes converge on the boat. Saluki has tied up Karma Kid and hid him in a dumpster half a mile away, only to speed back and regroup with Anuran and Miraculous Mirror Maiden. They're accompanied by most of House Edge. Only Bakal opted to call it a day.
Haste, The Man in Grey and Lotus Petal arrive at speed, Haste on her moped. There's clearly an awkward air between them after Lotus's unwilling betrayal. Jack Dandy is receiving medical attention and Psyla was going back to regroup with Retry and the League of Paradise.
The many heroes, bolstered by excessive numbers of PBs, head towards the cruise ship. The huge oceanliner towers above them in the port, having been run aground into a jetty. A gangplank and dozens of rope ladders lead down to the waterfront of the dock, and the ship itself is guarded by hundreds of unpowered fighters.
A long and brutual fight ensues as the heroes slug their way up the gangplank and through the bowels of the ship, trying to find Justinian and his inner circle. The plan is to fight through, keeping Spork safe so he can shoot his power-nullifying bola gun at Justinian and stop him before he can even get started. In the fighting, Anuran is heavily teargassed by the fighters and he hurls himself overboard to save his eyes. Lotus Petal and Haste sustain injuries in the close fighting which would have been deadly were it not for Haste's selective slowing.
At last Lord Bombarrel and Spork through fire and explosion blast their way to the bridge. The mad pair look around and it's empty. They see camera feeds of all the major spots on the boat but there's no sign of Justinian the Bloody or any other powered villains. What they do see is a series of detonators and a a camera feed of a hull filled with explosives. Any second now, it's going to blow. In an instance, Spork groks the mechanism.
"We've got thirty seconds before this blows!" he shouts, just as Haste and most of the others arrive at the bridge, beaten, bloody, but alive.
The Man in Grey fades out. Haste hyperspeeds the rest to the fullest of her ability, but she cannot speed herself. Saluki races faster than can be seen, snatching up Haste in his eyes and speeding through the corridors of the boat for the gangplank. Slower, but still very fast, the others run along too. Spork slows up to hold open a door for Lord Bombarrel who is the slowest of them all, despite the superspeed, he's still an old man. It's just the pair of them left on the boat (apart from unknown numbers of hapless goons, hiding, patrolling, recovering from a beat-down).
The bomb goes off. From the docks, the heroes look on as the ship explodes, shearing in twain and sinking into the harbour. From the blistering heat of the fireball, Spork and Lord Bombarrel pull themselves out of the water, apparently unharmed by such a familiar thing as fire and explosions. The only hero unaccounted for is Anuran, who, at last, jumps out of the frothing sea, having been swimming around trying to find his way back to shore.
"If they weren't on the boat... then where were are they?" Lotus Petal asks.
Miraculous Mirror Maiden, her mirrored suit glistening in the light of the ship fire, catches a message in her mind from Psyla. Carmen de Plaga, Justinian the Bloody's wife is a maker of short-range teleporters. Together with the corruption-beam slinging High Priestess Septia, Justinian the Bloody has ambushed Retry and the League of Paradise!
* * *
Just stay alive.
Retry and the League of Paradise are in a ship-breakers yard. Half-deconstructed hulks litter the yard. The heroes are in disarray. First dozens of unpowered fighters had teleported in. Retry had just set in place the timeline where Tin Solider survives. Moments after a settled future is when she is most vulnerable, when the possibilities have collapsed into place and she has little past left to rewind to. It's in these moments when the ambush occured. The League of Paradise dealt with most of the newcomers, pinning them down with arrows, teleporting them away, entrancing them with song, burying them in feathers. The second and third wave were harder to deal with. Retry used her girdle of strength to bound over the fight, flinging enemies around, redoing the few seconds when she could, just to perfect her sequence.
Septia, in priestly raiments, a dark bishop of corruption appeared, followed by Carmen le Plaga, dress billowing, her agonising whistle doubling over friend and foe alike. Then came Justinian. Gaunt, blood red robes, wild eyes. He laughed as he drained Mapsona of all his blood, the scarlet liquid spinning round him. Retry tried to rewind, warn him, but always someone would die when Justinian appeared and often it was her.
Just stay alive.
Soon Retry was hiding behind a pile of exsanguinated bodies. Justinian powered himself draining the very men and women he had sent in the first wave to soften up the heroes. Windbow was lying behind a crate, his right arm withered to bone by Septia's beam. But alive. Spit Feathers had blasted herself away in a new and unexpected blast of feathers, and was stuck head first in a pile of haddock in a fish auction yard half a block away. But alive. Songstress was half deafened by Carmen le Plaga, her windpipe crushed by one of the remaining goons. She was whimpering in pain in the rusting hull of a half-deconstructed schooner. But alive. Only Mapsona was unsaveable.
Retry just had to hold on and work the permutations. Soon. Soon backup must be coming. Justinian raised his hand and started to draw her blood.
* * *
In the interminable industrial estate, Longfire and Swan Dive had tried to get away in the car, Ponche's body in the back. Their wheels had been shot out, and it was only Endless Highway's adjustment's that allowed them to get anywhere in it. The nitros fired and the car scraped along on its chassis, raining sparks. The vehicle slammed into a warehouse wall, giving the pair a head start on the army chasing them.
"We can't just leave her!" Longfire says.
"There's nothing we can do," Swan Dive says, getting out of the car.
Longfire climbs out of the passenger door. A moment later, there's a whoosh of hot air. Longfire dives to the ground, and Swan Dive is caught by a a slice of metal across her face and the car explodes. In the center of the explosion, Wispa appears, having recovered from Man in Grey's attack, and easily phased out of her bindings.
She phases out again as Longfire teleports in a pillar of flame, destroying what was left of the car. Swan Dive puts up her guard and approaches the phased Wispa. As Wispa tries to pass through her, to explode her too, Swan Dive ducks and weaves out of the way. She suddenly feels at one with her surroundings, feeling the rolling possibilities of their bodies and the surroundings, knowing how to place herself just out of the way as Wispa pops back into existence. As Wispa momentarily reappears she is met by Swan Dive's fist to her face. As she staggers back, she is engulfed in Longfire's flame. Screaming, Wispa merges with the flame and dissipates into smoke.
Longfire is looking on with horror at the twisted wreck of the car. "Where's Endless?" he asks.
Swan Dive looked over some nearby buildings beyond which a crater was still smouldering. "He saved us all taking out Comette."
"Then there is no more Route Horizon," he says, his voice getting louder. "This wouldn't have happened if Reverso had stayed instead of you. Endless would have been driving. We'd have been fine."
"You don't know that," Swan Dive says.
"What I know is I'm done with you," he spits. "Congrats. You're Route Horizon now."
* * *
Miraculous Mirror Maiden runs headlong through the docks, being deliberately chased by Saluki, the pair of them still sped by Haste's power. She arrives at the breaker's yard to see Justinian, Carmen la Plaga and Septia being repelled by an invisible force. Psyla and... another Psyla, wearing plain clothes and a different haircut has arrived in time to combine their kinetic power, repelling the villains and buying Mirror Maiden enough time to act.
Retry is lying on the ground, dead, dead, no... unconscious from blood loss, exhausted from the girdle, but alive... just about alive.
Septia levels a beam of corruption at Mirror Maiden but it is deflected by Mirror Maiden's own corruption beam. Justinian moves to draw blood but the Maiden willed her blood to hold in place and focused instead on Justinian. Carmen whistled at a debilitating frequency by Mirror Maiden nullified it with a complementary note. Her focus is split three-ways and she is steadily being worn down. Saluki collapses at the threshold of the yard, exhausted. He is overtaken by the Spork and Anuran. Anuran smashes into Carmen, smashing her teleporter and disrupting her whistle. There's no touching Justinian with his blood shield swirling around him, so Spork shoots his bola at Septia. The High Priestess goes down in a tangle of power-nullifying wires.
Lord Bombarrel arrives at the scene and lobs a grenade at Justinian but the explosion is completely muffled and dissipated by the blood shield. Speeding like a truck, Tin Soldier smashes into the shield and in batted aside. PB shoots but the blood takes it all.
Justinian can drain the dead and immobile effortlessly so he draws the last bit of blood from the corpses around him, then he drains his own wife and the High Priestess of his movement. Miraculous Mirror Maiden's limbs twitches as she struggles against his immense blood power. There's no going back, no redoing. No one can stop him with his blood shield. No one except her. She has one move left.
Miraculous Mirror Maiden screams, focusing her all at Justinian. She draws on her inner strength and drains her own blood to power one final push. She parts Justinian's swirling blood shield, exposing the haggard, wild-eyed man beneath. Lotus Petal throws a perfect dagger right at Justinian's shoulder, disrupting his draining completely. As the knife slams in, the blood walls splash down all around them, coating the whole yard in red ichor. While the Dandy Lads wouldn't kill, other heroes have less compunction. Psyla and her counterpart draw a dividing line between themselves and cut a solid psychic wall across the yard, splitting the defenceless Justinian in two. With that, the other Psyla returns to another dimension.
Miraculous Mirror Maiden, pale as the moon, lies face down, dead. Anuran and Saluki gather around her, tears in their eyes.
The Crimson Plague is no more and only four more heroes had to die to make it happen.
OUTCOME
Mission: League of Paradise: Failure; Route Horizon: Success (at such cost!); The Watch: Mixed Success; Watchtower: Very Mixed Success; House Edge: Success; Dandy Lads: Mixed Success
The Crimson Plague is no more. Karma Kid, The Mangler II, Black Rat, Flea, Weeping Pus and Woodchunk and many goons enter custody. The other villains are dead. Their purpose ended and most of their members too injured to fight on, the League of Paradise finishes as a team.
PB: Unimpressed by Bakal et al, gains trait "Ageist". +1 fame. +1 fame from High Profile.
The Spork: Gains power "Fireproof". Gains trait "Friends with Lord Bombarrel". Gains injury "Exhausted". +1 fame. +1 fame from High Profile.
Tin Soldier: Gains trait "Believes in House Edge". +1 fame. +1 fame from High Profile.
Lord Bombarrel: Gains injury: "Exhausted". Gains power "Immune to explosions". Gains trait "Friends with the Spork". +1 fame. +1 fame from High Profile.
Bakal: Quits House Edge, and superheroing. Gains trait "Too old for this"
Retry: Gains trait "Concerned about Psyla". -1 reputation in the Docks (unfairly blamed for not saving everyone). +1 fame. +1 fame from High Profile.
Psyla: Gains power "Mysterious inter-dimensional assistance"; gains trait "Doubts about Retry's leadership" (why didn't she deploy Void to the fight of the century?). Gains trait "Tactical". Gains +1 infamy (excessive brutality). +1 fame from High Profile.
Jack Dandy: Gains trait "Missing Ear". Gains power "Skill Mimicry: Jack can, with focus, perfectly copy a skill he has previously observed". Gains injury "Infected wound". Gains power knowledge: He can reflexively mimic his opponent's attacks, making him near impossible to beat in hand-to-hand combat. Gains trait "Confident in Lotus Petal" +1 fame from High Profile.
The Man In Grey: Gains trait: Wary of Lotus Petal", gains trait "Feeling overlooked". +1 fame. +1 fame from High Profile.
Lotus Petal: Gains trait "Unapologetic". Loses trait "Crimson Plague Sleeper Agent". Gains power "Weakness Spotting: Lotus intuitively senses the weakest point". Gains injury "Bloody nose". Gains injury "Heavy Bruising". +1 fame from High Profile.
Haste: Gains power "Slow Aura". Gains trait "Wary of Lotus Petal". Gains injury "Knife Wound". Gains injury "Scorched". Impressed and save by her haste, she gains a cross-over from Watchtower. +1 fame from High Profile.
Spit Feathers: Gains power "Feather propulsion". Gains trait "Despises fish". Fails to make an impression and gains no fame. Joins the pool.
Wiffle: Loses "Accepting". Joins the pool. +1 fame from High Profile.
Mapsona: Dies.
Songstress: Gains trait "Mute". Gains trait "Looks up to Windbow". Retires. +1 fame from High Profile.
Windbow: Gains trait "Withered arm". Retires. +1 fame from High Profile.
Saluki: Gains injury "Exhausted". Gains trait "Respect Anuran". Puts Anuran on compassionate leave from the team. Gains +1 fame. +1 fame from High Profile.
Anuran: Gains trait "Depressed". Gains trait "Saddened by losses". Gains +1 fame. Goes on compassionate leave, retiring for now. +1 fame from High Profile.
Miraculous Mirror Maiden: Dies heroically. +2 fame.
Endless Highway: Dies heroically. +2 fame.
Longfire: Loses "Believes in Route Horizon". +1 fame. +1 fame from High Profile. Leaves Route Horizon.
Ponche: Dies heroically. +2 fame.
Swan Dive: Gains trait "Acting In Endless Highway's Memory". Gains new power "Perfected Spatial Awareness". Gains trait "Notable scar". Becomes leader of Route Horizon. Due to death and desertion, Route Horizon is no longer a Friendship Club, and may pick a new Team Identity. +1 fame. +1 fame from High Profile.
Mission Reward: Route Horizon, The Watch, Watchtower, House Edge, and Dandy Lads gain +1 rep in the Docks, and +2 temporary Team Fame: "Defeated The Crimson Plague".