Onboard the CHESS Omni-Carrier, the war room is soaked in crimson. The Vanguard Reserves are losing blood. Viper manages a weak smile and says, “…thank you…” before he loses consciousness.
Menagerie removes the last insidious device from the neck of Hip Hop and then assumes the Shape of Man.
Avatar relinquishes the power of mighty Zeus and collapses into a chair in utter exhaustion.
Vanguard begins to administer first aid. Slingshot uses his malleable lungs to cry: “MEDIC!”
Soon, CHESS emergency technicians burst in and assume control of the tragic Vanguard Reservists, and of Doc Monster who was grievously wounded by Inhuman in the brief, volatile battle. They are soon carefully transported to sickbay.
With the Omni-Carrier back under control, Director Grey reports that he’s leaving the bridge and heading to you. Nanite disengages from the leviathan ship’s mainframe, but Nemesis, Lightning Strike and Symbiote continue their electronic interface, to check for any lingering effects of the SKULL technology that took all Omni-Carrier computer systems offline.
Vanguard discuss their next move. They think they can track the artifacts. But so can their enemy.
Suddenly static forms in mid-space, like the changing of a channel. The air crackles and hums. Vanguard grimly steel themselves for another onslaught.
Suddenly, a fuzzy hologram of Aperture appears, jumping and flickering like old video footage.
The resolution increases. The scion of cyberspace comes into sharper focus and suddenly he is actually there.
Aperture is wounded and his demeanor is that of one who has just fled a battlefield overrun by murderous enemies. He has brought the Artifacts of Power here!
Actions?!?
Current Conditions:
Aperture: Hit Points: 2, Power Points: 49, Nanotech: Teleportation
Avatar: Hit Points: 8, Power Points: 5, Manifestation: Hermes, Athena, Zeus
Clone: Bodies: 4/1, Hit Points: 1/6, Power Points: 64/67, Hit Point Pool: 13 (7/6) (Stats: NYC/Russia)
Lightning Strike: Hit Points: 23, Power Points: 59: Electrical form
Menagerie: Hit Points: 16, Power Points: 58, Form: Man
Sentinel: Hit Points: 7, Power Points: 45, Creation Points: 90, Shields: 72%
Slingshot: Hit Points: 3, Power Points: 64, Invulnerability: 8, Damage that can’t be regenerated: 64!
Countdown: 43.4 hours until the End of the World.
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Sentinel:
Kirk immediately does an energy scan of Aperture and the artifacts as they begin to appear to be sure all is what it seems.
He asks, "What happened? Where did you go and who attacked you?"
Assuming this is Aperture and no other immediate threats follow him they will compare notes and wait for Grey to meet and update them with hopefully something useful to proceed ahead.
Unless something else presents itself it seems that at this point those still standing (which are all just barely) need to take the artifacts and go elsewhere before they are tracked again and the Omni-Carrier and what is left of CHESS are lost in the attack. Not that there seems to be a way Vanguard could ward off another attack, let alone make a final stand in their current state. Unless we can figure a way to tap into the power of the artifacts for 'good' here or take a step out of time with them to recoup there doesn't seem to be a viable solution presenting itself to give us hope of pulling this off.
Seth
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Slingshot:
OOC: Reading through the issue.. We need to have a plan. We are reacting so much, it's not funny.
Remember the last sentence of the issue:
Countdown: 43.4 hours until the End of the World.
Just to let that sink in..
(I'll just fall silent now, because I don't have a proper plan either)
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Aperture:
OOC: So glad to be back in the same thread, I can’t wait to find out what happened here!
IC: Aperture slumped against a nearby wall, “Mystic is coming. I escaped to the Salt Flats, but he was able to track me down. I barely escaped.”
Aperture switches powers back to Regeneration.
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OOC:
I think I have a couple of possible solutions to Vanguard's current problem(s).
IC:
One of the Clone duplicates walks towards the main group with one of the Mind-Control devices that were just ripped out of the Vanguard Reservists in his hand and asks innocently, "If Mystic is coming; is it being possible that we are to be defeating him, perhaps we are to be using this as means of Trojan Horse on him?"
A moment later, another one of the replicants points to the Ring of Eon (OOC: Did I remember that name correctly?) and adds, ". . . or perhaps it is that I can be using of this to go back in past to be giving us more time, no?"
OOC:
The first suggestion is to use one of the Mind-Control devices on Mystic if he should come to the Omni-Carrier and we could defeat him. Maybe we could 'use' him' to get close to Cthulhu in order to defeat him some how . . . assuming we knew how to defeat him . . .
The other suggestion is to send one of the Clones back in time to perhaps warn the Vanguard of the past of the Vanguard Reservists attack or some other such thing. It's not the greatest plan, but we wouldn't technically be risking anyone's life (its a duplicate after all) and it might allow us to be fully healed with the Reservists at our side instead of at our feet.
Again - just a couple of wacky Clone-ish ideas.
Just a heads up - I may be 'out of contact' for a couple of days - 'Big Moving Day' today - not sure when I'll have internet up and running next (hopefully very very soon).
Talk to you guys soon,
-Kev
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Sentinel:
How quickly did he locate you previously? Did he arrive by portal? What forces or special defenses did he bring?
Kirk began to shift his senses to be aware of Mystic's arrival and the energy cascade of his port and prepared to point it out and attack the moment he appeared. He looked around for anything he could use as a weapon if Mystic took out his energy as he had done in the forties (anything he could salvage from the reserves at this point that he could perhaps surprise Mystic with? - maybe some of Forester's arrows or a weapon from Soldier Talon or something along those lines if he is going to appear momentarily before we regroup)
Seth
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Slingshot:
We need to prepare for Mystic's arrival. I would assume that we have an hour. That was the situation when mystic was looking for the artifacts with us.
A couple of options:
1) Can we use Menagerie's Teleport blocking spell on the helicarrier?
2) Can we mask the artifact signatures?
I want to alert Grey that we need to expect another assault from teleportation and put the helicarrier into high alert.
Slingshot will sit in a plastic chair, and regenerate from it. he's running out of hitpoints. He'll talk to Aperture and catch him up as well as get a run down on what has happened to him.
Slingshot asks,"Ethan, You brought the artifacts back! Good job! What happened to you?!"
Slingshot explains to his son what happened in the short time he was away:"We figured the other heroes were under control, so we used Avatar's lightning powers to cause interference and block the control. While that happened, we ripped the control system out of their necks. They are all in the Medical center getting looked after."
Stephane/Slingshot
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Aperture:
Aperture took a deep breath, “I’m not sure how he arrived, he surprised me as I was preparing to return here. I didn’t see anyone with him, he was alone as far as I could tell, but he was after the artifacts. He had some way of tracking them, and if he found me there, he’ll know they are here.”
Aperture relates his trip to the Salt Flats to Slingshot and anyone else who is listening.
“I’m glad you’re OK, where is mom?”
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Slingshot:
Scott frowned, "Mom should be good. She was taking care of the mainframe holding this boat afloat. I haven't checked on her, yet."
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Menagerie:
OOC: I don't have the luck point needed to create the anti-teleportation barrier.
I am thinking based on the premise that Mystic is controlled by the disk maybe our scientist/engineer types could use the ones we have to create a feedback signal/charge/blast. That would short out the device in Mystic.
So we take the Artifacts and give one each to a Clone. The Clones stand in the center of the hanger with the artifacts. The rest of the Guardians spread out ready to attack Mystic when he appears.
Menagerie has his devitalization spell, So he could be prepared to hit Mystic with it as soon as he appeared. Slate hit Mystic with his Anti-Magic Cannon. Then while he is drain we could perform special attacks by Lightning Strike, Avatar, and the new device to short the controlling device. With 3 special attacks hopefully 1 will succeed to take the device out.
Last ditch would be the Clones using the artifacts to attack Mystic.
That is my idea, let me know what you think and modify as you think best.
Thanks
Tom
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Slingshot:
OOC: Tom! Ah crap.. You hit it on the head.
Man.. I totally missed that.
Did we use a Luck point for the setting up the electrical field?
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Aperture:
OOC: I think we may be luck challenged. I believe we already “paid” for the Anti-Magic Cannon, it was just a matter of time. Which we ran out of.
If we get a moment to breath, and Aperture can heal up a little, he’ll get back to work on the cannon.
Jon
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Slingshot:
OOC: I should have one luck point left, I'll contribute it to the cause. This one works for me.
Stephane
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Sentinel:
Kirk will go along with the plans and contribute and help as needed.
Quick question - recalling back to the original Swastika campaign (ie first case) - did he always need those electronic devices? Wasn't he able to possess some without using it? Especially long term victims?
I'm wondering if Swastika can take victims over without it but the devices are used for him to allow others to take control like he did with the reserves... but I can't remember.
Seth
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Slingshot:
OOC: IIRC, he was able to do it without the devices, but this increased the range and allowed for others to do so.
