CHESS Castle!
Deep within Hotsleep Sector, the Primate awakened! The being whose destiny it was to destroy the human race, or at least one million of them, was free at last from the chemical dungeon of Men!
Sentinel flew into the room, scanning with his energy sense! (between turns, really)
Deep within Hotsleep Sector, the Primate awakened! The being whose destiny it was to destroy the human race, or at least one million of them, was free at last from the chemical dungeon of Men!
Sentinel flew into the room, scanning with his energy sense! (between turns, really)
He was taken aback at the scale of the Pachyderm! The savage monster now stood before him! He was bigger than he remembered. More wild and ferocious. Uncontrollable. A force of nature.
The beacon of liberty swallowed hard and detected electronics woven throughout the Owl’s uniform, but no device that was controlling the powerful Pachyderm. Even if there was, it would likely be jammed by the super villain convict Static, who now fouled Vanguard’s communications!
There was one answer left: the Primate was controlling Pachyderm, as he did all animal intellects! He had been controlling him from within Hotsleep!!!
The Owl looked up when the lights came up. “The prison generator is back online. We must hurry.”
Then he addressed Inhuman, Sentinel and Symbiote who was still within earshot. “Freeze, all of you. None of you move or I’ll open this cell door, thus triggering the nuclear failsafe! Get on the ground, now!” The door had ‘Zeitgeist’ on its namestamp!
Inhuman regarded his former ally. “Owl,” he said calmly. “Stop. You’re killing yourself. In 48 hours the Primate will murder you. You know it to be true. None of the Ani-Men on the saucer craft or on the island in Congo trust you. I saw it happen with my own eyes.”
“Wh- who are you?” stammered his avian adversary.
“You’re not really one of them. Not an Ani-Man at all. But you already know that. It’s why you’ve built an antidote to the virus that will turn men into apes, during Phase Two. Once the Primate finds out, he’ll kill you,” Inhuman said, expertly twisting truth and lies together.
Inhuman had Primate’s full attention by now. The fish man continued: “Your nuclear failsafe gambit is all bluff. You’ll never do it. We both know the Primate has too much self love to ever kill himself. It would require him to actually sacrifice himself for his beliefs! Never happen… Give up, and live.”
The Owl hesitated!
The Pachyderm did not! “RRROOOOAARRRR!!!!” A defiant, bloodthirsty challenge to the death! The massive monstrosity thundered forward with a speed that belied his size! The bestial, bloodthirsty behemoth charged the one who had struck him, Symbiote!
Symbiote said, "C'mon, you gruesome sonofabitch!" dropping his college professor persona and borrowing some of his cop father's blue-collar bravado. "You're so ugly you could throw a boomerang and it wouldn't come back to you. Let's go, moron! Show me what you really got!"
The superhero simulator evaded and backed up, trying to lure the untamed titan out of Hotsleep Sector!
His elastic form kept him just barely ahead of the rampaging rhino-creature!
Kairos and Slingshot came out of auxiliary security just in time to see Symbiote hurtling toward them, with the lunging leviathan right behind him, his footsteps shaking the floor!
Symbiote lured Pachyderm back into the rough hewn tunnel he had carved out!
Kairos, seeing that Pachyderm was amply distracted, raced to Hotsleep Sector.
Slingshot followed Symbiote and Pachyderm, stretching and twisting through the tunnel to the bottom of the smoking impact crater!
There, Pachyderm, caught up with Symbiote! “RAAAAAAAAARGH!” the mammoth miscreation roared his primeval anger and hurled a colossal fist! KA- THOOOOMM!! Pachyderm missed the dodging duplicator and slammed a bone-shattering blow into the crater wall, causing tremors up it!
Slingshot came up behind Pachyderm, who was still distracted by Symbiote! The malleable man of might grabbed the grey goliath and quickly slungshot him up out of the impact crater!
(OOC: Thrown distance equals Slingy’s carry capacity (8698 lbs) minus the weight of the Pachyderm (1400 lbs) divided by 10, in inches. Multiplied by 5 for feet. Equals: 3649 feet! Over half a mile up!)
“RRAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaagggghhhhhh!!!!!...”
The tremors along the side of the pit triggered a chain reaction landslide! Slingshot and Symbiote leapt back into the tunnel as the impact crater caved in! There would be no getting out that way!
Meanwhile, onboard the mysterious saucer craft, in the form of living electricity, Lightning Strike seized control of the navigation system! The ship’s sensors saw Forester trying to duplicate his original actions exactly! He struck Dr. Chiropterus with a Sonic Arrow! Then suddenly, Pachyderm hurtled up out of the impact crater!
Lightning Strike set the cyclopean saucer ship on a collision course with the airborne awe-inspiring abomination! KA-RAASSHHHH!!! A direct hit! The saucer exploded and broke up! Massive, fiery debris rained down harmlessly toward the Hudson River! There was no sign of the Pachyderm, or of the several Ani-Men onboard, among the falling, flaming wreckage!
With seconds to spare, the high voltage vigilante beamed himself out of the dying craft!
(OOC: Where to? Strike knows that the prison’s ground level is unavailable to him. The super-villainous Static has created a field that disrupts transmissions, including the one Strike is riding!)
Meanwhile in Hotsleep Sector, Kairos entered, wielding a massive energy carbine weapon. He saw the Owl held the weakened Primate in his left arm and a Hotsleep cell door handle in his right. He was clearly conflicted, stunned into silence by Inhuman’s words.
(OOC: Kairos’ power boosts the morale of the Vanguardians in Hotsleep Sector, eliminating the need for Cool Rolls.)
The Primate said to the Owl, “Pachyderm is gone. Somehow, we are betrayed… by the future? Oracle. Owl, do it! I cannot stand more time in this prison of the mind! I would rather die, than live for an eternity in this Hell of Men!”
The Owl snapped out of his shock and gripped the door to Zeitgeist’s cell. If he opened it, the nuclear failsafe would detonate!
Inhuman cried, “No! Don’t do it!”
Kairos preempted the Owl’s action and fired! BZZKOW! A white energy bolt shot from his rifle, striking the Owl in the chest! The Owl gasped and collapsed to the concrete floor before Zeitgeist’s unopened cell door!
Sentinel suddenly loosed bludgeoning energy tendrils from his shields, smashing the weakened Primate! THUD! WHAM! KRAK!
The great mountain gorilla was undone, along with his dreams of global conquest and a kingdom at peace in the Green. He crashed hard to the floor, unconscious!
Sentinel scanned the Hotsleep sarcophagus. It had been undamaged during the Primate’s extraction. He might be re-inserted, but the process would take 10-15 minutes and he would need technical help.
Inhuman held the motionless Owl with sadness and regret.
Outside, the prison break continued, impeded by the restoration of power!
To be continued!
OOC: Actions!
Please let me know your plans for approximately the next 5-10 minutes!
Current Conditions:
Inhuman: Hit Points: 25 Power Points: 52 Water: 750 lbs.
Kairos: Hit Points: 44 Power Points: 75
Lightning Strike: Hit Points: 40 Power Points: 61
Sentinel: Hit Points: 20 Power Points: 50 Shields: 100 Evasion: -5 ‘til ish 87 Slingshot: Hit Points: 55 Power Points: 83 Invulnerability: 8
Symbiote: Hit Points: 94 Power Points: 107 Invulnerability: 0 Charges: 13
Thanks,
Jeff
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Symbiote:
IC: Symbiote rushes back into the hotsleep chamber, relieved to see Primate and Owl subdued. He walks over to the fallen mountain gorilla and lifts him using Slingshot's borrowed strength. "Sentinel, help me please. Your computer skills should be useful with activating the hotsleep bed. I hate that vile thing, but it's the best stop-gap means we have for holding him right now. Plus, we need to get it reactivated just in case another villain pops in here, somehow opens a second one and the whole thing goes nuclear." As he straps the unconscious ape back into the bed the Scientific Superhero murmurs to the unconscious Primate with something resembling sympathy in his voice. "Only for a little while longer, Simon. We're going to give you a better option."
If there are any guards around Symbiote will urge him or her to specifically watch over Primate's bed and be ready to shoot anything that isn't a Vanguard or a prison guard--up to and including any rats or cockroaches--that wanders into the room. After the bed is reactivated Hal will head back up the stairs, looking for more inmates to apprehend if possible.
OOC: Denny (who is stoked about playing, BTW) and I just watched the "Wonder Woman" direct-to-DVD animated movie. REALLY good. Great cast (Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Alfred Molina), well animated, surprisingly sophisticated dialogue and dark plot....they made good use of their PG-13 rating. I recommend it highly, and now I'm really excited about the "Green Lantern" direct-to-DVD coming out from the same team in June.
Viva Vanguard,
Greg
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Sentinel:
Kirk was shocked and relieved as he heard the weight of the beast thumping against the floor echoing around the room; Primate seemed to fall to the floor in slow motion, coming to an absolute rest. The Owl too was out, and Kirk no longer heard or felt the presence of Pachyderm in the Castle. And just like that all that Vanguard had experienced these past few days (few seconds!) was undone. It was over.
Except it wasn’t. Now they were facing the prison break once again, a challenge along the lines of what he originally expected until Oracle’s intervention.
With Primate unconscious and with Pachyderm gone, his threat was neutralized for now. It disturbed Kirk that Primate had contacted the Owl and controlled Pachyderm from the Hotsleep, but it was still the best=2 0temporary action they had to hold him. He moved to the computer systems having become familiarized with them during Oracle’s vision but realized he didn’t have the scientific expertise on his own to reemerge Primate.
When suddenly, Symbiote rushes back into the hotsleep chamber, relieved to see Primate and Owl subdued. He walks over to the fallen mountain gorilla and lifts him using Slingshot's borrowed strength. "Sentinel, help me please. Your computer skills should be useful with activating the hotsleep bed. I hate that vile thing, but it's the best stop-gap means we have for holding him right now. Plus, we need to get it reactivated just in case another villain pops in here, somehow opens a second one and the whole thing goes nuclear.”
Kirk smiled remembering it wasn’t up to him alone. “Already on it,” as his fingers and senses reached into the computer systems priming things as best he could awaiting Hal’s further expertise with the process. “We need to secure the area sector by sector and level by level, with this being the first, and we need to take out Static so we can coordinate with the rest of the team and with Chess.”
Kirk worked along with Symbiote to get Primate back into the Hotsleep. Once his skills in that regard weren’t needed, he would assist in getting the computer systems running properly so that communication was restored and the guards could be rallied and the spirit of the inmates disheartened as in Oracle’s vision of events. If any scientific staff was in hiding and we can get them to assist to cut down the timeframe, we’d look to do so.
Once we’ve got this level secure and Drake does his ‘announcement’, Kirk would aid in securing the levels with the rest of Vanguard and the guards as they come across them. If they get a reasonable choice of direction in doing so, Kirk would take the path that leads to the area they found Static previously to try to ‘connect’ the team again as soon as possible.
Kirk would continue to use his energy sense in full to make sure they aren’t attacked unawares and also to get a tactical advantage as they enter new areas of the Castle. He should be able to give his teammates an idea of how many hostiles are ahead and their location in each sector, etc to coordinate their ‘attack’ before entering each area. It would seem this would also allow them ‘to surprise’ the inmates and hopefully preempt their actions and subdue them easier.
This may fall into a longer time frame than you were looking for, but it would be Kirk’s plan unless you throw some new, as of yet unknown, monkey wrench into things to change it.
OOC A good weekend to all. Looking forward to the Wonder Woman DVD now, and especially the Green Lantern one.
Best,
Seth
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Kairos:
Not really seeing that he can do much more where he's at, Kairos will move up and try to assist the guards with subduing prisoners. If there are any flyers, he'll use the energy rifle to try and bring them down...otherwise he'll find whichever melee combatant seems to be giving the most trouble and go after him.
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Slingshot:
This will be short and sweet.I will assume that I'm rushing back to the Hotsleep with Symbiote. Once I see that Sentinel, Inhuman and Symbiote are staying to help out with the Hotsleep. I'll make sure that they will keep Owl contained.Once I know those are covered, I'll move on to help clean up the rest of the place. I'll try to make an attempt to get to Static to be able to get communications up (I wasn't able to see in past emails where he/she was located and neutralized). If it's in the complex, then, I'll go for it, if it's outside, then I'll handle prisoners inside.Stephane/Slingshot.
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Lightning Strike:
Short and sweet as well.
Strike will materialize outside the complex in the area where he remembers the most prisoners attempting to escape and will try to stop as many as possible. We don't want to prevent one threat just to create another worse one. Once the situation is somewhat under control he will attempt to rendezvous with the others.
OOC: Just curious on how Oracle's power works. It would appear she can do nested flash forwards since we know that she saw what would happen at the aegis tower which was nested inside the entier Primate flash forward. Of course the initial flash forward never actually happened since it occured after the flash forward which Vanuard just prevented. By now I am totally confused!!!
Take care,
Tony
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GM:
Static was inside the prison. You guys know exactly where he is, having "done" this already.
Best,
Jeff
