A badly injured Vanguard faces off against its former members, and Hip Hop, aboard the CHESS Omni-Carrier as it plummets out of the sky!
(OOC: Map: Every square = 5 feet or 1” in game scale.
Right hand outer wall has portholes.
Left hand ‘outer’ wall has 4 doors into other side of the Omni-Carrier.
E=Industrial elevator
Lower left hand corner is a nuclear missile silo)
Suddenly, everyone’s feet leave the floor! The deck has achieved zero gravity due to the free fall speeds of the plummeting CHESS Omni-Carrier!
(OOC: If you can’t fly, your speed is quartered as you push off walls and ceilings. All muscle-powered projectiles have ¼ range for purpose of Accuracy)
Slingshot yells to Doc Monster: “"Damnit! You are right! They are our friends! We need to help them! But I don't know how they are being controlled! We need to cut them off from the possession or whatever the connection is to the SKULL puppeteers! Any suggestions? Mystical? Scientific?”
Avatar nods in agreement. Hovering weightlessly, he manifests the wisdom of Athena and says, “You’re correct. We’ll not outhammer this foe. Nor would we want to. We must outsmart SKULL. Break this connection. But how?”
Slingshot says, “If Lightning Strike were here, I’d say EMP the room!”
But Lightning Strike was busy saving the lives of everyone on the plummeting Omni-Carrier, by trying to recharge her massive engines!
Avatar, eyes white and otherworldly, has an idea, borne of the wisdom of Athena. He summons the heavenly powers of Zeus and looks visibly weakened from the exertion of pushing his powers to their limit! “Perhaps… there is… another way…”
Clone uses his saved action to Evade!
Aperture recalibrates his nanotech, coding a new power: Teleportation! Then he miraculously transmits himself inside of Sentinel’s energy sphere, with Sentinel, Hip Hop and the Artifacts of Power!
Blue Comet cries, “Plan B!” and fires flames at the nearest hero, Avatar! VROOOSH!!! (9 points of damage. Rolls with 4 and takes 5 from hit points.)
Viper leaps at Slingshot with a roundhouse punch! KRAK! (12 points of damage. Rolls with 8. Takes 4 from hits.) “I can’t get over this! I’m a young man again! Serve SKULL! Sanctify SKULL! Immortality is the reward to any soldier who embraces Death in the sacred service of SKULL!”
Slingshot flies back weightlessly, almost slamming into the wall behind him!
Talon flies at an evading Clone with his deadly, razor sharp claws and misses him!
Forester, still scowling about his “meager” powers, deftly fires another deadly exploding arrow into a crowd of heroes! Phoooo! KA-BOOM! Slingshot, Sentinel and one Clone are caught in the blast! The other Clone successfully evades.
(12 points of damage each. Sentinel’s shields take 12 points. The hit Clone is knocked out. The explosion counts as heat damage for Slingy’s Vulnerability and he takes double damage. After rolling with 7, he has 1 hit point left!)
Slingshot is on the ropes and one Clone is down!
Soldier says, “That’s it, people! These mooks ain’t so tough!” As he fires his isometric smart pistol at Aperture! BLAM! BLAM! (Sentinel’s damaged shields fail to protect him and Aperture is hit for 17 points of damage. Rolls with 6 and takes 11 from hit points)
Menagerie, in rat form, hiding in the ventilation ducts, telepathically speaks to his fellow members of Vanguard, "Hip Hop's device is an artifact tracking!" He shamanic shapeshift hides the cell phone in the duct work where it won't be found and returns to the fight, transforming into a fearless Honey Badger! (adds minor Invulnerability)
Sentinel wills his energy construct to silently form a club-like pseudopod out of the sphere wall behind Hip Hop, and bludgeon the young teleporter into unconsciousness. WHAM!
Hip Hop, badly battered by Slingshot earlier, collapses and hovers in zero G weightlessness.
Clone’s four remaining bodies attack the enemies nearest to them with their battle staffs! Two hit, striking Forester and Inhuman soundly. KRAK! WHACK! Both “heroes” still stand!
Aperture sees that Hip Hop is unconscious. The young hero quickly collects all the artifacts of power in Sentinel’s energy sphere and teleports out with them! Where? No one knows!
Dr. Monster, still holding his head from Inhuman’s attack, cries out and falls unconscious, hovering in midair!
Inhuman smirks at Doc Monster and says, “Serve SKULL, traitor. Serve SKULL!”
Then he looks at the nearest Clone and says, “You’re next Russkie,” and attempts to seize control over the water inside the body of the nearest evading Clone, and misses!
Blue Comet fires again at Avatar, laughing, “Burn, baby, burn!” VROOOSSHHH!!! (10 points of damage. Avatar rolls with 2 and takes 8 from hit points!)
Avatar, barely conscious, looks at his grievously wounded team mates and his pupiless eyes land on Slingshot. He says with the godly intellect of Athena: “Our only hope is that the puppet masters be stopped. Brainwaves are electrical impulses. We must jam the transmission. If Lightning Strike or Symbiote were here, perhaps they could do it. Since, they are not, I have no recourse but to try!” (OOC: Avatar will spend 2 Luck Points on the following one shot invention…)
With the powers of Zeus, Avatar electrifies the air with everchanging modulations in an attempt to locate the frequency the puppetmasters are using, and jam their bioelectric transmissions! Lightning arcs from his flesh as he cries out from the mental and physical effort! SHA-KA-KOW!
All the Vanguard communicators short out!
Soldier’s bionic systems and arrows in Forester’s quiver begin to spark and flare!
All electrical equipment in the room that is powered, shorts out!
All the Vanguard reservists suddenly go limp in midair, like puppets who have just had their strings cut!
But Avatar must continue to concentrate, must continue to jam the bioelectric transmission (i.e.: spend every action doing this), or else the puppetmasters will regain control!
Suddenly, everyone crashes to the floor as gravity is restored! Lightning Strike and Symbiote are powering the Omni-Carrier engines with their own electrical blasts (and must continue to do so) while Nemesis and Nanite, interfacing with the ship’s mainframe computers, have ordered the engines to re-activate!
Power comes back on across the ship, except for the Meeting Room (M-1) where Avatar’s EMP shorted it all out!
It’s 4:17am EST.
Actions?!?
Meanwhile:
The transmission of Aperture’s molecules ends at the Salt Flats, where they, and those of the artifacts of power, reassemble.
It’s 1:17am PST and Aperture sees lights on the distant horizon. Fires.
Actions?
Current Conditions:
Aperture: Hit Points: 14, Power Points: 49, Nanotech: Teleportation
Avatar: Hit Points: 8, Power Points: 20, Manifestation: Hermes, Athena, Zeus
Clone: Bodies: 4/1, Hit Points: 1/6, Power Points: 65/67, Hit Point Pool: 13 (7/6) (Stats: NYC/Russia)
Lightning Strike: Hit Points: 23, Power Points: 63: Electrical form
Menagerie: Hit Points: 16, Power Points: 62, Form: Honey Badger, Invulnerability: 5
Sentinel: Hit Points: 7, Power Points: 51, Creation Points: 102, Shields: 72%
Slingshot: Hit Points: 1, Power Points: 67, Invulnerability: 0 til Issue 215, Damage that can’t be regenerated: 64!
Countdown: 43.7 hours until the End of the World.
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Sentinel:
OOC: Ok, how about a quick out of the box thought. If I have it straight we have a brief reprieve here which is taking its toll on Avatar and burning him out before the Reserves lose their free will again.
Aside from free talk from what they can tell us how about the possibility of uploading a virus along the transmission that is being used to control them. I know that Kirk has a certain intimate knowledge of Soldier's Nanites and their working perhaps it might be a combo of a computer (scientific) virus and magical energy. Although we are sadly lacking Aperature at this point Kirk has a high skill on the computer end and he is versed in magical energies and its workings and we have Menagerie's powers and knowledge to combine with it. The virus would be of some design to undo what is being done with them and perhaps could even crawl into their other systems unknowingly sabotaging Skull's efforts in some other ways.
Does anything like that sound possible?
And what can we get from them about how this is happening and any further Skull plans... or who is behind it (yes, I know they will likely come out of it remembering nothing but I had to ask - perhaps Kirk could even lock in to their thoughts to see if he can read residue of anything more).
And I'm open to any other ideas here from the team for sure as part of this or alternative.
Seth
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Aperture:
IC: Aperture fights an almost uncontrollable desire to open a portal to the Digital Zone. He can’t determine if it’s his own desire to let someone else take responsibility, or something in his programming that draws him to IT. He fights the urge and turns to face the fires in the distance, their dancing light reflected in his metal eyes.
Unwilling to change his power in the event he needs to get out quickly, Aperture quickly takes stock of the artifacts, ensuring they are secure on his person, in one of his pouches, or the leather Indiana Jones style satchel he has taken to carrying. All except for the Spear of Destiny, which he holds as a weapon if needed.
Aperture will attempt to use his communicator to contact Lightning Strike or Symbiote to see how things are going on the carrier.
OOC: Saves action
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Slingshot:
OOC: Sorry.. busy couple of weeks on the home side as well as the work side.
I'm really on the ropes.. 1 hit point? 64 HP I can't regenerate? Ouch. I need a break.
First things first, If avatar needs to keep the jamming up, we need to look at what's allowing them to take control.
I would ask for Aperture to see if he can change his powers to a form or scanning where he can focus on the reservists and "see" if he can find the device that they are tapping into.
Then we can focus on fixing them.
I'm willing to use any skills I have to help.
If not, I'll absorb whatever plastic is on hand to regenerate whatever I can and keep an eye on the reservists.
Stephane
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Clone:
IC: The Clones that are still standing quickly reabsorb their unconscious doppelgangers, as they make their way towards the Omni-Carrier's unconscious 'Intruders'. They understand that Avatar's electric blast must have disabled whatever device was allowing them to be controlled, and they begin searching frantically for any signs of a foreign or unusual device on any of them.
OOC: If Clone locates any odd devices on any of the unconscious 'heroes', he will immediately let the other members of Vanguard know and ask for their guidance on what to do with it/them.
Clone will begin his search on the 'heroes' necks - he's watched entirely too many sci-fi movies not to start his search there lol,
That was a really crazy little brawl - I was almost worried that it wasn't going to work out for us.
-Kev
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Menagerie:
Menagerie will use in Intelligence and Charisma to help the rest of Vanguard figure out how to break the hold that Skull has on the original Vanguard Heroes. He will assist Kirk with his plan to create Magical Computer Virus out of Soldier's Nanites.
Best
Tom
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Avatar:
Avatar will keep doing what he is doing until the rest of the team comes to some consensus.
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