Unity united (Superhero game)

[Paul]

Here are the updates for the superhero game I was playing in this semester. It doesn't really have anything to do with my D&D game but I needed somewhere to post it so the other players in the game could look at the updates if they wanted to.

Character Descriptions

Jack Lucas Ryan AKA Wildcard - a very lucky, teen who can make almost anything into a deadly throwing weapon. Eventually nominated as team leader of Unity. He plays pranks on other students with Hal pretty consistently and has a crush on Victoria Winters (who generally doesn't give him the time of day).

Nick AKA Blindside - A blind kid who grew up in the ghetto with teleportation abilities. He can mysteriously "see" almost anything within a mile. He was briefly the team leader of Unity before nominating Jack to replace him. He is also usually accompanied by 2 large dogs which seem to have some sort of intelligence. Unknown to Camilla he has a crush on her.

Hose/Camilla AKA La Fuega - First a boy who could turn into a girl who could fly with flaming powers but now a girl who can turn into a girl who can fly with flaming powers. She has a crush on Hal who is constantly creeped out by her advances.

Hal AKA Mercury - Hal actually has some well known heroes in his family but had no powers himself until becoming the chosen of Mercury. Now theres no one faster. He is constantly running away from Camilla or playing pranks on other students with Jack.

Philip AKA Strikeout - He is a massive fan-boy of Paragon. He also is very much into sports which might have something to do with his kinetic control powers.

Adam Mathew Pierce AKA AMP - He's pretty big for his age and can absorb pretty much any kind of energy, be it a blow or fire, and then send it back at whoever he wants.

Michael Rogers AKA Countdown - Many of us had shitty childhoods but he saw his parents killed. After that he made a deal with some sort of demon to get the sword he now uses to avenge his parents. He is also a bit unstable.

Nikolaos AKA Haywire - He is an electricity controlling computer genius. Eventually he had to leave the group when Morissey felt his abilities would be better suited to other tasks.

Dexter Keys AKA Decay - He has life draining powers which he doesn't have full control over leaving him and most organic things around him constantly dying or looking dead. Like Countdown, he seems a bit too willing to kill.

Morissey - Morrisey is our coach. He has nullifying powers and generally seems to know everything thats going on at Appleton

Paragon - Think superman. Paragon is widely considered to be the world greatest hero. He leads the Sentinels of Freedom

Unity Update 1

Check and Mate: Part 1 of 2

Back at Appleton academy our heroes were called together for an important meeting by their coach. It was finally time... to name themselves and their group. Hal and Jack thought back a couple weeks and immediately revealed the names they had previously discussed, Mercury and Wildcard. Adam decided upon Amp while Nicolaos thought Haywire worked. La Fuega snapped his? Her? It's fingers and sidled up next to Hal who responded by hiding behind Nick. Mr Rogers decided Countdown worked. The rest of the group gave him some strange looks but when questioned would give no reason why. Nick and Phil however had no ideas but were soon supplied with Blindside and Strikeout. Next came the truly hard part: choosing a leader. In the end everyone agreed that Blindside was the best choice, either out of a horrible fear that he would go berserk and kill them if they didn't agree or out of the realization that there was no one else everyone would listen to. Lastly, a group name. After much arguing mocking and fighting finally the group agreed on Blindside's idea “Unity”, once again out of fear for their lives.

Jack's Thoughts: Okay, so this is our first mission? To fight a bunch of giant chess pieces? That seems a bit weird. Someone has major boredom issues. Anyway, there was a group on each side of the building made up of two rooks and a knight. Blindside somehow ‘looked’ through the building and saw that there were two groups of hostages each guarded by three pawns. Apparently also has no idea what chess is as he didn’t recognize any of the giant robot pieces for what they were, which is weird as I would assume chess is a game he’d like. I guess I’ll teach him when we get back to Appleton. So we split into two different groups to go after each set of hostages. I went with Amp, Blindside and Mercury. La Fuega’s team went around to the back. After conferring for a minute we decided to go after the knight all together and then to take out the rooks. While we couldn’t knock it down, it only took a couple seconds to take out the knight and after that the rooks were child’s play.

Inside things took a turn for the worse. We were able to clear a path for the hostages to leave through but the pawns were damn tough for chump pieces. Not only that but they kept firing nets at us. Blindside couldn’t teleport out of his and none of us could move. What was worse was that my knife cards barely seemed to hurt them at all. I then took to freeing Amp while Blindside fought but Merc was not only entangled but drawn into one of the pawns! Blindside charged the pawn, smashing it to pieces but Merc was nowhere to be found. I finished off one of the other pawns nearly dislocating my arm from the throws before me Amp and Blindside finished off the last one together.

Immediately we ran to help the other half of our team, worried that they might lose a team member as we had but upon arrival found them fighting a huge black queen instead of pawns. They had done some considerable damage to it but upon seeing the rest of us arriving, it shot a grapple out at Blindside and teleported away with him. So, I guess… shit, we’re screwed?


Check and Mate: Part 2 of 2

No rest for the weary, huh? Well I guess I’m not really tired, I seem to have really gotten off easy, but everyone else seems like they were hit by a truck. (Well, except for Amp, but I’d personally feel bad for the truck.) So after a brief stint of arguing, everyone agrees we need to find Mercury and Blindside and if they’re not in the school then we’re really out of luck. Since Blindside never looked at the second floor when he scanned the building, that’s where we’ll start. While I did like the team set up before, it is nice to have Haywire with us now. Apparently he can sense electronics in each of the room which led us to… a giant jack of diamonds? Well it is my favorite card but what is it. Well after a couple minutes we found it would change every time we threw something through it but this wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Upon hitting the king of spades it exploded. On the bright side, Amp is able to absorb energy and looked better than ever. I think him absorbing the blast saved the rest of us.

A couple more rooms down Haywire found us another card puzzle. Four giant 7’s, 8’s, and 9’s were covering the floor of the room ‘cept for the space in the middle with 4 desks. After a cursory search I found 4 indentations in each card and Strikeout suggested we put the desks in them. A little while later we fitted the two black desks into the two black 7’s and the two white desks into the two red 7’s. A moment later we found ourselves teleported into another room. La Fuega almost lost her lunch. This room had a door and several black and white chess pieces in it. Moments later when Haywire tried opening the door, finding it to be locked, and a board appeared beneath the pieces. But this was really weird. The pieces were in illegal positions. Both sides were in the exact same positions but both were also in check. While Haywire continued to disable the lock on the door, I tried to fix the problem by moving a black knight but it snapped back into place, knocking me over. Moments later we moved it again but had amp move the equivalent white knight at the same time. This time they locked into place. After attempting for a moment to figure out what to do next, we checked the door, finding it to be now unlocked.

The sight in the next room drove La Fuega into a frenzied passion. Mercury and Blindside were chained to the wall at the other side of the room, each with three pawns holding spears aimed at them. She immediately charged to Merc’s rescue only to have the wall Blindside was chained to flip around. She then attempted to awaken Merc with a “kiss of true love” but nothing could rouse the hero. Either that or he did wake up but immediately passed out from the terror of the situation. So this might have seemed like a bad situation considering we had just lost Blindside… again. But there’s always a silver lining. I had everyone lineup next to where Merc had been chained before destroying another pawn and once again the wall spun around bringing us into another room where the principal and vice-principal were lying on the ground in front of a ridiculously dressed little boy, flanked by two queens and two knights, who was ranting on and on about how he would now have his revenge for being kicked out of school. Now, if this wasn’t pathetic enough he started stuttering saying: “no?! what?! But my traps! Not possible!” before being lit up by La Fuega and falling to the ground unconscious. Still, looking at the queens I pulled out half of my remaining knife-cards and took aim and yep, they attacked. Between me and Strikeout were able to blast one to scrap while Amp ran to help out the hostages. A couple secs later, with the rest of team helping we were able to finish off the other queen, at which point the knights stopped working entirely. So I guess that’s how Unity succeeded on their fist mission. Even if we do have a crappy name…

[Paul]

Unity update 2: Paragon Defeated?!?

Epic! That’s the only way I can describe this. Although it didn’t really work out exactly as we expected… And Nikolaos doesn’t quite seem too… ::Turns to Hal:: “RUN!!!” Its not really our fault… He never told us he reacted so… explosively with water. And Nick said it was fine anyway. So we dumped a bucket of water on the electricity controller… And he ended up destroying every electrical device in the dorms in reaction… And shit! There’s Adam blocking our way. “Hey Hal, go low!” You’ld think he would appreciate this, and here comes Nikolaos, with Bride of Frankenstein’s hair. ::chuckles::

And that’s how it all started. Well not quite. Later I found out Hal and Nick each had nightmares so terrible they felt real. But its not like they bothered telling anyone but each other. Well after Adam tried blocking our way we ran a little while longer til’ we found Nick, the ultimate arbitrator. Who had the brilliant idea of bringing us to the gym where we could “settle our differences”. This might have worked out fine but for someone turning on the sprinkler system. ::cough:: Victoria ::cough:: Although I can definitely appreciate the humor or her doing it. Anyway, eventually Nikolaos cooled down (figuratively this time) and we headed into town, we being him, Adam, Hal, Phil and me. Phil and Hal went ahead but I drove everyone else (even though Adam kept saying he thought I was 15 not 17).

Well when we finally got there, we were in for a reunion of sorts. It was the dimwitted duo, Packet Loss and Lag. And recognizing Hal and Phil they immediately charged forward hoping for revenge on the pair. Not wanting to be seen using there powers out of costume this time, Hal began to fight hand to hand while Phil and Nikolaos ran out of the building to change into their costumes. Adam moved to a position where no cameras were focused on him and pulled his hoodie over his head while no one was looking. I joined Hal fighting without powers to give the others some time to change. But did I mention those two jokers were dumb? It barely took us any time to finish them off even without Hal or me using our powers. Although Hal did get decked through Time Crisis. A couple minutes later the cops showed up and Phil, as Strikeout, gave a statement before we all headed back to Appleton.

And here’s where things started getting bad. I got Hal to the nurse’s office and we found Nick there. Apparently he had been fighting something off in the woods and had needed to rip one of his own arms off to escape. His arms were both fine (albeit ink black now) but still. We investigated but couldn’t find anything which really indicated he had really faced a life threatening situation other than that his dogs were missing but they came back later in the night. The really news worthy thing however was actually on the news. A big group of us were watching the news report about me and Hal and the rest of “Unity” fighting Packet Loss and Lag when a special news bulletin came on. President Adam West had been killed! The news footage of it in slow motion showed Paragon blocking hundreds of bullets before something whizzed by so fast Hal couldn’t even spot it in slow-mo. At which point the president dropped dead… Which begs the question: what could be faster than Paragon?

[Paul]

Unity update 3: Past the Iron Curtain

Hal’s gone… gone. And I feel so tired… I can’t believe this happened. It was supposed to be easy… and fun. We were going to “pick up some of the slack” at least that’s what they called it. And so when there’s a riot, off we go into the jet to take care of it so there won’t be a smoldering wreck where this plant is like the last one. We got there and spread out while Blindside blinked himself to the middle. Did a good job too, almost got the crowd to back down… But it wasn’t a real crowd just three faces, over and over, so I guess it couldn’t have really worked. Then the crowd went after Amp and Haywire while me and Strikeout went for an empty car. He charged it kinetically while I drove, things seemed great. What could go wrong? Well I guess shooting the car into the crowd wasn’t the best idea but they weren’t real people, just some sort of automaton things and so we got to the heard of the matter. Iron curtain and his explosive friend. After nearly being run down they tried to pin the blame on us but their “innocence” didn’t last long. Curtain’s friend that bitch tried to go nuclear only to have a couple kidney punches from Blindside. Then it didn’t take long to finish off the pair before the rush to get out of there as FLAG was arriving.

And then the shit hits the fan. On Haywire’s radio we heard them surveying the situation and then: “Oh my god! She’s awake!” We could see the blast from the plane and for once the name Unity made a little bit of sense. We all agreed. We had to go back. So moments later Blindside had us back at what was now a crater only to find Curtain and company cowering. Crap! The guy from the news who took out Paragon! He was here and what does Blindside do but teleport next to him and punch him only to find he doesn’t even feel it. He then tried to teleport Curtain to safety. Me and Strikeout called for the rest of the group to stall him for just a moment and Countdown actually cut him to which he responded: “I guess I’m going to actually have to take you kids seriously now.” And then Hal did the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. He went faster than he ever had before right into tall dark and ugly taking them both… somewhere. That idiot! Blindside could have gotten us all out. It was a worthless sacrifice… just to save us… A couple seconds later we had resubdued Curtain and his lackey and Blindside got us back to the plane. But he’s gone… and I feel so tired…

[Paul]

Unity update 4&5

Part 1: Whats wrong with FLAG?

So we were heading back from the mission and things seem like they’re picking up a bit after the… incident… with running down all those workers but like I said before, they weren’t really people. Anyway, that’s when something hit us. Somehow we lost power and our prisoners escaped. What’s worse is that we were spiraling down. I quickly took copilot and Blindside somehow managed to teleport us a mile further up giving Haywire the time to bring us safely to a landing. Well somewhat safely. We landed in the middle of a massive firefight between FLAG and some other metas. And there was this crazy white skinned kid running like he had just killed someone… Although that does make sense in hindsight. Blindside and Strikeout started off by attacking the other metas while Amp went to try to help the white faced kid who didn’t seem to be willing to be helped. Countdown took on a guy in armor who I tried to get to calm down and talk as he seemed to be going out of his way not to cause any major harm but seeing Countdown, he went nuts causing countdown to kick him where no man should ever be kicked… with a spiked boot. He went down. And then things got weird. Blindside went nuts swinging at thin air and edging into his psycho schtick. And La Fuega showed up with Hal, er Mercury… alive! At which point she seared a meta’s lungs. Rest of the battle went somewhat well as Blindside finished off his invisible opponent, we finished off the rest of the crooks, and Amp calmed down Casper (the white skinned kid). At which point one of FLAG’s headsets bounced over near me and Haywire and I both heard the order to take us all down. And because Hal didn’t listen when I said get everyone he could out of here, well it was only a moment for most of us.

And waking up we were in cells. Most of the group tried walking out finding themselves shocked by invisible force fields while I took apart the cot for some sort of ammo. After a short time of not being able to figure out how to get out of the rooms, a man representing FLAG came and told us we would be allowed out if we voluntarily agreed to wear power nullifiers. Most of us agreed but Strikeout flat-out refused so Blindside stayed at the cells with him. The rest of us were brought to a common room were other FLAG officers were eating and told we could eat or do whatever we wanted for a short time. Haywire decided to play with his nullifier bracelets until he was covered with a non-lethal foam by the security system and Amp talked with the white-skinned kid eventually introducing him to the rest of us. A little while later we were brought back to the cells to talk with the rest of the group by sergeant Witwiki (who we had saved from Iron Curtain). She said she was getting us out and brought us to where FLAG kept its jets. After apologizing that she would have to shoot at us she sent us off and after a short trip accompanied by blasts from FLAG’s helicarrier after us we found ourselves safely on the ground. From there Blindside had to trouble getting us back to Appleton although the view was weird. It was like looking at the negatives of a photo, and there were some giant shadow mantis things which looked like they wanted to attack until two huge versions of his dog blocked them off.


Part 2 Who are EAGLE?

Finally we’re back at Appleton. Things just seem to be getting worse and worse but were back. So yesterday we were told about our new dorms, 4 floors below the gym. And there isn’t even supposed to be anything down there. Well we all hung out for a while. I taught Nick chess while La Fuega tried to put some fire into her relationship with Hal. After bitching a while about how Victoria was ignoring me he suggested I give her a gift or ask La Fuega for advice. I’m not going to take advice about this from a 14 year old… so I went to talk to La Fuega and we came to a deal I would help her out with Hal and she’d help me out with Victoria. Well after a while Nick and Casper played a game of table hockey and Hal played against Nick a next so I followed this up with a bet against Hal, If he could beat me I’d owe him a favor of his choice but losing, he would have to play my “wing man”. As fast as he is Hal isn’t the best at table hockey.

Anyway, the next day we headed back up above to see what was going on and found that everyone seemed to be moving away, or at least according to what Phil could find out the non-powered kids were. After a brief panic about being able to fleece the rich kids I took the time to find out who was staying in the general area. Nick went around doing what he could to make the move go as smoothly as possible while Casper went to make a phone call. Adam watched the news learning about a new organization called EAGLE before going around telling us we had to meet at the gym at 1:00. When the time finally came we got our first hint at how things would be getting worse and worse. Well not only is Eric O’connel missing and Pargon is out of commission and all meta-humans of any kind have to register with the government but FLAG is also being replaced by a new organization called EAGLE. And we now had a choice of whether to run or stand and fight for our rights. Unity was united (although I still hate the name) as we all agreed to stay and fight. Casper showed some concern as he thought something had happened to his parents but we were all told no to worry about it as Appleton would do everything it could to ensure our families’ safety.

Well as there always is, there was more bad news. EAGLE was trying to pick up a super-powered kid from a school in Arizona and it didn’t really go as well as anyone might have hoped. Currently they had the school surrounded and there was another group which was holding them off from the inside, which happened to be led by Sg. Witwiki and her men. As we all wanted to help out Witwiki as she had saved our asses and to keep ice boy away from EAGLE we immediately suited up and headed out. And I got to fly the jet. Booya for being the only one remotely qualified.

Well as which approached the general area of the school in the jet some jackass in imitation Kairt armor flew up into our way and put their hand up for us to stop. What kind of idiot stands in front of a jet? Well quick thinking led to me telling Blindside and La Fuega to take care of it as they could teleport and fly leaving no team leaders and thus making me team leader. I quickly flew the rest of the way to the school landing on the roof as Blindside motioned to us that they would be fine and send AMP, Strikeout, and Mercury to contact Witwiki and the ice kid. At which point Blindside and La Fuega returned. Nuts… Well it didn’t take long for us to get everyone into the jet even though it turned out there were two ice kids rather than one but we still weren’t fast enough as EAGLE put some sort of shield up entrapping us. Blindside bought us some time by sending out the civilians in the school who EAGLE kept calling hostages and Merc vibrated through the ground and up into one of EAGLE’s vans which were controlling the shield. A couple seconds later a person flew out of the back of the van through the door and the shield went down. So we fled. Well sorta. Blindside teleported all of us and the ship into air over the Atlantic ocean near Florida. I was barely able to get in control in time to keep us from crashing and burning but we did land safely. Except for the giant shadow mantis which suddenly appeared attacking Blindside just like the ones we saw when he teleported us last time. I opened the nullification cell behind it as he passed out and Countdown stabbed the shadow thing causing his blade to turn black and manacle itself to his hand. Strikeout threw a baseball while Amp and Decay (Casper) pulled Blindside out of the shadow thing. Turning I grabbed Blindside’s ball and threw it missing but causing a panel to fall down and knock the shadow thing into the nullification cell which I immediately turned on before passing out...

And Hal has snakes for hands!!! Not a pleasant way to wake up, having them thrust in my face while finding myself covered in blood. Apparently I was bleeding from my eyes. But I do feel better I guess. Well Witwiki got to work with her team on getting the engine fired back up with La Fuega’s help while Blindside, Strikeout, and Countdown readied for the EAGLE ships that were coming our way. One took a shot at Amp after which point Strikeout and Countdown threw Countdown’s sword. Let no one ever say “it’s just a sword” ever again. They cut one of EAGLE’s jets in half and took out another pulling it back. Meanwhile Blindside teleported to another and ripped its roof off clearing us a path just as our jet began to move. I took off away from the other three that had been coming from our other side only to find our path was blocked by an EAGLE helicarrier minutes later when finally something good happened. Flying straight down into the helicarrier and allowing us to escape was Paragon! Just in the nick of time, it was amazing. I guess I should stop teasing Phil about being such a fan boy for a little while.

[Paul]

Unity update 6: No, mister Bond, I expect you to die!

So with Paragon flying straight down at the EAGLE heli-carrier things looked like they would be easy. EAGLE is pretty well prepared though. Paragon ended up taking on all the Kairt wannabes that kept coming after us while we did our best on cleanup. I stayed in our jet and did my best to make use of the weapon systems while the rest of the team headed out onto the heli-carrier’s deck to help Paragon. Blindside spent a lot of time teleporting falling EAGLE agents to safety while Merc spent his time running around the deck causing as much havoc as he could. La Fuega blasted the decks with hellfire and Strike out charged pieces of the heli-carrier after a short lived attempt to ride the jet. Decay set off a spectacular explosion by dissolving a power-suit while Countdown cut whatever got in his way to ribbons and Amp took on anyone on deck.

Then back to Appleton. Now heres the weird thing, Phil didn’t go nuts over the fact that Paragon was taking the time to talk to us. I guess he was being professional. Well, once again we were given the chance to back out and once again we decline, all for one I guess. We talked to Paragon for a little while and told him about the mask we had recovered from the big guy in black who beat him which he borrowed and then after various questions we split up around the school. Me and Hal started putting together a motorcycle but apparently as fast as he is all he could do was slow things down. Eventually everyone headed to bed and I stayed up for a little while to actually get some work done on the bike without Hal’s “help”. When I finally did head to bed though it was weird, I thought I heard Nick trying to have a conversation with his dogs.

Next day and once again we’re back to work… Ugh. More news on EAGLE: hey, guess what. They’re asshats, what a surprise. They’ve been sending any supers they’ve caught to a secret moon-base where they don’t have to worry about treating prisoners with any modicum of decency. And apparently they’re bond villains. Well the plan was for us to try to break out as many of the supers as we could as Paragon would be someone they were prepared for. And thus we head off to another country to another one of Paragon’s bases. Well when we finally got there, there was this old guy waiting for us who just kept poking Hal about his. It was actually pretty funny. He was lending us some sort of space shuttle to get to the moon base which I would fly (being the world’s greatest pilot) and some sort of extra-dimensional space generator so we could fit all the prisoners in it with us. He also gave us some a basic idea of the moon-base and how it was set up.

(a couple hours later) Holy shit it really is a bond villain base! I found this room with a hidden door and inside Blindside found a storeroom filled with Nazi equipment. Well, after finding the room and doing a little bit of exploring we decided to wait inside the room for the shifts to change and then jump the guards in the security room. And as fast as Merc is its still amazing to see him take out so many EAGLE agents so fast. Anyway we quickly headed into the security room and found the worst thing possible had happened. Raptor, one of the few “heroes” who had joined up with EAGLE had just arrived and was walking the halls doing his Darth Vadar impression. So here’s the plan I quickly blurted out: Strike out would stay with me in the security room incase some one found me there and we would lock the doors on Raptor and as many of the guards as we could putting the place into lockdown mode if it looked like Raptor might escape. Blindside and Countdown would go and collect the ones working far away from our loading dock and people will generally listen to Blindside and in case of a lockdown Countdown could cut them a path. Amp should go to the main set of cells and lead everyone who was there to our ship while Mercury and Decay would retrieve the rest, being fast and able to melt holes in metal. Well moments after beginning the plan Raptor looked straight up at me through the camera and so… lockdown time. Still we made really good progress and with the neutralization collar turned off EAGLE didn’t really do anything to stop us as we got everyone to the ship with Countdown and Decay cutting a path for us and the rest of the prisoners. And then there was Blindside… Taking up the rear he pulled a Hal but in a way which was somehow survivable. He saw Raptor behind his group who had somehow made it past the Lockdown… and met his stare. He didn’t run he just stood there blocking the way till everyone else was out. And he chastised him! It was amazing! Well once everyone made it to the ship he quickly joined us and while he seemed a bit shaken up, he had stared down Raptor!

Well here’s where things get interesting. He talked to the old guy for a while before we headed back to Appleton and on the trip back made an announcement. He wanted to resign as party leader. And he wanted me to take his place… Apparently he just didn’t feel up to the task and thought I had done a good job proving myself up at the moon base. So the group had to decide if they would follow me. Hal said he would, followed by Phil and Rogers who said he would as much as he would Nick. Dexter declined to vote as he hadn’t been around that long as did Adam until I mentioned that if they wouldn’t follow me he should say it where he said he would. Well here’s the thing, while leading a superhero team sounds really cool and my first reaction was awesome… it’s the responsibility. I’ve never really had that much before… so… yeah…

[Paul]

Unity update 7 Well, this was unexpected...

Well, Appleton’s changing but it still seems like it will be fun, at least when we aren’t being pulled out on weird missions. Example: today really sucked. After spending time training or in the metal shop, or running into town, we all got called together for another mission. That being that there’s a huge meta-human battle going on in Washington between EAGLE and Paragon and a bunch of his teammates; it’s gonna be our distraction. So lately the government seems to have been doing everything it could to be stupid and there had to be a reason for it right? A reason that would make us need such a big distraction. Well there was one. Our president is not the man we thought he was, rather he’s a shape changing villain named Black Skull; hence our need for a distraction. We’re going in there to get him and expose him so that hopefully all this will end. Well obviously we still needed a plan so we were given 3 pairs of nullifier bracelets and 4 weird guns that shoot foam for us to land in. So while everyone was looking at EAGLE and the supers we would blast a hole in the Whitehouse roof and sky dive in take out his guards and capture Skull.

Well things don’t always turn out like you envision them. Upon hitting the ground a force field popped up around us trapping most of the team and what’s worse, Paragon with us. This was when Black Skull started his monologue. Apparently this and everything had been his plan for revenge by discrediting the superheroes and his crowning achievement would be the nuke which “Paragon had set off”. Further he revealed Amp and Strike out were his sons. And there were two big armored guys here, not just the black one we had faced before, but this time Mercury recognized one of them. And to top everything off, Amp and Strikeout had placed themselves in a position to defend Black Skull, there were also two Kairts guarding him, and Paragon seemed to be getting weaker. And then finally there was a little good luck as a helicarrier engine crashed through the roof almost crushing Skull but for his two Kairt guards taking the blow for him.

And the shield went down just as Blindside dodged forward, placing a nullifier bracelet on Skull’s wrist. Countdown charged one of the armor suited men almost killing him, but for Hal who pulled the armored man to safety (later to be found to be Hal’s brother). Amp and Strikeout still seemed intent on defending their father until I knocked him out with a marble tossed at his forehead. At this point we thought we had things well in hand and told Paragon to take Skull out of here, but we were wrong. Countdown’s sword started glowing and he was covered with spectral chains as some sort of spectral demon appeared behind him. We prepared to defend ourselves as he began a Blindside level rampage until La Fuega shouted for him to stop crying out: “How dare you!” At which moment he passed out. So that’s two people I need to talk to… And then Amp and Countdown ran… straight through the EAGLE troops. Well after me and Mercury slapped a nullifying bracelet on his brother I had Blindside port the rest of us back to the jet before taking off after Amp and Countdown who were knee deep in EAGLE shit. Blindside was able to get them into the jet but while Amp calmed down, it looked like Strikeout was about to try to blast his way out of the jet. After fighting to keep him from taking us out of the air for a couple moments Blindside calmed him down long enough to teleport him to the ground and a little while later Amp after him.

So yeah… some leader I am… Half the team attacked the other half and 2 guys are gone. Wouldn’t even listen to us. I talked to Blindside alone on the jet and he said it wasn’t my fault, that I did great, but it still feels like I failed. And then there’s Countdown and La Fuega. And talking to Stikeout if he ever returns. At least I can take a little solace in that Amp listened to me when he was by all rights under some serious mental shit…

[Paul]

Unity update 8&9 Meeting "5 5"

So Strikeout and Amp did return and as was expected we had to go talk to them. Me, Nick and Camilla had talked to Morrissey and went to talk to Adam first. Really, we had no problems with Adam’s behavior but thought talking to him before talking to Phil was a good idea. The problem really being that we thought we couldn’t really rely on Phil because of how he had reacted. And what was worse, it wasn’t even some demon controlling him like Countdown, or some uncontrollable fury like Blindside but it was him who had put us in danger. Well Adam wanted to give him another chance and said he would keep an eye on him and help make sure this didn’t happen again. So after talking to him we talked to Phil who at least recognized he had acted wrong and wanted to fix it. We gave him warnings and explanations and so hopefully now this won’t happen again cause I really like having him on the team.

Anyway, eventually Black Skull’s interrogation ended and he had answered pretty much everything Morrissey asked him. It was sorta weird that he was so willing; I would have expected more trouble from him. The important thing though, was he had not been acting alone and he told us where his coconspirators had been meeting. It was some weird castle in the middle of Ireland. So we got on the jet and headed to the place. Stopping a mile out we had Blindside lead us in avoiding, well pretty much everything; it’s surprising what a blind kid can see. Well when we finally did get there we snuck inside and listened to the group of villains inside, who were pretty much laughing at Black Skull, and Pargaon to a lesser extent. Then suddenly, silence. Blindside stepped in through the door and asked them to surrender; an interesting idea at least. Too bad it didn’t work. Well there were a bunch of different villains there including the guy in the black armor we keep running into, a white haired chick sitting on a stone thrown, a guy in a trench coat, a chick who Strikeout recognized to use plants to make poisons, some guy none of us recognized… and a little kid. Well, when it comes to fighting, Blindside typically will attack whoever he thinks is the greatest threat first, so he teleported up to the white haired chick and punched her. She didn’t even flinch and his punch almost knocked him back! Amp went after no one recognized and punched him only to cause him to split into 8 versions of himself who dog piled him. Strikeout went after the guy in black armor, who carried him away, while Decay attacked the poison lady. La Fuega joined Nick in his assault only to be similarly ignored and Countdown attacked the guy in the trench coat only to find him pulling out gun after gun and firing at him. I tried talking to the little kid. This probably would have gone much better and was going pretty well, as he threw a couple rocked at me but seemed completely harmless until La Fuega attacked him and a giant silvery serpent suddenly appeared and began to crush her.

Then things started to get really bad. Nick managed to teleport the white-haired chick to the place he goes when he teleports and left her there with a bunch of mantis things but one of his dogs was left behind with her. Amp was able to knock out the multiple man but Decay completely atomized the woman he was fighting with and then disappeared. And the guy with guns shot Countdown in the head… Nick started his rage thing but was barely able to keep it under control before as I quickly knocked out the guy with the guns and tried to calm him down. He then quickly went back the get the dog he had left “backstage” only to find the white haired chick beating the shadows to death using the dog as a weapon… So he brought her back to save the dog. At this point I grabbed the kid who the serpent thing was protecting to try to get it to release La Fuega. And the building collapsed on us…


2 weeks later… And now the shit really hits the fan

I woke up to the smell of burning. Other than that, I was actually quite comfortable, which is strange as the last thing I remembered was a building falling on me. Anyway, heading down stairs I found everyone else (except Countdown…) crowded around in the kitchen with Dexter eating what looked like the vilest hamburger I had ever seen; black on the outside, red on the inside, and the source of the terrible smell. Well, after Hal begged me to cook for them I made crepes (and steaks for Dog and Wolf) before actually starting to search out the rest of what looked to be some sort of bed and breakfast. Even when we found phones we couldn’t connect with Appleton or anyone really. After a little while the owner of the place finally came home. He told us basically what had happened. We had been brought here a week ago, and had been unconscious since. In the interim some sort of superhuman war had broke out between America and Russia and there was some group in Scotland which was offering to take in any supers who wanted to be taken in. Appleton was apparently gone from the map too. After a while we decided to check out the Sentinel’s tower which was supposed to be nearby. Blindside and Mercury went ahead but they were unable to get inside. When they came back I put one of our communicators back together and as a group we all returned. Apparently the door was keyed to unlock for someone with one of the communicators.

Inside, we were eventually able to find a computer and were able to access it using the password “avengers assemble”. It gave us some information about where the other Sentinels were. Unfortunately they were all occupied, but we did find a nearby really weird energy fluctuation at Stonehenge and went to investigate using the tower’s jet. When we got there we somehow found Countdown, who was alive in the middle of the circle. We also found a very large number of the black mantis demons closing in on us, although Blindside’s dogs were able to keep them at bay for a while. Meanwhile he teleported me and Strikeout back to the jet before getting stuck at Stonehenge, with his powers somehow nullified. To get back faster Strikeout kinetically charged the jet while I kept control of it. The rest of the team fought to defend themselves doing much better once they realized that proximity to Countdown was nullifying their powers. They also found that apparently Decay’s corrosion made the shadow things stronger as the one he tried to harm doubled in size. The major problem was that even with their powers the mantis things were sticking bits of themselves on the group.

When we actually managed to get above the melee Strikeout threw down a rope and pitched a hole right through the big mantis thing while most of the group climbed and La Fuega flew while Blindside teleported to the ships nullifiers to neutralize the bits of the mantis things that had stuck to him. Just when we thought we could escape Decay let go of the rope seeing it as a snake. La Fuega flew down to grab him and threw him back into the plane, losing consciousness from the effort only to be grabbed by Mercury and Blindside at the last moment. After this we headed back to the Sentinel’s tower where we spoke with Countdown whose mind seemed even more set on revenge than we had ever seen it so I spoke to most of the rest of the team about what we could do about it. Eventually we all headed to bed only to be awakened by more dreams of mantis things. We quickly headed to Nick’s room only to be shocked by something worse than the mantis things… he sleeps naked. Well after the initial shock (and me being punched in the face as apparently he had been having the same dream) we got a call from Yeoman who was apparently the first of the Sentinels to actually have a moment to spare. He told us we should get out of the tower as quickly as we could as Raptor knew where it was but we should try to meet up with the other super powered people in Scotland. So, we got our things together before heading out back to the jet to get away from the tower as quickly as possible.

[Paul]

Unity update 10: The end of Appleton

Well as much as I didn’t want to be a bother I had a couple things to take care of back in the states. So my first offer was to drop everyone else off in Scotland and head back to whatever was left of Appleton with Hal. I figured that would be the easiest way to not drag other people into it. But pretty much everyone on the rest of the team said they would come with so as a group we headed back to Appleton. When we got there it was like the aftermath of a war zone but I was able to pick up my bike. We also couldn’t get back inside by conventional methods... so countdown cut us a door. Inside it was even worse. There were skeletons and black puddles (which were strangely reminiscent of the mantis things we kept running into) everywhere. Eventually we made it through the gym to the lower levels where we found Haywire… or at least what was left of him. There was nothing left from the waist down. It was awful, but we continued on hoping to find survivors which eventually we did. There was a small girl and a small boy who had been holed up since the fight took place. We also found the woman who Amp had found here before but she attacked us. Slightly crazy with her neural neutralizers removed. And apparently she’s Hal’s mom. Well without the helmet she normally wore we couldn’t be sure what would happen so we put her in a power nullifier. At about this time right when we were all heading back to the jet Nick noticed that all the black puddles had moved and were forming some sort of giant spider thing. Thus, a new and sudden rush to leave Appleton.

When we got out of there I headed back home to make sure my mom wasn’t worried about me considering the state of the school while Countdown tried to use his illusion and telepathy powers to help Hal’s mom. It was weird, from what he said. First there were eyes looking at him from all sides. Then when he tried to use an illusion to calm her, he found himself in a pet shop with hundreds of birds bashing at their cages. He left her mind but when he returned all the birds were dead except for one which stood on his head despite every one of his efforts. When he walked out of the pet shop he found he was a woman and when he went up to a pane of glass to see if he looked like Hal’s mom he saw the bird behind him right before it ate him… and he came out of it. Like I said, weird.

Meanwhile I had headed to my mom’s house and I found her there although rather than being happy to see me she tried calling EAGLE. Later it was suggested to me that she might have just been trying to get me out of there as a bunch of “Floral Vans” pulled up moments later… but the point was that I headed out of there. At which point Nick teleported in to get me and my bike while I was speeding off as quickly as I could. Unfortunately Nick doesn’t always quite think everything through, and so I appeared inside the jet with the bikes wheels spinning at 150 mph. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

So after those diversions we finally headed toward Scotland to search for the rest of the supers. Well, I landed the jet at an abandoned castle, while Nick teleported through Edinboro looking for anything at all that might help us out but all he found was a place selling “Apples by the Ton”. Finally, I called him back to the jet to get some rest at 3 in the morning. The next day however there was more success. He ran into a guy he recognized from Appleton outside the “Apples by the Ton” place who gave him a key with an address and 3 followed by an arrow pointing down on it. Nick and I headed to the place and were eventually able to get into a massive underground city inhabited by the super powered refuges. Eventually the two of us found our way to the center of the city where we met up with Eric O’connel and the Sentinels (minus Kairt and Raptor). We gave a quick report before Nick headed back to get the rest of the group. When we were all there we gave a quick description of what we had been through. Eric was very interested in anything we could tell him about how to hurt the Mantis thing and ended up taking the blood of everyone who had had any major effect on them in the past. We also talked to the rest of the Sentinels for a short time before hearing a booming coming from the ceiling. Looking up through the ceiling Nick informed us of a huge guy covered in metal who was bashing a hole in the ground. Unity quickly headed up to the surface to do what we could only to find that apparently metal man was a Russian with friends. We tried fighting him and his friends (right after one of them started pouring fire into the city below) for a minute until hearing on our communicators that we should get out of there. At this point Amp got clocked in the face by a rock thrown by the metal guy as he leaped into the air to save Blindside and Decay. La Fuega was able to grab Decay but unfortunately Blindside’s teleportation screwing up caused him to stay in the area just as a massive blast went off completely knocking out the metal man.

[Paul]

United against the Demons

So there we were, spread out through the biggest bar brawl in history. Well that’s what a lot of the other metas that were swarming up out of the underground city seemed to be treating it as. Well first things first, we had to regroup. I called out to the rest of the team on the communicators to regroup around me. Strikeout sped over to me, followed by Countdown. La Fuega meanwhile dropped off Decay who dropped a building on a group of combatants before starting to corrode the guns of the various Russians he could get to. Mercury meanwhile ran from group to group of the Russians taking out handing out flurries of fists to anyone in a Russian uniform. Amp… fell. Well after a couple seconds I sent Strike out to go make sure Amp was okay while Mercury took out anyone nearby and Countdown used his illusions to confuse the Russian beaters he could find. I was a little worried about Blindside as Nick really was the first one I would have expected to show up but he popped back in, bruised but alive right when Mercury was about to go look for him and a couple seconds later everyone else was able to make it back.

Well, I thought we could take anyone on the field now that we were back together… well talk about a bard’s tongue. Right at that second the giant metal man got hurled back down at us, standing up out of a crater and laughing as we dodged to avoid the impact. Countdown charged with his cut through anything sword and got the guy to flinch. Blindside started blinking in and out while attacking and the rest of us coordinated a third attack to catch him off guard. Amazingly we knocked him to a knee, and so we got the attention of a bunch of his friends. What was worse was that Ceart’s main cannon went off again. Apparently he was just using it to hold back Ivan so the rest of the supers spread out on the ground might have a chance with whomever they were fighting. Well, back together for one last strike, we all joined together for one massive strike to take out the metal guy so we could help elsewhere. But wow, Strikeout hit him so hard; the rest of us barely seemed to matter… and he dropped, at which point Blindside teleported to Ceart’s side taking a hit from Ivan to defend him just as his suit ran out of juice.

Meanwhile Countdown started fighting a guy with a giant hammer and sickle as Amp started fighting a guy who trapped him in a black of ice. Countdown actually kicked some major ass until the point where his opponent was about to get a death strike in on him… But just in the nick of time there was a gunshot and Hammer and Sickle dropped. Apparently Fate must have a sense of humor though, as he was saved by the very same guy who had killed him a couple weeks before. Meanwhile Amp broke free from the Iceman’s prison and clocked him with La Fuega’s help and Mercury came to the rescue of Yeoman who had been knocked out by a lucky shot from behind. He fought off wave after wave of Russians who apparently wanted to claim him as some sort of prize as I knocked a girl with some sort of feral powers on her back who was trying to sneak up on us. Well while this was going on Strikeout and Blindside fought to keep Ivan’s attention. Apparently it worked and Ivan now had some sort of crush on Blindside. Well, they seemed to be able to holding their own for a minute, until Ivan lifted up Nick into the air without even touching him. Apparently the taunts about him attacking refugees and kids were getting to him. La Fuega and Amp came to his ‘rescue’, flying and leaping into the air, but were snatched through a fold in space with Blindside and Ivan to find themselves once again ‘backstage’. Weird thing was there were none of the black mantis things there that time. Blindside quickly brought La Fuega back before returning for Amp, who was barely able to defend himself against Ivan but before the pair left teleported to a weird light in the distance… which dumped them out in the middle of the battlefield, followed by Ivan moments later. Then things really started to go downhill as Blindside noticed that the entire battle had been surrounded by the black mantis things which were merging into one giant blob which was eating any supers it could snatch. Well things were getting a bit desperate and Blindside did his best to convince those fighting they had a bigger enemy to fight only to find there really seemed to be no way out, at which point he grabbed everyone he could and made one massive effort to get them all to safety. A moment later we found ourselves and Ceart on an Eagle helicarrier.

I would say out of the frying pan and into the fire but really, this was an improvement. Now we only had a dozen men pointing guns at us, a couple miles in the air. Nick immediately asked to talk to Raptor and after the men with guns threatened us for a couple minutes he finally showed up and told them to give it a rest. Well as usual, he’s wrong. He blames most of the problems on us meddling kids, and obviously he hasn’t been doing anything wrong with his EAGLE initiative, not even the moon base, even though his orders were from Black Skull! But at least he’s stopped being ‘such a douschbag’… well sort of. He did get Nick and Ceart, (who’s apparently Eric O’Connell) some medical attention and gave us all rooms to stay (even though it was just for the excuse to scan us) in while we were there. And then there’s Decay, who apparently is partially one of the black mantis things and that’s why his powers strengthen them. After locking Decay up for a short time Raptor decided to let him out as we all trusted him.

So, the next morning Raptor came to us, with a situation update and a plan… sorta. The black mass had apparently increased in size to fill up the entirety of Scotland except for a very small area which happened to include that castle where we had parked the jet. Also, there were two major energy signatures there that seemed to be fighting there. The ‘plan’ was basically to go in, see what was going on, and hopefully stop it as it seemed to be the center of everything. Raptor did however give up some extra equipment to help us out. We all got these neat suits that would help defend us if the black ooze tried to get us. Blindside and Mercury were given cool electrifying gauntlets and I was given a belt full of little electrifying gadgets and bombs as well as a bike with the same qualities as my cycle that was left back at the jet.

So we headed over to the Castle and found as expected it was completely surrounded by the black mass. Heading inside we found the source of the energy signatures; Maidmhe (5’ 5”) and Paragon were fighting and apparently had been for hours. Also, Maidmhe eyes were pure black and right as we got there she knocked out Paragon. Mercury quickly ran to him and tried to save him using his snake hands thing. La Fuega also charged forward with fiery justice only to have an arm broken. Blindside started crazily teleporting around Maidmhe pummeling her, as Amp and Strikeout blasted. Meanwhile Countdown charged only to have his blade blacked by giant mantis arms which pooped out of her shoulders while I aimed. Decay meanwhile tried to take out the floor under her. Well a couple moments later we got some sort of reaction as she split into two, herself still with the black eyes, and a pure black version of herself. I started focusing on the black version while most of the others fought Maidmhe herself. And then things got really crazy. Both Countdown and Blindside lost it taking on their crazy forms (or the nutzo gone coo coo forms). Hal broke his fist punching Maidmhe after she sent La Fuega flying, but right when things looked like they might take a turn for a worse Paragon knocked her out of the castle through a wall. Moments later we all ‘reconvened’ in the courtyard to continue the pummeling accompanied by a giant black mantis thing which actually started helping us (apparently Decay’s form when he loses control). I biked out crashing my cycle into Maidmhe from behind before tumbling to my feet and finding Raptor’s utility belts. The major problem while everything else was going on psycho-Blindside fought Maidmhe but after laying down some serious smack down was dropped right before Amp took a blow to the face and somehow shrugged it off without even flinching.

Even with this, things looked grim so as a last resort I called out ‘Unity Unite!’ followed by an ‘All together, with me!”. I unloaded pretty much everything out of the belts I had found while Strikeout fired a piece of the castle at Maidmhe. La Fuega called down a massive pillar of flame and Amp send a blast of Maidmhe’s own energy back at her. Decay attacked with giant claws and Mercury ran full speed into her. Countdown charged and even Blindside managed to leap off the ground to get in one last punch while saying: “don’t let anything happen to her Hal”. And Maidmhe dropped to the ground, dead. For a second we thought it was over but right as we started to catch our breath, but then the entire black mass coalesced into some sort of massive kraken and grabbed each of us who were still conscious. Well, let no one ever say Strikeout isn’t a hero. He somehow managed to break free and dropping into its maw kinetically charged it from the inside! At which point it exploded.

A couple weeks later

So there’s a lot of cleanup to do. The black mantis things were gone but we still had everything that had happened from the Scotland brawl to clean up. And there were a lot of villains who had been hiding out in the underground city who would have to be rounded up. Me and Strikeout woke up together in a hospital to be informed that while we had won, we lost one of our team. Blindside was dead. Yeoman and Raptor died. Paragon retired. We're taking over as the new Sentinels of Freedom ("Sentinels Strike!" definitely sounds better than "Unity Unite!"). Ceart is still around, official leader for a bit more (until we're all 18) but significantly less active. Well, rebuilding Appleton seems like a priority. I’m working on sculpting a memorial for Blindside and Haywire for the main courtyard. Dog and Wolf are still around though. They have taken to hanging around me and Camilla respectively. Also, news on Camilla, she is apparently not some sort of demon royalty but rather angelic. Go figure. She and Hal are actually together now. It’s pretty awesome, although a complete turn around from how I met them. Hal also apparently has a cousin who has inherited the sentinel force who he’s taking care of now. That should be… interesting. Countdown mentioned something to us about how he would like our help stopping the demon that apparently has claim to his soul when he turns 21. And we will help him of course, after all, we are heroes!

[Paul]

Here is the update for a one-shot I played in using Wildcard. I hope anyone who reads it enjoys it. There is a list of descriptions of the other PC's at the end of the update to help avoid confusion.

Session 21: "Beach Beasts and Funky Monkey Mansion!"

Early in the fall in the city of Drakesport, a city to the north of Boston strange things have begun to happen. Many heroes have learned of the skrulls in their latest attempt against the world and thus both "Societe de Justice Internationale " or “SJI” and many other heroes tied up. Several months have passed since Drake’s 7 had an encounter with Black Alice at the train station and as usual, nothing is normal.

“The Stranger” was back at the group’s base on Lighthouse island as usual while “Le Cafard” continued to schmoose things up with his girlfriend “Candi Diamond” while “the Righteous Fist” continued to try to get his graduate at one of the local universities. The Stranger, while using some of “the Electric Slide’s” equipment to scan different radio stations picked up the first of the weirdness. Apparently there was some gigantic dog demon which had scared the pants off two homeless men from Puerto Perdido, causing them to be bought to a psychiatric hospital. There were also some reports of fishermen seeing another monster in the harbor which had tore through their nets.

Quickly the Stranger got in touch with Le Cafard and the Righteous Fist to see if they were up for some investigation before summoning his horse Gabriel and prepared to head out, only to be interrupted by “Arturus” at the front door, recently having returned from Canada and still on the run. He was bearing tacos and burritos from El Chalupa and arguing with Le Cafard that he was good friends with but the Frenchman had been refusing to take him at his word. Moments later Fist arrived and between him and the Stranger, they were able to settle the matter.

After introductions The Stranger rode out onto the bay on his magical steed while Arturus took flight and Le Cafard rode out on a jet ski with the Righteous Fist. Soon he came upon what seemed to be a ghost ship with a sailor warning of a coming storm. He also told the mystic cowboy that he had seen something below the water with huge leathery wings. He continued to investigate while Arcturus, flying above, saw large dog coming ashore toward young man and motorcycle. After a brief attempt to stop and interrogate them with a telekinetic grapple the Canadian mercenary was called back by the rest of the team, who assumed them to be unimportant. Meanwhile dimensionally displaced "Jack Lucas Ryan," sped off on his motorcycle planning to return in costume as "Wildcard."

A short time later, humanoid pile of trash and onetime Buddhist monk ("John Doe/Heap") was encountered observing an invisible dragon "Pyre/Morgan", apparently the one who had been spotted by the ghost sailor. She soon revealed herself to the Stranger and the rest of Drakes’ 7 as “Wildcard returned to the beach and began to goad Arcturus. Each of the crew of misfits introduced themselves as Arcturus responded to latest alarm at the lighthouse lair. There he met Hawkman (Katar Hol), who asks team to investigate the former mansion of the "Hudson Valley Vigilantes" and "Evil's Bane." Apparently each of the groups had mysteriously disappeared at their mansion and as the SJI was busy, Hawkman hoped that Drake’s 7 could investigate. After some discussion each of those who were either actually part of the team or assumed to be agreed, Wildcard, hoping to be given some assistance in returning home after the mission as well as feeling he couldn’t just abandon fellow heroes when they would obviously need his help.

Hawkman then brought the party to Upstate New York before returning to the lighthouse briefly with Le Cafard for his equipment. Upon returning with a van filled with various gadgets (as well as cold tacos which Pyre and Wildcard’s dog quickly devoured. Le Cafard suggested that Hawkman seemed fishy and Wildcard agreed calling him an asshole but the group agreed they should still investigate the mansion. Afterwards the group was able to find the mansion, abandoned and partway through renovations. Le Cafard found and disables perimeter camera while Wildcard found another camera hidden behind group portraits in entrance hall. Heap attempted to teleport via piles of debris but there were none in the house.

Continuing through the house led by Wildcard, the Stranger, and Pyre, the meta-humans found the dining room, which contained photographs of the two superhero teams and their allies from the past 70 years. The stranger also found he could communicate with one of the portraits which complained “We’ll beat those Nazi’s yet”. Soon he was able to confirm that the enemy they faced was likely none other than “The Cornel”, a super intelligent ape which Drake’s 7 had tangled with before. Behind the next door however, Wildcard found some sort of trap which he, Le Cafard, and Arcturus were able to confirm was a German grenade. After Arcturus examined the trap to make sure the suggested method of disarming it would work, the Stranger opened a shadowy portal to get rid of the "potato masher" grenade trap.

Shifting between human and dragon form, Pyre was then able to find and follow boot prints to sun room where the costumed vigilantes found dusty glass trophy cases. Two were smashed and empty the with titles: the "Helm of the Conqueror" and the "Panopticon" but the rest remained unmolested. After checking the door out of the room for further trap Wildcard confidently strode forward to find the rear hallway contained six Nazi soldiers! Le Cafard hurled grenades but the return fire from one of the gun-toting goons seriously wounded him. The Stranger reached through one of his portals and shot at the neo-fascists whom Arcturus killed with a follow up blast. The Righteous Fist charged through a table smashing a defiant soldier into the wall. Heap surged forward but was unable to hit any of the soldiers with the chunks of himself he began to throw. Wildcard stopped for a moment shocked before charging forward yelling “No killing!” and throwing his razor cards to distract another nazi. Meanwhile Pyre begame chanted mystical words and healed Le Cafard who immediately pulled out a can of “instant skin” to finish the job. She then spit out a blast of fire to cow the remaining troops who were quickly knocked out.

Moments later the group followed the familiar voice of "the Colonel" who was trying to escape with a jet pack but before he could make good on his escape Wildcard severed his fuel line and charged forward with the Righteous Fist. Less than a second passed before they were joined by the Stranger, Arcutrus, and Heap, who surging forward, let out a nauseating blast which affected both foes (and friends). After covering his face from the horrid stench Wildcard yelled out “Don’t do that!” before returning to help finish off the monkey.

Things seemed to be wrapped up but immediately upon knocking out the Colonel, "Hawkman" arrived trying to take custody of the Nazi experiment. The group quickly decided that this was too much of a coincidence and refused to hand over their prisoner, whereupon the winged wonder was revealed to be a shape-shifting Skrull saying "He loves you"!

Another pitched battle followed as the group tried to defeat their new foe. The Stranger fired shots while the skrull smashed through Arcturus’ force field, sending him flying into a wall. Wildcard and the Righteous Fist ganged up on the skrull stunning it as Le Cafard used a magnetic grapple to entangle his mace. The Fist was then able to KO their alien enemy with a lucky punch as Wildcard concentrated.

With the "Drake's 7" triumphant and the alien infiltrator and Colonel are tied up, Le Cafard reluctantly called the "Societe de Justice Internationale" for backup. Green Lantern John Stewart (not the comedian) sent "the Seer" [Steve M.R./N.P.C.] to pick up the villainous duo who told Wildcard he had actually heard of Sentinal, Kairt ond other heroes from the teenagers home dimension and would do what he could to help the teen return home. Finally "Drake's 7" and their new allies pondered what to do next in securing the abandoned mansion…


The Current D20"M&M"2e: "Drake's 7" Party
[As of September 2008; core members are Power Level 10]

-"Sam A. Jackson/the Stranger" [Beruk A.]-male metahuman gunslinger from the Old West with the ability to perceive the supernatural; age unknown

-"Austin Crawford/the Righteous Fist" [Thomas K.Y.]-male metahuman graduate student with superstrength, age 24

-"Francois Claire/Le Cafard" [Brian W.]-male French metahuman nature documentarian with a van and numerous gadgets, age 27

-"Morton Mahoney/Arcturus" [Byron V.O.]-male metahuman former demolitions expert for the Canadian military who gained telekinesis and the ability to project force blasts from strange meteors, now serving as a bodyguard, age 26

-"Jack Lucas Ryan/Wildcard" [Paul J.]-male metahuman, lucky leader of "Unity" in a parallel dimension, age 16

-"John Doe/Heap" [Josh C.]-male Undead former Buddhist monk in the form of trash, age unknown (Referred to as "Onceaweek" by Wildcard)

-"Pyre/Morgan" [Sara F.]-female dragon and shape-shifter, apparent human age 15

>>Party Contacts

-"Paul J./Captain Oblivious" [Paul J.] mutant human college student who is clueless but unnaturally fast and lucky, age 22

-"Eric Johannssen/the Electric Slide" [Greg D.C.]-male metahuman disco enthusiast and computer hacker who gained the ability to merge with electrical systems and stopped aging in the late 1970s, age 45/25 (apparent)

-"Cecilia Giavonelli" [Alysia B.]-teenage female mutant human Mafia princess hiding her telepathy, healing power, and feathered wings, age 16

-"The Daughter of Ether" [Brie]-female metahuman high school student and gadgeteer, age 16

-"Crowley" [Alex J.]-male mutant human with probability manipulation, age 22

-"Sam/Bellatrix" [Serena]-female human martial artist and costumed crime fighter, age 21

-"Eric Chan/Mist" [Byron V.O.]-male mutant human florist and martial artist who gained the ability to change his body into steam or to make his skin metallic from a rare orchid in South America, age 27

-"Thomas Golden/Necroid" [Brian W.]-male metahuman alderman cursed with the ability to drain life force after exposure to chemical waste and radiation, age 31

-"Emil LeStrange/Scourge" [Brian W.]-male French metahuman nature documentarian who in a dimensional accident got the ability to change into a swarm of wasps or spiders, age 27

-"Clarence Jenkins Claypool/C.J./the ConJuror" [Brian W.]-male metahuman miner from West Virginia with mystical elemental abilities; age 22

-"Pinkie Karpov" [Dan A.]-female metahuman librarian who gained psychic and force-projection abilities in an industrial accident in her Eastern European homeland, age 31

-"John Greenfield" [James B.]-male mutant human confidence artist and per diem nurse in training with the power of shapeshifting, age 32

-"Nick" [James B.]-male mutant human who can change his size and shape; age 30

-"Christopher Smith/Cutes/Sid the Kid" [James B.]-male metahuman student with the powers of flight and force blasts, age 12

-"The Dealer" [Otis D.]-male mutant Caribbean-American human car dealer at the Foxwoods Casino with the power to charge objects such as poker chips and dice (similar to Marvel's X-Man "Gambit"), age unknown

-"Professor Andrus Schubertson/Polarion" [Corbin A.Y.]-male metahuman physicist from the Midwest who was crippled while working for Stark Industries and who has an armored defender with ionic/magnetism control; age 45

-"Eric Spurgeon/Neutralizer-X" [Dexter V.H.]-male future human with a stolen teleportation suit that can analyze and counter powers; age 30

-"Derrick Hallstrom/Ebon Flame" [Dexter V.H.]-male human Ninja, bearer of the enchanted katana "Black Talon"; age 27

-"Ara" [Dexter V.H.]-female Shadow Elf Beastmaster from a hidden civilization sent to explore the modern human world, age unknown

-"Mayonaka/Shadow Knight" [Dexter V.H.]-male Blue Elf explorer clad in ultratech armor with a crossbow and sword, brother of Ara, age unknown

-"David Davies Davison/D3" [Stuart C.G.]-male metahuman game show host, age 45

-"Dina Donna Dickens/Triple-D" [Stuart]-female mutant human assistant to "D3," age unknown

-"Commander Confusion" [Brian A.]-male mutant human with the power of mental disruption, age 22

-Session 1: Character creation (using D20 "Mutants & Masterminds" second edition)
-Session 2: "Drake's Port: The Bank Job" ("1 March 2005 A.D./C.E."/19 April 2005)
-Session 3: "Robot Hoversled/Missile Attack" ("April 15"/October 2005)
-Session 4: "Sentinel" ("1 to 4 May 2005"/19 February 2006; Character Creation 2, using D20 "M&M" 2e)
-Session 5: "Avengers" ("May 5 to 7"/13 June 2006)
-Session 6: "Titans Go!" ("May 8"/June 20)
-Session 7: "Tenement Blaze" ("May 9"/June 27)
-Session 8: "Drake's Seven and the Sea Monster" ("May 10"/18 July 2006)
-Session 9: "S.J.I.: Road Trip," ("May 11 to 13"/July 25)
-Session 10: "Collectors" ("May 14 to 17"/1 August 2006)
-Session 11: "Undersea Battle" ("May 18 to 20"/Aug. 15)
-Session 12: "Polarion" ("May 21 to 24"/Aug. 19)
-Session 13: "The Dealer and the Demon" ("May 25 to 28"/Aug. 29)
-Session 14: "Island Infiltration" ("26 May to 1 June 2005"/2 September 2006)
-Session 15: "The Masquerade Ball" ("June 2 to 5"/Sept. 12)
-Session 16: "Hydra/X-Men" ("June 5 to 8"/Sept. 19)
-Session 17: "Aquarium Aberration" ("14 to 16 October 2005"/4 November 2006)
-Session 18: "Storming City Hall" ("1 to 7 March 2007"/31 March 2007)
-Session 19: "Ebon Flame and the Avatar of Plague" ("8 to 14 March 2007"/7 April 2007)
-Session 20: "Museum Madness and Goth Girl" ("1 to 3 April 2007"/9 June 2007)
-Session 21: "Beach Beasts and Funky Monkey Mansion!" (Byron V.O.'s visit, 20 September 2008)