X-Champions Issues
Issue
52 – New Friends…
When
Laughton walks out to the reception desk, Velda quickly and enthusiastically
fills him in on recent happenings. She
points out Tony Stark was there, and whispers, “He’s Iron Man!”
Laughton says, “Are you sure he’s not Elvis?” and she gives him a
nasty look. She is also sure to
tell Laughton about the Shlumari and Sammy and Jane’s adventure.
Sammy
pops in and they discuss how Laughton wasn’t around, to which he, with
humorous indignity, points out he was in his office and they should have just
gotten him. Sammy says, “We were
gonna check your office but Nexus said ‘no way’, so we figured ‘let’s
not bother.’”
As
Laughton goes downstairs to the base, Sammy follows to resume the video game
he’s playing with Jane. They’re
playing cooperatively, though in points Sammy’s leading, as Jane doesn’t
like to compete. The video theme
music is blaring as they indulge in the video game sensations.
They
see robots streaming into their area, and as they strain to listen over the loud
music they hear “Danger!” from them. They
notice one that’s partially blown up limping along!
Running
out into the hall, Laughton turns on the speaker over Sammy only and says, “Go
get him, Sammy,” as he’s seen who it is through the cameras, and adds, “I
think it’s the Punisher.” He
had seen some clumsy (to him) attempts to defeat the camera security, but he
managed to easily take them back on line and survey.
Gere-luce
is on his way to the elevator, rhetorically asking Laughton, “Should I go?”
as he leaves. He’s suited up in
any case.
As
Laughton, activating his Force Field so he can investigate instead of being in
one of his more passive forms, watches Punisher he sees the Punisher note one of
the cameras and escape it, blasting in the wall to the unused room next to
Suzanne’s. Then they hear another
explosion, Laughton believing it to be coming from the Danger Room.
From
his government work, Laughton knows Punisher’s real identity, and turns on the
base loudspeaker, saying, “Frank, please keep destroying my base,”
sarcastically. Sammy and Laughton
then approach the direction of the explosions, and see a pile of rubble and the
Punisher behind it, standing ready for action.
Sammy waves and simply calls out, “Hey!”
They
begin talking, and the Punisher indicates he’s there because he has been
pursued by the Men in Black for the release of hidden Jameson from a mental
institution, and while he can’t prove anything he feels the Justice Squad was
involved. He’s upset that the MiB
have been after him for what he believes they instigated. He says, “I don’t like Men in Black after me, I had to
kill seven of them, I think about half, so I’m happy about that, at least.”
Laughton muses that while it isn’t half, it is a substantial number,
although it doesn’t matter as they’ll manufacture more.
Sammy
shoots back, “You’re a good guy, we’re good guys, we’re on the same
team!”
Laughton
“refreshes” Sammy, joking that per rule 17 of the Justice Squad Standard
Operating Procedures that when Nexus or Hamlet is in the room, one of them does
negotiations. Sammy then says he
thought that was different number, just to cause the private investigator grief.
Sammy
cheerily offers up that since the kitchen is nearby they should retire to that
location where he points out that they have some good baloney sandwiches.
The Punisher seems positive about that.
Sammy’s persuasive, too, and gets the Punisher to agree, saying,
“Sounds good, I’m hungry, so let’s talk over food now that I have your
attention.” Indeed he had, having
blown a wall through the back of the Justice Squad base – leaving a hole that
extends back into Hellcat Hellion’s base!
Jane joins them for food, too.
Laughton
asks if Hellcat’s Hellions are okay, checking through the hole.
Hellcat just responds back, “What the hell happened!?
Was that the Punisher?” Laughton
confirms and tells him to keep away from the damaged area and watch out for
their base’s robots as they repair the hole.
Laughton
sits back down, noting the damage and saying to Castle/Punisher, “Tit for tat,
eh?”
The
Punisher smiles and says, “I feel better.”
As they talk, he wolfs down four sandwiches. He asks for beer, Sammy responding that they used to have
beer, but then Spectrum left. But
they do have kool-aid.
As
they talk, Punisher indicates he wants the Justice Squad to clear up the mess
he’s in with the MiB.
Laughton
asks Punisher, “So you want to hire the Laughton Agency to resolve your
situation?”
Not
to be toyed with, the Punisher notes, “I think I was saying that I wouldn’t
have to destroy the whole freakin’ base if you’ll take care of this.”
Meanwhile,
Jane, looking like a gorgeous Barbie doll come to life, pushes up against him,
snuggling evocatively. He turns to
her, asking, “So, how you doin’?”
Still
a Shlumari, she asks, “You gonna eat all that?”
He’s
hungry and holds out, “I was, there’s a dispenser over there if you want
more.
She
offers up, “It’s so much better when it’s been pre-chewed a little bit,”
and gives him a full, sensitive kiss after she’s taken in a bit of a baloney
sandwich. She starts rubbing him,
whispering, “Why don’t’ we go out later?
I know a nice little all-you-can-eat place”
Laughton
points out she’s not human, and Jane shoots him a dirty look.
He says to her, “Rule 17 applies to you as well!”
The
Punisher is taken with Jane and has met many unusual women, and winks and says,
‘I’m not prejudiced,” as she sits in his lap, holding up baloney sandwich
for him (and herself).
Trying
to ignore this, Laughton says he’s “glad to help regardless of the
circumstances of our meeting” but says the Punisher will owe him, Laughton
keeping thoughts of Vision in his head. He
goes on to ask the Punisher about the mutant murders, including the Jerky Boys.
The
Punisher says, “I considered killing them once but it was beneath me, wasn’t
worth my time.” He goes on to
indicate from what he hears the murderer is some sort of machine.
Laughton
confirms that and says that this has been on the back burner lately, more of an
annoyance than a danger, but it’s going to be important soon.
As
they make arrangements, the Punisher asks how he should get in touch, offering
up with a grin, ‘You want me to visit?”
Laughton offers up one of his cheaper 900 numbers.
The Punisher looks at it and grimaces, saying, “That’s what I
heard,” in reference to Laughton’s 900 scheme.
Jane
keeps at Castle, whispering to him she likes big guns.
Having understood she’s like Sammy and having heard about Sammy, he
says “I like slimy, slippery things.” Then
the Punisher says to Laughton, “nice place, or it was, you should be able to
fix it up easily.”
Laughton
points out the robot druids fixing the place, saying, “already being done.”
He then goes on to mention that it’s not all the Justice Squad’s
fault, that the Punisher’s modus operandi is bombastic so he shouldn’t be
surprised if they leapt to a conclusion. (To the left, Jane in her appearance at
this point)
The
Punisher says “bombastic!” proudly to Jane, who nibbles on his ear.
Gere-luce,
back, offers to help out the Punisher in getting his weapons reloaded and
restored. The Punisher lets him,
his guard down with Jane, and Gere-luce is sure to add an extra button…
Jane
then feigns taking Punisher to the movie room, but instead takes him to the
elevator and stops it between floors. The
Punisher shoots the surveillance camera that’s behind the stop button, as well
as killing the regular visible camera.
Then
Gere-luce walks out of his room to Laughton, grousing, “They broke the cameras
in the elevators, I don’t know what they’re doing, I don’t wanna know,”
and walks out. Laughton tries to
placate him, saying it’ll be taken care of soon.
Then
the elevator gets loud with guttural and violent noises as it rocks to and fro.
A bit later, the two entangled supers break through the elevator door,
Jane grabbing the Punisher and pulling him into the prisoner room and the two
collapsing into one of the flatbed drawers.
Laughton fights an urge to let loose the chlorine gas as the noise is
unavoidably clear. He then hears
Gere-luce say, “I’m shuttin’ down the cameras to that room now!”
Laughton
attempts a conversation with Sammy about curbing his ward.
Sammy just shrugs and says, “She’s young,” unconcerned.
In
an attempt to distract himself and also deal with the situation immediately,
Laughton contacts his MiB agent, Archie. They
talk, and Laughton manipulates the conversation to talk of the Jameson issue.
As the Punisher comes up, Laughton points out how the Punisher would be
too obvious a choice. He then goes
on to plant other ideas in the MiB’s head.
He gets the sense that the MiB are about ready to drop this anyway, as
the investigation is going nowhere.
With
that taken care of handily, Laughton turns back to waiting out the storm of Jane
and Punisher’s lust, which seems to continue unabated.
He reconsiders the chlorine gas. Finally,
things quiet down. Jane takes the
Punisher for a sauna and a swim, and Castle has one last baloney sandwich. He finds his armor and such packed in a cardboard box by the
elevator. Jane dresses and sends
him on his way.
As
the Punisher sees Laughton on his way out, Hamlet points out the address on the
back of the card, his above-ground agency, and suggests he come that way next
time. Frank asks if Jane is part of
the team, to which Hamlet emphatically says no.
With
one last seductive kiss to remember her by, Jane says goodbye to the Punisher,
and happily goes back to Sammy, having learned more about human sexuality, and
put those film selections on the topic to good use.
Laughton
later says to Sammy he should do something about the movies she’s studying
these days. He explains how those
movies don’t represent human culture particularly well, just a limited aspect,
and not typical of most humans’ actual relations.
Sammy
is taken aback by Laughton, and says this isn’t the point, “Despite the fact
we’ve been together so long, you really don’t understand us, do you?
Sensation is an amazing thing, I’m sorry you can’t really appreciate
it. It’s why I spend hours and
hours in the wind chambers, flowing around the room.”
Laughton
says “I just thought you were really bad at math.”
Sammy
points out that sensation is ecstasy and beauty in its purest form.
He says, “You might be really smart but you don’t really get certain
things.”
Laughton
is indifferent. “What’s the
point? We’ve had the same
conversation with Suzanne about turkeys on the holidays,” referring to how
Nexus’ summoned “perfect” turkey without any anomalies was somehow “too
perfect,” not quite tasty enough, etc..
Sammy
tries to help, saying, “We’re really good friends and really close, I can
help you explore these feelings.”
Laughton
changes back to his base form of T’suara, a bit afraid of Sammy’s
touchy-feely side, and says, the words like loud thoughts being broadcast to
anyone listening, “I have no need of that, thanks.”
Sammy
has a revelation – from his time linking with the other Shlumari, he has a
vague memory of this form from his
people, not just as Laughton. He
says, lost in memories, “What are you? I’ve
seen you before.”
T’suara
is perturbed and insists, “
Sammy
says, “No, I’ve seen you before, the real you before.”
T’suara
insists, “I know, I just told you,” the lights blinking as he elaborates the
number of times.
Sammy
explains, “No, I mean the Shlumari, my people, they know you, they know people
like you.”
T’suara
says, “I don’t think I’ve ever been to your planet.”
Sammy
says, no longer speaking as one, “We know you.”
Laughton
is not interested in getting in touch with himself. Even less now, as he says, “given what just happened, I
think we’re gonna move on to something else,” and he goes to work on his
ongoing study of DEXTER.
A
couple of days later, Laughton finds one of his 900 numbers has been
disconnected. As he checks it out,
just casually, he finds a block has been put on by the phone company and he has
a message waiting. Using a local
pay phone, he calls in as the false identity it’s booked under, a
“Hector.” The phone company
indicates they saw some form of abuse with what looked to be hacking on the
line. They offer him a brand new
phone number and as he insists they send records of what they found. As he gets the data, he finds it’s DEXTER letting him know
he’s found one of his lines.
He
checks on Bellwether, which he finds is soon to go under, apparently abandoned
by DEXTER as its been troubled on multiple fronts now.
Laughton
and Sammy discuss ABC and the situation in general. They talk about the bank links.
They discuss one man from Chase Manhattan on both the ABC board and the
Chase Manhattan board; Laughton’s check on him shows he was a communist in
school, cheats at cards, and has a golf buddy who works at First National of
Detroit. As Laughton checks First
National, he finds that the “golf buddy” is an investor who seems to be
pointing things towards ABC’s favor, and making investments consistent with
those of DEXTER’s/ABC’s front organizations.
Laughton is sure to manipulate schedules so that he, Sammy, and Jane
(Laughton and Sammy as golfers, Jane as a caddy) end up golfing at the same time
as these two men, Jerry Grossenbacher of First National and Thomas Ferry of
Chase Manhattan.
Laughton
shows up with a big plaid fuzzy beret, matching plaid Bermuda shorts, black
socks, and garish golf shoes. Sammy
looks vaguely like Tiger Woods, Jane is a little African-American kid caddying
for Sammy. Laughton uses a
high-tech motorized personal caddy machine.
As
they “accidentally” find they have the same tee-off time, Grossenbacher and
Ferry are glad to share. They find
Grossenbacher has a slight French-Canadian accent. As they play along and, at first, innocuously chat, Laughton
shoots an absolutely terrible game. Sammy
shoots par. Both Grossenbacher and
Ferry counsel Laughton on his game, Ferry more so.
They note that he seems to have perfect form but can’t deliver.
Before
too long, Laughton directs the conversation towards banking, finding out what
they think, getting their insight into the terrible economy and so on, and he
brings up these companies, like Bellwether, going bankrupt.
Sammy uses his body language to help coax things along, being sympathetic
and using his likeability to move things along.
Grossenbacher
changes the subject from Bellwether and turns to politics.
Then there’s some discomfort when Grossenbacher assumes Sammy to be
anti-Bush due to color, and Sammy professes to be republican.
Grossenbacher
notes that Laughton’s game seems to be better as Laughton brings up Bellwether
again and asks Grossenbacher how he knew to direct his investments away from
them just before things got tough. Grossenbacher
politely begs off, and only the keen-eyed Laughton can discern he’s just
starting to lose his cool. Laughton
presses by bringing up the “strange death” of the Bellwether executive
before things started going wrong.
Sammy
nudges Jane, getting her to start talking about finance stuff “from class”
to goad the men to speak loosely and casually.
Laughton
then brings up Stark Industries and Sihn-Tek, rattles off the ABC management
team names, and asks Grossenbacher’s opinions.
Being on both ABC and Chase Manhattan boards, Ferry recuses himself, and
Grossenbacher tries to hold back on that account. Laughton finds that as Grossenbacher says he didn’t know
anything about what happened at Bellwether, Laughton notes he is nervous but not
lying. As they discuss other
companies, Grossenbacher claims that he has counseled many to invest in Stark or
ABC, but Laughton knows in fact now Grossenbacher is lying, as he has never
pointed people towards SI.
And
as this happens, Grossenbacher’s game deteriorates as Laughton’s picks up.
Sammy does his best to keep Grossenbacher off guard, being friendly and
keeping him from seeing any collaboration between them.
He just listens and chats. Jane
keeps Ferry distracted, chatting with him and learning about high finance.
Ferry in the course of this notes how Grossenbacher is always right about
his tips.
Laughton
brings up Barrman Associates to see what happens. Sammy echoes how notable Barrman is. Grossenbacher professes ignorance about any detail knowledge
of Barrman. And he defends his own
successes as having a good “gut feel.”
Laughton says darkly and quietly to him, “Like poor Collard at
Bellwether had a good gut feel.” He
goes on to say, “When ones heads are in the clouds, you never know who willb e
biting it off.” Grossenbacher
turns pale. Laughton goes on,
“Kinda strange, this weather, like someone listening in.”
As
Grossenbacher’s game tanks, he jokes that Laughton’s must be rubbing off on
him. Laughton and he discuss
meeting later, going through a couple buckets at the driving range.
As the game ends, they retire to the clubhouse to have a bite.
Sammy works to resist drooling as the food arrives.
Grossenbacher claims he’s sick from lunch, unable to eat.
As
Grossenbacher goes to get a bucket of balls for 1-on-1 time with Laughton, Sammy
and Jane morph into a small shape and hide on Laughton, Sammy as his pager and
Jane as his sweater (which he sets on a nearby bench).
As
they drive balls and speak, Grossenbacher asks “Do you get the calls?”
Laughton
responds, “I don’t get the calls, I make the calls.”
Grossenbacher
is taken aback, and asks again. He
believes him, as nobody would know about the calls he feels, and asks what
Laughton wants. Laughton says he
wants Grossenbacher to prove himself, to which the nervous target says he
wouldn’t kill someone. Laughton
says not to worry about that, but that he has some liquid funds to be directed
and chaos to be sewn, giving some details.
Laughton goes on to say, “You can see how the wind is blowing by seeing
which way the grass goes,” and takes sprigs of grass and drops it on
Grossenbacher. He adds, “It’s
one thing to read the weather report and another to stand there and smell the
sunshine.” Laughton taunts him
about coming change. Laughton says,
“Let’s try this test and see how well we can trust each other.”
Grossenbacher offers to put ABC on the road to a bad credit rating.
Before they leave, Laughton plants a bug on Grossenbacher, into his hair.
For
reality and simply for fun as well, Sammy keeps sounding an alarm on
Laughton’s belt.
They
meet again on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, so that Laughton can retrieve
the device. He listens and notes a
conversation which he can only pick up Grossenbacher’s end, wherein he hears
Grossenbacher say “It was nice to meet you,” and then simply “Okay, I’ll
hang up now.” Laughton notes many
cameras but they don’t pick up the mysterious detective as a combination of
luck and deft movement avoids them all.
For
this meeting, Nexus is back, and he surveys the area through a wide portal over
the golf course. Jane caddies
again, but this time as a white young person, while Sammy continues his
character. Laughton drops some
hints to let Grossenbacher understand there’s a bug in his home so he’ll
“realize” why he was told to hang up, as Grossenbacher of course brings it
up. He prepares later meetings for
Starbucks and other crowded places. Nexus
crafts some samples to serve as a Trojan horse – using bits of the Punisher
provided by Jane’s romp. Nexus is
sure to teleport to a hole before they arrive, leaving an arcane, complex note
for Laughton to see via leaves of grass’ arrangement, performing this all
invisibly. During the game, Nexus
sees a person picking up things from the ground, and apparently picking up the
red herring, but also possibly samples of Sammy.
Nexus, appearing as a regular person, bumps into him, and manages to
transform his samples of Sammy into the Punisher as well.
Nexus hopes his ruse works....that DEXTER is too unaware of the ways of
dimensional magic-science…
Laughton
does more probing as the game goes on. He
gives veiled non-threats that can be perceived to be threats, and taunts with
hints and clues to see what rattles out of the man.
Nexus puts on sunglasses and strolls in and out from the woods as he
teleports in and out, and further summons dead animals and buzzards to circle a
half mile away, so as to be visible while they play!
Nexus
and Laughton communicate extremely carefully, Nexus using a payphone to buzz
Laughton’s cell phone, in vibrate mode, to send a Morse code sort of signal
that Laughton will understand.
And
Laughton engages in further portfolio manipulation via Grossenbacher.
He picks some more shadow-controlled ABC companies for him to mess with.
And as he converses (GM note – rolling a 3, in a tradition of using
them on the less significant skill checks!), trolling to determine how they
worked in the past without actually giving up that he doesn’t know, he finds
that DEXTER has, aside from the telephone, circuitously used financial and HR
systems to shuttle data to Grossenbacher.
Finally,
Nexus spends time following where the observation cameras are feeding data.
He traces a route into the ABC mainframe, and later Laughton and Nexus
conspire to make a virus to introduce into the mainframe.
They hear something about this later on the news, as it is reported that
a virus got into the ABC mainframe, introducing a “near meltdown” but was
promptly defeated after some nervous moments.
That
same weekend, in fact that evening, it’s time for Sammy’s party to benefit
the Metal Men’s neighborhood and help them fit in.
Sammy is on vocals and rhythm guitar, Jane is on backup vocals and lead
guitar, Sihn is on keyboards, Velda on backup vocals. Mercury was late to agree to take part on stage, but an
off-hand joke about Freddie Mercury gets the impulsive robot to join, and so all
the Metal Men are on stage, with the rest performing as actual instruments while
Mercury sings after an Elvis introductory set by Sammy and before the main
event. Laughton assists by working
the mixer, spending an hour to learn all about audio and music theory.
Sammy has an elaborate stage show devised, playing off the superhero rock
band idea with massive pyrotechnics and gestures.
As
the main show is well in play, suddenly a form of electromagnetic pulse goes off
and the Metal Men are completely disabled!
Simultaneously, other electrical gear, including most of Laughton’s
devices, fails. And (not really
unsurprisingly) the Justice Squad is attacked – by January Victory! who
(mostly) drop through the ceiling and onto the stage. Beholder slashes his way through a person near the stage,
killing them instantly.
Spasm’s
vine-like appendages reach out against Jane and Platinum (who was Jane’s
guitar),
and Jane dives for cover under the drums (Iron) with Platinum, but is
still knocked out cold. Black
Diamond surfs through the sky and smacks his surfboard-like device into Sammy,
hurting him. T’suara manifests
and moves over the stage. The
Beholder crashes to the floor and deftly moves against Nexus, slicing into him
as he resolves to spread his “pretty dimensional energy.”
Choke Chain, Death, and Octal Fist drop and gets into position.
As
the battle begins in earnest, Nexus waves his hands and reaches through a portal
as all hear a musical refrain of “It’s a Small World After All,” and the
Legion of Pumpkin Eaters (as he now calls them, the small vicious butt-like
beings) swarm out and cover much of the stage and more. T’suara hits Choke
Chain with his transformation ability as she tries to strike Nexus, noting he
has only a small effect as she is of unusual life force.
She then whips her chain around Nexus, entangling him.
They
hear Spasm snarl, “Buncha wimps, buncha weaklings,” and T’suara
communicates “Like a big diesel truck, we start off slow and have a lot of
momentum.” Spasm seems disturbed
in general by T’suara’s very existence.
Sammy
spits out acid in the area of the Beholder, Death, and Choke Chain, though
Beholder taunts Sammy with, “Pain…I like it…”
The burning acid slowly dissolves through their defenses.
T’suara
reacts quickly to turn Nexus into dust so that he is out of the entanglement and
Sammy spreads the dust as he holds his breath. And the Pumpkin Eaters spread havoc, attacking January
Victory! although those in the area of the dust are turned into fuzzy plush
pumpkins. Spasm leaps away from the
area of the dust. Beholder thinks
he is unconcerned with the dust as he and Choke Chain are engulfed in it.
Death is as well, though he is unaffected while Choke Chain and Beholder
both start to live their nightmares – she (Choke Chain) experiences a violent
rape while Beholder begins to cut himself as he experiences a tragedy that was
done to his family and is heard crying out “Esmerelda!” as he weeps.
Despite Spasm’s leap, he has not escaped the dust, and is stunned as he
tries to escape an imaginary cage and thrashes helplessly against a wall.
Black Diamond sends his surfboard into the dust cloud, trying to knock
Platinum out of it as they intend to steal at least one of the Metal Men,
but he misses in the confusion despite his immense skill.
Still, his surfboard moves through to the other side as he leaps to it.
The
dust cloud moves and Choke Chain comes to.
T’suara drops the cloud and Nexus reemerges, teleporting himself a
distance away, towards the crowd so he can work his magic from a less dangerous
position. Death tries to strike
T’suara, but misses (GM note – 18!) and accidentally nearly hits Choke
Chain. She becomes enraged at him
and pauses to “casually” strike at him and tell him, “You don’t ever
touch me!” Spasm also regains his
senses. Death says to Choke Chain,
“This time it’s on me,” leaving it as a veiled threat for any “next
time,” and wanting to keep the team together to defeat the Justice Squad.
Sammy
rescues Jane and Platinum, taking them from the scene as well as aiding Jane.
Beholder
throws his knife at T’suara but doesn’t quite affect the alien (though he
comes close).
Meanwhile,
a quiet figure moves through the room, getting into position – it’s Alice,
Queen of Hearts, the leader of January Victory!
Half
of the Pumpkin Eaters are instructed by Nexus to move the bystanders away, which
they do, as others also become active as the dust cloud moves away.
As
Nexus heals Sammy, Platinum, and Jane in an area,
Spasm
grabs Lead (the keyboard) and launches it at Nexus. He misses, but kills a couple people and seriously hurts
several others.
Beholder
pauses to take Gold (the other guitar) and begin to slice him into ribbons,
horribly mutilating and damaging the robot, almost killing him in one blow!
T’suara
meanwhile turns to his Clockwork form, and is being wound by Sammy.
Jane
entangles Black Diamond as he flies by, though he is in mid-air and not affixed
to anything.
Clockwork
is wound and his chest cannon fires, a life-force-sapping energy projecting in a
wide cone towards the stage, reducing how much some of January Victory! can take
(GM note - reducing STUN) and transferring it into Clockwork’s energy
reserves. The Pumpkin Eaters caught
in the blast are mostly knocked out.
Sammy
strikes at Choke Chain, barely hitting but not having much affect on her with
his acidic spit.
Nexus
then spots
The
big buzz-saw on Clockwork moves into operation and he moves to the stage,
slashing at Beholder and Choke Chain though they remain standing and try to
escape through the ceiling, with the help apparently of Octal Fist who has
remained around for support.
Nexus
concentrates on finding Black Diamond, and as he studies he finds that the
figure has moved to the roof, as he’s moving through a dark diamond dimension
intersecting Earth which Nexus is aware of.
Nexus then shoots at
Jane
tries to spout her own acid into the area of Beholder and Choke Chain, but
misses.
Black
Diamond reappears, considering grabbing
Clockwork
moves through the crowd (most of which is down or fleeing) and hits the ceiling
with an explosion where Beholder, Death, and Choke Chain have made off.
Beholder, though, takes no damage and looks interested as well as
somewhat confused, asking, strangely, “What are you doing?”
Death falls off the stage, then goes immaterial to escape further
strikes. Choke Chain is knocked
out.
Jane
manages to entangle Beholder in goo, but he has Gold and continues to slash at
him despite this. Just in time,
Nexus summons an attack, pure fear-mongering from the Fear Plane, against
Beholder. This saves Gold’s life
just in time, and Beholder’s eyes go wide as he declares, “This
is…DELIGHTFUL!” then screams and drops.
January
Victory! is falling apart. A
skulking invisible and desolid Octal Fist is found, and Nexus smacks his mind.
Clockwork smashes through a wall to finish off Octal Fist.
Nexus
quickly works to save the lifes of the couple people killed in the last few
seconds. He recharges their brains
and restarts impulses, then grabs their souls before they are out of his
immediate reach, restoring them to their bodies.
One person goes on to speak of a white light, while the other denies any
such thing – suitable for each, as one was headed to their believed heaven and
the other into a limbo. Nexus also
gets back the woman killed early by Beholder, finding her talking to her
relatives as she seems to be entering heaven; he’s worried she won’t go
back, and apologizes profusely, but she readily accepts it’s not her time.
Sihn then heals them, and magically creates a t-shirt saying, “I got
killed by super-villains and all I got was this stinkin’ t-shirt,” which he
signs. He is relieved to find no
one else in the crowd was killed – it was feared as the EMP initially used
would have shut off pacemakers.
Immediately,
Nexus contacts
They
then interrogate Alice, who seems eager to talk, at least to some degree.
She was aware of Vision, and had
planned to impress everyone, using
January Victory! to get one of the Metal Men to use for study and devise a plan
to finally trap Vision. Her knowledge isn’t deeper than the Justice Squad’s,
though. As
Nexus
adds, “Sure would be bad to stuck in prison with Octal Fist – can’t think
of anything worse than 50 years with him.”
Laughton
says, “You could stay with Medusa. She’s
lonely, she’s written me letters.”
Alice
looks concerned and says, “I hope you’re joking.”
Laughton
says flatly, “I don’t joke.”
He
says, “What do you think?”
She
replies, “I think she’s mad!” Laughton
confirms with a knowing look.
Lisa
Walters, already on the scene, asks Jane if she’s a new member of the Justice
Squad. Laughton quickly interjects
a flat “no,” but Nexus gives it half a thought and whimsically says,
“sure.” Jane gets her word in,
but just defers to the others as Sammy gives a definitive, “Yeah!”
Lisa
then asks how she joined. Jane
explains she was wandering the streets aimlessly, homeless and becoming really
sick, then meeting with Dr. Sihn, who cured her.
She mentions Sammy is her mate, and, as Jane talks more, Lisa gushes,
“That’s so romantic!”
As
the “human interest” interview takes over from the conflict story, Nexus
gathers the fallen foes into a pile for the authorities.
Mayor
Nexus
and Laughton interview Octal Fist. Octal
sneers, “Almost had you,” and Nexus laughs as he says, “Just like last
time,” referring to his repeated failure.
Laughton grins as he adds, “Yeah, you had us in the palm of your
hand.”
Angrily
Octal Fist vows “Black Diamond will show you, he’s gonna break us out!”
Nexus
says, “We’re gunning for Black Diamond.”
Laughton
looks at Octal Fist, and, hinting at turning him into stone and leaving him in
the river, says, “Do you swim really well?”
Octal Fist just petulantly retorts, “Better than you!”
Nexus
says, “Did you know we flipped a coin to figure out who would go after you?”
At
what he takes as an implied compliment, Octal Fist drops his contrived toughness
and asks, incredulously, “No you didn’t?”
Nexus
laughs and says, “Sure, you’re an easy notch, man!” He produces notes with marks on it, and says, “Here’s the
first one, here’s the next time…” as he shows each of Octal Fist’s
defeats up through the current one, along with many other notches for downed
villains.
Octal
Fist tries to save face and keep his tough guy presence, and adds, “Well,
I’m memorable, obviously.”
Nexus
says, “Yes, you know the finishing blow against Octal Fist is gonna be against
his back!”
Nexus
and Laughton can see that Octal Fist’s eyes are twitching and his tear ducts
filling and are sure he’s fighting crying!
Laughton
says, “Maybe everybody else will be lucky and you’ll be in solitaire.
Maybe they’ll line you and Lizard King up – though he’d be lucky
not to hear your sniveling. Hey, it sounds like a new sit-com on FOX!”
As
Laughton goes on to point out Octal Fist had to bring a bunch of friends to the
fight., Nexus adds that if Octal Fist actually had more friends maybe he
wouldn’t be in this situation.
Octal
Fist clams up. Just to goad
further, Laughton says, “I guess I have the last word.”
Octal Fist struggles to keep silent and maintain some tiny nugget of
respect.
While
some media was there, many barely had a view of events, none saw the
dead-and-resurrected folk, and the electronic equipment couldn’t record due to
the EMP. Nexus immediately works to
clean up the scene before the rest of the media arrives and/or the cameras start
rolling again. He casts spells to
send the blood and such off to another dimension as he cures those wounded.
Major damage is immediately repaired, and it’s made to look like a
small fight, taking it, as Nexus explains, “from R to PG.”
Lisa Walters’ gushing account of the Justice Squad (whom she now views
as friends as well as sources of information she can cultivate) mostly
complements his reworking. Overall,
those eye-witness accounts which are truthful now appear as exaggerated, and the
“I got killed…” t-shirts look like a light-hearted treatment of being
momentarily knocked out. The
Justice Squad takes the device that
They
wrap up. Nexus, magically summoning
a commanding presence, gives a quaint but effective congratulatory closing
speech from the stage, saying, “Without the support of
Wilting
Rose shows up at the end of the show, and she talks with the Justice Squad.
As she’s given an all-you-can-eat coupon, Laughton points out the menu
is limited to baloney and Kool-Aid, each served hot or cold.
She doesn’t think he’s serious, but he is, and Nexus points out
it’s a tourism thing.
Turning
to more serious matters, they tell Wilting Rose of the importance of finding
Death and Black Diamond, as well as catching up and exchanging information on
Vision. Laughton encourages her to
use his beeper (she’s one of a tiny handful of people who have such access).
And
the evening comes to an end with Sammy continuing a relatively low-key party for
the Metal Men’s neighborhood at their place.
[Game Mechanics - Points Awarded...
The
Punisher is met and dealt with, and the situation is taken care of this time (I
suspect more interaction in the long-term given the sample-dropping and Jane’s
new relationship), and it was about even (whole situation), but not enough color
- +3.75 RP, +.25 XP for Laughton, Sammy
Establishing
a tie to a world-renowned super – RP goes to Sammy as that character
“includes” Jane for this sort of thing - +26.25 RP for Sammy
Further
infiltration and attack against DEXTER, enemies plans are thwarted but it
isn’t over against THE BIG BAD - +26.25 RP, +1.75 XP for Laughton, Nexus,
Sammy
January
Victory! is torn asunder, enemy is taken care of this time (leaving it at this
level for Black Diamond and Death getting away) and it was tough, a worthy
challenge - +13.125 RP, +.875 XP for Laughton, Nexus, Sammy
A few
specific awards:
Jane,
+9 XP for +3 Skill Levels (any three related skills) for Seduction, KS:
Erotica, and PS: Erotica (represents not just this issue but her time spent);
+3 XP to establish PS: Erotica (DEX-based),
+3 XP to establish KS: Erotica (INT-based);
NB – Seduction levels relate to sexually-related Seduction (Jane’s total
award = 15 XP for these, to be clear)
Laughton, +6 XP for PS: Golf (DEX-based)
with +3 levels
Nexus, +6 XP to establish INT-based KS: Bubble
Beings and add +3 levels (again, relates to other work on this)
Sammy, +3 XP to establish Bureaucratics
Justice
Squad Ensemble, most characters (in general, Sammy’s been working on this a
long time!) receives +5 XP for establishing “PS: JS Music Band” (DEX-based for simplicity) and +2 levels;
this builds in coordination and such (includes Laughton, Neumann, Nexus, and
Sammy; also includes Jane; excludes Spectrum due to her stage shyness)
Note
Jane’s awards = +4 XP to Sammy for Jane (her XP/5)
7.5
hours - +5.625 RP, +1.875 XP for Laughton, Sammy
4.5 hours – +3.375 RP, +1.125 XP for Nexus
Totals:
Laughton
48.75 RP, 10.75 XP
Neumann 0 RP, 5 XP
Nexus 42.75, 9.75 XP
Sammy 75 RP, 11.75 XP
Totals to Date:
Dice
188.5 RPs, 14.95 XPs
Laughton 2410.275 RPs, 243.625 XPs (with Rep level, 50 for base, 25 for minion,
50 for reorg (note, did not use for agency or life-saving)
Neumann 945 RPs, 143.95 XPs (with Rep level, 50 for base, 25 for minion)
Nexus 2486.525 RPs, 242.025 XPs (with Rep level, 50 for base, 25 for
minion, 50 for reorg (note, did not use for agency or life-saving)
Sammy the Slime 2352.65 RPs, 227.3625 XPs (with Rep level, 50 for base, 25
for minion, 50 for reorg (note, did not use for agency or life-saving)
Spectrum 2178.025 RPs, 190.675 XPs (with Rep level, 50 for base, 25 for
minion, 50 for reorg (note, did not use for agency or life-saving)
Steely Danelle 86 RPs, 10.75 XPs]]