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OOC Thread Influence Sheet "Brilliant! These Sinister Summer limited issues have been a rousing success!" Nick Dixon is thoroughly pleased with himself, shining an apple to a raw gleam on his suspenders and pinstripes as he leans back, looking at his utterly mortified staff, who don't have the heart to say whats on their mind, but he's quick to rouse it out of them. "Well then, don't just sit there looking like a room of stiffs! What's next for Infinity Comics?" "Well, sir, we've lost the initiative. Yami Jump is already about to release their second weekly in the genre, and there's a few more already in the work. This was just a limited release, and while MurderDome was very successful in the summer, we've got nothing coming out of the holiday season to make use of the new properties." Dixon chewed on this, and then stared. "Look, just slap together the eight best-selling of the limited runs and let's do a big team-up event." "Well, we've been working actually on a weekly of our own, two of them! Mr. Nebster wanted to go for something called Dirty Deeds Done Cheap..." "We can't afford that kind of licensing," Marketing was quick to chime in. "Atropha was thinking something more anti-villain, like the Defiants. Same kind of anti-authority charm but a bit more pointed..." Dixon cut right back in. "I don't care, put both of the ideas together." "Sir!?" "Just slap it all together. You've got a week to put out a weekly. I don't care how you get it done, just do it. I want to see Sinister Summer type numbers on my desk by the end of the quarter!" And well, that was that.   Tricky Dick Nixon fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Dec 27, 2016 |
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Dec 27, 2016 01:57
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Expectations
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MC Moves
 The Placeholding Zapper, a Crook, first appearing in Sinister Summer #1, written by paradoxGentleman!          Villain: Disembodied Duo Villain: Old Scratch Villain: Bouncing Betty Villain: Madame Mode Villain: Counter Culture Supplemental: The Modern Marvels Villain: Lord Playfair Villain: The Childlike Emperor Villain: Her  MurderDome Graduate Rankings 1. ... 1399 ... The Defiant D4C ... 2. ... 1356 ... Masters of Disaster ... 3. ... 1144 ... Future Marauders of America ... 4. ... 0780 ... Lost Boys Corps ... 5. ... 0554 ... The Terror Tribe ... The Defiant D4C Rankings 1. ... 180 ... Blackguard ... 2. ... 178 ... Copycat ... 3. ... 177 ... 4. ... 175 ... Dark Eagle ... 5. ... 174 ... S.T.R.A.I.N. ... 6. ... 174 ... Möbius ... 7. ... 170 ... Zapper ... 8. ... 160 ... The Centipede ... Tricky Dick Nixon fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Dec 27, 2016 |
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Dec 27, 2016 01:58
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Never feel obligated for a certain post length or quality. It's more important to keep momentum, and also, have fun.
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   Opening: City of La Reina, West Coast of North America. Astroplasm Cafe. Day after X-mas. (All)Here's a secret about being a villain: Everyone expects you to break the rules. The fact that they card at Astroplasm only means they want to see how well your IDs are forged. Your "golden ticket" is your real ID, in a place like this. It's a villains' club, and for a bunch of young Turks like yourselves, this is you "arriving." Now, the fact none of you have fake IDs means that it's primarily a hefty bribe from Melody's trust fund that provides the "cover charge" for your entrance, but that's neither here nor there. You've got a wide selection of fruity drinks (of course villains drink insanely complicated fruity cocktails, who do you think we are?) served by the staff, the place owned by the "Star Spectress" herself, though she just goes by Noemi nowadays. It's clear that it caters to a younger crowd, with arcade boxes and air hockey tables, and pumping the latest Top 100 singles too-loud through the speakers. It's almost pointedly kind of overwrought, as if to put into contrast all the villains in costume. Oh yeah, that's one of the rules that don't get broken, being as they are unwritten but somewhat enforced. One, you show up in costume. You are playing a role here, being part of the mask.  So what kind of costume exactly do you wear for this occasion?Two, no smoking. Seriously, nobody wants that crap (there is a lot of vaping though). And finally, no second bananas. Minions, henchmen, pets (though somehow Jailbird is so far evading too much notice, lucky bastard) are to be left behind, mainly just to keep people from rolling in with their full entourages and making a mess and expecting a "ten finger discount" that is more popular at less reputable establishments where showing up in force can get you what you want. Astroplasm ain't upscale, though. It's exactly what it appears to be. And right now, it's where you are planning your next caper. You don't have a secret lair, or some hidden place to do so. Not yet. Maybe you'll be changing that soon, but for right now? You've got a private booth that is insulated from the pounding music. That isn't to say you won't be interrupted by the local young adult villains looking to pick on the weak, but unlike most fresh meat you showed up together. That's why almost all Youth Union villains end up in an alliance like yours: Strength in numbers. Its not usually until they're ready to step out as a true threat to the world that they start trying to make it on their own, so you've got the same bullshit cliquishness and tribalism here as well. It just happens that you're all freaks, and that's a little liberating to think about. Is there anyone you sneak a glance at that you were hoping to see? Anyone you were hoping to miss?You've got a few things on your plate. First being what the do with the silver chalice: Fence it? Keep it as a trophy? You'll need somewhere to put it, which is the second problem. You don't have a base of operations. M.A.D.D. has a program for requisitioning a lair, but the paperwork is egregious and the line long, and Youth Union members automatically get lower priority. A true villain, besides, steals a lair. The third thing of course is the Black Iris. It's a hot item, just like the chalice, but it could be used to someone's advantage. Whether you choose to hold onto that hot potato or not, now is the time for a plan. There's also the less major, but still problematic fact that nobody's seen Dark Eagle since the debrief back at MurderDome. What do you do? Zapper: Despite the fact that your sponsor is literally the most infamous villain of all time, you haven't actually met her, and it doesn't seem to bring any special privileges. At least, that's what it seemed like until very recently, when you found a letter in your things. Written in that blue ink and flowery hand, it didn't have to be signed for you to know exactly who it was from. However, it didn't tell you very much: It gave you a time, and a street address, somewhere in the city you are currently in, La Reina, on the western seaboard. It's in a week's time. What do you think it could mean, and what part, if any, do you see it playing in the caper? Centipede: Ever since you got back from your second trip into villainy on this first caper, Rosie's been asking a lot of questions. She's starting to ask about who you've been meeting at camp. Distressingly, she's mentioned there's been some requisitioned equipment that's been noticed missing. What have you been feeding her as a cover story? More importantly, how do you think you can work into this caper a way to have her distracted from you and Zapper's side-venture? STRAIN: Your efforts to find evidence of your origin and how to use it to your advantage have been frustrated by a problem. The bioelectrical energy your nanites feed off of is starting to wear a bit on your body. Your intense metabolism has so far kept the, well, strain down, but you've become increasingly unwell. In fact, you are sick, in a way that you have never experienced! Mark the Afraid condition, as you frankly have difficulty processing this, but at the same time, it might also be fascinating. What possibilities do you see in this? Do you think using such vectors might be a means to upgrade your own efforts? And how the hell do you cure the common cold? Blackguard: Your spectacular performance against the Night Hunter didn't go unnoticed. Ol' Scratch meant what he said, and he said that if you impressed him, firing on all cylinders, he'll give you a lead on the Triad. He says that that there is a secret base underneath the city of La Reina here on the western seaboard, and you might have suggested to Melody that this is where you could meet for that reason. Thing is, the place could be a deathtrap, and actually cracking in might be a bit too much for right now, but maybe some other players in the area know something about it. What else did he tell you? What else have you found out on your own? And what are you going to do about it? Möbius: Something you neglected to mention to the others was that Zeitgeist works with the Mystic Force on a fair few occasions, as a sort of mentor and support figure to that arcane-oriented supergroup. You know quite a bit about them: Who their current leader is, their base on the western seaboard (which has some topomantic portals that might be of interest to you), even something a little more useful, namely the archvillain they currently have imprisoned under their base. You can answer any of these questions now, or later, but more importantly, do you share any of this with the rest? You should also read's Melody's prompt for... reasons. Copycat: The Black Iris is now yours, or maybe the group as a whole, but everyone knows it was you that took it (where have you been keeping it, anyway?) and thus you've got some privileged access. Thing is, do you even know what it does? It's not an Asset, that's for sure, but surely you had some idea before you took it... Didn't you? Maybe not. It's yours now, and unlike that silver chalice, it's not gonna be something particularly easy to fence or get rid of. But let me ask you this, why did you go out of your way to steal this in the first place? Melody: You have managed to not have that skin-crawling freak get you alone yet, but while you've been dodging your new legal guardian, your previous one you just got "emancipated" from has started to already butt into your life. Lord Stanley Howler is someone she knew personally, so going after someone like that means she has taken it upon herself to check in. And somehow, she chose one of the worst people to do it with: Dear Johnathan Grayscale, good ol' Knobstradamus over there. Your mother contacted him, and told him something about yourself that he can now hold over you, and you just know it wasn't inadvertent. What could your mother possibly have told Möbius that puts you out of all sorts? Möbius now has Influence over you. Dark Eagle: You're a little tied up at the moment. You decided to do the lone wolf thing, as you always had, just you and Sundown. Your sponsor, Betty, found you a target: A cache of personal explosives that you will gain as an Asset. However, you are on the run from some very bad mothers. Who are these people, what did you do to piss them off, and how were they able to keep you from meeting up with the team until now?This is the Planning Phase. Each of you may choose to propose a caper, second someone else's proposal, or abstain. After 72 hours, or after everyone has chosen one of those three, whichever comes first, there'll be a quick vote to see which of the caper suggestions is taken, at which point I'll draft the Planks and we'll get started proper. Tricky Dick Nixon fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Dec 27, 2016 |
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Dec 27, 2016 01:59
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 Astroplasm Cafe, La Reina, Today (all but Dark Eagle)First panel: There's a moment of silence as there's three sides laid out, after the rather disconcerting action by the Centipede to draw everything back into the fold. Most are somewhere in the middle, trying to find where the two plans are best sorted. Copycat lounging across a couch with Jailbird licking himself quite keenly, who has the Black Iris in question hidden within the panel on his collar, Zapper drinking through her bendy straw, and STRAIN sneezing into her helmet, hands cupped in front of the rebreather. Second panel: The magniloquent Melody is held fast to by her goon/girlfriend Blackguard, especially after the Addams Family move, who looms over the whole conversation, obviously the tendrils of fear moving through it. And of the two, it was Melody that made the most sincere effort to try and reason out those to come to her side, looking a mixture of satisfied and vaguely irritated. Third panel: Möbius looks absolutely livid, shaking with his power, as the Centipede tries to play the cool cucumber but also ends up looking like his skin is crawling, which I mean it more or less was doing there for just a second but that's neither here nor there. The lines in the sand were drawn, but nobody is coming to blows over them... unless someone wants to press it. Splash: A view of the whole table, everything simmering from that near confrontation. It was clear at this point a few lines had been drawn, and terrible dark shapes exuding from the Centipede flank everyone, just off-panel. This is not necessarily a democracy, but a consensus needs to be reached. There's a few middle of the road options given, but a few people are trying to show loyalty and there's two major egos at play here. Really at this point it's less a question of what but who. Four proposals are in, time for voting. Royal Rose proposes capturing the Nexus Bastion having co-opted STRAIN's suggestion of literally stealing it and changing its location. Möbius proposes liberating Silver Myrmidon and getting a Brass Juggernaut for the trouble. Perhaps unintentionally, Zapper: So it's become increasingly clear that you are representing the middle of the road there, and that puts a point on things: If they do decide to go with going for both, that means you're more or less in charge! A mastermind! Is that gratifying, or terrifying? Or both? Copycat has a bit of an out for you: She wants to use the Black Iris, and her plan might save you from the responsibility. There's still the unresolved matter of what Her letter will amount to, with everything you know here. You can still vote anyway you like, but you should make it clear where you're gonna fall now. STRAIN: You have a unique influence over some of the group if you allow yourself to use it. Most importantly, your nanites infect both Melody and Copycat's phones (and their blood, but they don't need to know that either), and thus you have access to their social networks and what they know. Most interestingly, you know that both know a few things that they haven't shared. For instance, Melody's mother Queen Nicole and Gehannah trade recipes on social networks, implying much more familiarity than she's letting on. Likewise, Copycat has been receiving texts from some kind of mole, with references to the ANA (which you are pretty sure means "All-New Allstars" and not "All Nippon Airways), feeding her info on the Mystic Force. What, if anything, do you intend to do with this information, gained by your Contagion? Möbius: She's not wrong, and that is perhaps more infuriating than anything else. Having a specific thing to ask of the Myrmidon will likely help get you a running start, and he generally doesn't target individuals or even teams so much as localities... But he will likely be more rival and competitor for the same spaces. There is one other thing as well: People have been suggesting that you transport the castle, teleport it completely. And I mean... That's possible, of course. Completely within your capabilities... But it will require a tremendous amount of magical energy. Where might you be able to find that? Blackguard: It's not really just the fact you can get under Wilbur's skin that makes him the meat. It's that he reminds you of your own terrifying powers. That stunt he just pulled is something out of a horror movie, like yourself. And of course, the stench of death all around him. So why doesn't he just freaking loosen up a bit? This whole Future Business Leader of America, Secretary-Treasurer shtick is wearing a bit thin. Maybe, there's a different approach that you could take other than using fear. But are you confident enough in yourself to mess with someone in any other way than that? Melody: Yes, the castle would make a fine forward fortress against Avalon, reclaiming your kingdom, yadda yadda. But you know why you know so much about Bastion? You lived there, once. I mean, Gehannah is practically a great-aunt to you. You've had her ginger snaps. and they are delicious. You know Christopher, Xenia, even Jerome. Hell, you learned a fair bit of what you know about magic from these people. Likewise, they know a fair bit about you. Paralyzing fear of large dogs included, but other things as well. They probably aren't expecting you to come in, but is there a reason in particular you haven't mentioned this? Just holding off for the right time? Or is there something compelling enough to not want to have the rest of the team know about this? Centipede: So, that went well. However, this fixation on the Mystic Force presents a small problem: You kind of hoped this would turn out to be a big distraction for Rosie's investigations, but your own desire to keep it a bit on the down-low is kind of playing against that. You need to have the Centipede make an appearance, and go loud for once, if you want her attention drawn away. It's gotta be something that goes beyond the Mystic Force. Releasing the Silver Myrmidon is going to make huge waves, but people are gonna be paying more attention to the archvillain than the crazy kids that let him loose. What is your plan so far to make sure that your hundred little pawprints are all over this mess you're about to make? Copycat: Nobody seemed to hear your suggestion of using the Iris. Whether just buried amid all the other talk, or the egos, it's hard to say, but the option is still there on the table. However, there is one thing you can offer they'll have to listen to: Your contract gave you access via your phone to the M.A.D.D. Field Guide to Metahumans, and the FGM confirms more or less what Melody said about the Myrmidon, but reveals something else: He's one of the Fingers of the Steel Hand, which means he's willing to work with others, but also... We're talking major league villainy here. You also can check up on and share details about the Mystic Force, but there's something that's not here in the FGM, that you can choose whether or not tos hare, that Dayknight told you about one of the members. What was that? How does it complicate everyone's plans here?       Respectively, Gehannah. Christopher Knight, Jerome Shango, Lord Stanley "Silverfang" Howler, Xenia Fathoms. The Mystic Force is the premier team for following up on supernatural threats. While Pagan from the Modern Marvels keeps the barriers between the Green World and ours protected, the Mystic Force is more concerned with whats here on the material plane, and what gets through. Their leader, a premier demonologist, is a trickster by nature, and has helped make grand strides towards taming the inhabitants of the Negaverse and bringing them closer to our own, more interested in creating harmony than destroying. Christopher Knight represents the more mailed fist of the group, but he's just as accomplished a magician, though few can compare to the elemental power of Jerome Shango, who had a short stint as a villain once. You've all met Lord Howler, and his falling to drink is a statement on all these adults, far out of their prime now. Yet Xenia Fathoms, trained by Queen Atlanta and using magitechnology as a savant, represents in a way their desire to train the future. She trained Kid Nova, and there are three other junior members as well: Ghostface and Tween Twitch, as mentioned, and also someone called the Imp...  Back at the Warehouse District (Dark Eagle)Full page splash: Running full tilt as you abscond from the scene, you kind of wish you had that cape right about now, to shield a bit from the spotlight that hits you dead on, framing your silhouette against the skin along with Sundown's wingspan, which protects you as the cape might be. It's really the perfect shot, letting them know who it was that passed through, while giving them no chance to deal with it as with a click, the stun grenade goes off and with a flash, you disappear, leaving only a picture in their minds. You yourself can only remember how ridiculous Brown Suit's hair looked, lit up by the flashbang. Next page: The panels show your circuitous path through the alleyways, only to eventually stop at a voice. "Psst. Hey, you."  Panel: Perched like a gargoyle on one of the lampposts, an impish, demonic looking teenage grins with pierced lips, eyes glowing yellow as a scent of sulfur fills the air. "Going somewhere?" It's quickly apparent that she is after whatever you took with you. And in the next panel, with a *PIMPF* she disappears in a cloud of smoke, and with a burst of brimstone appears clinging to the window above you, for a better angle for "conversation." Dark Eagle: If you were expecting however someone to reach out and take you, that hasn't come in. As far as you know, the rest of the team might even know where you are! You know that whatever you took, in addition to the cache of explosives, is something that this little imp wants. You could easily throw it aside, but you might also get some information out of her. What did you abscond with, and what do you do with it? The Google Doc can cover a one on one conversation, ending whenever you Make a Move, or we can do it over IRC. Also as a note, you basically have narrative control here when you want to rejoin the others. You just send a message to Möbius and he can bring you in, or honestly with your abscond roll you can get away from Imp here, despite her teleportation powers, rather easily. Mainly, just providing means for you to be doing your own thing since you might be busy over finals.
Tricky Dick Nixon fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Dec 28, 2016 |
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Dec 28, 2016 21:47
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Astroplasm Cafe, La Reina, Day after X-mas (All) "Slow down now, I'm still catching up. He called you a what?" The voice seems to slide into panel, out from out of it, and what you see is hard to describe as anything more than a sliding, almost cartoonishly colored fox, but with sharp. sharp teeth in a grin, with bright orange and white fur, sliding into frame and stalking around, quite large. His impossibly long body, spatially set such that he seems in two places at once, bends out of this frame and into the next panel, that shows you the group that's been called over by your altercation: The Masters of Disaster themselves, obviously flush off a mighty win. Panel: Five of the eight not counting the fox are present, and they don't all look unfriendly, but definitely getting a bad impression. If anything, they looks like they're having fun as Sia's "Cheap Thrills" plays over the speakers, almost tauntingly considering their haul. Shadowboxer is somehow the most egregious, decked out in bling and shutter shades with a grin as she finger-guns in Blackguard's direction, but Holograftic, especially in comparison to the animus in the ground, is playing backup to Shadowboxer back to back and wearing similar, with painfully angled platformed heels and neon-colored fingernails. Even Atom Smasher, kind of a dork by Zapper's estimation, is looking flash with his leather and fur coat from the Arsene Lupin IV collection, though with his mask retracted he seems... disappointed with what he's seeing more than relishing in the moment. Likewise with Son of Dracula, in his warlock collar and his back to the rest of the group, hands in his pockets and only a glower of his pale visage on occasion, looking like he's enjoying this place exactly how much you could expect. Lady Circe is the only one to go without any accouterments, and with her flaming blue hair and eyes she loudly states with her arms crossed. "Ugh, can we not? The last thing I want is to have more reasons to stick around this corrupt and weak edifice of man's civilization." Next panel: "You know," Reynardine continues, despite Circe's protestations, "they all were telling me how it was just a fluke you fell into that Silverfang caper, but I wasn't so sure. You all seemed pretty cool back at MurderDome, but now," the long fox whistles long and sharply through its bared teeth, its glowing green eyes narrowing as it winds about the table, behind each of you in not too dissimilar a fashion as Centipede's previous caper. "You should take a card from this cool cat over here, always away and above it all." Arriving at Copycat's location, and in the next panel he's no longer a fox but a red-haired human with shining green eyes, leaning over on the back of the couch. "Hello Whiskers~." Panel: "Hey, you can all party with us," Shadowboxer offers genially. "We just got off a robbery of the Global Reserve. Enough ingots of unobtainium to buy a small country." She lays a pile of postcards to some Carribean locale in Blackguard and Melody's lap. "So I bought one. It's real romantic, maybe you can finally introduce me to this ball and chain that you're always thinking about instead of where your shadow is." Leaning in and looking past Delilah at the fuming Melody. "She could use the cool off. And don't worry about Lilith, she's gonna be busy over Spring Break back at Closetland. You should go say hi to her, Rose." Next panel: Across the room, away from where the two groups had converged, Poppetmaster, the diminuitive little Negaverse tyrant, has an effigy of a red-haired fae in a dress that is quite fetching, especially in how similar it is to the one that Melody is wearing right now. She has an over-sized needle in her hand, and appears to be stabbing it repeatedly with a dull expression on her face, having been staring holes into the back of Royal Rose's head this whole time. Solitaire is in the booth over, back to where the rest of the group had been, rolling his eyes as he shuffles her deck. Ironic, that the counterparts to the two egos that had dominated the conversation over here were visibly apart. Panel: "Lay off it Reynar. They're planning right now." Splash: They are circled around you like a flock of diamond-encrusted vultures. Shadowboxer harassing Rose and Blackguard, Holograftic rolling her eyes at her flank, Circe staring at you all like so much transfigurable meat, Son of Dracula sort of gloomily hovering and keeping his mouth behind his way out of style collar, Atom Smasher looking a little out of place as well but not about to not give in to peer pressure, and Reynardine being his usual... self. Very suddenly, you have something external, rather than the internal conflicts to respond to. Melody: Your mother always told you one thing: Never let them see it get to you. That was one of the first lessons of nobility she even told you. Yours was to have a stiff upper lip, and show yourself the better person. And frankly, up until that point, you were the better person, compared to Jonathan who couldn't help himself, trying to be perfectly reasonable. Now that you let your real face come out, none of that matters. You know instinctively that the only thing they saw was you blow up, and Poppetmaster's grudge aside, you can tell the one they were laughing at was you. Mark Insecure. It's a bit past time to save face, but you've got a chance here to show yourself a real leader, in front of your biggest rivals. What do you do? Blackguard: You recognize that what Shadowboxer is doing isn't purely to taunt you. You never really had much a friendship with her, outside the ring, but you get the weird impression that she kind of... likes you. Not like like, necessarily. But maybe. It's kind of troubling that despite always winning in your bouts, she always seemed pleased to have you there in the ring. But this doesn't sit well with you. There's something else going on here. Is it Scratch's influence, or something else? Why does it feel weirder to have your rival want to be friends rather than enemies to you? Möbius: Oh, it's obvious that it was your inadvertent use of the slur that drove Rose to explode that, and it couldn't be any better timed! Except nobody here is particularly impressed with you. You might not look like the cause of the disruption, thanks to that provoke and poorly managed attempt to rebuke you for it, but you're being painted with the same brush as the rest of this group. It's becoming increasingly obvious you aren't gonna get far if you can't make them look good by extension, especially to greater fools like these Masters of Disaster. What matters to you more? Being acclaimed, or being right? Dark Eagle: Your emotional sensitivity is suddenly thrown into an overwhelming sort of mixture, but you're sensing some serious pings from a few of these Masters of Disaster that could be used to your advantage. For one, the sublime hatred that Poppetmaster feels for Melody is very difficult to describe, and to parse through, being sent in what feels like waves. But you've caught a few other scents here as well: Fear from Lady Circe, envy from Holograftic, and pain from Son of Dracula. Do you see any opportunities to use these to you and the alliance's advantage? Zapper: This is probably pretty overwhelming, but right now you are the centerpiece of everything, and now in the display of your most accomplished peers. Not just Adam, though him being there probably isn't great either. I mean, you never called, after that "thing." You can tell that's why he's a little out of it. But it's more than that. You know he expected something... more. Or maybe hoped for more. Not just between both of you, but with that alliance. Does that piss you off? Why didn't you call him, anyway? And what do you do now? STRAIN: Here's something about Holograftic: Her network is actually secure, unlike your team's. Thing is, it's all cloud, wireless transmissions using very fine devices that are rather locked down. You've already tried before, and been thwarted. Yokoyama Industries technology is designed to face threats like yours, having their own counter-measures that don't just destroy, but disable your nanites. You were able to scuttle the last attempt before she got a sample, but you'd have to go out of your way to try it again on her. But if you could... You get the impression there'd be a lot more in that honeypot than even Melody's social network. Question is, how would you do it? Current Votes: Currently Copycat is the undecided vote.
Tricky Dick Nixon fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 01:39
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Astroplasm Cafe, La Reina, Day after X-mas (All) Reynar Dean dominates the first panel, his expression less than amused as he seems more put off by Knobstradamus's grand exit than Copycat's playing back and asking after him, such that he's a bit exposed, staring off in the direction of that topomantic portal instead of in the direction of the master thief in his presence. "Wow, that was... exceedingly unchill." He turns back down after staring to Copycat with a scrunched up expression, but at that last part, it was clear he did want to impress. "Planning? It's called doing what comes natural. Naturally, we're back at the top, where we belong. At this rate, even the Terror Tribe will have overtaken you. I do admire the casual style." He buffs his nails on his lime green shirt, and then shrugs. "But maybe we're thinking of doing something really big. Like stealing the city of Columbia. The whole thing." That would be quite a feat, but he's jerked away by a less than pleased Atom Smasher. "I said that's enough Reynar!" Meanwhile, in the second panel, Shadowboxer doesn't let the insults get to her, if anything, indulging greatly in her faux nouveau-riche garb and displaying herself draped back against the couch at Royal Rose. "What's the point of money if not to spend it? Plus, this is money I've earned. Didn't even have to go to the trough of my trust fund to get it, princess." She didn't mind being called out for looking ridiculous, but she looks at Blackguard a little pointedly, sensing immediately that deference. "I say what I mean, at least." But Holograftic, her wing-girl here, is quick to put her neon-lit hand on her shoulder, sipping from that drink STRAIN had given for her. "C'mon, they've done enough damage already to themselves." But that's when Melody had some choice words... But before we get to that, a third panel. Lady Circe's being approached by Dark Eagle surprises the demigoddess, but a little faery glamour does reduce her defenses somewhat, as she stares at Dark Eagle. "I thought you of all people might understand how stupid this all is. I mean, I'm a Minoan demigoddess, right? This is like high school all over again." Her candor is... unusual, considering the face she's burning blue, but of all things, it's Sonny (that is, Son of Dracula) that shows up to kind of interpose himself. "Hey, cut out the mind tricks. I smell it." That changes the tenor of the conversation slightly, his brooding eyes staring along through the group. Of course, the damage was already done, as the cooler heads were all dealing with other things when Melody sent that taunt to the least cool-head in the group. Copycat: Compared to your luck before at MurderDome, you've got Reynar's number down. But you can tell he's playing a shell game here. He wouldn't have mentioned Columbia if it wasn't you: Dayknight lives in Columbia, with the other All-New Allstars. Is he trying to tell you he knows something? How to get influence over him is by appealing to what he wants right now, and that is to prove himself better than the rest of his team. Not you, and your team. He seems to hate his fellows just as much as you all hate the Masters of Disaster. You've also got an opportunity thanks to Möbius's provoke to take something from Reynardine, or leave something on him, without him noticing. A little legerdemain before the caper always does the soul good. What do you take, or what do you leave? Centipede: You get the distinct impression that despite the routine, Sonny here is the one that most wished to be treated like a human being. With the use of magic to loosen some lips, that opportunity has probably passed now, but you get the impression he's... shockingly normal. But what else do you notice that puts you less at ease? Dark Eagle Circe's talking about herself felt... weirdly detached. Like she didn't quite buy her own schtick, doubting it. It was shockingly candid too, loosened by the fae glamour as it was. There isn't much opportunity to take advantage of that, however. But what do you think it means? Blackguard: Things went cold fast thanks to Melody's obvious antipathy, and you feel something winding around you. That's when you realize what she really meant: Your shadows touched, and for just a moment, you feel your body lock up. She has control over your motions, just like how every fight you had went. Thus you are completely paralyzed during the following proceedings. Shadowboxer takes Influence on you. What do you do?In the fifth panel, Poppetmaster's already narrow eyes narrow further, and with a baleful purple glow of her needle, stabs it one more time into the doll, and suddenly a dark shape begins to transform forth. By the next panel, crashing into the scene where you are all gathered is a giant, terrifying doll, on top of which is the Poppetmaster, crossing her arms under her too-large sweater as it bears down, while Blackguard seems completely paralyzed to stand in defense, and crashes a bit fist down on Melody, wrenching her up and pulling her up to where Lilith stands. "What was that you said to me, Melody Skye-Edgars!?" Lady Circe followed suite, glancing between Son of Dracula and Dark Eagle and her flaming head flaring as she began to cast a spell, after a "This is more like it!" But she was the first to disappear, with a pop, and a "Nope." Full-page splash: Indeed, one by one, each of the Masters of Disaster disappear, as descending from the ceiling is a spectral figure with glowing red eyes, pointing at each in turn and saying "Nope!" as they move to protest, and each disappearing in a little miniature blackhole, sent to who-knows-where (Well, Möbius would know, but he's not here!) and defusing the situation rather abruptly, while her violet hair seems to move around in waves, dressed as she is in her white fur coat. This is Noemi Gostal, the Star Spectress. Once a feared villain, now a feared club owner in La Reina. And she doesn't cotton to this sort of thing.  "Are we done?" She offers in the next panel, floating there, looking around the Defiant D4C that remains, seeming ready to eject the lot of you as well. "I can put you all in recess if you want to do your schoolyard rumble outside." She looks at Melody pointedly for a few moments... but is smirking, so you aren't really sure where she stands. Having glowing red eyes kind of makes every expression a bit more sinister than it need be, so you aren't sure if she'd impressed or just pleased with the idea of sending a bunch of teenage supervillains to battle outside her club. "Enjoying the drinks, my certainly 21-years-and-older patrons?" Last panel: Solitaire, over on his lonesome, still in that booth, shuffles his deck, whistling the whole while, in a rather interesting reversal of Möbius's situation. And speaking of that mettlesome maniac... Melody: Well, your plan worked. Up until the point where you realized your glamour is hard countered by Poppetmaster's constructs. Your "soft" magic often revolves around shaping the minds, and while you've got the ability to move things around well enough, this... was a little freaky. A little more pointedly: Your muscle didn't do anything, just sat there dumbly the entire time as Lilith Chiu was about to probably drive that needle straight into your eye. How does that make you feel? STRAIN: Your nanites, with the help of your new partner in crime, the Common Cold, are able to infect Yayoi Yokoyama's neural pathways. Basically, what you've been given is a high-tech version of a keystroke logger, which will in time give you some access to her systems... but it may not last. Already your meat body's own defenses, unable to defeat your nanites, are tearing away at the cold virus. Indeed, your body is engaged in a microscopic war of rock-paper-scissors. You get Influence on Holograftic, of course, and you may get a payoff later, but in the meantime, what are your nanites looking for in particular? Zapper: You guys won, and your words meant a lot too. It didn't show much on panel, but your castigation left Yellow Jumpsuit kind of speechless. He didn't have a retort, and to be honest, he was never good at that part. In fact, like you, he doesn't come to villainy very natural. The name, the costume, everything else was made for him, didn't really come from the heart. What does he do though that lets you know why he was disappointed earlier though? As a note: With Copycat coming down on Möbius's side, that means Plan Zapper wins the majority. How you guys want to transition over to that, either staying in Astroplasm or following Möbius into his lair to do the secret planning there, feel free. Also feel free to play my NPCs for immediate responses a little bit, like with Star Spectress here: She's not gonna stick around unless people want something from her, she was just a plot device to get everyone out and introduce a setting element. At this supposed Subspace "Lair" ... (Möbius) Möbius: Nobody come along with you here. Ugh! Do you have to do everything? They are probably still butting heads with those ignominious Masters of Disaster, trying to show off, while you are here ready to do important business. Don't they know that you were trying to do a proper mic drop! Irregardless, why don't you introduce us to this Lair? Describe it as we, the readers, are seeing it for the very first time.
Tricky Dick Nixon fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2016 03:52
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Astroplasm Cafe, La Reina, Day after X-mas (All but Mobius) In the first panel Noemi spares a withering look to Copycat at the mention of soured drinks, her smirk curdling slightly, before she shrugs, floating there as she was. "Well, let me see if I can't sweeten it for you. After all, you lot are all the talk from Prince Pixie-eater's newest batch." In the next panel, she snaps her fingers. "Bellerophon!" Summoning one of the bartenders, most of which were her former crew, but she chooses a very particular one, as the third panel shows a green glow approaching the group as her smile returning. "Ah, there you are."  She was once a pirate after all. Parrot or monkey is basically part of the gimmick, but you didn't really expect a glowing anti-matter irradiated skull-monkey, probably. Or maybe you did, because I mean... Yeah. Bellerophon obediently looks up to his master from his perch over the private rented booth, before everyone tugged on their astral ropes out of there. "One last round on the house for being such perfect guests. Do come back soon." And those drinks that had soured or otherwise gone a bit watery (or were always mostly water) suddenly are all green and aglow, probably (definitely) irradiated, as Bellerophon does this thing where he zaps them with his eye beams. It's probably a huge hit at parties. "Don't skip the bill. I know your sponsors, and they'll not appreciate me sending it their way." Slowly she sinks down through the table and down into the floor, where she had come fro mthe ceiling before, leaving the monkey to swing and scuttle off in the last panel to attend to some other customers, leaving everyone with a nice rad drink to take with them. Tricky Dick Nixon fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Dec 31, 2016 12:28
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The Den, home of the Terror Tribe, Neochtitlan, Second Night After Christmas (Zapper, Blackguard) Stealing from those lower on the food chain is a time-honored villainous tradition, but the Terror Tribe doesn't work out of La Reina proper. Luckily, they are just a airplane ride away down south in the huge Central American megalopolis of Neochtitlan, out of the way of many of the larger organizations with a lot of criminal opportunities. Maybe that's how they got their hands on such a device. In our first panel, the hyena-faced Gibbering Howler twitches from teh electical jolts running through her body, soundly taken out by Zapper, but the one advantage that they do have, quite definitively, is numbers. As soon as she is taken down, two take her place in the second panel, looking rather familiar. A closeup in the third panel reveals them as Frogface and Bad Badger, at least that is how you knew them back at MurderDome, but they seem to have reinvented themselves a bit, which is a bit pointed for Zapper who still doesn't seem to have arrived on her own identity. Next in an action splash it's your mustelid friend, who seems to be charging up his rage as his skin turns beet red. "I'm the Honeybadger, and I don't give a F-" but he's soundly taken out in the next panel with a *THUNK* by Blackguard, who doesn't even need both hands to do it, the other holding the rather unwieldly sciency device. Frogface, with his bulbous goggles, leaps up into the same rafters that Blackguard was looking down from. "Uh! So like, when I got here, the other two were taken out right? Seeya!" The Terror Tribe mostly picked up the usual animal-themed mutants and outcasts that come through the YUMADD system, and usually get shuffled to henchmen programs, but didn't want to consign themselves to that. One has to admire the pluck... But they aren't real high caliber villain material. Zapper: You've not only made it with your first masterminded caper, but you've struck gold on the first try. You make the news the next day, though they don't get your name down right. What do they call you instead? How does it feel to be the center of attention, for just a moment? And anyone else reading this, how much do you hate the fact that it's the "normie" of the group that makes the news first? Blackguard: After all that, not a single pip of your involvement makes the news, even with you doing the literal heavy-lifting of the device itself. However, your usual inward self was given a pretty good opportunity to take a look at the hardware and notice something. Engraved in the metal: A triangle, three lines in the middle of it. The Triad. What the hell does this mean? This was in a CRISIS lab. Is there a connection here you weren't seeing? Thing is, this thing is about to be expended in the plan. Do you take a chance now to follow on a lead, or do you let the plan proceed as normal? Western Seaboard Holding Facility (CRISIS), the Sierra Nevada, Third Night After ChristmasWhat was supposed to be a sneaking mission pretty quickly turns into chaos thanks to swarms of birds of all shapes and sizes, dropping miniaturized explosives and causing damage in spaces that nobody without that size and flight could get to. A full page splash shows the CRISIS personnel a bit overwhelmed with it, courtesy of Dark Eagle. Further, between STRAIN and Centipede, the facility is completely compromised from within, getting all the details where they need to be, which we see on the panels as the information is transfered here and there. However, quickly we also see the high alert go on, and the CRISIS level elevated to YELLOW. CRISIS is paramilitary in some ways, and do have personal sidearms, but really bullets aren't their weapon of choice. While a few take potshots at the birds, most get their power-shields ready to brace against concussive blasts, operate with flashbangs to stun the flocks, and use some kind of sonic cannon to repulse a good portion of the flock. They move with methodical precision, mostly looking to shut down any fires and protect any bystanders. It works fantastic as a diversion for their resources, but you quickly realize the opportunities created by this scheme will not last long. They are already on much higher alert than before, and there's something admirable in the efficiency they have in dealing with something even as strange as an attack of bomb-throwing birds. That's the thing about CRISIS. They are hard to surprise for long, so use it while you've got it, kids. At least the birds are mostly unharmed, as most of their methods are less-than-lethal. Realizing the need to get out of dodge, the Centipede is making his escape, or perhaps just moving to phase two, when he comes upon a conversation happening off panel. We see out of focus a silhouette of a cog officer, one of those on the side of the Clockwork Legion, furious with the proceedings. Text, white on gold. "... and now everything is up in the air! If we are not careful, these meddlers will ruin everything we planned for." With the next panel you can see the cog officer staring at a wall, seemingly at nothing, and the Centipede can't quite make out any other partner either. Text, black on grey. From the officer. "Everything is still on schedule, with or without him." White on gold. "Yes, but without him, we can plan for the future. A new age, courtesy of our Invisible Masters, and a return to our original, divine purpose." In the next panel, it is finally revealed who he is speaking too as the clockwork robot turns, and some sort of diminuitive, dragon-like clockwork being clings to his chest and whispers up to where his "ear" would be. This is the Golden Vizier, the aide-de-camp of the Silver Myrmidon.  "And soon," the Vizier continues, "you, my cog, will be the general. We must keep stalling until they have him in the Shoebox..." Both are walking off panel, leaving these revelations with the Centipede alone to act upon, or share later... Mobius: There's been a complication. One of the people you showed your hand to at that meeting was there that you were not expecting. Someone that also was a student of your master, the Zeitgeist, someone that recognized you, and managed to get the last word in before you left. Who was it, and what did they say? Centipede: In theory, all of this should have been a sneaking mission, but the radical went loud and the invader wasn't particular subtle about it either. Still, that made for a fair bit of cover for you, but again, this is making it hard for you to put the Centipede's fingerprints on the whole thing... And now, there's a new complication. It sounds like the officer corps are planning on not signing the armistrice, and instead delaying until their leader is properly in prison and then operating under some new management. What do you do with this information? Earlier that day at OK Cafe, near Nexus Bastion, home of the Mystic Force, La ReinaAs it turns out, Gwydion, the butler, was also the IT guy, a genial middle-aged man who rather excitedly answered the questions of the sororiety girl (Royal Rose in disguise) with a keen interest as much as he offered to make tea for Miss Twitch. What is it with superheroes and their robustly talented butlers, anyway? He is quite enjoying the attention nonetheless, off duty as he is. In any case, our panel opens with Jailbird, having leaped up onto a window overlooking near where the cafe is, an opposite shot from where we first glimpsed the Bastion. Flicking it tail through the next panels, it seems to be keeping an eye on Gwydion, which means it isn't keeping an eye out for what comes up behind it, as suddenly it's enclosed in a little magic bubble by the third panel. "Not so fast, cutie-pie." The bubble lifts up to reveal Tween Twitch, what we are to assume is the real Tween Twitch, motioning with her wand and bringing it closer. "Now whose familiar are you?" She asks cheerily with a smile. In the next panel, we cut back to Gwydion droning on and on about the particulars of his unsung heroics at the cafe, when we also get a silhouette of the witch as she introduces herself. "Gwydion! There you are, I've been looking all over for you. Do you mind making some tea for me and my new friend?" The next panel shows her holding Jailbird with her arms wrapped about it, its body hanging loosely and looking less than pleased overall with what's going on. Gwydion's face, with Rose's in the background, exclaims surprise in the next panel, as he offers back. "Ah, Miss Twitch. Did I not serve you already at Bastion?" "Did you now," Tween Twitch says in the next panel, with a knowing smile. Jailbird's expression is comically obvious in its distress. "Silly me, I must have forgotten." The next page splash, overlaid with those words, reveal in the Bastion's library, Copycat, in a Tween Twitch disguise but with the rosy squiggles, is cracking into a safe. In an inset panel, however, it becomes obvious she's getting some kind of message of distress with the "borrowed" telepathy from Jailbird. Copycat: [REDACTED] Melody: Copycat asked you to trust her. And now, you see some witch that looks pretty similar enough to Copycat to be under some sort of disguise, with Jailbird. I mean, we as the audience know, but Melody might not. Jailbird is acting a little weird of course and that might tip her off that something is wrong, it's up to you. Something is definitely fishy about all of this. Copycat has Influence on you now, but you take +1 forward on your next action. How did you react? The "Möbius Crib", impromptu meeting for the Defiant D4C, Subspace, Fourth Night After ChristmasEventually, everyone meets back up at the same place, tugging their little strings in their pockets and making their way to what is increasingly becoming known (completely canonically -- Editor's Note) as the "Möbius Crib." It's time to plan the second phase of your caper... And recount what went right (and wrong) with the first. STRAIN: Your long term plan paid off with Holograftic's system. You've got a backdoor you can use for your future intrusions against her personally, but there's a second possibility: You could expend it now, while it's undetected, and cross-reference with what Reynardine revealed and find out what exactly they are up to. Your choices are to keep the Influence and the backdoor, but on her personally, or crack their whole system by taking advantage of that Influence now while the opportunity is there and asking questions as if you rolled a 10+ on a pierce the mask roll, but targeting the alliance as a whole. What do you do? Dark Eagle: Your opening gambit helped seal the deal at the holding facility, but now with a few days with this strange egg, you've started to take some time to actually realize what it is. It isn't organic. but it's starting to shift and move. Describe this biomechanical Egg of P'an Ku for us, and decide if you are going to introduce it to the rest of the group. Feel free to share the Imp flashback if you do. The Mystic Force was after it for some reason, and those movements it has are starting to be worrying. Moving the planning scene to a couple of days later, same location. So people can flashback as well as flashforward for the plan, describing what happened at the holding facility, but also start to share what was learned and act on new information for the future. We'll follow a similar pattern for the future where it fits.
Tricky Dick Nixon fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 08:35
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  At the OK Cafe, La Reina, Earlier in the Day (Copycat, Royal Rose)The panel frames the breaking of the tension of Tween Twitch's uncertainty, and she all but throws away the cat, translated through the next panels into the disguised Royal Rose's arms, as she seems far more concerned with Lady Circe. "Cissy, get back here!" Betraying a little more familiarity than might be expected, disappearing with a crackle of magic. Luckily, a little slip of topomancy from Knobstradamus had kept either Copycat or Rose from attracting too much attention, leaving both open to deal with the assault later that night. Above the Western Seaboard Holding Facility, CRISIS, the Sierra Nevada, Third Night After Christmas (Möbius, Centipede, Any)On the deck of the soon to be bequeathed Brass Juggernaut, already the Silver Myrmidon, in the first panel, has his attendants using their typewriters, clicking and clackin in the background, to write up a contract, when the picture is placed down of the Golden Vizier. "Harumph." Steam whistling through in indignation at what was obviously expected to be a shock. "Of course that serpent is meddling in my plans. How else could I have been captured if not for such perfidy in my own ranks! Hm, but everything is off schedule as it is. It may have to wait." He offers the contract, looking squarely at any who decided they would be present. "A gentlepersons' agreement then. Do return this to me as intact as possible, and in return, I'll not claim this castle as spoils. That should altogether be agreeable..." He addresses Möbius straightforwardly. "You are wasting your time with this Association, lad. There's no vision, no danger to what they do. When you're ready to be a true threat to the world, there are better options." He places a thin, metal card that somehow is completely black and formless in any other way, more business card than ID compared to your "golden ticket" from MADD. The Myrmidon didn't care to wait for agreement, a pneumatic stamp from his arm placing down an embossing on the contract as he sweeps away, adjusting his tophot. "Come now, comrades. We've a jolly good fight ahead of us!" Möbius: The Silver Myrmidon is complimenting you, but you can tell in a very back-handed way, that shows no real gratitude for having been freed. Rather, it is obvious that he doesn't find you all that dangerous at all! If you accept what he says about who you are, shift Danger down and shift Trouble up. Otherwise, you can reject his influence as a reactive move in addition to any others you make. Centipede: Hold 1 Infamy from that successful use of Danger Diabolik, and you are for sure privy to this exchange between Myrmidon and Mobius. Your exposure was expertly timed, but you suddenly sense something, that's a little alarming to sense at all. Your transformation can get a little messy, and you can "feel" the traces of your DNA left on the scene. Now, that won't at all be too conclusive for anything (you aren't on any CRISIS gene banks that would be gross referenced with any testing), but what might they find out about the Centipede through testing any trace DNA on the scene? In the skies above Nexus Bastion, coastal mountains north of La Reina, later that same night... (All) The Vector is a super vehicle that is usable as an Asset for all alliance members to wager or exhaust as they wish.The next page after Dark Eagle's full page splash of starting the siege on Nexus Bastion gives us a deep detail view of the modified Brass Juggernaut, which reflects now the character of the slapped together villainous alliance arming it. Cancerous grey-goo nanites expand out plates of shielding and seal up the cogs and gears and give it a biomechanical bent, and almost a creature-like cast. Its armament means that true bombardment and sieging, here in the skies over La Reina, can start in the increasingly small window of time that the alliance has before suddenly things heat up and a heroic response is inevitable! STRAIN: You've permanently modified this Juggernaut to your own specifications, and the nanites self-replicating mean that it has something of a "life" of its own. After all, you are a race of nanites in a sense, and separate from your meat-body host, the nanites that inhabit the ship, while subordinate to you, are starting to develop a separate identity as "Vector" to your own semi-identity as Nicky Newton. Do you cultivate this, or try and quash it in its infancy? Zapper: Are you really just going to let STRAIN have free reigns over this major piece of tech your alliance has just got its hands on? Will you make any personal modifications or customization of your own? Have you really had any success in dealing with the alien nanotechnology that STRAIN is capable of pulling together by sheer force of will, anyway? The Nexus Bastion, having been transported around a few times before reaching its current 90265 zip code. Most of the Mystic Force are dispersed, and even their junior members are out and about on various tasks when the attack comes, thus the mansion is almost all but undefended, until Gwydion appears on the rooftop. With an antique looking crank machine gun, that he raises up, crackling with arcane sigils and power upon it, and begins firing up at the Vector, providing the first and so far only returning fire before the flock of birds quickly overwhelms him as well. However, the window of opportunity is short to act with any sort of impunity, counting in minutes rather than hours. Dark Eagle: The Nexus Bastion is build nestled in low mountains and hills overlooking a coastal town that is essentially Malibu, meaning that it is rather closer to collateral damage than comfort. At the same time, this is one of the more opulent places in the world, and this oddly Gothic castle in the middle of upscale California is a bit of an eyesore. Since you are in direction of the flock of automatons, how much damage are you looking to deal? Melody: The information you gained from Gwydion might be key at this point for any of the others looking to infiltrate, or you might take the opportunity yourself to make use of it for your own means and ends. What information that will help the D4C infiltrate the Nexus Bastion did you uncover, and how does it get put into use? Copycat: So where have you been this entire time? At some point, you'll have to show your pretty face for the caper proper. Whereas some limit themselves to stealing only what is not bolted down, you and the team are about to take the whole kit-and-kaboodle, but does anything you learned from your previous schemes come into play here at the final assault? Astroplasm Cafe, La Reina (Blackguard)As if to match the mood of our erstwhile protagonist, the Astroplasm Cafe is cooler in color and tone, with hardly any other visible patrons and hardly the young and "hip" crowd that were present earlier, as the armored Blackguard nursing her cold and lifeless drink sticks out all the more, while even the music tends to follow a similar line. Slowly rising in silhouette within the panel across the booth, there is a tutting sound. "No, we're gonna have to belay this whole pity party right away." A thin smile on the ghastly expression of the Star Spectress as she appears, mixing a little lemon and rum for herself just across the table and arching her brow over those glowering red eyes. "Before you complain, I'm not prone to fits of responsibility like this, but while I'm fine with tykes going three sheets to the wind, drinking alone isn't a good sign. Not even for our kind." She then raises her glass in the next panel, and sips from it. "You wanna talk about it?" Blackguard: Maybe the last thing you need is an adult telling you who you are or how the world works right about now, but right now Noemi is just asking if there's something you want to talk about. You don't really have an outside support network past the alliance, and even your sponsor, Old Scratch, feels more like a disapproving, distant uncle than anything like a real relationship, and facing him after basically doing nothing with the information he went out of his way to give you is probably not high on your agenda. Is this something you feel you might need? Or do you just need to be alone?
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Jan 5, 2017 22:44
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In the deepest part of Nexus Bastion, in the Hall of Doors (Möbius) Here is the eponymous nexus beneath the bastion, a circular chamber filled with many portals, collected artifacts in the shape of archways, mirrors, and other thresholds to other worlds that the Mystic Force have gathered to steal away. What better place to be the focus of the spell? Zapper had set the device and left by this point, to regroup with Melody to deal with the seal magic, leaving Möbius mostly alone to extend his planar barriers and try and set the stage. Of course, he was successful, but there was one complication. As the planar barriers moved in every direction, and the teleportation spell took effect, there was a deep feeling, like a gravity well deep inside, anchoring one down. There was a counter-spell. But not in the direction expected. Instead of attempting to get in to the castle... Something suddenly turned it into a prison. That one thing everyone has been talking around: A planar tesseract. One has been placed, prepared as a trap, and instead of arriving at its destination, the Nexus Bastion is trapped in the Astral Plane, a pocket plane. But how? There isn't too much time for Möbius to decide what to do with it, as the same gargoyles that were easily dispatched by the rest of the group descend down upon him as he's alone, to try and harry his steps as he must find what is keeping the spell from completing its journey to their destination, wherever that may be! Möbius: You know this is the work of Allison. How did she act so quickly? Was it your revealing the plan at that meeting? Or (obviously more likely) did one of your compatriots leak the information? While you are completely successful in shutting out any intrusions, you know your barriers won't last for long against a concerted effort. You have only a limited amount of time to find the tesseract, dispel the trap, all the while evading the magical wards and defenses of the Nexus Bastion? What do you do? Copycat: Luckily, you're already on top of it. You're not prissy topomancy like Knobstradamus but you know exactly where to find the tesseract, and know it's very important to ending this as quickly as possible, but may not know what exactly to do with it. Where is it? Further, you manage to crack into Tween Twitch's room, and find some books and interest in black magic and the like. It looks like she might have some darker sympathies that could be used against her, but the Mystic Force doesn't always shy away from that sort of thing. Regardless, what do you do with that information? On the Battlements outside Nexus Bastion (Centipede, Dark Eagle)The scene is at once framed with the airship above you, attached at the top parts of the castle, as well as the upscale town of Esmeralda beneath you. The spat might have had opportunity to continue, save for a high-pitched whirr that fills a splash page, as sudden CRISIS arrives, making to beat back the same forces of destruction and evacuate the people in question. The same efficiency used back at the Holding Facility is in use here, but it's obvious that they are much behind the curve to keep things from getting out of control.  That's when a sword cuts through the air, and through the next panel Christopher Knight, grasping a scroll of power, steps through, flanked by two CRISIS agents. "Where is the Myrmidon!?" The tracking spell hadn't helped him previously and it's obvious that's peeved off the hero, but those same traces left behind made for a sympathetic connection enough to make a teleportation spell with a little preparation it looks like. That's when you feel the magic hit. When Knobstradamus's spell goes off, there's a ripple of space-time warping across the panels of the page. It looks as if the page itself is being rewritten, as Esmeralda seems to disappear, the subject of this short spat fading away, to be replaced by something else in the translation... Except, nothing does. It seems as if everything is frozen into place, and the Bastion is locked into place. It's immediately clear something with the spell is incomplete, but neither the Centipede nor Dark Eagle has much opportunity to deal with this, as it quickly becomes apparent that Christopher Knight is trapped along with them on the battlements. Centipede: You've got a pretty good opportunity to be all but gone and let Dark Eagle take all the heat from Christopher Knight if you want out of this. The chips are down and the jig is up, that much is obvious. Might show her for calling you a lacky... It's pretty obvious that that neither of you are going to be much a match for someone like Christopher Knight on your own. What do you do? Dark Eagle: There's a lot of anger and it only intensifies your own. The situation has escalated far beyond any of the Mystic Force were expecting, and you can tell that some of the Knight's own inhibitions are low. That could be used against him, but also means he can be very dangerous. What do you do? Above Nexus Bastion, on the bridge of the Vector (STRAIN)Everything is going according to plan, and from her vantage point, somewhat distant from the rest of the caper, STRAIN has a lot to admire, as the increasingly sapient Vector seems to perch atop the castle like some biomechanical dragon, more than airship. Its shadow seems to mirror the magic of Möbius's spell, as they are transported it seems into some intermediary dimensional space... And it becomes clear on the instruments that something is wrong. In adjoining panels, the same clockwork legionnaires that crewed the ship seem to suddenly glow in their eye-sockets a golden color, and turn on the ship itself, dismantling pieces here and tearing down the new growths of sleek gray metal, and unloading pressurized steam and electricity to denature and destabilize the streams of nanites used to control it. They are working in perfect order, but not according to the whims of the Myrmidon.  You hear scuttling in the bridge that slithering creature, and it does begin to show itself in the upper rafters over the instruments. "You foolish, meddlesome children. Do you think I did not plan in anticipation of some interruption? If I cannot have the whole army, then I shall take what I can get!" The Vizier clacks and hisses with steam from its perch, as suddenly from every angle and door, clockwork soldiers begin to close in on STRAIN's position! STRAIN: The legionnairies are not as easily subverted by your technopathy, they'll need some conversion and the sheer number that are under the control of the Vizier means you're in a tight spot. You'll have to think quickly if you want to keep your position, and protect your new asset from being torn apart. Unfortunately, you have no backup, at least presently. What do you do? Last, but certainly not least, at the Heart of the Castle, our final confrontation looms... (Royal Rose, Zapper, Blackguard)The spell goes off, but there's a tension in the air that makes it obvious even if it's not immediately communicated to the rest of the team that something has gone awry, and that there is a limited window in which the heroes will have a chance to catch an opportunity. Yet as the three of you wait here at the heart, the heroes fall easily into whatever trap you have lain. It's the three junior members of the Mystic Force, introduced in three inset panels over a splash page, as Tween Twitch takes the lead. "I think we have something to add to your article on "Unsung Heroes," Merry Melody." Sounds like somebody looked up the official CRISIS accreditation on the ID. Tween Twitch, the canny Imp, and edgelord Ghostface are all three present, and while they aren't the heavy hitters the Mystic Force are, they at least equal your numbers. But it's obvious they aren't going to leave it at that, and they obviously move as a team, beginning to cast a spell. "You see, while all the aunties and uncles are out, we've still got a little fire..." Imp burns a summoning circle on the ground before them. "A pinch of magic," Twitch casts some light down upon it in the next panel. "And the shadows," Ghostface tries his best to growl, but his voice cracks in the process... That does a little to detract from what comes next, but it's still not great, as something is called forth with the mix of tenebrous, demonic, and arcane power. A magical guardian is to be expected. But did it have to be a giant death dog?  With the odds somewhat shifted, Tween Twitch rides forward on her broom alongside with the guardian, while Imp appears hanging from the chandelier above you, ready, to pounce down, and Ghostface just sort of floats forward, laughing in a spooky, if kooky way. It's on. Melody: Why did it have to be a dog? God, does Twitch even know? She's the worst. Unlike your group, you can tell these three know how to work as a team, but that doesn't mean there aren't fault-lines here. They are obviously all very different, and maybe if you can find the most vulnerable one to take off, that will get rid of the guardians as well, but if no one deals with the giant death dog, well, that's gonna be a problem. What do you do? Zapper: This is a bit out of your league. You were able to take down some low-ranking animal-themed villains, but you're looking now at some serious magical firepower. Even these teenage junior scouts are capable of things you could only dream of trying to replicate with a little galvanic science. So, time to show them what you had prepared with the time you had. This was a trap, after all, wasn't it? Or after seeing what they can do, are you just gonna get the heck out of Dodge? What do you do? Blackguard: So far the caper has been pretty low action, and now it has it in spades. At least this time you have full control of your faculties, no weird shadow-magic to hold you back... But yo uget the impression your Krueger tricks aren't going to do much against this death dog. You could isolate one of the teen heroes, of course, but then who will take care of Fido? Melody? Zapper? You've got some choices to make. What do you do? Remember, take +1 forward on your first roll in this scene, as you have caught the heroes flat-footed and succeeded at the core of the caper.
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Jan 10, 2017 15:46
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