"Let's get this straight. YOU'RE the sidekick!" A Mutants & Masterminds Camp. Journal

[Kid Jake]

Alright, at long last we finally present the next chapter of McCrow and Friends. Hope everyone enjoys it.

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It's been almost a week since the world was introduced to The Fanboy and EVERYONE is buzzing about it. The first day or two there was a considerable amount of skepticism but when even more footage emerged of Fanboys heroism and the mayor of Ventnor City himself confirmed that his life was saved by a superhuman, the world went berserk. (Locals also got to watch a drunken McCrow beat several men to death with a pipewrench, but for some reason it never caught on quite as well on Youtube.)

Within only a few days Ventnor City's tourism reached record highs, hundreds if not thousands began flocking into the city in hopes of catching sight of an honest to God superhuman. Finch does not disappoint them.

He arranges apartment fires, a school bus accident on a local bridge, shootouts and other even more dangerous crimes so that almost everyone leaves with pictures of the Fanboy either firsthand or through street vendors. People have began wearing a black and white print with Fanboy's image and the words 'Save the City' in support of their new hero.

Life feels pretty good.

That is until a small package is delivered to the warehouse. Fanboy immediately grows suspicious and checks the insides for explosives; but it turns up clean. Opening the package they are overwhelmed with the smell of rotting meat. Grimacing, McCrow digs into the box and brings out a severed, rotting hand wearing a wedding band.

The PCs look at each other for a moment and while they don't know exactly what this means, a severed hand in a box is pretty much the universal symbol that s*** is about to get real. They take it to Prophet to see if he can find fingerprints or something to see who it came off of, but before they even reach the Prophet's room Sandy spots them in the hallway an begins wailing.

She recognizes the ring as her late husband's.

They're still processing this when Lucky Dan and his wife stumble down from their room a few minutes later on the phone, Dan's cursing to himself and as he hangs up he says "Our house burned down." as he throws up his arms.

"That was an expensive house!" McCrow shouts angrilly.

"In a very nice neighborhood!" Fanboy agrees. "Luckily, homeowner's insurance should cover it though."

Lucky Dan shakes his head in disbelief. "Why would [i]I[/i} have homeowner's insurance?" he asks, the shock still evident on his face. "I mean..." he just shakes his head.

McCrow and Fanboy rant and rave for the better part of an hour when an explosion sounds upstairs. McCrow jerks his head around and realizes it's coming from Richard's room. The hydromancer bounds upstairs, but waits until his hair stops standing on end before he opens the door.

Electricity is arcing all over Richard's body and he sobs uncontrollably.

"Richard, calm down!" McCrow shouts, remembering the damage this kid can do when he lets loose. "What's wrong boy?"

Richard barely manages to sob out that his dad's dead. McCrow's mouth pops open like someone just slapped him.

"Him and my mom were just walking to the car...and someone gunned them down." Richard whimpers. "They don't even know if she's going to make it." he sputters as even more energy begins building up and McCrow slams the door to allow the insulated room to take the brunt of the beating.

McCrow quickly explains the situation to Fanboy and he realizes that everyone's in danger. He grabs the phone to spread the word but it's ringing even before he gets the chance to dial out. One of Bradley's clones is on the line, panicking because his dad's been kidnapped. Fanboy asks how Bradley knows it was a kidnapping and Bradley responds that they left a message.

"F*** with us and we f*** with you."

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"The damned Italians!" McCrow growls.

"Depaliamo knows everything about us." Fanboy realizes with a groan. "He was doing our freaking taxes! Why did we let him go?"

Realizing that they need to warn their allies more than ever, Fanboy dials Chavenski and is less than surprised to hear gunfire and a throbbing hum in the background.

"Thank God you boys called!" Chavenski wheezes. "The Italians are here, at the apartments. These robots...they're everywhere."

McCrow and Fanboy exchange a 'Whoopsie' look and McCrow shouts for Chavenski to hold on, that he's on his way.

Roger quickly gathers up all 10 of his droplets as Fanboy grabs a strike team of five grief stricken Bradleys and the Beastman. McCrow starts to bolt towards the team van and Fanboy shouts that there's no time, he's faster. Before anyone can argue they've all been seized and are streaking across the sky at more than 100mph with nothing between them and the longest fall of their lives but Fanboy's concentration.

They land in front of the apartments and find the place is a warzone. There are almost a hundred of the Luvbot spheres rolling around in the street, apparently fried and even more of the active Luvbots slugging it out with yet more Luvbots. Half the building looks like it's been burned away and corpses are strewn everywhere. It's anarchy.

Roger immediately orders five of his droplets to begin gathering up the spheres, figuring that maybe they can be salvaged. He orders the other five to sneak into the apartment building and drown anyone wearing a suit; trusting the Italians sense of fashion to ensure their doom.

Before anyone can tell the Beastman what to do he gives a resounding whoop and charges the building on all fours, sprinting up the wall almost 10ft before leaping with everything in his powerful legs and seizing a third floor windowsill. He lunges inside to the sound of broken glass and terrified screams.

Fanboy grins, once again glad that they rescued him.

The Bradleys are dressed in stolen S.C.A.R. equipment and move towards the entrance as a single unit, Roger follows suit. Fanboy elects to stay behind and take out the Italian's Luvbots, cackling when he discovers that Luvless made good on his word and the automatons are unable to target him in return.

Just like the last time McCrow visited the apartments there are a handful of Russians pinned down behind a couch as a squad of four Italians pour automatic fire into their cover; seemingly for sport.

The Bradleys open fire with automatic weapons of their own and two Italians go down outright, before they can even turn around Roger slams a literal wall of water into the lot of them and crushes them against the far wall until they stop struggling.

The Russians are nearly out of ammo so McCrow leaves a pair of Bradleys to help guard the door and continues upstairs. He finds another half dozen Italians pilfering the floor and dehydrates the first one he sees, rendering the man as little more than a pile of dust in a fancy jacket.

The rest open fire and one of the Bradley clones go down, leaving two more to return the gesture. Another Italian goes down but even more are spilling out of rooms and there's nowhere in the hallway to take cover.

Back outside, Fanboy already made short work of the unaggressive Luvbots and has started destroying the Italians' vehicles more out of spite than anything. He's feeling pretty smug when he gets another call.

Bradley's on the line and he simply shouts "They're here! There's hundreds of them, the Warehouse is burning!"

Fanboy releases a fountain of expletives and for a split second considers warning McCrow that he's leaving, but figures that his partner has things here. As fast as he can, Fanboy rockets back towards home.

Roger takes a handful of shots like a champ and while they're slowing him down he's giving better than he's getting. That is until he hears a ridiculous barrage of gunfire from downstairs as the Italians hiding in reserve flood the building and execute his watchmen.

McCrow realizes that things are tight, but he can hear Chavenski on the next floor; his massive SAW is unmistakable. If only there weren't a few dozen a-holes between him and his friend.

Then it clicks. There AREN'T a few dozen a-holes between him and Chavenski, just a few floorboards. Roger closes his eyes and reaches out with his power, he takes a few more shots for his trouble but it suddenly doesn't matter. The whole third floor simply collapses as nearly every pipe on the floor explodes with amazing force. The unsuspecting Italians are crushed like rats, those fighting Chavenski drop down a floor and are either knocked out or stunned and the big Russian alone makes his reflex save to remain standing.

And oh boy, does he. Just as somewhere around half a dozen Italians try to come rushing McCrow from behind Chavenski lands hard about 15ft ahead of him holding his massive SAW awkwardly in one hand and an oxygen tank attached to his face with the other. Chavenski opens up with a single full-auto burst which makes it impossible to tell exactly how many Italians there actually were, all that's left is hamburger.

Chavenski takes a deep breath of his dwindling air supply and coughs raggedly. "Taking your time?" he asks in a whispered wheeze.

"Thought you had it covered." McCrow replies with a shrug, sending a deluge of water down the stairs to dislodge any potential stragglers.

Chavenski checks his gauge and shakes his head worriedly. "I'm the last man standing here, but I've got about twenty minutes left...."

"Can you survive without it?" McCrow asks.

"If I take very little breaths." the Russian replies sarcastically.

"Let's get to the roof." McCrow suggests, planting a kick in the chest of a soaking wet Italian that tries to rush around the corner. "Fanboy can grab us there."

Chavenski shakes his head. "The stairs are-"

"A waste of time!" McCrow barks launching a geiser of water directly upwards with enough force to crack the celing of the next floor. With a full throated shout he summons the water to him and tries again, putting everything he's got into it and punching a hole until he sees daylight.

Chavenski stares upwards a little impressed and asks "And now?"

McCrow bearhugs the Russian without giving anyone time to react and uses the same trick to fling the two of them up through the hole he just made. Chavenski lands hard on the roof and rolls about ten feet once he lands, McCrow manages a little better and while he gets the wind knocked out of him he's otherwise unharmed.

McCrow rushes to the edge to shout down and realizes that Fanboy isn't there anymore. Nearly 40 Luvbots however are and hover off the ground until they surround the apartment roof.


Fanboy arrives at the warehouse in time to find around 600 Luvbots opening fire indiscriminately, trying to burn through their reinforced walls but failing to do much. They have managed to shred the front door and around 100 of their personal Luvbots and all remaining Bradley clones are holding the breach as best they can. Roughly 80 Italians are lounging on the docks and enjoying the spectacle while another man dangles from the roof planting breaching charges every five feet; there are already 15 such charges placed along the top floor.

Fanboy nearly panics and snatches 10 of the charges from the north side of the warehouse and tosses them amid the gawking Italians. They dodge out of the way for the most part, but before Fanboy can grab the rest a man on the ground hits a detonator and the remaining charges( as well as the man placing them) go up in flames and a nearly 20ft hole is blown out of the corner of their home.

Fanboy snatches nearly 30 Luvbots out of the veritable tide below him and hurls them at their human controllers, taking out several men and shattering several more robots in the process. The Luvbots attempt to return fire, but can't process him and go back to their business. Many pour into the newly created hole, perhaps even more horrifyingly however are 10 of them which grab up 10 Italians wearing backpacks and jet towards the hole in a staggered formation to make targeting all of them harder.

Rather than trying to grapple all of the, Fanboy snatches another telekinetic handful of Luvbots from the ground and hutls them like a shotgun blast at the men with packs. All but 3 are taken out by this attack, however those three are deposited inside and are quickly flooded with more Luvbots; making pursuit impossible.

Fanboy has a difficult time dragging all of the Luvots out of the hole and instead flies around the building in hopes of finding another entrance. He lucks out and discovers a hole just barely large enough for him to slip into, but too small for a Luvbot. He slips in and discovers Lucky Dan's family huddled in their room terrified and Dan himself standing in the doorway leading out drinking a cup of coffee.

As Fanboy watches, a Luvbot lunges towards Dan midsip and has its head blown off by one of its allies with the same idea. Another Luvbot comes into view only to be crushed by a falling support beam as Dan turns around, still in his bathrobe. "We're in trouble boss."

"Trouble doesn't begin to cover it Dan." Fanboy says as he rushes out of the room just in time to look on helplessly as he discovers what was contained in the backpacks.

Wheel chairs.

Each man which rushed the wall had a collapsible wheel chair strapped to him which they begain assembling the second they were inside. Fanboy's eyes scan the warehouse in growing horror until he finally lays eyes on Johnny on the Spot sitting pretty in his new ride. Johnny slowly and carefully gives Fanboy the bird and the second Fanboy so much as twitched in retaliation the speedster is already gone. If his disability slowed him down any, Fanboy doesn't notice.

"Next time, I break his f***ing arms..." Fanboy mutters, moving to rain down hell upon the remaining Luvbots in his warehouse. However to everyone's surprise, now that Johnny is free they all seem to be pouring out of their own accord. Fanboy decides to let them go, but snatches one of the man with a backpack and knocks him out with a savage thrust against the wall.

"You're my new Johnny." Fanboy says with a wicked grin.



McCrow and Chavenski are huddled on the roof, McCrow realizes that the Luvbots can't hurt him but Chavenski has no such protection.

"Get under me!" McCrow shouts and bearhugs Chavenski once again. The big Russian instinctively resists this command by stepping backwards and the Luvbots open fire as a group the second McCrow is clear.

Now Chavenski is one tough son of a bitch, but this is a barrage of cutting edge military hardware pouring enough fire on him to kill the moon. I don't fudge rolls, prefering to roll them openly, so imagine our surprise when he fails exactly one toughness roll out of 40. Granted, he fails so bad that he goes down with third degree burns and a hole in his side, but that just builds character.

McCrow responds by summoning water to himelf and assuming his hulking battleform, snatching one of the Luvbots out of the air and battering a second one with it. A group of Italians burst onto the roof but simply stare in open mouthed horror at what they find there and with a single mighty push McCrow flings them all off the building and to their deaths. Hearing even more rushing him, McCrow snatches another pair of Luvbots and crams them into the door in such a way that nobody else can fit through.

The Italians slam into his makeshift barricade and start hammering their way past when Fanboy finally shows up. He sees McCrow bellowing wordless curses at a horde of mafiosos and Chavenski laying bloody and burned on the ground and quickly decides that Chavenski is the priority here, snatching the Russian up and streaking off once again.

McCrow growls as even more Italians attempt to rush the door and decides that he's had enough of all of them. He expends everything hero point he has and drives himself to exhaustion in order to blow the supports out all along the building. With no further warning the whole thing collapses into itself.


Fanboy returns about 30 minutes later and finds nothing left of the apartments but a flooded hole, feeling inside he realizes that there's nobody left alive. Leaping into the air he does a quick survey of the surrounding area and finally finds what he's looking for:

The Beastman, soaking wet and covered in blood (only some of hit his own) is walking down the street with Roger McCrow thrown over his shoulder. McCrow has a pipe sticking out of his chest which bleeds profusely but neither Fanboy nor the Beastman seem to worried; he's survived worse.

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McCrow spends some time in a bathtub with a gallon of homemade brandy and a girlie magazine and he's back to normal before anyone has a chance to miss him. The warehouse however is a mess.

Holes are blown everywhere and a good deal of trash is rolling in from the street. He even catches Sandy's daughter playing a mutt that wandered inside and chases the creature off with a fire poker; which is strange because they don't even have a fire place.

Now, amid everything else that's happening I thought I could slip one over on him and he was right to drive the dog off, though he didn't know it at the time. It was Lycaon, one of the superdogs and I had a whole thing planned if it could slip inside; but McCrow was pretty firm in insisting that if he ever saw a dog in his warehouse again he was going to spit and roast it, so that had to be abandoned.

After the damage is fully surveyed they realize that it might not even be worth repairing. Roger proposes a different plan:

"What if we built like a giant submergible lair?" he asks. "Who's going to come at us underwater?"

Fanboy smiles, "Yeah, we could shape it like a skull and fill it with the Legion of Doom."

McCrow strokes his chin. "We should probably think of a catchier name, we don't really have a legion yet."

Fanboy stares at him. "Superfriends reference." he explains.

"Oh..." Roger replies, "I never really watched Friends, seemed a little fruity."

Fanboy justt continues staring at him until he realizes that Doctor Luvless is standing next to them.

"Congrats again on making the news." Luvless says, as they stumble back in shock. "Just wanted to pop in and thank you guys for your suggestion the other day, it was brilliant."

The PCs eye him for a moment before Fanboy asks "What suggestion?"

Luvless laughs and says "The whole 'Make sure we can't be attacked by the Luvbots we sell' angle, it was a stroke of genius that even I didn't think of."

They continue staring at him as he pushes a duffelbag into Fanboy's arms, Fanboy looks inside and discovers to his surprise that it's filled with cash.

"The Italians were quite upset when they discovered their little toys didn't work on you, they even demanded a refund; can you imagine the audacity?" Luvless asks clicking his tongue. "I explained that the bots they purchased were the floor model; programmed to avoid harming my staff as a security measure and you know what?"

Fanboy almost goes white. "There's nearly a million dollars in here Luvless." he says, flashing the cash to McCrow who starts stuffing it into his pockets.

"Your cut boys." Luvless says with a wink. "They ordered another $20 million worth of merchandise, this time without the restrictive programming. They've also commissioned something a little...heavier."

"We'll beat their price!" McCrow shouts, not even bothering to find out what their price is.

Luvless looks shocked and strokes his chin. "Well...I never did agree to exclusivity, so I don't see the harm. Tell you what, I'll give you the friends and family discount; $75k each."

"Done!" McCrow shouts, tossing the rest of the bag right back at him.

Luvless holds out a handful of Luvbot spheres, though these are almost twice the size as normal ones. He drops them in McCrow's hand with a deep smile and says "Enjoy." and with that is gone nearly as suddenly as he appeared.

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Fanboy takes this opportunity to question their prisoner and skips directly to the invasive mind probe, tearing information out of the man without ever saying a word.

McCrow meanwhile activates one of the large Luvbots and is nearly knocked off his feet when it forms. The bot looks similar to the Luvbots they've been using for some time, but it stands 12ft tall and has a centaur like body with six legs; each of its arms are larger than McCrow and the arms seem to be little more than giant barrels. This strikes him as money well spent.

Fanboy comes down stairs and declares that once the job was over, the Italians were supposed to retreat to an air field nearby where a plane was waiting to take them back to New York. Our heroes decide to pay the airfield a visit.

The trip is pretty quick now and Fanboy brings them (McCrow, Beastman, 5 Bradleys and himself) down just behind the strip, near a large barn and a dusty stretch of road. He uses ESP to scout the barn and discovers a sizeable private jet inside.

They have a quick discussion and the plan is to wait until the plane takes off and then have Fanboy just crash it in a massive pillar of fire and retribution. That's the plan at least.

An hour goes by and no sign of the Italians. Another and another and another goes by without a single hint of approach and after four more hours of this McCrow finally decides to change the plan.

"New plan! We burn the plane, the barn and everything else in sight and then go home." After eight hours of hiding in the bushes, noone seems to mind this change of plan at all and they emerge from their hiding place to wreck things up.

Fanboy extends his arms and telekinetically opens the large barn doors to allow everyone entrance when suddenly there's a loud whizzing sound and he feels blood running down his side. Fanboy looks down and realizes that whatever it is absolutely punched through his forcefield and body armor without resistance.

McCrow throws himself to the ground and rolls behind a decrepit old tractor as the Beastman flips and dodges incoming rounds, one of the Bradleys goes down in a shower of blood before winking out of existence.

Fanboy nearly collapses and shouts "It's the Italians, those a**holes laid an ambush!" however the Bradleys have dropped to the ground and started scanning the horizon and one of them shakes his head.

"It's not the Italians!" he shouts before bolting for cover. "It's S.C.A.R.!"

Everybody groans, not relishing a fight with these guys right now. Several more rounds are fired and something punches completely through Roger's tractor about an inch from his head. "We've got to move fast!" the hydromancer shouts.

"I've got an idea!" Fanboy replies, grabbing the Beastman telekinetically and hurling him in the direction of the shots.

A loud and exhilirating whoop echoes in the distance as their Beastly ally swoops down for the kill, a readied gunshot while he's still in midair however turns the whoop into a whimper and their feral comrade collapses where he lands in a pool of his own blood.

Fanboy curses but says he knows where they're at now, he points them out to McCrow as best they can and everyone begins marching forward, taking what little cover they can find. It's slow going until McCrow has enough and tosses out his new Assault Class Luvbot before leaping onto its back.

A pair of shots ring out that slam directly into the AssaultBot's face, but it doesn't seem to notice. Roger grins ear to ear and orders it to return fire. A hollow voice confirms his order and the bot raises one of it's arms and a nearly painful humming fills the air, several more shots ding off of its exterior and it releases its payload in the direction of the S.C.A.R. snipers.

The explosion is brief, but powerful and they never do find enough pieces to make a whole man, but it rains gore for the better part of a minute and nobody takes any more shots at them so they declare the AssaultBot's trial run a resounding success.

They collect the wounded Beastman, ensure that there's no usable equipment left by the S.C.A.R. guys and then scurry back to the airstrip to burn everything in sight before returning home to nurse their wounds.

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During their recovery they take a few precautions. First off, they bring Richard's mother to the warehouse and stick her in the infirmary with Dr Kavlight. As bad as things are here, she's safer with the auto-turrets and Luvbots protecting her than at the hospital.

Second, they call Parks and give him the rundown. He basically whispers that he's busy at the moment but that he'll get back to them as soon as he can. They're a little surpried by his dismissal but shrug it off and get on with their lives.

Beastman heals up fast, but Fanboy's powers don't assist his recovery and he spends several days completely bed-ridden. Even using his abilities to get around causes a considerable amount of pain as he shifts ever so slightly.

Eventually however there's a knock at what's left of their front door and McCrow answers it to find Parks standing there in civilian clothes, he looks haggard and run down. They head to Fanboy's room and Parks explains his visit.

"They've stripped me of almost all my pull." Parks says with a pained shake of his head, "I've got maybe a month left before I'm in the unemployment line, but I've got something you need to see."

Fanboy raises an eyebrow questioningly and Parks tosses a burned CD onto his lap. "There's dangerous times ahead, I think we all know that. None of us realize how dangerous though..." he says with a sigh. "Do me a favor, don't go flashing this around. There are five men on the East Coast with access to this footage and if it gets out they've got a short list to prosecute."

Fanboy tries to ask him what the hell he's talking about but he just shakes his head and insists they watch the tape.

Naturally, they rush to Prophet's saferoom to pop it in and see what's so damned important. It's a video off of a standard portable camcorder set up behind a desk to survey the room interrogation style. A pair of voices discuss a couple of idiots in Jersey that have bumped the timeframe for Operation Goldenboy up more than two years. By the time stamp on the video which reveals this was taken not two days ago, they're obviously talking about the PCs.

"Who's this first guy?" one of them asks.

"Pretty impressive service history, good athletic background; supposed to be a charmer." the other replies.

"Let's see, codename is...Big Brother?" the first states, pressing a button and asking that 'Big Brother' be shown in. The door swings open and from the looks of things this room was built to contain superhumans, the door itself appears to be almost four inches of steel.

A tall, well built man enters the room wearing a nice if ill-fitting suit. He appears uncomfortable under such scrutiny. "Sir, I've arrived as requested. I hope to live up to the aspirations of this project and take-"

"Just your number please." the first man says irritably and 'Big Brother' responds with something that sounds like his social.

"Alright," the second man says, "You've been selected as a potential finalist but we need a demonstration of your ability before sending you to the field."

Big Brother nods and glances around the room before motioning towards the door. "Is it alright if I use this?" he asks uncertain.

The first researcher sighs, "Yeah, sure. Knock yourself out."

Big Brother stands in front of the door, takes a quick breath and exhales with enough force to tear the door completely off its frame. Chairs audibly slide as the researchers sit up in their seats and Big Brother hauls the door into the room one handed. Leaning the bulky slab of steel against the wall, he takes the door by the corner with one hand and tears a strip off as though shredding paper before rolling it into a ball and tossing it onto the table.

The table gives out under its weight and the camera is knocked to the floor, Big Brother is visible kneeling down to collect their papers and apologizing for the mess. Excitement is audible in their voices as they bid him not to worry and ask about other abilities.

A note of embarassment creeps into his voice and he suggests going outside for further demonstration.




McCrow, Fanboy and Prophet sit gawking at the screen for several minutes after the video is over. Prophet is the first to break the silence. "We need to do something." he suggests unhelpfully.

Fanboy excuses himself and calls Parks. Parks warns him that there's nothing more he can do to help, but Fanboy just asks for the location of the new DHS office. Parks is obviously hesitant to answer, but Fanboy explains that he wants to dispose of the cannisters before anyone else can be transformed by them. It takes a little cajoling, but he eventually convinces Parks to give him the address.

Going after the DHS isn't as daunting as it once was, Fanboy loads all five of their AssaultBots and 25 of their remaining Luvbots (the tussle with the Italians knocked out about a third of them so they've only got 125 left) into a sack and Roger gathers his droplets before they take off for the address Parks gave them.

They discover an abandoned factory where Parks directed them and it doesn't take much probing with ESP for Fanboy to discover that this is in fact the new Hole. Not wanting to jump into another personal scuffle so soon after their last, Roger has an idea. He puts five Luvbot spheres each into five of his droplets and they set the spheres to activate in 15 minutes with orders to blast anyone that's armed. Roger then instructs the droplets to go hide in the basement.

Fanboy watches the chaos unfold and it's damned near embarassing. The contingent of S.C.A.R. troops are skilled and well armed, but they don't have anything they can bring to bare to take down Luvless's space age tech. Within minutes they have been subdued and by the time our heroes head downstairs they can hear the Luvbots shouting 'Surrender or Die!' and brandishing laser weapons to emphasize their point.

McCrow walks around stripping the S.C.A.R. agents of their gear while Fanboy tracks down their commanding officer. He finds an older man in a standoff with several Luvbots and simply tears the pistol from the man's hand, disarming both him and the situation. The Luvbots disperse to find more dissenters.

Fanboy attempts to mentally probe the man's mind, but discovers he's too resilient to overcome. "Who ordered the hit?" Fanboy asks bluntly.

"I did." the man admits fearlessly. "Wilson wants you out of the way and I set my best men on it."

Fanboy shakes his head, "Why are you helping the Italians? It makes no sense."

The officer scoffs, "You've got that backwards boy, the Italians are helping us!"

McCrow sucker punches the man across the face and busts his lip. The officer responds by spitting blood directly into McCrow's face defiantly. McCrow naturally responds with a wild haymaker that loosens teeth. The man starts laughing derisively but a second haymaker from McCrow shuts him up and sends several bits of teeth clattering to the floor.

"Still funny?" McCrow roars. "Let's see how funny it is when I leave you in as many pieces as we left your men!"

"Enough McCrow." Fanboy says and corrals them down the hall and towards the area he's already telepathically scouted as the testing chamber. There's a rack of cannisters against the far wall which holds 32 in all, checking a desk drawer he discovers Wilson's signature confirming delivery of 32 cannisters of something he can't pronounce; he remembers this being the same kind of cannister that gave them their powers so he figures it can't be a coincidence.

Fanboy hefts one of the cannisters and discovers that it is incredibly light, too light even... He lifts another and another and another, all in all 29 of the 32 cannisters are completely empty. That doesn't bode well.

Figuring that they've got everything they're going to get from here, Fanboy starts rewriting memories to convince the S.C.A.R. troopers that the Italians are the ones who did this. It's a hasty job and he's not sure if it'll hold up, but it should sow a little chaos in their ranks at least. He finishes with the officer but realizes that something's off, he doesn't think it took.

"You're pretty strong willed, huh?" Fanboy asks.

The officer sneers, "All S.C.A.R. operatives are. They weed out the weak and ignorant before our first day of training."

Fanboy shakes his head in disappointment, "I guess that's why you guys have such a short life expectancy." he says and puts a bullet in the man's head from his own gun.

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McCrow is pretty surprised that Fanboy just killed a man in cold blood and comments on it as they're loading gear and the cannisters up into an easily portable pile outside.

"What are you talking about? I watched you rape a man to death with an assault rifle!" Fanboy points out.

"Well...yeah, but that was heat of the moment. Totally different." McCrow says dismissively.

They bicker a little bit about the acceptably level of murder and head back home as quick as they can, pretty confident that somebody in there would have tripped an alarm. The trip is pretty uneventful and they get things stashed away pretty quick.

Once everything's set aside, they crack open one of the cannisters exictedly and Fanboy hooks it up to an oxygen mask to better administer doses. He takes a long experimental breath of the powerful transformative, excited at the prospect of what it might offer. To his disappointment it doesn't seem to do anything to him.

McCrow insists that Fanboy's doing it wrong and snatches the mask for himself, taking a deep breath himself but finding it equally useless. "Are you sure this is the right stuff?" he asks gruffly.

Fanboy shrugs, no longer so sure of himself. "Maybe...?"

Roger glances around for something not already affected by the gas to try it out on and grabs up one of his droplets, blasting the oblivious little creature with an experimental spray. The droplet responds by quivering uncontrollably and seeming to dissolve before their eyes.

Both of their eyes go wide and it suddenly occurs to them that maybe they should have tested the gas BEFORE they tried it on themselves. As they argue back and forth as to who's fault it is that they're going to die, they hear a little voice ask: "Who am I?"

Looking down, they see that the droplet has reformed but no longer has the vacant, manic grin that its brothers wear. Fanboy nearly gasps.

"It's fully sentient!" Fanboy almost shouts. "The gas works!"

The droplet seems confused and repeats its question to McCrow. "Who am I?"

McCrow ***** his head and picks the little critter up. "I think I'll call you.... Yeah. I think I'll call you Stallone." he says with a nod.

"Stallone?" the little creature asks puzzled.

"Yes, it's the name of a great man of incredible vision." McCrow assures it.

"Stallone...St-al-lone." the droplet repeats to itself.

"Who else can we blast?" McCrow asks excitedly.

Fanboy points out that the gas is dangerous, citing the more than 50% fatality rate of those exposed on the bus. McCrow suggests using it on their Italian prisoner but Fanboy replies that best case scenario they waste a hit of the gas, worse case scenario they have to contend with another superhuman Italian making life miserable for them.

McCrow suggests that may Sandy's kids would like superpowers but Fanboy shoots him down. Then, they both have the same idea at the same time. They'll ask Chavenski, if anyone's tough enough walk away from this thing new and improved, it's him.

Now going into this they knew it was a 50/50 shot at either giving a mass murdering Russian mobster superpowers or having something bad happen, they also knew that even if he survived he'd be getting a random power (determine by a last minute chart we whipped up) so for all they know they're risking the life of one of their only real allies on the offchance he might glow in the dark.

They make the offer to him and he's so sick of being what he considers an invalid that he'll take any chance that might restore the man he used to be. They give him the gas and he takes a long, deep drag off of it and quickly succumbs to its effects; convulsing and passing out altogether. I roll the die to determine whether or not it transforms or kills him and.....he makes it. Dr Kavlight steadies his vitals and the changes begin. Just like with the others, he'll be out for a while before his powers truly manifest.

I let one of the players roll on the chart to see which power he'll wake up with and off of a list that contained such items as Super Burrowing, Extra Bouncy and Acidic Spit he got

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Gravity Control, pretty much the only big flashy power I even included.

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Things are going pretty good for the heroes all things considered. They still haven't located Bradley's dad, but they're making progress and they have three cannisters of world shaking, magical gas. Not wanting to risk the cannisters falling into the wrong(er) hands, they stuff them into their submersible holding cell and toss them to the bottom of the ocean for safekeeping.

They also try to prod Prophet into providing insight into their predicament when he finally admits he can't. I don't remember if I ever explained how his powers work, but he doesn't actually see visions of the future; he takes control of his body at a future date and has a minute or two to glance around and find notes or newspaper clippings he's left for himself. He explains that the last few times he's been transported into the future he's not been anywhere where he can look up information. In fact...he's not been in Ventnor City at all.

They question him as to where he would have went, but he honestly doesnt know. He doesn't even think he's been in civilization during this time. The news is troubling, but as Prophet points out there's no way for him to know if this will happen next week or 20 years down the line. His powers are unpredictable.

While they're discussing this in Prophet's saferoom, a news broadcast appears on the T.V. It's a breaking story concerning trouble in the park.

80 Dead in Terrorist Attack

Flashes across the screen and before they even see the first sentient tree shumbling around they sigh, Tree King is back.

They grab their satchel full of Luvbots and bolt to the park as fast as they can to handle this, by the time they arrive there appears to be somewhere north of 1,600 tree clones which have simply claimed the park as their own. Perhaps more disturblingly is a 30ft tree thicker around than a volkswagon which seems to have sprung up in the middle of the park; it sports a twisted, inhuman face which seems to be locked in a constant wail.

As Fanboy lowers the two of them to the ground and prepares for battle he's flagged down by one of the tree clones; surprisingly, they can hardly be called clones any longer. The one which flogs them down has a majestic bush across his shoulders, others sport various vines; flowers and thorns which the original Tree King never had.

"Leave this place and peace may be maintained." the Tree Clone states flatly.

"Peace?" Fanboy asks incredulously. "You murdered 80 people!"

"They were trespassers in our domain." the Tree Clone replies, "Avoid our land and peace may be maintained."

"This isn't your land chief." Fanboy replies. "It's city property, you need to piss off."

"We will make better use of it." the Tree Clone insists coldly.

"Take us to your leader." McCrow demands.

"You address him. We are all Tree King, they are all a part of me." the Tree Clone replies.

"Freaking Tree-Borg." Fanboy mutters.

"You're Tree King?" McCrow asks, not quite buying it. "You seem too calm. Where's that genocidal rage you're usually shouting about?"

The Tree Clone bristles but replies "I have accepted my new position in life. Leave this place and peace will be maintained."

"Peace will be maintained, peace will be maintained." McCrow mimics. "If you're Tree King then you know who I am. I splintered your ass once, I'll do it again if you don't turn around and crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of."

The Tree Clone's eyes blaze and it shouts in a familiar blood curdling screech "Insolent speck, I'll flay your bones from your screaming meat!"

"There's the murderous rage you're usually shouting about!" McCrow grins and throws a mighty haymaker against the clone's jaw that basically breaks his own hand. The Tree Clone in charge as well as the four others nearby all scream in rage and release a cloud of spores which choke McCrow and send him sprawling down against the ground.

The Tree Clones turn growling to Fanboy and he holds his hands up in the universal symbol for 'I didn't do it.'

Diplomacy breaks down pretty fast even without McCrow's interference as Fanboy and the Tree Clone get into a shouting match about how Trees don't belong in the city, they belong in the jungle and that's where they should go; the trees point out that they're not that kind of tree and that their massive tree god is sort of already growing here.

Things get serious and the Tree Clones start swarming, Fanboy doesn't take it too seriously until he realizes that I meant ALL of the Tree Clones are swarming and he's suddenly looking at a murderous tide of wood and rage bearing down on him; he even spots the hulking form of Brick surging forward to get a piece of the action and decides that this fight just isn't worth it.

The massive tree in the center releases a disgusting amount of spores that are so thick they're visible and most of the trees on the ground follow suit.

"Every death from this moment forward is on YOUR HEAD! A dozen will die for each step you trespass from this moment on!" the Tree Clone representative shouts as Fanboy snatches McCrow as best he can and rockets out of the park.

He barges into the mayor's office, dropping the still unconscious McCrow in the waiting room, and demands to know what the mayor plans on doing about this.

"Me?!" the mayor stammers. "That's what you're for!"

"What would you normally do?" Fanboy snaps.

"You mean when mutant tree men try to murder all of my citizens for trespassing in his park? Strangely that's never came up before!" the mayor almost hisses. "I've got a call into the governor, but this is too strange to believe. Who knows when he'll arrange help?"

Fanboy shakes his head and then asks if the mayor knows any pyrotechnic guys. The mayor responds that he's got a guy that does fireworks once or twice a year for him, that he's pretty good.

Fanboy rolls his eyes, but he's desparate and takes the guy's address anyway. The Mayor calls ahead to explain things.


McCrow finally wakes up on the way across town and together they knock on Marshall O'Grady's door. The man that answers is not what they were expecting from the mayor.

For one thing he's drunk off his ass at 1 in the afternoon and he sports thick, bushy orange hair and a stylized eye patch over his left eye emblazoned with a flaming skull. He stands in the doorway in nothing but his underwear and increasingly elaborate tattoos, swigging out of a fifth of whiskey and constantly asking to be reminded who the hell they are.

Fanboy just leaves the mayor out of his explanation altogether, figuring that any added complexity just makes this harder. He bluntly says "I need a man to burn down the park. Are you him?"

"Six grand." the little Irishman snaps the offer up without needing to hear anymore. "But you just keep this between you and me."

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General Wilson gave Michael his orders alone and then sent him to the hospital to retrieve his partner. The two of them would be brokering a deal between visiting Italian mobsters and the DHS to help take down a larger terrorist cell. Michael doesn't like it, but as he's constantly reminded; he doesn't have to like it.

His current partner, Dr Steinz will be doing most of the negotiating by himself, but it's always handy to have an invincible berserker on your side if things to belly up. The rub being that his current partner is still laid up in the hospital with a pair of broken legs from their last excursion. But then, that's life sometimes.

Before picking up Steinz, Michael decides to pay a visit to see how Mann is faring. It's painful to see him in his current condition, but then; thats like too sometimes. At least their life.

Entering Mann's room, Michael is shocked to find that it's empty. No sign of his former friend and partner. Rushing to the desk he flashes his badge and demands to know where Mann's been transferred to.

The clerk looks at him with confusion on her face and explains "He was signed out by a senior DHS agent, he was marked as fit to return to duty."

Michael's blood runs cold remember the shrivelled husk which remained of his one time friend. "Bulls***." he mutters.