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

**Kid Jake** · 2013-12-30, 06:57 PM (ISO 8601)

After a decade of perseverance I've finally talked my friends into sitting down and playing a pen and paper RPG with me and since none of us have played M&M yet I thought it might be interesting to keep up with our progress to see how things develop.

We had a couple of sessions of D&D but the plot wasn't moving fast enough and I lost their attention, so I figured I'd start an episodic Superhero campaign with only slight hints at a larger plot and try to ease them into storytelling. Neither of them are taking it particularly serious so far, but they still seem pretty enamored of their characters so I'm claiming it as a win.

I wanted a low-power game to keep them from gaining powers and then immediately attacking the city, so we've started at PL5 and they're the first superhumans in history. They gain their powers in classic comic book fashion from a mysterious green gas and a horrible accident.

The title came from Roger McCrow's player, who attempted to purchase the Sidekick feat; saying he didn't actually want a sidekick, he just wanted to let Fanboy know his place.

PC1

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Roger McCrow

A middle-aged former forklift operator and dockworker with a hair trigger who was laid off due to budget constraints. Worked a backbreaking job for 30 years with nothing to show for it and was riding the bus from his latest job interview during the attack. Gains the ability to control water, completely wrecks any environment he fights in.

PC2

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The Fanboy

A twenty-something Star Wars fan/daddy's boy that's never had to work a day in his life thanks to his father's lucrative business and poor parenting. Was on his way back from a convention still dressed as a storm trooper during the bus attack. Gains telepathy and telekinesis; declares himself a Jedi.

Spoiler: Other Characters

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Spoiler: Other PCs

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Spoiler: Agent Mann

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McCrow's alternate character; an extremely patriotic, straight laced DHS agent with an intense hatred of superhumans and inability to compromise. Extremely skilled in mundane combat.

Spoiler: Michael Stockton

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Fanboy's alternate character; Mann's former friend and partner and the reason Mann hates superhumans. Lost the use of his legs in combat and volunteered for a project that promised to make him battle worthy again. Gained immortality and ridiculous regeneration, but his experiences gave him extreme PTSD that makes him unpredictable and dangerous.

Spoiler: Tiffany

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A former shoplifter and current freelance superhuman that gained the ability to transform herself into diamond at will. Her visceral powers have awoken terrifying and sadistic urges in her and she's taken to ripping trophies off her victims and burning what's left.

Spoiler: Stardust

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A stripper gifted with flight, invisibility and some control ov's had some contact with Agent Mann, but her currenabouts are unknown.

Spoiler: The Team

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Spoiler: The Prophet

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A one legged conspiracy theorist and agoraphobe skilled with computers and blessed with precognition.

Spoiler: Bradley Yurtz, aka Duplex

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One of their first villains, now their personal janitorial/security staff after they saved him from a life in The Hole. Bradley is a teenaged jock with the ability to produce a ridiculous number of clones of himself and thanks to the tutelage of McCrow and Fanboy he's becoming an accomplished handyman and marksman.

Spoiler: 'Lucky' Dan Brown

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An alcoholic that's more or less immune to harm. Things just seem to go his way once the chips are down even though he seems to have no control over what happens.

Spoiler: Sandy Clemens

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A middle-aged woman with superhuman healing capabilities. Lost her husband to the serial killer and is currently in hiding along with her children.

Spoiler: Richard Bronson

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An awkward teenager turned into a walking time bomb. He's been gifted/cursed with the ability to absorb and generate electricity, but doesn't seem to have any control over his ability.

Spoiler: Dr Kavlight

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The resident surgeon and physician and former head of the hastily assembled Superhuman Recovery.

Spoiler: Allies

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Spoiler: Chavenski

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The current boss of the city and vicious Russian gangster, they have a mutual relationship with him built on trust and murder.

Spoiler: Agent Parks

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Their official (and long suffering) liaison with the DHS and current official head of the S.C.A.R. (Superhuman Containment and Recovery) program on the east coast.

Spoiler: Enemies

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Spoiler: Depaliamo

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A ruthless Italian mobster that's ran Ventnor City's underworld for decades and will stop at nothing to secure his own power.

Spoiler: Tree King

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A living plant with sharp wooden claws, the ability to generate suffocating spores, control over local plant life and recently discovered ability to regenerate and create clones of himself from his splinters. A true mass murderer, has a body count in the hundreds so far. Whereabouts are unknown.

Spoiler: Brick

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An unstoppable force made of stone and rage as well as the driver of the bus which gave everyone their power. Was shipped off to The Hole because of his appearance but was rescued by the Tree King and put to work.

Spoiler: Johnny on the Spot

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A super speedster assassin formerly in the employment of Vincent Depaliamo, he was a thorn in the side of our heroes for quite a while before Fanboy finally destroyed his leg with liberal application of bullets and obscenities. Currently resides in The Hole where he reminisces about the days when he could walk.

Spoiler: Doctor Luvless

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A super genius of unparalleled brilliance, he's demonstrated himself capable of building hardlight construct generators out of spare parts he found in his garage and has a power staff that struck down Fanboy with a single blow that enables him to generate powerful blasts, an impenetrable forcefield and even teleport at will.

Spoiler: General Wilson

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A major player within the S.C.A.R. program and able to circumvent Parks on any matter he feels important. Has taken an instant dislike to the PCs. Has sent several superpowered dogs against our heroes in an attempt to put them down once and for all.

Spoiler: The Serial Killer

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A super powered serial killer that seems to be hunting other superhumans for their powers. Currently has the speed, power and endurance of an olympic quality boxer. Telepathy and telekinesis nearly on par with Fanboy, control of water to rival Roger McCrow's, regeneration similar to Michael's and the ability to drive people to exhaustion with only a thought.

Part One, The Accident

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The campaign kicks off on a city bus at the end of very long day. Roger has just finished putting in applications and interviewing at a local recycling center and the aptly named Fanboy had just finished convention hopping, still in a full storm trooper costume. The bus is nearly full with a mother and her 12 year old daughter arguing near the front of the bus, a young man sitting next to Roger, holding a house plant with a bow on it trying not to make eye contact with a burly biker sitting across from him and a pudgy security guard next to the Fanboy all but asleep on the young man's shoulder.

Fanboy starts off by pestering the guard to wake up and calling him a "Lazy, good for nothing plebian." Roger, being resentful of being walked over by the upper class all of his life tells the younger man to leave the guy alone, that at least he works for a living. Fanboy tells him to mind his own business and Roger shouts something offensive and inflammatory that's better left to the imagination that wakes up the guard he's defending.

It's around this time that the bus makes its next stop and a crazed man wearing a ski-mask and carrying a large canister with large warning labels bolts around the corner being shot at by police. As he leaps on the bus a stray bullet strikes his prize and a green mist starts flooding the bus, the bus driver is intimidated into driving away.

Naturally neither Roger or Fanboy have noticed this turn of events. Instead they're in the middle of a fist-fight in the back of the bus where the much larger Roger is manhandling the unathletic Fanboy and ranting about over privileged brats and their stupid toys, while Fanboy is shouting that George Lucas is a genius and flailing wildly into the side of Roger's head with an R2-D2 ashtray.

The hijacker, wanting to get control of his situation, starts shouting and demanding the two of them get into their seats and stay there. Fanboy, his dander already up, hurls the ashtray into the guy's face stunning him. Which prompts Roger, suddenly more irritated at the ******* trying to tell him how to live his life than at this random kid in a storm trooper outfit, to charge the hijacker and tackle him to the front of the bus.

Obviously assaulting a criminal in the middle of a crime is dangerous, so Roger is shot point blank for his heroic burst road rage and falls bleeding and unconscious into a seat. The bus driver is startled by the gunshot and turns to see what's happening, slamming full speed into the side of a movie theater and tossing the occupants around like ragdolls. Fanboy watches a middle aged man in a tweed jacket force open the back door and several people leap out before the green mist surrounds him and he too blacks out.

Part Two, The Change

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It's been two weeks since the accident and Roger is the first to wake up. It's roughly midnight and he's beyond thirsty. He attempts to call a nurse, but his buzzer doesn't work and he can't think of anything besides his parched throat. He stumbles into the bathroom and begins sucking water directly from the sink. He's so focused on sating his thirst that he barely notices when the pipes in the sink burst and the water within geysers towards him. This marks the first of many times Roger completely destroys his surroundings without meaning to.

Fanboy who was sleeping soundly in the other room however does. He opens his eyes and hears an intense buzzing in his head that as he focuses becomes Roger's voice that drones on orgasmically about how much he's enjoying his water. A doctor bursts in to see what they're doing in there and though his tone is polite, Fanboy hears his thoughts and they reveal that he both considers them freaks and wishes they were somebody else's problem.

The doctor gives them a paper detailing the bus accident, which has officially been declared a case of bio-terrorism and is still under investigation. Sadly, the paper reports that there are no survivors. Though as the doctor points out, when Fanboy begins testing himself for ghost symptoms, that was a fabrication to avoid revealing the actual contents of the stolen canister. He mentions that there's a man from Homeland Security that wanted to speak with them once they woke up, but before he has a chance to send word of their recovery a nurse rushes in and screams for the doctor's help.

The doctor and the PCs run into the hallway to see what all the hubbub's about when they spot a bloody streak littered with almost a dozen bodies of nurses and orderlies that stretch around the corner and out of sight and a creature that looks more plant than man ranting about government conspiracies and demanding they change him back. His wooden claws are covered in gore and he's in the middle of strangling an orderly while he issues his demands.

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Roger instinctively calls the nearby water to himself, flooding every bathroom on the floor and tearing pipes out of the wall all around them. Fanboy lashes out mentally and distracting the tree creature, allowing the orderly to escape. The tree flexes several bulbs on its chest and they bloom outward, sending choking spores into the air. Nobody makes their save vs Suffocation, so Roger uses his hero point to counter the airborne spores with the sprinkler system as a reaction. The doctor just stands there slack jawed.

Roger focuses the nearby water into a shotgun blast that sends the tree man reeling and Fanboy uses telekinesis to throw a trashcan ineffectually (the dice hate that guy and it's became a house rule that if he fails to roll above a 10 at least once per 5 rounds he gets one free re-roll per round until he does.) but doesn't do anything but irritate the monster. The tree man charges on his round and injures Roger with a wild claw swing.

Feeling particularly spiteful, Roger attempts to draw the moisture out of the tree (Disintegrate) and turn it to kindling but fails to manifest his most lethal power. Fanboy is suddenly very worried by their opponent's claws and decides to back up and telekinetically grapple the tree-man to keep him at a distance. The tree man releases a second cloud of spores into the air and the heroes begin choking.

Roger attempts to dehydrate the tree again but fails to do anything more impressive than forcing a toughness save which the creature passes. Fanboy pins his opponent with his mind and uses extra-effort to as he put it 'Throw that son of a bitch into the stratosphere.' However the tree man rolls a natural 20 on his toughness and manages to brace himself enough to keep from being flung from the building. He retaliates by maintaining his suffocating spores and the heroes barely make the constitution check to stay conscious.

Roger summons the water to himself again, gaining a significant boost to his water blast ability and uses extra effort to fire the blast on the same turn. He rolls a natural 20 of his own and between the crit and auto-fire deals +10 over PL before factoring in the (unnecessary) damage from knockback. The tree man is thrown through two separate walls and left in a pile of splinters for someone else to deal with.

The doctor is suddenly a good deal more friendly, both in word and thought and starts looking at Roger's wound; suggesting that Roger might want to look into dodging eventually in the future. A man in a conservative suit joins them and dismisses the doctor, introducing himself as a liaison from Homeland Security and extending his thanks for dealing with the unruly superhuman. He then hands them a non-disclosure agreement that forbids them from speaking of their experiences on the bus or revealing the...side effects of their exposure to the general populace by word or deed. He graciously offers to pay their medical bills in exchange for their signature.

Fanboy however hears Option B with a little probing and realizes that the alternative is a lifetime in a dark hole while government scientists figure out what makes them tick.

They sign and settle in for an extended stay.

Part Three, Heroics

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Roger checks his messages in the hospital and finds that the first message on the machine is from the company he was interviewing with; they ask him to come in for a second interview. His second message is from his landlord reminding him that his rent is beyond late and that he has exactly 1 week before he's out on the street. The next message is from his potential employers saying that since they hadn't heard from him in two weeks they assume he's not interested and have given the position to someone else. Fanboy is now a habitual eavesdropper with his telepathy and offers to let Roger stay in his father's guest house until he's back on his feet. He happily suggests that Roger would probably make a good groundskeeper and is genuinely confused when Roger throws a cup of Jello at him and screams 'I don't need your charity!'

Shortly afterwards they're finally released and go their separate ways; no fonder of each other than their first meeting on the bus, but at least having earned one another's grudging respect. Roger goes home, hoping to explain things to his landlord but he gets nervous waiting for the guy to show up and floods his own living room. Long story short, the cops are called and our intrepid hero is now homeless. Fanboy on the other hand shows up just long enough to ask his dad for the cash to replace his storm trooper costume and continues life as usual.

After a few days the two of them get separate calls (Roger no longer has a phone so he receives his call during the middle of a job search) from a man who refuses to identify himself but says he was at the hospital when they saved the doctors. He explains that he gained precognition the same way they got their powers and that his visions show a number of deaths starting at a local liquor store if somebody doesn't step in and prevent them. Since he's bound by the same non-disclosure agreement as the PCs he isn't allowed to call the cops for crimes that haven't happened yet, especially considering it's a superhuman that's about to commit them.

Each of the heroes feel pretty badass at this point and start viewing themselves as society's only hope against the new breed of criminal, so they go to stake out the liquor store and are immediately disappointed to find that the other one is there. They spend a good twenty minutes at this point insulting each other and get into another fist fight because even when you control the primal forces of nature sometimes you've just got to punch something, and a smug daddy's boy dressed as a storm trooper on a stakeout is as good a target as any.

Their bickering continues until Fanboy notices a bright yellow muscle car parked directly on the sidewalk in front of the liquor store and deciding that such a shoddy parking job is obviously the work of a deranged mind, focuses his telekinesis and drags the car across the street and flips it onto a random parked car, absolutely totaling both of them. Roger is impressed by this display enough that he neither curses or berates Fanboy for his callous disregard for whoever's car that is, and instead just whistles appreciatively.

Three masked men with an uncanny resemblance to each other run out from the store across the street and are struck speechless by the display. 'My car!' the first one shouts in a pained voice. 'My dad's going to kill me...' the second one adds. 'Do you know who I am?' the third one demands angrilly.

Roger turns around and calls out 'Nope, tell us?'

One of the guys shouts 'I'm Duplex, master of duplication!' a second shouts 'Bradley Yurtz, my dad's gonna have your ass!' and is immediately struck by the third guy. 'Idiot, don't tell him our name!' the last guy hisses.

The PCs take it in for a minute and Roger blows up the fire hydrant next to him, propelling the shattered metal into the chest of one of the Bradleys and putting him down hard. Bradley however doesn't do much well, but one thing he excels at is is duplicating. A lot. He responds to the loss of his copy by creating ten more, all of which open fire with gusto on the unprotected heroes. Roger is naturally shot immediately, but with his usual macho flair doesn't take anything more substantial than an injury. Fanboy leaps behind the overturned cars and fails to hit with a telekinetic blast, his player curses until it's his turn again because it's about his eighth failed roll in a row.

Roger uses boost to beef up his hydro blast and extra effort to send a tidal wave of hurt directly at the Bradleys. Four are crushed outright, and most of the rest are knocked down. Duplex responds by making even more of himself the rest of him open fire at Roger who's of the opinion that cover is frightened women and wants nothing to do with it, but miraculously none of them connect. Fanboy now just wants to crush the lot of them, heroics be damned and uses extra effort to lift the twisted wreckage he'd made earlier and toss it directly into the group of clones. He crushes all but five of them and stuns the real Duplex.

Roger attempts to drown the rest of them like rats, but the car provides them a degree of cover and his attack is avoided. The Bradleys drag their leader into a more defensive position and return fire from what's left of their car. Fanboy, not having any of that, uses his turn to telekinetically push the car out of the way and extra effort to mentally blast one of the punks, taking him out altogether, leaving only four left.

The PCs are feeling fairly confident in their victory until they hear the tell-tale sound of a police siren and realize they may not have enough time to finish this. Roger blasts one of the Bradleys with a burst from his handy geyser, taking the total down to three and Fanboy attempts and fails to take one out with a nearby STOP sign. The Bradleys return fire (giving each of the PCs another injury )and try to make it to the remains of their car for cover.

A cop car swings around the corner and the heroes are suddenly in danger of violating their agreement. They briefly consider retreat, but then Fanboy decides to try out mind control on the driver; dominating the cop into plowing directly through one of the Bradleys and into the brick wall behind him. Roger, not to be outdone forces the water in the radiator to explode upwards and blanket the police car in an obscuring cloud and spends a hero point to add a scalding effect to the initial burst, taking out all but the last of Duplex's clones. Bradley is suddenly alone and terrified and tries to run.

Fanboy tries out his mind control a second time and forces Bradley to drop his gun and climb into the back of the police cruiser. The two heroes decide that they've tempted fate enough at this point and try to flee. More cops are coming from the north, another car is coming from the south, Fanboy can sense several patrolmen on foot cutting down the alley...

Roger kicks in a random door and runs inside, Fanboy right behind him. The owner of the place rushes downstairs with a gun, terrified of what he'll find but Fanboy projects an illusion of him and Roger as a pair of terrified children crying about their parents being in an accident across the street. The man pokes his head outside and the two heroes rush out the back door, Roger's adrenaline bursting pipes as he goes. They just barely slip past a patrol car and split up without stopping to think about it.

By the time Roger arrives at the alley he's been staying in he finds a cellphone giftwrapped and waiting for him. It's already ringing. When he answers it he discovers that it's a conference call with Fanboy and their liaison Agent Parks already on the line. Their liaison warns them that if they continue flaunting their powers like this, they're going to wind up in custody. He doesn't elaborate on the extent of the custody, but the hole is implied...

He then goes on to congratulate them on benevolent, if not responsible, use of their powers and admits that he may be unable to handle the existing superhumans himself; he offers them a retainer fee in case he needs to call on them in the future. Fanboy immediately demands an obscure piece of memorabilia in lieu of payment and Roger demands to be the one to name the team. The agent stresses that 'THERE IS NO TEAM!' He reminds him that superhumans don't legally exist and that as such there can't be a super team. That this is an unofficial 'consultation', nothing more; and that under no circumstances are they to dress up and call attention to themselves.

The agent points out that he knows Roger is in financial difficulty and offers the use of a safe house as a job perk. He's genuinely shocked to hear Roger shout 'I don't need your charity!' and the phone shatter as it strikes a nearby wall.

Spoiler: Other Campaign Posts

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**Donox** · 2014-01-01, 01:46 AM (ISO 8601)

Looks good! I've always wanted to read a good M&M journal.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-01-01, 01:48 PM (ISO 8601)

Thanks. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen an M&M journal; so I figured if nothing else it'd be something different.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-01-12, 05:42 PM (ISO 8601)

Alright, so we've had a second session and things have gotten interesting. Both guys have gotten into their characters a bit more and they've actually started getting invested in the world around them.

Fanboy's take on a slightly less conspicuous costume as well:

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I was trying to get all of this down while it was still fresh so it might feel a little rushed. But anyway, I present to you:

Making It Personal

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Picking up where we left off last time, Fanboy returns home after his conversation with Liaison Parks and the volatile Roger McCrow to find two well-dressed men leaving his father's estate in the middle of the night. They sneer at his Storm Trooper costume and snicker amongst themselves, but otherwise say nothing and drive off.

He looks for his father to ask what those men were doing here, and finds the honorable Harold Hamilton of 'Hamilton's Furniture Outpost' splayed in the corner of the room nursing a broken nose and a swelling face. "You didn't see anything Samell." Fanboy's usually stern father says fearfully. "Just remember that you didn't see anything."

Fanboy demands to know who those men were and his father finally relents and tells him that they were from Mr. Depaliamo (a Knowledge(Street) check revealed that he was a powerful man rumored to have mob ties, known for petty, if brutal, acts of vengeance) and that they won't bother them anymore. He explains that Depaliamo wants his help in shipping certain items and that he agreed after this little visit.

Fanboy is livid and decides to pay Depaliamo a little visit of his own.

Fanboy's heard that Depaliamo frequents a joint called Floyd's Bistro over on Eighth and Clover, coincidentally the same neighborhood where they shut down Duplex just a few hours ago. Waiting until morning in the hopes of catching the mobster at his favorite Haunt he changes into something slightly less conspicuous and hunts down Roger, finding the homeless hero sleeping in a cardboard box in what he's now christened as McCrow's alley.

Fanboy explains to McCrow that somebody attacked his dad and he needs assistance making sure they don't do it again. He's met with a hail of laughter and mockery that makes him change his mind almost immediately. He waves Roger off and tells him that he'll take down Depaliamo himself.

With a sudden burst of uncharacteristic compassion, Roger grabs Fanboy's shoulder and shouts "I'm in! What kind of guy would I be if I let him just get away with this?" Fanboy is filled with a newfound respect for his new partner and thanks him profusely. Roger however hates the sniveling daddy's boy more than ever. Depaliamo on the other hand, he hates more. That's the son of a bitch that fired him.

Declaring War

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Fanboy's all fired up to attack Floyd's Bistro and send a message that the Hamilton's aren't to be messed with; however Roger has a better plan. From his time on the docks he remembers that Depaliamo had a number of warehouses, but the furthest one, the one that sits directly on the water, was off limits. Even Custom's agents avoided it. THIS is where he wants to strike, especially considering that it's now quite literally in his element.

Fanboy agrees without wondering how McCrow came into such knowledge and they soon find themselves on the docks. The hustle and bustle dies out the closer they get into Depaliamo's turf, until they get to a lone warehouse on the piers with a handful of cars outside and almost no traffic. They figure there's nothing inside they can't handle, so they stroll right in...

They quickly find about 12 heavily armed men on catwalks overseeing eight burly dockworkers attempting to open a heavily fortified crate below. Roger calls to the nearest of the armed men and succeeds on a bluff, asking the man where their rest room is. The man doesn't bother alerting his comrades before strolling over and using rather harsh language to instruct the two men to leave.

Fanboy attempts to seize control of the man's mind, but he proves rather resilient. Noticing the way the kid's eyes are glowing and feeling a pressure in his mind the guy asks "What the hell is that?"

Roger quickly replies "He's just...umm....got to use the bathroom so damned bad." Needless to say, he tanks the bluff.

The guard looks at him confusedly and says "Bullshi-" Before being cold clocked by Roger who just says "Yeah." and starts stripping the guy's clothes. Fanboy naturally wants to know what the hell he's doing, but Roger simply shushes his 'partner' and tells him that adults are working.

Before Fanboy can make sense of what's going on, Roger is dressed in the man's clothes and sprints across the warehouse to a forklift, which he uses to plow through five of the eight dockworkers outright, mangling the poor bastards and killing three of them instantly.

Fanboy uses his Mental Blast to take out one of the guards on the catwalk above him before running up himself. The guards at this point don't know who to shoot first; the kid waving his hands and making them have seizures or the crazy hobo in the ill-fitting suit tearing up their merchandise. They decide to flip for it and fire at will. Fanboy has a fairly beefy Force Field which absorbs the onslaught of bullets. Roger however has a few plink off his vehicle, but several tear through him causing severe damage. If that wasn't bad enough, the dockworkers have grabbed various melee weapons and are trying to drag him out of the forklift for a little vengeance of their own.

Fanboy takes out another of the men on his side with another Mental Blast and Roger (apparently forgetting about his superpowers) rams two more of the dockworkers, pinning them against a crate and using extra effort to kick the last one in the face, putting them down with enough violence to make the Punisher proud before leaping out and taking cover.

At this point I asked Roger's player why he wasn't using his powers, and he explained that this was going to be HIS warehouse and he didn't want to wreck it up before moving in. Considering he was nearly dead, riddled with bullets and had more than half the warehouse to contend with; I admired his optimism.

The guards open fire on the intruders again, Fanboy is slightly grazed and Robert catches another handful of bullets, he's nearly dropped to dying; but spends his last hero point to re-roll and manages to only be disabled instead.

Fanboy takes out the last man on his side and lowers himself down to the crates below. Roger, suddenly feeling like the warehouse isn't worth dying over, closes his eyes and begins summoning water to himself through the cracks and crannies of the flooring. The guards open fire, but the two heroes are pretty well in cover and nothing gets through.

Fanboy sneaks through the crates to avoid detection and attempts to flank the guards. Roger draws yet more water up from the flooring and begins to be encased in a sort of liquid cocoon. The men fire again and several strike Roger, but he miraculously stays in the game.

Fanboy attempts to grab one of the men above him with telekinesis, but fails to make contact. Roger finishes drawing water to himself and becomes a 30ft tall water monster; his wounds being knitting themselves shut and he's nearly eye-level with the terrified guards on the catwalk. Two of the guards bolt towards the office on the far-side of the catwalk, the rest fire in a blind panic towards this new and horrible enemy they've discovered.

Fanboy manages to head them off and readies Gravity Control in anticipation. Roger grabs his beloved forklift and hurls it into midst of the remaining guards, killing four of them outright and causing the catwalk to collapse; skewering and killing the other two. He suddenly feels bad and realizes he sucks at being a hero. The other two men reach the office where 1,600lbs of force suddenly crushes them where they stand.

Roger uses his newfound size/destructive rage to tear the forward wall out of the office and bellows terrifyingly. He swings up to their level, losing mass the whole time; before suddenly realizing he's no better equipped to handle more than half a ton of weight than they are and collapsing into a heap.

Fanboy realizes what's happening and stops applying pressure, Roger and the men each leap for their guns and ole McCrow winds up with both of them. Fanboy and Roger discuss a plan to use these guys to lure Depaliamo into an ambush, but they prove less than co-operative. Roger decides to fire an encouragement shot into one of their knees, but instead rolls a natural 1 and gets the guy right in the privates. He bleeds to death pretty much instantly.

The last man standing shrieks in terror and starts to flee, but Fanboy focuses his mental energy and manages to take control of the guard's mind. Holding him in place until Roger can tie him to a chair. Roger is riddled with bullet holes and on his last legs, so they debate on what to do next. Fanboy wants to cauterize the wounds himself, but Roger refuses to let a blowtorch near himself; and after dismissing Fanboy's claims that "It can't be that hard, I saw this in a movie." he forces his partner to call Dr Kavlight (whom they saved from the tree-guy in their first outing) at the hospital and tell him there's been a super powered emergency. The doctor can hear the two of them bickering as Fanboy tries to make it sound like a legitimate power failure, while Roger shouts in the background "Don't mention the gunshots, they have to report those. Tell him it's hero related!" "You mean power related?" "Whatever, I'm bleeding here! Tell him that, but don't tell him why!"

So the doctor comes out and despite the fact that they'd hidden most of the bodies, can see that there has been a massacre here. Blood and gore are streaked everywhere; there's a screaming man tied and gagged in the same room that Roger is collapsed in. He asks what's going on and Fanboy replies "That's need to know, and you don't need to know." Kavlight doesn't accept this and threatens to call Homeland Security, but Fanboy gives him a heavily altered take on events and it's accepted without any further fuss.

The doctor does what he can, but the worst of the injuries have already been taken care of by Roger's affinity with water and he asks the pair to stop by the hospital for some actual treatment as soon as they can.

Meanwhile, Fanboy telekinetically tears the door off the safe in the room and discovers about $500k in new bills and an old leather ledger. He memorizes the contents with his Eidetic Memory but finds nothing that he sees as important and places them both back. Going through the rest of the warehouse he finds a number of crates that resemble his father's filled with cheap furniture that his father would never sell, and others loaded with cheap knock-off action figures which hide a considerable amount of cocaine. The fortified crate which the dockworkers were trying to get into is no match for his mental strength and after tearing it to pieces he finds military grade weaponry inside.

Surprisingly, at this point the two of them do the responsible thing (after dumping corpses and flooding the place to get rid of that 'Just butchered' smell) and call their Liaison at Homeland Security who's pretty pissed that they can't seem to understand 'non-disclosure' but is never-the-less impressed at the scope of the operation they interrupted. They turn over everything except the ledger, even the half a million dollars worth of dirty money, but Roger plainly states that the warehouse is his. Nobody seems to argue so he takes that as a victory and the few surviving witnesses to their rampage are led away in cuffs while his former employer has lost his most profitable schemes.

Meeting Brick, Their (Current) Greatest Mistake

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Figuring that now's as good a time as any to make sure everything's in one place Roger asks Fanboy to drive him to the hospital, forgetting his usual mantra of "I don't need your charity".

They look for Kavlight and find him still stationed in the cordoned off area of the hospital those in the know are referring to as 'superhuman recovery' and the rest of the hospital believes to be a quarantine zone. Seeing as by Roger's own admission he'd been shot more than a dozen times since breakfast, the good doctor makes him the priority and gives him a thorough examination. Puzzlingly he finds that almost all of the hydromancer's wounds seem to have healed of their own accord; and the bullets even seem to have been ejected from his system. As they're discussing this rather miraculous recovery however, they hear an inhuman bellow from down the hall and the unmistakable sound of a wall being kicked down.

They rush to see what's going on, Roger doesn't even stop to put on pants (much to his own delight) and find a 10ft rock creature shouting/sobbing for them to change him back. He shoulders past the orderlies attempting to lead him back to his room and the Kavlight asks for our heroes' assistance in calming him down.

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Fanboy attempts to telekinetically pin the creature, but finds that even his mental strength isn't enough to slow it down. Roger attempts to parley and tells the creature that everything's going to be ok, he tanks his diplomacy roll and gets some rather foul language tossed at him for his trouble. With a sigh he unleashes the elemental fury of water (destroying the hospital's lady's room in the process) but his attack fails to do anything but enrage the creature further.

'Brick' the rock monster charges Roger and pins him easily, crushing the injury prone hero against the wall with one hand. Fanboy changes tactics and uses Emotion Control to temporarily calm their opponent down while Roger continues his attempts at Diplomacy to let him know that they're going through the same things he is, but everything is going to be all right.

Things seem to be going well until Fanboy botches a bluff check (natural 1, no skill ranks, charisma penalties. Total roll: -1) to convince him that there's a cure in the works. Brick asks if they think this is funny and serendipitously rolls a natural 20 to resist Emotion Control. The creature's eyes flare and he resumes crushing Roger, shouting "I know you two *******s now! You're the ones who set there fighting while the hijacker held a gun to my head!"

Fanboy's confused but Roger's(and his player's) mouth suddenly gapes open and he says "Oh crap....it's the bus driver!" Fanboy panics and attempts to telekinetically pin again, just barely managing it. Using a hero point he throws Brick down the corridor and away from them. Roger immediately attacks the floor beneath with a super powered burst of water and Brick is sent crashing down where he receives his first injury of the fight and is covered in a torrent of water.

Roger and Fanboy lower themselves into the fray and find that they've landed in a waiting room of some sort. They shout at those waiting that the whole floor is giving out and they need to leave; hoping that they haven't given away their secrets yet. It doesn't take much prodding to leave them alone with their quarry.

Fanboy immediately reapplies his telekinesis and manages to pin Brick beneath the water, but is disappointed to find that the rock man can't seem to drown. Roger sees an overabundance of water and hatches a plan. He begins drawing the water to himself while Fanboy wrestles with the irate bus driver.

Fanboy barely manages to hold Brick at bay for the two rounds it takes for Roger to assume his Battleform, but it pays off when McCrow nearly fills the room with his new bulk. Roger takes over grappling while Fanboy assaults Brick's mind with his Mental Blast round by round.

Brick finally breaks free and starts slugging it out with McCrow, forcing Roger's player to spend his last hero point to avoid being knocked out outright.

The timely arrival of Liaison Parks with something that looks like a fire extinguisher that fires nitrogen turns the tide in their favor permanently. Roger and Fanboy hold Brick still and Parks freezes the berserk rock monster solid. Parks just shakes his head at the rampant destruction around him and just says "I should've guessed..."

Before the two can explain themselves he waves them off and asks for their assistance in taking Brick to 'The Hole'. Roger thinks this is a trick to get them there and immediately tries to flee, but Fanboy stops him and talks him down. Fanboy reasons that with all the destruction the two of them know they're capable of, it'd be pretty unlikely that even the government could contain them if they wanted to leave.

Parks is...less than thrilled with this line of reasoning but assures them he needs their help and is offering them a job. They grudgingly accept.

'The Hole' is a run-down warehouse in the industrial district that looks like it's about to fall of its own volition. Inside however is a state of the art, temporary prison built to contain superhumans. True to his word, the Hole is in fact dark and the six 10x10 glass cells that feature in the center are lit sporadically by flickering overhead lights that seem to make things worse.

As they escort Brick to an empty cell they find that there's only a single occupant held in the Hole, Bradley Yurtz aka Duplex. The terrified teen bangs on the walls of his cell and tries to shout to them as they pass, but no sound escapes. They suddenly decide very much that they don't want to stay here.

They bring the still frozen Brick to a cell without a floor and lower him down before bringing in a couple of guys in overalls to seal him into the foundation with fresh cement.

Parks gestures around and says that this is where the dangerous ones go, those who prove that they can't be trusted in the general population. Fanboy asks where the tree-guy is and Parks goes quiet, before admitting that the tree is the reason he's short-handed.

The creature calling itself Tree King killed the guards posted to watch them (and nearly killed Bradley as well) before disappearing. The rest of the agents under his command have been sent to bring the murderous plant back at all costs.

Parks then asks for their help in bringing in a new superhuman that's in police custody before they find out what he is. He's being held in the drunk-tank at the moment, but there have been six hospitalizations since he's stated his intent on leaving and the injuries keep piling up. Parks assures them of compensation once the target is in his custody and the two heroes agree that this seems fair.

I'll Name Him Lucky OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate the Mob

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Fanboy drives them to the police station and find the place in a bit of a mess. A police car is wedged into the building itself and more than a couple of officers seem to be limping or nursing other injuries. Once they show the papers the DHS gave them for the transfer the drunk is tossed at them with obvious gusto. They may not know WHAT he is, but the cops know they don't want him near them.

Pictured, Public Enemy #1

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As they lead the drunk out he seems very agreeable and holds each of them in a friendly embrace while he tells them how much he appreciates them getting him out of there. Once they're out of the station he walks directly past their car and tells them that he'll see them later. Fanboy demands he get in the car and he just laughs "Why should I?"

Roger charges the guy to drag him back physically but slips in oil and falls face first into the grass. Fanboy growls irritably and tries to force his will onto the grinning drunk and orders him to cuff himself and climb in the car. To his dismay that's exactly what Roger does.

The drunk giggles and continues to saunter off at a leisurely pace. Fanboy doesn't trust his powers at the moment and attempts to chase after the Drunk, only to discover that somehow he's managed to get his foot stuck in a grate. In a panic at seeing all their good-will with Agent Parks seep away he shouts out "I'll pay you not to leave!"

Now he's not exactly sure what this guy's power is, but he doesn't care. From what he's seen: things go well for this guy and poorly for people that this guy doesn't like, and that's enough of a reason for him to suddenly want to be very bestest friends with him.

The drunk one eyes Fanboy for a minute and then slurs "You don't think I've got money? I-I-I don't need your money, I've got money! You think I don't?"

Fanboy offers him all the booze he can drink and a warm place to sleep it off if he'll come with them. The drunk says that he knows the deal with Parks and that using his powers in public is a big no-no, that he's not falling for this.

Fanboy assures him that they'll work it out with Parks to keep him out of the Hole, since he doesn't seem to really be malicious, just....drunk. The drunk thinks it over and agrees that this could work.

Now it's worth noting that I meant for this to be a recurring 'villain'/nuisance for the players to really want to knock down a peg or two for his ridiculous luck, but they instantly thought he was a fun guy and neither of them really wanted to fight him to begin with, especially considering Roger's often unintended lethality. When Fanboy lured him to the car with promises of tequila and candy they checked the inside of his suit jacket and found the name 'Daniel Brown' along with an address sown into the lining. They felt bad for him and started calling him Lucky Dan and treating him like a pet. So not the way I intended it, but I think I like this better.

Dan sleeps soundly in the backseat and they pull out of the police station to visit the ABC store, but they don't get far before they believe they've had a blow-out and slam through a nearby fire hydrant. The two heroes climb out to discover that their tires are missing completely.

They look around for a moment before noticing a man in a red leather jacket leaning against the trunk of their car, twirling a tire iron in his hand. The two of them look at each other for a second before Fanboy shouts over to the guy and asks him if he's some sort of effing gremlin or something.

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The guy sneers at them and casually strolls around the car. He taps the tire iron against his hand and asks "Do you idiots know who I am?"

Roger grins broadly and boasts "Ha, I was about to ask you the same question."

The guy nods and says "Yeah. You're the dead men what poked their noses into Depaliamo's business."

The wind instantly goes out of Roger's sails and he just goes "Oh...you do know who we are then."

The stranger blurs momentarily and both Fanboy and Roger suddenly have a distinct tire iron shaped bruise along their cheeks, however their opponent still looks as though he's casually examining his weapon as he was before. "How the hell did you do that?" Fanboy (and his player) asks with a little outrage.

"Same way I unscrewed your tires at 30mph. Compared to me? You guys are standing still. People don't call me Johnny on the Spot for nothing." the guy says, dripping with self-confidence. Heedless of the gawking witnesses Fanboy attempts to telekinetically grapple the speedster, but misses horribly. Johnny taunts with "Boy, you even think slow!" Roger tries to direct the geiser from the broken hydrant towards Johnny but fails to make contact.

Johnny delivers two more imperceptibley fast blows to the heroes before running directly up the wall of an adjoining building. Fanboy, bleeding profusely from his head, uses Gravity Control to blanket the area in overwhelming weight and Roger takes advantage of the now slowed speedster by making the building he's on outright explode with a burst of water from every pipe inside bursting at once, causing the remainder of the confused witnesses to run away.

They have no idea whether it's working or not but continue the onslaught, until suddenly a flash of red rushes past and clocks Fanboy directly in the jaw. There's nobody in sight however, so they decide that they need to put the tires back on and try to get out of there. They wake up Dan and ask him to help them out, but it takes a while to explain what they want him to do and he still seems fuzzy on the details.

They collect the tires while Dan 'covers them' taking the occasional blurry blow to their knees, back and arms before realizing he can't actually control his powers. Roger attempts to replace them after they've been collected and Fanboy readies Gravity Control to activate the second he sees a red blur and is rewarded by crushing Johnny to the ground yet again, although he catches himself and Roger in the blast as well.

Johnny grunts irritably but seems satisfied that his savage beating has been enough of a warning and tells them that "The next time you mess with Depaliamo, things are going to get serious." before crawling out of the power and speeding away.

They call Agent Parks on the way home from the liquor store and explain their situation. That they're keeping Lucky Dan. Parks is more than a little enraged, but they explain that he's not really dangerous he's just not in control, but seems easy enough to placate. They ask to be made his caretakers to keep him out of the Hole. Parks agrees on the condition that they are completely liable for Dan, anything goes wrong and the punishments fall on their shoulders.

They also mention the speedster and give him a description, as well as the name Johnny on the Spot. Parks tells them to hold for a few minutes before coming back and telling them to be careful. He believes they're up against John Knowles, a heavy hitter in Depaliamo's organization that's used as a sort of all-purpose fix-it man. He tells them that they don't have much more than a name on the guy, but he's suspected in more than a dozen hits. They agree that this could be a problem and tell Parks that they'll be in touch.

Retaliation

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Depaliamo has pissed them off. Johnny has pissed them off. Organized crime has more or less pissed them off. Our heroes are now on the warpath.

They stash Lucky Dan at their warehouse with a couple bottles of assorted spirits and a bucket of chicken and head to Floyd's Bistro to pay Depaliamo another visit.

As they pass by the site of their battle with Duplex they see a number of trucks blocking off the street and men tearing up the water line. Roger stops to ask what's going on and they explain that there's been a number of unexplained accidents in this neighborhood and that they're trying to find the problem. Roger winces guiltily and slinks away.

The restaurant is only a block over and it's closed, since no water means no service, however they glance inside and see that a number of thugs are still around. Four can be seen from the street and Roger bangs on the door. The closest one to the door turns and says "We're closed." But Roger acts like he can't hear and continues banging.

The guy walks over to the door and mouths an exaggerated "Weeee're Cloooosed." But Roger asks to use the bathroom. The thug shakes his head and repeats that they're closed, but Roger is persistent. The thug grabs a bat and heads outside to run the two of them off, but Roger throw a haymaker that lays the guy out flat and the bat becomes his.

They step inside and the three remaining guys gasp when they see them. Fanboy manages to pin two to the same table and Roger charges across the room and brains the last one with a mighty swing of his bat. The pinned thugs shout for help and a woman in the next room answers with a plea for help of her own.

A suited man with a very large rifle rushes into the room from a private dining room and is rewarded for his vigilance by being hit by two thugs and the table they're pinned against, crushing the three of them and blocking the doorway. Another man pushes the table out of the way and two more well dressed men similarly armed open fire, catching Roger in the shoulder and bouncing off Fanboy's forcefield.

The lack of water in the pipes is a bit of a problem for Roger McCrow, but only a bit. Instead he focuses on the man that pulled the table out of the way and forces the majority of the liquid out of his body, leaving the former soldier as a shriveled, gasping husk and Roger with a basketball sized globe of water hovering above his hand. Roger hides behind a table as four thugs with pistols file out of the other room and the hail of bullets fails to do anything of significance.

Fanboy manages to catch five of the seven guys and hurls them across the room into a crumbled pile of broken bones and bruised flesh, and Roger knocks one of the remaining thugs out with a blast of his stolen water, before using a hero point to charge across the restaurant and break the last man's jaw with a blow from his bat. Roger strolls into the private dining room tapping his bat into his hand and shouting in a sing-song voice "Depaaaliiaaamo. Come out and plaaaay."

The terrified woman tied to a chair stammers at the sight of a middle aged man in a speedo wielding a baseball bat singlehandedly busting up a Mafia hangout and challenging the most dangerous man in the city to do something about it. Fanboy at least has the presence of mind to untie her as Roger continues looking to slake his bloodlust.

"He's not here." she says rubbing the feeling back into her wrists. Roger immediately assumes this to be a trick and threatens her with the bat "You'll tell me where your boss is or I'll-" Fanboy moves to calm him down by pointing out that you generally don't tie up employees. She looks at the two of them and asks who the hell they are to pick a fight with Depaliamo like this.

Roger extends a hand and smirks "McCrow, Roger McCrow and badassedness is the game. And...you are?" he asks as seductively as a bleeding, half-naked man that had threatened to kill her less than a minute ago can be.

"Elizabeth Ingles, investigative journalist. I was working on a piece about organized crime when these guys snatched me up. I've got to say, the two of you would make a fantastic story!" she says excitedly.

Roger's mouth gapes and he just looks at Fanboy, "Ohh....sh**. I just told her my name. Do we...do we kill her?" he asks, genuinely sad despite the fact that I have no doubts he'll do it.

She starts to panic when Fanboy grabs her by the head and finagles his powers enough to erase the last few hours from her memory. On the upside, she no longer knows about their suspicious partnership. On the other hand, she no longer knows why she's got rope burn or why a bleeding man in a speedo is gawking at her. She's understandably upset.

They fall back on lying to explain their presence and say that they found her "Blacked out and tied up on their way home from...swim practice? Yeah...swim practice." and after she's calmed down she decides it's better to get out of there than keep asking questions from potentially unstable men.

Once Ingles is out of their hair they search the manager's office and find a couple of goodies. Fanboy pries the safe out of the wall and finds $200k worth of cash that they decide they deserve for their trouble and assorted pictures that they ignore. What really catches their eye however is a series of filing cabinets that the two of them immediately fall on looking for information on Johnny Knowles. Fanboy finds a file and the two of them glance at each other with wide grins and start laughing.

Depaliamo has to pay, of course, in due time. But the bruises dealt by Johnny on the Spot are still fresh and recent, and if there's one thing neither 'hero' can stand it's a fight left unfinished.

So they take what files they can fit into Fanboy's car and leave Depaliamo and Johnny a simple note in the empty, shattered safe: "Now it's serious. Step into my home again and I'll break your ****ing neck."

**Qwertystop** · 2014-01-12, 08:22 PM (ISO 8601)

Seems interesting. Was honestly expecting the reporter to be a cape with some power that being tied up doesn't matter for.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-01-12, 08:39 PM (ISO 8601)

The original plan was to give them somebody that they could potentially come out to if they were sick of the shadows or at least an ally in their vindictive war against Depaliamo. But I guess they really, really didn't want to risk going into The Hole because neither player intended to let her leave there once they realized she exposed things for a living.

Although in hindsight, after meeting Johnny, her being like them might've been what was going through Roger's player's head too when he was about to work her over with the bat. Now I sort of feel like I missed an opportunity for further hijinks.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-01-20, 02:28 PM (ISO 8601)

Had another session this week. We usually only meet every other week so I didn't actually have anything planned and had to throw everything together at the last minute. But it was still an amusing session.

Renovations

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Things started off innocently enough; Roger was using his $200k worth of drug money to improve his stolen warehouse while Fanboy attempted to find out where Johnny lived from his pilfered file so they could ambush him in his sleep; figuring he wouldn't have as much spring in his step if caught unaware.

Despite their brazen attacks on the most powerful man in the city they remain unmolested in the days to come, to everybody's surprise. Fanboy discovers the reason why when he notices a large number of daylight drive-bys in the newspaper; most of which correlate with suspected Depaliamo fronts. Apparently rumors of their (successful) two man war against the Italians have given Chavenski the notion that his rival is weak and stupid, making Depaliamo ripe for extermination.

In the following week, Roger installs small grates in the warehouse, so getting to his precious water won't wreck the floor any longer and personally begins construction on living space for himself and Dan; spending the rest of his stolen cash on: an infirmary (now Dr Kavlight can't give him lip about not having the equipment to deal with his numerous gunshot wounds) a security system(with alarms tied to automatically call their phones), a back-up generator, a sprinkler system (in case the ocean was stolen maybe?) and a workshop for fiddling around in.

Agent Parks stops by during the renovations and has Roger sign a couple of forms, which McCrow does without even reading them. Luckily the DHS agent has their best interests in mind and hands Roger a deed to the warehouse, stating that he arranged to purchase the building at an impromptu police auction for $1. Roger accepts the deed but proclaims that he didn't ask for any help and Parks isn't getting his dollar back. Parks is more than a little irritated that his gesture was dismissed so quickly and leaves without another word.

It's during this time that Lucky Dan declares he's leaving. He's finally sobered up and doesn't like living in a damp warehouse anymore. Roger tries to show him the rooms he's building, but Dan misses his kids. Fanboy's surprised to learn that the drunk that's been sleeping on their floor the last few weeks is a family man and asks if his wife won't be perturbed that he's been gone so long. Dan asks what month this is and Fanboy tells him; Lucky Dan laughs and says that she'll be surprised to see him back so soon. Remembering their last (onesided) tussle with the guy, Fanboy doesn't try to stop him, but demands he call in DAILY and tells him that if he needs a place to get liquored up to come here IMMEDIATELY. Dan agrees and calls a cab.

Getting back to business, Fanboy asks his dad for a contribution towards his new 'job' and his dad seems rather pleased (especially since it's been weeks since he's seen his son dressed up like a cartoon character) until he hears the $50k price tag on his son's 'independence'. Mr Hamilton instead slides his checkbook back into the drawer and tells his son that sales have been slipping and he doesn't have that kind of money just lying around anymore. Fanboy realizes he doesn't know enough about his dad's business to tell if that's a lie or not. Roger's spiteful gales of laughter when the two of them talk of it later however, gives him a pretty good idea.

Looking For Johnny

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Fanboy decides to focus his attention on the matter of petty vengeance and pulls Roger away from his work to help him track down Johnny on the Spot for a bit of two fisted justice.

They arrive Johnny's apartment and after a bit of ESP recon, they discover he's not home. Breaking down the door they find that Johnny seems to live in his own filth; pizza boxes and discarded wrappers litter the floor and old papers are piled chest high as far as the eye can see. With disgust, they realize that the badass hitman they've been watching over their shoulders for is a hoarder.

The two of them split up to better search the mess and find similar disaster areas in the other rooms. Roger finds a pile of bills and notices that they're from three different addresses, and stuffs them into his pants before attempting to 'hack' Johnny's computer. Roger has no Computer Use at all and his player suggests that he doesn't even know the basics; so he accidentally manages to turn it off and can't figure out how to turn it back on.

Meanwhile, Fanboy discovers a 'burner' phone in the bedroom, charging under a pile of clothes. He looks it over and discovers a few phone numbers, including Depaliamo's, and more than a dozen text messages that consist of nothing more than an address. He notices that the last text sent is unread and only a few minutes old, so he makes note of the location before scrolling up. Fanboy notices that the second to last text is the address of the police station they were ambushed at and the date matches their scuffle. He realizes Depaliamo's given Johnny another hit!

Fanboy pockets the phone and finds Roger threatening the computer in the next room with physical violence. Fanboy snatches the laptop up before Roger's temper loses them a lead and tells his quick tempered partner about Johnny's text.

Roger agrees that this is top priority and after stealing Johnny's flat screen T.V., determining that his couch won't fit in Fanboy's car and bursting every pipe within bursting range and turning Johnny's apartment into a pool of filth they race to save the day.

Saving the Day

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They arrive at the address and find a massacre in the works. Depaliamo's men are advancing on an apartment building and slaughtering everything in sight in retaliation for their recent losses. Men, women and children lay in pools of their own blood on the steps leading up and a frantic gun battle rages inside.

A handful of men guard the entrance but Fanboy grapples them telekinetically and tosses them across the street where they land in a crumpled heap. Roger dives into a small fountain and rises in full monster form a moment later, roaring (however water roars) and barrels through the front door like the Kool-Aid man.

Inside there's thirteen Italians firing at four Russians hiding behind overturned benches, however the appearance of a thirty foot water monster tearing up the lobby convinces the Italians that there's bigger things to worry about. Roger grabs the first man he sees and absorbs him into his form. Fanboy snatches three of the others and tosses them against the wall, knocking them unconscious. The remaining nine open fire on Roger, but only five are even able to harm him in his new body and only two of those hit, they all scatter and take what cover they can.

Roger's wounds close rapidly and he moves to block the Russians with his own body, snatching up another Italian as he goes. Fanboy grabs two more and slams them face first into a pillar, knocking one of them out. The one that Fanboy snatched fires back at him, grazing the telepath (his player realized it was the first time he'd been shot and panics IC) before running into the stairwell.

Roger fires a blast of water at three of the gang members clumped together and takes another two of them out. Fanboy lashes out in a blind rage/panic and snatches the man who shot him from his hidey-hole, using him as a bludgeon to take out another of the men opposing them. Roger realizes he's sort of drowned the two men he'd plucked up and ejects them at one of the remaining men, leaving a grisly heap. The remaining men fire at Roger, but he regenerates as fast as they can damage him.

Roger fails to snatch another man with his elongated form, but Fanboy is still in full-on Carrie mode and uses the unconscious form of his attacker to beat the last two nearly to death before tossing the broken body aside.

The Russians slink out of their barricade, empty handguns clutched in their hands. The Russians and the heroes stare at each other for a minute, while Roger's massive form melts away. Finally one of the Russians come forward and stammers out a thanks.

Fanboy wants to know what Depaliamo's men were doing here and the Russians play dumb until Roger threatens to tear the place apart to find what they wanted. The Russians rush to calm McCrow down and admit that Chavenski owns this building and puts a number of his guys up here. They also rush to point out that less than a quarter of the building is on Chavenski's payroll and only about half the people that Depaliamo mowed down even knew what was going on.

Fanboy suddenly realizes that they're smack dab in the middle of a gang war and asks the men if they could put him in touch with Chavenski. The Russians agree and phone numbers are exchanged. Roger on the other hand is anxious to ambush Johnny.

I ask him why he expected to find Johnny there and his player points out that they found the address on Johnny's phone. Fanboy's player realizes that him taking it means that they can't set Johnny up here. Roger suggests sneaking back into Johnny's apartment and replacing the phone, but Fanboy reminds him that he sort of blew the apartment up. They both leave disappointed.

Attack on the Warehouse

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Arriving at the warehouse they set Johnny's computer up in the communications room and start pilfering. Fanboy discovers that Johnny isn't very security conscious and most of his bank account information is saved in Notepad. It takes about twenty minutes to empty Johnny's account and leave the two 'heroes' several hundred grand richer.

They then get the brilliant idea to text Depaliamo and ambush him at their warehouse.

Why they believed that Depaliamo would walk into an ambush at a place that he knew they inhabited after losing a considerable number of his men and presumably being contacted by Johnny about the loss of his phone/home, I'm not sure. I asked them if they thought that this sounded like something an intelligent man would do and Fanboy's player replied by shouting "Send!" at the top of his voice.

A couple of minutes later they get a call from the same guy that warned them about Bradley Yurtz a few weeks back, saying that he had a vision of them being gunned down and warning them that by a clock he saw on the wall he believes the attack to be coming in about six hours. They thank the Prophet for his warning and seem more irritated that their ruse had failed than the fact their murder has been pre-ordained by fate.

They discuss the best way to defend themselves as Roger uses his newly repaired forklift to block off the front door with various crates and boxes packed as high as possible. Fanboy debates calling Agent Parks but Roger really doesn't want to piss their liaison off, especially after their last almost friendly encounter; so they weigh their options.

Fanboy tricks Lucky Dan into coming by and calls up Chavenski's men, saying that they've got a minor problem with Depaliamo and they'd really appreciate a little back-up. Since the four thugs feel like they owe the PCs for saving their hides, they show up as quickly as possible. The four Russians apologize that it's just them, but explain that Chavenski doesn't feel like this is his problem. The heroes are just glad that they don't have to do this alone.

Roger watches the monitors while Fanboy scans the perimeter with his ESP and finally they see the cars unloading and soldiers moving to surround them. Fanboy and two of the Russians take the northern entrance, Roger and the other two take the southern door with the tall barricade. The doors burst open and men rush in from both sides. Fanboy sees five of Depaliamo's well-dressed soldiers rush from the north and he manages to dash two of them against the wall. Roger (in his 30ft hydroform) tackles the barricade as soon as he hears the door open and crushes half a dozen thugs into a fine paste. Six more look on in terror. Depaliamo's men open fire on both ends and one of the Russians to the north goes down immediately, but there are no other injuries.

Fanboy takes out one of the remaining Italians on his end with a Mental Blast and Chavenski's man takes out another. Roger comes down like a hammer on the group of terrified thugs and crushes three of the six beneath a mountain of water. It's around this point that Fanboy finally notices the faint sound of a saw cutting through their roof and two heavily armored men with large guns and bald heads rappel through a new opening and land in the middle of warehouse, they both open fire and Fanboy is severely injured by the barrage of bullets. Depaliamo's men fire where they can but don't accomplish much and Chavenski's men are similarly ineffective.

Fanboy grabs the men and tosses them northward, so the boxes he's lying against can afford him some cover and Roger leaves the remaining thugs and charges northwards delivering a fearsome punch that knocks one of the well-armed assassins off his feet. The two assassins open fire with their massive guns and nearly shred Roger despite his new form, hitting the man held within. Roger topples over and the water surrounding him becomes tinged red with the blood flowing freely from his wounds. Depaliamo's and Chavenski's men engage in their own private gun battle.

Fanboy attempts to separate the assassins, but the target evades his telekinesis altogether. Roger's wounds slowly begin to knit themselves together, but he finds he can't quite stand under his own power. Chavenski's men from the south slide next to their companion to the north, apparently the thugs defeated. A burst from the assassins kills another of the Russians outright and leaves Fanboy holding a bullet hole in his arm and fighting to stay conscious. The final normal soldier of Depaliamo is killed under the combined fire of the remaining Russians.

Fanboy tries to take control of one of the assassins, but finds the man's will to be too strong to overcome. Roger finally manages to stand up, but that's all he manages to accomplish. Another round of fire from the assassins destroys Fanboy's hiding place and stuns Roger. Neither hero assumes they're going to make it at this point, but neither is willing to give up their warehouse for anything.

Enter: Lucky Dan. Holding a six pack with his finger while swilling beer from a can and walking right past the surprised assassins. "Is this what you people wanted my help with?" he slurs, one eyeing the carnage around him but seemingly oblivious to the armed men behind him. "Look, I appreciate you helping me out with... helping me with Agent...guy." the drunkard stammers. "But I'm not a maid. You'll clean up your own accidents!"

Fanboy just stands there staring at Dan with his mouth open (delayed his turn) and Roger is still trying to get his bearings. The first assassin fires at Dan and fails to meet his hefty Deflect check, so somehow he manages to shoot his friend in the back. Shouting curses the whole time, the second assassin tries his hand and crits! Rolling to defeat Dan's Deflect, he gets a 26; almost unbeatable at the PL we're playing at. In a stroke of genuine luck, Dan rolls a natural 20 on his deflect and the assassin's gun explodes in his hands, sending a portion of the stock directly the forehead of the man behind him. Fanboy's player at this point is cackling his head off because he'd been wanting to weaponize Dan since the first time he saw his knack for getting out of trouble and now his bribes were paying off.

Fanboy attempts to grab the assassin again, who dodges the attempt and lunges forward; drawing a two foot blade from his jacket and avoiding Dan completely. The assassin impales Fanboy and would have turned the young man into a corpse if not for the expenditure of a hero point which left him hanging on by a thread. Roger loses his giant form but still moves to melee range to pull the assassin away before Fanboy loses his head.

Fanboy finally manages to grab his attacker with his mind and pins the struggling assassin to the roof with telekinesis. The telepath uses extra effort to apply damage and manages to break the assassin's arms before simply letting go and letting the fall knock him out.

As everything's wrapping up Fanboy learns that the assassin is just one of a number of freelancers brought in by Depaliamo to help secure his powers, and that he's done jobs for Italians and Russians, but he's not loyal to either side.

Chavenski's men gather up their dead to return home and Fanboy offers them a sizeable income to come work for them as guards. Neither of the Russians are willing to take that deal since they've seen what these guys consider a 'little problem' and want no more part of their lives. They call it even and tell the pair to expect a call from Chavenski.

Dan is still so blitzed that he doesn't quite understand what's happening, but insists that he was just sleeping when they called him and returns home despite his promise to only drink under their observation.

Once alone, they pry bank account information out of their attacker Roger uses a pair of pliers and a welding torch to convince the assassin to call Depaliamo and declare the pair dead. They then dispose of the bodies, wash the place out and try to decide what to do with their little witness.

Fanboy suggests drowning him and leaving him for the fishes to deal with, but Roger is firmly against this. When Fanboy points out that McCrow had killed nearly a dozen people in the last week and that this seemed like an odd time for him to start to feel bad about it, Roger gets irate.

"I'm not STARTING to feel bad about it Samell! I DO feel bad about it. I felt bad with the forklift, I felt bad with the bat and I felt bad about drowning those men at the apartments. But THAT was in the heat of the moment, so I live with it. It was us or them. But this? This is murder! He can't fight back, and he's no threat to us. We can't just kill him."

Samell points out that he's seen their powers and they stole his money, not to mention the whole attempted murder thing. Fanboy points out that he's too strong to mind wipe and they can't just let him go. So Roger calls up Agent Parks for another deposit.

Revisiting the Tree King

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Parks does not care for the state of things when he arrives. Even without the bodies he knows that this was a massacre. Fanboy is barely in one piece and everything is marked with bullet holes. Parks looks around and declares "This place looks like it survived a gang war. How do you explain that?"

Roger lights up a cigar and shrugs. "We won."

Parks definitely doesn't care for the implications in THAT, but they load up the gibbering assassin (Fanboy couldn't erase his memories so he worked him over mentally a bit to compensate) and Parks tells them in no uncertain terms that he's not their personal gang member depository. That this is the last time he's cleaning up their mess.

Both Fanboy and Roger are sort of panicked at this, since they just assumed Parks HAD to watch over them. Like junkies finding out that they've had their last hit, the two of them start trying to make a deal to get just one more!

While they're begging for just one more unconstitutional secret imprisonment Parks gets a phone call that gives them their opening. Apparently the agents assigned to track the self-proclaimed Tree King tracked him to an apartment building and all but one had succumbed to his spores.

Fanboy can barely stand so Roger offers to go alone if it means access to secret prisons, but Fanboy points out that McCrow doesn't even own a car; so he'll have to go with him. Parks doesn't have much choice, since he's down only a handful of men, all of which are busy elsewhere; so he tells them to be careful, but that this only means he owes them a favor not that he's became their personal warden.

The PCs figure that anything's better than nothing, so they limp to Fanboy's car and go to find the apartment. By the time they arrive there's almost a dozen casualties scattered over the first two floors and the last of Park's men assigned to the case is among them. When they finally find the monster he's flanked by a pair of sentient trees that follow him like dogs. The three of them are attempting to batter down a door while a woman inside shrieks bloody murder.

Fanboy is pulling himself along the wall painfully and Roger suggests he stay out of the way while the adults talk. Tapping into a water line he begins his transformation while Fanboy ignores his advice and tries to get their attention.

Tree King recognizes them from the hospital and sneers. "Stay out of this. It's between me and the whore!" he shouts as he begins splintering the door with his wooden claws. "It was her damned plant I was holding! Her fault I'm a monster! How does she take responsibility? She dumps me when she sees what she's done to me!" he rages, sending his minions to tear Fanboy apart. The woman's screaming starts to falter and she begins loudly gagging and shouting about how her cactus is alive.

The two trees move to engage but Roger rushes between them and Fanboy and begins a three-way grapple. Fanboy catches one of them telekinetically and dashes it against the second one, causing one to shatter lifelessly. Tree King continues clawing the door out of his way and Fanboy shouts that he can take care of a tree, Roger needs to clear that door.

Roger charges down the hallway and tackles the Tree King about thirty foot, pinning him against the far wall. Tree King instinctively releases a cloud of spores but finds that Roger's water form simply ignores the effects. Fanboy mentally attacks his tree and manages to sever the link that keeps it moving.

Roger manhandles Tree King, throwing a powerful haymaker and tossing the smaller opponent down the hallway. Tree King charges and claws like a cornered animal, injuring Roger even through his watery exterior. Fanboy stumbles to the door but can't manage to get it open.

Roger and Tree King continue exchanging blows while Fanboy probes the interior of the room with his ESP to find out why he no longer hears screaming. He finds a barricade holding the door closed and Tree King's former girlfriend collapsed and unmoving with a cactus hovering over her and spewing some sort of spore of its own. He manages to sever the connection the same as with the tree and haul the barricade out of the way while Roger and Tree King's fight spills back into the connecting hallway.

Fanboy rushes to the woman and finds her barely breathing on the floor. With each attempt at reviving her, it seems like her life ebbs a big more until he finally manages to get through and she gives a small gasp. Not much, but he'll take it. Dragging her over his shoulder he stumbles into the hallway and shouts for Roger to forget the fight and follow him.

Roger (severely wounded at this point and unable to regenerate fast enough to keep up with the beating being handed to him) nonchalantly tells Fanboy to take the girl and leave, he'll wrap things up here. As soon as Fanboy and the dying woman reach the stair well his form becomes more than he can handle and the water simply falls apart, leaving him face to face with the most dangerous superhuman they've met so far. Roger leaps forward and plants a punch directly in Tree King's jaw, but the creature's bark-like skin is unfazed. Tree King, seeing that Roger is no longer protected by his layer of water re-opens his bulbs and spews another round of spores into the air, turning Roger into a coughing, suffocating mess.

Roger bursts a pipe behind the mass-murdering plantman and hits the creature hard enough to interrupt its spore delivery and stun it momentarily. Before it can recover he's grabbed a nearby fire axe and within a couple of rounds turned it into little more than screaming firewood. By the time Parks arrives, Tree King is nothing but silent splinters.

Staffing the Warehouse

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After stumbling into the hospital dragging Tree King's victim, Fanboy succumbs to his own injuries and passes out. A few days later Fanboy finally wakes up after extensive surgery and decides to pay the girl he saved a visit, discovering that her name was, ironically enough, Heather.

Knocking on her door, he finds Roger eating a fruit cup and bragging about how he singlehandedly beat Tree King to death and saved her life while slurping the juice, as his player described it, seductively... He's doing his best to take advantage of one of the few opportunities he has to brag about his exploits, but can't seem to accept that a girl half his age and pumped full of drugs might not want to feel his bicep or hear how many pieces he left her former boyfriend in.

"The hell do you mean you saved her?" Fanboy asks hoarsely, "I performed CPR, dragged her out of that apartment and drove her here."

Roger sets his fruit cup down silently and turns around, studying Fanboy for a minute before grunting. "Thought you were dead. Sort of makes me the hero by default." he says sipping a chocolate milk. "Besides, you ran away. I'm the one that went all lumberjack on him and saved the day."

The two of them bicker for a bit about who's the greater hero, before a nurse stops by to tell them to leave; they're disturbing the other patients. Fanboy decides to recover in their private infirmary and asks Dr Kavlight to look in on him. He's told that Kavlight isn't their personal servant and not to call back if it's not an emergency.

A few days of lounging around in bed either being bored or struggling to make his own meals while Roger continues building living quarters and repairing the damage from the battle makes Fanboy realize how empty this place is. After spending most of his stolen loot getting the warehouse armored and installing auto-turrets around the premises to dissuade visitors in the future, Fanboy begins looking for a way to hire a staff without pissing Parks off. Eventually it comes to him.

They call up Parks and arrange to visit The Hole, where they look in on Bradley Yurtz, aka Duplex. Parks explains that the cell they keep him in is air-tight and is only given enough oxygen for a single man his size at a time to breathe for an hour. Should he duplicate, he'll run out of breath long before he does any damage. The PCs are very impressed, but say that they're calling in their favor to have him released into their care.

Parks stares at them and just asks "Why?"

When they explain that they intend to put the boy to work, he points out that the last time they met Yurtz he was shooting at them. Fanboy points out that he doesn't think 'this' Yurtz shot at them, it was one of the other ones; but Parks calls him an idiot and has his men bring Bradley to a conference table.

They sit down and hash things out, Parks isn't happy with the thought of providing McCrow and Fanboy with a private army of inexhaustible thugs, but they eventually convince him that they're on the level. Bradley's anxious to get out, but after hearing some of the problems they've been having isn't sure that he wants to go with them. He points out that the two of them took him and all of his clones in a straight fight, and admits that he's not much good for anything.

Fanboy's persistent though, and arranges a work release program where they'll reform the former villain and teach him valuable, marketable skills in the process. Parks reminds the two that they're responsible for Duplex and that if this is a mistake it'll land on their shoulders. Parks also mentions that this squares them for favors, much to Roger's horror. Roger makes Parks promise that they'll be called on in the future in exchange for more favors.

Meet Sloth

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During the next few weeks Roger and Bradley finish the renovations in the warehouse and end up with comfortable living space for twelve people while Fanboy finishes recovering. Fanboy asks why the hell he's got so many rooms but Roger just says he has plans. Big plans.

While Roger starts drawing up plans for holding cells they get a call from Parks asking them to look in on a local jewelry store robbery. He tells them that a superhuman robbed the place blind and says that local police have combed the place top to bottom and can't figure out what happened. Everybody just went to sleep and woke up with the place empty. No trace of any gas or sedative at all. Since the two of them are the closest thing to superhuman experts on hand Parks wants them to glance around and see what they make of the situation.

Upon arrival Fanboy and Roger introduce themselves as being from the DHS and start looking the place over. They discover that none of the cases are broken and that the cameras have been disabled, even the one hidden in an overhead light fixture. Roger throws up his hands and declares that whoever did this is a master criminal, way out of their league, and starts to leave. Fanboy however makes him hang around for a few more minutes.

As they start questioning the staff they discover that almost everybody just remember work as usual and then waking up an hour later. The security guard however mentions that he saw a large man with a scar on his cheek just before he passed out.

Fanboy is intrigued and wants to know more and the guard mentions that the guy had a big pistol, like a desert eagle and was dressed all in black. When they locked eyes he passed out. At this point, Roger has determined that this is the world's most dangerous criminal and he wants no part of anything that puts them against such a cunning and dangerous villain.

Fanboy is very impressed and decides he'd like to see the crime from the guard's point of view; invading his mind and sorting through his recent memories. Instead of a large, scarred man he watches the security guard casually loot the place while everyone's asleep through his own eyes and then lay on the floor until someone found them.

Fanboy shouts "He's the thief!" but before they can pounce on the man he releases a wave of exhaustion that knocks Roger out cold and cause Fanboy's muscles stop working. However he remains conscious and since mobility isn't a big part of his shtick he's able to telekinetically battle the panicked guard for several minutes. There's a tense back and forth battle of wills that at one point had the guard being thrown through several cases and mentally battered to the point of collapse; but in the end Fanboy too succumbs to sleep and the guard makes his escape.

They're eventually woken up by police officers who are trying to calm down the employees who keep shouting about magic powers. Fanboy manages to wipe the pertinent memories under the nose of the law and they walk away without any witnesses.

Fanboy's dad

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After their embarrassing loss to a portly rent-a-cop in front of people, even if they can't remember what happened, the two of them decide to slink back home with their tail between their legs. Fanboy receives a phone call and as he answers it, notices he's already missed eight from the same number. The Prophet says that he's been calling for the last half hour, but nobody's answered, he begins rambling that there's NO time to waste, Fanboy's father is being taking by men outside his store right now!

Fanboy doesn't even respond, he just whips the car around and pushes himself for all he's worth. I set up 5 DC15 Drive checks and tell him he has to make three of them to get there in time. He fails the first two spectacularly, and makes the next two with room to spare. The last one is a natural 1, leaving Mr Hamilton in Depaliamo's clutches... Until Roger's player shouts "You've got Hero Points!" and Fanboy realizes he's got six of the buggers from earlier hoarding so he rolls again and just barely makes it.

They pull up in time to watch four men dragging Fanboy's father towards a van, Fanboy shouts at them to stop and they turn towards the pair, his father shouts "Samell? What are you doing here? Run, before they get you boy!" one of them draws a gun and places it against Mr Hamilton's temple, saying "Depaliamo said that if you try anything, we should just shoot this S.O.B. and be done with it!"

Fanboy's eyes begin glowing as they do when he's working his mojo and the area around him begins shaking uncontrollably, the very van they're dragging his father to is rocking left and right threatening to flip. He growls at the men "Did Depaliamo remember to mention that if you so much as scratch my daddy I'll pull your skeletal structure out of your ass and have it violate what's left of its own twitching corpse for as long as I can manage to keep your brain functioning?" (I gave him a sizeable intimidate bonus for clever use of telekinesis and the descriptive threat.)

Roger just strolls past Fanboy and towards the group of men, the guy with the gun shouts in a rather high pitched voice that if Roger comes any closer he'll kill him, he swears; but Roger just replies with "Pfft, see if I care. The whole family pisses me off. At least if this guy bites it his boy over there inherits it. Fanboy! Think of all the upgrades we could buy with that money!"

I figure that at this point Roger's heroic streak is over and figure I should be thankful he ever even had one, I resign myself to moderating a PvP match, when he suddenly makes the radiator explode and take out the gunman. The rest of them go for their guns, but Fanboy snatches two of them and tosses them skywards. The last man grabs Mr Hamilton as a human shield and inches towards the van, figuring he can still make his getaway.

They attempt to reason with the man, but he shoots Fanboy's father through the back and leaps into the driver's seat. Roger rushes to try and stop the bleeding and Fanboy turns into a horror movie. Not caring who might see his display, he tears the vehicle apart with judicious use of a Hero Point, and then uses the rest of his stockpile to spend the last 24 seconds of the man's life making good on his threat.

They're not far from the warehouse so they call Kavlight and demand he meets them there, load up Mr Hamilton and the unconscious(and scalded) thug that survived their attack and race to the infirmary. Mr Hamilton seems less distressed by his wound than by what he just witnessed and just keeps asking "What?" over and over again.

Fanboy tries to explain and tells his father that this is that job he's been involved in. He's working for the government. Roger is irate screaming that Fanboy is on dangerous ground and he will not be dragged down with his honesty. Mr Hamilton just asks "Working for the government gives you super powers?"

Fanboy tells him that a bus accident gave him super powers, but this just confuses his father more, until Fanboy tells him that they were on Bus 14, the one with the bioterrorist. His father doesn't know what to say, but seems to have further questions. Roger is shouting that the old man knows too much and they have to wipe his mind. Fanboy refuses and Roger says that he'll call Parks and personally help haul father and son to The Hole. It's a tense couple of minutes until Mr Hamilton mentions a reward, then Roger's phone goes up and visions of hot tubs dance in his head.

When they reach the warehouse Fanboy drags the scalded thug along with his powers, while Roger carries his dad inside. Once they step through the doors they find 2 scary Russians carrying assault rifles and 1 terrifying Russian carrying a SAW light machine gun milling about.

The man carrying the SAW seems irritated and wants to know why they keep him waiting if they're in such a hurry to talk to him. Fanboy's the first to realize that this is Chavenski and tosses Depaliamo's goon onto the ground in front of him. Mr Hamilton seems even more bothered by the fact that his son is cavorting with Russian mobsters, but Roger quickly locks him in the infirmary and doesn't really care about his feelings after that.

Fanboy probes the thug's mind and finds that Depaliamo had planned an ambush at Floyd's Bistro, disguised as a hostage exchange. He tells this to Chavenski and the Russian seems very pleased with his use of an afternoon.

Depaliamo's Ambush

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Only waiting long enough for Dr Kavlight to be shown to Mr Hamilton, and (with Roger's suggestion) the two to begin talks for Kavlight becoming the team's personal; on call physician, they load up with Chavenski and his men and head towards Floyd's Bistro.

Fanboy scans the area with ESP and finds close to 20 of Depaliamo's soldiers, Johnny on the Spot AND another of the assassins that nearly killed the two of them at the warehouse scattered along EVERYWHERE inside. Chavenski and his men head to the service entrance in the kitchen, Roger causes a pipe to explode obscuring their vision and distracting them, while Fanboy blocks the door. Chavenski's men then move in with a bang and begin slaughtering those caught in the kitchen, while Fanboy and Roger bust through the front door like mad men.

Catching Johnny on the Spot unaware negates his massive speed bonuses, and Roger takes the opportunity to dehydrate the bastard; nearly killing him outright. Fanboy telekinetically disarms the assassin of his gun and dashes it against the far wall. Johnny rushes past the two of them, smacking Fanboy in the mouth on his way out; but he doesn't return. Men rush in from every door opening fire, but Fanboy's Force Field and the table Roger's hiding behind provide them with enough protection to survive the volley.

Fanboy manages to grapple EVERY man in the room and shouts "Heads up Chavenski!"before hurling them through the kitchen door, where Roger immediately begins piling tables up to cut off their escape.

Fanboy is watching the fight inside with ESP and watches the assassin cut through both of Chavenski's men with a single cut and I figure I'm about to lose a plot centric NPC, then something magical and awesome happens.

Chavenski opens fire with his massive, terrifying gun and crits nearly EVERYTHING. I never rolled less than 18 for him and nobody he shot at rolled higher than a 4, so Fanboy just watches the local mob boss blow away an assassin that they were terrified of and all of Depaliamo's men while tanking their blows with nothing but his bare chest and rage.

When they finally peek into the kitchen, Chavenski is covered head to toe in blood and gore, only some of it his own, and he's stomping on the assassin's head even though there's not really enough of it left to call a head anymore. When they finally calm him down enough to speak he asks if they found Depaliamo and they sort of wince before giving him the bad news.

Chavenski snorts derisively and says "No, it was my mistake. I overestimated the fat Italian. A MAN would want to see his enemies killed with his own eyes."

The PCs ask Chavenski if they know where Depaliamo would be and the Russian tells them that he's probably at his mansion at the edge of town. The heroes want to hit him at home but Chavenski refuses. He points out that he lost two good men visiting Depaliamo's restaurant, that he won't assault the paranoid bastard's fortress until the rest of his Empire lies in ruins. The Russian gives them Depaliamo's address to check out for themselves, but after confusing lucky rolls with invincibility they're convinced that if Chavenski won't go there, they can't possibly survive and decide to go home and cook up a less direct scheme.

After of course, making a corpse pile in Depaliamo's office and leaving a post-it note with "You're next." on the door leading in.

**Scow2** · 2014-01-21, 02:47 AM (ISO 8601)

This continues to amuse me.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-01-21, 12:28 PM (ISO 8601)

Heh, thanks. They're an amusing pair. Almost added a couple more to the group when Roger's girlfriend asked to play an invisible stripper but after I showed her a character sheet she decided to just watch movies with Fanboy's wife and laugh at us all night instead.

**smuchmuch** · 2014-01-23, 05:39 AM (ISO 8601)

This is an amusing read. It actualy like it's a good game to play in.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-01-23, 08:22 PM (ISO 8601)

It's managed to keep their attention so far so I'm pretty stoked, but I'll give most of the credit to the system itself for that. It's just so easy to accommodate any crazy thing they suggest on the fly that there's no reason not to let them go hog-wild.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-02-03, 02:02 PM (ISO 8601)

Had a new session Saturday, went a little long so I'm probably missing quite a bit from the write up, but stuff got progressed regardless.

Making Plans

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We pick up where we left our heroes, parting with Chavenski but armed with the knowledge of where Depaliamo is holed up. They decide to check Depaliamo's home out and stroll up to the edge of his walled compound before heading home. Fanboy glances in with his ESP and is unimpressed with his first assessment.

"There's like a dozen guys on patrol in there." the nerdy hero says with a chuckle. "We'll steamroll them."

Roger isn't quite so sure, he points out that Chavenski most likely wouldn't be intimidated by a handful of men and urges Fanboy to check harder.

Fanboy presses his ESP to the limit and simply says "Oh....sh**." at what he sees. It takes him a minute to sketch out the extent of his probing, but he counts about 30 of the well dressed soldiers hiding around the property; even more stationed inside the house at security consoles or sleeping in a makeshift barracks; he also sees two more of the assassins that nearly killed Roger and himself; Johnny on the Spot and a pudgy, balding man that they presume to be Depaliamo himself. The two of them agree that a head on assault would probably end badly, so they go home.

Fanboy begins searching through the ledgers that they stole when they assaulted the warehouse the first time and Roger recruits the former super villain Bradley Yurtz to assist in building a pair of holding cells. Bradley is willing to work hard, but his general incompetence means that he's of little actual use. Bradley's 10 duplicates however manage to do the work of an extra man and he easily completes the framework of the cells.

Fanboy makes great leaps and bounds with the ledger and quickly finds a paper trail for the majority of Depaliamo's organization. He discovers fight clubs, gambling parlors, arms smuggling, prostitution rings, drug running, protection scams, racketeering and major larceny. He begins the process of tracking this stuff down.

Meanwhile Mr. Hamilton, Fanboy's father, is getting sick of laying in bed and wants to leave; he's worried about his business and is eager to get out of the warehouse. Dr. Kavlight agrees that he's well enough to go back to work, so long as he takes it easy. Fanboy knows that he can't keep his dad there against his will, so he assigns one of the Bradley clones to follow along and call him if Depaliamo makes a move.

Screw You Depaliamo

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After wrapping things up around HQ, the pair decide to check out the gambling parlor first. They stop and purchase a pair of audacious suits, Fanboy also picks up a hat and pair of sunglasses to conceal the visual cues of his powers, and head to a rather seedy alley behind an old night club. A large steel door with a view slot guards the entrance. Fanboy probes inside with his mind and hears the surface thoughts of the guard inside, picking out the password "Roll'em".

They enter the establishment with the stolen password and set about cleaning the place out with liberal applications of Fanboy's telepathy. They end up with $13,000 in winnings before the floor boss simply tells them to leave. Roger laughs and flat says no, before heading to the roulette wheel; and the guards approach to carry them out. Fanboy mentally dominates one of the guards into shooting another, and the rest open fire on the apparent traitor. The various civilians and dealers start freaking out and rushing for the exits; Roger cold clocks one of the guards, knocking him out, and Fanboy mentally throws the rest of them through a row of slot machines.

It takes them about half an hour to tear the place apart, but when they're done they're about $180,000 richer and still in the mood for action; so naturally they decide that prostitutes are the next stop. They track down Depaliamo's high class bordello (a lovely Victorian home in a secluded neighborhood) and approach the door with the unmistakable swagger of the newly rich. They knock on the door with a heavy stack of bills totaling nearly $20,000 and the heavy-set guard that opens the door has his jaw all but drop as Roger winks and says "We won at the tables." before stuffing the bills into his shirt pocket and demanding a pair of women for himself and his friend.

The guard motions them up the stairs but states that if Johnny asks, he doesn't know them.

Fanboy asks what the hell Roger's doing, and McCrow suggests they each interrogate a girl to find out all that they can before they do anything crazy. Roger literally sweeps an exotic Asian lady off of her feet and carries her away, leaving Fanboy to awkwardly lure a petite blonde off to the side. Roger, it should be noted, is a whoremongering liar; and doesn't ask a single question. In the name of taste I told him to work out the details of what happens by himself while Fanboy actually does the work.

It doesn't take but a few well placed questions and some gentle probing of his escort's surface thoughts for Fanboy to learn all he needs to know about the operation. About a dozen high class ladies alternate shifts at the bordello and cater to the tastes of a very small and select clientele; it only takes a few men to act as muscle so Depaliamo leaves them to be pretty much autonomous. Fanboy discovers that the guy in charge is upstairs in the office and tips the girl generously before heading up to meet with him.

The Head Pimp, as Fanboy refers to him, is doing some paperwork in his office when Fanboy strolls in and declares he's got a business proposition. He's wearily told that clients aren't allowed up here, pushes his way in anyway. Before the Head Pimp can do anything, Fanboy pins him against the wall telekinetically and rifles through the contents of the room before using telepathy to delve for secrets.

Around this point Roger's getting bored watching Fanboy have all the fun and demands to roll something, so since he's in the middle of...physical exertion I tell him to roll a constitution check as a crude joke. Hilariously, he rolls a 1 and I refuse to let him use a hero point to improve the roll; so it's decided that he finishes before he even gets his pants off. Everybody's laughing and I suggest that the prostitute smirks as well. Predictably, Roger mugs her in retaliation, all the while shouting that "it's been a while" and "it happens to lots of guys!"

They roll initiative and quite unheroically, he beats his Asian companion up for laughing at him and steals the cash out of her purse because he's just a terrible human being.

Meanwhile, Fanboy has knocked his opponent unconscious and left incriminating evidence of their illicit activities laying around the office before calling the police and claiming he heard gunshots inside; giving the police a reason to search the place and close it down. By the time he exits the building, most of the guards are severely beaten and unconscious. Roger is straddling the man they bribed to get in shouting something about poor service while beating him with the very stack of bills they used as a bribe. When Fanboy mentions that the cops are on their way, Roger slips the bloody bills into his jacket and the two of them spring to the car and take off.

Fight Club

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They crash at the warehouse after their eventful night and plan further shenanigans. Lucky Dan stumbles in the next day, drunk as a skunk and crying between drinks. They ask what's wrong and he tells thim that his wife left him and took the kids. Roger asks when that happened and he explains that it was about a month ago according to the note he found on the fridge. Fanboy's a little confused and points out that he's been home for most of that time, but Dan just sobs and explains that he just thought his wife and kids were busy all this time.

They calm Dan down and get him to sleep before assigning Bradley to watch over him in their absence. Neither of them feel like sticking around to console a depressed; drunken super human, so they randomly pick one of Depaliamo's operations to hit and run away.

They decide to infiltrate the underground fighting circuit and Roger volunteers to be the muscle, still feeling pretty confident from his recent bouts of fisticuffs.

They decide to start at the bottom and basically enroll Roger in a bum fight under the bridge. The whole place is seedy to the extreme and Roger points out that the thinks there's poop in the arena; but after Fanboy places a bet, neither of them are willing to back down. Roger's fight comes up and he's placed against a skinny, heavily tattooed skinhead that's covered in bruises and scars.

The fight starts and the skinhead gets the jump on McCrow, he delivers a powerful blow to Roger's stomach that stuns the older man. As Roger recovers his breath, he takes another glancing blow across his brow and retaliates with a massive backhand that spins the skinhead around and lays him out flat.

The crowd's quiet and more than a little disappointed, but as they're collecting their winnings they're approached by one of Depaliamo's men that hands them a card and asks that they swing by a local gym for some real action.

The two of them show up the next night and Fanboy's opted to wear his shades and hat in case McCrow needs some backup in the ring, especially considering it's a tournament. The first fight is fairly brutal and Roger exchanges blows for several minutes before laying his opponent out with a wild haymaker. The crowd goes wild and Roger hams it up for a minute before limping out of the ring to catch his breath. He keeps an eye on the other combatants and sees the current champ, a hulking Russian rumored to work for Chavenski that shatters an opponent's thigh with a single kick. Needless to say he's a little worried.

Roger tells Fanboy to run interference during his next fight, to give him time to rest and as soon as the next fight starts, Fanboy hits Roger's opponent with Confusion for some reason.

The guy rolls a 3 on his reaction roll, so he gives a battlecry and charges into the crowd to punch Fanboy in the face, disqualifying himself; getting escorted out of the gym and sending Depaliamo's men over to apologize for that bizarre outburst. Roger shakes his head and suggests a little subtlety in the future.

He sits back to watch the Russian's last bout and watches the big man nearly kill his opponent in the opening salvo, before taking the next 5 minutes to just strut around and brutalize the poor man while Roger more or less rests up. After a brief respite, Roger and the Russian face off at last.

Roger gets the jump on the giant champion and throws a massive haymaker that the beastly Russian simply takes without notice before delivering a blow of his own that knocks Roger off his feet and leaves him stunned. Fanboy just barely manages to seize control of the Russian telepathically and uses his influence to make the champ strut for the crowd.

When Roger finally recovers enough to stand, Fanboy forces the Russian to lean forward and tap his face; inviting McCrow to give him his best shot. Roger throws a wild punch that connects solidly, but doesn't seem to actually do anything. The crowd is loving the champ.

Roger throws another punch directly into the Russian's midsection and follows it up by quickly entering a clinch and delivering a series of big knees. The Russian's nose bleeds, but doesn't seem to be affected otherwise. Fanboy momentarily loses control of the hulking brute and Roger is once again knocked off his feet, this time with a couple of broken ribs for his trouble.

Before Roger is finished off, Fanboy regains control and sends the Russian strutting again. The crowd is on its feet, shouting excitedly. When Roger crawls to his feet, Fanboy has the Russian repeat his earlier taunt; but as Roger throws his haymaker it's joined by a mental blast from Fanboy and the Russian stumbles back a step or two. His mind suddenly cleared.

The Russian lifts Roger above his head, about to do a Bane impression; when a mixture of Roger's well placed elbow and Fanboy's second Mental blast sends the champ reeling and leaves Roger writhing on the mat.

Roger crawls to his feet spitting blood and Fanboy manages to keep the Russian stunned for another round before losing control altogether. Finally the two titans of the ring charge each other and each throw a massive punch, Roger just BARELY manages to dodge what would surely be a finishing blow and connects with a critical punch that lays the mentally battered champion out cold.

The crowd roars its approval and a well dressed man helps Roger out of the ring, congratulating him on taking down the showboating Russian and asking McCrow to join him at a private exhibition in two weeks. Roger accepts and limps back to the warehouse with Fanboy.

Family's Off-Limits

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Roger assumes his hydroform to rapidly heals and decides to be productive with the next two weeks. He manages to finish up the holding cells in about a week with help from Bradley and after a trip to the shooting lanes decides to enroll the teen in some marksmanship classes, just in case they need him. Bradley asks if he could start going back to school and see his father again, and Roger agrees that that's fine, so long as his duplicates stay here and Bradley doesn't neglect any duties.

Things are pretty quiet until near the end of the second week, when a strange old man appears at the warehouse. He's dressed in old and faded army fatigues and is missing a leg, Fanboy believes him to be a homeless vet and thanks him for his service to our country; before ordering Bradley to run him out of the warehouse with a broom.

As the old man is being ushered out, he passes Roger working on his forklift and shouts that McCrow will want to hear what he has to say. Roger stops Bradley and tells the old man to speak quickly.

The old man says that they have to leave now and that Roger's son is in danger. Depaliamo has tracked the boy down and is about to make an example of him. Roger's about to personally throw the old man out for trying to tell him what to do, until he realizes he recognizes the voice from the phone.

Fanboy's surprised to learn that Roger has kids and Roger bitterly explains that he's not seen his family in years, that they took his wife's side during the divorce and eventually just stopped talking to him altogether.

But bad blood or not, if Depaliamo thinks he's just going to sit by while his family is threatened, Depaliamo isn't as smart as they thought he was. Roger and Fanboy run to the car, but the Prophet insists they bring him as well. Roger scoffs and says that the old man will just slow them down, but the Prophet points out that they don't even know where they're going. Roger's kind of hurt to find out that his boy moved without telling him, but relents and lets the old man join them.

After about an hour's drive, they arrive in a nice suburban neighborhood. They roll to a stop in front of Franklin McCrow's house and stake it out for a few minutes until they're certain that Depaliamo isn't there. Roger sees his son and a lovely young lady going about their business inside and knocks on their door, hoping to reconnect.

Franklin's smile disappears when he opens the door and sees the unkempt form of his father standing there and he partially closes the door, as if to bar him entrance. "Dad...I didn't expect to... What are you doing in the neighborhood dad?"

Roger shrugs "Oh, I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to see how you were doing."

Franklin looks a little nervous and points out that he never gave his dad his address.

Roger just snorts and pushes his way in. "You're not hiding from the old man, are ya boy?" he asks coldly. He nods towards Franklin's girlfriend and introduces himself. "McCrow. Roger McCrow."

Franklin introduces her as his fiancé and Roger is taken aback that his boy's getting married and nobody bothered to tell him. They make small talk for a few minutes before Roger remembers why he's here and presses five grand into his son's hand. "I stopped by to drop off a present." he explains hurriedly, rushing them out of the house and to Fanboy's car. "I want the two of you to go and get yourselves something nice. On me." McCrow says, literally dragging Fanboy and the Prophet out of the car and into the street.

"Take my assistant's car, it has more room." he explains, all but shoving Franklin and his fiancé into Fanboy's car before they know what's happening. As they pull out, confused but appreciative, Fanboy is furious that Roger basically jacked his car. Roger explains that Depaliamo's men have to think that Franklin's still there, so they need his car.

Fanboy and Prophet settle into Franklin's living room, while Roger ransacks the place looking for cereal and basically just being nosy. While he enjoys his stolen Cap'n Crunch, he begins filling the bathtub and sinks full of water and turns the water hose on full blast so he doesn't rupture any pipes in the heat of the moment.

Roger also has a moment of insight and decides to experiment with his powers. When it's all said and done he manages to stabalise enough water to create 5 small creatures that he dubs 'Droplets'. Each of them is about the size of a cat and gaze at him with absolute adoration that borders on worship.

Fanboy is immediately freaked out by Roger's strange display of power and suggests killing them before this turns into a horror movie, but Roger refuses to consider it and they spend the next hour watching the Droplets play with each other while waiting for a hit squad.

When a harsh knock finally gets their attention Fanboy projects an auditory illusion of Franklin telling them to come in. As soon as the door opens however, Fanboy snatches all five of the waiting men and yanks them inside, pinning them to the living room floor. Prophet shuts the door to drown out their startled shouts and Roger advances with his Droplets.

"Do you know who I am?" he asks menacingly.

The men shake their heads nervously and Roger snaps his fingers, as he points to the closest man all five of the Droplets fight for position on the man's face, somehow managing to bite and maul him despite their lack of anatomy or limbs. The Droplet's victim tries to scream, but their weight drowns it out and the other men begin panicking in earnest.

Neither Roger nor Fanboy does anything more than stand there and just allow the Droplets to display their vicious, if merry, nature. Two men are partially consumed by the disturbing minions before the rest manage to escape Fanboy's telekinesis and sprint screaming in different directions. Fanboy shouts after them that if they go back to Depaliamo they have more of this to look forward to. Fanboy then proceeds to hurl the corpses as far off into the distance as his telekinetic strength will allow, subscribing to the belief that out of sight is out of mind.

They hang around a few more moments to make sure that noone else wants to take a swing at them, before Roger dumps his son's aquarium out in the bathtub and fills it with his Droplets while Fanboy gets them a cab. The cabbie isn't happy about Roger carrying a FULL aquarium into his car, but a wad of bills from Fanboy shuts him up.

Bad Sportsmanship

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Over the next couple of days the Droplets continue to impress and intrigue Roger. He only intended to create a more controlled application of his power that wouldn't destroy his son's home, however the Droplets appear genuinely alive. He watches with amusement as they chase each other around the warehouse, he watches in horror when they catch a stray cat... Their behavior is erratic and unpredictable and Fanboy jokingly points out that they're basically little Rogers.

Roger eventually calls up his son and apologizes for taking the aquarium. Franklin wants to know if his dad's growing pot, but Roger just laughs and says that he accidentally broke it, but isn't willing to explain why he was poking around inside Franklin's house in the first place. The conversation ends awkwardly, with more questions raised than answered.

Finally it's the night of the fight and they show up at the agreed address to find an abandoned warehouse filled with Depaliamo's men. Fanboy recognizes quite a few of them from his ESP as Depaliamo's personal guard and it's decided that they've played along quite enough.

Roger enters the ring as normal but once the fight begins he draws all of the moisture out of his opponent with a single devastating motion. Depaliamo's men stare in shocked silence as Roger forces his stolen liquid into the shape of a ball in his hand. "You're in a dangerous line of work." he says with a smile, blasting one of the armed guards off his feet with the stolen water.

As guns begin to be drawn, Fanboy stands up and manages to grapple 90% of the men at once, thrusting them head first into the far wall. Roger leaps onto the remaining two men and unleashes a savage barrage of punches that leaves them both crumpled in a limp heap.

The whole combat only takes about 15 seconds and the PCs wreck the place up afterwards to punctuate their point. As they're tearing the place up they get a phone call from Agent Parks that asks them if they've had any contact with the security guard from the jewelry store robbery. Fanboy reiterates what he remembers from the robbery itself, but Parks says that there's been a new development.

The guard washed up (their affinity for throwing corpses into the ocean is what made Parks call) with a broken neck, broken back and severe lacerations around the heart. Roger vaguely remembering something about a serial killer running around lately, but Fanboy's been following this story for a while and points out that the killer's been operating for just over two months, ever since their accident. He also muses that of the five victims that they've recovered all have been exceptional individuals. They include a surgeon, a software engineer for a security firm, an Olympic boxer, a local radio personality and now one of only a handful of superhumans.

Roger and Fanboy are intrigued, but don't think that they can be of any help. Parks tells them to watch themselves since they seem to make targets of themselves more often than not.

They take a day to recover and plot and then decide on one final push to bring down Depaliamo once and for all.

Final Showdown

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This is it they decide. Do or die, either Depaliamo walks away or they do. They begin their assault by calling the police with bogus reports concerning all of Depaliamo's known operations and giving the Italian plenty of time to scramble some interference.

While Depaliamo is busy trying to salvage his empire, the PCs sneak to the back of his walled estate and after Fanboy scouts the immediate area, they toss the Droplets over the wall with a simple order: Attack. While the Droplets go into SEAL mode, Fanboy and Roger continue around the wall and call Chavenski while waiting for a distraction. They lie and tell the Russian crime boss that Depaliamo is on his last legs and that he's practically undefended. Chavenski is cautious, but agrees to give what support he can.

It only takes a couple of minutes before the Droplets are discovered, during this time five creatures no larger than a cat and only slightly smarter than a monkey manage to bring down half a dozen grown men without so much as a sound. Eventually however they fail to bring down their target and a fierce gun battle breaks out however to the growing horror of the guards Droplets are bulletproof. Bullets simply pass right through their bodies with no lasting harm.

Once the compound is in full panic mode Fanboy and Roger hop the wall with a little telekinetic assistance. Roger immediately sucker punches a guard, while Fanboy peaks through a window into their makeshift Barracks. As the second shift guards start stirring awake Fanboy telekinetically grabs the entire room and begins whipping them against the wall until he's sure there won't be any backup coming.

Roger notices an overhead security camera tucked into a bush just in time to shout a warning before two guards run around the corner and open fire. Fanboy easily dispatches them while Roger uses this opportunity to power up using Depaliamo's pool and the Droplets continue their horrifying assault.

Just when they think that things are going their way, Fanboy is struck in the back of the head at 200mph by a red blur and they remember that they're not the only superhumans here. About six more guards arrive from the north and another three come up from the south. Fanboy tosses the group of six at the group of three and knocks out all but two. Roger continues growing to his full form. The Droplets continue their rampage unimpeded and the two assassins move into position to the north.

Fanboy is struck yet again by the Johnny on the Spot who doesn't stick around for retaliation. The assassins open fire on Roger, however his water form absorbs the worst of it and he grows even larger on his turn. Fanboy attempts to grab the assassins, but they easily avoid his attempt. The Droplets threaten to overrun Depaliamo altogether and even on the far side of the compound they can hear the fat Italian shouting for Johnny to do something.

Since the Droplets are effectively invincible but very small, Johnny begins scooping them up one at a time and dropping them off about a mile from the house. The assassins open up with everything they've got and bring Roger down hard. Fanboy finally manages to snatch one of them up and dash him against the house, however the assassin is a master of absorbing blows and takes minimum damage. The remaining Droplets continue mauling the soldiers and the soldiers do what they can to avoid them.

Johnny continues dropping off Droplets, soldiers continue barricading around Depaliamo, Roger keeps taking bullets meant for Fanboy and more or less hoping he doesn't die and Fanboy keeps trying to keep the assassins at bay for a few rounds. Things start looking bleak very fast.

Just when things look like they can't get any more desperate the front gates burst open and a van slows to a stop as angry Russians with large guns start leaping out, led by Chavenski himself. Six of Depaliamo's normal soldiers are wiped out in a single volley and Chavenski's men take up a defensive position behind one of Depaliamo's cars. Johnny moves like a blur and three of Chavenski's six men lie unconscious around him. Fanboy latches on to one of the distracted assassins telekinetically and begins thrashing him around like a dog with a rag. About half a dozen of Depaliamo's remaining soldiers circle around near the gate to ambush Chavenski and the last four return fire with the Russians.

Chavenski opens fire with his SAW and two of the soldiers near Depaliamo and Johnny are struck hard. The soldiers are killed outright and Johnny's side is half blown away, the surprised speedster does what he can to hold his insides in and in a final desperate burst of speed takes out the remaining Russian soldiers, but fails to lay a hand on Chavenski before succumbing to his wounds and collapsing. Depaliamo in a fit of desperation leaps out of his cover and fires his giant .44, scoring a crit and surprisingly dropping his badass Russian competitor with one well placed shot. Roger continues bleeding uselessly and the assassins continue their one sided beat down of Fanboy. Things are looking pretty terrible again...until the Droplets show back up, bouncing giddily past the ruined gate. They swarm the soldiers hiding near the gate and in the absence of Johnny there doesn't seem to be any way to even slow these damned things down.

In just a few rounds the remainder of Depaliamo's soldiers, save one, have been devoured or battered unconscious by Roger's perky, invincible minions. Depaliamo leaps into one of his cars and struggles to find the right key. Roger finally wakes up with a single round left in his hydroform and wakes up in time to bat one of the assassins away from Fanboy. The assassins glance around, figure that their meal ticket is dead; and sprint the wall to escape, professionalism be damned.

The Droplets smash their way in through the car's window and maul Depaliamo but good. Roger only barely manages to call them off the fallen Italian before they start doing to him what they did to the cat...

Fanboy ties up the survivors and does what he can to revive Chavenski. After being satisfied that the Russian will probably survive he picks up Depaliamo's pistol and shoots Johnny in both of his knees before Roger has a chance to stop him. Johnny wakes up screaming and Fanboy kicks him in the face to shut him up.

Meanwhile, Roger slaps Depaliamo until the former crime boss come to and the first thing out of Depaliamo's mouth is "who the f*** are you two? What have I EVER done to you a**holes?"

Roger grabs Depaliamo by his chubby cheeks and stares into his eyes. "Let me put it this way. A wise man once said to me: 'Don't look at it like it's the end of the world. Look at it like taking out the trash.'"

Depaliamo just stares at him.

"You were the one who said that!" McCrow growls. "Those were your EXACT words when you sent me packing to the gutter!"

Depaliamo stares for a moment before realization strikes and he gawks. "You're that drunken idiot that kept wrecking my forklifts!"

Roger laughs and nods his head. "Maybe I am. Maybe I am. I won't lie, I've wrecked a forklift or two in my time. But just remember; YOU'RE the idiot that's two seconds away from being eaten by sentient water monsters that were made by ME. So who's really the idiot here?"

"You are!" Johnny hisses between clenched teeth. Fanboy kicks him in the face again for good measure. Depaliamo starts to object but a bite from one of the Droplets shuts him up again.

Roger calls up Parks and sets up a pick-up for Johnny despite the fact that Fanboy keeps suggesting they cut off his legs and keep him as a pet. Still can't believe how much hate Fanboy's player has for Johnny...

Instead of amateur surgery, Fanboy uses his powers to probe Depaliamo's mind for hidden caches of loot, but finds that most of his bank accounts require personal authorization to access. Naturally this means smuggling Depaliamo back to their HQ and locking him in a makeshift prison until they learn how to use him like a puppet. They decide to bring Chavenski along as well for Dr. Kavlight to look at, since they feel kind of bad for constantly getting his men killed.

And that's where we ended for the night, with the PCs stealing several of Depaliamo's nicer cars and locking up the two most powerful and prominent crime bosses the city has to offer in their homemade prison/fortress on the waterfront. Fanboy wants to drown Depaliamo AND Chavenski once he's robbed their bank accounts to make sure neither of them ever come back to haunt them. Roger wants to recruit/extort Chavenski into joining his growing super team and wants to use Depaliamo to cement the deal.

They've also been bumped up to PL7 so that might be where some of their new swagger comes from.

Edit: I don't remember at what point it happened, but Roger and Fanboy both had the idea to surprise Bradley by using a piece of their stolen profits to pay for any college he can get into. Their mixture of unnecessary physical violence and casual philanthropy threw me.

**Incorrect** · 2014-02-04, 07:06 AM (ISO 8601)

This is an amazing read. Thank you for taking the time :)
Good job making the players hate the villains so much, it makes for a very engaging story.

**The_Werebear** · 2014-02-04, 10:01 AM (ISO 8601)

...Wow, were you intending to have a "gritty" setting? These guys are brutal.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-02-04, 01:03 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Incorrect

This is an amazing read. Thank you for taking the time :)
Good job making the players hate the villains so much, it makes for a very engaging story.

Thanks, I usually stumble home around 2-3am the nights we play and try to jot down what I can remember about what just happened. It helps me wind down for the night and it's helpful for planning out the next session.

I was really surprised at how quickly things escalated though. All I did was make Johnny sucker punch Fanboy a couple of times and run away. I figured it would irritate them; but Roger's player thought the guy was hilarious because he picked on Fanboy, and Fanboy's player started calling for his head immediately. Depaliamo just stepped on their toes a time or two and that was more than enough to seal his fate.

Originally Posted by The_Werebear

...Wow, were you intending to have a "gritty" setting? These guys are brutal.

I originally wanted to set up a fairly realistic setting that would rapidly become more and more like a 4-color superhero comic as the PCs grew in prominence. But I really don't see that happening anymore... I mean Fanboy actually asked me last session if I'd be mad if they formed a criminal syndicate with Chavenski. He's also expressed an interest in developing a permanent Body Switch power that will allow him live forever by jumping from victim to victim, so I definitely see him becoming a super villain before this is all said and done.

Ironically, Roger's player actually wants to do the right thing; he doesn't approve of unnecessary killing, he wants to try and bring Chavenski to the side of law and order, and he wants to reconnect with his estranged family. He's just chosen to play a thoroughly flawed and horrible man. Uncontrolled violent outbursts, extreme racism(I gloss over it, but Roger hates nearly everybody he meets and didn't approve of his son's fiancé because she looked Jewish), gives in to EVERY vice that comes his way and now he's spawned a race of elemental abominations that are 1 part Gremlin and 2 parts Darkling shaped like a Blue Slime.

There's a whole lot more murder than I originally pictured, but it greatly amuses me to picture 20 years in the future when these guys are basically the Justice League for these players to hear stories of their old characters as paragons of truth and virtue from NPCs and know that they alone know where all the bodies are buried.

**The_Werebear** · 2014-02-05, 09:27 AM (ISO 8601)

Roger McCrow: Advancing the cause of Law and Order through drugs, whoring, theft, and brutal, revenge driven, vigilante killings.

**D-naras** · 2014-02-05, 10:59 AM (ISO 8601)

These kinds of M&M campaign are the best. They start pedestrian and end up as explorations of the super-powered human psyche

. You have a great game going and in many ways reminds me of our M&M campaign about newly realised superhumans (that also started at PL 5 coincidentally). The PCs were an anarchist post-grad Science student, and a bored, lazy but brilliant, thrill-seeking fund-baby that ended up commiting more and more atrocities to survive and get back to their oppressors (or anyone that annoyed them really).

**Kid Jake** · 2014-02-05, 03:18 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by The_Werebear

Roger McCrow: Advancing the cause of Law and Order through drugs, whoring, theft, and brutal, revenge driven, vigilante killings.

I had to send that to him

he'll most likely put it on a bumper sticker IC. I think now that Depaliamo is out of the way (unless a fat, middle aged mob boss can escape a warehouse full of superhumans and automated security systems) they'll calm down though. He made a pretty big pest out of himself by hounding them, attacking their families and just generally acting a little big for his britches. A less personal antagonist will, hopefully, not provoke them into using mass-murder as Plan A.

Originally Posted by D-naras

These kinds of M&M campaign are the best. They start pedestrian and end up as explorations of the super-powered human psyche

. You have a great game going and in many ways reminds me of our M&M campaign about newly realised superhumans (that also started at PL 5 coincidentally). The PCs were an anarchist post-grad Science student, and a bored, lazy but brilliant, thrill-seeking fund-baby that ended up commiting more and more atrocities to survive and get back to their oppressors (or anyone that annoyed them really).

Everybody likes to think that they'd be heroic if given a chance, but set them down and tell them that they've gained the ability to speak to marine animals and they will immediately lay siege to a small coastal town.

It's a lot of fun just to see how they handle their new powers in everyday life. I've always loved the 'Superhumans As People First' type of stories; in fact I've more or less based a villain that's going to show up next session on Dr. Impossible from Soon I Will Be Invincible. It's especially neat because both of these characters were such losers pre-powers (Roger with his...well, everything; and Fanboy just being an irresponsible brat coasting through life.) and now they're absolutely taking charge of their lives. Roger's player did his best to sound so very smug when his character's son asked where his father got a fistful of hundreds from and Fanboy's going to use his half of their loot to purchase Depaliamo's bullet-riddled mansion so he doesn't have to live with his father anymore. They're both wanting to purchase Depaliamo's legitimate businesses (Roger wants to own the docks he used to work at and figures with the owner missing he might get a deal.) to fuel their new high-octane lifestyle so hopefully we'll get into corporate shenanigans too down the line

I'm also kinda surprised at how effective they've been at PL5. This is the first time I've ever played M&M despite the fact that I've (apparently) had the books for years, and after playing a couple of sessions I started reading up on the system. So many people seem to consider PL5 so mundane that it kind of threw me when Roger started whipping forklifts at people or creating (semi)intelligent life, or how Fanboy just manhandles a room full of armed men like it ain't no thing. Granted, a single punk can still kill either of them if he catches them unaware, but with Roger capable of detecting the presence and movement of water within 100ft of him and Fanboy able to feel minds instinctively; it just seems really unlikely that's going to happen.

**Xallace** · 2014-02-06, 10:00 AM (ISO 8601)

Posting to show my support for this, because I am on the edge of my seat with this story.

**LibraryOgre** · 2014-04-21, 03:07 AM (ISO 8601)

Revived under moderator consent.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-04-21, 11:51 PM (ISO 8601)

So I've finally got a chance to continue my supers campaign after a two month hiatus. My laptop burned out and we lost everything, including the character sheets and all my prep work so I had to redo everything.

Anyway, it might be a little rushed but here's another exciting episode of McCrow and Friends

Return of McCrow and Friends

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We pick up only hours after the events of our last session with Roger McCrow and Fanboy rushing Chavenski into Kavlight's infirmary with a fist sized hole in the Russian's chest and no idea how the crime lord is even still alive. Kavlight begins surgery immediately and the two heroes decide to pay a visit to the captive Depaliamo.

Formerly the most powerful man in the city, now little more than a war trophy; Depaliamo is left alone and naked in a damp; dark cell in the basement. The Italian can't even bring himself to look his captors in the eye and he's more than surprised when Fanboy tosses him a fresh suit from his closet. Depaliamo slips it on gratefully and just as he's about to thank them for returning him a shred of dignity he's blind sided by McCrow and knocked out cold.

Depaliamo wakes up a few minutes later and finds that both he and Fanboy are cuffed to the bars of his cell and Fanboy has an earsplitting grin on his face. Through his telepathy Fanboy had discovered that the bulk of Depaliamo's fortune can only be accessed by the Italian himself ($2 million local, more than $12 in offshore accounts), so he explains that he'd decided to borrow Depaliamo's body for an hour or two to make a withdrawal. Depaliamo asks why McCrow attacked him if he's already caged and Fanboy admits that Roger just likes to ambush people and he went with it.

It takes Fanboy several attempts to batter Depaliamo's will enough to completely switch minds with him but finally he succeeds and tells Roger to uncuff him and watch his body while he's gone. There's a brief moment where I think Roger's just going to turn off the lights and leave them both chained downstairs, but McCrow follows through with the plan and Fanboy drives across town in one of his new luxury cars coincidentally found in Depaliamo's garage. It takes him about forty-five minutes to arrive and find a place to park. Walking into the bank he sees people avert their eyes and scurry away in his/Depaliamo's presence and he decides it feels good to be respected. He catches a couple of people gawking at the bruises/bite marks that cover him, but nobody is bold enough to ask about it.

The teller immediately recognizes him and starts sucking up. Or at least she does until he demands his two million in cash. She tries to explain that the bank simply can't release that much money at once but Fanboy growls his disapproval and starts asking if she knows who he is and what he does. The girl goes pale and asks if he minds if she gets a manager and he says that at this point he insists.

No sooner does the teller turn away from him that Fanboy experiences a painful flash of alien consciousness that nearly flattens him and he realizes that Depaliamo's body is attempting to reestablish his old identity. By the time the manager arrives he's having to hold himself up with the counter and realizes with growing horror that if he doesn't get back NOW he's going to let Depaliamo simply walk out the door and get away. He quickly changes his demands and says that they can keep the cash, he just needs to put another name on the account; his new business partner: Samell Hamilton. The manager is just relieved that he's came to his senses and Fanboy is out the door and speeding back to the warehouse within minutes.
He makes a 40 minute drive in about 20 minutes and barely manages to lock himself back in his cell and willingly relinquish control before Depaliamo took it back. Roger uncuffs his young partner and and Fanboy taunts Depaliamo with the fact that his $2 million is now THEIR $2 million and gleefully asks Depaliamo if he wants to take a trip to the Caymans. Depaliamo sags down like the sad old man that he is, but things quickly get worse as Roger demands he strip and hand over those clothes again. Depaliamo grudgingly obliges and as he finishes and gathers up his suit to hand over he's cold clocked by Roger and left unconscious in the cold, wet basement.

As they're leaving Depaliamo's new 'quarters' they're flagged down by Dr Kavlight and told that Chavenski is alive, but barely. He'll be confined to his bed for a few weeks, but despite the drugs he's been given he appears to be conscious. Fanboy says that he'd like to speak to the Russian and Kavlight tells him to keep it brief. As Fanboy heads up to the infirmary, Kavlight talks to Roger about purchasing an ambulance for the base if they're going to keep bringing him gunshot victims and McCrow tells him to get whatever he wants, Samell'll pay for it.

Fanboy finds Chavenski barely clinging to consciousness in the infirmary and the crime boss's drug addled eyes snap to him the moment he enters. "Where am I?" Chavenski drowsily growls.

"Among friends." Fanboy assures him before explaining how Depaliamo blew a hole in his chest, but they saved him. Chavenski asks what happened to Depaliamo and Fanboy responds that he's in a deep, dark hole. Chavenski nods approvingly and says "So you killed him?" and Fanboy shakes his head and says "Nooo....he's in a deep dark hole."

Fanboy explains that Depaliamo's fortune is now their fortune and that he wants Chavenski to have half of it (This REALLY threw me) for his trouble in assisting them at the mansion. Chavenski is surprised and grateful, and asks if he can use the phone. Fanboy obliges (hoping to eavesdrop) but Chavenski only mutters a few words of Russian into the receiver and then passes out anti-climatically.

The Hole 2.0

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Roger and Fanboy spend the next day puttering around the warehouse and watching the Droplets chase each other/Bradley in circles. Fanboy finds an article in the paper about fifteen Italians being found dead around the city (Roger's girlfriend heard that part and was disturbed hear Fanboy laughing maniacally about it) and suspected of being linked to organized crime. When Roger hears that Italians are washing up dead in droves he half panics and assumes they didn't weigh them down enough, Fanboy just facepalms.

While Fanboy's explaining Chavenski's phone call to Roger they get a visit from Agent Parks who wants to know why Depaliamo wasn't recovered along with Johnny on the Spot. Both Roger and Fanboy maintain that the crime lord escaped, but neither of them are particularly good liars and Parks has a finely tuned B.S. detector. He tells them that he doesn't know why they want Depaliamo, but he'll give them a week to get it out of their system. They keep up their story, but Parks reiterates that he'll be back in a week for Depaliamo and he won't leave without him. Fanboy insists that Depaliamo got away again and Parks tells him that he'll post his pictures at the airports just in case, but to have him ready in a week.

Fanboy is now ready to turn Depaliamo over since the offshore accounts are now closed to them and the Italian is useless, but Roger'll be damned if he gives up his trophy. He immediately begins work on an underwater holding cell meant for dangerous/secret prisoners.

As Roger slaves away over his secret prison he gets a call from his estranged son, Franklin McCrow who invites his father to his upcoming wedding against his better judgment. Roger would be honored to attend, so long as it's not this week and there's an open bar. Franklin tells him that it's in two months, but neither him nor his fiance have much disposable cash so they're keeping the reception small. Roger pffts and tells his son to leave the arrangements to him, he'll throw him a helluva shindig. Frankling resists, saying that he's seen pictures of 'yours and mom's wedding' but Roger assures him that it'll be nothing like that, his mother obviously won't be invited. Franklin tells him to forget the whole thing, but Roger (in typical McCrow fashion) bullies his way into hosting the wedding despite his son's objections.

The Investigation

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Roger continues work on the holding cell all through the day and most of the next until Parks calls and asks the two of them to join him at the hospital. They suspect that this might be a trap, but go anyway. Parks explains that this is way out of their league, but after their last tussle with Tree King he's severely understaffed; he explains that they'll be supplementing the police investigation, using their experience with superhumans. They agree to look in on it and discover that a 12 year old comatose girl has been murdered, her neck snapped in the night. Parks explains that she was on the bus and barely survived, since all the other survivors have exhibited some form of ability she is assumed to have been superhuman despite lack of verification, and the death of two superhumans in as many weeks is cause for alarm. If the serial killer has turned his attention to superhumans somehow it HAS to be addressed.

Fanboy and McCrow fan out to look around. Roger finds nothing in her room and Fanboy can't find anyone who saw a strange man hanging around. Fanboy does however discover that an orderly uniform is missing and that the man it belongs to is massive; nearly six and a half feet tall and built like a barrel, easily a build capable of snapping a neck like a tooth pick. They're unsure if that's relevant so decide to pursue other avenues of investigation.
They decide to look at the killer's suspected history in reverse order and come up with six suspected victims prior to the little girl,the superhuman security guard dubbed 'Sloth', a respected surgeon from a local hospital, a computer security specialist with a local security firm, a local DJ and radio personality, a former olympic boxer and a cab driver. Fanboy doesn't see the connection, but Roger points out that they're all exceptional individuals...except the cab driver. They check him out and sure enough there's nothing special about the man, just another immigrant trying to live the American dream. Fanboy uses his basic computer skills to learn that the cabby was killed on the same day as their accident, only two blocks away and found laying bleeding in the street. Fanboy surmises that he was killed for his cab and guesses that it was none other than the thief with the canister that killed the man since he was never recovered though the gun he shot Roger with was. Fanboy didn't get a good look at the hijacker so he uses telepathy to probe Roger's memories and discovers that the hijacker was only a few inches off from the big orderly.

It's a tenuous lead, but the two of them think it's worth pursuing, and since they remember a policeman hitting the cannister while firing at the hijacker they decide to go to the police posing as private investigators (Roger tried claiming to be Special Agents, but Fanboy kept explaining that they had no identification to pull that off with. Didn't stop Roger from trying though.) and find out who was in the vicinity that day and why.

They're directed to an older man that they realize is responsible for their current powers. He admits that he was in the area after hearing reported gunshots, but says that he's unable to help any further due to an ongoing investigation. Fanboy telepathically tells Roger to provide a distraction so he can probe the man's mind and Roger goes back to pretending to be a super secret agent. Fanboy nearly has an aneurism as Roger's claims grow more and more outlandish, however he plucks information concerning a nondisclosure agreement and disturbances in the area from the addled patrolman's mind and uses that information to convince the officer that they're somehow on the level.

The officer breaks down and mentions being en route to a reported attack on the same day as the accident and admits to only responding to gunshots once he was already in the area, he then whispers about a security guard that showed up in the morgue and was never investigated. He gives them the name of the woman who claimed the body and that's it.

They visit the dead man's wife to ask her a few questions but she honestly doesn't know much about his job. She tells them that he worked at 124 Beachum Street because she had to drop him off at work once when his car broke down, but she says that she wasn't supposed to EVER go by or call and that he wasn't even supposed to mention the address. Needless to say, he never spoke about what happened there. She says that a friend of his from the military got him the job, but that she'd never met the man herself. Roger grows irritable at her lack of information and asks if she actually knows ANYTHING. She 's offended at his attitude (he later tells Fanboy that he was playing Ungrateful Cop) and demands they leave. Roger laughs and says that they aren't going anywhere until she gives them something useful and she moves to call the police. McCrow and the woman wrestle over the phone, while Fanboy just gawks at his partner's lack of decorum, and eventually the incensed widow tearfully slaps McCrow. Roger stares at her in open mouthed silence for a moment and then rage flashes in his eyes and he head-butts her in the nose; laying her out cold and bloodily. Fanboy physically wrestles McCrow out of the apartment to keep him from pursuing the 'battle' and points out that they've got an address which is a helluva lot more than they had an hour ago.

As they head over to Beachum Street Fanboy calls Parks to check in and report what they'd found so far. Parks tells them in no uncertain terms o leave Beachum St alone, it's a dead end. The conviction in his voice as he says this convinced the heroes that there must be something there that they're not supposed to see.

They check out the address and it looks completely abandoned, just an abandoned building in the industrial district. The few operational businesses left say that they'd occasionally see drop-offs but never saw anything leave, otherwise they didn't know/care what went on there.

Now intrigued, they search the building top to bottom and discover that it is completely empty, not so much as an office chair left behind however Roger is the first to notice that the dust indicates that a substantial amount of machinery was here until recently. Large machinery with a massive power signature, they decide to check with the power company to see if a new location suddenly started drawing as much energy as this place did.

They continue searching with a fine tooth comb and Fanboy finds a false wall with half a dozen glass holding cells behind it. The cells are heavily scratched and battered, but no telling what was in them. Fanboy shudders and says that he recognizes this place...it was the first Hole. Roger makes a disparaging remark about Parks' holes but Fanboy explains that if this was here BEFORE the accident, then their powers aren't unexpected or even necessarily new. Whatever was in those canisters performed exactly as expected...

They search the parking lot before they leave and find an abandoned car in pretty rough shape still there. They search inside and Roger finds a security badge with a picture of a man in a security uniform between the seats, apparently lost. They take note of the name and decide to look him up.

They track the guard down still posing as as P.I.s and pound on his door until he answers. They introduce themselves (Roger calls himself Special Agent McCrow to Fanboys chagrin) and they notice an older woman watching them from her window. Roger shouts that she should mind her own business and she shouts back that he should mind HIS. The last they see of McCrow is when he breaks off and kicks in the woman's front door. Despite Fanboy's objection, her sudden shriek serves to convince the former guard that it's in his best interest not to jerk these guys around.

He only worked the front and had very limited clearance, so he's of little help. He often saw men in dark suits and hazmat gear and remembers frequent deliveries of chemicals with names he couldn't pronounce. He reveals that he had an nondisclosure agreement, but is angry enough with his former employers to violate it. Apparently he lost his job overnight, after the day of the bus accident he walked into the warehouse and it was just empty. Whoever messed up and called the police ensured that all nonessential personnel were no longer trusted.

Wanting to verify everything, Fanboy probes the former guard's mind aggressively for the past six months and sees firsthand the day of the accident. The guard went to the bathroom and came back to the sounds of gunshots and alarms, his friend was dead and he kept hearing that a canister was stolen. Fanboy scans further back from the accident and recognizes the equipment from The Hole and even gets a glimpse of Parks!!!

Fanboy calls Parks as he heads towards the car and demands an explanation (Roger joins him on the way and Fanboy notes that the older man's knuckles are busted and his forehead has a sizeable gash on it. The neighbor is likely to start minding her own business now though.) Parks suggests he leave it alone for his own good and when pressed outright tells him that they shouldn't expect the kind of leniency from his superiors that they get from him. If they press this the best case scenario results in their death.

Doctor Luvless

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At the warehouse Roger and Bradley rush to complete the underwater cells (Basically making an airtight shipping container that he'll raise/lower with his powers) before Parks arrives to search for Depaliamo. Fanboy meanwhile is bombarding their beleaguered liaison with phone calls of varying degrees of threats/pleads. It had been less than 10 minutes since his last call and Fanboy picks up the phone to start the dance again, when it rings and Parks tells the two of them to drop what they're doing and get to Priceless Memories Jewelry.

Fanboy tells him that they're through being his lackeys until he answers some questions, but Parks tells him that people are dying NOW. That four police officers are already dead and there's no telling how many civilians are injured or worse. He promises to answer questions in person once this is all wrapped up, but they must take action immediately.

The heroes consider this acceptable and rush to save the day, or at least to kick some ass if all else fails.

They arrive to find a scene of absolute carnage waiting for them. There are half a dozen police cars surrounding the jeweler's and only two of them are still intact. The rest are blackened and leveled, their occupants strewn across the street and little more than clumps of ash. A man with a black and gold cloak stands on the sidewalk gripping a black and gold staff in a gauntleted hand, a purple haze surrounds him and easily absorbs the barrage of bullets that the surviving officers are firing.

The man looks amused rather than angry at the constant attempts on his life, like a man threatened by children with cap pistols. His look of amusement grows even more as McCrow and Fanboy stroll closer.

"Ah!" the man exclaims cheerfully. "I remember you two from the bus! You were the morons that decided to 'rassle' (he makes an exaggerated grappling motion with his hands) during a terrorist attack. I must say that I am sincerely disappointed to find that you have joined me in ascension."
"The hell are you talking about?" Roger shouts angrily. His instinctive urge to throttle the man threatens to overwhelm his survival instincts.

"Apologies, I'll use smaller words in the future." the cloaked man says with a smirk. Removing two cue ball sized orbs from his belt he tosses them at the heroes and a holographic display shimmers to life, giving them the appearance of black and gold robots. Despite the fact that they're only a projection they seem VERY solid.

"Our mutual accident has left me as the most brilliant man living or who has ever lived. These are hard-light constructs that I designed in an afternoon. It will be centuries before drooling plebeians like you even manage to GRASP what I've done." the man gloats overbearingly.

"Really?" Fanboy asks with a snort. "Centuries?"

"What can I say? I've always been an optimist." the man retorts, eliciting the urge for violence in Samell as well.

"Doctor Luvless will be a name remembered long after your ashes have been scattered to the wind. As the man who changed this world, and brought it to heel!" he growls.

Fanboy has finally had enough and telekinetically grapples Luvless, dashing him against the wall of the jewelers. Roger calls for his Droplets and they leap free of the car and charge into the fray as well, engaging the 'Luvbots' in combat. The Luvbots open fire indiscriminately newly formed blasters.
Luvless struggles in Fanboy's grip a moment before pressing one of the dozen buttons along his staff's grip, turning the purple aura into a purple tornado of energy, breaking Fanboy's hold and freeing himself to rain down destruction. An arc of red energy flashes from the power-staff and Fanboy dives out of the way before watching another of the police cars and the men behind it turn into a twisted pile of ash. Fanboy snatches one of the robots and dashes it against the sidewalk, leaving only the broken remains of the small metallic sphere behind. Roger draws water to himself, bursting a nearby fire hydrant and soaking the area. The Droplets latch onto each other like Voltron and ooze together to create a single human sized creature made of living water which engages the last Luvbot in one on one combat.

Luvless fires another arc of red energy at McCrow who barely escapes becoming a pile of ashes himself. Fanboy rips a stop sign out of the ground and hurls it at Luvless who bats it away easily with his staff. Roger fires a burst of water at Luvless, but despite his best effort barely enough water to knock Luvless back a step gets through. The 'Big Drip' as the Droplets combined form has come to be called blasts the Luvbot with a jet of water of his own and takes it out of the fight.

Luvless levels his power-staff and fires at the Big Drip, despite the Droplets seeming invincibility however not a single scrap of the Drip remains and Roger (and his player) shouts in surprise and anguish at the deaths of what he's come to think of as his children. Fanboy attempts to mentally dominate Luvless, but discovers that something prevents his telepathy from even reaching the man. Roger draws even more water to himself, growing into his 10ft form first battle form.

Doctor Luvless fires another red tinged blast at Fanboy and Samell is too slow to escape its path, his forcefield fails and most of his clothing is burned away along with a bit of skin, however he survives. Fanboy whips a manhole cover at the good Doctor that nearly knocks him senseless and Roger finishes the transformation into his full 30ft form.

Luvless looks at his staff worriedly and seems to question whether or not his staff's power will hold out, he switches settings and fires a seemingly solid yellow bolt that strikes Fanboy in the chest and carries him across the street and into the side of a van. Fanboy slumps unconscious to the street. Roger charges in his enlarged form and nearly flattens Luvless with an overhead blow.

Luvless seems to rethink what he's got to gain from this and plants his staff firmly into the ground. "This was just a trial run gentlemen. Next time I'll get serious." and disappears in a flash of blue energy.

Roger checks inside before recovering Fanboy and discovers that except for the cops outside there aren't any fatalities. The customers and employees inside are bound with run of the mill cuffs and only a single case was even busted. Apparently he didn't have time to snatch much before the cops interrupted.

I'll Go This Way

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Roger drags Fanboy back to the warehouse after their tussle with Doctor Luvless and lets Kavlight patch telepath up while he sits down with the Prophet and discusses their situation. The Prophet says that while he's not shocked to discover that the government had a hand in the canister (he's a hardcore conspiracy theorist that used to run his own pirate radio station) this is the first he's heard about it. Roger's surprised because he just assumed the Prophet knew everything.

The Prophet gives Roger a list of names: Richard Bronson, Sandy Clemens and John Hurt. They're all superhumans that have fallen between the cracks. Nobody is watching them and that makes them prime targets for the killer. Roger agrees with this reasoning and pops into the infirmary to see if Fanboy feels up to coming with him.

When Roger walks in, Fanboy's already on the phone with Parks and tells him to keep his voice down to avoid waking Chavenski. McCrow gives him the list of names and says that they need to bring these people in before the killer gets to them, but Fanboy's already contacted Parks and he'd agreed to come by and answer a few questions.

Roger decides to let Fanboy deal with Parks by himself while he visits Sandy Clemens to warn her about the killer.

Roger finds Sandy living in a quiet little neighborhood out in the suburbs, in a small, unassuming house with a well manicured lawn. He knocks on the door and an attractive middle-aged woman with dark hair answers. She only opens the door a crack, apparently relying on the little chain to protect her against intruders.

"Can I help you?" she asks.

"Yes, I'm looking for..." Roger (and his player) draws a blank and he forgets the name of the woman he's looking for. "Sandy Hooks?" he asks questioningly.

The woman shakes her head and says "Sorry, wrong address." and shuts the door.

Roger's a little taken aback by her behavior and knocks on the door again. "Sandy something. I'm looking for Sandy something. That's you, right ma'am?"

She opens the door a crack again and glances around nervously. "Yes, that's me but I'm afraid I don't know you."

"No ma'am, you don't but I'm from the bus." he starts and has the door slammed in his face again.

Roger sighs irritably and bangs on the door with force. Sandy refuses to open it but she shouts out "I don't want anything to do with you people. I just want to live my life!"

McCrow acts like he can't hear her and once the door is opened a crack again he shoves his way in and breaks the chain. "I don't care what you want, I just need you to come with me; it's for your own good."

"No, no, no." she chants backing up. "Please, I've got children; they could be home at any moment."

"Don't worry," Roger says obliviously "I'll take them too. I've got a warehouse where you're going to stay for a bit. Of course it's secret, so you'll need to be blindfolded..."

Sandy is now outright terrified at the crazy man wanting to kidnap her and her children and bolts towards the kitchen to grab a knife. Roger tackles her halfway there and shouts for her to stop screaming. She fails to oblige and he begins to believe that perhaps diplomacy is not his forte. However a quick right hook shuts her up and dispels his doubts once again.

Meanwhile...

Fanboy and Parks meet at the warehouse and discuss what they've found. Parks points out that he never tried to deny his involvement but that his business is none of theirs. Fanboy wants details and Parks tells him that he's not at liberty to discuss these matters, but that he feels like they should keep looking for the killer. Fanboy demands to know who this killer is and Parks admits that the DHS is just as stumped as they are.
Fanboy snorts and asks if they've never heard of video cameras at the DHS and Parks points out that this isn't T.V. he can't get a positive I.D. off half a frame of a man's partially obscured face. He encourages them to keep pressing forward in their search for the killer, but to leave the past in the past before they get hurt; this is still a national security matter of the utmost secrecy.

Fanboy attempts to read Parks mind and is severely disappointed that he can't seem to pry any more information out of the agent (Parks will save is terrifying), however Parks does say that there are those in this administration that have looked forward to meeting people like them for a LONG time and that they'll be in touch officially soon. Fanboy finds this a bit ominous but is excited nevertheless.

Fanboy tells Parks about the super genius Doctor Luvless while they walk out and admits that he might be more than the two of them can handle. He asks that Parks supplies some EMP weaponry to disable the gadgeteer's toys and Parks promises to deliver some cutting edge tech to even the odds in their next bout.

As Parks is preparing to leave Roger pulls in with a van full of kidnapped children and their mother, all hogtied and unconscious. The twelve year old boy has a black eye and the eight year old girl is gagged with a sock...and might have a broken nose. Parks just shakes his head in disgust while Fanboy telepathically scans Roger's mind for what happened, and sees him chasing the children around trying to corral them into their van while they scream about stranger danger and the situation just devolves from there. Fanboy just facepalms silently in defeat.

The Time Bomb

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After having Kavlight look over Sandy and her children for injuries (Just a few scrapes and bruises. Sandy doesn't have a scratch on her despite her altercation with McCrow) and being satisfied that they'll live, they set out to find the next superhuman on their list. This time with Fanboy providing the much needed restraint to counterbalance McCrow's enthusiasm.

With the help of the Prophet they track down Richard Bronson's cell phone, a scrawny fifteen year old superhuman. He's at a local arcade and they decide to visit him there to hopefully avoid a scene. There's only half a dozen people in the arcade when they get there and Roger changes tactics midstride and decides to ambush Richard before Fanboy can stop him. He grabs the boy from behind and slams him into a machine.

"You're coming with us and I don't want to hear a WORD about it. We'll explain later!" the kid freaks out and starts stammering 'What?' Roger shakes him harshly and demands he shut up. The kid keeps freaking out and the lights start flickering while the machines start blinking. Electricity starts arcing across his skin as it's drawn from the very air around him. The kid is in a blind panic and Fanboy recognizes that his isn't an intentional attack. He uses emotion control to calm the boy down and the kid shouts that EVERYBODY has to get out of here, that he can't stop this once it starts.
Roger suddenly regrets this decision and tries to talk the kid through what's happening, remembering his own power fluctuations in the beginning. As Richard tries to explain to Roger that the reaction has to run its course, the kid's energy explodes and knocks McCrow across the room stunned and scorched.

Fanboy grapples everyone in the arcade except for himself and the kid and times it to throw them out right as the next flash flares and strikes his force field. Everybody thinks that they've been thrown out by an explosion and start freaking out. Only Roger (unwisely) rushes back in. Roger charges and tries to knock the kid out to stop the reaction, and although he breaks the kid's rib and knocks the air completely out of him the aura of electricity fries him worse than his punch hurt the kid as his powers leave him especially vulnerable to electricity and he's barely able to stand under his own power.
Fanboy tries to black the kid out telepathically, but the kid explodes in a flash and strikes both of them, Fanboy is injured and his hair stands on end but Roger is out cold. Fanboy tries to blast the kid again but can't quite knock him out and the kid's energy flares again rendering Roger dying and left in a blackened, unmoving heap.

Recognizing that McCrow simply can't survive another hit Fanboy tosses Roger out of the store once more seconds before a blinding flash lights up the arcade and melts the majority of the machines. His force field barely holds and Richard is left unconscious by the experience.

Fanboy catches his breath as the gawking survivors being returning to the scene and struggles to drag the charred remains of his partner into his car before returning to half carry Richard out as well.

Once at the warehouse Kavlight gives McCrow a thorough examination and admits that there's nothing he can do for Roger, his wounds are too severe and even if he lives through the night it's unlikely he'll be able to breathe on his own much longer. Fanboy is surprised to find that he's worried about the violent and boisterous McCrow and against Kavlight's orders carries (so much of his body had dried up/crumbled at this point that he was only a fraction of his former size) the blackened hydromancer out to the docks and drops him into the ocean below. He watches the barely living Roger sink beyond his vision and holds his breath in anticipation.

Nothing happens.

Fanboy stands on the dock for almost an hour in contemplation before the churning of the waves catches his attention. It grows more and more violent until a pillar of water nearly 200ft tall bursts upwards in the shape of a man and roars so savagely that the occupants of the warehouse rush out to see if the pier is being destroyed and people in the city proper stop in their tracks at the monstrous sound. The creature bounds onto the pier bellowing and the water rapidly dissipates until McCrow is left unconscious and naked, but whole, amid the puddles.

Baritone

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Roger barely remembers the fight with the kid or his near miss with death, but Richard is confined to the basement cells for everyone's safety regardless. When Parks gets word about the explosive nature of the teen's power he wants him in the Hole, but Roger of all people refuses to consider it. McCrow insists that he'll equip a quarters with heavy duty insulation and train the boy himself. Nobody's quite thrilled at the thought of Roger McCrow becoming somebody's role model, but no more is said on the subject and it's decided.

Over the next two days another 12 Italians are found with their throats cut and hands cut off thanks to Chavenski's little phone call, Roger (assisted by the Bradleys and Richard) finally finishes his underwater holding cell and transfers Depaliamo to the bottom of the sea to avoid any surprise DHS raids or escape attempts. Richard is allowed to sleep upstairs so long as he can assure everyone's safety and Sandy and the kids finally understand Roger's intent. They aren't happy at the way things have turned out, but after speaking with Fanboy and the others they at least understand that nothing (else) bad is going to happen to them. I'm starting to think that the team name should be the Stockholm Society.

Finally, Roger feels up to tackling the next superhuman and they decide to warn John Hurt that a killer's after him. The prophet directs them to a dive bar near the docks. As they pull into the parking lot a man matching Hurt's description and four of his biker friends drag three yuppies into the parking lot while kicking the crap out of them and whooping like maniacs.

Fanboy and Roger stare at each other in disbelief for a moment and McCrow rushes headlong to the defense of the battered yuppies. He throws a massive haymaker at the end of his charge and lays out one of the bikers with a single blow. The others stop what they're doing and just stare at the impulsive hero as their former victims break away and flee into the night, eliciting a 'Well sh**' from McCrow. Another biker lunges forward and Roger breaks the man's nose with a well-timed head-butt.

Hurt and his men surround Roger as Fanboy looks on nervously and Roger holds up his hands peacefully. "Come on guys, we're not looking for trouble; I'm just here to deliver a message."

The bikers chuckle and chant 'Kick his ass Baritone.'

Hurt/Baritone cracks his knuckles and laughs. "No friend," the burly biker says in an impossibly deep voice "I'm the one who delivers messages around here. Now f*** off."

Roger repeats that he doesn't want any trouble and gets spit on as a result. Every nerve ending tells him to straddle this man and start pulling teeth, but he keeps reminding himself that he's here looking for allies, not street fights. He keeps his temper in check and extends his hand "I'm serious, we've been looking for you Hurt. I think you'll want to hear us out." he says through clenched teeth.

Hurt leans forward and says 'And I was serious when I said F*** OFF' and as he says OFF he releases an earsplitting bellow that results in a 30ft by 100ft cone of sound that narrowly misses Fanboy, tosses several cars completely out of the parking lot; deafens Roger and strips flesh down to the bone in some places before throwing him more than 100ft across the parking lot to land in a crumpled; broken; bloody heap.

Baritone draws a pistol and begins advancing towards Roger's unmoving carcass, but Fanboy throws himself in the way shouting that they're there to save his life. Fanboy stammers about the serial killer tracking superhumans and needing to watch each other's backs if they're to survive.
Hurt just laughs in his deep, booming voice and holsters his gun. As he and his men mount their bikes he revs his engine loudly and shouts that he can take care of himself.

Fanboy just falls next to Roger's bloody form and begins a desperate attempt at first aid as the bikers blow past him, laughing and hooting all the time.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-05-04, 04:51 PM (ISO 8601)

Ok, so the last time we ended on a bit of a cliffhanger and I'm sorry to say that we didn't resolve McCrow's condition. I couldn't get Fanboy/McCrow together again this session, but I did manage to get McCrow's player to help teach my little sister the game (She's been mocking my 'make believe' games since we were teenagers and only agreed to play because I promised to cook for her, but tonight she left cackling and asking when we could do this again.) so we decided to do a parallel plot to the main campaign.

McCrow's player decided to play Special Agent Mann, Liaison Parks' right hand man and a humorless; uptight; by-the-book Knight Templar styled officer that cares about the law first and everything else second. Basically the polar opposite of Roger McCrow.

My sister decided to play Stardust, a former stripper that's gained invisibility; flight and control over the basic building blocks of life. Funnily enough, it's almost the exact same character that McCrow's girlfriend described wanting to play, only she went through with it.

Alternate Perspective

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We start at the beginning and Stardust vividly recalls that day that her life changed. She remembers the bus ride and watching a large mustachioed man beating up a Storm Trooper. Before she could do more than gawk she watched the man in the ski mask board the bus with his hissing canister of strange green gas, then she remembers the gunshot as the man with the mustache is gunned down and the bus slamming into the abandoned theater.

She doesn't remember much after that.

It's more than two months later when she finally wakes up in the hospital, her muscles nearly atrophied from disuse and her mind foggy from her long sleep. She doesn't do much but lay there until Dr Forester comes in and seems surprised to find her conscious. The Doctor tries to answer questions as best he can and calls Agent Parks, who shows up remarkably fast.

Agent Parks explains about the bus accident and its label as an act of terror, he informs Stardust that she is to make no mention of her presence on the bus as there were supposedly no survivors. Parks goes on to lay out the non-disclosure agreement and has her sign it in exchange for him paying any and all medical expenses related to the accident. He then offers the former stripper a chance to make $10,000 for a week's work.

The Russian Menace

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Parks explains that he knows from past experience how effective superhumans can be, but admits that he's had a hard time keeping some of his assets in line. With a snap of his fingers Parks summons a scowling, well dressed man in dark shades with a slightly receding hairline into the room. The man's carrying a briefcase that it turns out is filled with photos of countless atrocities. Men, women and children butchered like animals and splayed theatrically for the world to see.

Parks indicates the pictures "This city used to have a sort of criminal equilibrium. The Italians wouldn't spread themselves too thin for fear of the Russians, and the Russians wouldn't come on too strong for fear of the Italians. However because of certain...individuals, the equilibrium has been upset. The Italians made powerful enemies and paid for it with their lives. The Russians have exploded to fill the power vacuum and I'm afraid that if they remain unchallenged the city won't be recognizable when they're done."

Tapping the disturbing photos Parks shakes his head. "Appallingly, I have mutual allies with these monsters and can't move directly against them. For some ungodly reason my original team have taken a liking to the leader of the Russians and facilitated his rise to power."

Stardust asks why they don't just kill the Russians and the other team if they're such a problem and Parks admits that it's gotten beyond that. He points out that they have a body count higher than most plagues and are suspected of taking the most powerful man in the city as a trophy for no discernable reason.

She seems satisfied by this so Parks lays out a few of the Russian operations: Selling captured Italian women and children into slavery, smuggling ridiculously overpowered weapons into the states for what DHS is assuming to be a major territory grab and even auctioning off the stolen infants of their slain enemies as a final insult.

Parks gives Stardust a few days to recover and consider his offer and she finally comes around. When the quiet man with the receding hairline shows up a few days later to get her answer she tells him that she wants to break up the baby selling ring immediately and he just nods his approval. She introduces herself with an attempted handshake and he just glares at her.

"I'm Stardust." she says with a wink. "But you can call me Star."

"Really...? Stardust. Sounds like a stripper name." he says with a scowl. They get into a bit of an argument over her chosen profession and he begins derogatorily referring to her as Drip, because as he puts it she's '90% chlamydia anyway.' He introduces himself as Special Agent Mann, but tells her that she can call him Special Agent, Sir.

They drive in silence to a nice residential neighborhood and Agent Mann points out the house they're after, a two story colonial style with heavy shutters. A large man sits casually on the porch, but the more they watch him the more they realize that the nonchalance is forced; he's scanning the neighborhood under the guise of lounging.

Mann checks his weapon, a heavy 1911 Colt .45 before turning to Stardust and pointing at her exaggeratedly "I don't like the idea of working with mutants." he says with a perceptible shudder. "You're aberrations, not assets. This business with McCrow and Hamilton should speak for itself, you people can't be trusted. But if Parks wants you on the job, I'll follow suit. Just keep in mind that if you make ONE wrong step Drip, I will bury you beneath The Hole myself." the stern agent says, chambering a round for dramatic effect and stepping out of his vehicle; a stunned Stardust scurrying behind him.

The guard perks up as the pair approaches and holds up a hand in challenge. "Hold it right there-" the big man starts, but doesn't get to finish as Mann breaks the offered arm and drives a knee into his solar plexus; knocking the Russian out cold with the same effort it takes to ring a doorbell. Agent Mann doesn't even stop to see whether or not his victim gets up as he strolls into the front door and comes face to face with the reason they're there. Three men are tending to close to sixteen cribs worth of babies and two men in vests and carrying automatic weapons stand guard in opposite corners of the room.

It takes the guards a moment to register that two people have just strolled into their safehouse unhindered and it gives the two of them enough time to fully take stock of their situation. One of the armed guards recovers enough to demand to know what they're doing here and Agent Mann responds by putting a bullet in his head.

Everything goes quiet and then explodes in a hail of gunfire as the remaining guard opens up with full automatic fire and the three attendants draw pistols and literally hide behind the babies, each of them scooping an infant up and using them as human shields.

Stardust instinctively goes invisible and grabs a baby under each arm before booking it out the door to Mann's surprise/irritation. She drops the babies off in Mann's car across the street and like a responsible citizen calls for backup from the proper authorities.

The remaining houseful of thugs open fire at Agent Mann and his vest barely keeps him alive. He collapses against the wall and leaves a bloody streak. Stardust returns for another armful of babies and sees the carnage, she focuses on one of the thugs(forgetting about the baby he's holding) and everyone in the house is horrified to watch the man's skeleton apparently attempt to escape his own skin, reducing the Russian into putrid pile of quivering flesh and shattered bone. The baby falls from the man's grasp and shrieks in pain as it bounces against the floor.

Nobody can see exactly what happened, but that just launches them into a blind panic in itself. One of the attendants drops his baby back into its crib and bolts past the door. The remaining guard and attendant fire wildly into the room, several bullets passing through the tops of the cribs but none of them finding a target.

Stardust drops down to avoid the gunfire and focuses on the screaming baby, mending wounds that she can't even see and soothing the child's pain. Agent Mann stumbles to his feet and puts several bullets into the remaining guard. The last attendant puts his back against the wall, holds the baby up to his chest/head and presses his gun to the infant's head. "I don't know who you people are, but you leave NOW or this kid's blood is on YOUR hands!" he shouts in terror.

Mann stumbles forward, his gun raised and shakes his head. "You have two choices here. You put the baby down, get cuffed and walk out of here alive. Or you don't...and I kill you where you stand."

Stardust presses an unseen hand against Mann's side and his gushing wounds miraculously heal over, returning the agent's full focus and faculties just as he needs them most.

"Last chance!" the Russian shouts over the head of his baby shield, pulling back the hammer of his pistol threateningly.

"Right." the agent agrees. In that split second Mann squeezes the trigger of his .45 and watches the attendant's head split like an overripe melon, spraying the walls with gore. Stardust leaps forward using the unnatural speed of her flight to snatch the baby before it comes crashing down and becomes visible once again, glaring at Agent Mann.

"He had a baby!" she shouts.

"HAD, being the operative word." Mann says, holstering his gun and walking upstairs to check things out. "Now we have the baby."

Official Investigation

Spoiler

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While waiting for the cleanup crew to arrive, Mann searches the house thoroughly but finds nothing that would link the operation to Chavenski, the Russians or potential buyers. It was apparently just an infant storehouse.

Mann and Stardust turn over the investigation once Parks arrives at the scene and are just about to see what they can do about the city's white slavery problem, when Parks asks the two of them to look into a number of deaths around town. Six bodies have been recovered in the last two weeks, all of which died of suffocation and most of them appear heavily mutilated.

Before he can continue, Agent Mann leans in and whispers that this sounds like the Tree King but says that that's impossible because McCrow killed him. He was on the recovery crew that brought back nothing but splinters. Parks agrees that it seems unlikely, but points out that there's not likely to be many other plant based psychos running around town, the senior agent shows Mann an autopsy report that shows fibrous growths in the man's lungs, almost like plant roots had taken hold. Mann just shakes his head and motions for Stardust to follow him to the car.

On the way to the morgue Stardust and Agent Mann get into another altercation over Mann's hostage negotiation tactics, and Mann exacerbates things with liberal usage of his petname 'Drip'. Eventually he pushes Stardust too far and she grabs his hand in an attempt to rot a finger off. Agent Mann resists the attempt, quickly draws his pistol and suggests she exit his car. From now on, Stardust provides her own transportation.

Mann pulls up to the Morgue and Stardust lands shortly afterwards, becoming visible again as she does so. They don't run into any resistance as Mann's credentials are more than enough to get them admittance and they start looking the latest body over for evidence.

Stardust is terrible at this (wisdom penalty and no ranks in any skill) and she rolls terribly enough that we joke she wouldn't know he was dead if somebody hadn't told her. Mann on the other hand is built for investigation and has an eye for detail. He notices that the corpse's hands are rough and dirt is under the nails.

Without bothering to look for any other details he checks the other victims and finds that they all worked as gardeners or landscapers. Even more specific, they all worked for companies that had government contracts. He checks a little more and finds out that each of the places a victim was found was missing plants, and checking a little more finds out that there have actually been dozens of trees and bushes reported stolen in the last month, although the police have given the thefts a low priority for obvious reasons.

Stardust asks what all that means, and Mann points out that in the past Tree King only killed people that were in the way of his pursuit of vengeance and surmises that the dead men must have interrupted the mad man while he was doing something else.

Agent Mann gets in touch with Parks and asks for a large landscaping order to be set up for the Mayor's offices, almost a dozen trees and assorted shrubberies delivered as soon as possible. Parks (and I) don't exactly get what he's going for, but agrees to set it up.

By the time the PCs arrive at the mayor's office, a landscaping company has already started prepping the land and Mann sets up for overnight surveillance. He explains to Stardust that if Tree King is targetting landscapers then this will definitely get his attention. Then, since it's getting dark and the landscapers are going home, Mann instructs the five foot nothing, ninety pound girl who's just spent two months in a hospital bed to start planting trees while he checks out the perimeter.

It takes Stardust more than an hour per tree, between the fact that most of the saplings are nearly as big as she is and she can barely hold the shovel let alone use it with her atrophied muscles, this just isn't her thing. She can be forgiven for failing to notice that one of the trees she's supposed to be planting has disappeared.

Agent Mann on the other hand notices almost immediately once he's finished his rounds and suggests they split up to see if they can find anything. Stardust takes to the air and Mann rushes to the landscapers van to see if anything's missing. What he finds disturbs him.

The missing tree looks eerily similar to Tree King, its branches have begun knitting together into clawed arms and thick bulbs have began growing on its 'chest' region. The tree creature has nearly torn the doors off the landscaping van and appears to be stealing fertilizer and other chemicals for some nefarious purpose. Mann opens fire into the oblivious tree's backside with his trusty sidearm and manages to snap the thing almost in half. (He got a 20 on his attack, I rolled a 1 on its toughness save.)

Stardust hears the gunshots and gets in touch with Mann using her earpiece, he tells her that he's handled the situation and has her check the rest of the property for anything suspicious. She doesn't find anything, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

Once they've cleared the property they load up the remains of the tree and head to The Hole to brief Agent Parks on what they've found. As they enter The Hole two men in hazmat suits claim the tree and take it to the back, while Parks and Mann talk and Stardust has a look around.

She sees the six glass holding cells in the center and finds a darkhaired man sitting in one cell head in his hands, his legs mangled and held in casts. In another, apparently empty cell she notices what appears to be a stone head the size of an air-conditioner twisted in a vengeful grimace and half a hand protruding from the concrete floor. She begins growing very nervous about what they're doing here.

Meanwhile, Agent Mann tells Parks what they found and suggests that if Tree King is stealing plants, fertilizer and other gardening chemicals, it stands to reason that he may be growing himself an army.

The city is going to need all the help it can get in the days ahead. Parks makes a call to his superiors in Washington and arranges a meeting to request reinforcements.

Infiltrating the Other Guys

Spoiler

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While Parks is discussing the implications of Tree King's budding (sorry) army with Mann and Stardust, he realizes that it's more important than ever that Fanboy and McCrow continue to lend their support to the DHS. He mentions the deadline he imposed concerning the return of Depaliamo and decides to make sure they actually have the Italian boss before pressing any further.

Agent Mann and Stardust are instructed to reconnoiter McCrow's warehouse, but Parks stresses that they MUST be careful, if McCrow or Fanboy discovers their presence they WILL NOT survive the encounter. Parks reiterates that these two men slaughtered almost the entirety of the Italian crime syndicate in the city for disrespecting them, he points out that they do not care for trespassers and have installed military grade security measures.

Mann says that he undestands and Stardust is still pretty cocky because of her powers so they set out to investigate the very warehouse that Mann/McCrow's player strove to make impenetrable. ((Actually proud of Mann/McCrow. He completely separated his OOC knowledge and feelings and focused only on how a hardass like Mann would approach this situation.))

They stroll almost completely up to the warehouse before Mann makes his Notice check and sees a couple of hidden security cameras tucked into streetlamps and armored shutters. He doesn't believe they've been spotted so he has Stardust fly them to the roof to avoid giving themselves away. Stardust's flight doesn't confer any increased strength, so Mann is a maximum load for her and she pants and struggles their way onto the roof before collapsing to catch her breath.

Mann sneaks around as stealthily as he can and finds a skylight built into the top of the roof but protected by thick steel bars and armored, mechanical shutters. The bars are widely spaced to let in as much light as possible, but not so big as to allow him entrance. Stardust on the other hand...

Agent Mann quickly scores the glass beneath the bar with a razor knife and wraps his tie around his hand. He gives the glass a quick tap and manages to catch the dislodged piece before it can fall and give away their presence. It takes some finaggling, but Mann finally drags a large piece of glass up through the bars and places it on the roof. However he fails his balance check when he moves to get Stardust and rolls down the slanted roof, alerting the people inside that something is up there.

Stardust takes this opportunity to invisibly slip through the hole he created, narrowly avoid cutting herself and Mann stealthily scurries to hide behind the curve of the roof. Once inside, Stardust begins describing what she sees to Mann via their earpieces.

She notices some kind of computer room where a one legged man with a bushy beard and a blond haired young man seem to be looking through various monitors, apparently not even paying attention to the security cameras along the outside. To her surprise she sees six more of the blonde haired man strolling around the warehouse with guns in hand. Mann explains that the young guy is Bradley Yurtz and that duplicating is kind of his thing. He mentions that McCrow and Fanboy brought the kid down during an armed robbery and that now he works for them. The older man however is unknown, he hasn't gotten anyone's attention yet.

Satisfied, Stardust continues poking around and finds the infirmary where a man in a white coat is changing the bandages of a large unconscious man attached to a number of I.V.s. Stardust waits until the doctor finishes and leaves and grabs the patient's chart to see what it says. She finds the name Nicholai C. and Mann immediately recognizes this as Chavenski. He's disturbed to find the crimelord here and has Stardust continue searching through the notes while he calls Parks.

Mann evades the Bradley's who come outside to see what was banging around on the roof while talking to his boss. He points out that not only are McCrow and Fanboy acquaintances with Chavenski; they're paying for his recovery. He points out that Stardust can finish the Russian off without raising suspicion and asks Parks for confirmation. Parks is hesitant, he wants Chavenski dealt with, but points out that Chavenski's organization has outgrown the point where the Russian's death will cripple it and that killing Chavenski will only leave a power vacuum that may make things worse. He points out that as McCrow and Fanboy are allies of Chavenski he can't give an order like that, Fanboy's telepathy would pry it from his mind and THAT would definitely make things worse. Parks leaves the decision to Mann's discretion and Mann decides to leave the Russian be.

Stardust reads what she can off Chavenski's chart and reports that it looks like the Russian is in pretty bad shape, apparently his altercation with Depaliamo cost him a lung. Mann questions whether Chavenski will even have a place in his own empire once he recovers.

Stardust puts the chart back and continues snooping around. She investigates the 16 living spaces that McCrow installed and finds evidence that most are in use. She finds a drunk passed out in his own filth in one and an attractive middle aged woman plus her two bruised children in another. She looks at the busted lips and black eyes and (as a mother herself in RL) decides that this woman is a monster. Chavenski is a monster. The doctor saving him is a monster. Everyone associated with Roger McCrow or Samell Hamilton must be monsters and this whole place should be burned down and the people scattered to the wind.

Mann talks her down from trying to execute the inhabitants of the warehouse one by one and reminds her that this is a job and she needs to be professional. She eventually takes a deep breath and continues her search. She finds some stairs leading down and follows them to find a pair of holding cells, one of them empty and the other containing a tall, lanky teen who appears to be having some kind of seizure. Visble arcs of electricity lance across his body and his face is strained in concentration.

Stardust describes the kid to Mann who recognizes him from a description that Parks had given of a kid that nearly killed McCrow. He warns her (both IC and OOC because he's legitimately scared of this kid) not to approach and asks her to poke around a bit. She notices a large, steel trap door built directly into the floor and tries to pry it open before determining it's probably connected to something electronically. So being as stealthy as she can to avoid getting the kid's attention she starts opening various fuseboxes until she finds a large lever, which she promptly pulls. The steel door loudly begins opening and she glances down as it does, seeing nothing but a long drop and water underneath.

She's suddenly extremely surprised to see the cell door open and the kid call out "Who's there?!" as she'd just assumed he was a prisoner, instead of willingly confining himself. She doesn't answer and he asks again, suddenly the air itself is heavy with the electric charge that's building with the kid's anxiety. She glances around nervously and the earpiece she's wearing goes dead as its energy is added to the aura surrounding Richard Bronson.

Stardust doesn't know exactly what's about to happen, but she leaps through the hole to avoid it regardless. Her plan is to press against the underside of the warehouse until whatever's happening passes by, however the heavy steel door closes as the kid apparently flips the switch back.

Cursing, she decides to abandon her post and finds Mann on the roof calling for her over his piece. She explains what happened and says that Depaliamo wasn't on the property. They give Parks a call and he admits that perhaps Fanboy was telling him the truth, as unlikely as that sounds...

Non-Disclosure Violation

Spoiler

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The two unlikely partners are in the middle of getting something to eat when a call from Parks comes in. Apparently one of the superhumans has gotten into a scuffle and used his powers publicly, he needs the troublemaker brought in before this gets out of hand. They agree and cut dinner short, tossing the rest of their meal into the trash and doubletiming it across time.

When they pull up to the scene of the crime they find a short man, around 5'6'' but extremely hairy and bulky with arms thicker than most men's thighs ranting and raving about some slight or another. Five men lay groaning in the street, limbs broken and several have vicious bite marks, but all of them are still alive. The man seems distressed and barely in control of his actions, shouting a stream of obscenities before headbutting the roof of a car and caving it in almost a foot. With blood streaming down his face the bestial man roars into the night sky.

Mann and Stardust glance at each other and the former stripper goes invisible and takes to the sky, while Agent Man slams his car into gear and attempts to run the beast down, not wanting to risk a straight up confrontation with something this crazy.

With split second timing however, the beast man sniffs the air before fliping onto the incoming car and propelling himself nearly 60ft through the air towards Stardust, narrowly avoiding the terrified woman and catching himself on a nearby streetlight, swinging around twice before perching in place and growling. Mann slams directly into the car that the beastman was attacking and nearly knocks himself unconscious.

Stardust tries rot the beastman, but fails to overcome the superhuman's immense fortitude. Agent Mann stumbles out of his vehicle opens fire with his .45, only managing to graze the beast, before the enraged creature drops down and charges the distance between them, leaping into the air at the last second and delivering a drop kick into Mann's chest which breaks several ribs, sends the agent flying backwards into his own car and leaves him gasping for breath.

Stardust manages to get the beastman's attention by exerting her will and forming several lesions on his hide. The creature responds by leaping up onto the streetlight and using its momentum to slingshot itself onto her, where it grapples her in midair.

Agent Mann finally drags himself to his feet, but doesn't have a clear shot so he doesn't open fire. Stardust grabs the beastman by the head and exerts her power, attempting to turn him into a fleshy pile of goo, however he's just too hearty. He responds by biting into her shoulder savagely and digging in with both clawlike hands.

Mann sees that things are getting desperate and takes a shot, but it goes wide and doesn't accomplish anything. Stardust exerts all of her strength and uses extra effort to go even higher, trying to shake the monster off despite the fact that the weight of the beastman is well over her maximum load and has been dragging her down. The beastman continues squeezing and chewing on her like a wild animal.

They're far beyond Mann's range, so he simply stands there gawking up at the sky and hoping that nobody's seeing this and that's when Stardust surprises me. Her player's never really been one to think out of the box and always wants her options completely laid out for her, she won't even order a pizza unless she sees a menu that specifically says pepperoni on it. So when she doesn't bother consulting her character sheet and just says that Stardust grabs the beastman and just stops flying I have to admit that I'm more than a little shocked.

They plummet almost 200ft straight down and crash into the ground like a meteor, the Beastman provides a little cushioning for Stardust's descent and she barely manages to just be knocked unconscious instead of severely injured by the experience, the beastman is pretty much broken inside but is filled with rage and bad ideas; so he pulls out of her grasp and starts to stagger off.

Mann calls him out and states that "You're under arrest, persuant to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. Your public indiscretions concerning the events surrounding the suspected bioterrorist and the Ventnor City city bus hijacking constitute open and unabashed treason as defined in the non-disclosure agreement you and your contemporaries willingly signed. Put your hands up and lay on the ground, or I will execute your treasonous ass where it stands." ((I'm starting to think that Mann might make a more effective liaison than Parks. He's kinda hardcore.))

The beastman snarls at his challenge and seems to forget his wounds, charging directly at Mann who immediately fires, putting a bullet into the superhuman's skull and laying it right out, although Mann discovers that the creature still clings to life. He slips a pair of cuffs onto the beastman before calling his boss to confirm the capture and request transportation, then staggers on unreliable legs to help Stardust to her feet.

Once Stardust is back on her feet she wants to finish the creature once and for all but Mann refuses, saying that he's not Parks and won't allow mutants to subvert the law under his nose.

**The_Werebear** · 2014-05-05, 12:53 AM (ISO 8601)

Your players are insane.

I approve

**banthesun** · 2014-05-05, 03:34 AM (ISO 8601)

By 'polar opposite of Roger McCrow' you mean he wears formal clothes and talks about procedure? Because there still seems to be a bit of 'shoot first, what questions?' going on

I've definitely enjoyed reading this campaign so far; you do a good job improvising for your players.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-05-05, 01:52 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by banthesun

By 'polar opposite of Roger McCrow' you mean he wears formal clothes and talks about procedure? Because there still seems to be a bit of 'shoot first, what questions?' going on

I've definitely enjoyed reading this campaign so far; you do a good job improvising for your players.

Heh, thanks. This whole session was basically improvised at the last minute when our other plans fell through. Mann/McCrow's player asked for an investigation to showcase his skills and I adlibbed something about Tree King that I think is going to become a major plot point in a couple of sessions.

And there's lots of differences between Mann and McCrow. Mann looks down on strippers, Roger would have already put her on retainer by now. Mann wears clothes, while Roger thinks that a speedo and fresh sheen of water is appropriate crime fighting attire. Mann hasn't beaten and robbed anybody, whereas Roger would have attempted to either sell or raise the babies himself depending on whether Fanboy convinced him cash or child soldiers were more important to their cause. Also, Roger has a beautiful head of hair

Originally Posted by The_Werebear

Your players are insane.

I approve

I'm about positive that when I assemble the whole group they're going to get worse, our second campaign in this setting will definitely be Reign of McCrow and Friends

.

**Sith_Happens** · 2014-05-05, 10:00 PM (ISO 8601)

Just finished reading the whole thing.

Originally Posted by kidjake

Renovations

Looking For Johnny

Attack on the Warehouse

Revisiting the Tree King

It seems every campaign has that one session where the whole party suddenly catches a terminal case of the stupids.

Fanboy is watching the fight inside with ESP and watches the assassin cut through both of Chavenski's men with a single cut and I figure I'm about to lose a plot centric NPC, then something magical and awesome happens.

Chavenski opens fire with his massive, terrifying gun and crits nearly EVERYTHING. I never rolled less than 18 for him and nobody he shot at rolled higher than a 4, so Fanboy just watches the local mob boss blow away an assassin that they were terrified of and all of Depaliamo's men while tanking their blows with nothing but his bare chest and rage.

When they finally peek into the kitchen, Chavenski is covered head to toe in blood and gore, only some of it his own, and he's stomping on the assassin's head even though there's not really enough of it left to call a head anymore. When they finally calm him down enough to speak he asks if they found Depaliamo and they sort of wince before giving him the bad news.

Chavenski snorts derisively and says "No, it was my mistake. I overestimated the fat Italian. A MAN would want to see his enemies killed with his own eyes."

And then you get moments like this.

Actually, there was one point during a Zelda-based D&D 3.5 campaign I was in where Random Soldier #152 ended up doing pretty much the same thing during a fort siege. We immediately started calling him Captain Hyrule and he helped connect us with a new player's character the session after that.

Originally Posted by kidjake

Depaliamo stares for a moment before realization strikes and he gawks. "You're that drunken idiot that kept wrecking my forklifts!"

Best line.

Originally Posted by kidjake

Everybody likes to think that they'd be heroic if given a chance, but set them down and tell them that they've gained the ability to speak to marine animals and they will immediately lay siege to a small coastal town.

Originally Posted by kidjake

"He had a baby!" she shouts.

"HAD, being the operative word." Mann says, holstering his gun and walking upstairs to check things out. "Now we have the baby."

I know a thread you might be interested in.

Infiltrating the Other Guys

Something tells me you had fun with this sequence, specifically the opportunity to present Roger and Fanboy as they'd look to literally anyone else.

Originally Posted by kidjake

And there's lots of differences between Mann and McCrow. Mann looks down on strippers, Roger would have already put her on retainer by now. Mann wears clothes, while Roger thinks that a speedo and fresh sheen of water is appropriate crime fighting attire. Mann hasn't beaten and robbed anybody, whereas Roger would have attempted to either sell or raise the babies himself depending on whether Fanboy convinced him cash or child soldiers were more important to their cause. Also, Roger has a beautiful head of hair

Of course, I'd say it's a toss-up on who's easier to work with.

Incidentally, who's going to playing whom if or when the two of them end up in a room together?

I'm about positive that when I assemble the whole group they're going to get worse, our second campaign in this setting will definitely be Reign of McCrow and Friends

.

One's thing for sure: I feel more and more sorry for Agent Parks with each spoiler box. Hopefully he'll have his own mini-SHIELD by then. Speaking of which, how practical would an extremely fancy tranquilizer gun be in M&M 2E? Mann might want one.

On a semi-related note, I've come to the conclusion that either Roger and Fanboy are both milking Variable for everything it's worth, or you looked at the starting power points per power level table, said "screw it," and just gave them ALL the points.

**Kid Jake** · 2014-05-06, 12:32 AM (ISO 8601)