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[Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!!

TheTemplar

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TheTemplar Rising Star

TheTemplar

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Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!!

 

*Casts "Raise Thread"*

 

Folks... I'm not going to lie to you. I've got a MASSIVE amount of updates to do here. We've had quite a few sessions in the intervening time between "Just One Man" and "Return of the Destroyer," the arc that The Defenders find themselves currently in the middle of. My goal is to get through 1 session per day until I'm all caught up. Whether the work order flow here in the office will let me keep up with that pace, who knows. But, the main point is...

 

 

WEEEEEEE'RE BACK!

 

Just One Man

 

The Defenders

Season V: "Evolution"

Issue 3 (pt. 2)

 

Cast

 

Fantastic-Man: Team Leader; World’s Greatest Hero; Brick with Flight and Density Alteration Powers

Nighthawk: Mega-bajillionare playboy; super-detective; Martial Artist/ Gadgeteer

La Espijisma: Team Doctor; Infiltration specialist; Metamorph with the ability to mimic Superpowers of others

Warforge: Mystical construct created in Vulcan’s Forge to battle evil; Brick w/ multi-weapon Arm

Tomorrow Boy: Teenage uber-genius from the future with telekinetic powers; Gadgeteer

Rampant Lion III: Legacy hero with a taste for adventure and the spotlight; Martial Artist/ Weapon Master

____________________

 

Act 1: A cloud of dust exploded into the air as Durak's superstrong fist obliterated the drywall behind the spot where, only a blink before, Jack Kirby had been. By the time the Soviet Strongman had dislodged his hand from the wall and turned, the surprisingly nimble CEO of Omnitech had rolled back up onto his feet after ducking the punch and was around the corner ahead. Rather than waste time chasing down Kirby from behind, Durak plowed directly through the wall... and the one beyond that.. and the one beyond that.. and each one that blocked his path until he reached the large room where Kirby must've been running... the cafeteria. A glimmer of movement caught his eye as the silvery door into the galley swung shut, and Durak charged off again, smashing through the kitchen wall and through into the hallway beyond, continuing his pursuit of Jack.

 

Meanwhile, back in Greenland, The Defenders were gaining the upper-hand. Rampant Lion had been knocked out, but so had Lodestone and Menagerie, who after turning into an enormous T-Rex had charged herself head first into a wall while trying to pulverize Tomorrow-Boy, who had blink-teleported himself out of the way just in time. Fantastic-Man and Warforge were keeping Gargantua busy, who had grown all the way up to brush the ceiling of the 50-foot tall hangar with the top of his head, while La Espijisma and Cateran circled eachother, dodging the other's incoming attacks. Gargantua made a move to crush Warforge under his enormous boot when Fantastic-Man landed a devastating punch on the giant's jaw. Gargantua toppled over with a thud that shook the entire hangar, getting Stormfront's attention away from his ongoing long-range battle with Tomorrow Boy. "Enough!" the leader of NextForce shouted above the fray. "NextForce.. stand down."

 

In contrast, Jack Kirby (and the Omnitech building) had seen better days. No sooner had Jack made it up a few flights of stairs in the emergency stairwell than Durak shattered through the doorway beneath him. He looked up the space between stairs, saw Kirby looking down at him and leaped. His enormous frame pulverized the concrete stairs above him as he smashed through them as though they were paper mache. Jack scrambled up the stairs as quickly as he could, but Durak kept coming, destroying everything between him and Jack as he leapt from side to side up the stairwell.

 

Exhausted, and faced with the realization that he wasn't going to be able to stay ahead of Durak much longer, Jack crashed through the stairwell exit onto the fiftieth floor of the Omnitech building. "HR offices..." he thought to himself. He ran through the door into the HR Director's office and out onto her private balcony as Durak smashed through the office behind him. In obvious desperation, Kirby backed up to the railing as the enraged super-brick punched through the large, glass wall overlooking the scenic balcony and the Paragon City skyline beyond.

 

"Nowhere to run this time, little man" Durak fumed, as with a berserker shout, he charged at his elusive target.

 

"Who's running?" Nighthawk mused as the corner of his lip twisted up in a tight smile. He dropped to his back, launching his feet into Durak's chest, and then pivoting, catapulting Durak up into the air, and over the railing behind him. Jack pulled himself back up over the railing and caught a view of Durak, arms and legs flailing madly, as he plummeted to the street, 50 stories down, and crashed through the concrete and disappeared into the darkness below.

 

Both The Defenders and NextForce had picked themselves back up and dusted themselves off after their scuffle - the latter clearly miffed at the way they were soundly trounced by the former. Vowing to stay out of eachother's way so that they could complete their respective missions, NextForce headed into the Nest and down the hall to the right, while The Defenders were to head left toward the elevators to reach the sublevels of the compound. Before they headed down to find Fiacho, however, Fantastic-Man instructed Tomorrow Boy to use his stealth device to cloak himself and to follow NextForce and find out why they were there, if possible.

 

The Defenders decided they didn't want to run into what could be an ambush at the hands of VIPER when they reached Fiacho's holding cell on sublevel 5, so they stopped on sublevel 4 while Fantastic-Man got out of the elevator to do a little recon of his own while Warforge, La Espijisma and Rampant Lion secured the area. Fantastic-Man didn't have to go far to find a nearly destroyed lab, with a pair of scientists frantically destroying files, notes, and experiments. He grabbed them both and bound them to eachother by using a piece of metal like a twisty-tie. Most of the information they had been destroying had already been burned, but Fantastic-Man was able to recover an empty folder, labelled "Dr. Ten...", the remainder of the name had been burned away already. The scientists, claiming they were chemical engineers having nothing to do with the experiments of other departments, denied any knowledge of what the name on the folder meant, and Fantastic-Man hauled them back to the elevator with him to the other Defenders.

 

Meanwhile, in another part of the Nest, Tomorrow-Boy watched in shock as NextForce battled past a team of VIPER agents, leaving 3 dead and the others seriously injured. He did notice that Lodestone wasn't pleased with the level of violence that Gargantua and Menagerie clearly enjoyed, as he stopped to tend to the wounded agents to make sure they wouldn't join their comrades in the great beyond. After a couple of these skirmishes, NextForce entered a large data room with computer consoles everywhere. A display above the main terminal read "Serpentine Node Alpha-087G: Offline" blinking in red LED characters, and there were no computer tech personnel in the room. Menagerie sat at a terminal, rapidly searching through datafiles on the hard drive while Gargantua and Cateran moved to guard the entrances.

 

"Did you find it yet?" Stormfront asked as he leaned over Menagerie to view the screen.

 

"Not yet," she replied.

 

As Tomorrow Boy snuck up on the two, another file caught his eye - a document labelled "Operation: Stronghold."

 

"Wait.. here it is." Menagerie announced as she opened another folder, blocking TB's view of the Stronghold file. "If our intel is right, this file has the schematics for the device, but it's encrypted. I can't break it."

 

"Not your job to," Stormfront said as he handed her a small, black disk. "Send it to Brainchild. He'll know what to do." Menagerie slapped the object on the side of the CPU tower and a light on the device blinked red three times, then green.

 

"Done," she said as she hit the "Enter" key. The data on the screen deteriorated as the contents of the hard drive were systematically destroyed, removing any evidence of where the data had been sent. "It's wiped. We're good to go."

 

Tomorrow Boy followed as NextForce battled their way back out to the freezing cold surface of the Nest, boarded their sleek, black hoverjet, and roared off into the sky.

 

Exhausted, disheveled, and more than a little bloodied, Jack Kirby made his way to the elevator shaft on the 50th floor. The elevator itself had been shut off, presumably by Eurostar, leaving him with fifty floors worth of stairs to make it down to the main floor where he could try to save his captured employees, or one other route.

 

He forced the elevator doors open with a crowbar lifted from a maintenance closet, and grabbed one of the elevator cables. Looping it around his leg and feet, he started his controlled descent downward, suspended upside down by the cabling. Inches away from the 10th floor, he saw it - the tell-tale red glimmer of an infrared tripwire projector mounted on the wall of the elevator shaft, and another across from it... and more below them. Each floor from the tenth floor down was triggered: possibly to sound an alarm, but far more likely to set off explosive charges. Nighthawk acrobatically flipped, vaulted, twisted and slid down the elevator cables, deftly avoiding the infrared sensors, past the main floor, which was blocked by the elevator itself. He squeezed between the elevator and the wall, until he was beneath it, and continued on down to the sublevels.. where the vaults were.

 

He emerged from the elevator shaft into the main hallway. As he had assumed from earlier chatter he had picked up from his stolen comm unit, he found Ultrasonique hard at work on breaking into one of his vaults by using a large focused sonic-concussion blaster. Remembering that Ultrasonique was blind, Nighthawk reached for one of the emergency flashbang pellets that he carried on himself at all times, and launched it through the air at Ultrasonique. The grenade exploded with a brilliant flash and, more importantly, a deafening boom. "ARRRRRGH!" Screamed Ultrasonique as he threw his hands up over the ultrasonic sensors on the side of his helmet. He neither saw nor heard the Dark Defender rush upon him, land a quick pair of punches, followed by the lights-out blow to the jaw... and then there was nothing.

 

"Impressive, Mr. Kirby..." a lilting irish brogue flitted from the doorway to the stairs behind him. Jack swiveled to see Scorpia standing there with a remote device in her hand, her finger depressing the trigger. "It's a dead man's switch, Jack..." She said, tauntingly. "I let go of this trigger... and your company pays out a fortune in employee death benefits. You'll be coming along quietly now... won't you?"

 

TO BE CONCLUDED...

 

GM NOTES:

As could be predicted, the players absolutely LOVED getting to beat up on the shiny new supergroup on the block.. and loved it even more when they found out just how not-so-shiney NextForce was. And poor Nights. If things don't start looking better for him in part 3, he's going to end up crawling across a room full of broken glass with no shoes on.

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TheTemplar Rising Star

TheTemplar

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Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!!

 

Just One Man

The Defenders

Season V: "Evolution"

Issue 3 (pt. 3)

 

Cast

 

Fantastic-Man: Team Leader; World’s Greatest Hero; Brick with Flight and Density Alteration Powers

Nighthawk: Mega-bajillionare playboy; super-detective; Martial Artist/ Gadgeteer

La Espijisma: Team Doctor; Infiltration specialist; Metamorph with the ability to mimic Superpowers of others

Warforge: Mystical construct created in Vulcan’s Forge to battle evil; Brick w/ multi-weapon Arm

Tomorrow Boy: Teenage uber-genius from the future with telekinetic powers; Gadgeteer

Rampant Lion III: Legacy hero with a taste for adventure and the spotlight; Martial Artist/ Weapon Master

____________________

 

Act 1:

The elevator doors slid open into the darkened hallways of sublevel 5of VIPER's secret Greenland Nest. The emergency lighting and flashing red alarm lights cast deep shadows all around as The Defenders cautiously stepped out into the hall, leaving the two tied-up scientists on the elevator. They entered the cell block area and discovered a team of VIPER agents busily working in one of the prisoner cells. At the center of the 6-team's cell was a large glass cylinder, filled with a light-blue-greenish fluid, identical to the Tissue Regeneration tanks used in The Defender's med bay at their old base, Headless Cross. And floating suspended in the fluid, with a clear oxygen mask around his face, and numerous IV and vital monitoring nodes attached to his body, was Fiacho. Upon further inspection, The Defenders discovered that all of Fiacho's cybernetic enchancements had been surgically removed, and though the tissue regeneration tank had no doubt kept him from dying, his wounds still looked pretty bad. One of the Scarlet Serpent agents adjusted some controls on the side of the tank, and the fluid drained out the bottom and the tank pivoted to lay horizontal. A loud hiss filled the air as the cylinder depressurized and the top began to slide open. Fiacho was ready to be transported.

 

The Defenders sprang into action, and a firefight with the VIPER team ensued. As Fantastic-Man and Warforge rushed into the cell to engage the agents hand-to-hand, Rampant Lion and La Espijisma (who had morphed into Tomorrow Boy, gaining his telekenetic powers) took cover in the alcoves of the hallway, sniping the 6-Team with blasts and arrows. One of Rampant Lion's focused energy arrows blasted into one of the two Scarlet Serpents, sending the elite agent sprawling backward to the ground as the other found herself going toe-to-toe with the Earth's Greatest Hero.

 

Nighthawk's eyes darted from one side of the room to the other... nothing. He had no more tricks up his sleeve, no more aces in the hole that Scorpia wouldn't see coming. She had him. He raised his hands, palms outward and walked slowly toward her. "There's a good boy.." she purred as he stepped over Ultrasonique's tools "Now come here, luv... I won't bite." She couldn't help but let out a sultry giggle as she bit down a bit on her lower lip. "Unless, you want me to... handsome." The scarlet-haired seductress batted her eyes at Jack, and flashed a knowing smile at him. He was within inches of her now as she closed her eyes and leaned toward him.

 

It seemingly happened in slow motion. With a flash of steel and a "SCHIIINK!" Scorpia's spring-loaded wrist-mounted blades slid out over her right hand and slashed through the air, tearing through the air where Nighthawk's throat had been half a blink before. The Dark Defender meanwhile, with his tightly honed reflexes, bent backward to avoid the attack, and then snapped back forward, feigning a kung-fu style high punch w/ his left hand, while reaching low for the detonation trigger with his right. He grasped the handle of the detonator and slipped his finger over Scorpia's, holding it down firm on the trigger so that she couldn't detonate the device. He ducked her backswing with the deadly wristblades as, in one motion, he hoisted an off-balance Scorpia up off of her feet, and threw the villainess over his shoulder, releasing the detonator as she flew. She tumbled through the air before landing on her feet. After taking half a second to regain her footing, she leered evilly at Nighthawk and held up the detonator... and released the trigger.

 

She squeezed and released the trigger several more times, as nothing happened, and stared at Jack Kirby in a frustrated mingling of amazement and confusion as he winked and held up the power supply he had pulled from the detonator during the last exchange. With a snarl, Scorpia tossed the useless detonator aside and drew one of her poison-tipped Stings from her leg holster. "Alright, Rich boy... let's end this!"

____________________

Act 2:

With one Scarlet Serpent down, and the other fighting a losing battle against Fantastic-Man, the remaining 4 Superhuman Combat Specialists of the VIPER 6-team were hard pressed against the 3 remaining Defenders. While Rampant Lion and La Espijisma kept two agents pinned down with cover fire, Warforge delivered an overpowering blow with the Flail form of his multi-weapon hand, flattening the agent against the wall with a gut-wrenching crack and drawing a stern look of disapproval from Fantastic-Man, who was himself taking great care so as not to accidentally turn the agent he was fighting into a fine red mist. After grossly overestimating the effectiveness of the SCS Body Armor, Warforge took much greater care as he knocked the second SCS Agent into unconciousness. No longer enjoying a slight numbers advantage, the battle quickly became a rout for the VIPER agents as all six were KO'ed by The Defenders. La Espijisma checked both Fiacho and the badly injured agent to make sure they were safe to transport, then she and Rampant Lion helped Fiacho out the door and back to the elevator and Fantastic-Man and Warforge carried the other five unconcious and/or wounded VIPER agents back.

 

Scorpia launched the poison tipped blade through the air at Nighthawk and immediately followed it with a slashing lunge at the mega-kabillionaire. He avoided the first attack easily but the razor-sharp wrist blade tore through his shirt and slashed a clean, straight line across his shoulder, drawing a thin trickle of blood. Nighthawk countered with a sweeping leg kick, hoping to take his opponent off her feet, but she recovered her balance, reversing her momentum and flipping away from Jack in a backward summersault, releasing yet another deadly Sting at him as she landed, but Nighthawk was already moving as well, and the stilletto hit nothing but the wall, shattering into tiny pieces.

 

Scorpia's rage boiled over as she angrily scanned the room for any sign of Jack, who had seemingly disappeared. There were plenty of hiding places with all of Ultrasonique's equipment boxes scattered around.. but which one? She drew her final Sting from the holster on her leg and crouched down, the Sting poised in a deadly-looking arch above her head like the tail of a scorpion. With amazing speed, she leapt on top of one of the boxes where she thought Jack was hiding, and prepared to strike down on him with the fatal, poisoned blade.

 

But Nighthawk was faster. He sprang up from behind the box before Scorpia could strike, swinging hard with the steel access panel-cover that Ultrasonique had left lying on the floor after removing it from its place on the wall covering the main switches for the vault door. The thick metal plate crashed down upon the assassin's throwing hand, shattering the fragile Sting. Scorpia backed away as Jack slowly advanced toward her. He backed her toward the starwell, and through the narrow doorway. In enraged and frustrated beyond reason, she screamed "BUT YOU'RE JUST ONE MAN!!" and swiped madly with her wrist blade. Nighthawk easily deflected the incoming blow and angled the blades away from him, causing them to bite deep into the concrete wall. With an enraged scream, Scorpia slashed at him with the other hand, and with the same move as before, Nighthawk deflected this attack into the opposite wall, embedding the other wristblades there. Scorpia pulled with all her might, but the blades were firmly lodged in the walls and could not be pulled out. Her rage subsided and her cool, calm demeanor returned. "Not bad, rich boy.." she cooed as she slipped her hands out of her gloves, freeing her but leaving her bladed gloves behind. "..but don't call me, luv. I'll look you up next time I'm in town." And with that, she turned and sprinted up the stairs.

____________________

 

Act 3:

The Defenders emerged from the depths of the Nest to a scene of chaos and confusion. The remaining VIPER agents were evacuating the base as quickly as they could.

"Fantastic-Man!" Tomorrow Boy called out as he rushed over to rejoin the others. "NextForce is gone."

"So are we," Fantastic-Man replied as he directed Tomorrow Boy's attention to the groggy Fiacho with a nod of his head. "Let's load up and dust off."

Fiacho was safely stowed in the holding cell on board the D-Jet, and the agents and scientists were stowed down in the storage compartments in the cargo hold. Seconds later, the D-Jet was airborne. The flash of the explosive self-destruction of the VIPER nest was still visible, though, as the small island off the coast of Greenland disappeared beneath them as The Defenders passed up through a cloud.

"I'm ringing Scorpia now," said Rampant Lion from the Comm station on board the D-Jet, "But she's not answering."

Fantastic-Man's response was drowned out by the roar of the D-Jet's twin engines as Fantastic-Man increased speed in hopes of making it back to Paragon City before it was too late.

 

Nighthawk chased Scorpia up flight after flight, all the way to the twentieth floor, until the villainess dashed through the stairwell exit and into the hallway beyond. She picked up a chair and threw it through the window, shattering the glass. She turned and gave Jack a final glance and blew him a kiss as she fell backwards out the window. He reached the spot where she had been just in time to see her swinging via zipline across the street to the roof of the building across from the Omnitech Headquarters. She never looked back as she dashed across the rooftop and vaulted over the other side, disappering over the downtown Paragon City skyline. Jack picked up a nearby phone and began dialing.

 

Out on the street below, the police Commissioner's cell phone rang - the special cell phone that he had found on his desk one morning, that he only ever received calls on from one person.

 

"Nighthawk?" He asked as he answered the phone.

"The hostiles are down. You can send in your bomb team to diffuse the explosives. Tell them to watch for infrared tripwires." After giving the locations of each of the downed members of Eurostar, and telling him where to find Durak and that Scorpia had escaped, Nighthawk added, "And you'll find Jack Kirby in the maintenance closet just outside his office on the top floor. Don't forget to let him out."

"And where will I find you?" The Commissioner asked. After a few seconds of silence, he checked the screen and saw the call had already been terminated. "Typical.." he mumbled as he began deploying his men into the building.

 

GM Notes

Split group stuff is always tricky. I'd like to think this went off pretty well though. I know Ryan (Nighthawk) enjoyed this one a lot, and I hope everyone else did too. I'd also like to tell you all that The Defenders had a nice couple of weeks vacation after this and were able to relax and recoup.. but.. uh... I'm just not that nice of a GM :sneaky:

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TheTemplar Rising Star

TheTemplar

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Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!!

 

The Siege Of Stronghold

The Defenders

Season V: "Evolution"

Issue 4 (pt. 1)

 

Cast

 

Fantastic-Man: Team Leader; World’s Greatest Hero; Brick with Flight and Density Alteration Powers

Nighthawk: Mega-bajillionare playboy; super-detective; Martial Artist/ Gadgeteer

La Espijisma: Team Doctor; Infiltration specialist; Metamorph with the ability to mimic Superpowers of others

Warforge: Mystical construct created in Vulcan’s Forge to battle evil; Brick w/ multi-weapon Arm

Tomorrow Boy: Teenage uber-genius from the future with telekinetic powers; Gadgeteer

Rampant Lion III: Legacy hero with a taste for adventure and the spotlight; Martial Artist/ Weapon Master

____________________

 

Act 1:

 

Jack Kirby's sleek, black car merged into the traffic on the highway as he made his way back to palatial Kirby Estate later that afternoon. Following his "rescue" from the maintenance closet on the 60th floor by Paragon City Police, after the Eurostar hostage crisis in his building earlier that day. But, it was over. Feuermacher, Mentalla and Ultrasonique were all in Primus custody, and The Defenders were on their way back from Greenland with Fiacho in hold. Two members of the European superteam were unaccounted for, however. Scorpia had made a frantic and daring escape from the Omnitech Tower, and Durak, who had fallen from the 50th floor of the building and crashed through the street below, was nowhere to be found by the time the Primus teams arrived to pick him up. Considering how far he had fallen, this troubled Nighthawk greatly. Even someone as strong as Durak would have a hard time escaping on their own after a fall like that.

 

The D-Jet was in the skies over Kansas once more, on approach to Paragon City, with a hold full of VIPER agents, one of the world's most feared supervillains neutralized and in a holding cell, and five superheroes, laughing and marvelling at the stories of Nighthawk's heroics and their own decisive victories over VIPER and their newest rivals, NextForce.

 

Cruelly, the mirth of the cabin of the D-Jet was interrupted by the flashing and ringing of the TroubleAlert (tm.) Rampant Lion opened the incoming channel, and immediately a panicked voice came over the comm. "...under attack! I repeat! Stronghold is under attack! All units respond immediately! This is NOT a drill! Repeat! This is NOT a..." The crackle of static erupted over the comm as the signal was lost. Fantastic-Man turned the D-Jet toward Stronghold and fired the thrusters, rocketing through the skies toward their temporary base, and the holding place for some of the world's most dangerous supercriminals.

 

Rampant Lion grabbed his comm unit, "Nighthawk! Stronghold is..."

 

"I heard," the Dark Defender's gravelly voice replied. "I'll be there in five minutes." He engaged his car's own auto-drive system, activated the opacity controls on his window tinting, opened the secret compartment under the back seat, and began changing.

____________________

 

Act 2:

 

By the time Nighthawk arrived at Stronghold, the battle was already well underway. VIPER had the Superprison completely surrounded. Agents forming a front line firing at Primus's agents lining the walls and watchtowers along the fortress prison. Behind them were rows of Heavy Weapon specialists, aiming their attacks at bringing the outer wall of the prison down, and behind them, the heavy artillery. Four Python-Class Heavy Assault Hovertanks on each side of the pentagonal outer wall, blasting the thick barrier with powerful bursts of energy. Leading the attack from one of the Pythons on the side where Nighthawk was, was a familiar face that Nighthawk had seen in a holographic argument on board VIPER's Jormungandr station and at Eurostar's secret Swiss Chateau headquarters(Sea. IV) - Draconis.

 

"Behold the glory of battle, my brethren! Rejoice in the conflict before you, and do not relent until victory is ours!! Let slip the Serpents of WAR!" Draconis shouted maniacally to the troops around him, trying to inspire them into an almost berserker-like frenzy. With Draconis were a few more familiar faces. Boa Constrictor, Halfjack, and Sidewinder - all members of VIPER's superhuman special forces team, Dragon Branch.

 

The roar of jet engines overhead caught Nighthawk's attention as he looked up to witness the arrival of the D-Jet.

 

"Glorious!" Proclaimed Draconis. "Worthy opponents arrive at last! RELEASE HER!!"

 

The back hatch of one of the Python tanks opened up, and a team of Superhuman Combat Specialists poured out, and behind them, was a woman. From where Nighthawk was, she appeared to be maybe in her early twenties, with dark skin, long, flowing black hair, and beautiful features. She floated up into the air, flying directly into the flight path of the D-Jet.

 

"Who the..." Tomorrow Boy turned toward Fantastic-Man, who only shrugged in confusion and maintained his flight path directly toward the mysterious woman.

 

She stopped, hovering in mid-air, far above the smoke and thunder of the battle below, her hair and cape being whipped by the wind as she seemingly stood on empty air. Unmoving.

 

"Whoever she is, if she doesn't move soon, she's about to know what a bug on a windshield feels like," quipped Warforge as the D-Jet rocketed toward the young woman.

 

She held out her hands toward the nose of the approaching aircraft, and grabbed it as it collided with her. Almost immediately, the engines began sputtering as the D-Jet began to lose momentum, then stopped altogether. They sat, hanging in mid-air, motionless, for a few seconds as the young woman held them there by the nose of the craft. Then, she began to spin, like an olympian in the hammer throw. Round and round, faster and faster as the Defenders within tried frantically to brace themselves, still not believing what was happening to them. And then, she let go. The D-Jet spiraled end over end through the air, as The Defenders struggled to fight the G-forces and maintain concsiousness. Fantastic-Man tried repeatedly to restart the engines to try to pull them out of the spin, but they wouldn't ignite. Out of control, the jet finally began to lose altitude, and was going to crash into Stronghold itself. With a sudden roar, and a bonejarring jolt, the engines roared to life. With all his strength, Fantastic-Man tried to pull the D-Jet out of it's spin, but it was no use.

 

"Take over!" He yelled to Tomorrow Boy as he desolidified and passed through the bottom hull and out under the jet. Reshifting his mass to a solid form, he grabbed onto the D-Jet and fought against the momentum of the spin, finally stopping it as his feet came to rest on the roof of Stronghold. "Fly it out away from the fight, and then get back here!" Fantastic-Man instructed Tomorrow Boy. "I need to go introduce myself to the little lady."

____________________

 

Act III:

 

Fantastic-Man soared at full speed toward the mysterious and deceptively superstrong woman, still floating exactly where she had been, her steely eyes staring directly at the Earth's Greatest Hero. Then, She took off herself, rocketing toward him. Both superstrong metahumans, hurtling themselves directly at eachother on an unavoidable collision course. Several agents in the battle below turned to look upward at the sight as their respective champions sped toward eachother like jousting knights on horseback.

 

The D-Jet hovered over a location far enough away from Stronghold so as not to be in the direct line of fire as Tomorrow Boy prepared his Blitz device and transported himself, Rampant Lion, Warforge, and La Espijisma down to the top of the nearest portion of the wall.

 

Nighthawk watched in rapt attention as Fantastic-Man and the woman rocketed toward eachother... and then collided. The forcewave of the impact started by shattering every pane of glass on the sides of the prison. It carried so far as to knock the agents on top of the wall, including The Defenders, off their feet. And then, like birds shot down from the skies, both Fantastic-Man and the woman plummeted away from eachother down toward the Earth below.

 

Nighthawk's attention was turned from this by another violent explosion. A huge cloud of rubble, smoke and debris flew up from the central section of the defensive barrier around Stronghold. The Pythons had broken through.

 

TO BE CONTINUED....

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TheTemplar Rising Star

TheTemplar

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Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!!

 

The Siege Of Stronghold

The Defenders

Season V: "Evolution"

Issue 4 (pt. 2)

 

Cast

 

Fantastic-Man: Team Leader; World’s Greatest Hero; Brick with Flight and Density Alteration Powers

Nighthawk: Mega-bajillionare playboy; super-detective; Martial Artist/ Gadgeteer

La Espijisma: Team Doctor; Infiltration specialist; Metamorph with the ability to mimic Superpowers of others

Warforge: Mystical construct created in Vulcan’s Forge to battle evil; Brick w/ multi-weapon Arm

Tomorrow Boy: Teenage uber-genius from the future with telekinetic powers; Gadgeteer

Rampant Lion III: Legacy hero with a taste for adventure and the spotlight; Martial Artist/ Weapon Master

____________________

 

Act 1:

 

Everything was kind of a blur.. or at least it looked like a blur. As La Espijisma opened her eyes, a strange sort of haze enveloped everything. As she struggled to her feet she realized it wasn't just her eyes... the air was filled with a hazy, dusty smoke. Along the wall next to her lay a few PRIMUS agents and Rampant Lion. The British superhero was regaining his bearings as well, and they realized what had happened. They had been mere feet away from the point of the thick wall that VIPER had destroyed. More heavily armed PRIMUS agents were pouring to the gap to shore up the defense there, but VIPER was pressing in hard. She spotted a VIPER medical team rushing toward a fallen figure on the ground, and recognized her as the woman that had nearly thrown the D-Jet out of the sky, but La Espijisma didn't see any sign of Fantastic-Man anywhere near her.

 

She spotted the familiar crimson cape on the other side of the field of battle, as a groggy and obviously slightly shaken Fantastic-Man pulled himself to his feet. Similarly, the VIPER woman had risen and had brushed away the med team, apparently unharmed. The two combatants wheeled around, each furiously seeking out the other. And then their eyes met, and they stalked toward eachother as the battle raged on around them.

 

La Espijisma didn't have time to watch the confrontation of these two titans continue, though, as a new hail of fire began raining down on them from above - VIPER's Air squadrons had arrived. Nearly half a dozen wings of Air Cavalry units swarmed down toward Stronghold, each peppering the battlefield with laser bolts.

 

"Let's take 'em down!" The command caused La Espijisma to turn around, where she saw Spartan, the powersuit wearing superhero who had been made Chief of Security at Stronghold, rocketing up into the air to meet the soaring VIPER agents along with Wonderboy, Fantastic-Man's one-time sidekick, who also worked with PRIMUS as part of the metahuman security force at the super prison. The two scattered the approaching Air Cavalry agents as another of Stronghold's Metahuman Security force, the battlesuited superhero Spectro, propelled himself up onto the wall with his Thruster Boots. He laid down wave after wave of cover fire at the flying VIPER agents as Spartan and Wonderboy began bringing them down, one by one.

 

The VIPER 6-Team that had been firing plasma mortars from the rear of the formation began packing up their equipment. "We're out of ammo, sir," an agent reported to his squad leader.

 

"Right then.. stow the gear in the back of the nearest Python, get your firearms, and get up to the front.. there's not much more we can do from bac.." The squad leader was interrupted by a thick, black cloud that engulfed them from out of nowhere. He felt two hard shots to his midsection, and then collapsed to the ground, and even the blackness faded to blackness.

 

Seconds later, the darkness disappated, leaving Nighthawk standing in the middle of a circle of 6 KO'ed VIPER agents. The Dark Defender didn't have to look far for his next fight, however, as a squadron of Air Cavalry was swooping down toward him, led by a VIPER agent wearing a blue and white uniform, instead of the standard green and yellow, and instead of the normal VIPER helmet, his had a stylized "X" over the faceplate. He landed in front of Nighthawk and waved the remaining 5 agents on, they circled around and took off back in the direction of Stronghold. VIPER-X holstered his weapons and assumed a crouching martial stance. "Heard you've had a busy day..." he taunted Nighthawk.

 

"Maybe..." the Dark Defender responded. "But I'm still full of surprises." Another darkness pellet hit the ground, surrounding the two men in a pitch black cloud as their battle began.

____________________

 

Act II:Rampant Lion and Tomorrow Boy held position as best they could on top of the wall near the large blasted gap, holding back the VIPER forces with Telekenetic Blasts and Exploding Energy arrows. La Espijisma, meanwhile, had morphed into Warforge, and together with the real Warforge, the Twin Titanium Titans crashed through the front row of VIPER agents, aiming to take down the Python assault tanks still battering the defensive structures around Stronghold with volley after volley of explosive energy.

 

Warforge (The real one) bounded onto the front of one of the Python tanks, crumpling the front end under the Metal Man's incredible weight, only to be shot back off of it by a powerful blast from the hideous cyborg, Halfjack. La Espijisma, meanwhile, had landed several powerful hits on the side of one of tanks, disabling its hover engines, when she was lifted violently up into the air by an unseen force. "Huzzah! The first catch of the day!" Draconis bellowed as he lifted the superheroine (still shaped like a large, metal man) into the air with his telekenetic powers. As his fist clenched, La Espijisma felt the telekenetic bubble squeezing in all around her, the pressure intensifying to the point where she couldn't even expand her lungs to draw air. She hung there in the air, paralyzed and suffocating, like some great anaconda had wrapped itself around her and was crushing her to death... and then the world faded to black. After losing conciousness she reverted back into her normal appearance. "Good night, sweet princess..." chuckled Draconis as he released his hold, allowing her to topple to the ground in a heap. "The field of battle is ours, Commander. My victorious soldiers have cleared the way for your arrival."

 

As Warforge and Halfjacked slugged it out midfield, Nighthawk and VIPER-X engaged eachother in an acrobatic martial throwdown surrounded by total darkness, and Fantastic-Man and Viperia pummeled eachother with hits that would level large buildings, Rampant Lion and Tomorrow Boy, together with Spectro, were doing a pretty good job of keeping the swarms of VIPER agents from breaking through the gap in the defensive wall that VIPER had created. That is, until Sidewinder and Boa Constrictor got up on top of the wall with them. Sidewinder ran up the side of the wall, launching a mini missile from his gauntlet at the space between the teenage supergenius and the battlesuited Spectro. Spectro's suit shielded him from the worst of the blast, but the force of it sent Tomorrow Boy carreening over the front side of the wall, to a boneshattering stop on the ground below... or so it would've been if he hadn't got his hoverdisc underneath him just in the nick of time. Rampant Lion, meanwhile soon found himself hard pressed back against a corner by the hulking Boa Constrictor. He shouldered his bow and reached for his rapier, but found himself caught in the embrace of the reptilian strongman's corded muscular arms, squeezing the life out of him.

 

Tomorrow Boy got up on his feet, awaiting the next wave of VIPER agents to try to make for the gap, only to see a huge shadow spreading over the battle. He looked up as the enormous Quetzacoatl-class Heavy Transport Gunship moved into position, blocking out the sun for all those underneath it. Seconds later, six figures shimmered into existence ahead of him. Five he recognized as heavily armored Superhuman Combat Specialists. The sixth was a man in a blue and yellow uniform, with firey glowing light-blue eyes, crackling with energy. One of the agents raised a weapon to fire at TB, but the man stopped him.

 

"As you wish, Commander Oculon," the agent replied as he shouldered his weapon.

 

Oculon spoke in a cold, steely voice, "Step aside, boy..."

____________________

 

Act III:

 

"I'll not give you a second chance, Kid.. Move aside," Oculon threatened Tomorrow Boy in the same cold, measured voice.

 

"Ummmm.... Lemme get back to you on that," TB replied, looking for some way out of the situation.

 

"Your way, then," Oculon resigned. Powerful blue bolts of energy burst from his eyes, but Tomorrow Boy was ready for it. He opened the portal to access his reflective energy barrier just in time, shielding himself in a transparent field. Oculons eyebeams slammed hard on the surface of the shield, but failed to break through, and before the VIPER commander could react, the force beams were travelling back... toward him. Oculon caught his own eyebeams square in the chest, sending him reeling through the air, landing dazed in a heap on the ground.

 

"Little Help?!" Tomorrow Boy called out as he struggled mightily to maintain his energy shield against he ensuing barrage of firepower from the five remaining agents. But, with Spectro fending off the superfast Sidewinder and Rampant Lion tied up (quite literally) with Boa Constrictor, there didn't seem to be a cavalry on the horizon for The Defenders resident supergenius.

 

That is, until the third and only operational Python Hovertank began to rise up off the ground... higher than it's hover jets would normally carry it. It hurtled through the air on its side, coming to crash top-down on top of the VIPER agents blasting away at Tomorrow Boy. TB looked up to see who had saved him to see a familar blonde bombshell in a red, white and blue flagsuit floating in mid-air. "Liberty?!"

 

To confirm that it was in-fact the retired Defender beauty-brick, her fiancee, the Powersuited Patriot known as Justice flew up and over Liberty, aiming his gauntlet blaster at Sidewinder who was hammering Spectro with high speed punches. The blast from Justice caught the villainous speedster in mid-run, knocking him from the wall and down to the floor below, completely encasing him in Capturefoam.

 

Rampant Lion, meanwhile, had managed to contort his way out of Boa Constrictor's vicelike grip, and had landed several solid fencing slashes with his rapier. Boa Constrictor lunged at the swashbuckling superhero in a furious rage, only to be blasted out of the sky by a telekenetic burst from Tomorrow Boy.

 

"As bad as it is here," Justice explained, "It's even worse on some of the other sides. We're headed to the West wall to help out. Try to hold here as best you can and we'll try to redirect as many support agents your way as we can."

 

"Hey.. Justice! Liberty! Good to see you again!" Fantastic-Man shouted as he flew past them with Viperia in a headlock, slamming VIPER's ultimate weapon into the side of the upside down Python, only to catch a deadly blast of firey energy from her eyes that sent him flying through the air. Viperia shot up after him and the two continued their brawl until they were swallowed up once more by the melee.

 

Justice, Liberty and Spectro took off to help shore up the defensive efforts on the West Wall as Tomorrow Boy and Rampant Lion looked around for any of the other Defenders, hoping that if they could regroup, they could wrap things up on this side. The charred battlesuited figure crashed down in front of them from the sky so fast that they never saw him coming. They rushed over to the side of the fallen man. Suddenly, Rampant Lion doubled over in pain, and collapsed on the ground.

 

"What is it!?" asked a panicked Tomorrow Boy.

 

"Death.. ..death" Rampant Lion replied hoarsely as he struggled to maintain his conciousness despite the agony rolling through him.

 

Tomorrow Boy turned back to the fallen man in front of them and confirmed what somehow Rampant Lion had already known.

 

Spartan was dead.

 

TO BE CONCLUDED...

____________________

 

GM NOTES: In all honesty, it was starting to get weighted down at this point. The ENTIRE session was combat... and not several combats broken up with periods of other activity. One big combat that started the previous session, ran all the way through this session, and will continue into the next one. I know I was honestly getting bored with it by the end. I hope the players weren't.. they seemed to be having a good time. I just typically don't like THIS much combat in my sessions. But, it was appropriate for the story, and I think enough twists and turns were built in so as to keep it at least marginally interesting.

 

Ever have one of those sessions that you're just dreading, because you know that if everything goes exactly according to the villains' plans, your heroes (and the players) are going to be SUPER pissed? Heh.. stay tuned.

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TheTemplar Rising Star

TheTemplar

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Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!!

 

The Siege Of Stronghold

The Defenders

Season V: "Evolution"

Issue 4 (pt. 2)

 

Cast

 

Fantastic-Man: Team Leader; World’s Greatest Hero; Brick with Flight and Density Alteration Powers

Nighthawk: Mega-bajillionare playboy; super-detective; Martial Artist/ Gadgeteer

La Espijisma: Team Doctor; Infiltration specialist; Metamorph with the ability to mimic Superpowers of others

Warforge: Mystical construct created in Vulcan’s Forge to battle evil; Brick w/ multi-weapon Arm

Tomorrow Boy: Teenage uber-genius from the future with telekinetic powers; Gadgeteer

Rampant Lion III: Legacy hero with a taste for adventure and the spotlight; Martial Artist/ Weapon Master

 

(We're down an tech in the office today, so it's been ridiculous. But, I'll get through what I can before the end of the day.)

____________________

 

Act 1: Fantastic-Man had seen Spartan, pelted with laserbolts, fall from the sky, but almost immediately had his attention grabbed by Viperia as the two continued their battlefield brawl. Fantastic-Man punched hard, only to find out that it was like punching Questionite. Sure, she took a step backward, but a shot of pain travelled up the Earth's Greatest Hero's mighty arm. "What ARE you, anyway!?" He shouted as he shook the numbness away and went desolid as her flying punch passed right through him.

 

"I am Viperia, The Daughter of the Serp.." she replied as she wheeled back around to charge again, only to find the now very solid fist of Fantastic-Man awaiting her. The punch caught her square in the nose and knocked her to the ground, stunned.

 

"Nobody likes wordy titles," Fantastic-Man retorted as once again he shook away the pain in his hand.

 

Tomorrow Boy had turned back to Rampant Lion, trying to help the archer back onto his feet. He had no chance of seeing Sidewinder, now freed from the capturefoam, dashing toward them from behind. He slammed a forearm into Tomorrow Boy, sending both him and Rampant Lion sprawling to the ground. Then, the speedy snake dashed over to Spartan's fallen body, grabbed an object off of his belt, and took off.

 

Fantastic-Man strode over to Viperia as she managed to sit up. "Well..it's been fun, but I have to go stop your.." Fantastic-Man was cutoff as what felt like a dozen daggers drove into his back. He slumped down to the ground, barely aware of his surroundings. Sidewinder had discharged one entire gauntlet's worth of mini missiles at him.

 

He watched as Sidewinder helped Viperia to her feet, said "Here it is," and handed her a small object that she clipped to her belt. He took off in one direction as Viperia floated up into the air and soared toward Stronghold. Then he realized what Sidewinder had given her - one of the Power Protection Modules, the devices that allowed The Defenders and other metahumans on the Stronghold Security Force to retain their superpowers while inside the superprison's power suppression field. With herculean effort, Fantastic-Man pulled himself to his feet, and rocketed through the skies on Viperia's trail.

 

Warforge pulled himself out of the crater he had made in the ground after being unceremoniously tossed over to the inside of the defensive wall by Halfjack. "Why are they here.." the Metal Man thought as he dusted himself off. "What do we have here that would be so important that VIPER would send a full attack battalion after?" And then it hit him... one of the few objects that survived the destruction of Headless Cross. Sitting in one of the security storage areas of Stronghold... was the Headdress of Xoruba. His comm unit having been damaged in the fight with Halfjack, Warforge knew he had to take care of this himself, and charged back into Stronghold as fast as he could.

 

"Ooof.." the muffled cry echoed in the darkness as Nighthawk landed a solid kick to VIPER-X's midsection. The superagent stumbled backward out of the darkness, doubled over defensively, drew his sidearm, and fired a spray of laserbolts into the dark cloud. The darkness disappated, revealing Nighthawk standing threateningly, with only a wisp of smoke floating up from the corner of his cape where one of the bolts had singed him. VIPER-X adjusted his aim, and then suddenly turned his head to the side, as if someone was talking into his ear. "Understood," he said, somewhat disappointedly. He pulled a grenade from his belt and dropped it in between him and Nighthawk. Nighthawk dove for cover as the grenade exploded in a blinding flash of light. As the colors faded from his eyes, he saw VIPER-X streaking off into the sky toward Stronghold, and rushed over to La Espijisma's side to help the fallen superheroine recover.

____________________

 

Act II:

 

Viperia felt no change as she passed into the Stronghold power suppression field, thanks to the module that Sidewinder had given her. She smashed into the wall at full strength, sundering the stone and crashing through to the other side. She zipped through the halls of the interior of the compound at blinding speed until she reached her destination - the primary Power Suppression Field control. Her firey eyes glowed as she prepared to destroy the primary control unit, until an all-too familiar voice stopped her from behind.

 

"So that's your plan, huh? Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic." She spun around expecting to be face to face with her new nemesis. "Just one thing you didn't count on.." She spun back around as Fantastic-Man floated up through the floor between her and the control console. "...You gotta get through me first." Before Viperia, unquestionably the faster of the two, could react, Fantastic-Man brought both fists to bear in a sideways axehandle chop, smashing them hard against Viperia's side...

 

...crushing the Power Suppression blocker.

 

For the first time in the many many years of her existence, Viperia felt vulnerability. No strength.. no speed.. no eyebeams.. no flight. She was... weak. "Now..." Fantastic-Man commanded her, "Stand down." Still shocked at the incredibly foreign sensation of powerlessness, Viperia mindlessly complied. Slowly, she sank to her knees, her face a mixture of fear and confusion, as she stared up at Fantastic-Man in awe. Someone had beaten the Daughter of the Serpent.

 

Explosions rocked his chest as the Earth's Greatest Hero stumbled over backwards, sliding across the floor, unconcious.

 

"Much better shot without you in the way, mi hermana..." Sidewinder sneered as he blew the smoke billowing out of his second now emptied wrist-gauntlet away. He strode past her as she slowly rose to her feet, lowered the control to the main power suppression control, shut it off, and broke off the control handle, tossing it away.

 

"I.. I am still weak.." Viperia stammered. Sidewinder strode over to Fantastic-Man's body, removed his power suppression nullifier and tossed it to Viperia. Instantly, her strength returned.

 

"The secondary control array is on the fifth floor. Destroy it. I'll report to Oculon."

 

Sidewinder took off down the hall, back to the makeshift exit point Viperia had made when she crashed into the building, though without his superspeed due to the power compression field, he moved no faster than a good athlete. As he reached the gaping hole in the side of the wall, however, his legs surged with energy and his senses heightened. The battle raging outside seemed to slow down and he knew his superspeed had returned.

 

The power suppression field covering all the prisoners of Stronghold was gone.

 

Warforge reached the storage vaults as the warning alarms that the power suppression field had failed went off. He opened the vault door and breathed (or whatever metal men do) a sigh of relief when he saw the stone serpentine headdress still sitting where it had been placed. "Still.. probably not safe to be left here with that much force coming from the outside," he thought. So Warforge picked up the Headdress of Xoruba...

 

...and put it on.

 

The world around him instantly darkened until all was pitch black. Next thing Warforge knew he was soaring over a flat, barren desert - sand and dunes streching out as far as he could see. He was flying fast.. maybe even faster than The Tornado! could run. Then, ahead in the distance, he saw the outline of rocky mountains, with a yawning cave on the rock face. As if being controlled by some unseen hand, he dove into the cave, zigging and zagging through the narrow, twisting tunnels, until he plunged head first into a deep crevice. Everything was dark at first, but suddenly, what looked like a great yellow portal opened up in front of him. It streched as far as he could see in either direction as he hung there before it, suspended in mid air. A great black line drifted across the yellow field, stopping right in front of Warforge as a deafening hiss reverberated in his mind.

 

"Whoooo are youuuuu..." a raspy, hissing voice demanded. The enormous yellow portal narrowed, and moved away pivoting around, revealing another, identical one next to it. A great, forked tongue flicked the air in front of him, as Warforge realized the yellow portal with its great black line had been the slitted eye of an enormous snake... a python at least a hundred feet long, curled around the entirety of the large crevice. "Anssssssswer me! Why are you heeeere?!" it demanded again. Warforge found it impossible to speak in the presence of the enormous serpent. "You... do not.. belong... it hissed again as the snake turned its great head away from Warforge. Darkness spiraled all around him asn the snake faded from view. It felt as though his head exploded into a million shards, and then Warforge knew no more.

 

The room was a blur. Fantastic-Man pulled himself up, groggily, attempting to shake the cobwebs out of his head. Finally, he regained enough of his senses to realize where he was. He looked around and saw that the primary Power Suppression Control Console was damaged beyond his ability to repair. He checked for his own suppression nullifier but discovered that though it was missing, he felt his superstrength flowing through him anyway, and knew the power suppression field was down. He reached for his communicator.

 

"Tomorrow Boy!"

 

"Yeah?" TB replied as he Telekenetically shielded Rampant Lion from an incoming barrage of blaster fire from a squadron of VIPER agents.

 

"The power suppression field is down.. I can't fix it. You'd better get in here. I think VIPER's staging a jailbreak."

____________________

Act III:

 

"PRISONER ESCAPE, CELL BLOCK C3. PRISONER ESCAPE, CELL BLOCK C3" the computerized alarm sounded throughout Stronghold asTomorrow Boy zipped through the halls of Stronghold on his hoverdisc. He reached the primary suppression control room just as a scorched, bloodied, and seriously ticked-off looking Fantastic-Man pulled himself out of the doorway.

"How long will it take you to fix it?" he asked the teenage supergenius.

Tomorrow Boy surveyed the damage. "I don't know.. a minute maybe?"

Fantastic-Man nodded. Within a minute, half of Stronghold could be released...if not more. "I'll buy you all the time I can."

Tomorrow Boy grimaced at Fantastic-Man's badly beaten appearance as he desolidified and passed through the floor beneath him. "So.. about ten seconds then?" TB asked the empty room. He turned and went to work on trying to repair the damaged command console.

 

"CELL BLOCK COMPROMISE, BLOCK D2. CELL BLOCK COMPROMISE, BLOCK D2."

"Oh no.." Fantastic-Man muttered as he passed through the infrastructure of the building. "The hot-sleep unit. Gotta get to the Alpha threat level before VIPER can release them." He turned and sped straight down toward the main lift that made the sub-level detention floors accessible to the main floor on the surface.

 

La Espijisma blinked and looked around, then was slightly startled by the black form hunched over her before she realized it was Nighthawk. She rubbed her head as she pulled herself up and looked around. The VIPER assault team on this side had been held back. The three Python tanks were nothing but smoking wrecks. Innumerable agents lay on the battlefield, and what few remained were being pushed to other fronts by PRIMUS's troops.

"It's not over yet.." the Dark Defender grunted as Rampant Lion helped her to her feet. "Lets get inside."

 

Fantastic-Man reached the Sub-Level 5 floor of the Elevator shaft and looked around. Terra King, the most powerful supervillain in Stronghold, and Zorran the Artificier, who had been moved to Sub-Level 5 for his own safety by Fantastic-Man when he came to suspect that the Mac Bashtee might try to kill Zorran, were both still securely imprisoned. Sublevel 3, however, however, had clearly been compromised. Numerous cells were empty, including VIPER supercriminals Diamondback and Freon. Strangely, it appeared as though the imprisoned VIPER officer and Heinous's 2nd in command, Despite, was still in her cell. Fantastic-Man soon discovered why. The supervillainess had been executed in her cell by some sort of blaster weapon - possibly killed by the same people she thought were there to rescue her. Why?

 

Fantastic-Man was given no time to consider this development.

 

"SECURITY BREACH, MEDICAL WING. SECURITY BREACH, MEDICAL WING."

 

With Despite dead, it became all too clear why VIPER would be attacking the Stronghold medical wing.

 

Fantastic-Man rushed upward into the main junction of Stronghold, where the adjoining halls and the main elevator to the detention floors converged. He flew as fast as he could toward the medical bay.

 

"Frank.." a feeble voice from the side of the hall called to him. Amongst the motionless PRIMUS agents - some seemingly torn in two - was Cromwell. The Defenders' long time friend and PRIMUS Liason had a several nasty wounds, including a seriously wounded leg. Fantastic-Man stopped, using a torn shred of his cape to stabilize the arterial wound and to hopefully buy his friend enough time...

 

..when from ahead in the med bay he heard the blast of an energy weapon being discharged.

 

He rushed in to scene from his worst nightmares. Kyle - his one time protege turned cyborg supervillain by VIPER who had found recently found the path of redemption, and had been cooperating by revealing all he could to Fantastic-Man and PRIMUS about the villainous organization, lay motionless upon his hospital bed, smoke wafting up from the blackened scorchmark on his chest. Fantastic-Man didn't need to look at the EKG readings to know his friend was gone. Nor did he need to look across the room at Oculon, whose eyes still crackled with discharged energy, to know who had murdered him. With Ripper and Diamondback standing behind him, Oculon turned smuggly toward Fantastic-Man.

 

"Well.. two for one.. my lucky day."

 

"Burn in hell, you son of a bitch.." Fantastic-Man replied as he smashed his fists into the walls on either side of him, rending the drywall and crushing the support beams. The room shook, and then rubble and darkness fell upon all four men still in the room.

 

Nighthawk reached the main juncture just in time to see a massive gathering of escaped convicts making a mad dash for the main exit. He reached for a Bolo and released it through the air, entangling Ogre, the slowest of the group, sending the strongman sprawling to the ground.

 

Tomorrow Boy frantically rewired the command console..

 

The other supervillains rushed out as Ogre flexed, snapping the entangling bolos. He paused a moment, looking at the door, and then back at Nighthawk, before turning toward the Dark Defender.

 

The damaged switch wouldn't fit back on the command console where it had been before... no way to reactivate the suppression field...

 

Fantastic-Man pushed a large amount of debris off of himself. Blood from a barely noticed wound poured from a deep tear across the F emblazoned on his chest. As he staggered to his feet, he saw Ripper, Diamondback, and Oculon all still alive. As he stepped forward, the three Dragon Branch villains shimmered blue, and then began to vanish.

 

"NOOOOOO!" Fantastic-Man screamed as he blasted through the air toward Oculon, but by the time he reached the spot where seconds before there had been Kyle's Murderer, there was naught but empty air.

 

The enraged Ogre charged across the intervening space between himself and Nighthawk, with a crazed look in his eyes. Nighthawk had nowhere to move.. nowhere to hide.

 

Ogre's enormous fist hammered through the air toward the Dark Defender...

 

...and struck Nighthawk's armored chestplate with no strength behind it. Ogre howled in pain as he withdrew his injured hand, sure he had heard at least one finger break as his strength was sucked away by the restored Power Suppression field. He looked up angrily at Nighthawk as the Dark Defender's twin billy clubs connected on either side of the giant's head. Ogre dropped to the ground in an unconcious heap.

 

As the VIPER Quetzacoatl class heavy gunship rocketed away from the scene, having teleported all remaining Dragon Branch and uninjured agents on board, Rampant Lion and La Espijisma reached the D-Jet with some help from Justice and Liberty. The dead bodies of five VIPER Air Cavalry agents lie on the ground, one without his jet pack... and Fiacho's holding cell was empty.

 

Warforge was discovered lying on the floor of the storage vault, surrounded by the dust and small stone fragments of what had been the Headdress of Xoruba, now destroyed beyond any hope of repair.

 

A thorough review of the prison revealed that aside from Ripper, Diamondback and Freon, Caiman, Cybermind, Pulsar, Tachyon, Thorn, Thunderbolt and, perhaps worst of all, Grond, had all escaped during the confusion of VIPER's attack. Cromwell had survived, thanks entirely to Fantastic-Man, but the price paid in PRIMUS lives was high.

 

____________________________

 

End of day here at work, no real time for my usual GM notes. This is the end of this session though, so I'll try to wrap some of my thoughts about it up later. I know what you all really want to read here anyway, hehe, and I'm sure the adventures of the team are the entertaining part!

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TheTemplar Rising Star

TheTemplar

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Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!!

 

Planet of the Ape

The Defenders

Season V: "Evolution"

Issue 5 (pt. 1)

 

Cast

 

Wonderboy: Fantastic-Man's former sidekick; Member of the Stronghold Security Force, has the power... to move you

Nighthawk: Mega-bajillionare playboy; super-detective; Martial Artist/ Gadgeteer

La Espijisma: Team Doctor; Infiltration specialist; Metamorph with the ability to mimic Superpowers of others

Warforge: Mystical construct created in Vulcan’s Forge to battle evil; Brick w/ multi-weapon Arm

Tomorrow Boy: Teenage uber-genius from the future with telekinetic powers; Gadgeteer

Rampant Lion III: Legacy hero with a taste for adventure and the spotlight; Martial Artist/ Weapon Master

_______________

 

Act 1:"Toniiiiight on Capes... They're young.. they're tough... they're reshaping the face of the superhero world. These aren't your grandpa's superheroes. This is NextForce! We go behind the masks of the hottest new superteam on the planet! We get up close and personal with the team as they fight crime THEIR way! But first.. the shocking secret that keeps this band of loose cannons together..."

 

Stormfront appeared on the television screen, sitting in a studio speaking with the host of Capes, Vernon Mills.

 

"Oh, crap.. not this smacktard.." muttered Warforge as he reached for the remote control.

 

"Well, Vernon," Stromfront began, "The six of us do come from as varied and far flung backgrounds as you could imagine. But, we do all share one common, underlying trait. The source of our superpowers. We're all mutants. Each of us gained our powers through our genes, and the mutation of our own DNA. No radiation accidents... no alien encounters. Just.. nature, taking it's course. Our benefactor specifically selected us for this team for that reason."

 

"And who is this mysterious benefactor?" Vernon asked.

 

"Well.. if I told you that, they wouldn't be mysterious now, would they?" Stormfront replied with a chuckle. "No, but seriously, Vernon, due to the understandable security risks associated with being the financial backbone of a superhero team, we guard the anonymity of our benefactor very closely. Especially after what happened to Jack Kirby."

 

Warforge clicked off the television. He certainly didn't care to hear Stormfront's opinions on the Eurostar incident at Omnitech Headquarters. After everything that had happened in the two weeks following Eurostar's attack, the Metal Man definitely wasn't in the mood.

 

Before they had even landed after extracting Fiacho from a VIPER nest, VIPER launched an all out assault on the metahuman superprison Stronghold, killing 2 superheroes and several PRIMUS agents, as well as injuring dozens more, including Cromwell, The Defender's long-time friend and PRIMUS liaison. None of the supervillains who had escaped during the chaos of the attack had been recovered. Security recording review revealed that three goals of the operation were to rescue captured Dragon Branch members Ripper, Freon and Diamondback, assassinate Despite for failing to control the Jormungandr situation and to kill Heinous if he betrayed VIPER, and finally to assassinate Kyle, the VIPER cyborg formally known as Heinous, who before that was one of Fantastic-Man's proteges, before he could reveal too many of VIPER's secrets to PRIMUS or The Defenders.

 

The Defenders had been taking a bath in the media. "The Stronghold Debacle," as the attack became dubbed, put the Earth's premiere superteam in the crosshairs of the anti-metahuman movement on Capitol Hill, and the movement was gaining momentum. The Defenders' failure to prevent the escape of the prisoners and the loss of life of so many good men fueled the fires of the likes of Senator Albert Haganstone of PA, whose son Jeffrey, it was discovered, was killed by the extremist supervillain Holocaust, and his ally, Sen. Phillip Glassman of WY, who were pushing for federal sanctions against superhumans on both sides of the law, declaring them a menace to all life on Earth. The voices that cried out in support of The Defenders and other superteams, led by Sen. Arthur Bolton of NY, seemed to be growing quieter and quieter against the oppressive wave of anti-superhero sentiments. Still others, including a vocal minority in the general public, criticized The Defenders for being "too soft" on villains, rather than following NextForce's violent, zero-tolerance stance on criminals.

 

As if all of this wasn't depressing enough, shortly after the attack on Stronghold, Fantastic-Man, the leader of The Defenders since their inception, had vanished, leaving only a note that read, "Don't try to find me, Don't try to stop me." You didn't have to be Nighthawk to deduce that FM was out for revenge against Oculon for the murder of one of his former sidekicks, but the sudden departure of the team's leader left them in an extra sticky bind, especially in light of all the stuff circling in the national media.

 

The decision on an interim team leader had been about as smooth as sandpaper. Based on team seniority, the obvious choice had been the only original member of the team remaining...

"No way.." Nighthawk had said. "Besides.. check your records. I never signed your little charter."

Cromwell had nixed the member with the next-most longevity, Tomorrow-Boy, citing that the sixteen year-old wasn't even a legal member of the team, let alone in capacity of the emotional maturity needed to lead one... and all of that from the hospital bed at L'Institut Thoth where Cromwell was recovering from the attack of Stronghold.

It was decided unanimously that, although Warforge had taken on a sort of "man of the people" persona of late, he still couldn't carry out the duties of a front man for a superteam.

La Espijisma had graciously declined, expressing no interest in leading the team, even if only in the short term.

 

Leaving the newest member of the team.. Rampant Lion. The British superheroic archer and swordsman relished his role as the face of the team, filling in at all of Fantastic-Man's public appearances, handling his weekly press conference. For being the new guy, he did hold himself well and did a surprisingly effective job deflecting questions about the whereabouts of the Earth's Greatest Superhero. The only near-fumble had come when the producers of Capes contacted the team's new publicist, Alicia Bellows, about doing an episode based on The Defenders. It nearly slipped that Fantastic-Man was MIA before Rampant Lion smoothed over the conversation like a veteran PR man. Apparently, the show had decided to feature The Defenders' rivals, NextForce, instead.

 

"Maybe it's a good thing Fantastic-Man isn't around after all..." mused Warforge as he got up from his reinforced chair to go check on the Monitor station, imagining how Fantastic-Man would've reacted to Stormfront and his band of mutant buddies getting their own TV feature.

 

He didn't even reach the monitor room before the alarms began to sound. He rushed into the monitor station to see what had happened only to discover a large temporal anamoly had formed over Paragon Park. He slapped the alarm beacon to notify the rest of the team and raced for the D-Jet.

 

The interdimensional vortex, as Tomorrow Boy had confirmed it was, was still open and swirling when Warforge, Tomorrow Boy, La Espijisma, and Rampant Lion arrived at Paragon Park. A crowd of onlookers had gathered, keeping a respectful (or maybe fearful) distance from the portal. A few people were lying on the ground not far from the rift. As La Espijisma rushed to them to make sure they were ok, a hand shot out of the portal with a long arm attached to it. It grabbed onto a nearby tree. The Defenders looked from one to the other, deciding whether or not they should attack, as the portal began to weaken and collapse upon itself. A second hand with an identical long arm latched onto another tree as the vortex continued to shrink. As the ever-weakening vortex blinked out of existence, a small, furry form shot out, his elongated arms acting like a slingshot, propelling him through the air, landing in a heap on the soft grass. The Defenders rushed over to where the creature lay, but only Tomorrow Boy recognized him.

 

"Holy sprockets... it's Elasti-Gibbon!"

____________________

Act II:

 

As Elasti-Gibbon soaked in the tissue-regeneration tank in Stronghold's newly repaired med bay, Tomorrow Boy told the others the story of The Defenders' adventure in the Ape universe, when the team had been sent there by a benevolent cosmic entity known as The Norn to prevent the evil supervillain Dr. Simian (a super-intelligent, super-maniacal, gorilla who ironically enough came from our world but was shunted into the Ape dimension by the White Event) from setting off an energy bomb capable of destroying the multiple universes for which the Ape dimension acted as a multi-dimensional hub. Assuming anyone of The Defenders understood TB's lengthy and technical explanation, they obviously had a lot of questions for Elasti-Gibbon, a member of the parallel superteam, The Defenders, in the Ape universe. After some time floating in the healing fluids, Elasti-Gibbon finally came to.

 

Nighthawk had shown up by now as well, and was rather concerned over the superheroic simian's sudden appearance.

 

"Dr. Simian..." Elasti-Gibbon began, ".. wanted to get back here. He's always wanted to get back here. Always been his goal. Forced open the gateway. He.. uhh.. how'd that go? Oh right.. Reclaimated the energon spignajure from when you guys left the last time."

 

"You mean.. he replicated the energy signature?" TB asked.

 

"Whatever, kid.. don't bother me with details. All I know is that Doc Simian was ready to tear a hole in time and space to get here, and that that was going to result in the destruction of our entire homeworld. I don't understand all that technobabble anyway.. not like I'm Iron Monkey. Where is he, anyway?" Elasti-Gibbon asked, referring to his home dimension's version of The Defenders' power-suited gadgeteer tech-junkie.

 

"He's not here," Nighthawk replied. "Just you."

 

"Wha? But.. but that means..." Elasti-Gibbon's big, brown eyes welled up with tears and his lip began to quiver," We... we failed.. they're all.. they're all... " He broke down in tears as Tomorrow Boy and La Espijisma tried to console him. Warforge grabbed Nighthawk's shoulder and led him to the monitor room.

 

"He's not the only one that came through..." the titanium titan said as he replayed the video feed from the Paragon Park surveillance system as the rift was beginning to open. A single figure rocketed out of the vortex, knocking several innocent bystanders down as he sped past them. A frame by frame review showed the figure to be an elated silverback gorilla riding in a high-tech, high-speed hoverchair.

 

"Dr. Simian..." the Dark Defender replied.

____________________

Act III:

The sun was setting as Wonderboy soared over the Paragon City skyline. Even patrolling for street thugs and bank robbers seemed just a little more dangerous knowing that Fantastic-Man was nowhere to be found. Without warning, a laser blast scorched through the air in front of the young superhero. Wonderboy scanned the rooftops for the source of the blast and saw a two men armed with laser weapons wearing red and black uniforms on a nearby rooftop. The second was preparing to fire, so Wonderboy did what anyone in his situation would do.

 

He began to sing.

 

The bolt hit him square in the chest, but only stung a little, thanks to the skin-toughness inpiring abilities of Wonderboy's song. The blast from behind, that he wasn't expecting, stung a lot more. Wonderboy swiveled around, only to discover that he was surrounded by identically-dressed, identically armed agents, sniping at him from the rooftops. He hit the emergency distress beacon on his wrist-communicator and then took evasive actions to try to avoid the barrage of blasts being fired at him.

 

Back at Stronghold, The Defenders recieved his distress call. The five of them blasted through the sky in the D-Jet to help out.

 

The battle was fast and furious. The agents were well armed, and had back up down on the street level as more agents poured out of nearby buildings, attacking the heroes. But, after about thirty seconds, the agents all just collapsed, unmoving. A very puzzled team of superheroes approached the still bodies. La Espijisma found no sign of any vitals - no pulse, no breathing. They were all dead. She unmasked one to reveal a caucasian man in his mid thirties, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She also discovered an unusual barcode on the back of his neck. This prompted her to grab another of the nearby fallen agents, she pulled up the back of his mask to reveal another similar barcode, and tufts of blonde hair sticking out from the mask. She pulled it off all the way and turned him over.

 

He was identical to the first agent... as was the third.. and the fourth.. and the fifth. Every agent was an identical copy of eachother.

 

"Dodecatuplets?" Wonderboy posited.

 

"No.." Nighthawk said, rising from the side of one of the fallen. "Clones."

 

TO BE CONTINUED

____________________

 

GM NOTES:

So.. whaddaya do when the player of the leader of the team comes to you and says, "I think Fantastic-Man is gonna go looking for Oculon.. no way he lets him get away with killing Kyle and then getting away. Maybe we can do his search for Oculon in my in-betweens so that it doesn't take up group time."

 

All well and good, good RP, good in-character thought, and a nice plot-hook for ongoing adventures. But the all important question becomes...

"What are you going to do in the meantime?"

 

Well, when Mole created Fantastic-Man, he had 2 sidekicks in his backstory. One had turned to evil and was transformed into the cyborg Heinous by VIPER. The other, Wonderboy, had remained true to his superheroic roots. Mole decided to flesh out Wonderboy and the concept was a real kick. Now, bear in mind, Mole's been a brick since 2001. So, I fully expected Wonderboy to be a flying brick in the mold of FM, but maybe not quite as beefy, and without the mass alteration tricks. What we got.. was a superbard.

 

You'll see plenty more of Wonderboy over the next few issues. I think this was a great break for Mole and a fun change of pace for everyone else to try to figure out what to do w/out the 600 point veteran superbrick there to take it on the chin for them.

 

The players (and, conversely their characters) are also getting pretty fed up with the whole public perception, anti-superhero crisis... and they're REALLY hating on NextForce.. hehe.. which is exactly what I wanted.

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