Cancer

The cats have taken over my bed.

Large corporate owners don't know how to preserve a business, let alone grow one.  That would require them to know something about an actual business.   Since all they know how to do is count zeros, that's all they do.  If an enterprise is not profitable enough to tickle their egos and bank balances, they shut things down.
 
 

That way lies rocket-propelled chainsaws.  Look in one of the old, closed threads in the Dark Champions forum for those.

Chainswords, Dude.  Chainswords.
 
I have no idea where they came from-- I first discovered them in a Halloween store a few years ago, but for sheer coolness and "I want to cause you as much close-up, look-each-other-in-the-eyes-while-you-die physical agony as is humanly possible---   well then I have to say the chainsword is the way to go.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
And we're still waiting!  
 
 

Costumes are a mandatory psychlim.  You don't want to walk into a Scarbutts and order your iced venti caramel frappucino with a shot of coconut syrup no whip while in superhero persona, do you?  I mean, every dentist and dietitian in the country will frag your butt for not upholding proper-standards-according-to-their-bailiwick. 
 
So you wear a super-suit to remind yourself to keep that alternate persona in place, and street clothes so that it's easier to maintain off-duty chill when you want it.

Hmm, Lucius drafted the Nautilus, and didn't even seem to need an Option to make it space-worthy.
 
The Starship: Casey Junior (Dumbo)
The Farmer: Fa Mulan (Mulan)
 
I don't know if we're doing the max-two-drafts-per-day rule
 
The Scumball-ish Criminal: Vincenzo "Vinny" Santorini (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)
Option: Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy: The Rat Trap (The Great Mouse Detective)
 

Dunno if you want titles for our alternate movies, but if so, mine is 
 
PARSECS ARE A UNIT OF DISTANCE, DAMMIT

Champions: Return to Edge City: A Deficit of Punching Stuff
As well as the major gangs in Edge City, there’s a wide selection of smaller ones, with various lines of income and gang beliefs. At least one of them is a gang of religious fundamentalists, that we promptly nickname the Piss-stains after the colour-code of the gang map, right next door to the Knights of Hell.

Hero Shrew: Can we put them both into an arena and go “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Fireflash: No. Probably.

And, of course, there’s one gang with the sworn intention of wiping out Moreaus.

Fireflash: I think we’ve found our next target.

And of course, Allana can glide silently overhead for nocturnal surveillance on whoever we target.

Fireflash: We’ve got Whispering Death right here.

Flux: Allana, do you need a cover story in case they chat social media for what you’re up to? A night on the town, or something?
GM: She’s too busy for anything like that - her superheroics at night are her relaxation time.
Hero Shrew: She patches people up during the day, and inflicts serious injuries at night.

We go after the Knights of Hell instead - their business in drug exports makes them vulnerable.

Hero Shrew: And there will be fewer social ramifications if we take them down, instead of the Piss-stains or the racists. Who’s going to complain if we target a gang of Satanist drug-dealers?
GM: They’re only called the Knights of Hell because the Hellgate Institute is on their turf, and everybody knows it.

They’re also pretty anti-Moreau, since the mass break-out on S-Day happened in their neighbourhood, and they’ve always been paranoid about other things buried under Edge City. And they’re not wrong either - there was that recent Kaiju for one thing.

Of course we’ll have to consult with the Edge City PD drug squad first. And there’s also the legal consequences of acting on info gained by Flux hacking into their security systems, or using a magical machine that goes Ping in the presence of illegal drugs. Both could lead to the case being thrown out, if we find anything that we couldn’t have learned from normal means. X-ray vision automatically counting as illegal search is just the start of it.

GM: I still remember the time Wonder Woman had a mid-air collision with another plane.
Hero Shrew: And that’s why she should have stuck to the giant space kangaroos.
Flux: Yes, those were practical.

Maybe they’re getting their drug deliveries out underground?

Hero Shrew: Edge City probably doesn’t have a stormwater system of the same scale as L.A. So there probably isn’t a nest of giant ants down there.

But we should probably compare the map of tunnels that SHOULD be down there to the ones that are - Hardlight can do submillimeter scans of the ground if we drive around slowly.

Hero Shrew: Let’s find out who delivers the community paper around here and tell them to take the day off.
GM: Wood pulp? Ugh.
Hero Shrew: But if one of us is throwing the rolled-up newspaper out the window, we’ll probably put it through somebody’s wall.
GM: Or head.

Fireflash suggests we use a streetsweeper instead. The scans indicate that the underground is more of a mess than the maps indicate, and that there are people and robots down there, but nothing conclusive, apart from a bunch of the Greys who flip Hardlight the bird as we drive overhead. We also learn the interesting fact that somebody installed a radio-opaque barrier all around the ground the Hellgate Institute is built on - but that probably dates from when Genesys owned the buildings.

We could infiltrate the gym they congregate at, but since Flux is the only one of us that both human and not immediately recognisable, that’s a terrible idea. Maybe we’ll just trace any gang members as they come and go. We learn that they have, and use, a ridiculously high-speed water vehicle best described as a manned torpedo, that can easily reach 200kph as it skims over the waves. Gee, I wonder how they’re doing their drug pick-ups and deliveries.

Hardlight: Now we just need Probable Cause.
Fireflash: Not necessarily - what happens if one of its hydroplanes hits an obstacle?
Hero Shrew: Ask


Allana has a sniff around the beach over the next few days - literally. On top of her other abilities she has a superhuman sense of smell. The first few days are a bust, but on their third trip out into the Pacific, Allana can smell some really powerful cleaning agents. The kind that would eliminate any smell of drugs on the package.

Hardlight, hiding in tunnels nearby, also decides to hold a passing drone in a force bubble while he scans it, and all hell breaks loose. It’s owned by the same company, Ravensholme Biotech, that maintains Fireflash’s radiator suit and is behind the Hellgate Institute. And they don’t like it when somebody messes with their stuff. Hardlight flees the scene while the drone howls and screeches to attract attention.

GM: We all know the bird call signal for this one, don’t we? FAAAAARRRRK
Flux: We have a Code Brown, repeat, Code Brown.
Fireflash: Code Boss.
Allana: We already know he makes inappropriate advances to humans, now we know he does it to machines as well. At least Mechanon will be too afraid to come to Edge City.

At least he can believably claim he tripped over it in the dark, and used his millimeter radar to see what he’d hit, when Ravensholme message him via social media to ask him what the hell he was doing.

Flux tries hacking into the cameras at the former community center the Knights of Hell are using as a MMA venue, and eventually confirms a connection to the tunnels. The same tunnels that the Ravensholme Biotech maintenance drones from the Hellgate Institute wander around in. The same drones with strong anti-scanning, anti-hacking defences. The same company that has highly advanced labs with powerful cleaning protocols behind strong anti-scanning defences. Hmmmmm.

Champions : Return to Edge City : Punch a Nazi Today
Some quotes I've forgotten the context of, since it's been almost two months since our last session.

Flux OoC: This was a good session - and Fireflash didn't end up naked!

GM: That was the most Keystone Kops fight I've ever gamesmastered, and I used to GM Toon.

GM: Ah yes, Spiderman 3 - the one with the Rule 63 K.D.Lang.

The five members of Quadrant have decided to get a bit more proactive, regarding the gang situation in Edge City. A good excuse for Weldun to play more of the soundtrack he put together for the Edge City Gangs. The first target is going to be Humanity First, largely because they tried to send power-armoured terrorists into The Zoo, and also because they somehow managed to acquire a giant robot. Who is diverting resources to them?

Of course, the designer drug problem in Marsden is pretty bad too - each gang with their own speciality. The Voodoo Crew, for example, sell Super-C, cocaine cut with ground bone. Oddly enough it seems to be much safer than the original.

Hero Shrew: How much do you want to bet that half these drugs are the same thing, with different food colouring?

Apparently not - the drugs are all very different, with some potent effects. Edge City’s biotech industry has been inventing some pretty alarming stuff. Our GM certainly did his research on these drugs, including prices.

GM: This is the research I do. I am now for certain on yet another ****ing watchlist.

GM: The whole King of the Hill game in the Booster gang leadership now has a Queen. Nobody knows where she came from but she’s following Dysprosium Dawn’s line, so…. I’m resisting calling her Mecha-Shiva.
Fireflash: Mecha-Kali.

GM: Becoming a superhero might have ruined Fireflash’s sex life, but…
Hero Shrew: I’m sure Bad Dragon could do something special for her.
Fireflash: *facepalm*
GM: Actually, Flux knows that Guiltrider does a line in super-science sex toys.
Hardlight: … Why is she a villain again?
GM: She did call the four of you Poser, Try-hard, and Token, but couldn’t think of a good name for Fireflash.
Allana: I found her perfectly pleasant.
GM: Well, you’ll have something to tell Fireflash, assuming the conversation ever happens.
Flux: WHICH IT WON’T. EVER.

Still the question remains - where are Humanity First getting their weapons? They stopped buying from Warlord years back, for some reason.

Hero Shrew: I need to talk to some slightly dodgy people.
Flux: What, us?
Allana: More dodgy.

Apparently there’s a pop-up Underground mercenary tech show that shows up in Edge City every few months, and Humanity First hosts it every time. And the reason they stopped buying the Warlord’s stuff is because it’s hinky alien tech, and he’s been turning his minions into cyborgs, which is against their politics.

How to find the tech show? Apart from waiting until Allana finishes her regenerator technology, scent marking it, waiting until it gets stolen, and following the scent to the auction.

Allana: It’s a long-term plan.

Of course, even if we do find out when and where it’s happening, how do we get in?

Hero Shrew: I suppose Hardlight could show up in his civilian identity, with a suitcase full of cash.

Or even better, since both Hardlight and Iron Claw are powered by the same kind of alien crystal, we send him in disguised as Iron Claw.

Hardlight: That’s actually a good idea!
GM: Why are you surprised? Flux came up with it. If YOU had come up with it, I’d be surprised.
Hardlight: Would my Weirdness Magnet complicate things?
Hero Shrew: Sure. The real Iron Claw shows up - and so does somebody else, also pretending to be Iron Claw.
GM: Yes! Or even better Iron Claw shows up pretending to be Hardlight.

Maybe Guiltrider (AKA Dr Soma, although only Allana knows that) could get us in, since supertech is her schtick.

Flux: How do we contact her? None of us have her number.
Hero Shrew: It’s not like any of us know her personally, or meet her on a regular basis.
Allana: ...

And where in Edge City do they HOLD this tech show?

Hardlight: It’s going to be a comics convention isn’t it. All those fake swords and toy guns on display? They aren’t fake. But somebody stuck orange tips on them all.

Actually, there probably isn’t anywhere in Edge City itself that they could hide such a paramilitary meeting. So when do the Humanity First leadership vanish off social media? And what sort of big events outside Edge City could provide cover and are happening at the same time? Big private paintball events? Dunebuggy races in Baja? Anywhere with lots of big tents?
A recent Cybertech decathlon seems suspiciously timed. As do a few of the paintball events. Which were run by a family member of one of the Humanity First leaders. It seems we’re on to something. Hardlight gets his company, Lowelltech, to find out which weekends are available for corporate paintball events. And which weekends are already pre-booked by the weapons expo.

Hardlight: I know a guy in Alaska.
Flux: We’re going to a weapons expo at a paintball range - there WILL be a polar bear fitting grenade launchers and lasers to a paintball gun.

And since we have weeks of warning, Scooter can dig tunnels under the paintball range, and set up metal pitons every few meters so Flux can teleport in and out, and use his technomancy to spy. Of course any information we acquire might be inadmissible in court, but will still be useful to us as we break Humanity First by other means.

He soon learns that ARGENT - "Advanced Research Group ENTerprises" - is one of the groups attending the expo. And the ARGENT rep is apparently telling off Killzone for some of her failures, because they make the FUSION-POWERED PISTOLS (!!!!!) she’s using, and the rest of the Doomtrooper tech, look bad. And that Killzone plans to make a third attempt at kidnapping Fireflash, or they’ll have to get a contract extension with ARGENT.

Flux: It’s lucky I can’t make any noise down here, or they’d hear me yelling on the surface.
Fireflash: I didn’t even realise they were trying to kidnap me the first time.

Flux and Allana start planning ways to track down Fireflash and any other team members that might get kidnapped. But where to put the tracking samples so can’t be used against us?

Flux: We’re going to hide hair samples in Gareth Lowell’s safety deposit box at the bank with a little black book of non-existent women’s names. So if anybody finds them they’ll just think Lowell collects … trophies… from his conquests.
Hero Shrew: Isn’t Hardlight gay?

But we still don’t know where Humanity First are getting most of their money. We also learn that somebody is making quadrupedal drones fitted with stolen miniguns (stolen by Ankylosaur) and tail-mounted knock-offs of Ankylosaur’s tail-mounted grenade launcher..

Hero Shrew: So we’re going to hunt shooty shooty robots.
GM: Now I have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang stuck in my head.
GM and Hero Shrew: *sing* Shooty Shooty Robots, Shooty Shooty Robots, Shooty Shooty Robots, We Hunt You.
Allana: We’re tracking down Humanity First’s combat robots.
Fireflash: I need to get together with Flux first.
GM: Okaaaay.
Fireflash: I need a tracer put on me.
GM: Oh, I thought Flux’s work on the heat resistant condom had paid off.
GM: I just, I, what?? *brain derails*

We’ve certainly learned that Humanity First has some alarming assets, even if somebody walked off with their giant robot because somebody wanted to fight kaiju in it. But it’s the combat bots that have as most concerned right now. They could kill a lot of people if unleashed on a target-rich environment. So we should probably find out which Humanity First member is in charge of the On Switch. Just smashing the bots would also work, if we can get them all.

Hardlight: Are we going loud?
Hero Shrew: Sort of? The rest of us are overt, but not very loud.
Hardlight: Ok. Screw it. PHOTON BLAAAADE!
GM: If you weren’t going loud before you are now.

The two we catch patrolling are easy enough to subdue. They’re just robots - not supertech robots. Their handler hurriedly pretends to be an innocent bystander and scurries off, since we dealt with the things before he could even pull his smartphone out. The bots are carted off to the ECPD, where we can take them apart and disarm their flashbang grenades. We discover it has rudimentary intelligence, but has to obey all orders from its owner.

Fireflash: Can we redefine ‘owner’?
Hardlight: Great! Flux, we’ve found you a friend.
GM: You’re pretty sure your rental agreement with Bubo the mechanical owl said ‘no pets’.

On the other hand, its owner made sure to wear a mask and voice distorter, and its operating protocols ran on a smartphone dongle, which no doubt is dissolving in an acid bath somewhere by now. Still, there’s enough evidence at the building the two robots were stored in that the EPCD can start serving warrants, and actually charge Humanity First members.
If our team keeps wrecking their robots as well, the next few days should annoy them immensely.

Hero Shrew: Bonus!

The rest of the gangs in the area are staying oddly quiet. At least four of them would object to a truce until the gangs can carve up Humanity First’s territory, too. It’s starting to look like we’ll have to deal with the more extreme gangs first, before we leave a power vacuum by eliminating the racists.
 

Dunno if you want titles for our alternate movies, but if so, mine is 
 
PARSECS ARE A UNIT OF DISTANCE, DAMMIT

Adipogenesis was the name of my Phil Collins cover band. 
 

Examining my ... ah ... middle-age spread, this is in no way a surprise development.

Well of course it wasn't in America.
 
We have shot enough people to know that it only makes them slower.

Death Tribble had a pair of neon socks once, but the cryogenic cooling went out in a power outage and they just drifted away.

I know there's a Paris, Texas; is there a Paris, Florida?

For oddballs, I sometimes use:
Gomez Addams
Exidor, the crazy street preacher on Mork
 

Examining my ... ah ... middle-age spread, this is in no way a surprise development.

https://www.random.org
 
See their "Die roller" among one of the sets of free services.

I'll wait until there's a duckduckgo dice site. They respect my privacy more

Examining my ... ah ... middle-age spread, this is in no way a surprise development.

Notably, most people do not understand electricity.

Don't pee all over something you don't understand.

Add Devil in the Dark and that's the tetrarchy for me, which was perhaps the series' first meaningful episode based on encounter with totally nonhuman entities, another theme I wish they had visited more.