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"Let's Get This Straight, You're The Sidekick!"
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<blockquote data-quote="Kidjake" data-source="post: 6562969" data-attributes="member: 6776876"><p>Sessions 7-10</p><p></p><p>Picking Up Where We Left Off</p><p>We open up where we left our heroes. The bikers are driving off laughing over their shoulders and Roger is splayed out in the middle of the street; his very bones exposed to the elements thanks to the force of Baritone's mighty bellow. Fanboy falls down next to McCrow's mangled body and frantically begins trying to resuscitate the hydromancer as he phones Dr Kavlight in hopes that their ambulance is ready to go.</p><p></p><p>Miraculously (Needed to roll a 15, rolled a 20), Fanboy not only stabilizes Roger but even manages to wake him up. McCrow is none too happy with the state of things and isn't completely sure if his spine still works, but he's clinging to life with all he's got.</p><p></p><p> Bradley and Kavlight finally show up in the ambulance and Dr Kavlight reveals that he's installed what basically amounts to a plastic tub filled with water specifically for Roger's unique physiology. McCrow's wounds begin knitting themselves together of their own volition once he's submerged and he spends the rest of the ride home isolated in his tub, napping in peace.</p><p></p><p>When they show up at the warehouse they discover that the Prophet has collapsed at his station and one of the Bradley's claims that it looked like he had a bad trip, screaming about burning alive out of the blue and then passing out. Roger is moved to finish recovering in the privacy of his own bathroom while Kavlight gives the fallen precog a full exam.</p><p></p><p>Morning comes and Fanboy gets a call from Agent Parks saying that something's come up and he'll be in Washington for a week or so. Parks emphasizes that he still intends on recovering Depaliamo once he returns and Fanboy continues playing stupid. Parks is obviously irritated but tells Fanboy that he'll be picking up a couple of experimental EMP grenades to deal with Doctor Luvless's toys after their little talk the other day all the same. Fanboy almost considers trading Depaliamo for the grenades as a symbol of good faith, but quickly decides against it.</p><p></p><p>Parks also takes this opportunity to warn Fanboy that some of his agents in the field have reported that Tree King may not be as dead as previously believed (Fanboy's player actually groaned and called shenanigans about that since McCrow had previously turned the guy into firewood, but he rolled with it.) and that he's planning something big. Fertilizer and other chemicals are being stolen from various government contractors and the field agent that discovered the thefts believes that Tree King is growing an army. Fanboy isn't convinced that it's as cut and dry as that, but tells Parks that he'll look into it.</p><p></p><p>Parks starts to hang up before he remembers his initial reason for calling. A new superhuman woke up in the hospital a few days before and as much as he hates the idea of having McCrow and Fanboy having an influence on her, he needs somebody to look out for her with the serial killer running around and his go-to man is already breaking in a new partner. Fanboy doesn't like being put on babysitting duty, but agrees to pick her up anyway.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Diamonds and Chauvinism Are Forever</p><p>Fanboy wakes McCrow up in his tub and tells him to get dressed, they're having company over. Roger stumbles around until he's basically dressed (Trench coat? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Good to go.) and rides with Fanboy to pick up the new girl, Tiffany. </p><p></p><p>They get to her apartment and she lets them in after a short introduction. Roger tells her to get her sh**, it's time to go; but Fanboy is a bit more diplomatic and explains that they woke up from the accident a couple of months ago and have been using their powers to aid the Department of Homeland Security ever since. Fanboy explains that in exchange for their services the DHS has been lenient with their repeated, and sometimes public, abuses of power.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany's a pretty reasonable girl so she sees the wisdom in this arrangement and agrees to join them... but of course McCrow can't ever let anything go smoothly. He snorts and says that he's glad she decided to come easy, he wouldn't want to hurt her.</p><p></p><p>She stops in her tracks and just gawks at him. "Excuse me?"</p><p></p><p>Roger smirks and says "Less talking, more packing. Chop, chop now."</p><p></p><p>She warns him to change his tone or he'll be the one limping back home and he bursts into laughter. "But...but you're a woman!" he says between guffaws.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany lunges at McCrow and they roll initiative.</p><p></p><p>Now this is generally the portion of the story where the sexist tough guy gets taught a lesson and learns to grudgingly respect the fairer sex. However if you've been following the campaign you know that Roger has 2 powers: Control of water and a superhuman ability to avoid comeuppance.</p><p></p><p>She rolls a 3. He rolls a 20. He gives her a right hook to the midsection that knocks the wind out of her and stuns her for a round, uses his improved grab to move into a clinch and head-butt her (she's rolling terribly) and staggers/stuns her again, and uses his free turn from her being stunned to throw her through her own coffee table where she lays unmoving amid the glass and wood splinters. Fanboy just stands there with his mouth agape as Roger towers over the unconscious girl panting and looking for an excuse to kick her while she's down.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy finally sputters "She said she was coming with us! Why the hell would you do that?"</p><p></p><p>McCrow rarely has a reason for anything and just shrugs. "She had an attitude problem. Pack a bag, I'll load her up."</p><p></p><p>Fanboy doesn't argue, there's no point. He just sighs, grabs a bag and starts shoveling in necessities.</p><p></p><p></p><p>A few hours later Tiffany wakes up in a dark, damp cell. Her head is ringing and she's bandaged up pretty good, but there doesn't seem to be any lasting injuries. She takes stock of her surroundings and notices a young man sleeping soundly in the cell next to hers and a set of stairs leading up.</p><p></p><p>With a smirk she rubs 3 large diamonds embedded in her right palm on the day of the bus accident and as she does so she becomes a living diamond herself. She assumes the classic knife-hand pose and cuts through five bars with a single swipe. In seconds she's escaped from her cell and starts to free the young man as well in an attempt at an ally, but finds his cell door unlocked and decides not to trust him.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany sneaks upstairs but is unprepared for the barrage of security cameras and Bradleys patrolling the area and is quickly spotted. Shouts ring out and she lays one of the clones out with superhuman blow across the temple and advances like the terminator as the remaining clones open fire to no avail.</p><p></p><p>She calls out for that son of a bitch McCrow to face her, but there's no response. Fanboy and Sandra step out to see what the hubbub's about, but McCrow is nowhere to be seen. Everyone steps out of Tiffany's way as she climbs the steps towards McCrow's indicated sleeping quarters still enraged from their earlier tussle.</p><p></p><p>She reaches his room and presses her ear against the door and hears movement inside. "I hear you in there you cowardly bastard, come out and fight me NOW!"</p><p></p><p>There's no response, so Tiffany digs her claw like fingers into Roger's door and simply tears the whole thing off its hinges.</p><p></p><p>There's a watery explosion corresponding with the removal of the door that flings Tiffany off the catwalk and seems to follow her down.</p><p></p><p>She stumbles to her feet a little rattled and then gazes up and notices that the water doesn't seem to be flowing away, but is shaped suspiciously like a 30ft monster.</p><p></p><p>"You want to fight? Alright. We'll fight." McCrow says lifting his forklift over his head like Cain with his rock.</p><p></p><p>"Woah, woah, woah!" Tiffany says, assuming a fetal position and protecting her head; unsure whether a four and a half ton hunk of machinery is a match for diamond skin, but unwilling to test the theory. The fight gone out of her, she grits her teeth and hopes for the best and is more than a little relieved when the forklift goes back down. </p><p></p><p>She continues protecting herself even after Roger reassumes his old form and just asks "What the hell are you?"</p><p></p><p>While this is going on, nobody really notices the handful of Russians that arrive or that Chavenski is out of bed and dragging himself towards the door. One of the Russians clears his throat and gets the PCs attention (although Tiffany is still convinced that Roger is going to kill her, so she doesn't get up.) so that Chavenski can have a word with them.</p><p></p><p>The crime boss speaks in a ragged whisper because of his injuries and seems to have trouble catching his breath. He thanks Roger and Fanboy for their help and shakes their hands before asking them to come work for him. He admits that men who can spontaneously hand him a million dollars for no reason probably aren't hurting for cash, but he offers them a chance at power and prestige as his lieutenants.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany jumps at the chance, but Chavenski's entire introduction to her was watching her curl into the fetal position and cry, so he specifies it's an all or nothing deal. Neither McCrow or Fanboy or happy with the idea of working for somebody, so they turn him down. Chavensky isn't offended and gives them his personal number in case they need to get in touch with him in the future.</p><p></p><p>With their goodbyes said, Chavenski leaves with his men to assume his rightful place as boss of the city.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Baritone, Round Two</p><p>Roger irritably attempts to repair the damage that Tiffany inflicted on his warehouse with the help of Bradley and Richard. While Tiffany gets settled in and Fanboy checks in on Prophet.</p><p></p><p>Prophet has woken up but is still slightly shaken and explains that he just experienced his own death. He explains that his powers rely on seeing through his own eyes in the future and that he's basically just been reading headlines to the PCs that he finds there. He doesn't know how he died but he was in a strange place and burned to death in a flash, as such he locks himself in the control room and refuses to come out, as a side effect of his experience; his powers are on the fritz since there's no future him to see through.</p><p></p><p>Things go pretty much as they always have for the rest of the day until Prophet calls everyone to his new room for a disturbance. Apparently superhumans have just went crazy today and both Doctor Luvless and Baritone are mid-crime spree. Doctor Luvless is robbing a bank and is pretty much monopolizing the police's time(which happens when you drag robots into a bank and start vaporizing things), whereas Baritone is apparently vandalizing a pharmacy in a quest for prescription drugs (they can tell it's Baritone because the squad car that reported it in did so from on top of the pharmacy). </p><p></p><p>Both of them have an axe to grind with one of the villains so I assumed there'd be a little bickering, but Fanboy doesn't want to engage Luvless without EMP grenades and Roger is going to attack Baritone (for spitting on him, not nearly killing him) whether he's got backup or not.</p><p></p><p>They speed to the pharmacy and find that there is no police presence, if there were any officers here they've decided to evacuate the area. Instead there's four bikers and the big man himself loading stolen drugs into the saddlebags of their bikes. Either the bikers don't notice them, or simply don't care; but they continue loading without a care in the world.</p><p></p><p>No PC in the history of ever has accepted an NPC not paying attention to them while they're being heroic, so they go into full battle mode to get the bikers attention. Tiffany turns diamond, Roger blows up half the neighborhood summoning water to himself, Fanboy begins glowing with telekinetic energy.</p><p></p><p>Baritone stops what he's doing, looks at them gathering power and tells them to piss off; he doesn't feel like kicking their asses again today. Roger responds by launching a burst of water at the hulking biker who braces against it and manages to do little more than get drenched before responding with his mighty bellow. Tiffany spends a hero point to interpose herself between Baritone's blast and McCrow (I tell him that this is why he should be nice to people) and the force of the blast is so severe that the majority of her diamond exterior is simply wiped away.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany leaps forward with what's left of her power and cleaves one of the bikers in half while Fanboy grapples two more and throws them at Baritone although none of them are injured in the process.</p><p></p><p>Baritone bellows again at the woman who killed his man and her broken body rolls across the parking lot. Roger seems to be having a flashback of his previous fight and just runs away in abject terror. Fanboy grapples Baritone and lifts him up, putting the squeeze on the big man.</p><p></p><p>Baritone winces but tells his men that he has this and orders them to leave. As they ride off he shouts again and Fanboy is flung into and partially through a neighboring building, surviving only because of his force field. The biker smirks as the unconcious telepath releases him and he lands on the ground with a thud. He turns around to finish looting the register when McCrow (who'd circled the building to sneak up behind him) breaks a 2x4 across his smug face, injuring and stunning the big man.</p><p></p><p>Roger brings the remains of the 2x4 down again on Baritone's head a second time and cracks his skull but fails to stun him again. Baritone opens his mouth to bellow again and Roger uses a hero point to force a burst of water down his lungs, nullifying his power.</p><p></p><p>Baritone chokes on the water, tears running down his cheeks as Roger lands another blow with the 2x4. And another. And another. And another. Baritone dies choking and terrified, whether through drowning or blunt trauma is impossible to tell and unimportant. But McCrow lifts the bloated, bloody corpse up by its leather jacket and spits in its broken face with a savage growl before dropping what's left of Baritone back to the ground as his partners come to. Only Roger knows exactly what happened, but neither of the others believes it was self defense. Self defense usually leaves something recognizably human.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Powerless</p><p>They return to the warehouse in silence and Fanboy dwells heavily on how close to death he came. He decides that with their vast wealth it's ridiculous to rely solely on powers for protection and begins designing a new costume. He (and his player) withdraws from the group to look into his options.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile Sandy and her kids approach McCrow about getting some things from home. What with the kidnapping and everything they didn't have any time to grab anything. Roger agrees to drive her to the house and Tiffany decides to come with him. Fanboy says he's too busy and shoos them away.</p><p></p><p>Roger tells Sandy to leave the kids, that he's not interested in listening to them on the way there (he didn't like driving with his own kids at that age, why would he want hers?) and drivers her out to the suburbs. </p><p></p><p>As they pull into her driveway there's an extra car in it that Sandra recognizes as belonging to her husband. She's surprised because he wasn't supposed to be home for another two weeks. McCrow tells her to wait in the car and asks Tiffany to step in with him to make sure things are alright.</p><p></p><p>The door is unlocked and they creep in unannounced. They immediately notice the corpse of Sandra's husband sprawled on the floor and covered in blood and Tiffany notices a large man pressed under the stairs in a ski mask.</p><p></p><p>She points the man out and demands to know what he's doing here and the man responds by leaping forward like a cat and taking a swipe at her with a Bowie Knife. The blow fails to connect and she responds by turning diamond and cracking him in the jaw, sending him stumbling back. Since their powers are now on the table, Roger blows up the kitchen sink and puts a prowler sized dent in the wall with a burst of water.</p><p></p><p>The man holds up his hands and Tiffany simply passes out where she stands. Roger barely manages to avoid joining her and feels extremely sleepy, but spends a hero point to shake it off. This is when he realizes that it's the serial killer.</p><p></p><p>The killer lunges at him, but Roger grapples and the two of them fight over the knife. As they're fighting for the knife the killer grabs Roger's hand and McCrow feels absolute panic as he realizes he can no longer feel the presence of nearby water. </p><p></p><p>To Roger's growing horror pipes burst in the ceiling above and a wave of water crushes him to the ground and lets the killer slip out of his grasp. The killer takes a moment to admire his new ability before Roger explodes out of the crushing wall of water gasping for breath and delivering a wild haymaker that knocks the serial killer on his ass. Still panting and coughing up water, Roger manages to choke out "I'll take my powers back from what's left of your broken corpse."</p><p></p><p>The killer was expecting a single superhuman, a middle-aged woman unaware of his presence until it was too late. Instead he finds himself in a fight with two completely different superhumans in a third superhuman's house. Obviously he's no longer in control of this situation, so he decides to bolt and finish this later; one on one.</p><p></p><p>Roger gives chase with everything he's got and manages to tackle the fleeing killer, raining down a flurry of blows despite his lack of powers. When the killer responds, his blows are like jackhammers driving Roger back and feeling like they've broken something with every strike. The last man who'd hurt him so thoroughly was the Russian prize fighter and he only managed to escape that fight with the help of Fanboy.</p><p></p><p>The killer however doesn't want to fight, he doesn't know how many superhumans are nearby and is only interested in getting away with his stolen power for now. The next time Roger lunges forward the killer simply trips the older man and leaps a fence. By the time Roger realizes the fight's over he has no idea where the man went.</p><p></p><p>McCrow stumbles back to Sandy's house and finds Tiffany reverted to her natural form and sleeping soundly on the floor. He smacks her awake and staggers to the car bruised and angry. Sandy freaks out when she sees the shape that he's in, but he manages to convince her that everything is fine and that they need to get back to the warehouse. He explains that the killer ambushed them, but decides to lie and claim that her husband must've been out instead of laying in a pool of his own blood. Tiffany plays along.</p><p></p><p>Back at the warehouse Roger immediately rushes to gather Prophet, Fanboy and Kavlight together to explain what happened. He's freaking out when he explains that his powers are gone and the killer has them now. Fanboy immediately starts laughing and pointing at Roger. "You...you're just a regular non-powered ******* again. How does it feel peasant?"</p><p></p><p>Roger's rage flashes and he socks Fanboy in the jaw, however the super-nerd's protective forcefield absorbs the blow easily and McCrow suddenly realizes that the telepath might actually be a threat without his powers. With a flick of his hand and a smirk Fanboy sends Roger flying back across the warehouse into a wall. Tiffany steps in in diamond form before things can escalate and the Bradleys move to position themselves between the heroes, Fanboy was ready to smack Roger around some more and Roger already has his cell-phone in hand; preparing to activate the auto-turrets. Kavlight helps Roger up and leads him to the infirmary while Prophet talks Fanboy down.</p><p></p><p>Dr Kavlight runs a few tests and discovers that Roger's system still shows the same abnormalities (superhuman cells emit a faint, harmless radiation) however the signs are weak, as though they've been drained. Kavlight's confident that the effects are temporary, but isn't sure how long temporary is going to be.</p><p></p><p>Roger's relieved knowing that he's not going to lose his powers permanently, but is still irritated that he 's relegated to a mere mortal for the time being.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Loose Ends</p><p>They spend the rest of the day talking with Prophet about the killer and he reveals that before his episode he'd discovered a pattern that predates the bus incident. Over the past eight years there's been eight murders in or related to government facilities, all commited by a single stab to the heart.</p><p></p><p>8 Months ago Glenn Howard was found dead in the American Embassy in Egypt. 2 Years ago Robert Landry was found murdered in the DHS Records Office in Utah, a farmer with his identity retracted in the area was also killed. 5 Years ago Angela Ericson was found dead in the Pentagon Records Office. 8 Years ago a Dr Richard Tennison and Carrie Price were found in a Florida CDC Office. Around the same time Lt. Gerald Marshal and Colonel Daniel Rampert were discovered dead in Eglin Airforce Base in Florida. A Captain Warren Davis was also officially reported missing from Eglin Airforce Base a few days later.</p><p></p><p>Roger notices that only Captain Davis's body was never found and reasonably assumes that this might be their man. He tells Prophet to get him a file on Davis ASAP and Prophet says that he'll do what he can, although his sudden bout of agoraphobia has somewhat limited his investigative skills as several of his contacts require meeting in person.</p><p></p><p>They wrap things up with Prophet (it should be noted that at no point does anybody think to sit down Sandy or the kids to talk about the death of her husband so the poor woman still believes that he got away. I'm sure this will never come back to bite them in the ass.) and retire to their rooms for some much deserved sleep.</p><p></p><p>They're woken up in the middle of the night by a horrible clattering and they stagger out to see what's up. Lucky Dan is sprawled at the bottom of the stairs amid a puddle of various liquors and shattered glass, he appears pretty well trashed and doesn't seem to be able to stand up by himself. Fanboy and Roger move to help him up and more or less drag him back to his room.</p><p></p><p>Dan has moved from happy drunk to sad drunk pretty hard and he's sobbing about the loss of his family. He admits to being a lousy husband and worse father, but the thing that really gets to him is that according to the note they left while he was still in the hospital. If it had been his own doing (and in fact probably would have been his own doing) he thinks he could've accepted it. But he lost almost a month through no fault of his own and that was the one which broke the proverbial camel's back.</p><p></p><p>Roger tries to console Dan and tells him that he knows exactly how he feels. His own first marriage fell apart because he wasn't around enough. So did his second one. His third marriage though he blames solely on his wife. Roger starts to say something else, but Dan starts to sob harder and Fanboy claps a hand over his mouth before we can any more of his sordid history.</p><p></p><p>"What he MEANS, Dan, is that it's not too late." Fanboy says, glaring at Roger. "If you want your family back then call your wife, you can still fix this."</p><p></p><p>Dan explains that he's been trying to get in touch with his wife for days now but she won't return his calls or answer the door when he goes by. Roger and Fanboy volunteer to talk some sense into her. (They say 'talk' but Fanboy asks how severely he can Mind Rape somebody so this seems destined to end badly.)</p><p></p><p>Lucky Dan thanks them both and gives them the address of his sister-in-law who his family's been staying with. With that off his mind they get him to sleep and then return to their rooms to leave this one until the morning.</p><p></p><p>The next day our heroes set out to fix Lucky Dan's life and hopefully give him a reason to stop drinking so damned much. They find his sister-in-law's house in a bad part of town and notice an unusually high amount of wear and tear in the neighborhood. Several homes are just abandoned and graffiti covers everything, a number of street punks are hovering near their intended destination and one of them brazenly tosses a rock through one of her windows while shouting obscenities.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany is extremely against private property damage apparently and she fires a blast of crystalline shards from her palm into the crowd, lacerating and terrifying the punks so that they scatter to the wind; bloody and no longer in the mood to fight.</p><p></p><p>Roger is of course proud.</p><p></p><p>They knock on the door and a heavyset brunette with a southern draw (no idea why I stressed an accent when I did the voice but they immediately claimed that she's West Virginian, so I went with it.) answers the door with a bat in hand, screaming about what she's going to do to these a-holes if they don't leave her and her home alone.</p><p></p><p>She's more than a little surprised to see a Rolls Royce in the driveway and an attractive young lady; a well-dressed young man in a sharply pressed suit; and a hairy, shirtless middle-aged man in a trench coat and shades standing in her doorway. She's even more surprised when the shirtless man starts putting on the 'charm'.</p><p></p><p>She's about to close the door to avoid McCrow's extremely explicit advances when Fanboy steps in and says "Ma'am, we're friends of Dan. We're looking for Mrs. Brown."</p><p></p><p>The woman screeches for Lorraine to get the door and a similar looking woman with a slight build, prematurely greying hair and perpetually exhausted expression comes to the door. Roger sort of invites himself in to continue his attempted seduction of Dan's sister-in-law and Fanboy explains that they're friends of her husband and they need to speak with her.</p><p></p><p>Lorraine threatens to burst into tears. "He's dead isn't he? He's dead and you're bookies and you're going to rob me and my sister aren't you?"</p><p></p><p>Fanboy sort of stares at her for a moment "That's... a very specific fear ma'am, but no. We're not bookies and your husband's fine, we just need to speak with you."</p><p></p><p>Lorraine isn't exactly interested in hearing from Dan or those close to him and says as much so Fanboy decides that it's time for brainwashing. He starts subtle by using Emotion control to induce a deep feeling of regret in Mrs Brown but that's as far as he gets. She breaks down in tears and admits that she still loves Dan but she can't support their five kids AND her husband on her own. She goes on about how the bills are piling up and the bank is seizing the house and her oldest son has pissed off the local street gang. Her problems seem endless but Fanboy has a very direct solution.</p><p></p><p>"Lorraine. Go pick out a house." he says with a shrug.</p><p></p><p>Lorraine stares at him and asks "What?"</p><p></p><p>Fanboy repeats himself. "Lorraine, I want for you and Dan to go pick out a house. On us." he says, slipping her his business card. "Don't go crazy or anything, but get something nice. On me and my associates."</p><p></p><p>Lorraine is flabbergasted, she asks what kind of things her husband is wrapped up in and seems ready to bolt. But Fanboy just flashes that winning smile (he's began beefing up Diplomacy) and assures her that Dan's not done anything wrong. He reveals himself to be the heir to the Hamilton Furniture fortune to ease her worries and says that Dan saved his life once(not a total fabrication, he just doesn't mention that he was blind drunk when he did it) and he just wants to return the favor. Lorraine is literally speechless and Fanboy tells her where to pick up Dan before calling for McCrow to stop '******* around' and leaving before things gets mushy.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Revenge of Tree King</p><p>Things are looking up as they return to the warehouse and they're feeling pretty good about their latest act of philanthropy. Lucky Dan is off picking out houses with his wife, Roger is patching up the warehouse (some little bastard managed to break his skylight! Bugs have been getting in.), Fanboy is putting the finishing touches on his new costume and everyone else is going about their business.</p><p></p><p>Then suddenly Bradley starts shouting for everyone to turn on the T.V. and the day gets shot all to hell.</p><p></p><p>Across every channel is the headline: School Bombing, 35 Confirmed Dead.</p><p></p><p>Everyone's shocked, but while listening to the broadcast Fanboy hears the phrase 'fertilizer bomb' and knows exactly who's responsible (to be fair, he called it the second he heard Parks say 'missing fertilizer') although can't fathom WHY he'd do it.</p><p></p><p>Prophet had already been looking into the details of Mann's discovery and points out that this school was one of the landscaping contracts of the men Tree King murdered. Fanboy scans the list of other contracts and finds other schools, the mayor's office, a courthouse, fire and police stations and of course a metric crapload of work in a local park. A park which Prophet points out is hosting a live televised rally featuring hundreds of people for the Mayor, who just happens to be running on a platform focused on his handling of the tragic Bus Hijacking. A noted sore point for the Tree King.</p><p></p><p>Before they've even left there's been another explosion killing 15 people in a courthouse records office, 'coincidentally' the same records office where a friend and contact of Prophet's worked. Everybody with a phone starts calling places on the list to warn them to evacuate, but the lines are so backed up that only a handful of their warnings make it through. </p><p></p><p>They rush towards the park and Fanboy dials Bradley (the real Bradley) and asks him to reinforce them at the rally. He then dials Parks and demands backup. Parks is still in Washington but promises to have his best man back them up and says he'll do what he can to get through to emergency personnel with their warning. They debate calling in Chavenski, but worry that having his men slaughtered by Tree King by the droves might dissolve the good will they've built up with the surly Russian.</p><p></p><p>They get to the rally after the rally is in full swing and Roger stops at a water fountain in the park while everyone else fans out. McCrow's connection to his powers is faint, but he can feel the water again and that's heartening. He concentrates with all of his might and slowly begins forming Droplets from the fountain, figuring the vicious little bastards will be useful when it hits the fan.</p><p></p><p>Roger strolls the park grounds trying to feel for a water source and eventually finds a sprinkler line that he and the Droplets (sneaking around as mobile puddles) camp out on. Fanboy pushes towards the front as the mayor takes the stage and Tiffany approaches the camera crew.</p><p></p><p>The mayor does a truly inspiring song and dance concerning the city's strength in the face of adversity and particularly embellishes his own part in holding the city together after the unexpected chemical attack. He's just getting to the part where he guarantees that under his opponent's leadership the city would have turned into Thunderdome when a striking figure emerges from the tree line.</p><p></p><p>Tree King slowly approaches the podium slowly clapping, a hollow; disturbing sound without flesh to soften it. "A fine speech Mister Mayor. A fine speech." he says clawing his way up the stage and towering over the terrified politician in all his wooden glory. An eerie silence falls over the crowd as they watch a real life monster take the stage.</p><p></p><p>"I've got one of my own if you don't mind. One that might invalidate a couple of your talking points." Tree King says, far more cordially than the PCs have ever heard him. "You see you're wrong about there being no survivors. I survived. In a manner of speaking."</p><p></p><p>The crowd gasps. ((Fanboy's player is like :smalleek: Parks really isn't gonna like this.))</p><p></p><p>"They tried to lock me away, to be their little science experiment. But I was a man once, with flesh and blood and a beating heart. But I wake up to some ******* in a cheap suit telling me that I'm going away for the rest of my life because I no longer LOOK the part?!" there's murmuring amongst the crowd at this.</p><p></p><p>"I agree, it was unfair. But then, life is unfair." he says with a cold sneer. "And I'm afraid I have some even more disturbing news. Agent Parks wanted a monster, expected a monster and that's what I intend to give him."</p><p></p><p>Looking directly into the cameras Tree King almost seems to smile "You wanted to see what I could do Parks? You want to see what effect the chemicals had on me? Then watch closely. Because I'm no longer a man. No longer bound by your PATHETIC laws." he shouts, the murderous rage seeping through like always.</p><p></p><p>"Get the F***ING camera woman!" Roger shouts out and Tiffany springs into action, slicing through the camera nearest her with a single blow and using a hero point for a second action sends a spray of crystalline shards unerringly through the second camera near the stage.</p><p></p><p>There's another gasp from the crowd and Fanboy steps out, snatching Tree King with his telekinesis and lifting the creature high into the sky, applying considerable pressure and eliciting a number of creaks and cracks as the living wood gives way. </p><p></p><p>"Shut up tree." Fanboy quips with a smirk. "We've done this before and it always ends the same way. You kill a few people, we kill you..."</p><p></p><p>Tree King begins laughing horridly, a raspy sound that carries surprisingly well. "Oh I remember you two. I remember you well. I was hoping you would show up, because I wanted to thank you in person."</p><p></p><p>Fanboy squeezes harder and the crowd parts as Roger and Tiffany move to stand with him. "Thank us?" Fanboy asks confused.</p><p></p><p>"If it wasn't for you, and the axe of course, I never would have realized the true extent of my power. You see I thought that I was nothing but sovereign of...plants." Tree King sneers with disgust. "But you boys, you boys have given me SONS to rule."</p><p></p><p>At his proclamation I pull back the fog of war of the park area and reveal close to 30 identical Tree Kings sauntering towards them from the heavy tree line and a single monstrously large version coming up the center. All of the players give a collective 'Oh sh**."</p><p></p><p>Initiative is rolled and the Tree Kings go first. The massive version charges into the crowd and just begins eviscerating everything he can lay claws on. People begin panicking but the regular sized Tree Kings have the entire perimeter surrounded so there's nowhere to go. The army of Tree Kings open up their bulbs and release a massive cloud of spores which Fanboy/Roger narrowly avoid, Tiffany is immune to and a few dozen civilians choke to death on. Fanboy hurls his immobile Tree King into the larger one, killing the one he held but barely scratching the large one. Roger focuses his energy and all of the sprinklers within range explode upwards in mini-geysers. Tiffany leaps forwards and punches directly through one of the Tree King clones.</p><p></p><p>It continues like this for a few rounds, the Tree Kings are resilient and vicious and they seem to ignore the heroes in favor of murdering as many innocent civilians as they can get their hands on. This isn't subtle, it's a direct message: I can kill who I want and nobody can stop me.</p><p></p><p>Roger begins flooding the area, knocking Tree Kings down and smothering their spores, his Droplets have climbed the large Tree King like he's one of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus" target="_blank">Colossi</a> and after a few rounds of gnawing like the crazed monsters they are eventually brings him down. Tiffany is hacking her way through one Tree King at a time while Fanboy is picking up groups of them and throwing them at other groups of them, although as tough as the bastards are that's mostly just slowing them down.</p><p></p><p>They're starting to feel a little overwhelmed when suddenly there's a volley of gunshots and 10 men in button down shirts and ski masks wielding 9mm pistols advance into the park. The bullets don't do much against the living trees but one or two are brought down by the sheer volume. Fanboy laughs and welcomes 'Duplex' to the party.</p><p></p><p>The Tree Kings are getting more aggressive and Fanboy and Roger are having to burn hero points to keep from succumbing to the spores in the air. Well over half the tree clones (all the ones to the east) are dead and the heroes position themselves between the remaining Tree Kings and the civilians. Bradley's clones are throwing themselves into the fray as fast as he can generate them but while the Bradleys are fearless(they know that so long as one of them survives, they all kinda do) the Tree Kings are downright suicidal, like they enjoy showing what they're willing to give to take just one more life.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy switches tactics and focuses on crushing one of them at a time and Tiffany covers her hands in lighter fluid soaked rags to make being in melee range with her even more unpleasant. Roger of course has no sense of moderation so it can always be assumed that if I don't mention otherwise then he's using a water-powered Kamehameha to hose down one tree after another.</p><p></p><p>There's a scant handful left by the time a well dressed man with dark shades and a receding hairline steps onto the field firing a .45 at anything that looks at him funny. He seems to be shouting to himself to check for survivors, but miraculously a few of the injured begin to stir and pick themselves up.</p><p></p><p>"This is the best Parks can send?" Fanboy asks with a snort. "A schizo with a peashooter? No wonder he keeps his hand hidden."</p><p></p><p>If Agent Mann heard him or cared he doesn't show it and just keeps executing trees, one of the Tree King charges in an attempt to tear him apart but stops about 10ft away like it hit an invisible wall and rots like a time lapse video. He barks that he doesn't need a babysitter, when he says check on survivors he means NOW!</p><p></p><p>It doesn't take but a few more rounds to finish up the remainder of the murderous clones and survey the area. The death toll is estimated to be at least 90 with more than half that still on the fence. The heroes meet up near the stage and Mann seems to be distressed and speaking into his earpiece.</p><p></p><p>"This was ANOTHER damned diversion." he shouts, motioning for the PCs to follow him. "The REAL Tree King is at The Hole RIGHT NOW."</p><p></p><p>Fanboy holds up a hand "Wait, wait, wait. I need to mindwipe these people before we go anywhere."</p><p></p><p>Mann curses. "There's no time! The three of you get there and subdue him, I'll secure this area with Yurtz and tend to the wounded until you're back."</p><p></p><p>Fanboy doesn't like this at all. "I don't know how far back my mindwipe can go, if I don't do it NOW it might not take!"</p><p></p><p>Mann shouts back at him "There are TWO HUNDRED people here, by the time you're done Tree King will have killed every man in the Hole and did God knows what with our facilities. Not to mention the fact that the ENTIRE city just heard that they've been lied to about a major terrorist attack from the mouth of literal monster. I give this twenty minutes before its plastered on Youtube, so discretion is a secondary concern now."</p><p></p><p>Fanboy looks like he's about argue more, but Roger half carries the telepath in a mad rush for the car. "No time dammit, we need to move if we don't want him to get away."</p><p></p><p>The three PCs pile into the car and Roger drives (he's got the highest driving skill since he has a +1 Dexterity modifier, it's kinda sad) as fast as he can manage across town. Several times he gets stuck in traffic and by the time he arrives The Hole is completely silent.</p><p></p><p>They poke around and discover Parks' last six men have already been murdered. Deep claw marks have shredded several hazard suits and the men within them. The rest are bloated and look to have choked to death, their throats swelled to the point of bursting by what looks like fibrous roots.</p><p></p><p>Roger curses and strikes the walls, vibrating with rage. Fanboy looks around and finds that Johnny and some ill tempered hairy guy are still in their cells, however to everyone's horror the floor of Brick's cell is missing, along with the invincible superhuman it housed.</p><p></p><p>Just when it looked like things couldn't get worse, the Tree King has found a terrifying new ally in his war against the world.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Cleanup</p><p>We start off by retconning Tiffany a bit: basically when McCrow and Fanboy went to the The Hole to interrupt Tree King she stayed behind to secure the area with Mann, Stardust and Bradley. </p><p></p><p>They do what they can to look after the survivors and find about 120 living people among the devestation of the rally, the mayor is among the survivors. Mann has paramedics/police quarantine the survivors 'for their own protection' until Parks can decide how to handle this situation and gets to work with Tiffany and Bradley gathering up the splinters of Tree King into a growing bonfire in the park. Tiffany gets it into her head that the bodies of the victims need to be burned as well as the splinters to keep Tree King from coming back (Maybe she's expecting plant zombies? May steal this...), but Mann won't hear of it. </p><p></p><p>She tells him that he's being ridiculous and sentimental. He points out that in lieu of Parks he's the authority on superhuman activity on the East Coast and that he WILL NOT deny people the chance to bury their dead. Tiffany says that she's not taking any chances and tries to blindside him, however Mann is unbelievably fast on the draw and puts a bullet in her chest before she even gets a chance to assume diamond form. She falls to one knee and spits blood, too stunned to move. Mann puts another bullet into the side of her head and Tiffany collapses into a bloody, unmoving heap.</p><p></p><p>Mann keys his earpiece and tells Stardust that he's got a superhuman in need of medical assistance. So while the former stripper attempts to save Tiffany's life Mann goes back to business as usual and surprisingly manages to find every scrap of Tree King left in the park.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Tracking</p><p>Tiffany wakes up in the car with Mann just before he stops at The Hole. He casually explains that she tok an aggressive position against him and he had to put her down. He warns that she won't be getting up next time. She asks why he brought her along if he doesn't trust her and he points out that he needs muscle on this job and Stardust is busy tending survivors.</p><p></p><p>They pull into The Hole and enter nervously, though the place seems deserted; if Fanboy or McCrow found anything they haven't shared it. They notice that the place is trashed, but more as an afterthought than anything. Johnny on the Spot and the unidentified beastman are still locked in their cells, however Mann notices to his horror that Brick is missing and his cell is torn to pieces.</p><p></p><p>He curses profusely and explains to a smirking Tiffany that of all the superhumans he's encountered Brick is one of the most dangerous by virtue of the fact that you just can't hurt him. She flexes a diamond covered arm before returning it to normal and asks "Oh really?"</p><p></p><p>Mann just says that he hopes for all their sake that he's wrong.</p><p></p><p>They search the place top to bottom and find considerable damage and bodies everywhere. Men in hazard suits have been shredded by wooden claws, the rest simply suffocated from Tree King's horrific spores. Mann also notices that the Tree Clone brought in by him and Stardust has disappeared along with all of the splinters recovered from the scene.</p><p></p><p>With a growing sense of urgency Mann and Tiffany question Johnny and while the former gangster isn't happy about cooperating with his captors he points out that Tree King came in along with a couple of clones with tools, murdered everyone and tore up the floor of Brick's cell to free the berserk rockman, haphazardly wrecked the place and then took off.</p><p></p><p>They search outside and Mann discovers tire tracks that look like they belong to to a van. Tiffany points out that a security camera probably picked it up and they go inside to track down the footage. They scan through it and sure enough they find a delivery fan parked against the side of the building with the name 'Green's Nurseries' printed on it.</p><p></p><p>It takes almost no time for Mann to get an address from local authorities along with a tip that the owner has been reported missing for almost a week. When they finally show up they find a fairly large enclosed area with 15 greenhouses divided into 3 lines of 5 and a quick search of the area turns up their target.</p><p></p><p>The center greenhouse is empty, all of the plants tore up; the equipment missing; only a handful of bags of fertilizer and plant food to suggest something used to be here. Mann points out that this must be where they grew the clones. Looking at the area he points out that they must have moved on once Tree King got what he wanted; not wanting to risk prolonged exposure here.</p><p></p><p>Mann calls up Parks and asks for a team to secure this area until they can make sure it's actually of no use to them and Parks tells him that it'll be another two hours until he touches down and asks Mann and Tiffany to keep an eye out until he arrives with the new team.</p><p></p><p>For an hour they look the area over in case they've missed a crucial clue and then suddenly the delivery van appears again, so weighted down that it nearly drags the ground. Driving it in a poorly conceived disguise is one of the Tree Clones; heavily pruned and in clothing. As it comes to a stop Brick steps out and the sudden release of weight causes the whole van to bounce visibly and violently. If Brick notices the PCs he doesn't seem to care and goes about his business, opening up one of the untouched greenhouses and walking inside.</p><p></p><p>Mann and Tiffany stare at each other for a moment before Mann motions towards the greenhouse and whispers that Tiffany should handle Brick while he gets the tree. She's spoiling for a fight and agrees.</p><p></p><p>Brick is picking over the contents of the greenhouse when the eastern wall explodes in a flashy display of force and Tiffany leaps in in full diamond form, she brings both arms down in a savage power attack and...accomplishes nothing. Her blow is powerful, yes, but barely manages to scratch his powerful exterior, let alone leaving any lasting damage.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany's eyes widen in alarm and Brick's face scrunches into a look of irritation.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile: Mann sneaks up on the Tree Clone, pistol drawn and raises the gun threateningly. "Homeland security! You've got one chance to make it out of this alive!"</p><p></p><p>The Tree Clone hisses and reaches for the door, its head explodes in a shower of splinters and sap and it collapses against the side of the door quietly.</p><p></p><p>"I told you." Mann says, narrowing his eyes and searching over the van.</p><p></p><p>Back in the action: Brick throws a massive haymaker but fails to make contact with Tiffany who counters the blow with a pair of her own, neither of which manages to dent the monster.</p><p></p><p>Agent Mann hears the commotion inside and calls Parks, all but demanding some form of assistance. Parks explains that he's in the air with the team and there's nothing he can do, however he'll make a call to a few policemen he thinks he can trust and promises backup within ten minutes. Mann's not happy since ten minutes might as well be ten years with this creature, but decides to do what he can to slow Brick down until help can arrive.</p><p></p><p>When he pokes his head into the greenhouse he sees Tiffany and Brick exchanging blows like titans, Tiffany's blows rain down on Brick harmlessly while the hulking brute's massive attacks are easily dodged by the much nimbler superlady. Mann opens fire from the broken wall and his bullets are similarly ineffective against the invincible Brick.</p><p></p><p>Brick however doesn't feel very invincible with attacks coming in from every angle and decides that he's had enough of this, he charges through the greenhouse and snatches a hydroponic growing system in both hands, tearing it out of its fixtures to carry it back to his partner in crime. Tiffany attacks Brick's legs, trying to slow him down; however there's no part of him that's a soft target. Mann has a different idea and opens fire on the hydroponic system itself, rendering it completely unusable.</p><p></p><p>Brick stares at his shattered trophy for a moment and with a roar of irritation hurls it directly at Mann. Now he's no more accurate at range than he is up close, however I rolled a pair of 20s and to Mann's horror he's flung about 20ft back by the wreckage and left a bloody, mangled wreck himself. Brick charges out of one greenhouse and into another to steal his prize from there, however Mann buys off his stun and opens fire (at a significant penalty for firing at something he can't see and just assumes is there) and actually manages to riddle a second hydroponic system with bullets, much to Brick's growing irritation.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany and Brick get into another melee while Agent Mann pulls himself free and as he does he notices that several bloody ribs are poking through his suit and blood is pooling around him with every step. With a half-hearted effort Mann pushes a rib back into place with a grunt, but decides that it's of secondary importance to actually catching Brick and starts shuffling forward on unsteady feet.</p><p></p><p>Brick realizes he's not going to find what he's looking for here and bolts past Tiffany towards the van, unaware that his ride is no longer alive; however Tiffany is faster and just barely manages to beat the hulking brute to the parking lot. Brick and Tiffany eyeball each other for a moment and both lunge towards the van, Tiffany manages to hoist the vehicle over her head and send it crashing directly into Brick's unprepared face with enough force to cause a fiery explosion that consumes a good portion of the parking lot. (Just barely enough damage to cause him an injury and stun.)</p><p></p><p>Mann is still near the greenhouses, but is within shouting range of the now smoking Brick. "Here's how this is going to go 'Brick', you're going to lay down with your hands up and wait for a security detail to get here. In exchange for your cooperation I won't kill you where you stand." (he fails the intimidate roll)</p><p></p><p>Rage flashes through Brick's mind and I buy off his stun, giving each PC a hero point and having him stand with the flaming wreckage held above his head. He hurls it towards Tiffany, knocking her back almost 30ft; partially cracking her diamond form and stunning her temporarily. (Mann's player points out that this is absolutely terrifying from his pov.) "I've got a counter proposal." Brick says through clenched teeth. "The two of you leave and let me get what I'm here for and I don't pull out your skulls through your open mouths." (Brick it should be noted, does not fail.)</p><p></p><p>Mann starts to limp away, firing over his shoulder and Brick breaks into a sprint towards him; charging like a raging bull. At the last second Mann uses a hero point to find a fuel tank for the greenhouse's gas generators and fires into it, letting a second explosion tear through Brick and send the rock man staggering back a couple of feet.</p><p></p><p>With a shake of his head Brick decides that this is pointless and sprints off full speed away from the heroes. Mann knows he can't keep up so he limps towards his car while Tiffany chases Brick down, spraying crystalline shards into Brick's exposed back but not even slowing the big man down. Mann swings by to pick Tiffany up and the two of them pick up Brick's trail pretty easily, however when they pursue on foot they find that it's hard to follow an inexhaustible colossus who doesn't care about civilian casualties. Mann and Tiffany split up to cut him off, but Mann can barely stand and I point out that a stiff breeze could kill him at the moment.</p><p></p><p>His player gets into character and kind of smiles "I know, but I can't him hurt anyone else. I don't mind dying, but I won't let him go. I've gotta hold him until Parks gets here."</p><p></p><p>It was a great moment, but the reality was less inspiring. He fell behind due to Brick's breakneck pace and after Brick stopped running through every wall in his way Mann had an increasingly harder time tracking him and eventually passed out from his injuries. Tiffany carried him back to the greenhouse just in time to meet Parks and their new team.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Deadly Force Authorized</p><p> Parks has Stardust heal Mann's injuries while the new DHS team sweeps the area. 32 large men in black body armor sporting fully automatic weapons and grim faces along with a motley assortment of 10 dogs. Tiffany attempts to play with them, but they're well trained and the only one to give her the time of day is a gangly mutt referred to as Lycaon. </p><p></p><p>Parks openly explains that the men have been trained to deal with their kind of problems and that the dogs are meant to handle what the men can't. Mann seems skeptical but Parks asks "Remember the last...batch? Well these dogs predate <em>them</em>. Only they obey orders."</p><p></p><p>Mann scowls and voices his opinion that if they've got anything in common with the mutants they should just be euthanized to save everyone trouble but Parks suggests taking one of the dogs with them to see their value. Tiffany suggests taking Lycaon and the dog lowers its ears as Parks agrees. Telepathically they hear "These people? I was hoping for a higher priority assignment."</p><p></p><p>The PCs are shocked to hear the thing talk and Tiffany is a bit offended that it doesn't want to be assigned to them after its friendly display. Parks explains that Lycaon's particular mutation gives him human intelligence and a limited form of telepathy that allows him to communicate (I nearly called him <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072730/" target="_blank">Blood</a> but decided against it) but nothing that can be used offensively; he's primarily used for intelligence gathering since nobody gives a second look to a mutt.</p><p></p><p>While Tiffany and Lycaon get better acquainted, Parks pulls Mann to the side and tells him that after Tree King outed him in front of half the world (the video went viral as only a video of a tree monster murdering an entire crowd of people can) his career may very well be over. Mann doesn't want to hear it but Parks waves him off and says that if the DHS decides to pull him from the superhumans that Mann himself will be the one to take his place, he warns Mann that if that happens he'll need to utilize the 'assets' at their disposal instead of just tossing them aside. Man lets it be known that as much as he respects Parks he'll still execute every mutant in the city the second it's within his authority to do so. Mann reiterates that he'd rather Parks keep the position than to be forced behind a desk himself.</p><p></p><p>Parks suggests that they need to show the DHS that they're making progress in Ventnor if he's going to keep his job and directs Mann and Tiffany to the operation of a Sergei Reschkov, one of Chavenski's lieutenants and one of many to clamor for the injured Russian's position after his encounter with Depaliamo's .44 Magnum. Parks tells Mann that he's authorizing an official raid, but wants Mann to use superhuman assistance to prove their value overall.</p><p></p><p>Mann and Tiffany requisition an armored car and megaphone and drive to the docks, where Reschkov is in the process of selling captured Italian women overseas. Tiffany and Lycaon sneak to the back of the warehouse while Mann parks the armored car out front and loudly calls for their unconditional surrender.</p><p></p><p>The Russian gangsters start gravitating towards the front of the warehouse as Man details the nature of their crimes for the world to hear and promises that acts of foreign aggression against US citizens will be met with deadly force. He points out that he was trained by the U.S. government, authorized by Homeland Security and granted the chance by God to put a warehouse full of Russian sex-slavers six feet in the ground and that he's not about to disappoint ANY of those people. (Basically milking his intimidate skill for all its worth and channeling it through his blind patriotism.)</p><p></p><p>While everyone's distracted (rightly so) Lycaon (under the control of Tiffany's player) begins sneaking girls out through the back by acting like his telepathic voice is coming from his collar and Tiffany herself sneaks up to the backs of the guards. Mann and the Russians are exchanging fire when suddenly the warehouse becomes Hell on earth.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany turns into a swirling dervish, turning grown men into screaming piles of flesh and cackling as the hail of gunfire simply bounces off her nearly impenetrable skin. I won't go into the gory details but it started out with nearly 30 men in the warehouse, she murders them as fast as she can lay hands on them; pulling out spines, severing limbs and generally reveling in the bloodshed. The gunshots give way to panicked screams as the terrified Russians try to flee, only to first have their escape cut off; followed by their heads.</p><p></p><p>Mann barges in to see what the commotion is and can barely make Tiffany out for the gore that covers her head to toe. He shoots one of the fleeing Russians in the knee to take at least one prisoner out of this mess and has throw himself in front of Tiffany to keep her from torturing the man to death.</p><p></p><p>He draws his heavy .45 and warns her to step away, but after the hail of bullets that failed to harm her she simply starts laughing, a lilting and frightening sound and starts to lunge forward. Mann manages to act first and fires directly into her face point blank with everything he's got, barely managing to make a scratch but succeeding in stunning her for a moment. A moment that he uses to snatch the injured Russian and drag him to the waiting car.</p><p></p><p>She tries to give chase but Mann just barely manages to peel out and down the street before she can claim her prize. Mann calls Parks to tell him that the girls are safe and that Tiffany is a monster, he suggests a minimum sentence of life in The Hole but would prefer to see the woman executed for her constant disregard for human life.</p><p></p><p>When Parks and Mann shows up later with a handful of men and two dogs they just stare at the grisly sight that meets them.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany has built a bonfire taller than she is filled with the burning bodies of the slain Russians and all of the girls who had died during the fighting. She's in her human form but still covered in the innards of the men she's killed and smiling. Ear to ear, she's smiling.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Epilogue, Old Friends</p><p>Parks and Mann sit across from each other in Parks new office in the third Hole. They sit in tense silence for several long moments and Parks finally says "Mann...times are getting desperate. You know the same as I do that desperate times, call for desperate measures..."</p><p></p><p>Mann raises an eyebrow "Just how desperate sir?"</p><p></p><p>"I think we need Michael Stockton." Parks says with a sigh of defeat.</p><p></p><p>"No. Sir, no! If you've ever respected my opinion then take it now, we DO NOT need Stockton. He's a monster.A f***ing devil in a mansuit. The LAST THING we need is Michael Stockton." Mann nearly shouts at his superior.</p><p></p><p>"I know...I know he is Mann. But look at what we're left with at the moment. You know him better than anyone, is he really worse than this?" Parks asks.</p><p></p><p>Mann thinks for a moment. He thinks of the sound of Tiffany's laugh as she's covered in the gore of her victims and faces him down. He thinks of the bloated faces of Tree King's victim trapped in The Hole. He pictures all of the waterlogged and mangled bodies they've recovered from their supposed 'heroes'. He thinks of Brick hurling the flaming remains of a truck that failed to do more than knock him down and shudders.</p><p></p><p>"Much worse sir. Much worse."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We flash back to five years ago in the mountains of Afghanistan. A younger, less battle hardened Mann and a fellow Army Ranger by the name of Michael Stockton are slinking through the mountains breathlessly. They're the last survivors of their unit , the rest having been picked off seemingly an eternity ago. They're wounded, underequipped and a long way from home when Mann suddenly spots about a dozen enemy combatants hovering around a covered troop transport.</p><p></p><p>The weary soldiers decide that this might just be their way home and split up to attack the distracted Taliban from both sides. </p><p></p><p>As Mann is making his way down the mountain however, he loses his footing and takes a tumble along with the rocks underfoot. He luckily lands behind a large rock, so the dozen assault rifles that bark in his direction mercifully miss him. Michael uses this opportunity to snatch one of the enemy soldiers by the throat and snaps his neck silently. Mann returns fire and manages to take out another of the soldiers.</p><p></p><p>Michael opens fire into the backs of the distracted soldiers and kills several himself, however misses the soldier lounging behind the truck who takes this opportunity to pop out and shoot him with what sounds like a Dari curse. Michael collapses onto the ground in a pool of his rapidly pooling blood.</p><p></p><p>Mann sees his friend go down and leaps his cover, opening fire with a full-auto burst and then using a hero point to use a second full-auto burst to mow down Taliban in his way. He charges across the distance between him and Michael rapidly, causing the man who shot Stockton to open fire on Mann instead of finishing off the wounded Ranger.</p><p></p><p>Mann fires again and takes down Stockton's assailant, before using extra effort to blow through the remaining forces. Meanwhile, Michael discovers to his growing horror that his legs don't work. He can't move, he can't even twitch them and as Mann helps him up and drags him to the transport, Michael unloads his rifle into the corpse of the man who did this to him screaming about how the son of a bitch turned him into a cripple.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Present day. McCrow and Fanboy are standing in The Hole, gawking at the state they've found it in. Fanboy's the first to point out that it's too late for them to do anything, they need to return to the park and start mind raping the survivors if they want to keep this quiet.</p><p></p><p>By the time they get back to the park Agent Mann has already disappeared along with Tiffany, there's a massive bonfire already in progress and Bradley runs up excitedly. "You won't believe it. That Mann guy shot Tiffany in the head and loaded her into his car." the teen says. "Then he loaded all the survivors into quarantine and took off."</p><p></p><p>McCrow and Fanboy exchange glances because this seems like something that can escalate quickly, but Fanboy is glad to hear that everyone is still in one place. It doesn't take Fanboy long to trick his way into quarantine and begin wiping memories; however to his dismay only about half of them are affected.</p><p></p><p>They discuss what to do and McCrow asks if they have room for 60 people but Fanboy decides to try and discredit them instead. They decide to introduce themselves to the Mayor, but he had a front row seat to the whole thing and recognizes them immediately. </p><p></p><p>He starts to voice his appreciation for saving his life when Roger blindsides him, pins him against the wall and growls. "You've seen what we can do firsthand, so when we speak you listen." he threatens and the Mayor agrees frantically. "This is bigger than you and your city, bigger than your constituents. Forget re-election, if you want to SURVIVE what you've seen you're going to do what we say."</p><p></p><p>Fanboy steps in and mentions that they're still the good guys in this, that McCrow is overzealous but they're definitely not threatening anybody. They've just seen what happens to whistle blowers and need to stress the importance of discretion.</p><p></p><p>Roger likes the way that sounds and acts like it's what he meant.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy stresses that things are changing and that if the Mayor works with them he'll make sure the world will remember him as having a hand in it. The Mayor asks what they want from him and Fanboy has two demands: </p><p></p><p>The first is that the Mayor is to hold a press conference and stress the lives saved by this group of mystery men instead of the massive death toll, as well as to denounce the evil Parks and Recreation department that gave birth to this horrible tree monster. (It took me a minute to process, but thought it was a hilarious gambit so I let them run with it.)</p><p></p><p>The second is that if it comes down to it; he'll personally host their televised 'coming out party.</p><p></p><p>The mayor agrees and Roger releases him with a smile. They tell the Mayor that they'll be in touch and remind him to make them look good and to downplay the 'not human' and 'government conspiracy' angle.</p><p></p><p>As they're leaving their 'meeting' with the Mayor they're stopped by Bradley with a handheld radio. He explains that although it's only been a couple of hours since the attack, the stuff has went viral thanks in no small part to the presence of a tree monster denouncing the American government and then fifteen minutes worth of action packed audio where a group unidentified strangers stepped out of the crowd to save the day.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy excitedly asks if they've got a fan page yet and Bradley turns up the radio. "Not quite, but there's lots of people that are calling in about you."</p><p></p><p>They listen with a mixture of pride and terror as they listen to a police officer who says he was possessed by something and forced to run over a teenager (Bradley laughs at this one, remembering it fondly) and lost his job after his partner testified against him. They listen as an anonymous nurse says that several of her friends were murdered by the tree monster but two supposedly comatose strangers leapt to her rescue at the last second and if that wasn't enough, they brought down another superhuman rampage only a week later. Another girl calls in claiming that a young man carried her away from the creature calling itself Tree King while a creature made of water did battle with it.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy finally turns the radio off and points out that it probably would have been a good idea for them to have invested in a mask at one point. Bradley/Duplex resists the urge to gloat.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The PCs call Parks up just in case he somehow doesn't know what's going on and he cuts them off by saying he knows what's going on. Or at least he hopes that's all there is to it, he really doesn't need more on his plate. They ask what the worse he's heard so far is and he points out that that'd probably be the part where he was CALLED OUT BY NAME as the reason behind a tree just killing 300 people and burning down half the city.</p><p></p><p>Fanboys says that that's what he thought his least favorite part would be...</p><p></p><p>Parks sounds like he's had the fight beat out of him and he tells Fanboy that his career is over. His decision not to immediately ship off everyone affected by the bus was already controversial one; but with it spiraling out of control like this he'll be lucky if he escapes jail time.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy tries to ease his mind by saying that they're attempting to put the blame on Parks and Recreation since it's easy to see why a tree man would have something to do with them and Parks is dumbstruck, but thankful. He says that it might not make much difference, but McCrow and Fanboy need to get a lawyer; if Agent Mann is promoted they'll all be targets.</p><p></p><p>Once they hang up Roger calls up Chavenski and makes some idle banter about how the Russian crime lord is doing. Chavenski is on his last legs, but being the eternal hardass he doesn't complain. Roger eventually gets around to asking if Chavenski knows any lawyers and the Russian excuses himself to look through his address book, returning in a moment with a name: Brian Weisner, a constitutional law specialist. They thank the Russian and ask if there's anything they can do in return; Chavenski says that he's heard the talk around the warehouse about Luvless and he wants to meet the guy because he believes it may be his only chance to be whole again. They say that they'll do what they can and go to meet their lawyer.</p><p></p><p>Weisner's firm is one of the most prestigious in the city but when hears that Chavenski sent the PCs he throws a client out to avoid angering the city's most powerful and brutal crime boss. Weisner is a short, pudgy man in a $8,000 suit and immediately sets about trying to earn his fee. He asks the PCs why they're looking for protection from the government and they want to make sure anything that they say is confidential.</p><p></p><p>Weisner laughs and says that he's worked with Chavenski before and has seen the bodies buried, he's not interested in being one of them. Roger's a little disappointed that he doesn't get to play Bad Cop (to Fanboy's confused bystander) and decides to showcase his powers to expedite things. He blows up a water glass to Weisner's surprise. Fanboy's eyes glow and he lifts himself and the pudgy lawyer off the ground with his telekinesis, but stops when the guy nearly has a panic attack.</p><p></p><p>They explain everything that's happened since the bus and that their contact at the DHS believes they may be about to be imprisoned. Weisner listens intently but finally says that there's not much he can do considering they're literally walking WMDs and that they definitely fall under the perimeters of indefinite detention as outlined in the Defense Authorization Act.</p><p></p><p>They're disappointed but he tells them that there are two ways he can see this going down in their favor: Strengthen their ties to the DHS and make themselves invaluable or become too public to take down without massive public backlash.</p><p></p><p>Roger and Fanboy whisper that there's a third option, continue gathering up superhumans until they're just too powerful for the DHS to take down. However in the meantime both PCs want to take opposite paths.</p><p></p><p>McCrow doesn't want to be held accountable for his actions by adopting a public persona, but Fanboy wants fame more than anything. They agree to explore all of their options for now, but Fanboy wants to take it a step further and asks Brian if he can get them in touch with a Public Relations guru to help soften their image. Weisner's never had much need for a PR guy, but tells them he'll ask around and see what he can dig up.</p><p></p><p>Before they go they're told that they need some way to explain their growing fortune and they suggest setting up a shipping business to hide their activities on the docks and launder their stolen money. They give him a little more than a hundred thousand dollars to fill out the right paperwork and set something concrete up.</p><p></p><p>Leaving the law office they decide that they definitely need to do something to improve their image, so they sit down to come up with somebody they know with the public's ear and that's when Roger snaps his fingers. "That reporter lady that we saved!"</p><p></p><p>Fanboy perks up too but isn't sure if he can undo the memory wipe. Regardless, they decide that she's their best chance and head to the paper where she works to see if they can trust her.</p><p></p><p>They find Elizabeth Ingles in a cubical typing up what's left of her story on organized crime and just as she asks what the hell they want, Fanboy grabs her head and manages to unlock the memories he buried. They're fuzzy and distant like they've been there the entire time, but the act of rewriting her brain leaves Elizabeth dazed and they use this opportunity to drag her into an empty room.</p><p></p><p>"I..I remember you guys. You saved me at Floyd's." she half murmurs, coming out of her fog.</p><p></p><p>"That's us." McCrow says with a smug grin, "And now we've come to give you the story of a lifetime."</p><p></p><p>Elizabeth shakes her head "There's no point. Depaliamo is dead so the story's dead and since I'm not interested in being found in a ditch without any hands, I'm not pursuing the Russian angle."</p><p></p><p>Fanboy shakes his head "No, bigger than that. Way bigger. WE were the heroes at the rally and we're in the center of a massive government conspiracy."</p><p></p><p>Ingles is more than a little shocked and Fanboy asks if it never occurred to her to wonder how they took out an armed gang by themselves. She only remembers a nearly naked McCrow storming in with a bloody bat and demanding to know who she worked for.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy smiles and lifts up a table and several chairs and has them dance around the room before setting them back down gracefully. She gawks in amazement and then looks at Roger. "What can you do?"</p><p></p><p>Roger shakes his head "My power is messy trust me. If you want to keep the plumbing in your building you'll just have to take my word for it."</p><p></p><p>Me and Fanboy's player burst out laughing at this and it takes Roger's player a minute to realize how that sounds and then he decides that McCrow doesn't care, he's not some dancing monkey to use his powers on cue.</p><p></p><p>She settles down to hear their story and Fanboy laughs, saying that first he has some terms. She says that she'll have to hear them first and Roger explodes that it doesn't matter what their terms are, this isn't a negotiation. If she opens her mouth without their consent she'll be lucky if the men in dark suits are the first to get her and if she doesn't want the story there's fifty other people in THIS building alone that'd be willing to get on their knees and beg for it. She's shocked into silence and agrees to their terms unconditionally, not wanting her big break to get away.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy tells her to get in touch with the Mayor and tell him that she's a mutual friend, he orders Ingles spin their story until people forget that people even died today (let alone three times as many as were actively saved) and to stress that the mystery heroes are the only reason the city's still standing. He points out that she'll be the only person allowed an exclusive so her story will have more weight than anything else out there. He tells her that once she does this they'll be in touch with the rest of the details, but that if she betrays them in the mean time she won't see them coming.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Flashback to 3 years ago. Agent Mann has only been working for the Department of Homeland Security for six months but he's already considered a rising star and been assigned under Senior Agent Parks. He's been called into his superior's office and wastes no time showing up.</p><p></p><p>To Mann's surprise and shock Michael Stockton is standing with Parks and smiles broadly when he sees his old friend.</p><p></p><p>"You...can walk? I thought you..." Mann starts, and just shakes his head; shaking Stockton's hand and just deciding to be happy to see an old friend walk again.</p><p></p><p>"They fixed me up." Stockton explains "Some experimental procedure meant to get me back to kicking ass and taking names. Look, they even gave me a name taking book." he says with a laugh.</p><p></p><p>The two men chat for a moment before remembering why they're here and Parks explains that due to their previous relationship it makes sense to partner them up. Parks tells Mann to show the newly hired Michael the ropes and gives them a dossier on missing fugitive Behnam Sajadi, usually known by his alias Ben Snow, a notorious conman who's suspected of selling state secrets.</p><p></p><p>Behnam's father is an Imam at a New York Mosque and Mann thinks it would be prudent to ask if Imam Sajadi has seen or heard from his son, so they set out; still reminiscing.</p><p></p><p>Once they arrive at their destination they discover that there's a small service in progress and Mann suggests sitting in the back until things wrap up. Michael however shouts that they need to sit down, shut up and answer some questions. Mann stares at him with a pained expression like he'd just been struck, he can't believe how unprofessional Stockton is.</p><p></p><p>The older man leading the service looks similarly shocked and asks what this is about. Stockton says that they're there for his peace of s*** kid and he needs to turn him over. Now.</p><p></p><p>The old Imam accuses Stockton of blasphemy and nearly stumbles over himself in his rush to meet Michael and Mann in the aisle and demand the two leave. Michael flashes his badge and says that they're not leaving until they get what they're after; the old man starts to physically push Michael and the former Ranger responds by wrenching his wrist and nearly dislocating the man's arm. The old man shouts in surprise and repeats the Dari curse that Michael's assailant so many years ago uttered, Stockton nearly goes limp and his eyes seem to lose focus.</p><p></p><p>Everybody stares in shock and horror for a moment before a look of absolute rage flashes through Michael's face and he flips the old man savagely, the sickening crunch accompanying the blow telling Mann without having to look that the Imam is dead. "Michael...what the hell did you do?" Mann shouts.</p><p></p><p>Two men rush to the aid of their spiritual leader and Michael responds by punching one in the throat, removing a boot knife and sticking the second one in the chest. Mann grabs Michael's arm and attempts to wrench the knife from his grasp, but Michael has the same training as Mann and switches hands nimbly, and elbows Mann in the face; knocking him down and stunning him.</p><p></p><p>Stockton leaps amid the terrified congregation and easily puts down the men who try to wrestle him to the ground so that their families might escape. Mann stumbles to his feet shouting for Stockton to stand down and puts a bullet into the head of his longtime friend to stop his unprovoked rampage. Mann stands over the corpse of his friend and the remaining congregation seems to calm down, until the bullet pushes itself out of Michael's skull to Mann's dismay and Stockton lashes out with a powerful kick that breaks Mann's leg.</p><p></p><p>Mann goes to his knee screaming and Michael hurls his knife into the back of a fleeing girl, no more than twelve before delivering another kick to his former friend's chest that sends Mann backwards, blocking off the door.</p><p></p><p>While Mann is stunned he watches in horror as Michael draws his sidearm and begins firing into the crowd. As the screams become quieter and quieter Michael's rage seems to dissipate and he seems genuinely confused, he glances around like he doesn't know where he's at. He turns around and starts to ask what happened to Mann when a bullet tears through his skull and lays him out flat.</p><p></p><p>With only a handful of survivors sobbing and huddled over the bodies of their slain, Mann barely stands over the body of his twice dead partner and watches as the wound begins closing once again. Filled with disgust and rage he raises his pistol and opens fire into the corpse of his former friend again. And again, and again.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Present day. McCrow and Fanboy find themselves in the office of Marcus Finch, supposedly the best PR guy in the business. He's a tall redhaired man in an expensive navy blue suit and a reptilian grin. Weisner got the guy's name through a friend of a friend.</p><p></p><p>Marcus asks the pair what they need his help with and Fanboy responds by raising himself into the air telekinetically.</p><p></p><p>"Nice trick, but I preferred when David Blaine did it. Seemed more spontaneous." Finch says, lighting up a cigar.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy sighs and lifts Marcus off the ground as well, eliciting raised eyebrow as the PR guy takes a deep drag off his cigar and nods. "Now this I like. We can market this."</p><p></p><p>Fanboy drops Finch and decides to just explain their situation, he listens and nods and seems to take it in stride. Roger points out that Finch really doesn't seem to be very shocked by their existence and Finch respond's with something absolutely horrible that I can't post to the forums because I'm pretty sure it violates like all the rules, it was basically: "Once you *implicates himself in about eight different felonies in a single 2 second act* you sort of change the bar for weird." (If you want to know the exact wording PM me, but I stress that it was horrible and meant to be horrible. So let your imagination run wild.)</p><p></p><p>Both of the PCs are absolutely shocked, Fanboy wants to leave but Roger thinks he's found his hero. He whispers to Fanboy "Look at it this way, instead of being in prison this guy is like the most respected member of his field; that alone says he knows what he's doing." Fanboy concedes and they hear him out.</p><p></p><p>Finch asks what they want out of this relationship and McCrow says that he wants the public to love him; Fanboy says that he wants action figures and endorsement deals. Finch says that he can do that. The 'heroes' pay him $160,000 for an all-out PR campaign and he starts writing out notes.</p><p></p><p>"Way I see it, if you want the public to accept you as heroes you need to get people that they already look up to to speak on your behalf. Do you have a police scanner? Good. Keep an ear out and start responding to as many penny ante crimes as you can, make sure you're visible! For some reason people really dig those fire and rescue guys so get on their good side and you're golden." Finch says helpfully.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy points out that the NDA frowns on that sort of things and Finch explains that they're building a brand, not a face. Just make sure that he wears something easily recognizable and fashionable. Fanboy's already in the middle of putting together such an outfit, so he's ahead of the game.</p><p></p><p>Finch tells them to make some public appearances and then get back to him after he's had some time to work on something. They agree and mention that they've already got the Mayor and an local reporter working on building their image; Finch congratulates them on taking initiative and says that he'll help co-ordinate their efforts from here on out.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Fanboy and Roger return to the warehouse and decide to start planning for their 'coming out party'. They figure they're going to need an overwhelming force to convince the city they're the heroes they envision themselves as (I pointed out that a sentient tree monster attacking a visible politician and his supporters with an army of other tree monsters would have made a great opportunity, and they told me to shut up.) and there's only one man they know with access to that kind of disposable force. Depaliamo.</p><p></p><p>Roger raises Depaliamo's prison from the bottom of the ocean and Fanboy prepares to take over Depaliamo's body himself, however when they open the container the once plump and defiant crime lord is an emaciated shell of his former self. His eyes can't adapt to what little light is in the holding cells after the sun has set and he blinks painfully.</p><p></p><p>Depaliamo breaks down and cries, he apologizes for everything he's done and claims that it was just business. He offers the PCs all of his money, all of his men, even Johnny on the Spot if they'll just let him go. Fanboy laughs and says that he's been out of commission for a while, they've already got his money and Johnny needs a new nickname; unless The Spot is a wheelchair, Johnny isn't on it anymore.</p><p></p><p>Depaliamo breaks down even more and offers do to anything if they'll just turn him over to the authorities. He doesn't want to go free, he doesn't care about power, he just wants to see the sun again.</p><p></p><p>Now I must have done a pretty good job of begging as Depaliamo because Roger's player looks absolutely miserable. He's like 'That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. We broke Depaliamo...'</p><p></p><p>McCrow decides that they'll move Depaliamo upstairs in exchange for a few concessions. Depaliamo will start off in one of the regular cells until he proves his worth; he must turn over all of his contacts and help with actually running their new business. Depaliamo agrees wholeheartedly, going from the most powerful man in the city to nothing more than an indentured accountant. </p><p></p><p>Fanboy points out that if they put Depaliamo in the normal then Richard won't have anyplace safe to train, so they decide to outfit Richard's room with heavy duty insulation and targets to practice with. They both think that sounds like a plan, so they move Depaliamo and even give him a T.V.</p><p></p><p>They explain the situation to Prophet now that they've got a chance to catch their breaths and discover that their resident information broker is suddenly agoraphobic. His close call at the courthouse is over and his powers function again, however he still refuses to leave his room and his usual paranoia has increased tenfold. Fanboy agrees that protecting Prophet from any future harm is of the utmost importanct and Roger adds a saferoom to his list of DIY projects.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime Prophet shows the PCs what he's managed to pull up on Warren Davis, their number one suspect in the killings. The result is a four inch thick file of a 20 year veteran assigned to an airforce recovery team with every other word redacted for security purposes. If this is their guy, then he's more dangerous than they thought.</p><p></p><p>McCrow decides that he's heard enough and decides to get a jump on his shopping if he's going to start upgrading the warehouse and leaves Fanboy to look after the place.</p><p></p><p>It's about an hour after McCrow leaves that Agent Parks shows up, accompanied by two large men in black combat armor; armed to the teeth and a german shepherd. Fanboy instinctively gets nervous and asks "Am I going to The Hole? I'm going to The Hole aren't I?", but Parks shakes his hand and motions for the men to stay put. </p><p></p><p>Agent Parks pulls Fanboy away from the eyes of his men and explains that Washington has came through, they realize that the problem here is more than a handful of agents are able to handle and they've sent men experienced with solving such problems, the specially trained Superhuman Containment And Recovery team. He asks if the PCs took his advice and Fanboy mentions that they've been talking to a lawyer. Parks nods and draws out what looks like a large pencil box from his suit jacket, opening it reveals two sleek grenades.</p><p></p><p>"These things are still just experimental, they're rumored to be enough to short out a block. We don't know if they'll work on Luvless's tech, but they're the best we have to offer you." Parks says, closing the case and handing it to Fanboy. He then stresses that Luvless isn't some street punk to be handled like they handled John Hurt (Baritone), that his mind will change the world if applied properly and secure America's place as THE world superpower for centuries to come. Fanboy attempts to deny their involvement with Hurt but sees that Parks isn't buying it and says that he understands. Parks mentions that if he can turn over a superhuman of Luvless's caliber then his position will be secure once again.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy suddenly realizes that this is his chance to fulfill a lifelong dream. "I'll deliver you Luvless, but I want something in return. I want him to build me something. I want a lightsaber!" the ubernerd demands excitedly. Parks agrees that he'll see to it himself and instructs Fanboy that if anyone finds those grenades; he doesn't know where he got them.</p><p></p><p>Parks excuses himself and leaves with his entourage without any further fanfare.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The next few days are spent improving the warehouse, at some point Roger took Sandy aside and broke the news of her husband's death; though left out the part where he covered it up. Instead he says that he found out through his 'sources' and points out that her husband died because the killer was looking for her; that if he hadn't kidnapped her and the kids they'd all be dead. She breaks into tears and he goes back to insulating Richard's room.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy finds out from Bradley that he's been taking night courses to try and make himself more useful to the team and when he stops in to replace the clones they discover that he can create nearly twice as many as before. Like everyone else, his powers are growing with use.</p><p></p><p>During all this they receive a visit from Elizabeth Ingles asking for a Mr. McCrow. They freak out because they never gave her this address but meet with her anyway, she's obvious surprised and asks "You two are private investigators?"</p><p></p><p>They're confused and she points out that she'd been doing some independent research concerning the serial killer and found out there were supposedly some P.I.s doing the same. She wanted to compare notes because she thought she'd made a break in the case concerning a connection to the bus hijacking, but they laugh her off and say that they've already got that much. She's disappointed, but mid-conversation they're buzzed by Prophet on the intercom and told that there's a hostage situation in progress in the lobby of a local insurance company. It's not superhuman related, but it's crawling with cops.</p><p></p><p>The PCs grab Ingles in their mad dash to the car and drag her along for the ride.</p><p></p><p>They find a police line keeping out a sizable crowd, Fanboy is in his new combat armor and a domino mask; Roger is wearing a hat. They park around the block and stroll up to the line, proclaiming that they're here to save the day. Naturally the police tell them that they're lunatics and they can't go in, but Fanboy takes a deep breath and purposefully violates the non-disclosure agreement for the first time. He hovers amidst a swirl of telekinetic energy and shocks the crowd to silence as he declares that none shall stand in the way of justice. Meanwhile, Roger rides a blast of water from a newly loosened fire hydrant over the crowd and lands in the doorway, adjusting his coat.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy tears the doors off and they stroll in, two visibly shaken men are holding guns on eight terrified employees of the insurance company. One of the criminals points his guns at the heroes and says that either they sit down with their hands up or EVERYONE DIES! Roger responds by sprinting across the room and breaking the man's jaw with a haymaker, as the man starts to collapse he's grabbed by the collar by McCrow who throws him into front window with enough force to crack the glass, but not quite enough to shatter it. The second criminal is pulled twenty feet through the air towards Fanboy who easily tugs the gun from his hand and tosses him out the door and sends the guy rolling across the parking lot unconscious.</p><p></p><p>McCrow and Fanboy stroll out as casually as they went in, though McCrow has a bloodied criminal thrown over his shoulder who he drops as soon as he reaches the police line.</p><p></p><p>"What the hell are you doing!?" one of the cops ask, looking at the battered criminal. </p><p></p><p>Roger holds out his hands so that the water flows to him and both he and Fanboy rocket away into the sky. "Your job." he shouts over his shoulder as he disappears.</p><p></p><p>In reality however, once they get out of sight they make their way back to their car and text Ingles to get her ass back in. They sit in silence, twiddling their thumbs while they wait for their contact to walk the three blocks.</p><p></p><p>They stop by Finch's office once the adrenaline fades and introduce Elizabeth to their PR guy, who's an absolute gentleman in front of company. He shows them sketches for a viral ad campaign he's about to introduce that hints that they've been watching over the city for years and arranges a photo shoot to get suitable 'grainy' pictures to peak the public's interest.</p><p></p><p>They hash out some specifics when Finch notices the time and says that it's nearly six and they have an appointment to keep. Fanboy asks what he means and Finch mentions that they need to get to Fifth Street if they want to make the 10'oclock news. Fanboy asks what he means by that and he just grins. Fanboy probes Finch's mind and discovers that he's paid a homeless man $500 to jump off a building and a contact at the local news to make sure it gets major coverage.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy is once again flabbergasted at this horrible bastard, but grabs McCrow to 'save the day' regardless. By the time they get to Fifth Street there's quite a crowd and two different news stations in the street below and a strangely well dressed homeless man screaming about his wife stealing his children and having nothing to live for. Fanboy lifts himself into the air to the astonishment of the crowd and as he gets close the jumper says in a much quieter tone "I guess you're the guy?"</p><p></p><p></p><p>Fanboy sighs and nods and the guy screams "That's it, it's all over!" and leaps headfirst off the building. Fanboy barely manages to make the catch and lowers himself and his shill to the ground. He's mobbed by the reporters who clamor to ask who is is and he says "I'm the Fanboy. A fanboy for Lucas, a fanboy for Toryama..." then he looks directly into the camera with a practiced smile "A fanboy for justice." and then lifts off and into the night in a flash display of telekinetic force as McCrow just laughs and saunters back through the crowd.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Parks is obviously not pleased. He calls Fanboy the second it airs on the news and it sounds like he may be having a coronary. Fanboy's quick to explain that he's just trying to calm the public's fears about Tree King and that really...this is his lawyer's fault. But Parks is livid and keeps asking what part of the NDA said that it was their job to deal with the public?</p><p></p><p>The PCs are eager to calm their only friend in the DHS and ask if there's anyway to make amends. Parks says that there's no escaping the fact that they've violated the agreement, but that several higher-ups are in town to run a few tests on the superhumans in custody; if they willingly submit to a series of tests it'll show the DHS that they want to cooperate. They agree and Parks sends a few guys to pick them up. (McCrow nearly refuses to go on the grounds that nobody's putting a finger inside him.) On the way there they have to be blindfolded for security, so Fanboy spends the ride probing the minds of the guards with telepathy; what he finds is disturbing.</p><p></p><p>They have memories of a man made of living flame, burning hot enough to simply walk through walls; leaving destruction in his wake. They hosed the guy down with liquid nitrogen until the flame was extinguished and then beat him to death with clubs. Fanboy suddenly realizes what Parks meant by problem solvers.</p><p></p><p>They drive for what seems like hours and when the blindfolds come off they discover that they're at The Hole, however it's different from before. The walls are white and sterile and the cells containing Johnny and the Beastman are built into the walls and stacked three high. Those black armored men are everywhere and Fanboy glances through another's eyes.</p><p></p><p>He sees a teenage girl with tears in her eyes running for her life, the girl lays a hand on a computer and seems to digitize, entering the device completely. The man who's eyes he's looking for spins on his heels and bolts to the end of a hallway, bursting through the window and rapidly descending to the ground. He makes it just in time to watch the girl step out of the electronic lock which guards the grounds and look up at him with terrified eyes for a split second before the .45 slug tears through her brain. The only thought going through the man's head during the moment of the kill is that he can't believe he's going to have to stay late and clean this up.</p><p></p><p>A pair of men wait for them as peer nervously around, one of them is a younger man in a lab coat; the other is a man in his mid 60's with the posture of a military man but no noticeable insignia.</p><p></p><p>The man in the lab coat almost gushes as he introduces himself as Dr. Summers and thanks them for taking the time to help out with this study. He admits that before today he's never met one of them and thought that their existence was still only in the hypothetical phase. Fanboy does a quick scan of his mind once he moves on to shake McCrow's hand and finds out that Summers is telling the truth; obviously they wouldn't risk that sort of information with a telepath around. He does however pull a trio of names from Dr. Summer's head. Drs Heiner, Marcell and Gupta are the scientists in charge of his department.</p><p></p><p>The military man doesn't introduce himself, he simply watches and Fanboy manages to get a glimpse of his mind as well: General Wilson, Warren Davis's former C.O. His will is strong however and Fanboy can't find anymore than that.</p><p></p><p>The tests themselves are fairly lackluster and mostly involve an intense physical examination which Fanboy nearly fails much to McCrow's enjoyment, followed by an in depth questionnaire concerning their family history as they try to find out WHY they survived exposure where so many other people fail. Dr Summers is pretty frank that only about 30% of people exposed to the gas survive, the rest die from severe mutations.</p><p></p><p>As they're wrapping up and heading towards a specially designed testing chamber Fanboy manages to read several more minds and he keeps finding the image of a fellow soldier who volunteered for the project but turned out to be unstable; so they executed him. And then did it again, and again. Hanging, bullet, lethal injection, electrocution, drowning and dozens of other execution attempts; when Fanboy pulls away it's not because he's reached the end, but because McCrow nudges him.</p><p></p><p>They hook up a handful of diodes to their bodies and ask that they give a demonstration of their powers. Fanboy levitates a few things, showcases his force field and speaks telepathically and Summers seems absolutely entranced by the display and the results he collects from Fanboy's brain activity.</p><p></p><p>Dr Summers asks Roger for a demonstration and McCrow tells him that he doesn't dance on command. They ask why he'd bother coming if he wasn't going to give a demonstration and he says it's because he wanted to see somebody stick their finger in Fanboy.</p><p></p><p>They grow irritated and McCrow finally agrees. He holds his hands up for a moment while he searches for water and calls it to himself. It takes several moments but finally the ceiling above the room bursts and water floods everything, soaking the inhabitants.</p><p></p><p>Dr Summers stares open mouthed at Roger as his clipboard floats away and rubs his temples. "Leave. Please. Just...leave."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Present Day. Michael Stockton is sitting in a particularly unsavory dive bar in the middle of Arizona, he's about twelve beers deep and it isn't even two o'clock yet. As he's sitting there four local sheriffs step in with shotguns drawn, accompanied by a man in a conservative suit and slightly receding hairline.</p><p></p><p>The sheriffs quickly evacuate the bar of it's few patrons and one particularly surly bartender and then ask Agent Mann if this is the guy he's after. Mann nods and tells them to go outside and lock the door. They tell him that they were told to bring this guy in dead or alive and Mann loosens his tie as he tells them that that's exactly what he's going to do, they'll just be in the way.</p><p></p><p>The sheriffs glance at each other but do as they're told and exit the premises.</p><p></p><p>"F*** you Mann, can't you see I'm drinking?" Michael says with a snort.</p><p></p><p>"Your country needs you Stockton, answer the call." Mann demands, approaching the bar.</p><p></p><p>"I'm not one of Parks toy soldiers, I'm not that person anymore. Go back and tell him that." Michael retorts dangerously.</p><p></p><p>"I know you're not a soldier Michael. You're an animal, and like an animal you're going to do your trick or get put down." Mann says, lashing out and grabbing the back of Stockton's collar. Stockton whirls around, breaking the grapple and tries to bring his beer bottle onto his attacker's head. Mann barely avoids the attack and delivers a powerful blow to Stockton's midsection, causing him to suck air.</p><p></p><p>Agent Mann kicks Stockton in the stomach, knocking him back and breaking rib; however it heals before his very eyes just as Stockton flies forward with a knee and returns the favor. In a flash Mann has a knife in his hand and slices Stockton's face; blinding his target for a moment, but getting a blow to his jaw that jars his teeth and stuns him for his trouble.</p><p></p><p>Stockton grabs Mann's knife hand and attempts to wrench the weapon free, Mann uses Stockton's own momentum to plant it deep in Michael's chest. Michael screams in rage and Mann watches the reason drain out of his former friend's face as something else takes over once again.</p><p></p><p>The two men exchange blows and discover that they're evenly matched, however Mann's injuries continue to accumulate while Michael's are wiped clean each round. Michael flips Mann and tosses the agent several feet away into a groaning pile, but as Michael rushes in to finish him off he sees a gun in Mann's hand which barks twice and forces him to stagger back.</p><p></p><p>Mann climbs to his feet and charges forward kicking Michael in the chest and thrusting him against the wooden bar. Stockton hurls a nearby bottle at Mann who dodges and fires twice more, using up the last of his hero points in the process. </p><p></p><p>Michael looks like a horror movie victim, but despite his severe injures it takes only seconds for mortal wounds to disappear completely. Mann continues opening fire, but his former partner absorbs the bullets easily and only seems encouraged by them. Michael grabs Mann and attempts to disarm the gun, however it proves difficult and he settles for pinning Mann to the ground and raining down blows. </p><p></p><p>Mann can't manage to get up and Michael looks like he may beat him to death as his own wounds are completely healed, however at the last moment Mann manages to free his gun arm and put a bullet in Michael's head. Michael stumbles back and Mann fires again, knocking him down. Michael attempts to stand up and gets another bullet, and then Mann uses extra effort to put another one in him. Michael's stunned so Mann takes another turn and another bout of extra effort to put two more bullets into Michael and watches the life drain out of his eyes.</p><p></p><p>No time to savor the victory, Mann flips Michael over and places handcuffs on his bullet riddled corpse before taking a seat at the bar and catching his breath. In only a matter of seconds Stockton's eyes flare open and he starts cursing and struggling at his restraints. Mann drags the newly resurrected berserker to his feet, wincing at his own injuries as he does so.</p><p></p><p>Mann pants as he leads his prisoner out to the shocked gaze of the sheriffs who've heard the whole thing and didn't expect ANY survivors. "I like this less than you do Stockton, but you've been re-accepted into the DHS." </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> We pick up exactly where we left off with McCrow and Fanboy being escorted out of the new Hole by armed personnel. Fanboy and the majority of their escort are covered in the sewage that Roger thought would be funny to flood the room with, naturally McCrow himself is untouched.</p><p></p><p>They're joined in the hall by Tiffany who had been in the middle of tests of her own when the order came down that the facility had been compromised and all 'guests' were to be expelled. McCrow is absolutely beaming with pride at all this.</p><p></p><p>Before they're allowed to leave they're blindfolded once again, however Fanboy takes this opportunity to read the minds of his escort and remove the mystery altogether. Surprisingly this pristine government facility is located beneath a local shopping center, the last place anybody would look.</p><p></p><p>The superhumans are loaded into a van once their blindfolds are secured and a pair of the black armored men join them in the back, then to their surprise they hear one of the men snap "Garm, up." and the whole van seems to sag as something massive leaps in with them, the smell of dog is powerful and they can feel fur pressed against them.</p><p></p><p>They drive several minutes, but nowhere near as long as it took them to arrive at the new Hole the first time and then the van stops and they hear voices outside. The back doors of the van swing open and their escorts leap out as well. Fanboy is the first to remove his blindfold and what he sees is not encouraging.</p><p></p><p>'Garm' is a massive beast, a mastiff with a head the size of microwave who's bulk nearly fills the van and he does not look friendly. Outside are four of the black armored S.C.A.R. troopers armed to the teeth. Each man holds an assault rifle at the ready and has a .45 strapped to his waist, some sort of baton strapped to his leg and a thick metallic tube slung on their back.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy immediately raises his hands defensively while the other two raise their blindfolds to see what's happening. "What is this, some kind of hazing?" Fanboy squeaks out.</p><p></p><p>"Not quite. General Wilson doesn't have the same patience for dissidence that the DHS's pet agent has." One of the men outside says with a smirk before a pair of them slam the doors and a voice shouts "Garm, seize!"</p><p></p><p>McCrow is closest to the beast's head and the creature's jaws latch onto his thigh painfully, crushing bone and tearing muscle. Roger shouts in pain and but is drowned out as the heavy drone of weapons fire fills the air; bullets bounce around inside the van catching the PCs completely off guard. Fanboy gets his Force Field up before he's riddled with bullets, but Tiffany takes a glancing blow and McCrow takes about three bullets dead center. Garm doesn't seem to notice or care about the bullets that bounce harmlessly off of him.</p><p></p><p>Roger grabs Garm's head in retaliation and focuses on the water inside the beast; willing it out of every pore and eliciting a whimper that frees his battered leg. Tiffany moves in, now in diamond form and buries one of her impossibly sharp hands into the superdog's spine. Garm flops onto his side spewing gore and barely twitches as the life leaves his body. </p><p></p><p>With a wave of his hand Fanboy bursts open the doors of the van and hurls two men back into the alley where they've parked. The soldiers quickly regain their composure and fire as a single unit into the open van; Fanboy takes the brunt of the attack which stresses his Force Field to the limit.</p><p></p><p>McCrow leaps out of the van as soon as the S.C.A.R. men stop to reload and busts one of them in the face with a haymaker. Tiffany dives hands first into a second man and begins tearing him to pieces. Fanboy snatches a third and uses extra effort to hurl the man skywards. The last loses his nerve and turns to flee.</p><p></p><p>McCrow lets the man nearly escape before focusing on the water within and the other PCs watch in shock as the man seems to turn to dust before their eyes, leaving little but his armor and weapons behind.</p><p></p><p>The three of them turn to face the man who McCrow had clocked and as they corner the man against the van McCrow suggests taking at least one of them alive to question. A frantic scream announces the return of Fanboy's plummeting victim and with a twitch of his hand the telepath stops the man's descent just inches above the ground. "We already have one." Fanboy says coldly.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany gleefully drives her sharpened hand through the throat of the man still pressed against the van and holds him there for a moment while he tries to sputter out final words that never see the light of day. She removes her hand and sidesteps the blood fountain before helping McCrow strip the dead of their weapons and armor.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy pries the truth from the last man's mind while they're on the move and discovers that Parks had nothing to do with the kill order, the S.C.A.R. operatives were under the direct command of General Wilson. The more Fanboy probes the more it looks like Wilson is going to be the man to watch.</p><p></p><p>As more of a courtesy than anything they call Parks to let him know they've killed some of his men. Parks is so shocked that he can't speak for a moment and Fanboy explains that they were taken into an alley to be executed on General Wilson's order. Parks assures them that this didn't go through official channels, but warns that the general doesn't operate through official channels. </p><p></p><p>They're warned to watch their backs and Parks asks that they try to avoid killing his dogs in the future as they're already a rare and dying breed. Fanboy says that they're going to put down anything that raises a hand to them but they'll try to be subtle about it.</p><p></p><p>Then they throw the naked and blindfolded guard out of the van, give his ass a good shock with his confiscated stun baton and laugh as the man charges head first into a Walmart to the screams and exclamations of surprised customers.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The 'heroes' decide that if they're going to survive the coming s***storm they're going to have to escalate their press release. They call up their P.R. guy Finch and ask him to get to work on something, he tells them to give him a day or so.</p><p></p><p>While they're waiting, they explain the situation to Prophet and he suggests that if they're going to get into a fight with the United States Government, it may be a good idea to upgrade the warehouse some more. Nobody has any grand ideas on what they should do, so they put that on the back burner.</p><p></p><p>Instead, they spend the day chatting up Richard and the kid asks when they're going to actually get to training him. He points out that he's done quite a bit of work himself but that he's hoping for a more hands on approach. Tiffany suggests a sparring match to see what the kid can do and both McCrow and Fanboy shake their heads seeing as there's no way that this will end well. Richard is unbelievably dangerous, but ultimately an innocent. Tiffany is a psychotic. Either Tiffany doesn't take Richard seriously and she gets hurt or killed, or she takes him seriously and he gets hurt or killed.</p><p></p><p>She finally convinces the pair that she knows how to hold back and that they're just going to have a friendly sparring match, so they head to the holding cell level and send Depaliamo upstairs while they prepare.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany urges Richard to make the first move and the teenager takes a deep breath and focuses on drawing the energy to himself like he's done a thousand times before in the last week alone... He rolls a 1 on his willpower roll to control his power.</p><p></p><p>Now the way I've got this set up, Richard has to make a DC18 Willsave every time he uses his power for it to activate as intended. Failure means that he can't direct the current so nothing happens, failure by 5+ means that he's overloaded with energy and it lashes out, failure by 10+ means that he goes critical.</p><p></p><p>He goes critical.</p><p></p><p>The entire warehouse goes dead as Richard absorbs its energy as his own, phones and electronics are completely drained as Richard is suspended above the floor in an electric coccoon. Richard tries to shout for Tiffany to run, but she's still convinced that she's invincible.</p><p></p><p>An arc of electricity flares out and she rolls to see if she can take it. He crits, she rolls a 1. The force of the blow tears a Tiffany sized hole in the side of the warehouse and she's tossed out to sea unconscious and unprotected.</p><p></p><p>Roger and Fanboy poke their heads downstairs when they hear the explosion and immediately retreat once they see what's happening. Fanboy projects his vision downstairs and discovers that Tiffany's missing. Roger pries up a grate and leaps into the churning ocean to find her while Fanboy basically just watches their basement burn. Once Roger returns and dumps the unconcious Tiffany on the floor he immediately sets to putting out the remains of his holding cells and assuring Richard that things could always be worse.</p><p></p><p>They just start to get their backup generators online and recharge their phones when Fanboy gets a call from Finch who says that he's been trying to get in touch with them, that they've only got twenty minutes to make it to Meadowbrook Middle-school if they want to be heroes.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy's jaw drops as he stares at the phone and they wake up Tiffany on the way.</p><p></p><p>McCrow drives and just barely makes it there ahead of the police. Students are just starting to file out of the school as fast as they can and Fanboy repeats that he really doesn't want to work with this guy anymore. McCrow tells him that he's overreacting and that this probably isn't what it looks like.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy calls Finch back and is told to go to the second girl's bathroom on the second floor and to wing it from there. He immediately responds by focusing his telepathy and attempting to find the guy that Finch has apparently hired to shoot up a school. The fact that he can't find anyone doesn't reassure him.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany goes diamond, Fanboy slides on his costume and mask while Roger slips a random baseball cap on and pulls it down over his eyes.</p><p></p><p>A fireman attempts to block their paths as they approach the school, but Fanboy simply telekinetically slides the man out of the way with an assurance that they'll take care of this. The fireman is stunned and doesn't say anything more.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy rockets into the air using his new-found ability of flight, while Tiffany scales the bricks like a spider with her claw-like fingers and Roger taps a water main to fling himself to the second story. All three enter the building and fan out to find the bathroom.</p><p></p><p>The bomb is easy enough to find, nestled in the only opened stall and the size of a large A.C. unit. It has a digital timer that's clicking down, less than a minute and a half left and the school still isn't done being evacuated!</p><p></p><p>They start panicking and trying to figure out what to do when they see something that makes them give a collective facepalm. Once the timer starts to count down from 0:59 it immediately resets to two minutes. The three of them stare at each other and Fanboy sighs.</p><p></p><p>"It's just meant to cause panic until we can 'disarm' it." he explains. However McCrow reaches down to fiddle with the timer and as he removes the panel a note falls out. The note explains that to detonate the bomb you just have to press the button under the panel.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy demands out loud to know why the hell anyone would want to make this thing explode. "It has to be dramatic." McCrow explains, nodding thoughtfully. "So, who wants to push the button?"</p><p></p><p>Fanboy sighs and rubs his temples. "I'll do it." he says, hoisting the bomb telekinetically and dragging it outside. McCrow rides a geyser of water to the ground and Tiffany just leaps.</p><p></p><p>The crowd gasps and Fanboy notices that the television cameras have already started setting up. All eyes are on him as he presses the hidden button and flings the explosive into the air, where it explodes in a gloriously flashy display of fire and sound.</p><p></p><p>The crowd is still gawking when Fanboy lands next to his fellow 'heroes' and flashes a smile to the cameras. "You could say I'm a FAN of safety." the young man says with a thumbs up.</p><p></p><p>McCrow mimics the thumbs up and adds "And um...stay in school."</p><p></p><p>Tiffany winks at a kid and finishes with "Now you have an explosive day."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They're still in the car when Roger receives a call that nearly sends him swerving off the road. It's Ben McCrow, his youngest son. He pulls off the road to talk and shushes Fanboy and Tiffany as they ask what's going on.</p><p></p><p>They have a little small talk and Roger learns that his boy's graduated college, it's a bit of a shock since he hadn't realized it'd been so long, but he hasn't seen Ben since before the boy started highschool. Ben tells his father that he got the number from Franklin and just wanted to say that he's glad to hear things are looking up for the elder McCrow; he always knew things would turn out alright for Roger despite what his mother said. Ben then asks if that was Roger he saw on T.V. the other night in the crowd when that guy was trying to jump.</p><p></p><p>Now McCrow can't remember if he did anything incriminating but says that he seems to remember something about that. Ben asks if that meant he got to see the Fanboy in person. Roger's a little dismissive but asks what Ben thinks of these new 'superheroes' and Ben replies that they're definitely different; if they turn out to be real it would be amazing. McCrow gets a little smug as they say their goodbyes and tells Ben he'll see him next month at Franklin's wedding.</p><p></p><p>Back at the warehouse Fanboy checks in on Prophet and asks what their resident conspiracy theorist has turned up concerning those names. Prophet says that it's short notice, but he's been checking payroll records and has a list of doctors that have been drawing a government check under the names Marcell, Heiner and Gupta for the past five years.</p><p></p><p>Marcell (Greggory Marcell: Physician, Laurinl Marcell: Botanist, Joseph Marcell: Radiation Specialist)</p><p>Heiner (Henry Heiner: Surgeon, Frank Heiner: Ceullular Biologist) </p><p>Gupta (Henry Gupta: Engineer, Jennifer Gupta: Psychologist, Sarine Gupta: Anthropologist)</p><p></p><p>Prophet mentions that it's not much to go on, but Fanboy assures him that it's more than they'd have without him. Fanboy suggests focusing on Heiner and seeing if they can't eliminate one of those names; he wants to cut to the heart of this organization and see if he can't get some straight answers for once. Prophet says that he'll get right on it and Fanboy excuses himself to take an incoming call from Parks.</p><p></p><p>Parks explains that he thinks he's got a bead on a new superhuman, but the reports don't seem to match up. He says that there is considerable activity in a local apartment building and they've evacuated the place under the guise of fumigation; but none of their teams have been able to bring the thing in. He asks that Fanboy take a look since there's not much that can get past a telepath and Fanboy agrees to help their only friendly contact in the government out.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy heads downstairs to inform the rest of the team and meets McCrow on the stairs, still on the phone with Chavenski about handling a succession issue with the Russians.</p><p></p><p>They quickly decide that the best thing to do is to split up and each handle a different contact's problem by themself. Tiffany decides to go with Fanboy; half because he was very adamant that he wasn't babysitting her and half because she thinks it might be fun to get a chance to fight and/or kill a different kind of superhuman.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy and Tiffany arrive at the apartment and find it pretty well tented, but otherwise perfectly normal. They search the first floor thoroughly and find that while the whole place is pretty much a s***hole, it's no different than any other cheap apartment building. Tiffany however eventually notices what appears to be a fresh blood stain seeping through the ceiling.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy projects his vision to the floor above and sees nothing out of the ordinary, so Tiffany does the next logical thing and sprays a barrage of crystalline shards into the ceiling to see if something's there. Blood rains down out of the new opening but seems to dry and dissipate shortly after making contact with them. Fanboy decides that the next floor might be worth checking out so he starts looking for the stairs leading up, Tiffany decides to just cut her way through the ceiling to save some time.</p><p></p><p>As Fanboy steps out onto the 2nd floor he sees a glowing orb bouncing around inquisitively (hilariously, his first instinct was: "Wait, is it some kind of hard light construct type of orb? Because if this is some kind of Luvless trap then f*** this, I leap out the window and go home.") and attempts to make contact with it. The thing immediately bolts away from him and slams directly into a wall, disappearing on contact. He projects his vision through ESP to begin searching the apartments, but doesn't see anything out of the ordinary. Although once he looks through his own eyes he does begin noticing the orbs out of the corner of his vision again.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Tiffany is following a growing trail of blood that leads towards the 3rd floor, where she meets up with Fanboy on the stairs. After taking her eyes off the trail to acknowledge Fanboy however, neither of them can see evidence of the blood having been there in the first place. As they approach the third floor they begin to hear vague whispers but can't make out the words.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany sees one of the orbs bolt across the hall in front of them and into an apartment and though Fanboy tells her to ignore it she decides they should give chase. So they wait until the orb bolts across the hall a second time and then throw open the door it entered and rush inside.</p><p></p><p>They're greeted by a twisted green skeleton bathed in an eerie green flame that shrieks and reaches for them. The fear is suddenly so powerful that the PCs trip over themselves to race back down the stairs and it isn't until they're nearly to the 1st floor that the feeling leaves them and Fanboy realizes he recognizes that technique. It's Emotion Control and he uses it himself sometimes.</p><p></p><p>They still hear the skeleton shrieking upstairs so he decides to ambush the bastard and see what it's made of. They go to the apartment directly under the shrieking and Tiffany shreds the upstairs with a hail of crystal shards while Fanboy uses all of his mental might to pull down the entire upstairs. The skeleton tumbles amid the rubble, but seems to dissolve as it leaves its point of origin. As they watch it melts away and is replaced by a glowing orb that dances off once again.</p><p></p><p>They determine that the closer they get to the source, the more paranormal their experiences will become so they head up through the new hole, genuinely intrigued. They continue searching the 3rd floor and learn to ignore the orbs and avoid the skeletons as best they can. They discover that skeletons only appear on the northwest side, so they assume that there's something there that they need to see.</p><p></p><p>They find the stairs and head up another level and as they do so, Fanboy hears a voice say plainly in his ear "This is where you die."</p><p></p><p>Fanboy spins around, searching for the source and Tiffany says that she neither saw nor heard anything, so it must be in his head. He decides that it's nothing more than a trick like he'd play, so he focuses his telepathy to find the source of the message. Surprisingly he finds that Tiffany is the only mind he can make contact with.</p><p></p><p>They exit the stairwell into the 4th floor on their guard and they each hear a whisper say "We will wear your flesh home." accompanied by a rush of air that leaves two inch deep claw-like scratches along everything it touches, namely the walls. Their protective powers kept them from real injury, but they watch as the scratches along the walls begin to bleed profusely and a sound that alternates between a mournful sob and a manic laugh begins echoing down the corridor.</p><p></p><p>They press on to the northwest portion of the building and as they approach apartment 4C they begin hearing something moving and scratching inside the walls, accompanied by more sobs and laughter. 4C itself looks as though there is something massive living in its outer walls and they bulge obscenely as whatever it is moves and shifts around, growling threateningly the whole time.</p><p></p><p>Fanboy and Tiffany stare at each other for a moment and Tiffany kicks the door off its hinges with a single mighty kick. They enter the apartment and are surprised to see that it's pretty intact, though obviously abandoned. There's a noticeable film of dust over everything and a neighbor has been piling bills and other mail up by the door. They start going over the place when Tiffany points out the family picture on the wall and Fanboy stops in his tracks at the sight of a little girl and her parents smiling for the camera. "Oh....s***. It's one of THOSE ghosts." he says with a groan.</p><p></p><p>Tiffany asks what he means and Fanboy says that he recognizes the family or at least the little girl. Her name is Maria Lucerta and she was on the bus with the rest of them, but unlike the others; she never woke up from her injuries. She was brain dead for months and then the serial killer snuck into her room and made her just regular dead. He decides to call out to her and no sooner does he say 'Maria' then a horrible roar echoes through the building like thunder and seems to originate from a nearby bedroom.</p><p></p><p>He pulls open the door and finds a six foot skeleton similar to the ones he saw below, only this one still has meat hanging off the bones and the flames are real enough to cause immediate discomfort all the way from the doorway. "Maria, I'm here to-"</p><p></p><p>Before he can finish his sentence a burst a flame flies from the skeleton's hand and knocks the wind out of him, he notices that his skin is bright red like he's been scalded but the Force Field holds and he survives. Tiffany steps into the room and averts her eyes, several small objects that have begun to spin about the room are harmlessly deflected by her diamond skin but the skeleton doesn't seem to notice her as she snoops around.</p><p></p><p>It only takes a quick sweep for her to step out with a movie poster that depicts the very same skeleton that's in the room now; she shows it to Fanboy and he looks at it puzzled. </p><p></p><p>"Hell on Earth 3?" he asks noone in particular. "So she's a cheesy horror fan. The hell is this then, some kind of solo LARP?"</p><p></p><p>Tiffany just shrugs and points out that movies are sort of his thing. He agrees, rolls up the poster and hands it to Tiffany before taking a deep breath and heading back into the room. "I see you're a fellow cinemaphile." Fanboy says pleasantly. "Surprised you go for something like Hell on Earth though, my favorite was always-"</p><p></p><p>He's ejected from the room by a pillar of green fire and lays groaning on the carpet trying to make sure his eyebrows are still intact. </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile...</p><p></p><p>Roger sits down with Chavenski at a nice, if low-key, restaurant and the wheezing crime lord admits that the Russian Syndicate may have outgrown him. Chavenski explains that his organization is currently in the middle of a restructuring/civil war and that three of his most valuable lieutenants have decided to challenge him for power. He admits than in his current state any one of them may be more than he can deal with.</p><p></p><p>Roger apologizes but explains that they're legitimizing themselves and can't afford to be associated with Chavenski's business any longer. Chavenski points out that he's been more than fair when dealing with McCrow and Fanboy in the past and that he's been there when they needed him the most. Roger says that they've went beyond the call of duty for the Russians as well and Chavenski replies "Oh, I'm sorry. Which organ did you lose coming to save me?"</p><p></p><p>Roger's (and his player's) mouth keeps moving for a second, but no sound comes out and he finally decides to concede the point that maybe Chavenski HAS gotten the shorter end of the stick in this relationship. He agrees to help but says that the Russians have to stop with the murdering and mutilation and the selling people and so on. Chavenski points out that he doesn't tell Roger how to run his business and Roger settles on asking that Chavenski stop dealing in human trafficking at least.</p><p></p><p>Chavenski agrees and points out that it's one of his men that has caused the notable spike in white slavery in order to impress the bigshots back in the motherland. Sergei Reschkov has an honest to God army at his command thanks to his cutthroat dealings and more clout with the Syndicate's Russian contacts than anyone, himself included. </p><p></p><p>McCrow gets the address of Sergei's storehouse and decides to make an example of this guy himself. He thanks Chavenski for the meal and tells the Russian that he won't have anything more to worry about after today, he'll make enough of a mess out of this guy that the others will fall into line. </p><p></p><p>McCrow drives out to what basically amounts to a barn on the outskirts of town and watches the place for several minutes. In that short amount of time he sees nearly three dozen heavily armed guards moving about the perimeter and quite a few large men in overalls unloading and opening crates from a truck. He nods as though this is about what he assumed he was getting into and walks back to his car, opening the backdoor and tapping loudly on the large aquarium housed inside.</p><p></p><p>"Wake up boys. Wake up now. Daddy needs some help." McCrow says with a knowing smile.</p><p></p><p>Back at the haunting...</p><p></p><p>Fanboy is sitting out in the hallway on the phone with Parks. "I can't read it's mind dammit, it doesn't have one! It's a f***ing ghost Parks, what do you want me to do? Do I look like Dan Akroyd? Do you have a proton pack hanging around somewhere that I don't know about?"</p><p></p><p>Tiffany has been pacing the halls with a large bag for the past twenty minutes and Fanboy's learned to tune out her, the apparitions and the voices that keep getting more and more vivid while he tries to convince Parks he isn't crazy.</p><p></p><p>"Look, the thing is disruptive as hell but it looks pretty stationary. Give us some time and I'm sure we can come up with something, I mean from what you've said it's been here for a week or more; I doubt it's going anywhere." Fanboy explains. Tiffany excuses herself as she steps over him and he ignores her, annoyed.</p><p></p><p>"Don't worry, things are under control. I'll run it by Prophet at..." Fanboy stops and starts sniffing the air. "F***, s***, dammit! Parks, call the fire department!" he shouts as he bursts into the room and sees Tiffany shimmering amid the roaring fire she's created. Fanboy can't even summon the words but Tiffany looks so proud.</p><p></p><p>"Let's see how SHE likes it!" Tiffany beams. Fanboy manages to snatch her up with his telekinesis and the two of them burst out the side of the building, leaving behind a growing wall of flame and a horrible moan that can be heard from blocks away. He knew bringing her was a bad idea...</p><p></p><p>Back to McCrow...</p><p></p><p>The barn is very nearly destroyed. Half-eaten corpses litter the yard and are piled eight high to form a barricade within the barn itself. Only five men still live besides Sergei and as the Droplets batter their way past the bodies of dead Russians they waste what little ammo they have left on the smiling, bouncing abominations.</p><p></p><p>McCrow pushes past the corpses himself and stands before the terrified criminals, who are all the more terrified as the Droplets begin rubbing up against the stoic hydromancer like attention starved kittens.</p><p></p><p>"Do what I say and you might survive." Roger says plainly. "Put your guns down."</p><p></p><p>Three men immediately drop their weapons and attempt rush out the back way however the Droplets cutt off their escape and immediately latch onto their screaming victims, bringing them down and silencing them; taking far, far too long to finish the job.</p><p></p><p>"McCrow didn't say run." Roger says sternly. "I just said put down your guns."</p><p></p><p>The last guard drops his gun and holds up his hands to show they're empty. Sergei suddenly produces a pistol from his jacket defiantly and fires at McCrow who responds by holding out his arms and flooding the barn from a well outside. Roger takes a couple of bullets but is soon covered in a protective sheen of water and stands about 10ft tall.</p><p></p><p>Sergei stops firing and begins shaking so hard he drops the gun. He tries to retrieve it, but Roger snatches him in one hand and crushes him against the wall.</p><p></p><p>"What do you want?" Sergei manages to squeak out.</p><p></p><p>"Not much. Just told my dear friend Nikolai Chavenski that I'd swat a bug for him." McCrow growls, applying a little more pressure and watching Sergei turn purple.</p><p></p><p>"I didn't mean anything!" Sergei sputters, "It's just the way things work! It's the same way HE got his place!"</p><p></p><p>"Are you sure?" McCrow asks. "Because I don't remember being friends with the guy he killed, and I know I'm not friends with you. Know how I can tell? You shot at me. Friends don't do that. Chavenski for example, has never shot me. So Chavenski doesn't know what it feels like to crushed into a fine paste and fed to my Droplets."</p><p></p><p>Sergei looks like he's about to pop and just starts begging for his life with no regard for position any longer.</p><p></p><p>Roger ***** his head. "You want to deal? Is that what you're getting at? Okay, how's this? You go and you tell the other a**holes that think they're going to take away what me and Chavenski have worked for what happened here today. You convince them with tears in your eyes that Chavenski's word is law and that their only chance at surviving another night comes from getting on their knees and apologizing and I'll let you go."</p><p></p><p>Sergei nods his head but makes no sound. He ran out of oxygen for that long ago.</p><p></p><p>Roger releases Sergei and the man sucks air violently, gulping like he'd forgotten the taste.</p><p></p><p>With one massive, watery hand McCrow lifts Sergei back to his feet the the collar of his expensive suit and leans down to eye level. "Get this straight Sergei: Tried is not in my vocabulary. If the succession talks don't end TONIGHT I will personally take the three of you and shove each of you up the next guy's ass to make the scariest f***ing Russian doll the world has ever seen. If I ever see your face or hear your name after today in ANY context I will break your legs and leave you for the Droplets. Is all of this clear?"</p><p></p><p>Sergei doesn't even respond, he just pisses himself then and there.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> Tiffany finds herself abandoned after the events in the apartment and is walking back to the warehouse when she gets a call from Agent Mann who tells her that he's sending a car, not to be difficult. She'll get her usual $5,000 consultation fee.</p><p></p><p>Surprisingly she takes Mann's advice and soon finds herself in Parks' new office along with Agent Mann and an angry, restrained man that she doesn't recognize. Parks seems to be negotiating with the guy in handcuffs and says that he doesn't like having him back either, but until the Tree King is apprehended this is the way it's got to be. He offers Michael Stockton his freedom in exchange for service.</p><p></p><p>Stockton pffts dismissively and hears that he's heard that before. Parks responds that he thinks a little over two years walking free is a more than fair deal considering the incidents he's had to cover up. Michael doesn't have any response to that and goes quiet.</p><p></p><p>Parks tells Mann to unlock the cuffs and explains that they've been using the Bloodhound Laelaps to search for the Tree King but it hasn't been easy. Not only is Tree King's scent often lost amid the other plant life, but there are more than two dozen locations that Laelaps is completely convinced that Tree King is living in. </p><p></p><p>Parks needs somebody he can trust to be thorough to scout these locations so he's called on Mann. Mann can't do it alone so Parks also included Tiffany and Michael, though nobody's enthusiastic about their inclusion.</p><p></p><p>They follow the directions that Parks has supplied and arrive at an abandoned tenement building that looks like it hasn't seen an occupant for years. They search the place top to bottom, but there's nothing to find. So they decide to think outside of the box and head to the basement to start prying up the floorboards.</p><p></p><p>They quickly find a whole section of flooring that's completely removable. There's a sizable hole in the ground that seems to lead into the sewers. Naturally they all leap down and start nosing around.</p><p></p><p>Stockton finds a trip wire to the west and warns the others to stand back. He wants to see what sort of traps they've got rigged up down here so after Tiffany and Mann have backed up a bit he lays both hands on the wire and pulls.</p><p></p><p>It takes them a moment to realize that they can hear the jingle of falling bells and Michael looks disgusted. "Really? It rings?" he asks with a snort.</p><p></p><p>A clawed hand reaches out from the darkness and pins Michael against the sewer wall. He lands a solid blow against the creature's throat, however considering the throat is made of wood he doesn't accomplish much. Three more Tree Clones rush in from the west and two more rush from the east.</p><p></p><p>Mann quickly draws his flashlight and pistol and begins choosing his targets, putting .45 holes in their foreheads which bleed sap. Tiffany manages to cut down two Tree Clones in rapid succession and Michael reverses his opponent's grapple before pinning the tree creature and breaking it's neck with a crushing elbow to the back of the head.</p><p></p><p>Two more Tree Clones rush Michael but he manages use their momentum against them, tripping the first one and using the second one like a weapon to crack both of them at once. Tiffany steps forward and finishes them off.</p><p></p><p>They take a moment to collect themselves and then investigate the western tunnel until they find a room lined with U.V. lights and about a dozen immature Tree Clones growing in planters. Mann and Michael exchange a glance and Mann tells Tiffany to burn it all. Since her character sheet always has at least 5 gallons of gasoline somewhere on it, she's more than likely to get the BBQ started.</p><p></p><p>They go back the way they came in and follow the tunnel to the east, ambushing a group of Tree Clones hard at work tending to their growing brothers. Michael does a flying kick into one's back, snapping it like...well a twig. Tiffany slices clean through a second one and Mann puts two more down with judicious use of a hero point. </p><p></p><p>The team takes a moment to actually investigate the room and Tiffany is surprised to discover that the growing tree creatures already have little faces. Naturally she cuts one off (to add to the mastiff pelt she stripped from Garm and a Russian...man part she pried off one of the sex slavers.) as a war-trophy. Mann orders everything burned and they continue searching the tunnels.</p><p></p><p>They continue along at a brisk pace until Michael trips another bell trap. This one seems even louder than the last and suddenly the tunnels are filled with the sound of heavy bodies rushing to meet them.</p><p></p><p>Michael moves to block off the southern tunnel, Tiffany stands ready to the west and Mann readies his gun to aid where needed. About 8 Tree Clones rush from the south and another 15 come in from the east. Tiffany lashes out like a swirling dervish and even the normally suicidal Tree Clones seem a little apprehensive about throwing themselves onto the chopping block. Mann opens fire into the wall of wood to the west and throws himself at the group to the south.</p><p></p><p>One of the Tree Clones crits against Michael and Stockton fails his toughness roll majorly. The Tree Clone's claw is protruding from the back of Michael's torso and the reluctant agent attempts to stammer something out, but only manages to cough up blood. The Tree Clone hoists Stockton overhead triumphantly as he simply stops fighting.</p><p></p><p>Mann turns to cover the south and puts a couple of bullets into the first Tree Clone to rush him, but Tiffany is already becoming overwhelmed to the east and things are starting to look bad. Tiffany punctures one of the gas cans she strapped to herself and douses herself and everyone near her in gasoline before setting fire to everything. The Tree Clones to the west roll surprisingly well and she does little more than piss them all off.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly Michael wakes back up, still impaled by the gloating Tree Clone who's using this opportunity to give the 'You'll be ground to fertilizer.' speech. With one hand he secures the clone's wrist and with the other braces against its should before planting both of his feet directly into the creature's chest and pulling with everything he's got in him. There's a loud snap and Michael rolls to his feet with the creature's severed arm in hand, he uses his hero point to beat the thing to death with its own arm and Mann recognizes that Michael's gone, the rage is what's animating him.</p><p></p><p>Mann uses another hero point to help put down two more Tree Clones and extra effort to get a third, Tiffany takes out another with her bladed arms and two more with the intense fire she's started. Michael uses the severed arm like a bat cave in another head. Within just a few rounds all of the Tree Clones to the south are dead and most to the west are as well. Tiffany is exchanging blows with the last flaming clone when Michael rushes her location, springboards off her back and (as he described it) delivered a 'Benoit Flying Headbutt' directly into the face of the last clone. Both of them lay there burning with their heads split open, however after about a minute Michael stands back up, holding his head and wondering what happened to his clothes.</p><p></p><p>They press on and find several more labs loaded down with U.V. lamps, little Tree Clones and various chemicals and fertilizers. Tiffany starts spilling every chemical she can find over the trees, but Mann snatches one of the smallest ones up to bring back with them for study.</p><p></p><p>Finally, after their searching they come across the motherload. A massive chamber converted into a nursery where nearly 20 Tree Clones are splintering their own bodies in order to plant more of their brothers. Mann gives a quick estimate of nearly 200 plants in this room ALONE. They sit there thinking for a moment when Mann suggests they just burn it all down.</p><p></p><p>The other two look at him like he's and idiot, because of course they're going to burn it all down, but he motions to the rest of Tiffany's fuel and suggests making a giant molotov to alleviate the need for a battle here. They agree that's the way to go and it takes them less than a minute to rig something up. </p><p></p><p>Tiffany tosses their concoction in a high arc towards the center of the room and Mann just barely manages to shoot it midflight; catching the entire room on fire at once. The Tree Clones roar with rage and try to rush them, but the fire is intense and they fail to even make it to the door before they're burnt to cinders. </p><p></p><p>They search the tunnels once more to make sure there's none of these things left and that none of the equipment survived their ransacking and then they start to leave. Mann informs both Tiffany and Michael that they can't take specimens home with them and that he'll have to confiscate Tiffany's trophy and Michael's stolen arm before he can allow them to leave.</p><p></p><p>Michael had basically forgotten he'd been carrying the thing around and tosses it into one of the roaring fires, but Tiffany tells Mann to kiss her ass. He points out that all it would take is that thing getting exposed to sunlight for all that they're working for to be undone, but Tiffany tells him that he's not man enough to take it from her.</p><p></p><p>Mann reaches for his gun and the two stare each other down for a moment before Mann quickly draws his piece and shoots the wooden face itself, knowing that once it's no longer recognizable it won't function as much of a trophy and she should drop it. She's absolutely incensed and re-actively fires a burst of crystal directly at Mann's face in retaliation; Michael had been holding his action and springs into action, leaping in front of the blast and being laid open from crotch to gullet.</p><p></p><p>Mann bolts up the ladder full-tilt and Tiffany leaps onto the ladder after him, however Michael snatches her by the leg and flings her across the room despite her increased mass. Stockton rushes up the ladder as well and Tiffany attempts to return the favor, however Mann uses power attack and the last of his hero points to buckle her over for a round, stunned. They slam the lid down on top if Tiffany and glance at each other breathlessly for a moment.</p><p></p><p>Michael punches Mann directly in the nose and shouts "I can't believe you left me down there you a**hole!"</p><p></p><p>Mann starts to respond until razor sharp pieces of crystal flies up between the floor boards, sending him and Stockton bolting upstairs and towards their car before she realizes she missed.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It's several hours later when Tiffany finally hobbles back into McCrow's warehouse looking like hell. She's obviously irritated and had to walk nearly eight miles to get home since neither Roger nor Fanboy answered her call.</p><p></p><p>It looks like everybody's gathered in Prophet's security room so she heads up to see what they're doing. She sees a visibly upset Bradley pacing around and freaking out. Fanboy keeps telling him to calm down, that they're keeping him in the warehouse and locking things down until further notice but it doesn't seem to settle Bradley's nerves.</p><p></p><p>McCrow asks if she's intends on disappearing every time she does something crazy and mimics a crying motion. She ignores his snide comment and asks what's gong on here. McCrow explains that Bradley got himself killed by the serial killer.</p><p></p><p>Not the real Bradley, he explains. But several of Bradley's clones have been killed in an alarmingly short amount of time while running errands and none of them saw it coming. Everyone likes Bradley but as tragic as his death would be, the thought of the killer getting his power is far scarier...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Kidjake, post: 6562969, member: 6776876"] Sessions 7-10 Picking Up Where We Left Off We open up where we left our heroes. The bikers are driving off laughing over their shoulders and Roger is splayed out in the middle of the street; his very bones exposed to the elements thanks to the force of Baritone's mighty bellow. Fanboy falls down next to McCrow's mangled body and frantically begins trying to resuscitate the hydromancer as he phones Dr Kavlight in hopes that their ambulance is ready to go. Miraculously (Needed to roll a 15, rolled a 20), Fanboy not only stabilizes Roger but even manages to wake him up. McCrow is none too happy with the state of things and isn't completely sure if his spine still works, but he's clinging to life with all he's got. Bradley and Kavlight finally show up in the ambulance and Dr Kavlight reveals that he's installed what basically amounts to a plastic tub filled with water specifically for Roger's unique physiology. McCrow's wounds begin knitting themselves together of their own volition once he's submerged and he spends the rest of the ride home isolated in his tub, napping in peace. When they show up at the warehouse they discover that the Prophet has collapsed at his station and one of the Bradley's claims that it looked like he had a bad trip, screaming about burning alive out of the blue and then passing out. Roger is moved to finish recovering in the privacy of his own bathroom while Kavlight gives the fallen precog a full exam. Morning comes and Fanboy gets a call from Agent Parks saying that something's come up and he'll be in Washington for a week or so. Parks emphasizes that he still intends on recovering Depaliamo once he returns and Fanboy continues playing stupid. Parks is obviously irritated but tells Fanboy that he'll be picking up a couple of experimental EMP grenades to deal with Doctor Luvless's toys after their little talk the other day all the same. Fanboy almost considers trading Depaliamo for the grenades as a symbol of good faith, but quickly decides against it. Parks also takes this opportunity to warn Fanboy that some of his agents in the field have reported that Tree King may not be as dead as previously believed (Fanboy's player actually groaned and called shenanigans about that since McCrow had previously turned the guy into firewood, but he rolled with it.) and that he's planning something big. Fertilizer and other chemicals are being stolen from various government contractors and the field agent that discovered the thefts believes that Tree King is growing an army. Fanboy isn't convinced that it's as cut and dry as that, but tells Parks that he'll look into it. Parks starts to hang up before he remembers his initial reason for calling. A new superhuman woke up in the hospital a few days before and as much as he hates the idea of having McCrow and Fanboy having an influence on her, he needs somebody to look out for her with the serial killer running around and his go-to man is already breaking in a new partner. Fanboy doesn't like being put on babysitting duty, but agrees to pick her up anyway. Diamonds and Chauvinism Are Forever Fanboy wakes McCrow up in his tub and tells him to get dressed, they're having company over. Roger stumbles around until he's basically dressed (Trench coat? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Good to go.) and rides with Fanboy to pick up the new girl, Tiffany. They get to her apartment and she lets them in after a short introduction. Roger tells her to get her sh**, it's time to go; but Fanboy is a bit more diplomatic and explains that they woke up from the accident a couple of months ago and have been using their powers to aid the Department of Homeland Security ever since. Fanboy explains that in exchange for their services the DHS has been lenient with their repeated, and sometimes public, abuses of power. Tiffany's a pretty reasonable girl so she sees the wisdom in this arrangement and agrees to join them... but of course McCrow can't ever let anything go smoothly. He snorts and says that he's glad she decided to come easy, he wouldn't want to hurt her. She stops in her tracks and just gawks at him. "Excuse me?" Roger smirks and says "Less talking, more packing. Chop, chop now." She warns him to change his tone or he'll be the one limping back home and he bursts into laughter. "But...but you're a woman!" he says between guffaws. Tiffany lunges at McCrow and they roll initiative. Now this is generally the portion of the story where the sexist tough guy gets taught a lesson and learns to grudgingly respect the fairer sex. However if you've been following the campaign you know that Roger has 2 powers: Control of water and a superhuman ability to avoid comeuppance. She rolls a 3. He rolls a 20. He gives her a right hook to the midsection that knocks the wind out of her and stuns her for a round, uses his improved grab to move into a clinch and head-butt her (she's rolling terribly) and staggers/stuns her again, and uses his free turn from her being stunned to throw her through her own coffee table where she lays unmoving amid the glass and wood splinters. Fanboy just stands there with his mouth agape as Roger towers over the unconscious girl panting and looking for an excuse to kick her while she's down. Fanboy finally sputters "She said she was coming with us! Why the hell would you do that?" McCrow rarely has a reason for anything and just shrugs. "She had an attitude problem. Pack a bag, I'll load her up." Fanboy doesn't argue, there's no point. He just sighs, grabs a bag and starts shoveling in necessities. A few hours later Tiffany wakes up in a dark, damp cell. Her head is ringing and she's bandaged up pretty good, but there doesn't seem to be any lasting injuries. She takes stock of her surroundings and notices a young man sleeping soundly in the cell next to hers and a set of stairs leading up. With a smirk she rubs 3 large diamonds embedded in her right palm on the day of the bus accident and as she does so she becomes a living diamond herself. She assumes the classic knife-hand pose and cuts through five bars with a single swipe. In seconds she's escaped from her cell and starts to free the young man as well in an attempt at an ally, but finds his cell door unlocked and decides not to trust him. Tiffany sneaks upstairs but is unprepared for the barrage of security cameras and Bradleys patrolling the area and is quickly spotted. Shouts ring out and she lays one of the clones out with superhuman blow across the temple and advances like the terminator as the remaining clones open fire to no avail. She calls out for that son of a bitch McCrow to face her, but there's no response. Fanboy and Sandra step out to see what the hubbub's about, but McCrow is nowhere to be seen. Everyone steps out of Tiffany's way as she climbs the steps towards McCrow's indicated sleeping quarters still enraged from their earlier tussle. She reaches his room and presses her ear against the door and hears movement inside. "I hear you in there you cowardly bastard, come out and fight me NOW!" There's no response, so Tiffany digs her claw like fingers into Roger's door and simply tears the whole thing off its hinges. There's a watery explosion corresponding with the removal of the door that flings Tiffany off the catwalk and seems to follow her down. She stumbles to her feet a little rattled and then gazes up and notices that the water doesn't seem to be flowing away, but is shaped suspiciously like a 30ft monster. "You want to fight? Alright. We'll fight." McCrow says lifting his forklift over his head like Cain with his rock. "Woah, woah, woah!" Tiffany says, assuming a fetal position and protecting her head; unsure whether a four and a half ton hunk of machinery is a match for diamond skin, but unwilling to test the theory. The fight gone out of her, she grits her teeth and hopes for the best and is more than a little relieved when the forklift goes back down. She continues protecting herself even after Roger reassumes his old form and just asks "What the hell are you?" While this is going on, nobody really notices the handful of Russians that arrive or that Chavenski is out of bed and dragging himself towards the door. One of the Russians clears his throat and gets the PCs attention (although Tiffany is still convinced that Roger is going to kill her, so she doesn't get up.) so that Chavenski can have a word with them. The crime boss speaks in a ragged whisper because of his injuries and seems to have trouble catching his breath. He thanks Roger and Fanboy for their help and shakes their hands before asking them to come work for him. He admits that men who can spontaneously hand him a million dollars for no reason probably aren't hurting for cash, but he offers them a chance at power and prestige as his lieutenants. Tiffany jumps at the chance, but Chavenski's entire introduction to her was watching her curl into the fetal position and cry, so he specifies it's an all or nothing deal. Neither McCrow or Fanboy or happy with the idea of working for somebody, so they turn him down. Chavensky isn't offended and gives them his personal number in case they need to get in touch with him in the future. With their goodbyes said, Chavenski leaves with his men to assume his rightful place as boss of the city. Baritone, Round Two Roger irritably attempts to repair the damage that Tiffany inflicted on his warehouse with the help of Bradley and Richard. While Tiffany gets settled in and Fanboy checks in on Prophet. Prophet has woken up but is still slightly shaken and explains that he just experienced his own death. He explains that his powers rely on seeing through his own eyes in the future and that he's basically just been reading headlines to the PCs that he finds there. He doesn't know how he died but he was in a strange place and burned to death in a flash, as such he locks himself in the control room and refuses to come out, as a side effect of his experience; his powers are on the fritz since there's no future him to see through. Things go pretty much as they always have for the rest of the day until Prophet calls everyone to his new room for a disturbance. Apparently superhumans have just went crazy today and both Doctor Luvless and Baritone are mid-crime spree. Doctor Luvless is robbing a bank and is pretty much monopolizing the police's time(which happens when you drag robots into a bank and start vaporizing things), whereas Baritone is apparently vandalizing a pharmacy in a quest for prescription drugs (they can tell it's Baritone because the squad car that reported it in did so from on top of the pharmacy). Both of them have an axe to grind with one of the villains so I assumed there'd be a little bickering, but Fanboy doesn't want to engage Luvless without EMP grenades and Roger is going to attack Baritone (for spitting on him, not nearly killing him) whether he's got backup or not. They speed to the pharmacy and find that there is no police presence, if there were any officers here they've decided to evacuate the area. Instead there's four bikers and the big man himself loading stolen drugs into the saddlebags of their bikes. Either the bikers don't notice them, or simply don't care; but they continue loading without a care in the world. No PC in the history of ever has accepted an NPC not paying attention to them while they're being heroic, so they go into full battle mode to get the bikers attention. Tiffany turns diamond, Roger blows up half the neighborhood summoning water to himself, Fanboy begins glowing with telekinetic energy. Baritone stops what he's doing, looks at them gathering power and tells them to piss off; he doesn't feel like kicking their asses again today. Roger responds by launching a burst of water at the hulking biker who braces against it and manages to do little more than get drenched before responding with his mighty bellow. Tiffany spends a hero point to interpose herself between Baritone's blast and McCrow (I tell him that this is why he should be nice to people) and the force of the blast is so severe that the majority of her diamond exterior is simply wiped away. Tiffany leaps forward with what's left of her power and cleaves one of the bikers in half while Fanboy grapples two more and throws them at Baritone although none of them are injured in the process. Baritone bellows again at the woman who killed his man and her broken body rolls across the parking lot. Roger seems to be having a flashback of his previous fight and just runs away in abject terror. Fanboy grapples Baritone and lifts him up, putting the squeeze on the big man. Baritone winces but tells his men that he has this and orders them to leave. As they ride off he shouts again and Fanboy is flung into and partially through a neighboring building, surviving only because of his force field. The biker smirks as the unconcious telepath releases him and he lands on the ground with a thud. He turns around to finish looting the register when McCrow (who'd circled the building to sneak up behind him) breaks a 2x4 across his smug face, injuring and stunning the big man. Roger brings the remains of the 2x4 down again on Baritone's head a second time and cracks his skull but fails to stun him again. Baritone opens his mouth to bellow again and Roger uses a hero point to force a burst of water down his lungs, nullifying his power. Baritone chokes on the water, tears running down his cheeks as Roger lands another blow with the 2x4. And another. And another. And another. Baritone dies choking and terrified, whether through drowning or blunt trauma is impossible to tell and unimportant. But McCrow lifts the bloated, bloody corpse up by its leather jacket and spits in its broken face with a savage growl before dropping what's left of Baritone back to the ground as his partners come to. Only Roger knows exactly what happened, but neither of the others believes it was self defense. Self defense usually leaves something recognizably human. Powerless They return to the warehouse in silence and Fanboy dwells heavily on how close to death he came. He decides that with their vast wealth it's ridiculous to rely solely on powers for protection and begins designing a new costume. He (and his player) withdraws from the group to look into his options. Meanwhile Sandy and her kids approach McCrow about getting some things from home. What with the kidnapping and everything they didn't have any time to grab anything. Roger agrees to drive her to the house and Tiffany decides to come with him. Fanboy says he's too busy and shoos them away. Roger tells Sandy to leave the kids, that he's not interested in listening to them on the way there (he didn't like driving with his own kids at that age, why would he want hers?) and drivers her out to the suburbs. As they pull into her driveway there's an extra car in it that Sandra recognizes as belonging to her husband. She's surprised because he wasn't supposed to be home for another two weeks. McCrow tells her to wait in the car and asks Tiffany to step in with him to make sure things are alright. The door is unlocked and they creep in unannounced. They immediately notice the corpse of Sandra's husband sprawled on the floor and covered in blood and Tiffany notices a large man pressed under the stairs in a ski mask. She points the man out and demands to know what he's doing here and the man responds by leaping forward like a cat and taking a swipe at her with a Bowie Knife. The blow fails to connect and she responds by turning diamond and cracking him in the jaw, sending him stumbling back. Since their powers are now on the table, Roger blows up the kitchen sink and puts a prowler sized dent in the wall with a burst of water. The man holds up his hands and Tiffany simply passes out where she stands. Roger barely manages to avoid joining her and feels extremely sleepy, but spends a hero point to shake it off. This is when he realizes that it's the serial killer. The killer lunges at him, but Roger grapples and the two of them fight over the knife. As they're fighting for the knife the killer grabs Roger's hand and McCrow feels absolute panic as he realizes he can no longer feel the presence of nearby water. To Roger's growing horror pipes burst in the ceiling above and a wave of water crushes him to the ground and lets the killer slip out of his grasp. The killer takes a moment to admire his new ability before Roger explodes out of the crushing wall of water gasping for breath and delivering a wild haymaker that knocks the serial killer on his ass. Still panting and coughing up water, Roger manages to choke out "I'll take my powers back from what's left of your broken corpse." The killer was expecting a single superhuman, a middle-aged woman unaware of his presence until it was too late. Instead he finds himself in a fight with two completely different superhumans in a third superhuman's house. Obviously he's no longer in control of this situation, so he decides to bolt and finish this later; one on one. Roger gives chase with everything he's got and manages to tackle the fleeing killer, raining down a flurry of blows despite his lack of powers. When the killer responds, his blows are like jackhammers driving Roger back and feeling like they've broken something with every strike. The last man who'd hurt him so thoroughly was the Russian prize fighter and he only managed to escape that fight with the help of Fanboy. The killer however doesn't want to fight, he doesn't know how many superhumans are nearby and is only interested in getting away with his stolen power for now. The next time Roger lunges forward the killer simply trips the older man and leaps a fence. By the time Roger realizes the fight's over he has no idea where the man went. McCrow stumbles back to Sandy's house and finds Tiffany reverted to her natural form and sleeping soundly on the floor. He smacks her awake and staggers to the car bruised and angry. Sandy freaks out when she sees the shape that he's in, but he manages to convince her that everything is fine and that they need to get back to the warehouse. He explains that the killer ambushed them, but decides to lie and claim that her husband must've been out instead of laying in a pool of his own blood. Tiffany plays along. Back at the warehouse Roger immediately rushes to gather Prophet, Fanboy and Kavlight together to explain what happened. He's freaking out when he explains that his powers are gone and the killer has them now. Fanboy immediately starts laughing and pointing at Roger. "You...you're just a regular non-powered ******* again. How does it feel peasant?" Roger's rage flashes and he socks Fanboy in the jaw, however the super-nerd's protective forcefield absorbs the blow easily and McCrow suddenly realizes that the telepath might actually be a threat without his powers. With a flick of his hand and a smirk Fanboy sends Roger flying back across the warehouse into a wall. Tiffany steps in in diamond form before things can escalate and the Bradleys move to position themselves between the heroes, Fanboy was ready to smack Roger around some more and Roger already has his cell-phone in hand; preparing to activate the auto-turrets. Kavlight helps Roger up and leads him to the infirmary while Prophet talks Fanboy down. Dr Kavlight runs a few tests and discovers that Roger's system still shows the same abnormalities (superhuman cells emit a faint, harmless radiation) however the signs are weak, as though they've been drained. Kavlight's confident that the effects are temporary, but isn't sure how long temporary is going to be. Roger's relieved knowing that he's not going to lose his powers permanently, but is still irritated that he 's relegated to a mere mortal for the time being. Loose Ends They spend the rest of the day talking with Prophet about the killer and he reveals that before his episode he'd discovered a pattern that predates the bus incident. Over the past eight years there's been eight murders in or related to government facilities, all commited by a single stab to the heart. 8 Months ago Glenn Howard was found dead in the American Embassy in Egypt. 2 Years ago Robert Landry was found murdered in the DHS Records Office in Utah, a farmer with his identity retracted in the area was also killed. 5 Years ago Angela Ericson was found dead in the Pentagon Records Office. 8 Years ago a Dr Richard Tennison and Carrie Price were found in a Florida CDC Office. Around the same time Lt. Gerald Marshal and Colonel Daniel Rampert were discovered dead in Eglin Airforce Base in Florida. A Captain Warren Davis was also officially reported missing from Eglin Airforce Base a few days later. Roger notices that only Captain Davis's body was never found and reasonably assumes that this might be their man. He tells Prophet to get him a file on Davis ASAP and Prophet says that he'll do what he can, although his sudden bout of agoraphobia has somewhat limited his investigative skills as several of his contacts require meeting in person. They wrap things up with Prophet (it should be noted that at no point does anybody think to sit down Sandy or the kids to talk about the death of her husband so the poor woman still believes that he got away. I'm sure this will never come back to bite them in the ass.) and retire to their rooms for some much deserved sleep. They're woken up in the middle of the night by a horrible clattering and they stagger out to see what's up. Lucky Dan is sprawled at the bottom of the stairs amid a puddle of various liquors and shattered glass, he appears pretty well trashed and doesn't seem to be able to stand up by himself. Fanboy and Roger move to help him up and more or less drag him back to his room. Dan has moved from happy drunk to sad drunk pretty hard and he's sobbing about the loss of his family. He admits to being a lousy husband and worse father, but the thing that really gets to him is that according to the note they left while he was still in the hospital. If it had been his own doing (and in fact probably would have been his own doing) he thinks he could've accepted it. But he lost almost a month through no fault of his own and that was the one which broke the proverbial camel's back. Roger tries to console Dan and tells him that he knows exactly how he feels. His own first marriage fell apart because he wasn't around enough. So did his second one. His third marriage though he blames solely on his wife. Roger starts to say something else, but Dan starts to sob harder and Fanboy claps a hand over his mouth before we can any more of his sordid history. "What he MEANS, Dan, is that it's not too late." Fanboy says, glaring at Roger. "If you want your family back then call your wife, you can still fix this." Dan explains that he's been trying to get in touch with his wife for days now but she won't return his calls or answer the door when he goes by. Roger and Fanboy volunteer to talk some sense into her. (They say 'talk' but Fanboy asks how severely he can Mind Rape somebody so this seems destined to end badly.) Lucky Dan thanks them both and gives them the address of his sister-in-law who his family's been staying with. With that off his mind they get him to sleep and then return to their rooms to leave this one until the morning. The next day our heroes set out to fix Lucky Dan's life and hopefully give him a reason to stop drinking so damned much. They find his sister-in-law's house in a bad part of town and notice an unusually high amount of wear and tear in the neighborhood. Several homes are just abandoned and graffiti covers everything, a number of street punks are hovering near their intended destination and one of them brazenly tosses a rock through one of her windows while shouting obscenities. Tiffany is extremely against private property damage apparently and she fires a blast of crystalline shards from her palm into the crowd, lacerating and terrifying the punks so that they scatter to the wind; bloody and no longer in the mood to fight. Roger is of course proud. They knock on the door and a heavyset brunette with a southern draw (no idea why I stressed an accent when I did the voice but they immediately claimed that she's West Virginian, so I went with it.) answers the door with a bat in hand, screaming about what she's going to do to these a-holes if they don't leave her and her home alone. She's more than a little surprised to see a Rolls Royce in the driveway and an attractive young lady; a well-dressed young man in a sharply pressed suit; and a hairy, shirtless middle-aged man in a trench coat and shades standing in her doorway. She's even more surprised when the shirtless man starts putting on the 'charm'. She's about to close the door to avoid McCrow's extremely explicit advances when Fanboy steps in and says "Ma'am, we're friends of Dan. We're looking for Mrs. Brown." The woman screeches for Lorraine to get the door and a similar looking woman with a slight build, prematurely greying hair and perpetually exhausted expression comes to the door. Roger sort of invites himself in to continue his attempted seduction of Dan's sister-in-law and Fanboy explains that they're friends of her husband and they need to speak with her. Lorraine threatens to burst into tears. "He's dead isn't he? He's dead and you're bookies and you're going to rob me and my sister aren't you?" Fanboy sort of stares at her for a moment "That's... a very specific fear ma'am, but no. We're not bookies and your husband's fine, we just need to speak with you." Lorraine isn't exactly interested in hearing from Dan or those close to him and says as much so Fanboy decides that it's time for brainwashing. He starts subtle by using Emotion control to induce a deep feeling of regret in Mrs Brown but that's as far as he gets. She breaks down in tears and admits that she still loves Dan but she can't support their five kids AND her husband on her own. She goes on about how the bills are piling up and the bank is seizing the house and her oldest son has pissed off the local street gang. Her problems seem endless but Fanboy has a very direct solution. "Lorraine. Go pick out a house." he says with a shrug. Lorraine stares at him and asks "What?" Fanboy repeats himself. "Lorraine, I want for you and Dan to go pick out a house. On us." he says, slipping her his business card. "Don't go crazy or anything, but get something nice. On me and my associates." Lorraine is flabbergasted, she asks what kind of things her husband is wrapped up in and seems ready to bolt. But Fanboy just flashes that winning smile (he's began beefing up Diplomacy) and assures her that Dan's not done anything wrong. He reveals himself to be the heir to the Hamilton Furniture fortune to ease her worries and says that Dan saved his life once(not a total fabrication, he just doesn't mention that he was blind drunk when he did it) and he just wants to return the favor. Lorraine is literally speechless and Fanboy tells her where to pick up Dan before calling for McCrow to stop '******* around' and leaving before things gets mushy. Revenge of Tree King Things are looking up as they return to the warehouse and they're feeling pretty good about their latest act of philanthropy. Lucky Dan is off picking out houses with his wife, Roger is patching up the warehouse (some little bastard managed to break his skylight! Bugs have been getting in.), Fanboy is putting the finishing touches on his new costume and everyone else is going about their business. Then suddenly Bradley starts shouting for everyone to turn on the T.V. and the day gets shot all to hell. Across every channel is the headline: School Bombing, 35 Confirmed Dead. Everyone's shocked, but while listening to the broadcast Fanboy hears the phrase 'fertilizer bomb' and knows exactly who's responsible (to be fair, he called it the second he heard Parks say 'missing fertilizer') although can't fathom WHY he'd do it. Prophet had already been looking into the details of Mann's discovery and points out that this school was one of the landscaping contracts of the men Tree King murdered. Fanboy scans the list of other contracts and finds other schools, the mayor's office, a courthouse, fire and police stations and of course a metric crapload of work in a local park. A park which Prophet points out is hosting a live televised rally featuring hundreds of people for the Mayor, who just happens to be running on a platform focused on his handling of the tragic Bus Hijacking. A noted sore point for the Tree King. Before they've even left there's been another explosion killing 15 people in a courthouse records office, 'coincidentally' the same records office where a friend and contact of Prophet's worked. Everybody with a phone starts calling places on the list to warn them to evacuate, but the lines are so backed up that only a handful of their warnings make it through. They rush towards the park and Fanboy dials Bradley (the real Bradley) and asks him to reinforce them at the rally. He then dials Parks and demands backup. Parks is still in Washington but promises to have his best man back them up and says he'll do what he can to get through to emergency personnel with their warning. They debate calling in Chavenski, but worry that having his men slaughtered by Tree King by the droves might dissolve the good will they've built up with the surly Russian. They get to the rally after the rally is in full swing and Roger stops at a water fountain in the park while everyone else fans out. McCrow's connection to his powers is faint, but he can feel the water again and that's heartening. He concentrates with all of his might and slowly begins forming Droplets from the fountain, figuring the vicious little bastards will be useful when it hits the fan. Roger strolls the park grounds trying to feel for a water source and eventually finds a sprinkler line that he and the Droplets (sneaking around as mobile puddles) camp out on. Fanboy pushes towards the front as the mayor takes the stage and Tiffany approaches the camera crew. The mayor does a truly inspiring song and dance concerning the city's strength in the face of adversity and particularly embellishes his own part in holding the city together after the unexpected chemical attack. He's just getting to the part where he guarantees that under his opponent's leadership the city would have turned into Thunderdome when a striking figure emerges from the tree line. Tree King slowly approaches the podium slowly clapping, a hollow; disturbing sound without flesh to soften it. "A fine speech Mister Mayor. A fine speech." he says clawing his way up the stage and towering over the terrified politician in all his wooden glory. An eerie silence falls over the crowd as they watch a real life monster take the stage. "I've got one of my own if you don't mind. One that might invalidate a couple of your talking points." Tree King says, far more cordially than the PCs have ever heard him. "You see you're wrong about there being no survivors. I survived. In a manner of speaking." The crowd gasps. ((Fanboy's player is like :smalleek: Parks really isn't gonna like this.)) "They tried to lock me away, to be their little science experiment. But I was a man once, with flesh and blood and a beating heart. But I wake up to some ******* in a cheap suit telling me that I'm going away for the rest of my life because I no longer LOOK the part?!" there's murmuring amongst the crowd at this. "I agree, it was unfair. But then, life is unfair." he says with a cold sneer. "And I'm afraid I have some even more disturbing news. Agent Parks wanted a monster, expected a monster and that's what I intend to give him." Looking directly into the cameras Tree King almost seems to smile "You wanted to see what I could do Parks? You want to see what effect the chemicals had on me? Then watch closely. Because I'm no longer a man. No longer bound by your PATHETIC laws." he shouts, the murderous rage seeping through like always. "Get the F***ING camera woman!" Roger shouts out and Tiffany springs into action, slicing through the camera nearest her with a single blow and using a hero point for a second action sends a spray of crystalline shards unerringly through the second camera near the stage. There's another gasp from the crowd and Fanboy steps out, snatching Tree King with his telekinesis and lifting the creature high into the sky, applying considerable pressure and eliciting a number of creaks and cracks as the living wood gives way. "Shut up tree." Fanboy quips with a smirk. "We've done this before and it always ends the same way. You kill a few people, we kill you..." Tree King begins laughing horridly, a raspy sound that carries surprisingly well. "Oh I remember you two. I remember you well. I was hoping you would show up, because I wanted to thank you in person." Fanboy squeezes harder and the crowd parts as Roger and Tiffany move to stand with him. "Thank us?" Fanboy asks confused. "If it wasn't for you, and the axe of course, I never would have realized the true extent of my power. You see I thought that I was nothing but sovereign of...plants." Tree King sneers with disgust. "But you boys, you boys have given me SONS to rule." At his proclamation I pull back the fog of war of the park area and reveal close to 30 identical Tree Kings sauntering towards them from the heavy tree line and a single monstrously large version coming up the center. All of the players give a collective 'Oh sh**." Initiative is rolled and the Tree Kings go first. The massive version charges into the crowd and just begins eviscerating everything he can lay claws on. People begin panicking but the regular sized Tree Kings have the entire perimeter surrounded so there's nowhere to go. The army of Tree Kings open up their bulbs and release a massive cloud of spores which Fanboy/Roger narrowly avoid, Tiffany is immune to and a few dozen civilians choke to death on. Fanboy hurls his immobile Tree King into the larger one, killing the one he held but barely scratching the large one. Roger focuses his energy and all of the sprinklers within range explode upwards in mini-geysers. Tiffany leaps forwards and punches directly through one of the Tree King clones. It continues like this for a few rounds, the Tree Kings are resilient and vicious and they seem to ignore the heroes in favor of murdering as many innocent civilians as they can get their hands on. This isn't subtle, it's a direct message: I can kill who I want and nobody can stop me. Roger begins flooding the area, knocking Tree Kings down and smothering their spores, his Droplets have climbed the large Tree King like he's one of the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus"]Colossi[/URL] and after a few rounds of gnawing like the crazed monsters they are eventually brings him down. Tiffany is hacking her way through one Tree King at a time while Fanboy is picking up groups of them and throwing them at other groups of them, although as tough as the bastards are that's mostly just slowing them down. They're starting to feel a little overwhelmed when suddenly there's a volley of gunshots and 10 men in button down shirts and ski masks wielding 9mm pistols advance into the park. The bullets don't do much against the living trees but one or two are brought down by the sheer volume. Fanboy laughs and welcomes 'Duplex' to the party. The Tree Kings are getting more aggressive and Fanboy and Roger are having to burn hero points to keep from succumbing to the spores in the air. Well over half the tree clones (all the ones to the east) are dead and the heroes position themselves between the remaining Tree Kings and the civilians. Bradley's clones are throwing themselves into the fray as fast as he can generate them but while the Bradleys are fearless(they know that so long as one of them survives, they all kinda do) the Tree Kings are downright suicidal, like they enjoy showing what they're willing to give to take just one more life. Fanboy switches tactics and focuses on crushing one of them at a time and Tiffany covers her hands in lighter fluid soaked rags to make being in melee range with her even more unpleasant. Roger of course has no sense of moderation so it can always be assumed that if I don't mention otherwise then he's using a water-powered Kamehameha to hose down one tree after another. There's a scant handful left by the time a well dressed man with dark shades and a receding hairline steps onto the field firing a .45 at anything that looks at him funny. He seems to be shouting to himself to check for survivors, but miraculously a few of the injured begin to stir and pick themselves up. "This is the best Parks can send?" Fanboy asks with a snort. "A schizo with a peashooter? No wonder he keeps his hand hidden." If Agent Mann heard him or cared he doesn't show it and just keeps executing trees, one of the Tree King charges in an attempt to tear him apart but stops about 10ft away like it hit an invisible wall and rots like a time lapse video. He barks that he doesn't need a babysitter, when he says check on survivors he means NOW! It doesn't take but a few more rounds to finish up the remainder of the murderous clones and survey the area. The death toll is estimated to be at least 90 with more than half that still on the fence. The heroes meet up near the stage and Mann seems to be distressed and speaking into his earpiece. "This was ANOTHER damned diversion." he shouts, motioning for the PCs to follow him. "The REAL Tree King is at The Hole RIGHT NOW." Fanboy holds up a hand "Wait, wait, wait. I need to mindwipe these people before we go anywhere." Mann curses. "There's no time! The three of you get there and subdue him, I'll secure this area with Yurtz and tend to the wounded until you're back." Fanboy doesn't like this at all. "I don't know how far back my mindwipe can go, if I don't do it NOW it might not take!" Mann shouts back at him "There are TWO HUNDRED people here, by the time you're done Tree King will have killed every man in the Hole and did God knows what with our facilities. Not to mention the fact that the ENTIRE city just heard that they've been lied to about a major terrorist attack from the mouth of literal monster. I give this twenty minutes before its plastered on Youtube, so discretion is a secondary concern now." Fanboy looks like he's about argue more, but Roger half carries the telepath in a mad rush for the car. "No time dammit, we need to move if we don't want him to get away." The three PCs pile into the car and Roger drives (he's got the highest driving skill since he has a +1 Dexterity modifier, it's kinda sad) as fast as he can manage across town. Several times he gets stuck in traffic and by the time he arrives The Hole is completely silent. They poke around and discover Parks' last six men have already been murdered. Deep claw marks have shredded several hazard suits and the men within them. The rest are bloated and look to have choked to death, their throats swelled to the point of bursting by what looks like fibrous roots. Roger curses and strikes the walls, vibrating with rage. Fanboy looks around and finds that Johnny and some ill tempered hairy guy are still in their cells, however to everyone's horror the floor of Brick's cell is missing, along with the invincible superhuman it housed. Just when it looked like things couldn't get worse, the Tree King has found a terrifying new ally in his war against the world. Cleanup We start off by retconning Tiffany a bit: basically when McCrow and Fanboy went to the The Hole to interrupt Tree King she stayed behind to secure the area with Mann, Stardust and Bradley. They do what they can to look after the survivors and find about 120 living people among the devestation of the rally, the mayor is among the survivors. Mann has paramedics/police quarantine the survivors 'for their own protection' until Parks can decide how to handle this situation and gets to work with Tiffany and Bradley gathering up the splinters of Tree King into a growing bonfire in the park. Tiffany gets it into her head that the bodies of the victims need to be burned as well as the splinters to keep Tree King from coming back (Maybe she's expecting plant zombies? May steal this...), but Mann won't hear of it. She tells him that he's being ridiculous and sentimental. He points out that in lieu of Parks he's the authority on superhuman activity on the East Coast and that he WILL NOT deny people the chance to bury their dead. Tiffany says that she's not taking any chances and tries to blindside him, however Mann is unbelievably fast on the draw and puts a bullet in her chest before she even gets a chance to assume diamond form. She falls to one knee and spits blood, too stunned to move. Mann puts another bullet into the side of her head and Tiffany collapses into a bloody, unmoving heap. Mann keys his earpiece and tells Stardust that he's got a superhuman in need of medical assistance. So while the former stripper attempts to save Tiffany's life Mann goes back to business as usual and surprisingly manages to find every scrap of Tree King left in the park. Tracking Tiffany wakes up in the car with Mann just before he stops at The Hole. He casually explains that she tok an aggressive position against him and he had to put her down. He warns that she won't be getting up next time. She asks why he brought her along if he doesn't trust her and he points out that he needs muscle on this job and Stardust is busy tending survivors. They pull into The Hole and enter nervously, though the place seems deserted; if Fanboy or McCrow found anything they haven't shared it. They notice that the place is trashed, but more as an afterthought than anything. Johnny on the Spot and the unidentified beastman are still locked in their cells, however Mann notices to his horror that Brick is missing and his cell is torn to pieces. He curses profusely and explains to a smirking Tiffany that of all the superhumans he's encountered Brick is one of the most dangerous by virtue of the fact that you just can't hurt him. She flexes a diamond covered arm before returning it to normal and asks "Oh really?" Mann just says that he hopes for all their sake that he's wrong. They search the place top to bottom and find considerable damage and bodies everywhere. Men in hazard suits have been shredded by wooden claws, the rest simply suffocated from Tree King's horrific spores. Mann also notices that the Tree Clone brought in by him and Stardust has disappeared along with all of the splinters recovered from the scene. With a growing sense of urgency Mann and Tiffany question Johnny and while the former gangster isn't happy about cooperating with his captors he points out that Tree King came in along with a couple of clones with tools, murdered everyone and tore up the floor of Brick's cell to free the berserk rockman, haphazardly wrecked the place and then took off. They search outside and Mann discovers tire tracks that look like they belong to to a van. Tiffany points out that a security camera probably picked it up and they go inside to track down the footage. They scan through it and sure enough they find a delivery fan parked against the side of the building with the name 'Green's Nurseries' printed on it. It takes almost no time for Mann to get an address from local authorities along with a tip that the owner has been reported missing for almost a week. When they finally show up they find a fairly large enclosed area with 15 greenhouses divided into 3 lines of 5 and a quick search of the area turns up their target. The center greenhouse is empty, all of the plants tore up; the equipment missing; only a handful of bags of fertilizer and plant food to suggest something used to be here. Mann points out that this must be where they grew the clones. Looking at the area he points out that they must have moved on once Tree King got what he wanted; not wanting to risk prolonged exposure here. Mann calls up Parks and asks for a team to secure this area until they can make sure it's actually of no use to them and Parks tells him that it'll be another two hours until he touches down and asks Mann and Tiffany to keep an eye out until he arrives with the new team. For an hour they look the area over in case they've missed a crucial clue and then suddenly the delivery van appears again, so weighted down that it nearly drags the ground. Driving it in a poorly conceived disguise is one of the Tree Clones; heavily pruned and in clothing. As it comes to a stop Brick steps out and the sudden release of weight causes the whole van to bounce visibly and violently. If Brick notices the PCs he doesn't seem to care and goes about his business, opening up one of the untouched greenhouses and walking inside. Mann and Tiffany stare at each other for a moment before Mann motions towards the greenhouse and whispers that Tiffany should handle Brick while he gets the tree. She's spoiling for a fight and agrees. Brick is picking over the contents of the greenhouse when the eastern wall explodes in a flashy display of force and Tiffany leaps in in full diamond form, she brings both arms down in a savage power attack and...accomplishes nothing. Her blow is powerful, yes, but barely manages to scratch his powerful exterior, let alone leaving any lasting damage. Tiffany's eyes widen in alarm and Brick's face scrunches into a look of irritation. Meanwhile: Mann sneaks up on the Tree Clone, pistol drawn and raises the gun threateningly. "Homeland security! You've got one chance to make it out of this alive!" The Tree Clone hisses and reaches for the door, its head explodes in a shower of splinters and sap and it collapses against the side of the door quietly. "I told you." Mann says, narrowing his eyes and searching over the van. Back in the action: Brick throws a massive haymaker but fails to make contact with Tiffany who counters the blow with a pair of her own, neither of which manages to dent the monster. Agent Mann hears the commotion inside and calls Parks, all but demanding some form of assistance. Parks explains that he's in the air with the team and there's nothing he can do, however he'll make a call to a few policemen he thinks he can trust and promises backup within ten minutes. Mann's not happy since ten minutes might as well be ten years with this creature, but decides to do what he can to slow Brick down until help can arrive. When he pokes his head into the greenhouse he sees Tiffany and Brick exchanging blows like titans, Tiffany's blows rain down on Brick harmlessly while the hulking brute's massive attacks are easily dodged by the much nimbler superlady. Mann opens fire from the broken wall and his bullets are similarly ineffective against the invincible Brick. Brick however doesn't feel very invincible with attacks coming in from every angle and decides that he's had enough of this, he charges through the greenhouse and snatches a hydroponic growing system in both hands, tearing it out of its fixtures to carry it back to his partner in crime. Tiffany attacks Brick's legs, trying to slow him down; however there's no part of him that's a soft target. Mann has a different idea and opens fire on the hydroponic system itself, rendering it completely unusable. Brick stares at his shattered trophy for a moment and with a roar of irritation hurls it directly at Mann. Now he's no more accurate at range than he is up close, however I rolled a pair of 20s and to Mann's horror he's flung about 20ft back by the wreckage and left a bloody, mangled wreck himself. Brick charges out of one greenhouse and into another to steal his prize from there, however Mann buys off his stun and opens fire (at a significant penalty for firing at something he can't see and just assumes is there) and actually manages to riddle a second hydroponic system with bullets, much to Brick's growing irritation. Tiffany and Brick get into another melee while Agent Mann pulls himself free and as he does he notices that several bloody ribs are poking through his suit and blood is pooling around him with every step. With a half-hearted effort Mann pushes a rib back into place with a grunt, but decides that it's of secondary importance to actually catching Brick and starts shuffling forward on unsteady feet. Brick realizes he's not going to find what he's looking for here and bolts past Tiffany towards the van, unaware that his ride is no longer alive; however Tiffany is faster and just barely manages to beat the hulking brute to the parking lot. Brick and Tiffany eyeball each other for a moment and both lunge towards the van, Tiffany manages to hoist the vehicle over her head and send it crashing directly into Brick's unprepared face with enough force to cause a fiery explosion that consumes a good portion of the parking lot. (Just barely enough damage to cause him an injury and stun.) Mann is still near the greenhouses, but is within shouting range of the now smoking Brick. "Here's how this is going to go 'Brick', you're going to lay down with your hands up and wait for a security detail to get here. In exchange for your cooperation I won't kill you where you stand." (he fails the intimidate roll) Rage flashes through Brick's mind and I buy off his stun, giving each PC a hero point and having him stand with the flaming wreckage held above his head. He hurls it towards Tiffany, knocking her back almost 30ft; partially cracking her diamond form and stunning her temporarily. (Mann's player points out that this is absolutely terrifying from his pov.) "I've got a counter proposal." Brick says through clenched teeth. "The two of you leave and let me get what I'm here for and I don't pull out your skulls through your open mouths." (Brick it should be noted, does not fail.) Mann starts to limp away, firing over his shoulder and Brick breaks into a sprint towards him; charging like a raging bull. At the last second Mann uses a hero point to find a fuel tank for the greenhouse's gas generators and fires into it, letting a second explosion tear through Brick and send the rock man staggering back a couple of feet. With a shake of his head Brick decides that this is pointless and sprints off full speed away from the heroes. Mann knows he can't keep up so he limps towards his car while Tiffany chases Brick down, spraying crystalline shards into Brick's exposed back but not even slowing the big man down. Mann swings by to pick Tiffany up and the two of them pick up Brick's trail pretty easily, however when they pursue on foot they find that it's hard to follow an inexhaustible colossus who doesn't care about civilian casualties. Mann and Tiffany split up to cut him off, but Mann can barely stand and I point out that a stiff breeze could kill him at the moment. His player gets into character and kind of smiles "I know, but I can't him hurt anyone else. I don't mind dying, but I won't let him go. I've gotta hold him until Parks gets here." It was a great moment, but the reality was less inspiring. He fell behind due to Brick's breakneck pace and after Brick stopped running through every wall in his way Mann had an increasingly harder time tracking him and eventually passed out from his injuries. Tiffany carried him back to the greenhouse just in time to meet Parks and their new team. Deadly Force Authorized Parks has Stardust heal Mann's injuries while the new DHS team sweeps the area. 32 large men in black body armor sporting fully automatic weapons and grim faces along with a motley assortment of 10 dogs. Tiffany attempts to play with them, but they're well trained and the only one to give her the time of day is a gangly mutt referred to as Lycaon. Parks openly explains that the men have been trained to deal with their kind of problems and that the dogs are meant to handle what the men can't. Mann seems skeptical but Parks asks "Remember the last...batch? Well these dogs predate [I]them[/I]. Only they obey orders." Mann scowls and voices his opinion that if they've got anything in common with the mutants they should just be euthanized to save everyone trouble but Parks suggests taking one of the dogs with them to see their value. Tiffany suggests taking Lycaon and the dog lowers its ears as Parks agrees. Telepathically they hear "These people? I was hoping for a higher priority assignment." The PCs are shocked to hear the thing talk and Tiffany is a bit offended that it doesn't want to be assigned to them after its friendly display. Parks explains that Lycaon's particular mutation gives him human intelligence and a limited form of telepathy that allows him to communicate (I nearly called him [URL="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072730/"]Blood[/URL] but decided against it) but nothing that can be used offensively; he's primarily used for intelligence gathering since nobody gives a second look to a mutt. While Tiffany and Lycaon get better acquainted, Parks pulls Mann to the side and tells him that after Tree King outed him in front of half the world (the video went viral as only a video of a tree monster murdering an entire crowd of people can) his career may very well be over. Mann doesn't want to hear it but Parks waves him off and says that if the DHS decides to pull him from the superhumans that Mann himself will be the one to take his place, he warns Mann that if that happens he'll need to utilize the 'assets' at their disposal instead of just tossing them aside. Man lets it be known that as much as he respects Parks he'll still execute every mutant in the city the second it's within his authority to do so. Mann reiterates that he'd rather Parks keep the position than to be forced behind a desk himself. Parks suggests that they need to show the DHS that they're making progress in Ventnor if he's going to keep his job and directs Mann and Tiffany to the operation of a Sergei Reschkov, one of Chavenski's lieutenants and one of many to clamor for the injured Russian's position after his encounter with Depaliamo's .44 Magnum. Parks tells Mann that he's authorizing an official raid, but wants Mann to use superhuman assistance to prove their value overall. Mann and Tiffany requisition an armored car and megaphone and drive to the docks, where Reschkov is in the process of selling captured Italian women overseas. Tiffany and Lycaon sneak to the back of the warehouse while Mann parks the armored car out front and loudly calls for their unconditional surrender. The Russian gangsters start gravitating towards the front of the warehouse as Man details the nature of their crimes for the world to hear and promises that acts of foreign aggression against US citizens will be met with deadly force. He points out that he was trained by the U.S. government, authorized by Homeland Security and granted the chance by God to put a warehouse full of Russian sex-slavers six feet in the ground and that he's not about to disappoint ANY of those people. (Basically milking his intimidate skill for all its worth and channeling it through his blind patriotism.) While everyone's distracted (rightly so) Lycaon (under the control of Tiffany's player) begins sneaking girls out through the back by acting like his telepathic voice is coming from his collar and Tiffany herself sneaks up to the backs of the guards. Mann and the Russians are exchanging fire when suddenly the warehouse becomes Hell on earth. Tiffany turns into a swirling dervish, turning grown men into screaming piles of flesh and cackling as the hail of gunfire simply bounces off her nearly impenetrable skin. I won't go into the gory details but it started out with nearly 30 men in the warehouse, she murders them as fast as she can lay hands on them; pulling out spines, severing limbs and generally reveling in the bloodshed. The gunshots give way to panicked screams as the terrified Russians try to flee, only to first have their escape cut off; followed by their heads. Mann barges in to see what the commotion is and can barely make Tiffany out for the gore that covers her head to toe. He shoots one of the fleeing Russians in the knee to take at least one prisoner out of this mess and has throw himself in front of Tiffany to keep her from torturing the man to death. He draws his heavy .45 and warns her to step away, but after the hail of bullets that failed to harm her she simply starts laughing, a lilting and frightening sound and starts to lunge forward. Mann manages to act first and fires directly into her face point blank with everything he's got, barely managing to make a scratch but succeeding in stunning her for a moment. A moment that he uses to snatch the injured Russian and drag him to the waiting car. She tries to give chase but Mann just barely manages to peel out and down the street before she can claim her prize. Mann calls Parks to tell him that the girls are safe and that Tiffany is a monster, he suggests a minimum sentence of life in The Hole but would prefer to see the woman executed for her constant disregard for human life. When Parks and Mann shows up later with a handful of men and two dogs they just stare at the grisly sight that meets them. Tiffany has built a bonfire taller than she is filled with the burning bodies of the slain Russians and all of the girls who had died during the fighting. She's in her human form but still covered in the innards of the men she's killed and smiling. Ear to ear, she's smiling. Epilogue, Old Friends Parks and Mann sit across from each other in Parks new office in the third Hole. They sit in tense silence for several long moments and Parks finally says "Mann...times are getting desperate. You know the same as I do that desperate times, call for desperate measures..." Mann raises an eyebrow "Just how desperate sir?" "I think we need Michael Stockton." Parks says with a sigh of defeat. "No. Sir, no! If you've ever respected my opinion then take it now, we DO NOT need Stockton. He's a monster.A f***ing devil in a mansuit. The LAST THING we need is Michael Stockton." Mann nearly shouts at his superior. "I know...I know he is Mann. But look at what we're left with at the moment. You know him better than anyone, is he really worse than this?" Parks asks. Mann thinks for a moment. He thinks of the sound of Tiffany's laugh as she's covered in the gore of her victims and faces him down. He thinks of the bloated faces of Tree King's victim trapped in The Hole. He pictures all of the waterlogged and mangled bodies they've recovered from their supposed 'heroes'. He thinks of Brick hurling the flaming remains of a truck that failed to do more than knock him down and shudders. "Much worse sir. Much worse." We flash back to five years ago in the mountains of Afghanistan. A younger, less battle hardened Mann and a fellow Army Ranger by the name of Michael Stockton are slinking through the mountains breathlessly. They're the last survivors of their unit , the rest having been picked off seemingly an eternity ago. They're wounded, underequipped and a long way from home when Mann suddenly spots about a dozen enemy combatants hovering around a covered troop transport. The weary soldiers decide that this might just be their way home and split up to attack the distracted Taliban from both sides. As Mann is making his way down the mountain however, he loses his footing and takes a tumble along with the rocks underfoot. He luckily lands behind a large rock, so the dozen assault rifles that bark in his direction mercifully miss him. Michael uses this opportunity to snatch one of the enemy soldiers by the throat and snaps his neck silently. Mann returns fire and manages to take out another of the soldiers. Michael opens fire into the backs of the distracted soldiers and kills several himself, however misses the soldier lounging behind the truck who takes this opportunity to pop out and shoot him with what sounds like a Dari curse. Michael collapses onto the ground in a pool of his rapidly pooling blood. Mann sees his friend go down and leaps his cover, opening fire with a full-auto burst and then using a hero point to use a second full-auto burst to mow down Taliban in his way. He charges across the distance between him and Michael rapidly, causing the man who shot Stockton to open fire on Mann instead of finishing off the wounded Ranger. Mann fires again and takes down Stockton's assailant, before using extra effort to blow through the remaining forces. Meanwhile, Michael discovers to his growing horror that his legs don't work. He can't move, he can't even twitch them and as Mann helps him up and drags him to the transport, Michael unloads his rifle into the corpse of the man who did this to him screaming about how the son of a bitch turned him into a cripple. Present day. McCrow and Fanboy are standing in The Hole, gawking at the state they've found it in. Fanboy's the first to point out that it's too late for them to do anything, they need to return to the park and start mind raping the survivors if they want to keep this quiet. By the time they get back to the park Agent Mann has already disappeared along with Tiffany, there's a massive bonfire already in progress and Bradley runs up excitedly. "You won't believe it. That Mann guy shot Tiffany in the head and loaded her into his car." the teen says. "Then he loaded all the survivors into quarantine and took off." McCrow and Fanboy exchange glances because this seems like something that can escalate quickly, but Fanboy is glad to hear that everyone is still in one place. It doesn't take Fanboy long to trick his way into quarantine and begin wiping memories; however to his dismay only about half of them are affected. They discuss what to do and McCrow asks if they have room for 60 people but Fanboy decides to try and discredit them instead. They decide to introduce themselves to the Mayor, but he had a front row seat to the whole thing and recognizes them immediately. He starts to voice his appreciation for saving his life when Roger blindsides him, pins him against the wall and growls. "You've seen what we can do firsthand, so when we speak you listen." he threatens and the Mayor agrees frantically. "This is bigger than you and your city, bigger than your constituents. Forget re-election, if you want to SURVIVE what you've seen you're going to do what we say." Fanboy steps in and mentions that they're still the good guys in this, that McCrow is overzealous but they're definitely not threatening anybody. They've just seen what happens to whistle blowers and need to stress the importance of discretion. Roger likes the way that sounds and acts like it's what he meant. Fanboy stresses that things are changing and that if the Mayor works with them he'll make sure the world will remember him as having a hand in it. The Mayor asks what they want from him and Fanboy has two demands: The first is that the Mayor is to hold a press conference and stress the lives saved by this group of mystery men instead of the massive death toll, as well as to denounce the evil Parks and Recreation department that gave birth to this horrible tree monster. (It took me a minute to process, but thought it was a hilarious gambit so I let them run with it.) The second is that if it comes down to it; he'll personally host their televised 'coming out party. The mayor agrees and Roger releases him with a smile. They tell the Mayor that they'll be in touch and remind him to make them look good and to downplay the 'not human' and 'government conspiracy' angle. As they're leaving their 'meeting' with the Mayor they're stopped by Bradley with a handheld radio. He explains that although it's only been a couple of hours since the attack, the stuff has went viral thanks in no small part to the presence of a tree monster denouncing the American government and then fifteen minutes worth of action packed audio where a group unidentified strangers stepped out of the crowd to save the day. Fanboy excitedly asks if they've got a fan page yet and Bradley turns up the radio. "Not quite, but there's lots of people that are calling in about you." They listen with a mixture of pride and terror as they listen to a police officer who says he was possessed by something and forced to run over a teenager (Bradley laughs at this one, remembering it fondly) and lost his job after his partner testified against him. They listen as an anonymous nurse says that several of her friends were murdered by the tree monster but two supposedly comatose strangers leapt to her rescue at the last second and if that wasn't enough, they brought down another superhuman rampage only a week later. Another girl calls in claiming that a young man carried her away from the creature calling itself Tree King while a creature made of water did battle with it. Fanboy finally turns the radio off and points out that it probably would have been a good idea for them to have invested in a mask at one point. Bradley/Duplex resists the urge to gloat. The PCs call Parks up just in case he somehow doesn't know what's going on and he cuts them off by saying he knows what's going on. Or at least he hopes that's all there is to it, he really doesn't need more on his plate. They ask what the worse he's heard so far is and he points out that that'd probably be the part where he was CALLED OUT BY NAME as the reason behind a tree just killing 300 people and burning down half the city. Fanboys says that that's what he thought his least favorite part would be... Parks sounds like he's had the fight beat out of him and he tells Fanboy that his career is over. His decision not to immediately ship off everyone affected by the bus was already controversial one; but with it spiraling out of control like this he'll be lucky if he escapes jail time. Fanboy tries to ease his mind by saying that they're attempting to put the blame on Parks and Recreation since it's easy to see why a tree man would have something to do with them and Parks is dumbstruck, but thankful. He says that it might not make much difference, but McCrow and Fanboy need to get a lawyer; if Agent Mann is promoted they'll all be targets. Once they hang up Roger calls up Chavenski and makes some idle banter about how the Russian crime lord is doing. Chavenski is on his last legs, but being the eternal hardass he doesn't complain. Roger eventually gets around to asking if Chavenski knows any lawyers and the Russian excuses himself to look through his address book, returning in a moment with a name: Brian Weisner, a constitutional law specialist. They thank the Russian and ask if there's anything they can do in return; Chavenski says that he's heard the talk around the warehouse about Luvless and he wants to meet the guy because he believes it may be his only chance to be whole again. They say that they'll do what they can and go to meet their lawyer. Weisner's firm is one of the most prestigious in the city but when hears that Chavenski sent the PCs he throws a client out to avoid angering the city's most powerful and brutal crime boss. Weisner is a short, pudgy man in a $8,000 suit and immediately sets about trying to earn his fee. He asks the PCs why they're looking for protection from the government and they want to make sure anything that they say is confidential. Weisner laughs and says that he's worked with Chavenski before and has seen the bodies buried, he's not interested in being one of them. Roger's a little disappointed that he doesn't get to play Bad Cop (to Fanboy's confused bystander) and decides to showcase his powers to expedite things. He blows up a water glass to Weisner's surprise. Fanboy's eyes glow and he lifts himself and the pudgy lawyer off the ground with his telekinesis, but stops when the guy nearly has a panic attack. They explain everything that's happened since the bus and that their contact at the DHS believes they may be about to be imprisoned. Weisner listens intently but finally says that there's not much he can do considering they're literally walking WMDs and that they definitely fall under the perimeters of indefinite detention as outlined in the Defense Authorization Act. They're disappointed but he tells them that there are two ways he can see this going down in their favor: Strengthen their ties to the DHS and make themselves invaluable or become too public to take down without massive public backlash. Roger and Fanboy whisper that there's a third option, continue gathering up superhumans until they're just too powerful for the DHS to take down. However in the meantime both PCs want to take opposite paths. McCrow doesn't want to be held accountable for his actions by adopting a public persona, but Fanboy wants fame more than anything. They agree to explore all of their options for now, but Fanboy wants to take it a step further and asks Brian if he can get them in touch with a Public Relations guru to help soften their image. Weisner's never had much need for a PR guy, but tells them he'll ask around and see what he can dig up. Before they go they're told that they need some way to explain their growing fortune and they suggest setting up a shipping business to hide their activities on the docks and launder their stolen money. They give him a little more than a hundred thousand dollars to fill out the right paperwork and set something concrete up. Leaving the law office they decide that they definitely need to do something to improve their image, so they sit down to come up with somebody they know with the public's ear and that's when Roger snaps his fingers. "That reporter lady that we saved!" Fanboy perks up too but isn't sure if he can undo the memory wipe. Regardless, they decide that she's their best chance and head to the paper where she works to see if they can trust her. They find Elizabeth Ingles in a cubical typing up what's left of her story on organized crime and just as she asks what the hell they want, Fanboy grabs her head and manages to unlock the memories he buried. They're fuzzy and distant like they've been there the entire time, but the act of rewriting her brain leaves Elizabeth dazed and they use this opportunity to drag her into an empty room. "I..I remember you guys. You saved me at Floyd's." she half murmurs, coming out of her fog. "That's us." McCrow says with a smug grin, "And now we've come to give you the story of a lifetime." Elizabeth shakes her head "There's no point. Depaliamo is dead so the story's dead and since I'm not interested in being found in a ditch without any hands, I'm not pursuing the Russian angle." Fanboy shakes his head "No, bigger than that. Way bigger. WE were the heroes at the rally and we're in the center of a massive government conspiracy." Ingles is more than a little shocked and Fanboy asks if it never occurred to her to wonder how they took out an armed gang by themselves. She only remembers a nearly naked McCrow storming in with a bloody bat and demanding to know who she worked for. Fanboy smiles and lifts up a table and several chairs and has them dance around the room before setting them back down gracefully. She gawks in amazement and then looks at Roger. "What can you do?" Roger shakes his head "My power is messy trust me. If you want to keep the plumbing in your building you'll just have to take my word for it." Me and Fanboy's player burst out laughing at this and it takes Roger's player a minute to realize how that sounds and then he decides that McCrow doesn't care, he's not some dancing monkey to use his powers on cue. She settles down to hear their story and Fanboy laughs, saying that first he has some terms. She says that she'll have to hear them first and Roger explodes that it doesn't matter what their terms are, this isn't a negotiation. If she opens her mouth without their consent she'll be lucky if the men in dark suits are the first to get her and if she doesn't want the story there's fifty other people in THIS building alone that'd be willing to get on their knees and beg for it. She's shocked into silence and agrees to their terms unconditionally, not wanting her big break to get away. Fanboy tells her to get in touch with the Mayor and tell him that she's a mutual friend, he orders Ingles spin their story until people forget that people even died today (let alone three times as many as were actively saved) and to stress that the mystery heroes are the only reason the city's still standing. He points out that she'll be the only person allowed an exclusive so her story will have more weight than anything else out there. He tells her that once she does this they'll be in touch with the rest of the details, but that if she betrays them in the mean time she won't see them coming. Flashback to 3 years ago. Agent Mann has only been working for the Department of Homeland Security for six months but he's already considered a rising star and been assigned under Senior Agent Parks. He's been called into his superior's office and wastes no time showing up. To Mann's surprise and shock Michael Stockton is standing with Parks and smiles broadly when he sees his old friend. "You...can walk? I thought you..." Mann starts, and just shakes his head; shaking Stockton's hand and just deciding to be happy to see an old friend walk again. "They fixed me up." Stockton explains "Some experimental procedure meant to get me back to kicking ass and taking names. Look, they even gave me a name taking book." he says with a laugh. The two men chat for a moment before remembering why they're here and Parks explains that due to their previous relationship it makes sense to partner them up. Parks tells Mann to show the newly hired Michael the ropes and gives them a dossier on missing fugitive Behnam Sajadi, usually known by his alias Ben Snow, a notorious conman who's suspected of selling state secrets. Behnam's father is an Imam at a New York Mosque and Mann thinks it would be prudent to ask if Imam Sajadi has seen or heard from his son, so they set out; still reminiscing. Once they arrive at their destination they discover that there's a small service in progress and Mann suggests sitting in the back until things wrap up. Michael however shouts that they need to sit down, shut up and answer some questions. Mann stares at him with a pained expression like he'd just been struck, he can't believe how unprofessional Stockton is. The older man leading the service looks similarly shocked and asks what this is about. Stockton says that they're there for his peace of s*** kid and he needs to turn him over. Now. The old Imam accuses Stockton of blasphemy and nearly stumbles over himself in his rush to meet Michael and Mann in the aisle and demand the two leave. Michael flashes his badge and says that they're not leaving until they get what they're after; the old man starts to physically push Michael and the former Ranger responds by wrenching his wrist and nearly dislocating the man's arm. The old man shouts in surprise and repeats the Dari curse that Michael's assailant so many years ago uttered, Stockton nearly goes limp and his eyes seem to lose focus. Everybody stares in shock and horror for a moment before a look of absolute rage flashes through Michael's face and he flips the old man savagely, the sickening crunch accompanying the blow telling Mann without having to look that the Imam is dead. "Michael...what the hell did you do?" Mann shouts. Two men rush to the aid of their spiritual leader and Michael responds by punching one in the throat, removing a boot knife and sticking the second one in the chest. Mann grabs Michael's arm and attempts to wrench the knife from his grasp, but Michael has the same training as Mann and switches hands nimbly, and elbows Mann in the face; knocking him down and stunning him. Stockton leaps amid the terrified congregation and easily puts down the men who try to wrestle him to the ground so that their families might escape. Mann stumbles to his feet shouting for Stockton to stand down and puts a bullet into the head of his longtime friend to stop his unprovoked rampage. Mann stands over the corpse of his friend and the remaining congregation seems to calm down, until the bullet pushes itself out of Michael's skull to Mann's dismay and Stockton lashes out with a powerful kick that breaks Mann's leg. Mann goes to his knee screaming and Michael hurls his knife into the back of a fleeing girl, no more than twelve before delivering another kick to his former friend's chest that sends Mann backwards, blocking off the door. While Mann is stunned he watches in horror as Michael draws his sidearm and begins firing into the crowd. As the screams become quieter and quieter Michael's rage seems to dissipate and he seems genuinely confused, he glances around like he doesn't know where he's at. He turns around and starts to ask what happened to Mann when a bullet tears through his skull and lays him out flat. With only a handful of survivors sobbing and huddled over the bodies of their slain, Mann barely stands over the body of his twice dead partner and watches as the wound begins closing once again. Filled with disgust and rage he raises his pistol and opens fire into the corpse of his former friend again. And again, and again. Present day. McCrow and Fanboy find themselves in the office of Marcus Finch, supposedly the best PR guy in the business. He's a tall redhaired man in an expensive navy blue suit and a reptilian grin. Weisner got the guy's name through a friend of a friend. Marcus asks the pair what they need his help with and Fanboy responds by raising himself into the air telekinetically. "Nice trick, but I preferred when David Blaine did it. Seemed more spontaneous." Finch says, lighting up a cigar. Fanboy sighs and lifts Marcus off the ground as well, eliciting raised eyebrow as the PR guy takes a deep drag off his cigar and nods. "Now this I like. We can market this." Fanboy drops Finch and decides to just explain their situation, he listens and nods and seems to take it in stride. Roger points out that Finch really doesn't seem to be very shocked by their existence and Finch respond's with something absolutely horrible that I can't post to the forums because I'm pretty sure it violates like all the rules, it was basically: "Once you *implicates himself in about eight different felonies in a single 2 second act* you sort of change the bar for weird." (If you want to know the exact wording PM me, but I stress that it was horrible and meant to be horrible. So let your imagination run wild.) Both of the PCs are absolutely shocked, Fanboy wants to leave but Roger thinks he's found his hero. He whispers to Fanboy "Look at it this way, instead of being in prison this guy is like the most respected member of his field; that alone says he knows what he's doing." Fanboy concedes and they hear him out. Finch asks what they want out of this relationship and McCrow says that he wants the public to love him; Fanboy says that he wants action figures and endorsement deals. Finch says that he can do that. The 'heroes' pay him $160,000 for an all-out PR campaign and he starts writing out notes. "Way I see it, if you want the public to accept you as heroes you need to get people that they already look up to to speak on your behalf. Do you have a police scanner? Good. Keep an ear out and start responding to as many penny ante crimes as you can, make sure you're visible! For some reason people really dig those fire and rescue guys so get on their good side and you're golden." Finch says helpfully. Fanboy points out that the NDA frowns on that sort of things and Finch explains that they're building a brand, not a face. Just make sure that he wears something easily recognizable and fashionable. Fanboy's already in the middle of putting together such an outfit, so he's ahead of the game. Finch tells them to make some public appearances and then get back to him after he's had some time to work on something. They agree and mention that they've already got the Mayor and an local reporter working on building their image; Finch congratulates them on taking initiative and says that he'll help co-ordinate their efforts from here on out. Fanboy and Roger return to the warehouse and decide to start planning for their 'coming out party'. They figure they're going to need an overwhelming force to convince the city they're the heroes they envision themselves as (I pointed out that a sentient tree monster attacking a visible politician and his supporters with an army of other tree monsters would have made a great opportunity, and they told me to shut up.) and there's only one man they know with access to that kind of disposable force. Depaliamo. Roger raises Depaliamo's prison from the bottom of the ocean and Fanboy prepares to take over Depaliamo's body himself, however when they open the container the once plump and defiant crime lord is an emaciated shell of his former self. His eyes can't adapt to what little light is in the holding cells after the sun has set and he blinks painfully. Depaliamo breaks down and cries, he apologizes for everything he's done and claims that it was just business. He offers the PCs all of his money, all of his men, even Johnny on the Spot if they'll just let him go. Fanboy laughs and says that he's been out of commission for a while, they've already got his money and Johnny needs a new nickname; unless The Spot is a wheelchair, Johnny isn't on it anymore. Depaliamo breaks down even more and offers do to anything if they'll just turn him over to the authorities. He doesn't want to go free, he doesn't care about power, he just wants to see the sun again. Now I must have done a pretty good job of begging as Depaliamo because Roger's player looks absolutely miserable. He's like 'That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. We broke Depaliamo...' McCrow decides that they'll move Depaliamo upstairs in exchange for a few concessions. Depaliamo will start off in one of the regular cells until he proves his worth; he must turn over all of his contacts and help with actually running their new business. Depaliamo agrees wholeheartedly, going from the most powerful man in the city to nothing more than an indentured accountant. Fanboy points out that if they put Depaliamo in the normal then Richard won't have anyplace safe to train, so they decide to outfit Richard's room with heavy duty insulation and targets to practice with. They both think that sounds like a plan, so they move Depaliamo and even give him a T.V. They explain the situation to Prophet now that they've got a chance to catch their breaths and discover that their resident information broker is suddenly agoraphobic. His close call at the courthouse is over and his powers function again, however he still refuses to leave his room and his usual paranoia has increased tenfold. Fanboy agrees that protecting Prophet from any future harm is of the utmost importanct and Roger adds a saferoom to his list of DIY projects. In the meantime Prophet shows the PCs what he's managed to pull up on Warren Davis, their number one suspect in the killings. The result is a four inch thick file of a 20 year veteran assigned to an airforce recovery team with every other word redacted for security purposes. If this is their guy, then he's more dangerous than they thought. McCrow decides that he's heard enough and decides to get a jump on his shopping if he's going to start upgrading the warehouse and leaves Fanboy to look after the place. It's about an hour after McCrow leaves that Agent Parks shows up, accompanied by two large men in black combat armor; armed to the teeth and a german shepherd. Fanboy instinctively gets nervous and asks "Am I going to The Hole? I'm going to The Hole aren't I?", but Parks shakes his hand and motions for the men to stay put. Agent Parks pulls Fanboy away from the eyes of his men and explains that Washington has came through, they realize that the problem here is more than a handful of agents are able to handle and they've sent men experienced with solving such problems, the specially trained Superhuman Containment And Recovery team. He asks if the PCs took his advice and Fanboy mentions that they've been talking to a lawyer. Parks nods and draws out what looks like a large pencil box from his suit jacket, opening it reveals two sleek grenades. "These things are still just experimental, they're rumored to be enough to short out a block. We don't know if they'll work on Luvless's tech, but they're the best we have to offer you." Parks says, closing the case and handing it to Fanboy. He then stresses that Luvless isn't some street punk to be handled like they handled John Hurt (Baritone), that his mind will change the world if applied properly and secure America's place as THE world superpower for centuries to come. Fanboy attempts to deny their involvement with Hurt but sees that Parks isn't buying it and says that he understands. Parks mentions that if he can turn over a superhuman of Luvless's caliber then his position will be secure once again. Fanboy suddenly realizes that this is his chance to fulfill a lifelong dream. "I'll deliver you Luvless, but I want something in return. I want him to build me something. I want a lightsaber!" the ubernerd demands excitedly. Parks agrees that he'll see to it himself and instructs Fanboy that if anyone finds those grenades; he doesn't know where he got them. Parks excuses himself and leaves with his entourage without any further fanfare. The next few days are spent improving the warehouse, at some point Roger took Sandy aside and broke the news of her husband's death; though left out the part where he covered it up. Instead he says that he found out through his 'sources' and points out that her husband died because the killer was looking for her; that if he hadn't kidnapped her and the kids they'd all be dead. She breaks into tears and he goes back to insulating Richard's room. Fanboy finds out from Bradley that he's been taking night courses to try and make himself more useful to the team and when he stops in to replace the clones they discover that he can create nearly twice as many as before. Like everyone else, his powers are growing with use. During all this they receive a visit from Elizabeth Ingles asking for a Mr. McCrow. They freak out because they never gave her this address but meet with her anyway, she's obvious surprised and asks "You two are private investigators?" They're confused and she points out that she'd been doing some independent research concerning the serial killer and found out there were supposedly some P.I.s doing the same. She wanted to compare notes because she thought she'd made a break in the case concerning a connection to the bus hijacking, but they laugh her off and say that they've already got that much. She's disappointed, but mid-conversation they're buzzed by Prophet on the intercom and told that there's a hostage situation in progress in the lobby of a local insurance company. It's not superhuman related, but it's crawling with cops. The PCs grab Ingles in their mad dash to the car and drag her along for the ride. They find a police line keeping out a sizable crowd, Fanboy is in his new combat armor and a domino mask; Roger is wearing a hat. They park around the block and stroll up to the line, proclaiming that they're here to save the day. Naturally the police tell them that they're lunatics and they can't go in, but Fanboy takes a deep breath and purposefully violates the non-disclosure agreement for the first time. He hovers amidst a swirl of telekinetic energy and shocks the crowd to silence as he declares that none shall stand in the way of justice. Meanwhile, Roger rides a blast of water from a newly loosened fire hydrant over the crowd and lands in the doorway, adjusting his coat. Fanboy tears the doors off and they stroll in, two visibly shaken men are holding guns on eight terrified employees of the insurance company. One of the criminals points his guns at the heroes and says that either they sit down with their hands up or EVERYONE DIES! Roger responds by sprinting across the room and breaking the man's jaw with a haymaker, as the man starts to collapse he's grabbed by the collar by McCrow who throws him into front window with enough force to crack the glass, but not quite enough to shatter it. The second criminal is pulled twenty feet through the air towards Fanboy who easily tugs the gun from his hand and tosses him out the door and sends the guy rolling across the parking lot unconscious. McCrow and Fanboy stroll out as casually as they went in, though McCrow has a bloodied criminal thrown over his shoulder who he drops as soon as he reaches the police line. "What the hell are you doing!?" one of the cops ask, looking at the battered criminal. Roger holds out his hands so that the water flows to him and both he and Fanboy rocket away into the sky. "Your job." he shouts over his shoulder as he disappears. In reality however, once they get out of sight they make their way back to their car and text Ingles to get her ass back in. They sit in silence, twiddling their thumbs while they wait for their contact to walk the three blocks. They stop by Finch's office once the adrenaline fades and introduce Elizabeth to their PR guy, who's an absolute gentleman in front of company. He shows them sketches for a viral ad campaign he's about to introduce that hints that they've been watching over the city for years and arranges a photo shoot to get suitable 'grainy' pictures to peak the public's interest. They hash out some specifics when Finch notices the time and says that it's nearly six and they have an appointment to keep. Fanboy asks what he means and Finch mentions that they need to get to Fifth Street if they want to make the 10'oclock news. Fanboy asks what he means by that and he just grins. Fanboy probes Finch's mind and discovers that he's paid a homeless man $500 to jump off a building and a contact at the local news to make sure it gets major coverage. Fanboy is once again flabbergasted at this horrible bastard, but grabs McCrow to 'save the day' regardless. By the time they get to Fifth Street there's quite a crowd and two different news stations in the street below and a strangely well dressed homeless man screaming about his wife stealing his children and having nothing to live for. Fanboy lifts himself into the air to the astonishment of the crowd and as he gets close the jumper says in a much quieter tone "I guess you're the guy?" Fanboy sighs and nods and the guy screams "That's it, it's all over!" and leaps headfirst off the building. Fanboy barely manages to make the catch and lowers himself and his shill to the ground. He's mobbed by the reporters who clamor to ask who is is and he says "I'm the Fanboy. A fanboy for Lucas, a fanboy for Toryama..." then he looks directly into the camera with a practiced smile "A fanboy for justice." and then lifts off and into the night in a flash display of telekinetic force as McCrow just laughs and saunters back through the crowd. Parks is obviously not pleased. He calls Fanboy the second it airs on the news and it sounds like he may be having a coronary. Fanboy's quick to explain that he's just trying to calm the public's fears about Tree King and that really...this is his lawyer's fault. But Parks is livid and keeps asking what part of the NDA said that it was their job to deal with the public? The PCs are eager to calm their only friend in the DHS and ask if there's anyway to make amends. Parks says that there's no escaping the fact that they've violated the agreement, but that several higher-ups are in town to run a few tests on the superhumans in custody; if they willingly submit to a series of tests it'll show the DHS that they want to cooperate. They agree and Parks sends a few guys to pick them up. (McCrow nearly refuses to go on the grounds that nobody's putting a finger inside him.) On the way there they have to be blindfolded for security, so Fanboy spends the ride probing the minds of the guards with telepathy; what he finds is disturbing. They have memories of a man made of living flame, burning hot enough to simply walk through walls; leaving destruction in his wake. They hosed the guy down with liquid nitrogen until the flame was extinguished and then beat him to death with clubs. Fanboy suddenly realizes what Parks meant by problem solvers. They drive for what seems like hours and when the blindfolds come off they discover that they're at The Hole, however it's different from before. The walls are white and sterile and the cells containing Johnny and the Beastman are built into the walls and stacked three high. Those black armored men are everywhere and Fanboy glances through another's eyes. He sees a teenage girl with tears in her eyes running for her life, the girl lays a hand on a computer and seems to digitize, entering the device completely. The man who's eyes he's looking for spins on his heels and bolts to the end of a hallway, bursting through the window and rapidly descending to the ground. He makes it just in time to watch the girl step out of the electronic lock which guards the grounds and look up at him with terrified eyes for a split second before the .45 slug tears through her brain. The only thought going through the man's head during the moment of the kill is that he can't believe he's going to have to stay late and clean this up. A pair of men wait for them as peer nervously around, one of them is a younger man in a lab coat; the other is a man in his mid 60's with the posture of a military man but no noticeable insignia. The man in the lab coat almost gushes as he introduces himself as Dr. Summers and thanks them for taking the time to help out with this study. He admits that before today he's never met one of them and thought that their existence was still only in the hypothetical phase. Fanboy does a quick scan of his mind once he moves on to shake McCrow's hand and finds out that Summers is telling the truth; obviously they wouldn't risk that sort of information with a telepath around. He does however pull a trio of names from Dr. Summer's head. Drs Heiner, Marcell and Gupta are the scientists in charge of his department. The military man doesn't introduce himself, he simply watches and Fanboy manages to get a glimpse of his mind as well: General Wilson, Warren Davis's former C.O. His will is strong however and Fanboy can't find anymore than that. The tests themselves are fairly lackluster and mostly involve an intense physical examination which Fanboy nearly fails much to McCrow's enjoyment, followed by an in depth questionnaire concerning their family history as they try to find out WHY they survived exposure where so many other people fail. Dr Summers is pretty frank that only about 30% of people exposed to the gas survive, the rest die from severe mutations. As they're wrapping up and heading towards a specially designed testing chamber Fanboy manages to read several more minds and he keeps finding the image of a fellow soldier who volunteered for the project but turned out to be unstable; so they executed him. And then did it again, and again. Hanging, bullet, lethal injection, electrocution, drowning and dozens of other execution attempts; when Fanboy pulls away it's not because he's reached the end, but because McCrow nudges him. They hook up a handful of diodes to their bodies and ask that they give a demonstration of their powers. Fanboy levitates a few things, showcases his force field and speaks telepathically and Summers seems absolutely entranced by the display and the results he collects from Fanboy's brain activity. Dr Summers asks Roger for a demonstration and McCrow tells him that he doesn't dance on command. They ask why he'd bother coming if he wasn't going to give a demonstration and he says it's because he wanted to see somebody stick their finger in Fanboy. They grow irritated and McCrow finally agrees. He holds his hands up for a moment while he searches for water and calls it to himself. It takes several moments but finally the ceiling above the room bursts and water floods everything, soaking the inhabitants. Dr Summers stares open mouthed at Roger as his clipboard floats away and rubs his temples. "Leave. Please. Just...leave." Present Day. Michael Stockton is sitting in a particularly unsavory dive bar in the middle of Arizona, he's about twelve beers deep and it isn't even two o'clock yet. As he's sitting there four local sheriffs step in with shotguns drawn, accompanied by a man in a conservative suit and slightly receding hairline. The sheriffs quickly evacuate the bar of it's few patrons and one particularly surly bartender and then ask Agent Mann if this is the guy he's after. Mann nods and tells them to go outside and lock the door. They tell him that they were told to bring this guy in dead or alive and Mann loosens his tie as he tells them that that's exactly what he's going to do, they'll just be in the way. The sheriffs glance at each other but do as they're told and exit the premises. "F*** you Mann, can't you see I'm drinking?" Michael says with a snort. "Your country needs you Stockton, answer the call." Mann demands, approaching the bar. "I'm not one of Parks toy soldiers, I'm not that person anymore. Go back and tell him that." Michael retorts dangerously. "I know you're not a soldier Michael. You're an animal, and like an animal you're going to do your trick or get put down." Mann says, lashing out and grabbing the back of Stockton's collar. Stockton whirls around, breaking the grapple and tries to bring his beer bottle onto his attacker's head. Mann barely avoids the attack and delivers a powerful blow to Stockton's midsection, causing him to suck air. Agent Mann kicks Stockton in the stomach, knocking him back and breaking rib; however it heals before his very eyes just as Stockton flies forward with a knee and returns the favor. In a flash Mann has a knife in his hand and slices Stockton's face; blinding his target for a moment, but getting a blow to his jaw that jars his teeth and stuns him for his trouble. Stockton grabs Mann's knife hand and attempts to wrench the weapon free, Mann uses Stockton's own momentum to plant it deep in Michael's chest. Michael screams in rage and Mann watches the reason drain out of his former friend's face as something else takes over once again. The two men exchange blows and discover that they're evenly matched, however Mann's injuries continue to accumulate while Michael's are wiped clean each round. Michael flips Mann and tosses the agent several feet away into a groaning pile, but as Michael rushes in to finish him off he sees a gun in Mann's hand which barks twice and forces him to stagger back. Mann climbs to his feet and charges forward kicking Michael in the chest and thrusting him against the wooden bar. Stockton hurls a nearby bottle at Mann who dodges and fires twice more, using up the last of his hero points in the process. Michael looks like a horror movie victim, but despite his severe injures it takes only seconds for mortal wounds to disappear completely. Mann continues opening fire, but his former partner absorbs the bullets easily and only seems encouraged by them. Michael grabs Mann and attempts to disarm the gun, however it proves difficult and he settles for pinning Mann to the ground and raining down blows. Mann can't manage to get up and Michael looks like he may beat him to death as his own wounds are completely healed, however at the last moment Mann manages to free his gun arm and put a bullet in Michael's head. Michael stumbles back and Mann fires again, knocking him down. Michael attempts to stand up and gets another bullet, and then Mann uses extra effort to put another one in him. Michael's stunned so Mann takes another turn and another bout of extra effort to put two more bullets into Michael and watches the life drain out of his eyes. No time to savor the victory, Mann flips Michael over and places handcuffs on his bullet riddled corpse before taking a seat at the bar and catching his breath. In only a matter of seconds Stockton's eyes flare open and he starts cursing and struggling at his restraints. Mann drags the newly resurrected berserker to his feet, wincing at his own injuries as he does so. Mann pants as he leads his prisoner out to the shocked gaze of the sheriffs who've heard the whole thing and didn't expect ANY survivors. "I like this less than you do Stockton, but you've been re-accepted into the DHS." We pick up exactly where we left off with McCrow and Fanboy being escorted out of the new Hole by armed personnel. Fanboy and the majority of their escort are covered in the sewage that Roger thought would be funny to flood the room with, naturally McCrow himself is untouched. They're joined in the hall by Tiffany who had been in the middle of tests of her own when the order came down that the facility had been compromised and all 'guests' were to be expelled. McCrow is absolutely beaming with pride at all this. Before they're allowed to leave they're blindfolded once again, however Fanboy takes this opportunity to read the minds of his escort and remove the mystery altogether. Surprisingly this pristine government facility is located beneath a local shopping center, the last place anybody would look. The superhumans are loaded into a van once their blindfolds are secured and a pair of the black armored men join them in the back, then to their surprise they hear one of the men snap "Garm, up." and the whole van seems to sag as something massive leaps in with them, the smell of dog is powerful and they can feel fur pressed against them. They drive several minutes, but nowhere near as long as it took them to arrive at the new Hole the first time and then the van stops and they hear voices outside. The back doors of the van swing open and their escorts leap out as well. Fanboy is the first to remove his blindfold and what he sees is not encouraging. 'Garm' is a massive beast, a mastiff with a head the size of microwave who's bulk nearly fills the van and he does not look friendly. Outside are four of the black armored S.C.A.R. troopers armed to the teeth. Each man holds an assault rifle at the ready and has a .45 strapped to his waist, some sort of baton strapped to his leg and a thick metallic tube slung on their back. Fanboy immediately raises his hands defensively while the other two raise their blindfolds to see what's happening. "What is this, some kind of hazing?" Fanboy squeaks out. "Not quite. General Wilson doesn't have the same patience for dissidence that the DHS's pet agent has." One of the men outside says with a smirk before a pair of them slam the doors and a voice shouts "Garm, seize!" McCrow is closest to the beast's head and the creature's jaws latch onto his thigh painfully, crushing bone and tearing muscle. Roger shouts in pain and but is drowned out as the heavy drone of weapons fire fills the air; bullets bounce around inside the van catching the PCs completely off guard. Fanboy gets his Force Field up before he's riddled with bullets, but Tiffany takes a glancing blow and McCrow takes about three bullets dead center. Garm doesn't seem to notice or care about the bullets that bounce harmlessly off of him. Roger grabs Garm's head in retaliation and focuses on the water inside the beast; willing it out of every pore and eliciting a whimper that frees his battered leg. Tiffany moves in, now in diamond form and buries one of her impossibly sharp hands into the superdog's spine. Garm flops onto his side spewing gore and barely twitches as the life leaves his body. With a wave of his hand Fanboy bursts open the doors of the van and hurls two men back into the alley where they've parked. The soldiers quickly regain their composure and fire as a single unit into the open van; Fanboy takes the brunt of the attack which stresses his Force Field to the limit. McCrow leaps out of the van as soon as the S.C.A.R. men stop to reload and busts one of them in the face with a haymaker. Tiffany dives hands first into a second man and begins tearing him to pieces. Fanboy snatches a third and uses extra effort to hurl the man skywards. The last loses his nerve and turns to flee. McCrow lets the man nearly escape before focusing on the water within and the other PCs watch in shock as the man seems to turn to dust before their eyes, leaving little but his armor and weapons behind. The three of them turn to face the man who McCrow had clocked and as they corner the man against the van McCrow suggests taking at least one of them alive to question. A frantic scream announces the return of Fanboy's plummeting victim and with a twitch of his hand the telepath stops the man's descent just inches above the ground. "We already have one." Fanboy says coldly. Tiffany gleefully drives her sharpened hand through the throat of the man still pressed against the van and holds him there for a moment while he tries to sputter out final words that never see the light of day. She removes her hand and sidesteps the blood fountain before helping McCrow strip the dead of their weapons and armor. Fanboy pries the truth from the last man's mind while they're on the move and discovers that Parks had nothing to do with the kill order, the S.C.A.R. operatives were under the direct command of General Wilson. The more Fanboy probes the more it looks like Wilson is going to be the man to watch. As more of a courtesy than anything they call Parks to let him know they've killed some of his men. Parks is so shocked that he can't speak for a moment and Fanboy explains that they were taken into an alley to be executed on General Wilson's order. Parks assures them that this didn't go through official channels, but warns that the general doesn't operate through official channels. They're warned to watch their backs and Parks asks that they try to avoid killing his dogs in the future as they're already a rare and dying breed. Fanboy says that they're going to put down anything that raises a hand to them but they'll try to be subtle about it. Then they throw the naked and blindfolded guard out of the van, give his ass a good shock with his confiscated stun baton and laugh as the man charges head first into a Walmart to the screams and exclamations of surprised customers. The 'heroes' decide that if they're going to survive the coming s***storm they're going to have to escalate their press release. They call up their P.R. guy Finch and ask him to get to work on something, he tells them to give him a day or so. While they're waiting, they explain the situation to Prophet and he suggests that if they're going to get into a fight with the United States Government, it may be a good idea to upgrade the warehouse some more. Nobody has any grand ideas on what they should do, so they put that on the back burner. Instead, they spend the day chatting up Richard and the kid asks when they're going to actually get to training him. He points out that he's done quite a bit of work himself but that he's hoping for a more hands on approach. Tiffany suggests a sparring match to see what the kid can do and both McCrow and Fanboy shake their heads seeing as there's no way that this will end well. Richard is unbelievably dangerous, but ultimately an innocent. Tiffany is a psychotic. Either Tiffany doesn't take Richard seriously and she gets hurt or killed, or she takes him seriously and he gets hurt or killed. She finally convinces the pair that she knows how to hold back and that they're just going to have a friendly sparring match, so they head to the holding cell level and send Depaliamo upstairs while they prepare. Tiffany urges Richard to make the first move and the teenager takes a deep breath and focuses on drawing the energy to himself like he's done a thousand times before in the last week alone... He rolls a 1 on his willpower roll to control his power. Now the way I've got this set up, Richard has to make a DC18 Willsave every time he uses his power for it to activate as intended. Failure means that he can't direct the current so nothing happens, failure by 5+ means that he's overloaded with energy and it lashes out, failure by 10+ means that he goes critical. He goes critical. The entire warehouse goes dead as Richard absorbs its energy as his own, phones and electronics are completely drained as Richard is suspended above the floor in an electric coccoon. Richard tries to shout for Tiffany to run, but she's still convinced that she's invincible. An arc of electricity flares out and she rolls to see if she can take it. He crits, she rolls a 1. The force of the blow tears a Tiffany sized hole in the side of the warehouse and she's tossed out to sea unconscious and unprotected. Roger and Fanboy poke their heads downstairs when they hear the explosion and immediately retreat once they see what's happening. Fanboy projects his vision downstairs and discovers that Tiffany's missing. Roger pries up a grate and leaps into the churning ocean to find her while Fanboy basically just watches their basement burn. Once Roger returns and dumps the unconcious Tiffany on the floor he immediately sets to putting out the remains of his holding cells and assuring Richard that things could always be worse. They just start to get their backup generators online and recharge their phones when Fanboy gets a call from Finch who says that he's been trying to get in touch with them, that they've only got twenty minutes to make it to Meadowbrook Middle-school if they want to be heroes. Fanboy's jaw drops as he stares at the phone and they wake up Tiffany on the way. McCrow drives and just barely makes it there ahead of the police. Students are just starting to file out of the school as fast as they can and Fanboy repeats that he really doesn't want to work with this guy anymore. McCrow tells him that he's overreacting and that this probably isn't what it looks like. Fanboy calls Finch back and is told to go to the second girl's bathroom on the second floor and to wing it from there. He immediately responds by focusing his telepathy and attempting to find the guy that Finch has apparently hired to shoot up a school. The fact that he can't find anyone doesn't reassure him. Tiffany goes diamond, Fanboy slides on his costume and mask while Roger slips a random baseball cap on and pulls it down over his eyes. A fireman attempts to block their paths as they approach the school, but Fanboy simply telekinetically slides the man out of the way with an assurance that they'll take care of this. The fireman is stunned and doesn't say anything more. Fanboy rockets into the air using his new-found ability of flight, while Tiffany scales the bricks like a spider with her claw-like fingers and Roger taps a water main to fling himself to the second story. All three enter the building and fan out to find the bathroom. The bomb is easy enough to find, nestled in the only opened stall and the size of a large A.C. unit. It has a digital timer that's clicking down, less than a minute and a half left and the school still isn't done being evacuated! They start panicking and trying to figure out what to do when they see something that makes them give a collective facepalm. Once the timer starts to count down from 0:59 it immediately resets to two minutes. The three of them stare at each other and Fanboy sighs. "It's just meant to cause panic until we can 'disarm' it." he explains. However McCrow reaches down to fiddle with the timer and as he removes the panel a note falls out. The note explains that to detonate the bomb you just have to press the button under the panel. Fanboy demands out loud to know why the hell anyone would want to make this thing explode. "It has to be dramatic." McCrow explains, nodding thoughtfully. "So, who wants to push the button?" Fanboy sighs and rubs his temples. "I'll do it." he says, hoisting the bomb telekinetically and dragging it outside. McCrow rides a geyser of water to the ground and Tiffany just leaps. The crowd gasps and Fanboy notices that the television cameras have already started setting up. All eyes are on him as he presses the hidden button and flings the explosive into the air, where it explodes in a gloriously flashy display of fire and sound. The crowd is still gawking when Fanboy lands next to his fellow 'heroes' and flashes a smile to the cameras. "You could say I'm a FAN of safety." the young man says with a thumbs up. McCrow mimics the thumbs up and adds "And um...stay in school." Tiffany winks at a kid and finishes with "Now you have an explosive day." They're still in the car when Roger receives a call that nearly sends him swerving off the road. It's Ben McCrow, his youngest son. He pulls off the road to talk and shushes Fanboy and Tiffany as they ask what's going on. They have a little small talk and Roger learns that his boy's graduated college, it's a bit of a shock since he hadn't realized it'd been so long, but he hasn't seen Ben since before the boy started highschool. Ben tells his father that he got the number from Franklin and just wanted to say that he's glad to hear things are looking up for the elder McCrow; he always knew things would turn out alright for Roger despite what his mother said. Ben then asks if that was Roger he saw on T.V. the other night in the crowd when that guy was trying to jump. Now McCrow can't remember if he did anything incriminating but says that he seems to remember something about that. Ben asks if that meant he got to see the Fanboy in person. Roger's a little dismissive but asks what Ben thinks of these new 'superheroes' and Ben replies that they're definitely different; if they turn out to be real it would be amazing. McCrow gets a little smug as they say their goodbyes and tells Ben he'll see him next month at Franklin's wedding. Back at the warehouse Fanboy checks in on Prophet and asks what their resident conspiracy theorist has turned up concerning those names. Prophet says that it's short notice, but he's been checking payroll records and has a list of doctors that have been drawing a government check under the names Marcell, Heiner and Gupta for the past five years. Marcell (Greggory Marcell: Physician, Laurinl Marcell: Botanist, Joseph Marcell: Radiation Specialist) Heiner (Henry Heiner: Surgeon, Frank Heiner: Ceullular Biologist) Gupta (Henry Gupta: Engineer, Jennifer Gupta: Psychologist, Sarine Gupta: Anthropologist) Prophet mentions that it's not much to go on, but Fanboy assures him that it's more than they'd have without him. Fanboy suggests focusing on Heiner and seeing if they can't eliminate one of those names; he wants to cut to the heart of this organization and see if he can't get some straight answers for once. Prophet says that he'll get right on it and Fanboy excuses himself to take an incoming call from Parks. Parks explains that he thinks he's got a bead on a new superhuman, but the reports don't seem to match up. He says that there is considerable activity in a local apartment building and they've evacuated the place under the guise of fumigation; but none of their teams have been able to bring the thing in. He asks that Fanboy take a look since there's not much that can get past a telepath and Fanboy agrees to help their only friendly contact in the government out. Fanboy heads downstairs to inform the rest of the team and meets McCrow on the stairs, still on the phone with Chavenski about handling a succession issue with the Russians. They quickly decide that the best thing to do is to split up and each handle a different contact's problem by themself. Tiffany decides to go with Fanboy; half because he was very adamant that he wasn't babysitting her and half because she thinks it might be fun to get a chance to fight and/or kill a different kind of superhuman. Fanboy and Tiffany arrive at the apartment and find it pretty well tented, but otherwise perfectly normal. They search the first floor thoroughly and find that while the whole place is pretty much a s***hole, it's no different than any other cheap apartment building. Tiffany however eventually notices what appears to be a fresh blood stain seeping through the ceiling. Fanboy projects his vision to the floor above and sees nothing out of the ordinary, so Tiffany does the next logical thing and sprays a barrage of crystalline shards into the ceiling to see if something's there. Blood rains down out of the new opening but seems to dry and dissipate shortly after making contact with them. Fanboy decides that the next floor might be worth checking out so he starts looking for the stairs leading up, Tiffany decides to just cut her way through the ceiling to save some time. As Fanboy steps out onto the 2nd floor he sees a glowing orb bouncing around inquisitively (hilariously, his first instinct was: "Wait, is it some kind of hard light construct type of orb? Because if this is some kind of Luvless trap then f*** this, I leap out the window and go home.") and attempts to make contact with it. The thing immediately bolts away from him and slams directly into a wall, disappearing on contact. He projects his vision through ESP to begin searching the apartments, but doesn't see anything out of the ordinary. Although once he looks through his own eyes he does begin noticing the orbs out of the corner of his vision again. Meanwhile, Tiffany is following a growing trail of blood that leads towards the 3rd floor, where she meets up with Fanboy on the stairs. After taking her eyes off the trail to acknowledge Fanboy however, neither of them can see evidence of the blood having been there in the first place. As they approach the third floor they begin to hear vague whispers but can't make out the words. Tiffany sees one of the orbs bolt across the hall in front of them and into an apartment and though Fanboy tells her to ignore it she decides they should give chase. So they wait until the orb bolts across the hall a second time and then throw open the door it entered and rush inside. They're greeted by a twisted green skeleton bathed in an eerie green flame that shrieks and reaches for them. The fear is suddenly so powerful that the PCs trip over themselves to race back down the stairs and it isn't until they're nearly to the 1st floor that the feeling leaves them and Fanboy realizes he recognizes that technique. It's Emotion Control and he uses it himself sometimes. They still hear the skeleton shrieking upstairs so he decides to ambush the bastard and see what it's made of. They go to the apartment directly under the shrieking and Tiffany shreds the upstairs with a hail of crystal shards while Fanboy uses all of his mental might to pull down the entire upstairs. The skeleton tumbles amid the rubble, but seems to dissolve as it leaves its point of origin. As they watch it melts away and is replaced by a glowing orb that dances off once again. They determine that the closer they get to the source, the more paranormal their experiences will become so they head up through the new hole, genuinely intrigued. They continue searching the 3rd floor and learn to ignore the orbs and avoid the skeletons as best they can. They discover that skeletons only appear on the northwest side, so they assume that there's something there that they need to see. They find the stairs and head up another level and as they do so, Fanboy hears a voice say plainly in his ear "This is where you die." Fanboy spins around, searching for the source and Tiffany says that she neither saw nor heard anything, so it must be in his head. He decides that it's nothing more than a trick like he'd play, so he focuses his telepathy to find the source of the message. Surprisingly he finds that Tiffany is the only mind he can make contact with. They exit the stairwell into the 4th floor on their guard and they each hear a whisper say "We will wear your flesh home." accompanied by a rush of air that leaves two inch deep claw-like scratches along everything it touches, namely the walls. Their protective powers kept them from real injury, but they watch as the scratches along the walls begin to bleed profusely and a sound that alternates between a mournful sob and a manic laugh begins echoing down the corridor. They press on to the northwest portion of the building and as they approach apartment 4C they begin hearing something moving and scratching inside the walls, accompanied by more sobs and laughter. 4C itself looks as though there is something massive living in its outer walls and they bulge obscenely as whatever it is moves and shifts around, growling threateningly the whole time. Fanboy and Tiffany stare at each other for a moment and Tiffany kicks the door off its hinges with a single mighty kick. They enter the apartment and are surprised to see that it's pretty intact, though obviously abandoned. There's a noticeable film of dust over everything and a neighbor has been piling bills and other mail up by the door. They start going over the place when Tiffany points out the family picture on the wall and Fanboy stops in his tracks at the sight of a little girl and her parents smiling for the camera. "Oh....s***. It's one of THOSE ghosts." he says with a groan. Tiffany asks what he means and Fanboy says that he recognizes the family or at least the little girl. Her name is Maria Lucerta and she was on the bus with the rest of them, but unlike the others; she never woke up from her injuries. She was brain dead for months and then the serial killer snuck into her room and made her just regular dead. He decides to call out to her and no sooner does he say 'Maria' then a horrible roar echoes through the building like thunder and seems to originate from a nearby bedroom. He pulls open the door and finds a six foot skeleton similar to the ones he saw below, only this one still has meat hanging off the bones and the flames are real enough to cause immediate discomfort all the way from the doorway. "Maria, I'm here to-" Before he can finish his sentence a burst a flame flies from the skeleton's hand and knocks the wind out of him, he notices that his skin is bright red like he's been scalded but the Force Field holds and he survives. Tiffany steps into the room and averts her eyes, several small objects that have begun to spin about the room are harmlessly deflected by her diamond skin but the skeleton doesn't seem to notice her as she snoops around. It only takes a quick sweep for her to step out with a movie poster that depicts the very same skeleton that's in the room now; she shows it to Fanboy and he looks at it puzzled. "Hell on Earth 3?" he asks noone in particular. "So she's a cheesy horror fan. The hell is this then, some kind of solo LARP?" Tiffany just shrugs and points out that movies are sort of his thing. He agrees, rolls up the poster and hands it to Tiffany before taking a deep breath and heading back into the room. "I see you're a fellow cinemaphile." Fanboy says pleasantly. "Surprised you go for something like Hell on Earth though, my favorite was always-" He's ejected from the room by a pillar of green fire and lays groaning on the carpet trying to make sure his eyebrows are still intact. Meanwhile... Roger sits down with Chavenski at a nice, if low-key, restaurant and the wheezing crime lord admits that the Russian Syndicate may have outgrown him. Chavenski explains that his organization is currently in the middle of a restructuring/civil war and that three of his most valuable lieutenants have decided to challenge him for power. He admits than in his current state any one of them may be more than he can deal with. Roger apologizes but explains that they're legitimizing themselves and can't afford to be associated with Chavenski's business any longer. Chavenski points out that he's been more than fair when dealing with McCrow and Fanboy in the past and that he's been there when they needed him the most. Roger says that they've went beyond the call of duty for the Russians as well and Chavenski replies "Oh, I'm sorry. Which organ did you lose coming to save me?" Roger's (and his player's) mouth keeps moving for a second, but no sound comes out and he finally decides to concede the point that maybe Chavenski HAS gotten the shorter end of the stick in this relationship. He agrees to help but says that the Russians have to stop with the murdering and mutilation and the selling people and so on. Chavenski points out that he doesn't tell Roger how to run his business and Roger settles on asking that Chavenski stop dealing in human trafficking at least. Chavenski agrees and points out that it's one of his men that has caused the notable spike in white slavery in order to impress the bigshots back in the motherland. Sergei Reschkov has an honest to God army at his command thanks to his cutthroat dealings and more clout with the Syndicate's Russian contacts than anyone, himself included. McCrow gets the address of Sergei's storehouse and decides to make an example of this guy himself. He thanks Chavenski for the meal and tells the Russian that he won't have anything more to worry about after today, he'll make enough of a mess out of this guy that the others will fall into line. McCrow drives out to what basically amounts to a barn on the outskirts of town and watches the place for several minutes. In that short amount of time he sees nearly three dozen heavily armed guards moving about the perimeter and quite a few large men in overalls unloading and opening crates from a truck. He nods as though this is about what he assumed he was getting into and walks back to his car, opening the backdoor and tapping loudly on the large aquarium housed inside. "Wake up boys. Wake up now. Daddy needs some help." McCrow says with a knowing smile. Back at the haunting... Fanboy is sitting out in the hallway on the phone with Parks. "I can't read it's mind dammit, it doesn't have one! It's a f***ing ghost Parks, what do you want me to do? Do I look like Dan Akroyd? Do you have a proton pack hanging around somewhere that I don't know about?" Tiffany has been pacing the halls with a large bag for the past twenty minutes and Fanboy's learned to tune out her, the apparitions and the voices that keep getting more and more vivid while he tries to convince Parks he isn't crazy. "Look, the thing is disruptive as hell but it looks pretty stationary. Give us some time and I'm sure we can come up with something, I mean from what you've said it's been here for a week or more; I doubt it's going anywhere." Fanboy explains. Tiffany excuses herself as she steps over him and he ignores her, annoyed. "Don't worry, things are under control. I'll run it by Prophet at..." Fanboy stops and starts sniffing the air. "F***, s***, dammit! Parks, call the fire department!" he shouts as he bursts into the room and sees Tiffany shimmering amid the roaring fire she's created. Fanboy can't even summon the words but Tiffany looks so proud. "Let's see how SHE likes it!" Tiffany beams. Fanboy manages to snatch her up with his telekinesis and the two of them burst out the side of the building, leaving behind a growing wall of flame and a horrible moan that can be heard from blocks away. He knew bringing her was a bad idea... Back to McCrow... The barn is very nearly destroyed. Half-eaten corpses litter the yard and are piled eight high to form a barricade within the barn itself. Only five men still live besides Sergei and as the Droplets batter their way past the bodies of dead Russians they waste what little ammo they have left on the smiling, bouncing abominations. McCrow pushes past the corpses himself and stands before the terrified criminals, who are all the more terrified as the Droplets begin rubbing up against the stoic hydromancer like attention starved kittens. "Do what I say and you might survive." Roger says plainly. "Put your guns down." Three men immediately drop their weapons and attempt rush out the back way however the Droplets cutt off their escape and immediately latch onto their screaming victims, bringing them down and silencing them; taking far, far too long to finish the job. "McCrow didn't say run." Roger says sternly. "I just said put down your guns." The last guard drops his gun and holds up his hands to show they're empty. Sergei suddenly produces a pistol from his jacket defiantly and fires at McCrow who responds by holding out his arms and flooding the barn from a well outside. Roger takes a couple of bullets but is soon covered in a protective sheen of water and stands about 10ft tall. Sergei stops firing and begins shaking so hard he drops the gun. He tries to retrieve it, but Roger snatches him in one hand and crushes him against the wall. "What do you want?" Sergei manages to squeak out. "Not much. Just told my dear friend Nikolai Chavenski that I'd swat a bug for him." McCrow growls, applying a little more pressure and watching Sergei turn purple. "I didn't mean anything!" Sergei sputters, "It's just the way things work! It's the same way HE got his place!" "Are you sure?" McCrow asks. "Because I don't remember being friends with the guy he killed, and I know I'm not friends with you. Know how I can tell? You shot at me. Friends don't do that. Chavenski for example, has never shot me. So Chavenski doesn't know what it feels like to crushed into a fine paste and fed to my Droplets." Sergei looks like he's about to pop and just starts begging for his life with no regard for position any longer. Roger ***** his head. "You want to deal? Is that what you're getting at? Okay, how's this? You go and you tell the other a**holes that think they're going to take away what me and Chavenski have worked for what happened here today. You convince them with tears in your eyes that Chavenski's word is law and that their only chance at surviving another night comes from getting on their knees and apologizing and I'll let you go." Sergei nods his head but makes no sound. He ran out of oxygen for that long ago. Roger releases Sergei and the man sucks air violently, gulping like he'd forgotten the taste. With one massive, watery hand McCrow lifts Sergei back to his feet the the collar of his expensive suit and leans down to eye level. "Get this straight Sergei: Tried is not in my vocabulary. If the succession talks don't end TONIGHT I will personally take the three of you and shove each of you up the next guy's ass to make the scariest f***ing Russian doll the world has ever seen. If I ever see your face or hear your name after today in ANY context I will break your legs and leave you for the Droplets. Is all of this clear?" Sergei doesn't even respond, he just pisses himself then and there. Tiffany finds herself abandoned after the events in the apartment and is walking back to the warehouse when she gets a call from Agent Mann who tells her that he's sending a car, not to be difficult. She'll get her usual $5,000 consultation fee. Surprisingly she takes Mann's advice and soon finds herself in Parks' new office along with Agent Mann and an angry, restrained man that she doesn't recognize. Parks seems to be negotiating with the guy in handcuffs and says that he doesn't like having him back either, but until the Tree King is apprehended this is the way it's got to be. He offers Michael Stockton his freedom in exchange for service. Stockton pffts dismissively and hears that he's heard that before. Parks responds that he thinks a little over two years walking free is a more than fair deal considering the incidents he's had to cover up. Michael doesn't have any response to that and goes quiet. Parks tells Mann to unlock the cuffs and explains that they've been using the Bloodhound Laelaps to search for the Tree King but it hasn't been easy. Not only is Tree King's scent often lost amid the other plant life, but there are more than two dozen locations that Laelaps is completely convinced that Tree King is living in. Parks needs somebody he can trust to be thorough to scout these locations so he's called on Mann. Mann can't do it alone so Parks also included Tiffany and Michael, though nobody's enthusiastic about their inclusion. They follow the directions that Parks has supplied and arrive at an abandoned tenement building that looks like it hasn't seen an occupant for years. They search the place top to bottom, but there's nothing to find. So they decide to think outside of the box and head to the basement to start prying up the floorboards. They quickly find a whole section of flooring that's completely removable. There's a sizable hole in the ground that seems to lead into the sewers. Naturally they all leap down and start nosing around. Stockton finds a trip wire to the west and warns the others to stand back. He wants to see what sort of traps they've got rigged up down here so after Tiffany and Mann have backed up a bit he lays both hands on the wire and pulls. It takes them a moment to realize that they can hear the jingle of falling bells and Michael looks disgusted. "Really? It rings?" he asks with a snort. A clawed hand reaches out from the darkness and pins Michael against the sewer wall. He lands a solid blow against the creature's throat, however considering the throat is made of wood he doesn't accomplish much. Three more Tree Clones rush in from the west and two more rush from the east. Mann quickly draws his flashlight and pistol and begins choosing his targets, putting .45 holes in their foreheads which bleed sap. Tiffany manages to cut down two Tree Clones in rapid succession and Michael reverses his opponent's grapple before pinning the tree creature and breaking it's neck with a crushing elbow to the back of the head. Two more Tree Clones rush Michael but he manages use their momentum against them, tripping the first one and using the second one like a weapon to crack both of them at once. Tiffany steps forward and finishes them off. They take a moment to collect themselves and then investigate the western tunnel until they find a room lined with U.V. lights and about a dozen immature Tree Clones growing in planters. Mann and Michael exchange a glance and Mann tells Tiffany to burn it all. Since her character sheet always has at least 5 gallons of gasoline somewhere on it, she's more than likely to get the BBQ started. They go back the way they came in and follow the tunnel to the east, ambushing a group of Tree Clones hard at work tending to their growing brothers. Michael does a flying kick into one's back, snapping it like...well a twig. Tiffany slices clean through a second one and Mann puts two more down with judicious use of a hero point. The team takes a moment to actually investigate the room and Tiffany is surprised to discover that the growing tree creatures already have little faces. Naturally she cuts one off (to add to the mastiff pelt she stripped from Garm and a Russian...man part she pried off one of the sex slavers.) as a war-trophy. Mann orders everything burned and they continue searching the tunnels. They continue along at a brisk pace until Michael trips another bell trap. This one seems even louder than the last and suddenly the tunnels are filled with the sound of heavy bodies rushing to meet them. Michael moves to block off the southern tunnel, Tiffany stands ready to the west and Mann readies his gun to aid where needed. About 8 Tree Clones rush from the south and another 15 come in from the east. Tiffany lashes out like a swirling dervish and even the normally suicidal Tree Clones seem a little apprehensive about throwing themselves onto the chopping block. Mann opens fire into the wall of wood to the west and throws himself at the group to the south. One of the Tree Clones crits against Michael and Stockton fails his toughness roll majorly. The Tree Clone's claw is protruding from the back of Michael's torso and the reluctant agent attempts to stammer something out, but only manages to cough up blood. The Tree Clone hoists Stockton overhead triumphantly as he simply stops fighting. Mann turns to cover the south and puts a couple of bullets into the first Tree Clone to rush him, but Tiffany is already becoming overwhelmed to the east and things are starting to look bad. Tiffany punctures one of the gas cans she strapped to herself and douses herself and everyone near her in gasoline before setting fire to everything. The Tree Clones to the west roll surprisingly well and she does little more than piss them all off. Suddenly Michael wakes back up, still impaled by the gloating Tree Clone who's using this opportunity to give the 'You'll be ground to fertilizer.' speech. With one hand he secures the clone's wrist and with the other braces against its should before planting both of his feet directly into the creature's chest and pulling with everything he's got in him. There's a loud snap and Michael rolls to his feet with the creature's severed arm in hand, he uses his hero point to beat the thing to death with its own arm and Mann recognizes that Michael's gone, the rage is what's animating him. Mann uses another hero point to help put down two more Tree Clones and extra effort to get a third, Tiffany takes out another with her bladed arms and two more with the intense fire she's started. Michael uses the severed arm like a bat cave in another head. Within just a few rounds all of the Tree Clones to the south are dead and most to the west are as well. Tiffany is exchanging blows with the last flaming clone when Michael rushes her location, springboards off her back and (as he described it) delivered a 'Benoit Flying Headbutt' directly into the face of the last clone. Both of them lay there burning with their heads split open, however after about a minute Michael stands back up, holding his head and wondering what happened to his clothes. They press on and find several more labs loaded down with U.V. lamps, little Tree Clones and various chemicals and fertilizers. Tiffany starts spilling every chemical she can find over the trees, but Mann snatches one of the smallest ones up to bring back with them for study. Finally, after their searching they come across the motherload. A massive chamber converted into a nursery where nearly 20 Tree Clones are splintering their own bodies in order to plant more of their brothers. Mann gives a quick estimate of nearly 200 plants in this room ALONE. They sit there thinking for a moment when Mann suggests they just burn it all down. The other two look at him like he's and idiot, because of course they're going to burn it all down, but he motions to the rest of Tiffany's fuel and suggests making a giant molotov to alleviate the need for a battle here. They agree that's the way to go and it takes them less than a minute to rig something up. Tiffany tosses their concoction in a high arc towards the center of the room and Mann just barely manages to shoot it midflight; catching the entire room on fire at once. The Tree Clones roar with rage and try to rush them, but the fire is intense and they fail to even make it to the door before they're burnt to cinders. They search the tunnels once more to make sure there's none of these things left and that none of the equipment survived their ransacking and then they start to leave. Mann informs both Tiffany and Michael that they can't take specimens home with them and that he'll have to confiscate Tiffany's trophy and Michael's stolen arm before he can allow them to leave. Michael had basically forgotten he'd been carrying the thing around and tosses it into one of the roaring fires, but Tiffany tells Mann to kiss her ass. He points out that all it would take is that thing getting exposed to sunlight for all that they're working for to be undone, but Tiffany tells him that he's not man enough to take it from her. Mann reaches for his gun and the two stare each other down for a moment before Mann quickly draws his piece and shoots the wooden face itself, knowing that once it's no longer recognizable it won't function as much of a trophy and she should drop it. She's absolutely incensed and re-actively fires a burst of crystal directly at Mann's face in retaliation; Michael had been holding his action and springs into action, leaping in front of the blast and being laid open from crotch to gullet. Mann bolts up the ladder full-tilt and Tiffany leaps onto the ladder after him, however Michael snatches her by the leg and flings her across the room despite her increased mass. Stockton rushes up the ladder as well and Tiffany attempts to return the favor, however Mann uses power attack and the last of his hero points to buckle her over for a round, stunned. They slam the lid down on top if Tiffany and glance at each other breathlessly for a moment. Michael punches Mann directly in the nose and shouts "I can't believe you left me down there you a**hole!" Mann starts to respond until razor sharp pieces of crystal flies up between the floor boards, sending him and Stockton bolting upstairs and towards their car before she realizes she missed. It's several hours later when Tiffany finally hobbles back into McCrow's warehouse looking like hell. She's obviously irritated and had to walk nearly eight miles to get home since neither Roger nor Fanboy answered her call. It looks like everybody's gathered in Prophet's security room so she heads up to see what they're doing. She sees a visibly upset Bradley pacing around and freaking out. Fanboy keeps telling him to calm down, that they're keeping him in the warehouse and locking things down until further notice but it doesn't seem to settle Bradley's nerves. McCrow asks if she's intends on disappearing every time she does something crazy and mimics a crying motion. She ignores his snide comment and asks what's gong on here. McCrow explains that Bradley got himself killed by the serial killer. Not the real Bradley, he explains. But several of Bradley's clones have been killed in an alarmingly short amount of time while running errands and none of them saw it coming. Everyone likes Bradley but as tragic as his death would be, the thought of the killer getting his power is far scarier... [/QUOTE]
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