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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rybaer" data-source="post: 1586476" data-attributes="member: 118">Excerpt from the Coast City ChronicleMutant Hostage Incident Foiledby Arty HaganApril 17Shortly after the conclusion of dinner at the Metahumans@Work Conference last night, four metahumans took the entire assembly hostage.  One, using the ability to conjure metal seemingly from nothingness, sealed off all the exits from the room.  Pestilence, as the leader of the band stylized himself, threatened to kill everyone in the room by use of a fast-killing disease that he could create at will.  This threat was given credence when he infected an attendee and just as easily removed the malady.Pestilence demanded the sum of $100,000 per head to be delivered within a scant few hours.  His cohorts, two men in armor and a woman-insect hybrid, patrolled the room while the hostages turned to their cell phones to both summon the police and make payment arrangements.Fate had a twist in store for the would be extortionists, however.  A metahuman who just happened to be working behind the scenes at the conference, decided to take a stand against the mutants.  Using an ability to generate powerful electric currents, the metahuman levitated himself off the floor and began hurling powerful bolts of lightning across the room.While highly distracting, the electrical discharges failed to take out any of the assailants.  Fate again thumbed her nose at Pestilence and his cohorts when a metahuman of incredible strength and stony flesh broke through the metal-sealed door from the kitchen into the ballroom.  Accompanying this Granite was another metahuman - a young man capable of turning himself into a swarm of lightning quick and poisonous spiders.The two newcomers wasted no time engaging Pestilence's three minions in a pitched battle of strength, speed, and superhuman powers.  The electrical metahuman, meanwhile, continued to launch bolt after bolt of electricity at Pestilence.  The plague-powered mutant managed to infect him in return, but not sufficiently to knock him from the air.Only a few seconds after the spider swarm and Granite entered the room, Professor Fate arrived on the scene.  Professor Fate, an enigmatic costumed hero, is known to have assisted in dealing with a handful of small crimes in Coast City over the last few months.  It was later learned the metahumans who came to the rescue, aside from the one who was already present, had seen the live television feed of the incident and hurried to the scene of their own volition.<edited for brevity>Chief of Police Burt Bransten has previously admitted that his police force may be ill equipped to deal with certain metahuman or otherwise Curtain-energy related issues.  Given the nature of the powers displayed by the mutants at the Hightower, the Chief has been proven all too prophetic.  While Professor Fate has demonstrated a willingness to help the city time and again, can the same be said for the other heroes from this incident?  Can metahumans be counted on to deal with their own?  Does the city even have a way to seek help in a timely manner?The concept of a team of superheroes defending a metropolis from harm may once have been the stuff of comic books and movies.  Ever since the Curtains first swept over the Earth, however, the world has become a very different place.  Perhaps we can learn a lesson from the works of fiction.</blockquote>

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