This is a campaign journal I've been posting to the Giantitp forums for a while and thought might be fun to post here too for some extra feedback. This was the first time any of us had ever played Mutants and Masterminds and the first time either of them ever stuck with a tabletop game for more than fifteen minutes. We only meet sporadically, but we've had nine sessions so far and if there's interest I'll post the rest.
Also, I apologize for the rushed nature of most of these, but they're generally written up around 6am after I stumble home from playing, but before I pass out and forget everything. Every time I read through them I clean them up a bit more, but I really need to go through and do a complete rewrite to make 'em shine.
Setting details: I wanted a low-power game to keep them from gaining powers and then immediately attacking the city, so we started at PL5 and as far as they know they're the first superhumans in history. They gain their powers in classic comic book fashion from a mysterious green gas and a horrible accident. The setting is present day Ventnor City, NJ; although it could easily be most any town.
PC1: Roger McCrow
A middle-aged former forklift operator and dockworker with a hair trigger who was laid off due to budget constraints. Worked a backbreaking job for 30 years with nothing to show for it and was riding the bus from his latest job interview during the attack. Gains the ability to control water, completely wrecks any environment he fights in. ((The title came from Roger McCrow's player, who attempted to purchase the Sidekick feat OOC; saying he didn't actually want a sidekick, he just wanted to let Fanboy know his place.))
PC2: The Fanboy
A twenty-something Star Wars fan/daddy's boy that's never had to work a day in his life thanks to his father's lucrative business and poor parenting. Was on his way back from a convention still dressed as a storm trooper during the bus attack. Gains telepathy and telekinesis; declares himself a Jedi.
First Session
Part One, The Accident
The campaign kicks off on a city bus at the end of very long day. Roger has just finished putting in applications and interviewing at a local recycling center and the aptly named Fanboy had just finished convention hopping, still in a full storm trooper costume. The bus is nearly full with a mother and her 12 year old daughter arguing near the front of the bus, a young man sitting next to Roger, holding a house plant with a bow on it trying not to make eye contact with a burly biker sitting across from him and a pudgy security guard next to the Fanboy all but asleep on the young man's shoulder.
Fanboy starts off by pestering the guard to wake up and calling him a "Lazy, good for nothing plebian." Roger, being resentful of being walked over by the upper class all of his life tells the younger man to leave the guy alone, that at least he works for a living. Fanboy tells him to mind his own business and Roger shouts something offensive and inflammatory that's better left to the imagination that wakes up the guard he's defending.
It's around this time that the bus makes its next stop and a crazed man wearing a ski-mask and carrying a large canister with large warning labels bolts around the corner being shot at by police. As he leaps on the bus a stray bullet strikes his prize and a green mist starts flooding the bus, the bus driver is intimidated into driving away.
Naturally neither Roger or Fanboy have noticed this turn of events. Instead they're in the middle of a fist-fight in the back of the bus where the much larger Roger is manhandling the unathletic Fanboy and ranting about over privileged brats and their stupid toys, while Fanboy is shouting that George Lucas is a genius and flailing wildly into the side of Roger's head with an R2-D2 ashtray.
The hijacker, wanting to get control of his situation, starts shouting and demanding the two of them get into their seats and stay there. Fanboy, his dander already up, hurls the ashtray into the guy's face stunning him. Which prompts Roger, suddenly more irritated at the ******* trying to tell him how to live his life than at this random kid in a storm trooper outfit, to charge the hijacker and tackle him to the front of the bus.
Obviously assaulting a criminal in the middle of a crime is dangerous, so Roger is shot point blank for his heroic burst of road rage and falls bleeding and unconscious into a seat. The bus driver is startled by the gunshot and turns to see what's happening, slamming full speed into the side of a movie theater and tossing the occupants around like ragdolls. Fanboy watches a middle aged man in a tweed jacket force open the back door and several people leap out before the green mist surrounds him and he too blacks out.
Part Two, The Change
It's been two weeks since the accident and Roger is the first to wake up. It's roughly midnight and he's beyond thirsty. He attempts to call a nurse, but his buzzer doesn't work and he can't think of anything besides his parched throat. He stumbles into the bathroom and begins sucking water directly from the sink. He's so focused on sating his thirst that he barely notices when the pipes in the sink burst and the water within geysers towards him. This marks the first of many times Roger completely destroys his surroundings without meaning to.
Fanboy who was sleeping soundly in the other room however does. He opens his eyes and hears an intense buzzing in his head that as he focuses becomes Roger's voice that drones on orgasmically about how much he's enjoying his water. A doctor bursts in to see what they're doing in there and though his tone is polite, Fanboy hears his thoughts and they reveal that he both considers them freaks and wishes they were somebody else's problem.
The doctor gives them a paper detailing the bus accident, which has officially been declared a case of bio-terrorism and is still under investigation. Sadly, the paper reports that there are no survivors. Though as the doctor points out, when Fanboy begins testing himself for ghost symptoms, that was a fabrication to avoid revealing the actual contents of the stolen canister. He mentions that there's a man from Homeland Security that wanted to speak with them once they woke up, but before he has a chance to send word of their recovery a nurse rushes in and screams for the doctor's help.
The doctor and the PCs run into the hallway to see what all the hubbub's about when they spot a bloody streak littered with almost a dozen bodies of nurses and orderlies that stretch around the corner and out of sight and a creature that looks more plant than man ranting about government conspiracies and demanding they change him back. His wooden claws are covered in gore and he's in the middle of strangling an orderly while he issues his demands.
Roger instinctively calls the nearby water to himself, flooding every bathroom on the floor and tearing pipes out of the wall all around them. Fanboy lashes out mentally and distracting the tree creature, allowing the orderly to escape. The tree flexes several bulbs on its chest and they bloom outward, sending choking spores into the air. Nobody makes their save vs Suffocation, so Roger uses his hero point to counter the airborne spores with the sprinkler system as a reaction. The doctor just stands there slack jawed.
Roger focuses the nearby water into a shotgun blast that sends the tree man reeling and Fanboy uses telekinesis to throw a trashcan ineffectually (the dice hate that guy and it's became a house rule that if he fails to roll above a 10 at least once per 5 rounds he gets one free re-roll per round until he does.) but doesn't do anything but irritate the monster. The tree man charges on his round and injures Roger with a wild claw swing.
Feeling particularly spiteful, Roger attempts to draw the moisture out of the tree (Disintegrate) and turn it to kindling but fails to manifest his most lethal power. Fanboy is suddenly very worried by their opponent's claws and decides to back up and telekinetically grapple the tree-man to keep him at a distance. The tree man releases a second cloud of spores into the air and the heroes begin choking.
Roger attempts to dehydrate the tree again but fails to do anything more impressive than forcing a toughness save which the creature passes. Fanboy pins his opponent with his mind and uses extra-effort to as he put it 'Throw that son of a bitch into the stratosphere.' However the tree man rolls a natural 20 on his toughness and manages to brace himself enough to keep from being flung from the building. He retaliates by maintaining his suffocating spores and the heroes barely make the constitution check to stay conscious.
Roger summons the water to himself again, gaining a significant boost to his water blast ability and uses extra effort to fire the blast on the same turn. He rolls a natural 20 of his own and between the crit and auto-fire deals +10 over PL before factoring in the (unnecessary) damage from knockback. The tree man is thrown through two separate walls and left in a pile of splinters for someone else to deal with.
The doctor is suddenly a good deal more friendly, both in word and thought and starts looking at Roger's wound; suggesting that Roger might want to look into dodging eventually in the future. A man in a conservative suit joins them and dismisses the doctor, introducing himself as a liaison from Homeland Security and extending his thanks for dealing with the unruly superhuman. He then hands them a non-disclosure agreement that forbids them from speaking of their experiences on the bus or revealing the...side effects of their exposure to the general populace by word or deed. He graciously offers to pay their medical bills in exchange for their signature.
Fanboy however hears Option B with a little probing and realizes that the alternative is a lifetime in a dark hole while government scientists figure out what makes them tick.
They sign and settle in for an extended stay.
Part Three, Heroics
Roger checks his messages in the hospital and finds that the first message on the machine is from the company he was interviewing with; they ask him to come in for a second interview. His second message is from his landlord reminding him that his rent is beyond late and that he has exactly 1 week before he's out on the street. The next message is from his potential employers saying that since they hadn't heard from him in two weeks they assume he's not interested and have given the position to someone else. Fanboy is now a habitual eavesdropper with his telepathy and offers to let Roger stay in his father's guest house until he's back on his feet. He happily suggests that Roger would probably make a good groundskeeper and is genuinely confused when Roger throws a cup of Jello at him and screams 'I don't need your charity!'
Shortly afterwards they're finally released and go their separate ways; no fonder of each other than their first meeting on the bus, but at least having earned one another's grudging respect. Roger goes home, hoping to explain things to his landlord but he gets nervous waiting for the guy to show up and floods his own living room. Long story short, the cops are called and our intrepid hero is now homeless. Fanboy on the other hand shows up just long enough to ask his dad for the cash to replace his storm trooper costume and continues life as usual.
After a few days the two of them get separate calls (Roger no longer has a phone so he receives his call during the middle of a job search) from a man who refuses to identify himself but says he was at the hospital when they saved the doctors. He explains that he gained precognition the same way they got their powers and that his visions show a number of deaths starting at a local liquor store if somebody doesn't step in and prevent them. Since he's bound by the same non-disclosure agreement as the PCs he isn't allowed to call the cops for crimes that haven't happened yet, especially considering it's a superhuman that's about to commit them.
Each of the heroes feel pretty badass at this point and start viewing themselves as society's only hope against the new breed of criminal, so they go to stake out the liquor store and are immediately disappointed to find that the other one is there. They spend a good twenty minutes at this point insulting each other and get into another fist fight because even when you control the primal forces of nature sometimes you've just got to punch something, and a smug daddy's boy dressed as a storm trooper on a stakeout is as good a target as any.
Their bickering continues until Fanboy notices a bright yellow muscle car parked directly on the sidewalk in front of the liquor store and deciding that such a shoddy parking job is obviously the work of a deranged mind, focuses his telekinesis and drags the car across the street and flips it onto a random parked car, absolutely totaling both of them. Roger is impressed by this display enough that he neither curses or berates Fanboy for his callous disregard for whoever's car that is, and instead just whistles appreciatively.
Three masked men with an uncanny resemblance to each other run out from the store across the street and are struck speechless by the display. 'My car!' the first one shouts in a pained voice. 'My dad's going to kill me...' the second one adds. 'Do you know who I am?' the third one demands angrilly.
Roger turns around and calls out 'Nope, tell us?'
One of the guys shouts 'I'm Duplex, master of duplication!' a second shouts 'Bradley Yurtz, my dad's gonna have your ass!' and is immediately struck by the third guy. 'Idiot, don't tell him our name!' the last guy hisses.
The PCs take it in for a minute and then Roger blows up the fire hydrant next to him, propelling the shattered metal into the chest of one of the Bradleys and putting him down hard. Bradley however doesn't do much well, but one thing he excels at is is duplicating. A lot. He responds to the loss of his copy by creating ten more, all of which open fire with gusto on the unprotected heroes. Roger is naturally shot immediately, but with his usual macho flair doesn't take anything more substantial than an injury. Fanboy leaps behind the overturned cars and fails to hit with a telekinetic blast, his player curses until it's his turn again because it's about his eighth failed roll in a row.
Roger uses boost to beef up his hydro blast and extra effort to send a tidal wave of hurt directly at the Bradleys. Four are crushed outright, and most of the rest are knocked down. Duplex responds by making even more of himself the rest of him open fire at Roger who's of the opinion that cover is frightened women and wants nothing to do with it, but miraculously none of them connect. Fanboy now just wants to crush the lot of them, heroics be damned and uses extra effort to lift the twisted wreckage he'd made earlier and toss it directly into the group of clones. He crushes all but five of them and stuns the real Duplex.
Roger attempts to drown the rest of them like rats, but the car provides them a degree of cover and his attack is avoided. The Bradleys drag their leader into a more defensive position and return fire from what's left of their car. Fanboy, not having any of that, uses his turn to telekinetically push the car out of the way and extra effort to mentally blast one of the punks, taking him out altogether, leaving only four left.
The PCs are feeling fairly confident in their victory until they hear the tell-tale sound of a police siren and realize they may not have enough time to finish this. Roger blasts one of the Bradleys with a burst from his handy geyser, taking the total down to three and Fanboy attempts and fails to take one out with a nearby STOP sign. The Bradleys return fire (giving each of the PCs another injury )and try to make it to the remains of their car for cover.
A cop car swings around the corner and the heroes are suddenly in danger of violating their agreement. They briefly consider retreat, but then Fanboy decides to try out mind control on the driver; dominating the cop into plowing directly through one of the Bradleys and into the brick wall behind him. Roger, not to be outdone forces the water in the radiator to explode upwards and blanket the police car in an obscuring cloud and spends a hero point to add a scalding effect to the initial burst, taking out all but the last of Duplex's clones. Bradley is suddenly alone and terrified and tries to run.
Fanboy tries out his mind control a second time and forces Bradley to drop his gun and climb into the back of the police cruiser. The two heroes decide that they've tempted fate enough at this point and try to flee. More cops are coming from the north, another car is coming from the south, Fanboy can sense several patrolmen on foot cutting down the alley...
Roger kicks in a random door and runs inside, Fanboy right behind him. The owner of the place rushes downstairs with a gun, terrified of what he'll find but Fanboy projects an illusion of him and Roger as a pair of terrified children crying about their parents being in an accident across the street. The man pokes his head outside and the two heroes rush out the back door, Roger's adrenaline bursting pipes as he goes. They just barely slip past a patrol car and split up without stopping to think about it.
By the time Roger arrives at the alley he's been staying in he finds a cellphone giftwrapped and waiting for him. It's already ringing. When he answers it he discovers that it's a conference call with Fanboy and their liaison Agent Parks already on the line. Their liaison warns them that if they continue flaunting their powers like this, they're going to wind up in custody. He doesn't elaborate on the extent of the custody, but The Hole is implied...
He then goes on to congratulate them on benevolent, if not responsible, use of their powers and admits that he may be unable to handle the existing superhumans himself; he offers them a retainer fee in case he needs to call on them in the future. Fanboy immediately demands an obscure piece of memorabilia in lieu of payment and Roger demands to be the one to name the team. The agent stresses that 'THERE IS NO TEAM!' He reminds him that superhumans don't legally exist and that as such there can't be a super team. That this is an unofficial 'consultation', nothing more; and that under no circumstances are they to dress up and call attention to themselves.
The agent points out that he knows Roger is in financial difficulty and offers the use of a safe house as a job perk. He's genuinely shocked to hear Roger shout 'I don't need your charity!' and the phone shatter as it strikes a nearby wall.
Second Session
Making It Personal
Picking up where we left off last time, Fanboy returns home after his conversation with Liaison Parks and the volatile Roger McCrow to find two well-dressed men leaving his father's estate in the middle of the night. They sneer at his Storm Trooper costume and snicker amongst themselves, but otherwise say nothing and drive off.
He looks for his father to ask what those men were doing here, and finds the honorable Harold Hamilton of 'Hamilton's Furniture Outpost' splayed in the corner of the room nursing a broken nose and a swelling face. "You didn't see anything Samell." Fanboy's usually stern father says fearfully. "Just remember that you didn't see anything."
Fanboy demands to know who those men were and his father finally relents and tells him that they were from Mr. Depaliamo (a Knowledge(Street) check revealed that he was a powerful man rumored to have mob ties, known for petty, if brutal, acts of vengeance) and that they won't bother them anymore. He explains that Depaliamo wants his help in shipping certain items and that he agreed after this little visit.
Fanboy is livid and decides to pay Depaliamo a little visit of his own.
Fanboy's heard that Depaliamo frequents a joint called Floyd's Bistro over on Eighth and Clover, coincidentally the same neighborhood where they shut down Duplex just a few hours ago. Waiting until morning in the hopes of catching the mobster at his favorite Haunt he changes into something slightly less conspicuous and hunts down Roger, finding the homeless hero sleeping in a cardboard box in what he's now christened as McCrow's alley.
Fanboy explains to McCrow that somebody attacked his dad and he needs assistance making sure they don't do it again. He's met with a hail of laughter and mockery that makes him change his mind almost immediately. He waves Roger off and tells him that he'll take down Depaliamo himself.
With a sudden burst of uncharacteristic compassion, Roger grabs Fanboy's shoulder and shouts "I'm in! What kind of guy would I be if I let him just get away with this?" Fanboy is filled with a newfound respect for his new partner and thanks him profusely. Roger however hates the sniveling daddy's boy more than ever. Depaliamo on the other hand, he hates more. That's the son of a bitch that fired him.
Declaring War
Fanboy's all fired up to attack Floyd's Bistro and send a message that the Hamilton's aren't to be messed with; however Roger has a better plan. From his time on the docks he remembers that Depaliamo had a number of warehouses, but the furthest one, the one that sits directly on the water, was off limits. Even Custom's agents avoided it. THIS is where he wants to strike, especially considering that it's now quite literally in his element.
Fanboy agrees without wondering how McCrow came into such knowledge and they soon find themselves on the docks. The hustle and bustle dies out the closer they get into Depaliamo's turf, until they get to a lone warehouse on the piers with a handful of cars outside and almost no traffic. They figure there's nothing inside they can't handle, so they stroll right in...
They quickly find about 12 heavily armed men on catwalks overseeing eight burly dockworkers attempting to open a heavily fortified crate below. Roger calls to the nearest of the armed men and succeeds on a bluff, asking the man where their rest room is. The man doesn't bother alerting his comrades before strolling over and using rather harsh language to instruct the two men to leave.
Fanboy attempts to seize control of the man's mind, but he proves rather resilient. Noticing the way the kid's eyes are glowing and feeling a pressure in his mind the guy asks "What the hell is that?"
Roger quickly replies "He's just...umm....got to use the bathroom so damned bad." Needless to say, he tanks the bluff.
The guard looks at him confusedly and says "Bullshi-" Before being cold clocked by Roger who just says "Yeah." and starts stripping the guy's clothes. Fanboy naturally wants to know what the hell he's doing, but Roger simply shushes his 'partner' and tells him that adults are working.
Before Fanboy can make sense of what's going on, Roger is dressed in the man's clothes and sprints across the warehouse to a forklift, which he uses to plow through five of the eight dockworkers outright, mangling the poor bastards and killing three of them instantly.
Fanboy uses his Mental Blast to take out one of the guards on the catwalk above him before running up himself. The guards at this point don't know who to shoot first; the kid waving his hands and making them have seizures or the crazy hobo in the ill-fitting suit tearing up their merchandise. They decide to flip for it and fire at will. Fanboy has a fairly beefy Force Field which absorbs the onslaught of bullets. Roger however has a few plink off his vehicle, but several tear through him causing severe damage. If that wasn't bad enough, the dockworkers have grabbed various melee weapons and are trying to drag him out of the forklift for a little vengeance of their own.
Fanboy takes out another of the men on his side with another Mental Blast and Roger (apparently forgetting about his superpowers) rams two more of the dockworkers, pinning them against a crate and using extra effort to kick the last one in the face, putting them down with enough violence to make the Punisher proud before leaping out and taking cover.
At this point I asked Roger's player why he wasn't using his powers, and he explained that this was going to be HIS warehouse and he didn't want to wreck it up before moving in. Considering he was nearly dead, riddled with bullets and had more than half the warehouse to contend with; I admired his optimism.
The guards open fire on the intruders again, Fanboy is slightly grazed and Robert catches another handful of bullets, he's nearly dropped to dying; but spends his last hero point to re-roll and manages to only be disabled instead.
Fanboy takes out the last man on his side and lowers himself down to the crates below. Roger, suddenly feeling like the warehouse isn't worth dying over, closes his eyes and begins summoning water to himself through the cracks and crannies of the flooring. The guards open fire, but the two heroes are pretty well in cover and nothing gets through.
Fanboy sneaks through the crates to avoid detection and attempts to flank the guards. Roger draws yet more water up from the flooring and begins to be encased in a sort of liquid cocoon. The men fire again and several strike Roger, but he miraculously stays in the game.
Fanboy attempts to grab one of the men above him with telekinesis, but fails to make contact. Roger finishes drawing water to himself and becomes a 30ft tall water monster; his wounds being knitting themselves shut and he's nearly eye-level with the terrified guards on the catwalk. Two of the guards bolt towards the office on the far-side of the catwalk, the rest fire in a blind panic towards this new and horrible enemy they've discovered.
Fanboy manages to head them off and readies Gravity Control in anticipation. Roger grabs his beloved forklift and hurls it into midst of the remaining guards, killing four of them outright and causing the catwalk to collapse; skewering and killing the other two. He suddenly feels bad and realizes he sucks at being a hero. The other two men reach the office where 1,600lbs of force suddenly crushes them where they stand.
Roger uses his newfound size/destructive rage to tear the forward wall out of the office and bellows terrifyingly. He swings up to their level, losing mass the whole time; before suddenly realizing he's no better equipped to handle more than half a ton of weight than they are and collapsing into a heap.
Fanboy realizes what's happening and stops applying pressure, Roger and the men each leap for their guns and ole McCrow winds up with both of them. Fanboy and Roger discuss a plan to use these guys to lure Depaliamo into an ambush, but they prove less than co-operative. Roger decides to fire an encouragement shot into one of their knees, but instead rolls a natural 1 and gets the guy right in the privates. He bleeds to death pretty much instantly.
The last man standing shrieks in terror and starts to flee, but Fanboy focuses his mental energy and manages to take control of the guard's mind. Holding him in place until Roger can tie him to a chair. Roger is riddled with bullet holes and on his last legs, so they debate on what to do next. Fanboy wants to cauterize the wounds himself, but Roger refuses to let a blowtorch near himself; and after dismissing Fanboy's claims that "It can't be that hard, I saw this in a movie." he forces his partner to call Dr Kavlight (whom they saved from the tree-guy in their first outing) at the hospital and tell him there's been a super powered emergency. The doctor can hear the two of them bickering as Fanboy tries to make it sound like a legitimate power failure, while Roger shouts in the background "Don't mention the gunshots, they have to report those. Tell him it's hero related!" "You mean power related?" "Whatever, I'm bleeding here! Tell him that, but don't tell him why!"
So the doctor comes out and despite the fact that they'd hidden most of the bodies, can see that there has been a massacre here. Blood and gore are streaked everywhere; there's a screaming man tied and gagged in the same room that Roger is collapsed in. He asks what's going on and Fanboy replies "That's need to know, and you don't need to know." Kavlight doesn't accept this and threatens to call Homeland Security, but Fanboy gives him a heavily altered take on events and it's accepted without any further fuss.
The doctor does what he can, but the worst of the injuries have already been taken care of by Roger's affinity with water and he asks the pair to stop by the hospital for some actual treatment as soon as they can.
Meanwhile, Fanboy telekinetically tears the door off the safe in the room and discovers about $500k in new bills and an old leather ledger. He memorizes the contents with his Eidetic Memory but finds nothing that he sees as important and places them both back. Going through the rest of the warehouse he finds a number of crates that resemble his father's filled with cheap furniture that his father would never sell, and others loaded with cheap knock-off action figures which hide a considerable amount of cocaine. The fortified crate which the dockworkers were trying to get into is no match for his mental strength and after tearing it to pieces he finds military grade weaponry inside.
Surprisingly, at this point the two of them do the responsible thing (after dumping corpses and flooding the place to get rid of that 'Just butchered' smell) and call their Liaison at Homeland Security who's pretty pissed that they can't seem to understand 'non-disclosure' but is never-the-less impressed at the scope of the operation they interrupted. They turn over everything except the ledger, even the half a million dollars worth of dirty money, but Roger plainly states that the warehouse is his. Nobody seems to argue so he takes that as a victory and the few surviving witnesses to their rampage are led away in cuffs while his former employer has lost his most profitable schemes.
Meeting Brick, Their (Current) Greatest Mistake
Figuring that now's as good a time as any to make sure everything's in one place Roger asks Fanboy to drive him to the hospital, forgetting his usual mantra of "I don't need your charity".
They look for Kavlight and find him still stationed in the cordoned off area of the hospital those in the know are referring to as 'superhuman recovery' and the rest of the hospital believes to be a quarantine zone. Seeing as by Roger's own admission he'd been shot more than a dozen times since breakfast, the good doctor makes him the priority and gives him a thorough examination. Puzzlingly he finds that almost all of the hydromancer's wounds seem to have healed of their own accord; and the bullets even seem to have been ejected from his system. As they're discussing this rather miraculous recovery however, they hear an inhuman bellow from down the hall and the unmistakable sound of a wall being kicked down.
They rush to see what's going on, Roger doesn't even stop to put on pants (much to his own delight) and find a 10ft rock creature shouting/sobbing for them to change him back. He shoulders past the orderlies attempting to lead him back to his room and the Kavlight asks for our heroes' assistance in calming him down.
Fanboy attempts to telekinetically pin the creature, but finds that even his mental strength isn't enough to slow it down. Roger attempts to parley and tells the creature that everything's going to be ok, he tanks his diplomacy roll and gets some rather foul language tossed at him for his trouble. With a sigh he unleashes the elemental fury of water (destroying the hospital's lady's room in the process) but his attack fails to do anything but enrage the creature further.
'Brick' the rock monster charges Roger and pins him easily, crushing the injury prone hero against the wall with one hand. Fanboy changes tactics and uses Emotion Control to temporarily calm their opponent down while Roger continues his attempts at Diplomacy to let him know that they're going through the same things he is, but everything is going to be all right.
Things seem to be going well until Fanboy botches a bluff check (natural 1, no skill ranks, charisma penalties. Total roll: -1) to convince him that there's a cure in the works. Brick asks if they think this is funny and serendipitously rolls a natural 20 to resist Emotion Control. The creature's eyes flare and he resumes crushing Roger, shouting "I know you two *******s now! You're the ones who set there fighting while the hijacker held a gun to my head!"
Fanboy's confused but Roger's(and his player's) mouth suddenly gapes open and he says "Oh crap....it's the bus driver!" Fanboy panics and attempts to telekinetically pin again, just barely managing it. Using a hero point he throws Brick down the corridor and away from them. Roger immediately attacks the floor beneath with a super powered burst of water and Brick is sent crashing down where he receives his first injury of the fight and is covered in a torrent of water.
Roger and Fanboy lower themselves into the fray and find that they've landed in a waiting room of some sort. They shout at those waiting that the whole floor is giving out and they need to leave; hoping that they haven't given away their secrets yet. It doesn't take much prodding to leave them alone with their quarry.
Fanboy immediately reapplies his telekinesis and manages to pin Brick beneath the water, but is disappointed to find that the rock man can't seem to drown. Roger sees an overabundance of water and hatches a plan. He begins drawing the water to himself while Fanboy wrestles with the irate bus driver.
Fanboy barely manages to hold Brick at bay for the two rounds it takes for Roger to assume his Battleform, but it pays off when McCrow nearly fills the room with his new bulk. Roger takes over grappling while Fanboy assaults Brick's mind with his Mental Blast round by round.
Brick finally breaks free and starts slugging it out with McCrow, forcing Roger's player to spend his last hero point to avoid being knocked out outright.
The timely arrival of Liaison Parks with something that looks like a fire extinguisher that fires nitrogen turns the tide in their favor permanently. Roger and Fanboy hold Brick still and Parks freezes the berserk rock monster solid. Parks just shakes his head at the rampant destruction around him and just says "I should've guessed..."
Before the two can explain themselves he waves them off and asks for their assistance in taking Brick to 'The Hole'. Roger thinks this is a trick to get them there and immediately tries to flee, but Fanboy stops him and talks him down. Fanboy reasons that with all the destruction the two of them know they're capable of, it'd be pretty unlikely that even the government could contain them if they wanted to leave.
Parks is...less than thrilled with this line of reasoning but assures them he needs their help and is offering them a job. They grudgingly accept.
'The Hole' is a run-down warehouse in the industrial district that looks like it's about to fall of its own volition. Inside however is a state of the art, temporary prison built to contain superhumans. True to his word, the Hole is in fact dark and the six 10x10 glass cells that feature in the center are lit sporadically by flickering overhead lights that seem to make things worse.
As they escort Brick to an empty cell they find that there's only a single occupant held in the Hole, Bradley Yurtz aka Duplex. The terrified teen bangs on the walls of his cell and tries to shout to them as they pass, but no sound escapes. They suddenly decide very much that they don't want to stay here.
They bring the still frozen Brick to a cell without a floor and lower him down before bringing in a couple of guys in overalls to seal him into the foundation with fresh cement.
Parks gestures around and says that this is where the dangerous ones go, those who prove that they can't be trusted in the general population. Fanboy asks where the tree-guy is and Parks goes quiet, before admitting that the tree is the reason he's short-handed.
The creature calling itself Tree King killed the guards posted to watch them (and nearly killed Bradley as well) before disappearing. The rest of the agents under his command have been sent to bring the murderous plant back at all costs.
Parks then asks for their help in bringing in a new superhuman that's in police custody before they find out what he is. He's being held in the drunk-tank at the moment, but there have been six hospitalizations since he's stated his intent on leaving and the injuries keep piling up. Parks assures them of compensation once the target is in his custody and the two heroes agree that this seems fair.
I'll Name Him Lucky OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate the Mob
Fanboy drives them to the police station and find the place in a bit of a mess. A police car is wedged into the building itself and more than a couple of officers seem to be limping or nursing other injuries. Once they show the papers the DHS gave them for the transfer the drunk is tossed at them with obvious gusto. They may not know WHAT he is, but the cops know they don't want him near them.
As they lead the drunk out he seems very agreeable and holds each of them in a friendly embrace while he tells them how much he appreciates them getting him out of there. Once they're out of the station he walks directly past their car and tells them that he'll see them later. Fanboy demands he get in the car and he just laughs "Why should I?"
Roger charges the guy to drag him back physically but slips in oil and falls face first into the grass. Fanboy growls irritably and tries to force his will onto the grinning drunk and orders him to cuff himself and climb in the car. To his dismay that's exactly what Roger does.
The drunk giggles and continues to saunter off at a leisurely pace. Fanboy doesn't trust his powers at the moment and attempts to chase after the Drunk, only to discover that somehow he's managed to get his foot stuck in a grate. In a panic at seeing all their good-will with Agent Parks seep away he shouts out "I'll pay you not to leave!"
Now he's not exactly sure what this guy's power is, but he doesn't care. From what he's seen: things go well for this guy and poorly for people that this guy doesn't like, and that's enough of a reason for him to suddenly want to be very bestest friends with him.
The drunk one eyes Fanboy for a minute and then slurs "You don't think I've got money? I-I-I don't need your money, I've got money! You think I don't?"
Fanboy offers him all the booze he can drink and a warm place to sleep it off if he'll come with them. The drunk says that he knows the deal with Parks and that using his powers in public is a big no-no, that he's not falling for this.
Fanboy assures him that they'll work it out with Parks to keep him out of the Hole, since he doesn't seem to really be malicious, just....drunk. The drunk thinks it over and agrees that this could work.
Now it's worth noting that I meant for this to be a recurring 'villain'/nuisance for the players to really want to knock down a peg or two for his ridiculous luck, but they instantly thought he was a fun guy and neither of them really wanted to fight him to begin with, especially considering Roger's often unintended lethality. When Fanboy lured him to the car with promises of tequila and candy they checked the inside of his suit jacket and found the name 'Daniel Brown' along with an address sown into the lining. They felt bad for him and started calling him Lucky Dan and treating him like a pet. So not the way I intended it, but I think I like this better.
Dan sleeps soundly in the backseat and they pull out of the police station to visit the ABC store, but they don't get far before they believe they've had a blow-out and slam through a nearby fire hydrant. The two heroes climb out to discover that their tires are missing completely.
They look around for a moment before noticing a man in a red leather jacket leaning against the trunk of their car, twirling a tire iron in his hand. The two of them look at each other for a second before Fanboy shouts over to the guy and asks him if he's some sort of effing gremlin or something.
The guy sneers at them and casually strolls around the car. He taps the tire iron against his hand and asks "Do you idiots know who I am?"
Roger grins broadly and boasts "Ha, I was about to ask you the same question."
The guy nods and says "Yeah. You're the dead men what poked their noses into Depaliamo's business."
The wind instantly goes out of Roger's sails and he just goes "Oh...you do know who we are then."
The stranger blurs momentarily and both Fanboy and Roger suddenly have a distinct tire iron shaped bruise along their cheeks, however their opponent still looks as though he's casually examining his weapon as he was before. "How the hell did you do that?" Fanboy (and his player) asks with a little outrage.
"Same way I unscrewed your tires at 30mph. Compared to me? You guys are standing still. People don't call me Johnny on the Spot for nothing." the guy says, dripping with self-confidence. Heedless of the gawking witnesses Fanboy attempts to telekinetically grapple the speedster, but misses horribly. Johnny taunts with "Boy, you even think slow!" Roger tries to direct the geiser from the broken hydrant towards Johnny but fails to make contact.
Johnny delivers two more imperceptibley fast blows to the heroes before running directly up the wall of an adjoining building. Fanboy, bleeding profusely from his head, uses Gravity Control to blanket the area in overwhelming weight and Roger takes advantage of the now slowed speedster by making the building he's on outright explode with a burst of water from every pipe inside bursting at once, causing the remainder of the confused witnesses to run away.
They have no idea whether it's working or not but continue the onslaught, until suddenly a flash of red rushes past and clocks Fanboy directly in the jaw. There's nobody in sight however, so they decide that they need to put the tires back on and try to get out of there. They wake up Dan and ask him to help them out, but it takes a while to explain what they want him to do and he still seems fuzzy on the details.
They collect the tires while Dan 'covers them' taking the occasional blurry blow to their knees, back and arms before realizing he can't actually control his powers. Roger attempts to replace them after they've been collected and Fanboy readies Gravity Control to activate the second he sees a red blur and is rewarded by crushing Johnny to the ground yet again, although he catches himself and Roger in the blast as well.
Johnny grunts irritably but seems satisfied that his savage beating has been enough of a warning and tells them that "The next time you mess with Depaliamo, things are going to get serious." before crawling out of the power and speeding away.
They call Agent Parks on the way home from the liquor store and explain their situation. That they're keeping Lucky Dan. Parks is more than a little enraged, but they explain that he's not really dangerous he's just not in control, but seems easy enough to placate. They ask to be made his caretakers to keep him out of the Hole. Parks agrees on the condition that they are completely liable for Dan, anything goes wrong and the punishments fall on their shoulders.
They also mention the speedster and give him a description, as well as the name Johnny on the Spot. Parks tells them to hold for a few minutes before coming back and telling them to be careful. He believes they're up against John Knowles, a heavy hitter in Depaliamo's organization that's used as a sort of all-purpose fix-it man. He tells them that they don't have much more than a name on the guy, but he's suspected in more than a dozen hits. They agree that this could be a problem and tell Parks that they'll be in touch.
Retaliation
Depaliamo has pissed them off. Johnny has pissed them off. Organized crime has more or less pissed them off. Our heroes are now on the warpath.
They stash Lucky Dan at their warehouse with a couple bottles of assorted spirits and a bucket of chicken and head to Floyd's Bistro to pay Depaliamo another visit.
As they pass by the site of their battle with Duplex they see a number of trucks blocking off the street and men tearing up the water line. Roger stops to ask what's going on and they explain that there's been a number of unexplained accidents in this neighborhood and that they're trying to find the problem. Roger winces guiltily and slinks away.
The restaurant is only a block over and it's closed, since no water means no service, however they glance inside and see that a number of thugs are still around. Four can be seen from the street and Roger bangs on the door. The closest one to the door turns and says "We're closed." But Roger acts like he can't hear and continues banging.
The guy walks over to the door and mouths an exaggerated "Weeee're Cloooosed." But Roger asks to use the bathroom. The thug shakes his head and repeats that they're closed, but Roger is persistent. The thug grabs a bat and heads outside to run the two of them off, but Roger throw a haymaker that lays the guy out flat and the bat becomes his.
They step inside and the three remaining guys gasp when they see them. Fanboy manages to pin two to the same table and Roger charges across the room and brains the last one with a mighty swing of his bat. The pinned thugs shout for help and a woman in the next room answers with a plea for help of her own.
A suited man with a very large rifle rushes into the room from a private dining room and is rewarded for his vigilance by being hit by two thugs and the table they're pinned against, crushing the three of them and blocking the doorway. Another man pushes the table out of the way and two more well dressed men similarly armed open fire, catching Roger in the shoulder and bouncing off Fanboy's forcefield.
The lack of water in the pipes is a bit of a problem for Roger McCrow, but only a bit. Instead he focuses on the man that pulled the table out of the way and forces the majority of the liquid out of his body, leaving the former soldier as a shriveled, gasping husk and Roger with a basketball sized globe of water hovering above his hand. Roger hides behind a table as four thugs with pistols file out of the other room and the hail of bullets fails to do anything of significance.
Fanboy manages to catch five of the seven guys and hurls them across the room into a crumbled pile of broken bones and bruised flesh, and Roger knocks one of the remaining thugs out with a blast of his stolen water, before using a hero point to charge across the restaurant and break the last man's jaw with a blow from his bat. Roger strolls into the private dining room tapping his bat into his hand and shouting in a sing-song voice "Depaaaliiaaamo. Come out and plaaaay."
The terrified woman tied to a chair stammers at the sight of a middle aged man in a speedo wielding a baseball bat singlehandedly busting up a Mafia hangout and challenging the most dangerous man in the city to do something about it. Fanboy at least has the presence of mind to untie her as Roger continues looking to slake his bloodlust.
"He's not here." she says rubbing the feeling back into her wrists. Roger immediately assumes this to be a trick and threatens her with the bat "You'll tell me where your boss is or I'll-" Fanboy moves to calm him down by pointing out that you generally don't tie up employees. She looks at the two of them and asks who the hell they are to pick a fight with Depaliamo like this.
Roger extends a hand and smirks "McCrow, Roger McCrow and badassedness is the game. And...you are?" he asks as seductively as a bleeding, half-naked man that had threatened to kill her less than a minute ago can be.
"Elizabeth Ingles, investigative journalist. I was working on a piece about organized crime when these guys snatched me up. I've got to say, the two of you would make a fantastic story!" she says excitedly.
Roger's mouth gapes and he just looks at Fanboy, "Ohh....s***. I just told her my name. Do we...do we kill her?" he asks, genuinely sad despite the fact that I have no doubts he'll do it.
She starts to panic when Fanboy grabs her by the head and finagles his powers enough to erase the last few hours from her memory. On the upside, she no longer knows about their suspicious partnership. On the other hand, she no longer knows why she's got rope burn or why a bleeding man in a speedo is gawking at her. She's understandably upset.
They fall back on lying to explain their presence and say that they found her "Blacked out and tied up on their way home from...swim practice? Yeah...swim practice." and after she's calmed down she decides it's better to get out of there than keep asking questions from potentially unstable men.
Once Ingles is out of their hair they search the manager's office and find a couple of goodies. Fanboy pries the safe out of the wall and finds $200k worth of cash that they decide they deserve for their trouble and assorted pictures that they ignore. What really catches their eye however is a series of filing cabinets that the two of them immediately fall on looking for information on Johnny Knowles. Fanboy finds a file and the two of them glance at each other with wide grins and start laughing.
Depaliamo has to pay, of course, in due time. But the bruises dealt by Johnny on the Spot are still fresh and recent, and if there's one thing neither 'hero' can stand it's a fight left unfinished.
So they take what files they can fit into Fanboy's car and leave Depaliamo and Johnny a simple note in the empty, shattered safe: "Now it's serious. Step into my home again and I'll break your ****ing neck."
Third Session
Renovations
Things started off innocently enough; Roger was using his $200k worth of drug money to improve his stolen warehouse while Fanboy attempted to find out where Johnny lived from his pilfered file so they could ambush him in his sleep; figuring he wouldn't have as much spring in his step if caught unaware.
Despite their brazen attacks on the most powerful man in the city they remain unmolested in the days to come, to everybody's surprise. Fanboy discovers the reason why when he notices a large number of daylight drive-bys in the newspaper; most of which correlate with suspected Depaliamo fronts. Apparently rumors of their (successful) two man war against the Italians have given Chavenski the notion that his rival is weak and stupid, making Depaliamo ripe for extermination.
In the following week, Roger installs small grates in the warehouse, so getting to his precious water won't wreck the floor any longer and personally begins construction on living space for himself and Dan; spending the rest of his stolen cash on: an infirmary (now Dr Kavlight can't give him lip about not having the equipment to deal with his numerous gunshot wounds) a security system(with alarms tied to automatically call their phones), a back-up generator, a sprinkler system (in case the ocean was stolen maybe?) and a workshop for fiddling around in.
Agent Parks stops by during the renovations and has Roger sign a couple of forms, which McCrow does without even reading them. Luckily the DHS agent has their best interests in mind and hands Roger a deed to the warehouse, stating that he arranged to purchase the building at an impromptu police auction for $1. Roger accepts the deed but proclaims that he didn't ask for any help and Parks isn't getting his dollar back. Parks is more than a little irritated that his gesture was dismissed so quickly and leaves without another word.
It's during this time that Lucky Dan declares he's leaving. He's finally sobered up and doesn't like living in a damp warehouse anymore. Roger tries to show him the rooms he's building, but Dan misses his kids. Fanboy's surprised to learn that the drunk that's been sleeping on their floor the last few weeks is a family man and asks if his wife won't be perturbed that he's been gone so long. Dan asks what month this is and Fanboy tells him; Lucky Dan laughs and says that she'll be surprised to see him back so soon. Remembering their last (onesided) tussle with the guy, Fanboy doesn't try to stop him, but demands he call in DAILY and tells him that if he needs a place to get liquored up to come here IMMEDIATELY. Dan agrees and calls a cab.
Getting back to business, Fanboy asks his dad for a contribution towards his new 'job' and his dad seems rather pleased (especially since it's been weeks since he's seen his son dressed up like a cartoon character) until he hears the $50k price tag on his son's 'independence'. Mr Hamilton instead slides his checkbook back into the drawer and tells his son that sales have been slipping and he doesn't have that kind of money just lying around anymore. Fanboy realizes he doesn't know enough about his dad's business to tell if that's a lie or not. Roger's spiteful gales of laughter when the two of them talk of it later however, gives him a pretty good idea.
Looking For Johnny
Fanboy decides to focus his attention on the matter of petty vengeance and pulls Roger away from his work to help him track down Johnny on the Spot for a bit of two fisted justice.
They arrive Johnny's apartment and after a bit of ESP recon, they discover he's not home. Breaking down the door they find that Johnny seems to live in his own filth; pizza boxes and discarded wrappers litter the floor and old papers are piled chest high as far as the eye can see. With disgust, they realize that the badass hitman they've been watching over their shoulders for is a hoarder.
The two of them split up to better search the mess and find similar disaster areas in the other rooms. Roger finds a pile of bills and notices that they're from three different addresses, and stuffs them into his pants before attempting to 'hack' Johnny's computer. Roger has no Computer Use at all and his player suggests that he doesn't even know the basics; so he accidentally manages to turn it off and can't figure out how to turn it back on.
Meanwhile, Fanboy discovers a 'burner' phone in the bedroom, charging under a pile of clothes. He looks it over and discovers a few phone numbers, including Depaliamo's, and more than a dozen text messages that consist of nothing more than an address. He notices that the last text sent is unread and only a few minutes old, so he makes note of the location before scrolling up. Fanboy notices that the second to last text is the address of the police station they were ambushed at and the date matches their scuffle. He realizes Depaliamo's given Johnny another hit!
Fanboy pockets the phone and finds Roger threatening the computer in the next room with physical violence. Fanboy snatches the laptop up before Roger's temper loses them a lead and tells his quick tempered partner about Johnny's text.
Roger agrees that this is top priority and after stealing Johnny's flat screen T.V., determining that his couch won't fit in Fanboy's car and bursting every pipe within bursting range and turning Johnny's apartment into a pool of filth they race to save the day.
Saving the Day
They arrive at the address and find a massacre in the works. Depaliamo's men are advancing on an apartment building and slaughtering everything in sight in retaliation for their recent losses. Men, women and children lay in pools of their own blood on the steps leading up and a frantic gun battle rages inside.
A handful of men guard the entrance but Fanboy grapples them telekinetically and tosses them across the street where they land in a crumpled heap. Roger dives into a small fountain and rises in full monster form a moment later, roaring (however water roars) and barrels through the front door like the Kool-Aid man.
Inside there's thirteen Italians firing at four Russians hiding behind overturned benches, however the appearance of a thirty foot water monster tearing up the lobby convinces the Italians that there's bigger things to worry about. Roger grabs the first man he sees and absorbs him into his form. Fanboy snatches three of the others and tosses them against the wall, knocking them unconscious. The remaining nine open fire on Roger, but only five are even able to harm him in his new body and only two of those hit, they all scatter and take what cover they can.
Roger's wounds close rapidly and he moves to block the Russians with his own body, snatching up another Italian as he goes. Fanboy grabs two more and slams them face first into a pillar, knocking one of them out. The one that Fanboy snatched fires back at him, grazing the telepath (his player realized it was the first time he'd been shot and panics IC) before running into the stairwell.
Roger fires a blast of water at three of the gang members clumped together and takes another two of them out. Fanboy lashes out in a blind rage/panic and snatches the man who shot him from his hidey-hole, using him as a bludgeon to take out another of the men opposing them. Roger realizes he's sort of drowned the two men he'd plucked up and ejects them at one of the remaining men, leaving a grisly heap. The remaining men fire at Roger, but he regenerates as fast as they can damage him.
Roger fails to snatch another man with his elongated form, but Fanboy is still in full-on Carrie mode and uses the unconscious form of his attacker to beat the last two nearly to death before tossing the broken body aside.
The Russians slink out of their barricade, empty handguns clutched in their hands. The Russians and the heroes stare at each other for a minute, while Roger's massive form melts away. Finally one of the Russians come forward and stammers out a thanks.
Fanboy wants to know what Depaliamo's men were doing here and the Russians play dumb until Roger threatens to tear the place apart to find what they wanted. The Russians rush to calm McCrow down and admit that Chavenski owns this building and puts a number of his guys up here. They also rush to point out that less than a quarter of the building is on Chavenski's payroll and only about half the people that Depaliamo mowed down even knew what was going on.
Fanboy suddenly realizes that they're smack dab in the middle of a gang war and asks the men if they could put him in touch with Chavenski. The Russians agree and phone numbers are exchanged. Roger on the other hand is anxious to ambush Johnny.
I ask him why he expected to find Johnny there and his player points out that they found the address on Johnny's phone. Fanboy's player realizes that him taking it means that they can't set Johnny up here. Roger suggests sneaking back into Johnny's apartment and replacing the phone, but Fanboy reminds him that he sort of blew the apartment up. They both leave disappointed.
Attack on the Warehouse
Arriving at the warehouse they set Johnny's computer up in the communications room and start pilfering. Fanboy discovers that Johnny isn't very security conscious and most of his bank account information is saved in Notepad. It takes about twenty minutes to empty Johnny's account and leave the two 'heroes' several hundred grand richer.
They then get the brilliant idea to text Depaliamo and ambush him at their warehouse.
Why they believed that Depaliamo would walk into an ambush at a place that he knew they inhabited after losing a considerable number of his men and presumably being contacted by Johnny about the loss of his phone/home, I'm not sure. I asked them if they thought that this sounded like something an intelligent man would do and Fanboy's player replied by shouting "Send!" at the top of his voice.
A couple of minutes later they get a call from the same guy that warned them about Bradley Yurtz a few weeks back, saying that he had a vision of them being gunned down and warning them that by a clock he saw on the wall he believes the attack to be coming in about six hours. They thank the Prophet for his warning and seem more irritated that their ruse had failed than the fact their murder has been pre-ordained by fate.
They discuss the best way to defend themselves as Roger uses his newly repaired forklift to block off the front door with various crates and boxes packed as high as possible. Fanboy debates calling Agent Parks but Roger really doesn't want to piss their liaison off, especially after their last almost friendly encounter; so they weigh their options.
Fanboy tricks Lucky Dan into coming by and calls up Chavenski's men, saying that they've got a minor problem with Depaliamo and they'd really appreciate a little back-up. Since the four thugs feel like they owe the PCs for saving their hides, they show up as quickly as possible. The four Russians apologize that it's just them, but explain that Chavenski doesn't feel like this is his problem. The heroes are just glad that they don't have to do this alone.
Roger watches the monitors while Fanboy scans the perimeter with his ESP and finally they see the cars unloading and soldiers moving to surround them. Fanboy and two of the Russians take the northern entrance, Roger and the other two take the southern door with the tall barricade. The doors burst open and men rush in from both sides. Fanboy sees five of Depaliamo's well-dressed soldiers rush from the north and he manages to dash two of them against the wall. Roger (in his 30ft hydroform) tackles the barricade as soon as he hears the door open and crushes half a dozen thugs into a fine paste. Six more look on in terror. Depaliamo's men open fire on both ends and one of the Russians to the north goes down immediately, but there are no other injuries.
Fanboy takes out one of the remaining Italians on his end with a Mental Blast and Chavenski's man takes out another. Roger comes down like a hammer on the group of terrified thugs and crushes three of the six beneath a mountain of water. It's around this point that Fanboy finally notices the faint sound of a saw cutting through their roof and two heavily armored men with large guns and bald heads rappel through a new opening and land in the middle of warehouse, they both open fire and Fanboy is severely injured by the barrage of bullets. Depaliamo's men fire where they can but don't accomplish much and Chavenski's men are similarly ineffective.
Fanboy grabs the men and tosses them northward, so the boxes he's lying against can afford him some cover and Roger leaves the remaining thugs and charges northwards delivering a fearsome punch that knocks one of the well-armed assassins off his feet. The two assassins open fire with their massive guns and nearly shred Roger despite his new form, hitting the man held within. Roger topples over and the water surrounding him becomes tinged red with the blood flowing freely from his wounds. Depaliamo's and Chavenski's men engage in their own private gun battle.
Fanboy attempts to separate the assassins, but the target evades his telekinesis altogether. Roger's wounds slowly begin to knit themselves together, but he finds he can't quite stand under his own power. Chavenski's men from the south slide next to their companion to the north, apparently the thugs defeated. A burst from the assassins kills another of the Russians outright and leaves Fanboy holding a bullet hole in his arm and fighting to stay conscious. The final normal soldier of Depaliamo is killed under the combined fire of the remaining Russians.
Fanboy tries to take control of one of the assassins, but finds the man's will to be too strong to overcome. Roger finally manages to stand up, but that's all he manages to accomplish. Another round of fire from the assassins destroys Fanboy's hiding place and stuns Roger. Neither hero assumes they're going to make it at this point, but neither is willing to give up their warehouse for anything.
Enter: Lucky Dan. Holding a six pack with his finger while swilling beer from a can and walking right past the surprised assassins. "Is this what you people wanted my help with?" he slurs, one eyeing the carnage around him but seemingly oblivious to the armed men behind him. "Look, I appreciate you helping me out with... helping me with Agent...guy." the drunkard stammers. "But I'm not a maid. You'll clean up your own accidents!"
Fanboy just stands there staring at Dan with his mouth open (delayed his turn) and Roger is still trying to get his bearings. The first assassin fires at Dan and fails to meet his hefty Deflect check, so somehow he manages to shoot his friend in the back. Shouting curses the whole time, the second assassin tries his hand and crits! Rolling to defeat Dan's Deflect, he gets a 26; almost unbeatable at the PL we're playing at. In a stroke of genuine luck, Dan rolls a natural 20 on his deflect and the assassin's gun explodes in his hands, sending a portion of the stock directly the forehead of the man behind him. Fanboy's player at this point is cackling his head off because he'd been wanting to weaponize Dan since the first time he saw his knack for getting out of trouble and now his bribes were paying off.
Fanboy attempts to grab the assassin again, who dodges the attempt and lunges forward; drawing a two foot blade from his jacket and avoiding Dan completely. The assassin impales Fanboy and would have turned the young man into a corpse if not for the expenditure of a hero point which left him hanging on by a thread. Roger loses his giant form but still moves to melee range to pull the assassin away before Fanboy loses his head.
Fanboy finally manages to grab his attacker with his mind and pins the struggling assassin to the roof with telekinesis. The telepath uses extra effort to apply damage and manages to break the assassin's arms before simply letting go and letting the fall knock him out.
As everything's wrapping up Fanboy learns that the assassin is just one of a number of freelancers brought in by Depaliamo to help secure his powers, and that he's done jobs for Italians and Russians, but he's not loyal to either side.
Chavenski's men gather up their dead to return home and Fanboy offers them a sizeable income to come work for them as guards. Neither of the Russians are willing to take that deal since they've seen what these guys consider a 'little problem' and want no more part of their lives. They call it even and tell the pair to expect a call from Chavenski.
Dan is still so blitzed that he doesn't quite understand what's happening, but insists that he was just sleeping when they called him and returns home despite his promise to only drink under their observation.
Once alone, they pry bank account information out of their attacker Roger uses a pair of pliers and a welding torch to convince the assassin to call Depaliamo and declare the pair dead. They then dispose of the bodies, wash the place out and try to decide what to do with their little witness.
Fanboy suggests drowning him and leaving him for the fishes to deal with, but Roger is firmly against this. When Fanboy points out that McCrow had killed nearly a dozen people in the last week and that this seemed like an odd time for him to start to feel bad about it, Roger gets irate.
"I'm not STARTING to feel bad about it Samell! I DO feel bad about it. I felt bad with the forklift, I felt bad with the bat and I felt bad about drowning those men at the apartments. But THAT was in the heat of the moment, so I live with it. It was us or them. But this? This is murder! He can't fight back, and he's no threat to us. We can't just kill him."
Samell points out that he's seen their powers and they stole his money, not to mention the whole attempted murder thing. Fanboy points out that he's too strong to mind wipe and they can't just let him go. So Roger calls up Agent Parks for another deposit.
Revisiting the Tree King
Parks does not care for the state of things when he arrives. Even without the bodies he knows that this was a massacre. Fanboy is barely in one piece and everything is marked with bullet holes. Parks looks around and declares "This place looks like it survived a gang war. How do you explain that?"
Roger lights up a cigar and shrugs. "We won."
Parks definitely doesn't care for the implications in THAT, but they load up the gibbering assassin (Fanboy couldn't erase his memories so he worked him over mentally a bit to compensate) and Parks tells them in no uncertain terms that he's not their personal gang member depository. That this is the last time he's cleaning up their mess.
Both Fanboy and Roger are sort of panicked at this, since they just assumed Parks HAD to watch over them. Like junkies finding out that they've had their last hit, the two of them start trying to make a deal to get just one more!
While they're begging for just one more unconstitutional secret imprisonment Parks gets a phone call that gives them their opening. Apparently the agents assigned to track the self-proclaimed Tree King tracked him to an apartment building and all but one had succumbed to his spores.
Fanboy can barely stand so Roger offers to go alone if it means access to secret prisons, but Fanboy points out that McCrow doesn't even own a car; so he'll have to go with him. Parks doesn't have much choice, since he's down only a handful of men, all of which are busy elsewhere; so he tells them to be careful, but that this only means he owes them a favor not that he's became their personal warden.
The PCs figure that anything's better than nothing, so they limp to Fanboy's car and go to find the apartment. By the time they arrive there's almost a dozen casualties scattered over the first two floors and the last of Park's men assigned to the case is among them. When they finally find the monster he's flanked by a pair of sentient trees that follow him like dogs. The three of them are attempting to batter down a door while a woman inside shrieks bloody murder.
Fanboy is pulling himself along the wall painfully and Roger suggests he stay out of the way while the adults talk. Tapping into a water line he begins his transformation while Fanboy ignores his advice and tries to get their attention.
Tree King recognizes them from the hospital and sneers. "Stay out of this. It's between me and the whore!" he shouts as he begins splintering the door with his wooden claws. "It was her damned plant I was holding! Her fault I'm a monster! How does she take responsibility? She dumps me when she sees what she's done to me!" he rages, sending his minions to tear Fanboy apart. The woman's screaming starts to falter and she begins loudly gagging and shouting about how her cactus is alive.
The two trees move to engage but Roger rushes between them and Fanboy and begins a three-way grapple. Fanboy catches one of them telekinetically and dashes it against the second one, causing one to shatter lifelessly. Tree King continues clawing the door out of his way and Fanboy shouts that he can take care of a tree, Roger needs to clear that door.
Roger charges down the hallway and tackles the Tree King about thirty foot, pinning him against the far wall. Tree King instinctively releases a cloud of spores but finds that Roger's water form simply ignores the effects. Fanboy mentally attacks his tree and manages to sever the link that keeps it moving.
Roger manhandles Tree King, throwing a powerful haymaker and tossing the smaller opponent down the hallway. Tree King charges and claws like a cornered animal, injuring Roger even through his watery exterior. Fanboy stumbles to the door but can't manage to get it open.
Roger and Tree King continue exchanging blows while Fanboy probes the interior of the room with his ESP to find out why he no longer hears screaming. He finds a barricade holding the door closed and Tree King's former girlfriend collapsed and unmoving with a cactus hovering over her and spewing some sort of spore of its own. He manages to sever the connection the same as with the tree and haul the barricade out of the way while Roger and Tree King's fight spills back into the connecting hallway.
Fanboy rushes to the woman and finds her barely breathing on the floor. With each attempt at reviving her, it seems like her life ebbs a big more until he finally manages to get through and she gives a small gasp. Not much, but he'll take it. Dragging her over his shoulder he stumbles into the hallway and shouts for Roger to forget the fight and follow him.
Roger (severely wounded at this point and unable to regenerate fast enough to keep up with the beating being handed to him) nonchalantly tells Fanboy to take the girl and leave, he'll wrap things up here.
As soon as Fanboy and the dying woman reach the stairwell his form becomes more than he can handle and the water simply falls apart, leaving him face to face with the most dangerous superhuman they've met so far with nothing between them. Roger leaps forward and plants a punch directly in Tree King's jaw, but the creature's bark-like skin is unfazed. Tree King, seeing that Roger is no longer protected by his layer of water re-opens his bulbs and spews another round of spores into the air, turning Roger into a coughing, suffocating mess.
Roger bursts a pipe behind the mass-murdering plantman and hits the creature hard enough to interrupt its spore delivery and stun it momentarily. Before it can recover he's grabbed a nearby fire axe and within a couple of rounds turned it into little more than screaming firewood. By the time Parks arrives, Tree King is nothing but silent splinters.
Staffing the Warehouse
After stumbling into the hospital dragging Tree King's victim, Fanboy succumbs to his own injuries and passes out. A few days later Fanboy finally wakes up after extensive surgery and decides to pay the girl he saved a visit, discovering that her name was, ironically enough, Heather.
Knocking on her door, he finds Roger eating a fruit cup and bragging about how he singlehandedly beat Tree King to death and saved her life while slurping the juice, as his player described it, seductively... He's doing his best to take advantage of one of the few opportunities he has to brag about his exploits, but can't seem to accept that a girl half his age and pumped full of drugs might not want to feel his bicep or hear how many pieces he left her former boyfriend in.
"The hell do you mean you saved her?" Fanboy asks hoarsely, "I performed CPR, dragged her out of that apartment and drove her here."
Roger sets his fruit cup down silently and turns around, studying Fanboy for a minute before grunting. "Thought you were dead. Sort of makes me the hero by default." he says sipping a chocolate milk. "Besides, you ran away. I'm the one that went all lumberjack on him and saved the day."
The two of them bicker for a bit about who's the greater hero, before a nurse stops by to tell them to leave; they're disturbing the other patients. Fanboy decides to recover in their private infirmary and asks Dr Kavlight to look in on him. He's told that Kavlight isn't their personal servant and not to call back if it's not an emergency.
A few days of lounging around in bed either being bored or struggling to make his own meals while Roger continues building living quarters and repairing the damage from the battle makes Fanboy realize how empty this place is. After spending most of his stolen loot getting the warehouse armored and installing auto-turrets around the premises to dissuade visitors in the future, Fanboy begins looking for a way to hire a staff without pissing Parker off. Eventually it comes to him.
They call up Parks and arrange to visit The Hole, where they look in on Bradley Yurtz, aka Duplex. Parker explains that the cell they keep him in is air-tight and is only given enough oxygen for a single man his size at a time to breathe for an hour. Should he duplicate, he'll run out of breath long before he does any damage. The PCs are very impressed, but say that they're calling in their favor to have him released into their care.
Parks stares at them and just asks "Why?"
When they explain that they intend to put the boy to work, he points out that the last time they met Yurtz he was shooting at them. Fanboy points out that he doesn't think 'this' Yurtz shot at them, it was one of the other ones; but Parks calls him an idiot and has his men bring Bradley to a conference table.
They sit down and hash things out, Parks isn't happy with the thought of providing McCrow and Fanboy with a private army of inexhaustible thugs, but they eventually convince him that they're on the level. Bradley's anxious to get out, but after hearing some of the problems they've been having isn't sure that he wants to go with them. He points out that the two of them took him and all of his clones in a straight fight, and admits that he's not much good for anything.
Fanboy's persistent though, and arranges a work release program where they'll reform the former villain and teach him valuable, marketable skills in the process. Parks reminds the two that they're responsible for Duplex and that if this is a mistake it'll land on their shoulders. Parks also mentions that this squares them for favors, much to Roger's horror. Roger makes Parks promise that they'll be called on in the future in exchange for more favors.
Meet Sloth
During the next few weeks Roger and Bradley finish the renovations in the warehouse and end up with comfortable living space for twelve people while Fanboy finishes recovering. Fanboy asks why the hell he's got so many rooms but Roger just says he has plans. Big plans.
While Roger starts drawing up plans for holding cells they get a call from Parks asking them to look in on a local jewelry store robbery. He tells them that a superhuman robbed the place blind and says that local police have combed the place top to bottom and can't figure out what happened. Everybody just went to sleep and woke up with the place empty. No trace of any gas or sedative at all. Since the two of them are the closest thing to superhuman experts on hand Parks wants them to glance around and see what they make of the situation.
Upon arrival Fanboy and Roger introduce themselves as being from the DHS and start looking the place over. They discover that none of the cases are broken and that the cameras have been disabled, even the one hidden in an overhead light fixture. Roger throws up his hands and declares that whoever did this is a master criminal, way out of their league, and starts to leave. Fanboy however makes him hang around for a few more minutes.
As they start questioning the staff they discover that almost everybody just remember work as usual and then waking up an hour later. The security guard however mentions that he saw a large man with a scar on his cheek just before he passed out.
Fanboy is intrigued and wants to know more and the guard mentions that the guy had a big pistol, like a desert eagle and was dressed all in black. When they locked eyes he passed out. At this point, Roger has determined that this is the world's most dangerous criminal and he wants no part of anything that puts them against such a cunning and dangerous villain.
Fanboy is very impressed and decides he'd like to see the crime from the guard's point of view; invading his mind and sorting through his recent memories. Instead of a large, scarred man he watches the security guard casually loot the place while everyone's asleep through his own eyes and then lay on the floor until someone found them.
Fanboy shouts "He's the thief!" but before they can pounce on the man he releases a wave of exhaustion that knocks Roger out cold and cause Fanboy's muscles stop working. However he remains conscious and since mobility isn't a big part of his shtick he's able to telekinetically battle the panicked guard for several minutes. There's a tense back and forth battle of wills that at one point had the guard being thrown through several cases and mentally battered to the point of collapse; but in the end Fanboy too succumbs to sleep and the guard makes his escape.
They're eventually woken up by police officers who are trying to calm down the employees who keep shouting about magic powers. Fanboy manages to wipe the pertinent memories under the nose of the law and they walk away without any witnesses.
Fanboy's dad
After their embarrassing loss to a portly rent-a-cop in front of people, even if they can't remember what happened, the two of them decide to slink back home with their tail between their legs. Fanboy receives a phone call and as he answers it, notices he's already missed eight from the same number. The Prophet says that he's been calling for the last half hour, but nobody's answered, he begins rambling that there's NO time to waste, Fanboy's father is being taking by men outside his store right now!
Fanboy doesn't even respond, he just whips the car around and pushes himself for all he's worth. I set up 5 DC15 Drive checks and tell him he has to make three of them to get there in time. He fails the first two spectacularly, and makes the next two with room to spare. The last one is a natural 1, leaving Mr Hamilton in Depaliamo's clutches... Until Roger's player shouts "You've got Hero Points!" and Fanboy realizes he's got six of the buggers from earlier hoarding so he rolls again and just barely makes it.
They pull up in time to watch four men dragging Fanboy's father towards a van, Fanboy shouts at them to stop and they turn towards the pair, his father shouts "Samell? What are you doing here? Run, before they get you boy!" one of them draws a gun and places it against Mr Hamilton's temple, saying "Depaliamo said that if you try anything, we should just shoot this S.O.B. and be done with it!"
Fanboy's eyes begin glowing as they do when he's working his mojo and the area around him begins shaking uncontrollably, the very van they're dragging his father to is rocking left and right threatening to flip. He growls at the men "Did Depaliamo remember to mention that if you so much as scratch my daddy I'll pull your skeletal structure out of your ass and have it violate what's left of its own twitching corpse for as long as I can manage to keep your brain functioning?" (I gave him a sizeable intimidate bonus for clever use of telekinesis and the descriptive threat.)
Roger just strolls past Fanboy and towards the group of men, the guy with the gun shouts in a rather high pitched voice that if Roger comes any closer he'll kill him, he swears; but Roger just replies with "Pfft, see if I care. The whole family pisses me off. At least if this guy bites it his boy over there inherits it. Fanboy! Think of all the upgrades we could buy with that money!"
I figure that at this point Roger's heroic streak is over and figure I should be thankful he ever even had one, I resign myself to moderating a PvP match, when he suddenly makes the radiator explode and take out the gunman. The rest of them go for their guns, but Fanboy snatches two of them and tosses them skywards. The last man grabs Mr Hamilton as a human shield and inches towards the van, figuring he can still make his getaway.
They attempt to reason with the man, but he shoots Fanboy's father through the back and leaps into the driver's seat. Roger rushes to try and stop the bleeding and Fanboy turns into a horror movie. Not caring who might see his display, he tears the vehicle apart with judicious use of a Hero Point, and then uses the rest of his stockpile to spend the last 24 seconds of the man's life making good on his threat.
They're not far from the warehouse so they call Kavlight and demand he meets them there, load up Mr Hamilton and the unconscious(and scalded) thug that survived their attack and race to the infirmary. Mr Hamilton seems less distressed by his wound than by what he just witnessed and just keeps asking "What?" over and over again.
Fanboy tries to explain and tells his father that this is that job he's been involved in. He's working for the government. Roger is irate screaming that Fanboy is on dangerous ground and he will not be dragged down with his honesty. Mr Hamilton just asks "Working for the government gives you super powers?"
Fanboy tells him that a bus accident gave him super powers, but this just confuses his father more, until Fanboy tells him that they were on Bus 14, the one with the bioterrorist. His father doesn't know what to say, but seems to have further questions. Roger is shouting that the old man knows too much and they have to wipe his mind. Fanboy refuses and Roger says that he'll call Parks and personally help haul father and son to The Hole. It's a tense couple of minutes until Mr Hamilton mentions a reward, then Roger's phone goes up and visions of hot tubs dance in his head.
When they reach the warehouse Fanboy drags the scalded thug along with his powers, while Roger carries his dad inside. Once they step through the doors they find 2 scary Russians carrying assault rifles and 1 terrifying Russian carrying a SAW light machine gun milling about.
The man carrying the SAW seems irritated and wants to know why they keep him waiting if they're in such a hurry to talk to him. Fanboy's the first to realize that this is Chavenski and tosses Depaliamo's goon onto the ground in front of him. Mr Hamilton seems even more bothered by the fact that his son is cavorting with Russian mobsters, but Roger quickly locks him in the infirmary and doesn't really care about his feelings after that.
Fanboy probes the thug's mind and finds that Depaliamo had planned an ambush at Floyd's Bistro, disguised as a hostage exchange. He tells this to Chavenski and the Russian seems very pleased with his use of an afternoon.
Depaliamo's Ambush
Only waiting long enough for Dr Kavlight to be shown to Mr Hamilton, and (with Roger's suggestion) the two to begin talks for Kavlight becoming the team's personal; on call physician, they load up with Chavenski and his men and head towards Floyd's Bistro.
Fanboy scans the area with ESP and finds close to 20 of Depaliamo's soldiers, Johnny on the Spot AND another of the assassins that nearly killed the two of them at the warehouse scattered along EVERYWHERE inside. Chavenski and his men head to the service entrance in the kitchen, Roger causes a pipe to explode obscuring their vision and distracting them, while Fanboy blocks the door. Chavenski's men then move in with a bang and begin slaughtering those caught in the kitchen, while Fanboy and Roger bust through the front door like mad men.
Catching Johnny on the Spot unaware negates his massive speed bonuses, and Roger takes the opportunity to dehydrate the bastard; nearly killing him outright. Fanboy telekinetically disarms the assassin of his gun and dashes it against the far wall. Johnny rushes past the two of them, smacking Fanboy in the mouth on his way out; but he doesn't return. Men rush in from every door opening fire, but Fanboy's Force Field and the table Roger's hiding behind provide them with enough protection to survive the volley.
Fanboy manages to grapple EVERY man in the room and shouts "Heads up Chavenski!"before hurling them through the kitchen door, where Roger immediately begins piling tables up to cut off their escape.
Fanboy is watching the fight inside with ESP and watches the assassin cut through both of Chavenski's men with a single cut and I figure I'm about to lose a plot centric NPC, then something magical and awesome happens...
Chavenski opens fire with his massive, terrifying gun and crits nearly EVERYTHING. I never rolled less than 18 for him and nobody he shot at rolled higher than a 4, so Fanboy just watches the local mob boss blow away an assassin that they were terrified of and all of Depaliamo's men while tanking their blows with nothing but his bare chest and rage.
When they finally peek into the kitchen, Chavenski is covered head to toe in blood and gore, only some of it his own, and he's stomping on the assassin's head even though there's not really enough of it left to call a head anymore. When they finally calm him down enough to speak he asks if they found Depaliamo and they sort of wince before giving him the bad news.
Chavenski snorts derisively and says "No, it was my mistake. I overestimated the fat Italian. A MAN would want to see his enemies killed with his own eyes."
The PCs ask Chavenski if they know where Depaliamo would be and the Russian tells them that he's probably at his mansion at the edge of town. The heroes want to hit him at home but Chavenski refuses. He points out that he lost two good men visiting Depaliamo's restaurant, that he won't assault the paranoid bastard's fortress until the rest of his Empire lies in ruins. The Russian gives them Depaliamo's address to check out for themselves, but after confusing lucky rolls with invincibility they're convinced that if Chavenski won't go there, they can't possibly survive and decide to go home and cook up a less direct scheme.
After of course, making a corpse pile in Depaliamo's office and leaving a post-it note with "You're next." on the door leading in.
0
Also, I apologize for the rushed nature of most of these, but they're generally written up around 6am after I stumble home from playing, but before I pass out and forget everything. Every time I read through them I clean them up a bit more, but I really need to go through and do a complete rewrite to make 'em shine.
Setting details: I wanted a low-power game to keep them from gaining powers and then immediately attacking the city, so we started at PL5 and as far as they know they're the first superhumans in history. They gain their powers in classic comic book fashion from a mysterious green gas and a horrible accident. The setting is present day Ventnor City, NJ; although it could easily be most any town.
PC1: Roger McCrow
A middle-aged former forklift operator and dockworker with a hair trigger who was laid off due to budget constraints. Worked a backbreaking job for 30 years with nothing to show for it and was riding the bus from his latest job interview during the attack. Gains the ability to control water, completely wrecks any environment he fights in. ((The title came from Roger McCrow's player, who attempted to purchase the Sidekick feat OOC; saying he didn't actually want a sidekick, he just wanted to let Fanboy know his place.))
PC2: The Fanboy
A twenty-something Star Wars fan/daddy's boy that's never had to work a day in his life thanks to his father's lucrative business and poor parenting. Was on his way back from a convention still dressed as a storm trooper during the bus attack. Gains telepathy and telekinesis; declares himself a Jedi.
First Session
Part One, The Accident
The campaign kicks off on a city bus at the end of very long day. Roger has just finished putting in applications and interviewing at a local recycling center and the aptly named Fanboy had just finished convention hopping, still in a full storm trooper costume. The bus is nearly full with a mother and her 12 year old daughter arguing near the front of the bus, a young man sitting next to Roger, holding a house plant with a bow on it trying not to make eye contact with a burly biker sitting across from him and a pudgy security guard next to the Fanboy all but asleep on the young man's shoulder.
Fanboy starts off by pestering the guard to wake up and calling him a "Lazy, good for nothing plebian." Roger, being resentful of being walked over by the upper class all of his life tells the younger man to leave the guy alone, that at least he works for a living. Fanboy tells him to mind his own business and Roger shouts something offensive and inflammatory that's better left to the imagination that wakes up the guard he's defending.
It's around this time that the bus makes its next stop and a crazed man wearing a ski-mask and carrying a large canister with large warning labels bolts around the corner being shot at by police. As he leaps on the bus a stray bullet strikes his prize and a green mist starts flooding the bus, the bus driver is intimidated into driving away.
Naturally neither Roger or Fanboy have noticed this turn of events. Instead they're in the middle of a fist-fight in the back of the bus where the much larger Roger is manhandling the unathletic Fanboy and ranting about over privileged brats and their stupid toys, while Fanboy is shouting that George Lucas is a genius and flailing wildly into the side of Roger's head with an R2-D2 ashtray.
The hijacker, wanting to get control of his situation, starts shouting and demanding the two of them get into their seats and stay there. Fanboy, his dander already up, hurls the ashtray into the guy's face stunning him. Which prompts Roger, suddenly more irritated at the ******* trying to tell him how to live his life than at this random kid in a storm trooper outfit, to charge the hijacker and tackle him to the front of the bus.
Obviously assaulting a criminal in the middle of a crime is dangerous, so Roger is shot point blank for his heroic burst of road rage and falls bleeding and unconscious into a seat. The bus driver is startled by the gunshot and turns to see what's happening, slamming full speed into the side of a movie theater and tossing the occupants around like ragdolls. Fanboy watches a middle aged man in a tweed jacket force open the back door and several people leap out before the green mist surrounds him and he too blacks out.
Part Two, The Change
It's been two weeks since the accident and Roger is the first to wake up. It's roughly midnight and he's beyond thirsty. He attempts to call a nurse, but his buzzer doesn't work and he can't think of anything besides his parched throat. He stumbles into the bathroom and begins sucking water directly from the sink. He's so focused on sating his thirst that he barely notices when the pipes in the sink burst and the water within geysers towards him. This marks the first of many times Roger completely destroys his surroundings without meaning to.
Fanboy who was sleeping soundly in the other room however does. He opens his eyes and hears an intense buzzing in his head that as he focuses becomes Roger's voice that drones on orgasmically about how much he's enjoying his water. A doctor bursts in to see what they're doing in there and though his tone is polite, Fanboy hears his thoughts and they reveal that he both considers them freaks and wishes they were somebody else's problem.
The doctor gives them a paper detailing the bus accident, which has officially been declared a case of bio-terrorism and is still under investigation. Sadly, the paper reports that there are no survivors. Though as the doctor points out, when Fanboy begins testing himself for ghost symptoms, that was a fabrication to avoid revealing the actual contents of the stolen canister. He mentions that there's a man from Homeland Security that wanted to speak with them once they woke up, but before he has a chance to send word of their recovery a nurse rushes in and screams for the doctor's help.
The doctor and the PCs run into the hallway to see what all the hubbub's about when they spot a bloody streak littered with almost a dozen bodies of nurses and orderlies that stretch around the corner and out of sight and a creature that looks more plant than man ranting about government conspiracies and demanding they change him back. His wooden claws are covered in gore and he's in the middle of strangling an orderly while he issues his demands.
Roger instinctively calls the nearby water to himself, flooding every bathroom on the floor and tearing pipes out of the wall all around them. Fanboy lashes out mentally and distracting the tree creature, allowing the orderly to escape. The tree flexes several bulbs on its chest and they bloom outward, sending choking spores into the air. Nobody makes their save vs Suffocation, so Roger uses his hero point to counter the airborne spores with the sprinkler system as a reaction. The doctor just stands there slack jawed.
Roger focuses the nearby water into a shotgun blast that sends the tree man reeling and Fanboy uses telekinesis to throw a trashcan ineffectually (the dice hate that guy and it's became a house rule that if he fails to roll above a 10 at least once per 5 rounds he gets one free re-roll per round until he does.) but doesn't do anything but irritate the monster. The tree man charges on his round and injures Roger with a wild claw swing.
Feeling particularly spiteful, Roger attempts to draw the moisture out of the tree (Disintegrate) and turn it to kindling but fails to manifest his most lethal power. Fanboy is suddenly very worried by their opponent's claws and decides to back up and telekinetically grapple the tree-man to keep him at a distance. The tree man releases a second cloud of spores into the air and the heroes begin choking.
Roger attempts to dehydrate the tree again but fails to do anything more impressive than forcing a toughness save which the creature passes. Fanboy pins his opponent with his mind and uses extra-effort to as he put it 'Throw that son of a bitch into the stratosphere.' However the tree man rolls a natural 20 on his toughness and manages to brace himself enough to keep from being flung from the building. He retaliates by maintaining his suffocating spores and the heroes barely make the constitution check to stay conscious.
Roger summons the water to himself again, gaining a significant boost to his water blast ability and uses extra effort to fire the blast on the same turn. He rolls a natural 20 of his own and between the crit and auto-fire deals +10 over PL before factoring in the (unnecessary) damage from knockback. The tree man is thrown through two separate walls and left in a pile of splinters for someone else to deal with.
The doctor is suddenly a good deal more friendly, both in word and thought and starts looking at Roger's wound; suggesting that Roger might want to look into dodging eventually in the future. A man in a conservative suit joins them and dismisses the doctor, introducing himself as a liaison from Homeland Security and extending his thanks for dealing with the unruly superhuman. He then hands them a non-disclosure agreement that forbids them from speaking of their experiences on the bus or revealing the...side effects of their exposure to the general populace by word or deed. He graciously offers to pay their medical bills in exchange for their signature.
Fanboy however hears Option B with a little probing and realizes that the alternative is a lifetime in a dark hole while government scientists figure out what makes them tick.
They sign and settle in for an extended stay.
Part Three, Heroics
Roger checks his messages in the hospital and finds that the first message on the machine is from the company he was interviewing with; they ask him to come in for a second interview. His second message is from his landlord reminding him that his rent is beyond late and that he has exactly 1 week before he's out on the street. The next message is from his potential employers saying that since they hadn't heard from him in two weeks they assume he's not interested and have given the position to someone else. Fanboy is now a habitual eavesdropper with his telepathy and offers to let Roger stay in his father's guest house until he's back on his feet. He happily suggests that Roger would probably make a good groundskeeper and is genuinely confused when Roger throws a cup of Jello at him and screams 'I don't need your charity!'
Shortly afterwards they're finally released and go their separate ways; no fonder of each other than their first meeting on the bus, but at least having earned one another's grudging respect. Roger goes home, hoping to explain things to his landlord but he gets nervous waiting for the guy to show up and floods his own living room. Long story short, the cops are called and our intrepid hero is now homeless. Fanboy on the other hand shows up just long enough to ask his dad for the cash to replace his storm trooper costume and continues life as usual.
After a few days the two of them get separate calls (Roger no longer has a phone so he receives his call during the middle of a job search) from a man who refuses to identify himself but says he was at the hospital when they saved the doctors. He explains that he gained precognition the same way they got their powers and that his visions show a number of deaths starting at a local liquor store if somebody doesn't step in and prevent them. Since he's bound by the same non-disclosure agreement as the PCs he isn't allowed to call the cops for crimes that haven't happened yet, especially considering it's a superhuman that's about to commit them.
Each of the heroes feel pretty badass at this point and start viewing themselves as society's only hope against the new breed of criminal, so they go to stake out the liquor store and are immediately disappointed to find that the other one is there. They spend a good twenty minutes at this point insulting each other and get into another fist fight because even when you control the primal forces of nature sometimes you've just got to punch something, and a smug daddy's boy dressed as a storm trooper on a stakeout is as good a target as any.
Their bickering continues until Fanboy notices a bright yellow muscle car parked directly on the sidewalk in front of the liquor store and deciding that such a shoddy parking job is obviously the work of a deranged mind, focuses his telekinesis and drags the car across the street and flips it onto a random parked car, absolutely totaling both of them. Roger is impressed by this display enough that he neither curses or berates Fanboy for his callous disregard for whoever's car that is, and instead just whistles appreciatively.
Three masked men with an uncanny resemblance to each other run out from the store across the street and are struck speechless by the display. 'My car!' the first one shouts in a pained voice. 'My dad's going to kill me...' the second one adds. 'Do you know who I am?' the third one demands angrilly.
Roger turns around and calls out 'Nope, tell us?'
One of the guys shouts 'I'm Duplex, master of duplication!' a second shouts 'Bradley Yurtz, my dad's gonna have your ass!' and is immediately struck by the third guy. 'Idiot, don't tell him our name!' the last guy hisses.
The PCs take it in for a minute and then Roger blows up the fire hydrant next to him, propelling the shattered metal into the chest of one of the Bradleys and putting him down hard. Bradley however doesn't do much well, but one thing he excels at is is duplicating. A lot. He responds to the loss of his copy by creating ten more, all of which open fire with gusto on the unprotected heroes. Roger is naturally shot immediately, but with his usual macho flair doesn't take anything more substantial than an injury. Fanboy leaps behind the overturned cars and fails to hit with a telekinetic blast, his player curses until it's his turn again because it's about his eighth failed roll in a row.
Roger uses boost to beef up his hydro blast and extra effort to send a tidal wave of hurt directly at the Bradleys. Four are crushed outright, and most of the rest are knocked down. Duplex responds by making even more of himself the rest of him open fire at Roger who's of the opinion that cover is frightened women and wants nothing to do with it, but miraculously none of them connect. Fanboy now just wants to crush the lot of them, heroics be damned and uses extra effort to lift the twisted wreckage he'd made earlier and toss it directly into the group of clones. He crushes all but five of them and stuns the real Duplex.
Roger attempts to drown the rest of them like rats, but the car provides them a degree of cover and his attack is avoided. The Bradleys drag their leader into a more defensive position and return fire from what's left of their car. Fanboy, not having any of that, uses his turn to telekinetically push the car out of the way and extra effort to mentally blast one of the punks, taking him out altogether, leaving only four left.
The PCs are feeling fairly confident in their victory until they hear the tell-tale sound of a police siren and realize they may not have enough time to finish this. Roger blasts one of the Bradleys with a burst from his handy geyser, taking the total down to three and Fanboy attempts and fails to take one out with a nearby STOP sign. The Bradleys return fire (giving each of the PCs another injury )and try to make it to the remains of their car for cover.
A cop car swings around the corner and the heroes are suddenly in danger of violating their agreement. They briefly consider retreat, but then Fanboy decides to try out mind control on the driver; dominating the cop into plowing directly through one of the Bradleys and into the brick wall behind him. Roger, not to be outdone forces the water in the radiator to explode upwards and blanket the police car in an obscuring cloud and spends a hero point to add a scalding effect to the initial burst, taking out all but the last of Duplex's clones. Bradley is suddenly alone and terrified and tries to run.
Fanboy tries out his mind control a second time and forces Bradley to drop his gun and climb into the back of the police cruiser. The two heroes decide that they've tempted fate enough at this point and try to flee. More cops are coming from the north, another car is coming from the south, Fanboy can sense several patrolmen on foot cutting down the alley...
Roger kicks in a random door and runs inside, Fanboy right behind him. The owner of the place rushes downstairs with a gun, terrified of what he'll find but Fanboy projects an illusion of him and Roger as a pair of terrified children crying about their parents being in an accident across the street. The man pokes his head outside and the two heroes rush out the back door, Roger's adrenaline bursting pipes as he goes. They just barely slip past a patrol car and split up without stopping to think about it.
By the time Roger arrives at the alley he's been staying in he finds a cellphone giftwrapped and waiting for him. It's already ringing. When he answers it he discovers that it's a conference call with Fanboy and their liaison Agent Parks already on the line. Their liaison warns them that if they continue flaunting their powers like this, they're going to wind up in custody. He doesn't elaborate on the extent of the custody, but The Hole is implied...
He then goes on to congratulate them on benevolent, if not responsible, use of their powers and admits that he may be unable to handle the existing superhumans himself; he offers them a retainer fee in case he needs to call on them in the future. Fanboy immediately demands an obscure piece of memorabilia in lieu of payment and Roger demands to be the one to name the team. The agent stresses that 'THERE IS NO TEAM!' He reminds him that superhumans don't legally exist and that as such there can't be a super team. That this is an unofficial 'consultation', nothing more; and that under no circumstances are they to dress up and call attention to themselves.
The agent points out that he knows Roger is in financial difficulty and offers the use of a safe house as a job perk. He's genuinely shocked to hear Roger shout 'I don't need your charity!' and the phone shatter as it strikes a nearby wall.
Second Session
Making It Personal
Picking up where we left off last time, Fanboy returns home after his conversation with Liaison Parks and the volatile Roger McCrow to find two well-dressed men leaving his father's estate in the middle of the night. They sneer at his Storm Trooper costume and snicker amongst themselves, but otherwise say nothing and drive off.
He looks for his father to ask what those men were doing here, and finds the honorable Harold Hamilton of 'Hamilton's Furniture Outpost' splayed in the corner of the room nursing a broken nose and a swelling face. "You didn't see anything Samell." Fanboy's usually stern father says fearfully. "Just remember that you didn't see anything."
Fanboy demands to know who those men were and his father finally relents and tells him that they were from Mr. Depaliamo (a Knowledge(Street) check revealed that he was a powerful man rumored to have mob ties, known for petty, if brutal, acts of vengeance) and that they won't bother them anymore. He explains that Depaliamo wants his help in shipping certain items and that he agreed after this little visit.
Fanboy is livid and decides to pay Depaliamo a little visit of his own.
Fanboy's heard that Depaliamo frequents a joint called Floyd's Bistro over on Eighth and Clover, coincidentally the same neighborhood where they shut down Duplex just a few hours ago. Waiting until morning in the hopes of catching the mobster at his favorite Haunt he changes into something slightly less conspicuous and hunts down Roger, finding the homeless hero sleeping in a cardboard box in what he's now christened as McCrow's alley.
Fanboy explains to McCrow that somebody attacked his dad and he needs assistance making sure they don't do it again. He's met with a hail of laughter and mockery that makes him change his mind almost immediately. He waves Roger off and tells him that he'll take down Depaliamo himself.
With a sudden burst of uncharacteristic compassion, Roger grabs Fanboy's shoulder and shouts "I'm in! What kind of guy would I be if I let him just get away with this?" Fanboy is filled with a newfound respect for his new partner and thanks him profusely. Roger however hates the sniveling daddy's boy more than ever. Depaliamo on the other hand, he hates more. That's the son of a bitch that fired him.
Declaring War
Fanboy's all fired up to attack Floyd's Bistro and send a message that the Hamilton's aren't to be messed with; however Roger has a better plan. From his time on the docks he remembers that Depaliamo had a number of warehouses, but the furthest one, the one that sits directly on the water, was off limits. Even Custom's agents avoided it. THIS is where he wants to strike, especially considering that it's now quite literally in his element.
Fanboy agrees without wondering how McCrow came into such knowledge and they soon find themselves on the docks. The hustle and bustle dies out the closer they get into Depaliamo's turf, until they get to a lone warehouse on the piers with a handful of cars outside and almost no traffic. They figure there's nothing inside they can't handle, so they stroll right in...
They quickly find about 12 heavily armed men on catwalks overseeing eight burly dockworkers attempting to open a heavily fortified crate below. Roger calls to the nearest of the armed men and succeeds on a bluff, asking the man where their rest room is. The man doesn't bother alerting his comrades before strolling over and using rather harsh language to instruct the two men to leave.
Fanboy attempts to seize control of the man's mind, but he proves rather resilient. Noticing the way the kid's eyes are glowing and feeling a pressure in his mind the guy asks "What the hell is that?"
Roger quickly replies "He's just...umm....got to use the bathroom so damned bad." Needless to say, he tanks the bluff.
The guard looks at him confusedly and says "Bullshi-" Before being cold clocked by Roger who just says "Yeah." and starts stripping the guy's clothes. Fanboy naturally wants to know what the hell he's doing, but Roger simply shushes his 'partner' and tells him that adults are working.
Before Fanboy can make sense of what's going on, Roger is dressed in the man's clothes and sprints across the warehouse to a forklift, which he uses to plow through five of the eight dockworkers outright, mangling the poor bastards and killing three of them instantly.
Fanboy uses his Mental Blast to take out one of the guards on the catwalk above him before running up himself. The guards at this point don't know who to shoot first; the kid waving his hands and making them have seizures or the crazy hobo in the ill-fitting suit tearing up their merchandise. They decide to flip for it and fire at will. Fanboy has a fairly beefy Force Field which absorbs the onslaught of bullets. Roger however has a few plink off his vehicle, but several tear through him causing severe damage. If that wasn't bad enough, the dockworkers have grabbed various melee weapons and are trying to drag him out of the forklift for a little vengeance of their own.
Fanboy takes out another of the men on his side with another Mental Blast and Roger (apparently forgetting about his superpowers) rams two more of the dockworkers, pinning them against a crate and using extra effort to kick the last one in the face, putting them down with enough violence to make the Punisher proud before leaping out and taking cover.
At this point I asked Roger's player why he wasn't using his powers, and he explained that this was going to be HIS warehouse and he didn't want to wreck it up before moving in. Considering he was nearly dead, riddled with bullets and had more than half the warehouse to contend with; I admired his optimism.
The guards open fire on the intruders again, Fanboy is slightly grazed and Robert catches another handful of bullets, he's nearly dropped to dying; but spends his last hero point to re-roll and manages to only be disabled instead.
Fanboy takes out the last man on his side and lowers himself down to the crates below. Roger, suddenly feeling like the warehouse isn't worth dying over, closes his eyes and begins summoning water to himself through the cracks and crannies of the flooring. The guards open fire, but the two heroes are pretty well in cover and nothing gets through.
Fanboy sneaks through the crates to avoid detection and attempts to flank the guards. Roger draws yet more water up from the flooring and begins to be encased in a sort of liquid cocoon. The men fire again and several strike Roger, but he miraculously stays in the game.
Fanboy attempts to grab one of the men above him with telekinesis, but fails to make contact. Roger finishes drawing water to himself and becomes a 30ft tall water monster; his wounds being knitting themselves shut and he's nearly eye-level with the terrified guards on the catwalk. Two of the guards bolt towards the office on the far-side of the catwalk, the rest fire in a blind panic towards this new and horrible enemy they've discovered.
Fanboy manages to head them off and readies Gravity Control in anticipation. Roger grabs his beloved forklift and hurls it into midst of the remaining guards, killing four of them outright and causing the catwalk to collapse; skewering and killing the other two. He suddenly feels bad and realizes he sucks at being a hero. The other two men reach the office where 1,600lbs of force suddenly crushes them where they stand.
Roger uses his newfound size/destructive rage to tear the forward wall out of the office and bellows terrifyingly. He swings up to their level, losing mass the whole time; before suddenly realizing he's no better equipped to handle more than half a ton of weight than they are and collapsing into a heap.
Fanboy realizes what's happening and stops applying pressure, Roger and the men each leap for their guns and ole McCrow winds up with both of them. Fanboy and Roger discuss a plan to use these guys to lure Depaliamo into an ambush, but they prove less than co-operative. Roger decides to fire an encouragement shot into one of their knees, but instead rolls a natural 1 and gets the guy right in the privates. He bleeds to death pretty much instantly.
The last man standing shrieks in terror and starts to flee, but Fanboy focuses his mental energy and manages to take control of the guard's mind. Holding him in place until Roger can tie him to a chair. Roger is riddled with bullet holes and on his last legs, so they debate on what to do next. Fanboy wants to cauterize the wounds himself, but Roger refuses to let a blowtorch near himself; and after dismissing Fanboy's claims that "It can't be that hard, I saw this in a movie." he forces his partner to call Dr Kavlight (whom they saved from the tree-guy in their first outing) at the hospital and tell him there's been a super powered emergency. The doctor can hear the two of them bickering as Fanboy tries to make it sound like a legitimate power failure, while Roger shouts in the background "Don't mention the gunshots, they have to report those. Tell him it's hero related!" "You mean power related?" "Whatever, I'm bleeding here! Tell him that, but don't tell him why!"
So the doctor comes out and despite the fact that they'd hidden most of the bodies, can see that there has been a massacre here. Blood and gore are streaked everywhere; there's a screaming man tied and gagged in the same room that Roger is collapsed in. He asks what's going on and Fanboy replies "That's need to know, and you don't need to know." Kavlight doesn't accept this and threatens to call Homeland Security, but Fanboy gives him a heavily altered take on events and it's accepted without any further fuss.
The doctor does what he can, but the worst of the injuries have already been taken care of by Roger's affinity with water and he asks the pair to stop by the hospital for some actual treatment as soon as they can.
Meanwhile, Fanboy telekinetically tears the door off the safe in the room and discovers about $500k in new bills and an old leather ledger. He memorizes the contents with his Eidetic Memory but finds nothing that he sees as important and places them both back. Going through the rest of the warehouse he finds a number of crates that resemble his father's filled with cheap furniture that his father would never sell, and others loaded with cheap knock-off action figures which hide a considerable amount of cocaine. The fortified crate which the dockworkers were trying to get into is no match for his mental strength and after tearing it to pieces he finds military grade weaponry inside.
Surprisingly, at this point the two of them do the responsible thing (after dumping corpses and flooding the place to get rid of that 'Just butchered' smell) and call their Liaison at Homeland Security who's pretty pissed that they can't seem to understand 'non-disclosure' but is never-the-less impressed at the scope of the operation they interrupted. They turn over everything except the ledger, even the half a million dollars worth of dirty money, but Roger plainly states that the warehouse is his. Nobody seems to argue so he takes that as a victory and the few surviving witnesses to their rampage are led away in cuffs while his former employer has lost his most profitable schemes.
Meeting Brick, Their (Current) Greatest Mistake
Figuring that now's as good a time as any to make sure everything's in one place Roger asks Fanboy to drive him to the hospital, forgetting his usual mantra of "I don't need your charity".
They look for Kavlight and find him still stationed in the cordoned off area of the hospital those in the know are referring to as 'superhuman recovery' and the rest of the hospital believes to be a quarantine zone. Seeing as by Roger's own admission he'd been shot more than a dozen times since breakfast, the good doctor makes him the priority and gives him a thorough examination. Puzzlingly he finds that almost all of the hydromancer's wounds seem to have healed of their own accord; and the bullets even seem to have been ejected from his system. As they're discussing this rather miraculous recovery however, they hear an inhuman bellow from down the hall and the unmistakable sound of a wall being kicked down.
They rush to see what's going on, Roger doesn't even stop to put on pants (much to his own delight) and find a 10ft rock creature shouting/sobbing for them to change him back. He shoulders past the orderlies attempting to lead him back to his room and the Kavlight asks for our heroes' assistance in calming him down.
Fanboy attempts to telekinetically pin the creature, but finds that even his mental strength isn't enough to slow it down. Roger attempts to parley and tells the creature that everything's going to be ok, he tanks his diplomacy roll and gets some rather foul language tossed at him for his trouble. With a sigh he unleashes the elemental fury of water (destroying the hospital's lady's room in the process) but his attack fails to do anything but enrage the creature further.
'Brick' the rock monster charges Roger and pins him easily, crushing the injury prone hero against the wall with one hand. Fanboy changes tactics and uses Emotion Control to temporarily calm their opponent down while Roger continues his attempts at Diplomacy to let him know that they're going through the same things he is, but everything is going to be all right.
Things seem to be going well until Fanboy botches a bluff check (natural 1, no skill ranks, charisma penalties. Total roll: -1) to convince him that there's a cure in the works. Brick asks if they think this is funny and serendipitously rolls a natural 20 to resist Emotion Control. The creature's eyes flare and he resumes crushing Roger, shouting "I know you two *******s now! You're the ones who set there fighting while the hijacker held a gun to my head!"
Fanboy's confused but Roger's(and his player's) mouth suddenly gapes open and he says "Oh crap....it's the bus driver!" Fanboy panics and attempts to telekinetically pin again, just barely managing it. Using a hero point he throws Brick down the corridor and away from them. Roger immediately attacks the floor beneath with a super powered burst of water and Brick is sent crashing down where he receives his first injury of the fight and is covered in a torrent of water.
Roger and Fanboy lower themselves into the fray and find that they've landed in a waiting room of some sort. They shout at those waiting that the whole floor is giving out and they need to leave; hoping that they haven't given away their secrets yet. It doesn't take much prodding to leave them alone with their quarry.
Fanboy immediately reapplies his telekinesis and manages to pin Brick beneath the water, but is disappointed to find that the rock man can't seem to drown. Roger sees an overabundance of water and hatches a plan. He begins drawing the water to himself while Fanboy wrestles with the irate bus driver.
Fanboy barely manages to hold Brick at bay for the two rounds it takes for Roger to assume his Battleform, but it pays off when McCrow nearly fills the room with his new bulk. Roger takes over grappling while Fanboy assaults Brick's mind with his Mental Blast round by round.
Brick finally breaks free and starts slugging it out with McCrow, forcing Roger's player to spend his last hero point to avoid being knocked out outright.
The timely arrival of Liaison Parks with something that looks like a fire extinguisher that fires nitrogen turns the tide in their favor permanently. Roger and Fanboy hold Brick still and Parks freezes the berserk rock monster solid. Parks just shakes his head at the rampant destruction around him and just says "I should've guessed..."
Before the two can explain themselves he waves them off and asks for their assistance in taking Brick to 'The Hole'. Roger thinks this is a trick to get them there and immediately tries to flee, but Fanboy stops him and talks him down. Fanboy reasons that with all the destruction the two of them know they're capable of, it'd be pretty unlikely that even the government could contain them if they wanted to leave.
Parks is...less than thrilled with this line of reasoning but assures them he needs their help and is offering them a job. They grudgingly accept.
'The Hole' is a run-down warehouse in the industrial district that looks like it's about to fall of its own volition. Inside however is a state of the art, temporary prison built to contain superhumans. True to his word, the Hole is in fact dark and the six 10x10 glass cells that feature in the center are lit sporadically by flickering overhead lights that seem to make things worse.
As they escort Brick to an empty cell they find that there's only a single occupant held in the Hole, Bradley Yurtz aka Duplex. The terrified teen bangs on the walls of his cell and tries to shout to them as they pass, but no sound escapes. They suddenly decide very much that they don't want to stay here.
They bring the still frozen Brick to a cell without a floor and lower him down before bringing in a couple of guys in overalls to seal him into the foundation with fresh cement.
Parks gestures around and says that this is where the dangerous ones go, those who prove that they can't be trusted in the general population. Fanboy asks where the tree-guy is and Parks goes quiet, before admitting that the tree is the reason he's short-handed.
The creature calling itself Tree King killed the guards posted to watch them (and nearly killed Bradley as well) before disappearing. The rest of the agents under his command have been sent to bring the murderous plant back at all costs.
Parks then asks for their help in bringing in a new superhuman that's in police custody before they find out what he is. He's being held in the drunk-tank at the moment, but there have been six hospitalizations since he's stated his intent on leaving and the injuries keep piling up. Parks assures them of compensation once the target is in his custody and the two heroes agree that this seems fair.
I'll Name Him Lucky OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate the Mob
Fanboy drives them to the police station and find the place in a bit of a mess. A police car is wedged into the building itself and more than a couple of officers seem to be limping or nursing other injuries. Once they show the papers the DHS gave them for the transfer the drunk is tossed at them with obvious gusto. They may not know WHAT he is, but the cops know they don't want him near them.
As they lead the drunk out he seems very agreeable and holds each of them in a friendly embrace while he tells them how much he appreciates them getting him out of there. Once they're out of the station he walks directly past their car and tells them that he'll see them later. Fanboy demands he get in the car and he just laughs "Why should I?"
Roger charges the guy to drag him back physically but slips in oil and falls face first into the grass. Fanboy growls irritably and tries to force his will onto the grinning drunk and orders him to cuff himself and climb in the car. To his dismay that's exactly what Roger does.
The drunk giggles and continues to saunter off at a leisurely pace. Fanboy doesn't trust his powers at the moment and attempts to chase after the Drunk, only to discover that somehow he's managed to get his foot stuck in a grate. In a panic at seeing all their good-will with Agent Parks seep away he shouts out "I'll pay you not to leave!"
Now he's not exactly sure what this guy's power is, but he doesn't care. From what he's seen: things go well for this guy and poorly for people that this guy doesn't like, and that's enough of a reason for him to suddenly want to be very bestest friends with him.
The drunk one eyes Fanboy for a minute and then slurs "You don't think I've got money? I-I-I don't need your money, I've got money! You think I don't?"
Fanboy offers him all the booze he can drink and a warm place to sleep it off if he'll come with them. The drunk says that he knows the deal with Parks and that using his powers in public is a big no-no, that he's not falling for this.
Fanboy assures him that they'll work it out with Parks to keep him out of the Hole, since he doesn't seem to really be malicious, just....drunk. The drunk thinks it over and agrees that this could work.
Now it's worth noting that I meant for this to be a recurring 'villain'/nuisance for the players to really want to knock down a peg or two for his ridiculous luck, but they instantly thought he was a fun guy and neither of them really wanted to fight him to begin with, especially considering Roger's often unintended lethality. When Fanboy lured him to the car with promises of tequila and candy they checked the inside of his suit jacket and found the name 'Daniel Brown' along with an address sown into the lining. They felt bad for him and started calling him Lucky Dan and treating him like a pet. So not the way I intended it, but I think I like this better.
Dan sleeps soundly in the backseat and they pull out of the police station to visit the ABC store, but they don't get far before they believe they've had a blow-out and slam through a nearby fire hydrant. The two heroes climb out to discover that their tires are missing completely.
They look around for a moment before noticing a man in a red leather jacket leaning against the trunk of their car, twirling a tire iron in his hand. The two of them look at each other for a second before Fanboy shouts over to the guy and asks him if he's some sort of effing gremlin or something.
The guy sneers at them and casually strolls around the car. He taps the tire iron against his hand and asks "Do you idiots know who I am?"
Roger grins broadly and boasts "Ha, I was about to ask you the same question."
The guy nods and says "Yeah. You're the dead men what poked their noses into Depaliamo's business."
The wind instantly goes out of Roger's sails and he just goes "Oh...you do know who we are then."
The stranger blurs momentarily and both Fanboy and Roger suddenly have a distinct tire iron shaped bruise along their cheeks, however their opponent still looks as though he's casually examining his weapon as he was before. "How the hell did you do that?" Fanboy (and his player) asks with a little outrage.
"Same way I unscrewed your tires at 30mph. Compared to me? You guys are standing still. People don't call me Johnny on the Spot for nothing." the guy says, dripping with self-confidence. Heedless of the gawking witnesses Fanboy attempts to telekinetically grapple the speedster, but misses horribly. Johnny taunts with "Boy, you even think slow!" Roger tries to direct the geiser from the broken hydrant towards Johnny but fails to make contact.
Johnny delivers two more imperceptibley fast blows to the heroes before running directly up the wall of an adjoining building. Fanboy, bleeding profusely from his head, uses Gravity Control to blanket the area in overwhelming weight and Roger takes advantage of the now slowed speedster by making the building he's on outright explode with a burst of water from every pipe inside bursting at once, causing the remainder of the confused witnesses to run away.
They have no idea whether it's working or not but continue the onslaught, until suddenly a flash of red rushes past and clocks Fanboy directly in the jaw. There's nobody in sight however, so they decide that they need to put the tires back on and try to get out of there. They wake up Dan and ask him to help them out, but it takes a while to explain what they want him to do and he still seems fuzzy on the details.
They collect the tires while Dan 'covers them' taking the occasional blurry blow to their knees, back and arms before realizing he can't actually control his powers. Roger attempts to replace them after they've been collected and Fanboy readies Gravity Control to activate the second he sees a red blur and is rewarded by crushing Johnny to the ground yet again, although he catches himself and Roger in the blast as well.
Johnny grunts irritably but seems satisfied that his savage beating has been enough of a warning and tells them that "The next time you mess with Depaliamo, things are going to get serious." before crawling out of the power and speeding away.
They call Agent Parks on the way home from the liquor store and explain their situation. That they're keeping Lucky Dan. Parks is more than a little enraged, but they explain that he's not really dangerous he's just not in control, but seems easy enough to placate. They ask to be made his caretakers to keep him out of the Hole. Parks agrees on the condition that they are completely liable for Dan, anything goes wrong and the punishments fall on their shoulders.
They also mention the speedster and give him a description, as well as the name Johnny on the Spot. Parks tells them to hold for a few minutes before coming back and telling them to be careful. He believes they're up against John Knowles, a heavy hitter in Depaliamo's organization that's used as a sort of all-purpose fix-it man. He tells them that they don't have much more than a name on the guy, but he's suspected in more than a dozen hits. They agree that this could be a problem and tell Parks that they'll be in touch.
Retaliation
Depaliamo has pissed them off. Johnny has pissed them off. Organized crime has more or less pissed them off. Our heroes are now on the warpath.
They stash Lucky Dan at their warehouse with a couple bottles of assorted spirits and a bucket of chicken and head to Floyd's Bistro to pay Depaliamo another visit.
As they pass by the site of their battle with Duplex they see a number of trucks blocking off the street and men tearing up the water line. Roger stops to ask what's going on and they explain that there's been a number of unexplained accidents in this neighborhood and that they're trying to find the problem. Roger winces guiltily and slinks away.
The restaurant is only a block over and it's closed, since no water means no service, however they glance inside and see that a number of thugs are still around. Four can be seen from the street and Roger bangs on the door. The closest one to the door turns and says "We're closed." But Roger acts like he can't hear and continues banging.
The guy walks over to the door and mouths an exaggerated "Weeee're Cloooosed." But Roger asks to use the bathroom. The thug shakes his head and repeats that they're closed, but Roger is persistent. The thug grabs a bat and heads outside to run the two of them off, but Roger throw a haymaker that lays the guy out flat and the bat becomes his.
They step inside and the three remaining guys gasp when they see them. Fanboy manages to pin two to the same table and Roger charges across the room and brains the last one with a mighty swing of his bat. The pinned thugs shout for help and a woman in the next room answers with a plea for help of her own.
A suited man with a very large rifle rushes into the room from a private dining room and is rewarded for his vigilance by being hit by two thugs and the table they're pinned against, crushing the three of them and blocking the doorway. Another man pushes the table out of the way and two more well dressed men similarly armed open fire, catching Roger in the shoulder and bouncing off Fanboy's forcefield.
The lack of water in the pipes is a bit of a problem for Roger McCrow, but only a bit. Instead he focuses on the man that pulled the table out of the way and forces the majority of the liquid out of his body, leaving the former soldier as a shriveled, gasping husk and Roger with a basketball sized globe of water hovering above his hand. Roger hides behind a table as four thugs with pistols file out of the other room and the hail of bullets fails to do anything of significance.
Fanboy manages to catch five of the seven guys and hurls them across the room into a crumbled pile of broken bones and bruised flesh, and Roger knocks one of the remaining thugs out with a blast of his stolen water, before using a hero point to charge across the restaurant and break the last man's jaw with a blow from his bat. Roger strolls into the private dining room tapping his bat into his hand and shouting in a sing-song voice "Depaaaliiaaamo. Come out and plaaaay."
The terrified woman tied to a chair stammers at the sight of a middle aged man in a speedo wielding a baseball bat singlehandedly busting up a Mafia hangout and challenging the most dangerous man in the city to do something about it. Fanboy at least has the presence of mind to untie her as Roger continues looking to slake his bloodlust.
"He's not here." she says rubbing the feeling back into her wrists. Roger immediately assumes this to be a trick and threatens her with the bat "You'll tell me where your boss is or I'll-" Fanboy moves to calm him down by pointing out that you generally don't tie up employees. She looks at the two of them and asks who the hell they are to pick a fight with Depaliamo like this.
Roger extends a hand and smirks "McCrow, Roger McCrow and badassedness is the game. And...you are?" he asks as seductively as a bleeding, half-naked man that had threatened to kill her less than a minute ago can be.
"Elizabeth Ingles, investigative journalist. I was working on a piece about organized crime when these guys snatched me up. I've got to say, the two of you would make a fantastic story!" she says excitedly.
Roger's mouth gapes and he just looks at Fanboy, "Ohh....s***. I just told her my name. Do we...do we kill her?" he asks, genuinely sad despite the fact that I have no doubts he'll do it.
She starts to panic when Fanboy grabs her by the head and finagles his powers enough to erase the last few hours from her memory. On the upside, she no longer knows about their suspicious partnership. On the other hand, she no longer knows why she's got rope burn or why a bleeding man in a speedo is gawking at her. She's understandably upset.
They fall back on lying to explain their presence and say that they found her "Blacked out and tied up on their way home from...swim practice? Yeah...swim practice." and after she's calmed down she decides it's better to get out of there than keep asking questions from potentially unstable men.
Once Ingles is out of their hair they search the manager's office and find a couple of goodies. Fanboy pries the safe out of the wall and finds $200k worth of cash that they decide they deserve for their trouble and assorted pictures that they ignore. What really catches their eye however is a series of filing cabinets that the two of them immediately fall on looking for information on Johnny Knowles. Fanboy finds a file and the two of them glance at each other with wide grins and start laughing.
Depaliamo has to pay, of course, in due time. But the bruises dealt by Johnny on the Spot are still fresh and recent, and if there's one thing neither 'hero' can stand it's a fight left unfinished.
So they take what files they can fit into Fanboy's car and leave Depaliamo and Johnny a simple note in the empty, shattered safe: "Now it's serious. Step into my home again and I'll break your ****ing neck."
Third Session
Renovations
Things started off innocently enough; Roger was using his $200k worth of drug money to improve his stolen warehouse while Fanboy attempted to find out where Johnny lived from his pilfered file so they could ambush him in his sleep; figuring he wouldn't have as much spring in his step if caught unaware.
Despite their brazen attacks on the most powerful man in the city they remain unmolested in the days to come, to everybody's surprise. Fanboy discovers the reason why when he notices a large number of daylight drive-bys in the newspaper; most of which correlate with suspected Depaliamo fronts. Apparently rumors of their (successful) two man war against the Italians have given Chavenski the notion that his rival is weak and stupid, making Depaliamo ripe for extermination.
In the following week, Roger installs small grates in the warehouse, so getting to his precious water won't wreck the floor any longer and personally begins construction on living space for himself and Dan; spending the rest of his stolen cash on: an infirmary (now Dr Kavlight can't give him lip about not having the equipment to deal with his numerous gunshot wounds) a security system(with alarms tied to automatically call their phones), a back-up generator, a sprinkler system (in case the ocean was stolen maybe?) and a workshop for fiddling around in.
Agent Parks stops by during the renovations and has Roger sign a couple of forms, which McCrow does without even reading them. Luckily the DHS agent has their best interests in mind and hands Roger a deed to the warehouse, stating that he arranged to purchase the building at an impromptu police auction for $1. Roger accepts the deed but proclaims that he didn't ask for any help and Parks isn't getting his dollar back. Parks is more than a little irritated that his gesture was dismissed so quickly and leaves without another word.
It's during this time that Lucky Dan declares he's leaving. He's finally sobered up and doesn't like living in a damp warehouse anymore. Roger tries to show him the rooms he's building, but Dan misses his kids. Fanboy's surprised to learn that the drunk that's been sleeping on their floor the last few weeks is a family man and asks if his wife won't be perturbed that he's been gone so long. Dan asks what month this is and Fanboy tells him; Lucky Dan laughs and says that she'll be surprised to see him back so soon. Remembering their last (onesided) tussle with the guy, Fanboy doesn't try to stop him, but demands he call in DAILY and tells him that if he needs a place to get liquored up to come here IMMEDIATELY. Dan agrees and calls a cab.
Getting back to business, Fanboy asks his dad for a contribution towards his new 'job' and his dad seems rather pleased (especially since it's been weeks since he's seen his son dressed up like a cartoon character) until he hears the $50k price tag on his son's 'independence'. Mr Hamilton instead slides his checkbook back into the drawer and tells his son that sales have been slipping and he doesn't have that kind of money just lying around anymore. Fanboy realizes he doesn't know enough about his dad's business to tell if that's a lie or not. Roger's spiteful gales of laughter when the two of them talk of it later however, gives him a pretty good idea.
Looking For Johnny
Fanboy decides to focus his attention on the matter of petty vengeance and pulls Roger away from his work to help him track down Johnny on the Spot for a bit of two fisted justice.
They arrive Johnny's apartment and after a bit of ESP recon, they discover he's not home. Breaking down the door they find that Johnny seems to live in his own filth; pizza boxes and discarded wrappers litter the floor and old papers are piled chest high as far as the eye can see. With disgust, they realize that the badass hitman they've been watching over their shoulders for is a hoarder.
The two of them split up to better search the mess and find similar disaster areas in the other rooms. Roger finds a pile of bills and notices that they're from three different addresses, and stuffs them into his pants before attempting to 'hack' Johnny's computer. Roger has no Computer Use at all and his player suggests that he doesn't even know the basics; so he accidentally manages to turn it off and can't figure out how to turn it back on.
Meanwhile, Fanboy discovers a 'burner' phone in the bedroom, charging under a pile of clothes. He looks it over and discovers a few phone numbers, including Depaliamo's, and more than a dozen text messages that consist of nothing more than an address. He notices that the last text sent is unread and only a few minutes old, so he makes note of the location before scrolling up. Fanboy notices that the second to last text is the address of the police station they were ambushed at and the date matches their scuffle. He realizes Depaliamo's given Johnny another hit!
Fanboy pockets the phone and finds Roger threatening the computer in the next room with physical violence. Fanboy snatches the laptop up before Roger's temper loses them a lead and tells his quick tempered partner about Johnny's text.
Roger agrees that this is top priority and after stealing Johnny's flat screen T.V., determining that his couch won't fit in Fanboy's car and bursting every pipe within bursting range and turning Johnny's apartment into a pool of filth they race to save the day.
Saving the Day
They arrive at the address and find a massacre in the works. Depaliamo's men are advancing on an apartment building and slaughtering everything in sight in retaliation for their recent losses. Men, women and children lay in pools of their own blood on the steps leading up and a frantic gun battle rages inside.
A handful of men guard the entrance but Fanboy grapples them telekinetically and tosses them across the street where they land in a crumpled heap. Roger dives into a small fountain and rises in full monster form a moment later, roaring (however water roars) and barrels through the front door like the Kool-Aid man.
Inside there's thirteen Italians firing at four Russians hiding behind overturned benches, however the appearance of a thirty foot water monster tearing up the lobby convinces the Italians that there's bigger things to worry about. Roger grabs the first man he sees and absorbs him into his form. Fanboy snatches three of the others and tosses them against the wall, knocking them unconscious. The remaining nine open fire on Roger, but only five are even able to harm him in his new body and only two of those hit, they all scatter and take what cover they can.
Roger's wounds close rapidly and he moves to block the Russians with his own body, snatching up another Italian as he goes. Fanboy grabs two more and slams them face first into a pillar, knocking one of them out. The one that Fanboy snatched fires back at him, grazing the telepath (his player realized it was the first time he'd been shot and panics IC) before running into the stairwell.
Roger fires a blast of water at three of the gang members clumped together and takes another two of them out. Fanboy lashes out in a blind rage/panic and snatches the man who shot him from his hidey-hole, using him as a bludgeon to take out another of the men opposing them. Roger realizes he's sort of drowned the two men he'd plucked up and ejects them at one of the remaining men, leaving a grisly heap. The remaining men fire at Roger, but he regenerates as fast as they can damage him.
Roger fails to snatch another man with his elongated form, but Fanboy is still in full-on Carrie mode and uses the unconscious form of his attacker to beat the last two nearly to death before tossing the broken body aside.
The Russians slink out of their barricade, empty handguns clutched in their hands. The Russians and the heroes stare at each other for a minute, while Roger's massive form melts away. Finally one of the Russians come forward and stammers out a thanks.
Fanboy wants to know what Depaliamo's men were doing here and the Russians play dumb until Roger threatens to tear the place apart to find what they wanted. The Russians rush to calm McCrow down and admit that Chavenski owns this building and puts a number of his guys up here. They also rush to point out that less than a quarter of the building is on Chavenski's payroll and only about half the people that Depaliamo mowed down even knew what was going on.
Fanboy suddenly realizes that they're smack dab in the middle of a gang war and asks the men if they could put him in touch with Chavenski. The Russians agree and phone numbers are exchanged. Roger on the other hand is anxious to ambush Johnny.
I ask him why he expected to find Johnny there and his player points out that they found the address on Johnny's phone. Fanboy's player realizes that him taking it means that they can't set Johnny up here. Roger suggests sneaking back into Johnny's apartment and replacing the phone, but Fanboy reminds him that he sort of blew the apartment up. They both leave disappointed.
Attack on the Warehouse
Arriving at the warehouse they set Johnny's computer up in the communications room and start pilfering. Fanboy discovers that Johnny isn't very security conscious and most of his bank account information is saved in Notepad. It takes about twenty minutes to empty Johnny's account and leave the two 'heroes' several hundred grand richer.
They then get the brilliant idea to text Depaliamo and ambush him at their warehouse.
Why they believed that Depaliamo would walk into an ambush at a place that he knew they inhabited after losing a considerable number of his men and presumably being contacted by Johnny about the loss of his phone/home, I'm not sure. I asked them if they thought that this sounded like something an intelligent man would do and Fanboy's player replied by shouting "Send!" at the top of his voice.
A couple of minutes later they get a call from the same guy that warned them about Bradley Yurtz a few weeks back, saying that he had a vision of them being gunned down and warning them that by a clock he saw on the wall he believes the attack to be coming in about six hours. They thank the Prophet for his warning and seem more irritated that their ruse had failed than the fact their murder has been pre-ordained by fate.
They discuss the best way to defend themselves as Roger uses his newly repaired forklift to block off the front door with various crates and boxes packed as high as possible. Fanboy debates calling Agent Parks but Roger really doesn't want to piss their liaison off, especially after their last almost friendly encounter; so they weigh their options.
Fanboy tricks Lucky Dan into coming by and calls up Chavenski's men, saying that they've got a minor problem with Depaliamo and they'd really appreciate a little back-up. Since the four thugs feel like they owe the PCs for saving their hides, they show up as quickly as possible. The four Russians apologize that it's just them, but explain that Chavenski doesn't feel like this is his problem. The heroes are just glad that they don't have to do this alone.
Roger watches the monitors while Fanboy scans the perimeter with his ESP and finally they see the cars unloading and soldiers moving to surround them. Fanboy and two of the Russians take the northern entrance, Roger and the other two take the southern door with the tall barricade. The doors burst open and men rush in from both sides. Fanboy sees five of Depaliamo's well-dressed soldiers rush from the north and he manages to dash two of them against the wall. Roger (in his 30ft hydroform) tackles the barricade as soon as he hears the door open and crushes half a dozen thugs into a fine paste. Six more look on in terror. Depaliamo's men open fire on both ends and one of the Russians to the north goes down immediately, but there are no other injuries.
Fanboy takes out one of the remaining Italians on his end with a Mental Blast and Chavenski's man takes out another. Roger comes down like a hammer on the group of terrified thugs and crushes three of the six beneath a mountain of water. It's around this point that Fanboy finally notices the faint sound of a saw cutting through their roof and two heavily armored men with large guns and bald heads rappel through a new opening and land in the middle of warehouse, they both open fire and Fanboy is severely injured by the barrage of bullets. Depaliamo's men fire where they can but don't accomplish much and Chavenski's men are similarly ineffective.
Fanboy grabs the men and tosses them northward, so the boxes he's lying against can afford him some cover and Roger leaves the remaining thugs and charges northwards delivering a fearsome punch that knocks one of the well-armed assassins off his feet. The two assassins open fire with their massive guns and nearly shred Roger despite his new form, hitting the man held within. Roger topples over and the water surrounding him becomes tinged red with the blood flowing freely from his wounds. Depaliamo's and Chavenski's men engage in their own private gun battle.
Fanboy attempts to separate the assassins, but the target evades his telekinesis altogether. Roger's wounds slowly begin to knit themselves together, but he finds he can't quite stand under his own power. Chavenski's men from the south slide next to their companion to the north, apparently the thugs defeated. A burst from the assassins kills another of the Russians outright and leaves Fanboy holding a bullet hole in his arm and fighting to stay conscious. The final normal soldier of Depaliamo is killed under the combined fire of the remaining Russians.
Fanboy tries to take control of one of the assassins, but finds the man's will to be too strong to overcome. Roger finally manages to stand up, but that's all he manages to accomplish. Another round of fire from the assassins destroys Fanboy's hiding place and stuns Roger. Neither hero assumes they're going to make it at this point, but neither is willing to give up their warehouse for anything.
Enter: Lucky Dan. Holding a six pack with his finger while swilling beer from a can and walking right past the surprised assassins. "Is this what you people wanted my help with?" he slurs, one eyeing the carnage around him but seemingly oblivious to the armed men behind him. "Look, I appreciate you helping me out with... helping me with Agent...guy." the drunkard stammers. "But I'm not a maid. You'll clean up your own accidents!"
Fanboy just stands there staring at Dan with his mouth open (delayed his turn) and Roger is still trying to get his bearings. The first assassin fires at Dan and fails to meet his hefty Deflect check, so somehow he manages to shoot his friend in the back. Shouting curses the whole time, the second assassin tries his hand and crits! Rolling to defeat Dan's Deflect, he gets a 26; almost unbeatable at the PL we're playing at. In a stroke of genuine luck, Dan rolls a natural 20 on his deflect and the assassin's gun explodes in his hands, sending a portion of the stock directly the forehead of the man behind him. Fanboy's player at this point is cackling his head off because he'd been wanting to weaponize Dan since the first time he saw his knack for getting out of trouble and now his bribes were paying off.
Fanboy attempts to grab the assassin again, who dodges the attempt and lunges forward; drawing a two foot blade from his jacket and avoiding Dan completely. The assassin impales Fanboy and would have turned the young man into a corpse if not for the expenditure of a hero point which left him hanging on by a thread. Roger loses his giant form but still moves to melee range to pull the assassin away before Fanboy loses his head.
Fanboy finally manages to grab his attacker with his mind and pins the struggling assassin to the roof with telekinesis. The telepath uses extra effort to apply damage and manages to break the assassin's arms before simply letting go and letting the fall knock him out.
As everything's wrapping up Fanboy learns that the assassin is just one of a number of freelancers brought in by Depaliamo to help secure his powers, and that he's done jobs for Italians and Russians, but he's not loyal to either side.
Chavenski's men gather up their dead to return home and Fanboy offers them a sizeable income to come work for them as guards. Neither of the Russians are willing to take that deal since they've seen what these guys consider a 'little problem' and want no more part of their lives. They call it even and tell the pair to expect a call from Chavenski.
Dan is still so blitzed that he doesn't quite understand what's happening, but insists that he was just sleeping when they called him and returns home despite his promise to only drink under their observation.
Once alone, they pry bank account information out of their attacker Roger uses a pair of pliers and a welding torch to convince the assassin to call Depaliamo and declare the pair dead. They then dispose of the bodies, wash the place out and try to decide what to do with their little witness.
Fanboy suggests drowning him and leaving him for the fishes to deal with, but Roger is firmly against this. When Fanboy points out that McCrow had killed nearly a dozen people in the last week and that this seemed like an odd time for him to start to feel bad about it, Roger gets irate.
"I'm not STARTING to feel bad about it Samell! I DO feel bad about it. I felt bad with the forklift, I felt bad with the bat and I felt bad about drowning those men at the apartments. But THAT was in the heat of the moment, so I live with it. It was us or them. But this? This is murder! He can't fight back, and he's no threat to us. We can't just kill him."
Samell points out that he's seen their powers and they stole his money, not to mention the whole attempted murder thing. Fanboy points out that he's too strong to mind wipe and they can't just let him go. So Roger calls up Agent Parks for another deposit.
Revisiting the Tree King
Parks does not care for the state of things when he arrives. Even without the bodies he knows that this was a massacre. Fanboy is barely in one piece and everything is marked with bullet holes. Parks looks around and declares "This place looks like it survived a gang war. How do you explain that?"
Roger lights up a cigar and shrugs. "We won."
Parks definitely doesn't care for the implications in THAT, but they load up the gibbering assassin (Fanboy couldn't erase his memories so he worked him over mentally a bit to compensate) and Parks tells them in no uncertain terms that he's not their personal gang member depository. That this is the last time he's cleaning up their mess.
Both Fanboy and Roger are sort of panicked at this, since they just assumed Parks HAD to watch over them. Like junkies finding out that they've had their last hit, the two of them start trying to make a deal to get just one more!
While they're begging for just one more unconstitutional secret imprisonment Parks gets a phone call that gives them their opening. Apparently the agents assigned to track the self-proclaimed Tree King tracked him to an apartment building and all but one had succumbed to his spores.
Fanboy can barely stand so Roger offers to go alone if it means access to secret prisons, but Fanboy points out that McCrow doesn't even own a car; so he'll have to go with him. Parks doesn't have much choice, since he's down only a handful of men, all of which are busy elsewhere; so he tells them to be careful, but that this only means he owes them a favor not that he's became their personal warden.
The PCs figure that anything's better than nothing, so they limp to Fanboy's car and go to find the apartment. By the time they arrive there's almost a dozen casualties scattered over the first two floors and the last of Park's men assigned to the case is among them. When they finally find the monster he's flanked by a pair of sentient trees that follow him like dogs. The three of them are attempting to batter down a door while a woman inside shrieks bloody murder.
Fanboy is pulling himself along the wall painfully and Roger suggests he stay out of the way while the adults talk. Tapping into a water line he begins his transformation while Fanboy ignores his advice and tries to get their attention.
Tree King recognizes them from the hospital and sneers. "Stay out of this. It's between me and the whore!" he shouts as he begins splintering the door with his wooden claws. "It was her damned plant I was holding! Her fault I'm a monster! How does she take responsibility? She dumps me when she sees what she's done to me!" he rages, sending his minions to tear Fanboy apart. The woman's screaming starts to falter and she begins loudly gagging and shouting about how her cactus is alive.
The two trees move to engage but Roger rushes between them and Fanboy and begins a three-way grapple. Fanboy catches one of them telekinetically and dashes it against the second one, causing one to shatter lifelessly. Tree King continues clawing the door out of his way and Fanboy shouts that he can take care of a tree, Roger needs to clear that door.
Roger charges down the hallway and tackles the Tree King about thirty foot, pinning him against the far wall. Tree King instinctively releases a cloud of spores but finds that Roger's water form simply ignores the effects. Fanboy mentally attacks his tree and manages to sever the link that keeps it moving.
Roger manhandles Tree King, throwing a powerful haymaker and tossing the smaller opponent down the hallway. Tree King charges and claws like a cornered animal, injuring Roger even through his watery exterior. Fanboy stumbles to the door but can't manage to get it open.
Roger and Tree King continue exchanging blows while Fanboy probes the interior of the room with his ESP to find out why he no longer hears screaming. He finds a barricade holding the door closed and Tree King's former girlfriend collapsed and unmoving with a cactus hovering over her and spewing some sort of spore of its own. He manages to sever the connection the same as with the tree and haul the barricade out of the way while Roger and Tree King's fight spills back into the connecting hallway.
Fanboy rushes to the woman and finds her barely breathing on the floor. With each attempt at reviving her, it seems like her life ebbs a big more until he finally manages to get through and she gives a small gasp. Not much, but he'll take it. Dragging her over his shoulder he stumbles into the hallway and shouts for Roger to forget the fight and follow him.
Roger (severely wounded at this point and unable to regenerate fast enough to keep up with the beating being handed to him) nonchalantly tells Fanboy to take the girl and leave, he'll wrap things up here.
As soon as Fanboy and the dying woman reach the stairwell his form becomes more than he can handle and the water simply falls apart, leaving him face to face with the most dangerous superhuman they've met so far with nothing between them. Roger leaps forward and plants a punch directly in Tree King's jaw, but the creature's bark-like skin is unfazed. Tree King, seeing that Roger is no longer protected by his layer of water re-opens his bulbs and spews another round of spores into the air, turning Roger into a coughing, suffocating mess.
Roger bursts a pipe behind the mass-murdering plantman and hits the creature hard enough to interrupt its spore delivery and stun it momentarily. Before it can recover he's grabbed a nearby fire axe and within a couple of rounds turned it into little more than screaming firewood. By the time Parks arrives, Tree King is nothing but silent splinters.
Staffing the Warehouse
After stumbling into the hospital dragging Tree King's victim, Fanboy succumbs to his own injuries and passes out. A few days later Fanboy finally wakes up after extensive surgery and decides to pay the girl he saved a visit, discovering that her name was, ironically enough, Heather.
Knocking on her door, he finds Roger eating a fruit cup and bragging about how he singlehandedly beat Tree King to death and saved her life while slurping the juice, as his player described it, seductively... He's doing his best to take advantage of one of the few opportunities he has to brag about his exploits, but can't seem to accept that a girl half his age and pumped full of drugs might not want to feel his bicep or hear how many pieces he left her former boyfriend in.
"The hell do you mean you saved her?" Fanboy asks hoarsely, "I performed CPR, dragged her out of that apartment and drove her here."
Roger sets his fruit cup down silently and turns around, studying Fanboy for a minute before grunting. "Thought you were dead. Sort of makes me the hero by default." he says sipping a chocolate milk. "Besides, you ran away. I'm the one that went all lumberjack on him and saved the day."
The two of them bicker for a bit about who's the greater hero, before a nurse stops by to tell them to leave; they're disturbing the other patients. Fanboy decides to recover in their private infirmary and asks Dr Kavlight to look in on him. He's told that Kavlight isn't their personal servant and not to call back if it's not an emergency.
A few days of lounging around in bed either being bored or struggling to make his own meals while Roger continues building living quarters and repairing the damage from the battle makes Fanboy realize how empty this place is. After spending most of his stolen loot getting the warehouse armored and installing auto-turrets around the premises to dissuade visitors in the future, Fanboy begins looking for a way to hire a staff without pissing Parker off. Eventually it comes to him.
They call up Parks and arrange to visit The Hole, where they look in on Bradley Yurtz, aka Duplex. Parker explains that the cell they keep him in is air-tight and is only given enough oxygen for a single man his size at a time to breathe for an hour. Should he duplicate, he'll run out of breath long before he does any damage. The PCs are very impressed, but say that they're calling in their favor to have him released into their care.
Parks stares at them and just asks "Why?"
When they explain that they intend to put the boy to work, he points out that the last time they met Yurtz he was shooting at them. Fanboy points out that he doesn't think 'this' Yurtz shot at them, it was one of the other ones; but Parks calls him an idiot and has his men bring Bradley to a conference table.
They sit down and hash things out, Parks isn't happy with the thought of providing McCrow and Fanboy with a private army of inexhaustible thugs, but they eventually convince him that they're on the level. Bradley's anxious to get out, but after hearing some of the problems they've been having isn't sure that he wants to go with them. He points out that the two of them took him and all of his clones in a straight fight, and admits that he's not much good for anything.
Fanboy's persistent though, and arranges a work release program where they'll reform the former villain and teach him valuable, marketable skills in the process. Parks reminds the two that they're responsible for Duplex and that if this is a mistake it'll land on their shoulders. Parks also mentions that this squares them for favors, much to Roger's horror. Roger makes Parks promise that they'll be called on in the future in exchange for more favors.
Meet Sloth
During the next few weeks Roger and Bradley finish the renovations in the warehouse and end up with comfortable living space for twelve people while Fanboy finishes recovering. Fanboy asks why the hell he's got so many rooms but Roger just says he has plans. Big plans.
While Roger starts drawing up plans for holding cells they get a call from Parks asking them to look in on a local jewelry store robbery. He tells them that a superhuman robbed the place blind and says that local police have combed the place top to bottom and can't figure out what happened. Everybody just went to sleep and woke up with the place empty. No trace of any gas or sedative at all. Since the two of them are the closest thing to superhuman experts on hand Parks wants them to glance around and see what they make of the situation.
Upon arrival Fanboy and Roger introduce themselves as being from the DHS and start looking the place over. They discover that none of the cases are broken and that the cameras have been disabled, even the one hidden in an overhead light fixture. Roger throws up his hands and declares that whoever did this is a master criminal, way out of their league, and starts to leave. Fanboy however makes him hang around for a few more minutes.
As they start questioning the staff they discover that almost everybody just remember work as usual and then waking up an hour later. The security guard however mentions that he saw a large man with a scar on his cheek just before he passed out.
Fanboy is intrigued and wants to know more and the guard mentions that the guy had a big pistol, like a desert eagle and was dressed all in black. When they locked eyes he passed out. At this point, Roger has determined that this is the world's most dangerous criminal and he wants no part of anything that puts them against such a cunning and dangerous villain.
Fanboy is very impressed and decides he'd like to see the crime from the guard's point of view; invading his mind and sorting through his recent memories. Instead of a large, scarred man he watches the security guard casually loot the place while everyone's asleep through his own eyes and then lay on the floor until someone found them.
Fanboy shouts "He's the thief!" but before they can pounce on the man he releases a wave of exhaustion that knocks Roger out cold and cause Fanboy's muscles stop working. However he remains conscious and since mobility isn't a big part of his shtick he's able to telekinetically battle the panicked guard for several minutes. There's a tense back and forth battle of wills that at one point had the guard being thrown through several cases and mentally battered to the point of collapse; but in the end Fanboy too succumbs to sleep and the guard makes his escape.
They're eventually woken up by police officers who are trying to calm down the employees who keep shouting about magic powers. Fanboy manages to wipe the pertinent memories under the nose of the law and they walk away without any witnesses.
Fanboy's dad
After their embarrassing loss to a portly rent-a-cop in front of people, even if they can't remember what happened, the two of them decide to slink back home with their tail between their legs. Fanboy receives a phone call and as he answers it, notices he's already missed eight from the same number. The Prophet says that he's been calling for the last half hour, but nobody's answered, he begins rambling that there's NO time to waste, Fanboy's father is being taking by men outside his store right now!
Fanboy doesn't even respond, he just whips the car around and pushes himself for all he's worth. I set up 5 DC15 Drive checks and tell him he has to make three of them to get there in time. He fails the first two spectacularly, and makes the next two with room to spare. The last one is a natural 1, leaving Mr Hamilton in Depaliamo's clutches... Until Roger's player shouts "You've got Hero Points!" and Fanboy realizes he's got six of the buggers from earlier hoarding so he rolls again and just barely makes it.
They pull up in time to watch four men dragging Fanboy's father towards a van, Fanboy shouts at them to stop and they turn towards the pair, his father shouts "Samell? What are you doing here? Run, before they get you boy!" one of them draws a gun and places it against Mr Hamilton's temple, saying "Depaliamo said that if you try anything, we should just shoot this S.O.B. and be done with it!"
Fanboy's eyes begin glowing as they do when he's working his mojo and the area around him begins shaking uncontrollably, the very van they're dragging his father to is rocking left and right threatening to flip. He growls at the men "Did Depaliamo remember to mention that if you so much as scratch my daddy I'll pull your skeletal structure out of your ass and have it violate what's left of its own twitching corpse for as long as I can manage to keep your brain functioning?" (I gave him a sizeable intimidate bonus for clever use of telekinesis and the descriptive threat.)
Roger just strolls past Fanboy and towards the group of men, the guy with the gun shouts in a rather high pitched voice that if Roger comes any closer he'll kill him, he swears; but Roger just replies with "Pfft, see if I care. The whole family pisses me off. At least if this guy bites it his boy over there inherits it. Fanboy! Think of all the upgrades we could buy with that money!"
I figure that at this point Roger's heroic streak is over and figure I should be thankful he ever even had one, I resign myself to moderating a PvP match, when he suddenly makes the radiator explode and take out the gunman. The rest of them go for their guns, but Fanboy snatches two of them and tosses them skywards. The last man grabs Mr Hamilton as a human shield and inches towards the van, figuring he can still make his getaway.
They attempt to reason with the man, but he shoots Fanboy's father through the back and leaps into the driver's seat. Roger rushes to try and stop the bleeding and Fanboy turns into a horror movie. Not caring who might see his display, he tears the vehicle apart with judicious use of a Hero Point, and then uses the rest of his stockpile to spend the last 24 seconds of the man's life making good on his threat.
They're not far from the warehouse so they call Kavlight and demand he meets them there, load up Mr Hamilton and the unconscious(and scalded) thug that survived their attack and race to the infirmary. Mr Hamilton seems less distressed by his wound than by what he just witnessed and just keeps asking "What?" over and over again.
Fanboy tries to explain and tells his father that this is that job he's been involved in. He's working for the government. Roger is irate screaming that Fanboy is on dangerous ground and he will not be dragged down with his honesty. Mr Hamilton just asks "Working for the government gives you super powers?"
Fanboy tells him that a bus accident gave him super powers, but this just confuses his father more, until Fanboy tells him that they were on Bus 14, the one with the bioterrorist. His father doesn't know what to say, but seems to have further questions. Roger is shouting that the old man knows too much and they have to wipe his mind. Fanboy refuses and Roger says that he'll call Parks and personally help haul father and son to The Hole. It's a tense couple of minutes until Mr Hamilton mentions a reward, then Roger's phone goes up and visions of hot tubs dance in his head.
When they reach the warehouse Fanboy drags the scalded thug along with his powers, while Roger carries his dad inside. Once they step through the doors they find 2 scary Russians carrying assault rifles and 1 terrifying Russian carrying a SAW light machine gun milling about.
The man carrying the SAW seems irritated and wants to know why they keep him waiting if they're in such a hurry to talk to him. Fanboy's the first to realize that this is Chavenski and tosses Depaliamo's goon onto the ground in front of him. Mr Hamilton seems even more bothered by the fact that his son is cavorting with Russian mobsters, but Roger quickly locks him in the infirmary and doesn't really care about his feelings after that.
Fanboy probes the thug's mind and finds that Depaliamo had planned an ambush at Floyd's Bistro, disguised as a hostage exchange. He tells this to Chavenski and the Russian seems very pleased with his use of an afternoon.
Depaliamo's Ambush
Only waiting long enough for Dr Kavlight to be shown to Mr Hamilton, and (with Roger's suggestion) the two to begin talks for Kavlight becoming the team's personal; on call physician, they load up with Chavenski and his men and head towards Floyd's Bistro.
Fanboy scans the area with ESP and finds close to 20 of Depaliamo's soldiers, Johnny on the Spot AND another of the assassins that nearly killed the two of them at the warehouse scattered along EVERYWHERE inside. Chavenski and his men head to the service entrance in the kitchen, Roger causes a pipe to explode obscuring their vision and distracting them, while Fanboy blocks the door. Chavenski's men then move in with a bang and begin slaughtering those caught in the kitchen, while Fanboy and Roger bust through the front door like mad men.
Catching Johnny on the Spot unaware negates his massive speed bonuses, and Roger takes the opportunity to dehydrate the bastard; nearly killing him outright. Fanboy telekinetically disarms the assassin of his gun and dashes it against the far wall. Johnny rushes past the two of them, smacking Fanboy in the mouth on his way out; but he doesn't return. Men rush in from every door opening fire, but Fanboy's Force Field and the table Roger's hiding behind provide them with enough protection to survive the volley.
Fanboy manages to grapple EVERY man in the room and shouts "Heads up Chavenski!"before hurling them through the kitchen door, where Roger immediately begins piling tables up to cut off their escape.
Fanboy is watching the fight inside with ESP and watches the assassin cut through both of Chavenski's men with a single cut and I figure I'm about to lose a plot centric NPC, then something magical and awesome happens...
Chavenski opens fire with his massive, terrifying gun and crits nearly EVERYTHING. I never rolled less than 18 for him and nobody he shot at rolled higher than a 4, so Fanboy just watches the local mob boss blow away an assassin that they were terrified of and all of Depaliamo's men while tanking their blows with nothing but his bare chest and rage.
When they finally peek into the kitchen, Chavenski is covered head to toe in blood and gore, only some of it his own, and he's stomping on the assassin's head even though there's not really enough of it left to call a head anymore. When they finally calm him down enough to speak he asks if they found Depaliamo and they sort of wince before giving him the bad news.
Chavenski snorts derisively and says "No, it was my mistake. I overestimated the fat Italian. A MAN would want to see his enemies killed with his own eyes."
The PCs ask Chavenski if they know where Depaliamo would be and the Russian tells them that he's probably at his mansion at the edge of town. The heroes want to hit him at home but Chavenski refuses. He points out that he lost two good men visiting Depaliamo's restaurant, that he won't assault the paranoid bastard's fortress until the rest of his Empire lies in ruins. The Russian gives them Depaliamo's address to check out for themselves, but after confusing lucky rolls with invincibility they're convinced that if Chavenski won't go there, they can't possibly survive and decide to go home and cook up a less direct scheme.
After of course, making a corpse pile in Depaliamo's office and leaving a post-it note with "You're next." on the door leading in.
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