Sophistemon

I'd like to say it wouldn't have been so disastrous if Punchline hadn't been using his Morph power (the use of which turns off his Force-Field) but with that 1 he'd have still been knocked out.

"Warne wouldn't want him dead," retorted Sam. "So that's how we play it. You're an aspect of his mind, so you should know: when you're in Warne's brain, you play by his rules." He glanced askance at his wand. "So, uh, am I allowed to defend myself? Is there any chance of causing damage in here that would affect Warne in real life? I'd rather not... you know. Accidentally hit a wall and knock the guy into a coma. I'd never never on his good side if that happened."

Punchline chortled. "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, kiddo; I've dated plenty of goldfish, and you'll never find a better listener." He paused, considering. "But they're lousy cooks!" He reached over and gave Quirk a playful noogie. "Don't let yourself get bent outta shape by some dame, buddy. You're still young, still growing into yourself. Now's more a time for self-discovery than anything else. Find out who you want to be before you starting thinking of locking lips with someone who might not be so into who you become." He gave the extradimensional godling a wink, then spread his arms. "In the meantime, life's a roller-coaster; just try to enjoy the ride!"

@Avenger Assembled, @Blarghy, & @Heritage: Adept's psionic assault slammed into the mock-Fanatic like a freight train on pneumatic steroids, throwing him through the air to impact the wall on the far side of the room with a bone-shattering crunch. He slumped to the floor, limp-framed and loopy, while a quintet of tweeting canaries encircle his head. Possessing only enough presence of mind to reach up and remove the helmet, revealing his colorful features, he gasped: "Candygram for Mongo!" before pitching forward and crumpling to a heap on the ground. On screen, an astronaut was being mauled by a slavering, beetle-black monster... but that didn't seem so interesting now that a secret agent with telekinesis was blasting an armored clown around a theater with the power of his mind. His consciousness having gone the way of the dodo, the Fanatic 'costume' Punchline had been wearing disappeared in a fuzz of static.

Fair enough. Toughness Save: 1d20+3 4. Well, ain't that something? A failure of 21 means that Punchline is well and truly knocked out -- does he also accrue the previous damage conditions? I'm looking at the book, and I can't see it anywhere.

"There are ways to contain him," Presto objected. "And... it's possible he can be reasoned with." He shook his head. "You're infuriating. People can be rehabilitated. Baku's... not a great guy, but if we could just persuade him to leave and never come back, that might be enough. Isn't there enough death in the world without us adding to it whenever it's more convenient than talking things out?"

I've finally finished my edits. Please see below, posted again for posterity.

The AMP struck a pose, displaying his gleaming metal frame for the edification of the reporters. "I'm Upgrade!" he boomed. "The pinnacle fusion of man with machine; a mechanical marvel unlike any other!" He bent over, leaning in. "I'm the newest weapon in the arsenal of freedom, a chrome-clad champion of justice!" Ethan moved rapidly within the cockpit, pressing buttons and flipping switches. "As for what I do..." A dozen, perhaps even two-dozen hatches opened all over the AMP, revealing the weaponry stored within. "I defend the United States and the world at large from anyone who would threaten it. I am a walking, talking test-bed of American ingenuity. As for what I was doing here..." Ethan trailed off, lost in thought. "I'm afraid that's part of an ongoing investigation the particulars of which I'm not at liberty to discuss. If and when things are declassified, AEGIS will of course cooperate with the press in disseminating all viable information."

Presto conjured his wand, just in case, and followed after Becker with his mouth set to a thin, grim line. "Whatever you say," he told her. "You're the boss." As they made their way through Warne's mind, though, he was struck by a thought. "I don't want Baku killed," the magician said at last. "I mean, not if it's possible to keep him alive." He couldn't really explain why he felt that way, not even to himself. Baku had been a dangerous, vicious, vindictive enemy. All of this was his fault, and yet... Sam couldn't shake the image of that burnt and smoking body propelled by a burst of fire up and through the wall of the hidden lab. It gave him a feeling not entirely dissimilar to how it was when he thought back about the girl, the fall, and the sound of impact. "He's a bastard, but if we can keep him alive... he should face justice, is all."

I can't thank you all enough for your patience. I know that this game has been a little trying -- part of that is scheduling issues, another is my relative unfamiliarity with running games. I want to thank you all for sticking by me. Now that the big 'sale season' has passed (not even Christmas Eve will be quite as hectic) things should go more smoothly.

@Avenger Assembled & @Heritage: The clown chuckled. "Oh, we didn't bother with real names, Miracle Girl. We costumed types keep that sort of thing under wraps, don't we?" He fuzzed again, becoming a blur of static, and reappeared as an Egyptian mummy wrapped head to two in crisp white bandages. A muffled guffaw emerged from beneath the bindings. "The Fanatic contacted me online, but said that they'd tracked me down after their machines had detected my unique energy signature. Something to do with the nature of my powers; I won't pretend to understand it." He tittered, and the bandages fell away. "They sent me a message on a website called Film-Fanatix.com. By the time we met, they were already armored up. You'd think I'd have cottoned on to the fact they were a bad guy, but I guess I'm just too trusting. Anyway, they didn't start off as a baddy. Not to me, anyway. They ran some tests, found a way to mimic and even improve on my teleportation... and then it all went south." Punchline's face soured. "Suddenly, it was all..." he fuzzed once more, taking on the hulking, red-caped form of the Fanatic. "Vengeance! And destruction! And the invasion of privacy! And stuff!" The mock-Fanatic shrugged. "I'm not sure what happened, but after we collected Ridley, they trapped me there after a long, boring monologue. You know the type." He struck a pose and boomed: "Soon, the entire world will know my power -- starting with you!" @Blarghy: The colonel nodded. "Don't worry too much, agent Warne," he said. "Like I said, AEGIS uses a completely insular system. The only way to access it is from one of our internal network nodes, and they're practically hack-proof." He furrowed his brow. "Nothing's completely safe, of course, but we have the best minds in the United States working around the clock to keep our data safe from the prying hands of... well, just about anyone, really. It took me three hours to check my email the other day. Resetting your password in this building is a bear." He waved his hand. "Go check on the others. Let them know what you've found and continue from there. I haven't received word of any trouble, so either the Fanatic is stealthier then they were in Brown's apartment or they haven't made a move here yet. Send word to my office when you decide on a course of action." Should Warne leave Chalmers' office and head towards the theater room, he will arrive just in time to see the Fanatic, clad in their homemade black armor, looming over Miracle Girl and shouting: "Soon, the entire world will know my power -- starting with you!"

I apologize to everyone for my obnoxiously long delay in posting. We're in the middle of the Holiday Sales Event and I've been getting home dog-tired and too worn out to roleplay. Posting will resume on Tuesday at the latest.

Duly noted.

@Blarghy: Corporal Chalmers looked moderately embarrassed as he sank back into his seat. "Is that... you don't think that's a problem?" he asked. "You said this armored maniac spoke to you through a television, and I figured, you know. A big movie screen -- that's like a big teevee, right?" He huffed and reached for a tissue to wipe his forehead. "It's my blood-pressure, I think. I've been overreacting about everything today." He cast a glance aside at his steaming mug. "The coffee's not helping, but someone left a full bottle of pumpkin spice creamer in the lounge and I just can't help myself." He cleared his throat. "In any case, Agent Warne, thank you for the report. You should return to the group, if only to reconvene and find out if they've learned anything from the films themselves." He shared a smile with the agent. "Isn't that the way, Warne? The superheroes sit around all day watching movies, while we have to run around getting threatened and blown up." He waved a hand at the door, bidding the agent to leave, and then reached for the mug. "You should try this before it's gone," he advised. @Avenger Assembled & @Heritage: Punchline grinned at Miracle Girl, his teeth clean and almost blindingly white despite his gorging feast, and spoke. "Well, sure," he said. "I didn't expect anyone to come looking for me, because I didn't expect to be in there." He noticed a spot of mustard on the finger of his glove and stuck it into his mouth. When he removed it, the fingertip was missing to reveal the pale, fish-belly skin beneath. As Miracle Girl watched, the fabric of the glove reformed to cover the digit. "As for the dope in the armor... yeah, I know him. I thought we were friends but you can see how that turned out." His smile reversed, becoming an exaggerated frown that pulled the corners of his lips down chinward. "He calls himself 'the Fanatic' and he tracked me down a few weeks ago and told me, er, the other me, that he wanted to throw a big reunion party to celebrate all these new reboots coming out. I figured, what the heck, right? Take a little vacation to the movieverse -- why not?" He tittered, then swallowed another sandwich. "He needed my help to build a machine. He wanted to study how I jump and make it bigger." A blur of static enveloped the clown. He vanished, then reappeared in another seat before the process reversed. "Tah-dah! I can't go very far, but this Fanatic guy thought he could study how I do it and build something that gets to other dimensions. And he was right!" Punchline leaned back in his seat and patted a grotesquely distended stomach. He belched, and it flattened to normal. "Anyway, after we popped in and out of a few films and he grabbed Ridley, that's when things got a little too heavy for me."

"You know," said Punchline. "A walk could do me go-oo-ood." The final word was stretched out and distorted, like a spastic tape, as reality shattered and reformed around them. When the toy shop appeared again, swallowing up the bucolic backyard, Punchline appeared hastily reassembled, like a stained-glass, three-dimensional Picasso, before he smoothed out his edges and adjusted his collar. Seeing the distraught deity, he approached Quirk and looped an arm around the youth's slumped shoulders. "Hey, kiddo," he began. "Cheer up! You're still young, and there's plenty of fish in the sea. Why, I bet there's hundreds, maybe even thousands of lusciously lovely ladies that'd clamor all over each-other for a chance to date a god." He chortled. "Heck, it's probably most of them..."

"He didn't... he didn't even try," objected the magician, but his voice was uncertain. Looking back, had Warne appealed to Sam's better nature before launching into threats and coercion? He remembered feeling indignant and offended, but he couldn't recall, verbatim, the conversation. That worried him. Was he the kind of man that Becker... that Warne thought he was? "Maybe you're right," he said. "You probably are. But those other agents, they had a choice, didn't they? They wanted to enlist, and they did. I can respect that; I do respect that. But Warne didn't enlist. Reyes showed me a memory; Warne's been trained for this his entire life. He never had a choice -- he was indoctrinated." Again, though, he realized that he was arguing with Warne's own internalized justifications. She was his Duty Personified, and he shook his head, realizing the futility of it. Suddenly, the thudding of footsteps above them put an end to the conversation. Presto quirked his head to one side, listening. "Did you hear that?" he asked. "Is that the monster, or the hit-men?"

Presto waved a hand dismissively. "Call it what you want," he said. "I get it; leaders have to make tough decisions -- blah, blah, blah." He stopped in his tracks, then chuckled. "What am I doing, trying to debate with you? You aren't real. You're just a piece of Warne's personality." He laughed. "Of course! Reyes is... what? His conscience? A lingering sense of independent self-worth? Which makes you his self-sacrificing sense of duty, right? He grew up being turned into a weapon, a thing to be fired and forgotten, so he uses you to justify that to himself so it doesn't drive him crazy." He walks stiffly, arms swinging at his sides. "Yes, sir! No, sir! I'll march blindly into death, sir!" He turns on Becker. "This goes deeper than being a soldier, doesn't it? He lives in a world of black and white; that's why I'll always be the 'bad guy' and why he's so damn willing to throw his life away. I mean, have you seen the man lately? He looks a good twenty years older than he is! He's working himself to death for people like you and that's just... what? Business as usual? For the greater good of the American Dream?"

@Blarghy: Colonel Chambers coughed in surprise at the outburst, a small cloud of powdered sugar puffing free of his face, and stood up so quickly that his mug rattled on the desk. "Agent Warne, that's impossible," he said. Then, after a moment of reflection, he reconsidered. "I mean, some of it is possible. Most of it, I guess, but not the bit about AEGIS being hacked. It's on a closed system; there's no outside access. Heck, even getting to the Internet from here requires a permit signed in triplicate." He returned to his seat. "But, you say he showed you the others? Which means he is in our systems..." His eyes widened. "Dear God, the data!" He reached over, picked up a landline phone, and dialed. "Martinez! Chalmers. I need an immediate system scan. Yes, the entire thing. Signs of intrusion. Yes, a hacker. Immediately means now, not after lunch!" He hung up, then looked back to Warne. "Martinez is one of our resident nerds; if there's been a hack, he'll find it. It's a shame that Brown's phone was destroyed. Now, you said he used the television to show you the team? And he was able to access the traffic signs... that's not good." His eyes widened. "Dear Lord, Warne! The rest of the team... they're in the theater!"

@Blarghy: Such is Agent Warne's reputation that his passage is often met with averted eyes and shuffling footsteps, but his questions never go unanswered. One by one, the people he addresses wrack their brains and tell him either "I don't know!" or "He's in his office!" And so down the hallways he storms, suit jacket open and flapping behind him like the wings of a hunting hawk. He arrives at Chalmer's office and, seeing the door unlocked and open, enters with all of the customary niceties. The Colonel, who is six deep into a baker's dozen and was just thinking about getting up for another mug of coffee, glances away from his paperwork and starts in his chair. "Warne! You look a mess, man; what's happened?" When he speaks, powdered sugar flakes from his lips to land on his chest like sweet, delicious dandruff. He pushes the box of confectioneries aside and stands to make his way around the desk. "What's going on, agent?"

The magician blanched and looked away. "So," he said. "Reyes tried to make Warne feel like he was more than a government weapon, and you..." he shook his head. "It looks like you didn't." He thought back, but didn't remember a 'Doctor Bishop' or his crimes. It may have been that they didn't travel in the same circles, or maybe Warne had been active for longer than Presto the Preposterous. Or, maybe, Doctor Bishop had been arrested and locked away somewhere so quickly that he hadn't even entered the common history of Freedom City. It probably didn't matter, but it was interesting nonetheless. "He's more like you than he is Reyes," mused Presto. "But Reyes came to help first. I wonder what that means?" He returned to his place beside Becker. "You wanted him to die in the fight against Bishop? Why?"

Upgrade chuckled, the sound a dry, metallic cough. Inside the AMP, Ethan resolved to add 'fix the voice' to the list of demands he planned to present to the engineers. "Bonfire is still under AEGIS scrutiny. His role in the events at the power plant is still being determined, but he is not yet being held solely responsible for the damages. AEGIS is committed to a thorough investigation, so we're exploring both sides of the conflict. Rest assured, we will get to the bottom of everything; that's what we're here for. Beyond that, I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss agency matters with the press. AEGIS will release a public statement when we have everything in order." And when we've figured out how to spin it in our favor, Ethan mused. He bid the AMP stand, and Upgrade got off his knees to tower over the assemblage of reporters. "Was there anything else?"

Thanks; post inbound.

Presto followed after her, heaving a sigh of moderate annoyance at her attitude. Reyes had been a refreshing change from Warne's constant dour mood, but it looked as though this Becker woman was cut from the same cloth. Or, perhaps, she was the originator of the pattern? "How long have you known Warne?" Sam asked her, ignoring for now her dreary statement about messes and sweating dust. The agent was a mystery, and if Sam could never earn the man's trust, he'd at least get to the bottom of why it was impossible. His ego demanded no less than that scant, partial victory over total failure. Defeating Baku was one thing -- the main thing -- but if things went according to plan Adept would never even know it'd happened. This journey to the center of the mind would mean less than nothing to the agent when everything was over and done with. While he was here, Sam planned to learn what he could.

Not at all! He is, after all, a cartoon clown. He's both, and functionally more of the former than the latter according to his character sheet, but your characters don't have much reason at the moment to suspect as much. And he's not really a cartoon -- he's sort of a remarkably malleable living signal -- but 'cartoon' is a quick and easy way of summing up what he's capable of. He's already pulled a few things from hammerspace and warped localized reality, but I can see his appearance overshadowing those things so far. Once he gets a chance to show off his invulnerability, as well as a few of his other powers, I'm hoping that aspect of his character will shine through a little more strongly. Although, now that you mention it, there is something I could do that would clue you all in... something classically cartoon-y... EDIT Please don't ever worry about irritating me. Even if you had -- you didn't -- I find it impossible to hold any kind of real grudge. I'd much prefer people to be honest with me whenever possible; dialogue is important and communication is key.

"I... uh." Sam was at a loss for words. Things were progressing more quickly than hew as used to, and he'd had far too little time for questions. He supposed that was for the best; the sooner they caught up with Baku, the less damage he could cause and the more quickly Presto could return to the waking world. "Sure," he said, finally finding the word. He followed after her, wand at the ready. "So... Reyes and I got to talking," he began, attempting chitchat. "How do you know Warne?" The older man had been a father figure to the grim-faced agent of AEGIS. Could this Becker be his mother figure? His real mother figure, discounting the fearful woman and the milquetoast husband that had ostensibly raised him? He looked around. "It was cleaner upstairs," he commented. "The deeper we go, the dirtier it gets?" He didn't suppose that was a good sign.