Supercape

Rev "What about Cherrybomb! lollipops?" asked Rev, hopefully. "They are awesome. Full of artificial flavours" she explained, trying to explain her love of them. She shook her head, trying to shake out those very same chemicals that had seeped into her brain. "We best go and see Ryan then. See if he can tell us about this mess" she said, determined to get her reward. Errr...I mean save the day. She added to herself, nodding herself into agreement. "RIght then Jack, by land or air? I got a pretty full tank if you want to fly?" she offered, pointing to her feet, all shiny and chrome and ready to blast off.

Initiative: 1d20+7 13

Rev "Hey, that's not good, is it? And i was beating you too...." muttered Rev, annoyed. "Kid, be careful, huh..." she told Lawrence. "This is probably just a power cut or something" she explained, although she was pretty sure it wasn't. "And if it isn't get ready to hide, or run, or something. We'll look after you" she added, smiling reassuring at him. She kicked off her sneakers all the same, going barefoot. She didn't want to burn through another pair with high powered plasma jets...

Flux Well, at least we stabilised the asteroid belt. It was a bittersweet compensation. But he took it, all the same. The Earl Grey helped, too. He mulled over the events. He would deeply love to understand the Quantum Dark Zone, but he had a strong suspicion that it was by its very nature un-understandable. Like a vexatious itch. He put those irritations to one side, and started going through the logs of Solak. There might be some clue lurking in there. He took his time, patient and attentive. If there was thing he could do, it was concentrate. And he had plenty of time to concentrate, even if the rations felt somewhat bland...

Rev Rev clicked her arm back into place now that its job was done. The police could do a perfectly fine job with restraining now, and besides, two arms was better than one. Her feet where shiny and chrome, her sneakers and synth-skin burnt to a crips. There was a big tear in her left shoulder where she had ripped the synth-skin, and the metal showed underneath. Still, she was hardly incognito now, and she had all the Cherrybomb! Lollipops she could wish. "Well, you know, we kind of feel responsible" she told the owner of the bowling shop. And if we help you out, we can have all the Cherrybomb lollipops free forever! her hopeful head added internally. "So we would super like to help you out. To the max" she added, giving him the thumbs up and a wink. "What can you tell us about this gang? Can we do anything?" she asked.

Rev "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that would be illegal" answered Rev, raising an eyebrow. Her family had not been terribly poor, but had been on the poorer side. She had certainly never seen anything like this and honestly she was not entirely sure how she felt about it. A pang of resentment, maybe, even if it was misplaced. She wiggled her thumbs and fingers. "Any street racing games?" she asked, wanting to move her mind to safer places. "That's my favourite...errr....ahhh.....games that is. Not actual street racing. That would be super naughty" she added, unable to keep a grin from her mouth and a glint from her eye.

Starshot With these numbers, they wouldn't stand a chance in a fight. It would be a long shot even to escape. If it came to it, he would go down fighting. But it seemed that would not be necessary. At least for now. But words must be chosen carefully, and Starshot was a man of action, not words. "We came here from the sky. Not by choice. It is to the sky we wish to return. We wish you no harm" he started, stumbling slightly on his words. They fell ponderous from his lips. "The demons are our enemy, and we would fight them with you" he added. It was, to his mind, the truth. He had nothing but contempt for technologically advanced peoples slaughtering primitive tribes.

GM We look forward to the hour when you rend flesh and crush bones...replied the Many mind in Lobisomem's head. The demon King of Rats should die!!! "Well then, that was a spiteful little dance" commented that very same demon King of Rats as he scuttled up Filth onto his shoulder. "It did not go to my taste, but we are all alive" He danced over to Filth's other shoulder. Filth seemed most happy to have his little friend back. "Now then, shall we finish off the doctor? It is from his hand that the many mind sprung, and whom knows what else? He started with fungus, then ants, and moved to rats. I worry he is perfecting his art and moving to larger beasts..." he growled. The many-mind, for their part, started scuttling through the pipes and away from their bloodied remains.

GM Filth kept firing even when Arcturus grabbed him by the wrist and shoved his gun upwards. A few more bullets exploded out of the gun, chipping away at the sewer tunnel. Click click click...he kept firing even when the clip was empty. "Hey man...let me go! Ill bite their heads off! Do you know what they did to me?" he screamed, furious. However furious he was, he was a fraction of Arcturus' strength and could no more wrench free than he could paint the moon green. "He is not part of my army" explained Vermin, very pleased with the turn of events. "I never said he was, and you should not have assumed so. He is my friend" he said, velvet and poisonous. "Yeah man, Vermin gives me power!" agreed Filth. "It is the rats of the sewer that are my army, and they are obedient. See?" explained Vermin, his eyes blazing red. And with that ruby f lash, the vast army of mind controlled rats, dominated by Vermin, started dispersing with alarming speed.

Flux How long have I been gone? It felt like a second. It felt like forever. It felt like everything in between... There was a gnawing sensation in his gut that it had been years. That was something serious for his life. He felt a coldness. A graveyard sensation that he was going to need to reboot his life. He side tracked from the logs to the internal sensors. Was there any life on board? Artificial or Biological? He doubted it. The station looked abandoned. But why was it abandoned? Was there danger? Had the Quantum Dark Zone bled out into this region of space? This would need some study. He started poring over the laboratory and sensor readings...seeing if there was any clue as to the astrophysics of the region, Perhaps it was, at some fundamental level, unstable, and everyone had fled the region... Maybe he should too!

Rev "You nearly lost your skull, never mind your ball!" said Rev, so relieved that her friend was actually alive. "How are you feeling? Seeing double? How many arms have I got?" she asked. One arm was still off her shoulder, wrapped around the thug nice and tight. "We got attacked by a gang. Buncha idiots. But, not your regular idiots. These guys, or at least some of them, seemed super strong. Super powered. And apparently there is a bunch of them..." "And I think we better sort them out!" she added, grinning widely.

GM Again, there was a pause whilst the words and sincerity of them were considered. Chewed over, one might say. "Holy God Damn Popcorn! What the hell...!" screamed Filth as he dropped the gun and danced from one foot to the other in serious agitation. Your words are considered. If you do not hold true to them we will muster every might we have to destroy you and everything you value...came the voice of the many mind in the minds of Lobisomen and Arcturus. Bang! Bang Bang Bang!!! "I'll kill you, you ass crack scum! You were going to make me shoot my brains out!" screamed Filth as he shot his pistol again and again into the scurrying pack of Many Mind rats. One of them caught a bullet and sprayed rat brains (with arguable poetic justice) all over the sewer. Not that you could make this place more filthy. "My friend didn't make any promises...." gloated Vermin, quietly. Stop him! Kill him! You promised our safety! shouted the Many mind into the skulls of Arcturus and Lobisomen.

Rev "Hey hold your teeth, big man! This ain't lunchtime. You can't eat anybody, ya hear! No matter how tasty they are. Or how much of a jerk they are!" said Rev to Jack, giving him a wagging finger. "I'll buy you a tuna steak or something later. Just tie a knot in your stomach for now, hey?" she added with a little more softness. "Look, we better go and check on Zhu. She took a nasty tumble back there, and she is smart enough to work out what to do. Which, incidentally, is track down the rest of this crew and bring them to justice. And not eat them...." And so she went back inside to see if Zhu was alright. A spot of soda and a lollypop, too. She deserved that. And nothing was better than chewing a cherry flavoured CHERRYBOMB [TM] lollypop. She deserved one. Just the one, mind you. Or maybe eight.

Rev "But what? That list's got the best stuu.....ahhh...." OK, so Rev was a rebel, but Zhu had it right this time. "....the best stuuupid stupidness on it. Pfah! Who would want to do that stuff anyway. Bo---ring!" she said, determined to emphasise how quite devoid of fun and excitement anything naughty was. She mimed a magnificent yawn. "And we do have to keep you out of trouble" she added, trying to be serious. It was a valiant effort but was a little lacking in execution.

Flux Time for a cup of tea! How long had it been since he had tea? Too long! It had not been that hard a job, really. Not for a man of his skill and smarts. But somewhere inside he felt a kind of existential fatigue. A sense of missing something. It was as if he craved some sensation, some life. In other words, he needed tea. He went to the laboratory kitchens, now powered up, and did so walking there. He powered down his shimmering forcefield. He wasn't feeling threatened and with his uncanny exotic senses, little could creep up on him anyway. He started rummaging around for food and tea, hoping against hope that his Early Grey was still there. The state of rations might give some clue as to what had happened. And when. Once refreshed - if possible - he would look at the operation centre's logs. And then check out the laboratory.

GM Vic's face looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, sure" she answered, although her conviction was tepid at best. "If I'm getting shot at, then frankly I don't much care how I get saved. As long as I do" she explained. She took off her baseball bat and ruffled her short hair into a mess. "Errr....disguise?" she offered. It was a thin one, but there was a palpable change. The cool sunglasses remained over her eyes, and remained cool. And so...outside Morgan's Meats An old lady with weathered skin and a bitter soul was hobbling into the Meat store and gave Vic and Jess a foul look. But then, it looked like she had a foul look tattoo'd onto her face permanently. The butchers itself was and old, rather small building, crumbling a little. It could certainly do with a lick of paint and didn't look architecturally robust. Some pipes round the back emitted a slow, lazy steam. Some music floated gently from the shop, sounding Arabic.

Flux Emergency power only...a little trickle...just to keep it alive.... Whatever had happened, he needed to know. And that meant consulting the computers, the records. Maybe the infirmary or laboratories. He had been dealing with something powerful and peculiar here. All sorts of strange interdimensional phenomena could have occurred. He needed data.... And for that, he needed power. Life support and heating would be nice too. Even some hot food. He vaguely recalled having brought some Early Grey Tea to the station when he arrived. Direct from earth. Hiding away in the canteen. With dimensional hyperlensing and Earl Grey tea on his mind, he tapped the main console and tried to bring power back online...

Rev "Lets all cool our jets, guys" said Rev, standing up and dusting off the garbage. She kept one arm detatched and busy restraining the perp. "Especially mine. Damn, my feet get hot blasting white hot plasma" she explained, insinuating that there was plenty of white hot plasma to go around, should jets not cool. She turned to the man complaining. The boss, maybe? "I'm really sorry these guys caused you so much stress, mister. We tried to stop them doing too much damage..."

Flux This looks.... ...bad! A hundred possibilities went through his mind, and he could not choose one from another. A common theme, however, was that this was bad. He shifted through the spectrum of energies mundane and exotic, trying to piece together clues. The reactor was but a trickle of power, surely not enough to maintain basic functions like life support. What had happened? Was anyone still alive? He pondered these horrors whilst floating in space, and then determined that he would not solve this puzzle by contemplation of inadequate evidence. he had to investigate. Another distortion of space and he had teleported inside the main airlock. He kept a shimmering field of force around him, just in case. One of the many bad possibilities was an assault. And whilst there did not appear to be any life inside the station, he would not risk it. Floating in the station itself, his mind alive with fuzzy memories of the place, he flew towards the reactor. If he could restart that, the situation might be clearer...

Flux Quentin was getting ragged, and getting crazed. He had lost sense of time, if time existed at all in the Quantum Dark Zone. Events here seemed to both happen and not happen. Dimensions seemed to bubble and mutate. Something was sustaining him. He could only imagine it was his will. He had the vague sense of doing the same thing over and over again, except each precisely similar action was different. That made no sense, but nothing here did. Then, somehow, just as he thought his mind would snap, he was free. Perhaps he was free because his mind would snap. He was floating in space, his costume ragged, the asteroids all there. Stopped, it seemed. Whatever he had been trying to do, it looked like he had done. He was not pleased with the cost. The Quantum Dark Zone.... He shuddered. Spying the Lor Research Laboratory on the largest asteroid, he concentrated a moment. He felt a dread of this going wrong, of propelling him back through the event loop into the Quantum Dark Zone. But he steeled his nerves. And space distorted. And he now floated outside the Laboratory. Hello? Hello? This is Quill....I think i stopped the field....he blathered over the radiowaves.

GM "We...will...walk....away...." mumbled Filth. "If....the.....vile....demon....rat....will.....let....us....." Vermin hissed, eyes blazing red. "I have no choice, it seems" he said, exploding with frustration. "But you will release Filth from your grip first!" "No...you.....are....not.....trustworthy....lies....deception....misdirection....is....your.....nature.....we.....will.....release.....when.....we....are....escaped...." "Never!" hissed Vermin once more. "You will make him shoot himself once you are escaped! Why should I trust you!" came the sly toxic words from the Demon Rat. "Then....the.....beast....and....the.....lizard.....must.....give.....word....and....break.....the.....stalemate....." "That is....acceptable...." hissed Vermin back, slyness oiling its words. "What say you, my lizard and bear friends?"

GM There was a horrible pause as everyone seemed to freeze, unsure of the shifting sands of fate. Filth broke the silence. "I....We...would...rather....lose...a...part...of....us...I....than...have....us....I.....all....destroyed....by....the....Vermin...." he muttered. Filth was sweating heavily, and the gun to his temple was trembling. "We....must....have....the.....Vermin....King.....call....off.....his....army...." "Never!" hissed Vermin, although his eyes blazed with a lesser light. "You must be destroyed!" "...Then....so....will....you....when....we....pull....this....trigger...." mumbled Filth, his sweaty finger pulling just slightly on that sweaty trigger.

For a combination of awesome post and helping Ratchet, and HP. Mannequin - Unharmed - 2 HP

GM "Yeah, get back to the building, dumb-hat" sneered Hettie, who, for all her strength and bravado, looked relieved. She was clearly happier smashing in the knees of the helpless. "Hahaha...Dumb Hat!" she laughed. She looked sternly at the three thugs by her side, who got the message. "Dumb Hat...har har har! you sure are funny!" they laughed without a trace of mirth. "Thats right, I am" agreed Hettie. "We better tell the boss that the building has churned out another one. Huh. Looked even more stupid that block head. He ain't gonna be happy..." She pointed at Ratchet with her hammer. "You, scram, or I'll smash your mouth in!" she yelled at him. Ratchet had a kind of crazy boldness to him, but he crumbled and scampered off. "You...and you...go tell da boss...." she ordered the two minions by her side. The last one, with the chainsaw, she kept with her. "We better go make sure dumb-hat stays in the building. Dats what da boss wants for Block Head..." she muttered to the thug. Keeping her distance, she followed Mannequin back to the mysterious building, eyeing him - and the building - suspiciously.

GM The rats of the many mind squealed as the giant bear twisted metal like paper, scooping them up into a steel prison. And from down the tunnel, a swarm of rats scuttled. Ferocious. Angry. Totally obedient to King Vermin. "See! My army will rip you asunder!" hissed Vermin, eyes blazing red as he gloated on his imminent victory against the many-mind. They will not! Call of your minions or we will shoot!!!! replied the many mind. Vermin turned around, fearful now, and gazed at Filth, who was holding a gun to his own skull. "This...vessel..is...your....link....to....the....world...." mumbled Filth, mouthing the words of Many mind who had overpowered the man psychically. "We....will....kill....him....and....you....will....be....sent....back....to....your....hell....." he groaned, eyes glazed, finger ready to pull the trigger on the gun at his temple and blow his own brains out. "Send...your....army....away....."