Supercape

OOC for this

Content warning: Mild swearing, Moderate Body Horror (Lovecraftian, not gore) GM 17th June, Bedlam City One hot afternoon... As usual, Fat Joe put extra onions in his hot dog for the Tattered Man. His onions were quite nice. Unlike the bread or the meat which were meagre and passable if one was being generous. Ever since the Tattered Man had helped Fat Joe he had always got extra onions. Fat Joe was as tall, bald, and rotund as ever. His smile was no less beaming. Maybe, since the Bad Beat had burned down and Blowfish was in hiding, well, maybe he smiled just that bit brighter. "Whats up, my friend? Any news? Any good jokes for me?"

The Red Rat "I will!" replied the Rat, defiantly catching the laptop. Now this, I can use! She would have to leave her guns behind. Too risky to go back for them. Bad loss, they were handy. Perhaps she could collect them later. Right now, she stole away into the night, clutching the laptop. And so, back at the crappy appartment The Rat came in, not knowing quite what to expect. Presumably brains in jars and atomic powered bears. But brains in jars and atomic powered bears where on the face of it pretty strange, and who knew what they came with? Zombie ninja pirates maybe? "I have some evidence! Well, sort of. Didn't find your man. Got knocked out. Captured. Escaped. Got this. Apparently it has something interesting on it..." she said, feeling a bit odd about the whole turn of events.

Synth / Nyberg Nyberg put the jumper back on. No use leaving evidence. At least, evidence that obvious. A forensic examiner could no doubt do a good job, but he somehow doubted the owners wanted heavy scrutiny. Just a hunch. Fortune, for now, was holding firm. But lady luck had no memory. There was no immediate danger but no luxury of slowness. For now, he would search the obvious nooks and crannies of the bar...and that mean the counter first.

GM Epilogue Some time later In a dusty southern border town... "I don't want to set the world....on....fire....." Jazz wasn't really the flavour round here. And Amber's heart wasn't in it. But she had the voice to make a living, and she wanted to lay low. Had a few admirers. Had a few drunk admirers. Had to kick one really hard yesterday, in a very soft place. That got some cheers. She finished her set, and quickly scuttled off to medium applause. She pulled out some whisky and drank. She was already drunk, but not drunk enough for the memories to go. She was never drunk enough for the memories to go, but she drank anyway. She just had to lay low, till the heat settled. Then... Well, what then? She hadn't though that far ahead. There was a man backstage. Mexican, short, like wire. Like hot wire, with black shark eyes behind tinted glasses. Mexican gangster. "Great set" he said, with that serpentine threat. "Sure, sure. Want an autograph?" she asked, not looking at him and trying to keep calm. "That would be great" he answered without any implication it would be great at all. He sat down, and lit a languid cigarette. "And then you can tell me all about Blowfish...." ~ Fin ~

The Red Rat "Who would you like to be bullied by, then?" she asked, smarting a little. She didn't like bullies. The Eastern Bloc was one big ol' bully. "I can get those thugs with batons and knuckle dusters to bully you, if you like?" she suggested, pointing a thumb behind her. "And if you run, believe me, I can follow you. And I run faster" she explained. Perhaps she didn't, but Darwin-X had left her body very quick to adapt to her exercise [rpgramme. She was by no means super human, but she fancied she could run a lot longer than this guy. Unless he was some kind of marathon runner on the side. "Or you can help me" she asked, changing tack. "I was kept prisoner back there. Illegal detention, and all that. This is going to unravel fast, and I can say you aided the detention, or that you helped me. I'm not bullying you here, I'm giving you a choice..."

GM So, it was breaking and entering. Once again. His larceny sheet was certainly elongating at an impressive pace. Ventilation shafts were probably no solution this time. No squeezing and contorting. Instead, it would be a broken window. He wrapped his left hand in the tattered woollen jumper. It was cheap and holed, but it would serve purpose. With a spring, he left a good dozen feet in the air and punched his way through the top window. He paused a moment to clear some of the shattered glass. No use cutting himself to ribbons. This was not the ideal, but the necessity. Just as if he came to conflict with security thugs this time, it would, too, need direct action...

And so, the very next day... The hot dog had not much improved. But perhaps Fat Joe was getting better with the fried onions. He put a double helping of said vegetable on the unimpressive dog. "So, it all went to hell. Up in smoke. I heard about the Bad Beat. Not many tears spilled over that, I can tell you. Not after Vanity..." He was still sad. So were a lot of people. "At least, no tears from regular eyes. Still a lot of scum in Bedlam. Not you though. Bet you got a few more friends today. Saw Dick Young chuckling today whilst he was reading the paper. And he used to visit the joint. For Jazz, you understand. He is even thinking about how he could scrape enough cash together to buy the place. As a tribute to Vanity..." He smiled at the thought. "Mind telling me what did happen? Did you really torch the place?"

GM Jane sighed. She winced from sighing. She started to laugh from the irony, but that hurt too. "I'd appreciate an eye on me. I got a feeling my life would be short otherwise. This is Bedlam City, the heat never really dies" She turned, slowly to face him. "And I think the waves will find you, whether you want them to or not..." She closed her eyes, thinking. "But before you go. Before they arrest me and question me and hopefully give me a big short of morphine, what are you going to do if...when...you see the Burner again?"

GM "Out cold? That's too good for him. Maybe the Burner...or whatever his name is....maybe he should have heated him up...." She frowned at herself. "No. I can't think like that. Bedlam, getting to me. God I feel like that. But I can't drown in this city" she said, trying, weakly, to muster resolve. "Ill get better. Don't you worry. Only a couple of broken ribs and a pneumothorax. And yeah, you busted my arm pretty good, didn't you? Damn, I would have fainted from seeing that if I wasn't already seeing double from concussion...." "I don't know quite who..or what you are. But if you ever need a lawyer with a few scars...."

GM Jane was trying to get her drip out. She was trying to get out of her bed, to comfort John. But she was too broken right now. She collapsed back into her pillow, sweaty and faint. "Sheesh...is it...is it over?" she asked the broken ceiling. She asked the world. But most of all, she asked John. Around her, security and medics started cautiously approaching, guns and tasers at the ready. The place had been ripped apart by a minigun and nearly burned to a crisp. One could appreciate the fear. One could smell it. Dull sirens could be heard amongst screams and shouts. The hospital was getting ready to evacuate. Not an easy business.

Notice check vs Sleight of Hand: 1d20+9 29 aced!

GM "Hmmm...." came the barely audible wheeze from the Burner. Vassily interrupted. "I'll see you corpses later" he spluttered. It was half a cough, half a chuckle. He was in bad shape, even if he didn't want to admit it. His Pride was limping as bad as his body, as he dragged himself away. "You have a habit of getting in my way. But a habit of getting in my enemies way, even harder" conceded the Burner. "I guess I owe you. But your deposit in my bank of goodwill is thin, mister. Real thin. And you just took out your savings..." He clicked of the Flame thrower pilot. "Right now, you owe me. Just remember that. Remember what I could have done. What I should have done. And remember I did this not because you are right, because you are noble, because you are heroic. But simply this; you saved Amber. I'm not any kind of man for a woman like that. Breaks whats left of my burnt heart. But it does mean I can deal fair and square with you" He turned to leave. "Just remember what I did because you asked me. Remember it, for when I ask something of you..." And with that, he left.

GM The Burner paused, contemplating. "Its true. This Hospital is not the place for fire" he said, almost reluctantly. "You are being the coward!" said Vassily, through bleeding lips and bleeding gums. "Coward. Brave. Hero. Villain. Empty words" replied the Burner. He somehow seemed to glare even through his mask. "All that matters is fire. Cleaning up the trash. Its about the only pure thing in this town. And you'll feel its embrace, Russian" he finished. His voice was weak but his intent strong. His semi-truce semi-agreed with Vassily, he pointed his flamethrower at Blowfish. "But this piece of scum. He will burn. The cancer behind it all. The merchant of misery. He burns, because otherwise, he will just return, one way or another..." he said, looking at the Tattered Man.

GM The Burner lifted up his flamethrower, his face unseen behind that scratched, carbonised mask of steel and dark glass. Even the pilot light was a source of light in the flickering destruction around them. "I'm no hero. I'm finished. My body ruined. Ill be lucky to hit fifty, and it sure won't be with any girl by my side" he growled, a raspy breathing. "You know what they did. Set me on fire. I wished I had died. But I didn't. I survived for one thing, to extract justice. Did anything stop them? No? Where were you, hero?" "Is anything going to stop me now?" Maybe in answer to his own question, he started looking around the destroyed hospital. "Pspah!" spat Vassily, behind the Tattered Man. His finger was on the trigger, but he wasn't pulling it. Not yet. "You and me, Mister Cripsy! Lets see who is man!" he goaded the Burner.

Synth / Nyberg As soon as Nyberg collapsed into Winter's apartment, he made the strongest coffee possible. He was tired. His body had held up, so far, but the simple pressure of experience and emotion was unravelling his psyche. If not for Nyberg, it would have collapsed completely. But it was an emergency setting. Designed to keep the brain together for short periods of time, not forever. A sticking plaster. Still, he sat down, taking deep breaths. Eyes became heavy... ...no! he must not sleep, not yet. Not until the matter had resolved and the mistakes of the day had been justified. He bolted down the rest of the coffee. Too hot, but so be it. He threw on a woolly, bland jumper full of holes and, looking like a scruffy professor (which he always had been), left the apartment, with a few coins, to take a bus to the beginning of this sorry saga!

GM There was a pause. A shattered light fell, swinging on its cord. The light flickered throughout the dim corridor. Nobody spoke. The two men were sweating, mulling over the awful roads. Neither appealed, but the more visceral threat was the Tattered Man, And so, their nerves crumbled, and they ran. Down the corridor they went, passing Blowfish, who was twitching his lips in an unconscious sleep. Beside him, the burning tarot card. And it appeared that the tarot card was equally as prophetic in this case as it had been with the Tattered Man. For the two running thugs ran headlong into somebody blocking their path. The Burner. Decked in his flame resistant armour, his helmet like a welding shield. In his hands, an ignited flamethrower. He grunted through his damaged voice box. Like toxic waste on gravel. "Where do you think you are going?" The corridor was a line of violence. At one end, Vassily, gasping for breath, leaning against the wall, his machine gun still in hands. Jane, fighting, unwisely, to crawl out of her hospital bed. The Tattered Man, betwixt them all. The two last thugs, pondering which way to turn, for alas, there was none. And at the other end, the Burner, ready to live up to his name...

Yeah that will work! No chance of beating that. Post away.

GM "I shoot you! I shoot you so bad you die!" roared Vassily, clumsily lifting his minigun. He did entirely lie. He opened fire. The Hospital resounded with the sound of his huge gun clacking away, echoing through the hospital. Bullets flew everywhere, in a ballistic torrent of fury. Walls were punctured, glass was shattered, and machines shredded. A few stray bullets hit some of the unconscious thugs. What damage they did, who could tell? But Vassily was broken, tired, and for all his strength and determination, it was a damn big gun that he could not entirely control. His tired arms sagged, and he clumsily used his body weight to lift it up, ripping the ceiling lights. Sparks flew, and the lights went out, plunging the corridor into the dim light of the medical machines around them and a few flickers of half destroyed bulbs. But the Tattered Man was unhurt. In the ambient lighting, the two last thugs came out of Jane's room. She was defiant, but in no shape to be defiant. Her captors were wheeling her out and held a gun to her head. "Let it go, man! Let us go!"

So MGV will open fire on John at Point Blank range! Opens fire!: 1d20+5 15 missing! The two remaining thugs in Janes room will come out and we will suspend combat for a bit of dialogue at this point!

Sure thing, post away.

ok so that hits easy. One difference from the Thugs in COre book here is they are wearing undercover shirts (Tough +2) rather than Leather Jackets (Tough +1). So Tough Save: 4#1d20+4 15 16 13 8 Well, they are all knocked out and you still have a move action!

Round 4: 22 - John, 3 HP, Unharmed 10 - Bystanders 6 - MGV (Machine Gun Vassily) Bruised x2, Staggered 6 - Thugs [6] Feel free to shrug off those grapples how you see fit!

GM Blowfish had landed onto a wall, and then onto the Hospital Trolley below it. This was poetic fortune of a sort. He was out cold. The goons looked at each other. It was a tough call. On the one hand, Blowfish had a reputation. Cross him and die. And Blowfish was a cunning operator, an astute judge of character, with fingers in more pies than he had fingers (as contradictory as that assertion might sound). On the other hand, the Tattered Man had just knocked Machine Gun Vassily, the toughest Russian in Bedlam, to the ground, and thrown Blowfish thirty feet down the corridor. Nobody was that strong, not even Vassily. In the conflict of fear, Blowfish won out, but their nerve was beginning to break. Four of them jumped onto the Tattered Man, trying to pin him to the floor. "You'll pay for that, mister!" said one. But the well of confidence was running dry. The other two thugs ran into Jane's hospital room, guns at the ready. To execute or to take hostage?.... And meanwhile, in a puff of gentle smoke, a tarot card came falling out of Blowfish's jacket. A burning card...of the burning man!

MAchine Gun Vassily is dazed this round so wont act. The Thugs will jump on The Tattered Man: At least, four of them will: Jump The tattered Man: 4#1d20+2 21 10 21 20 Wow, thats three hits. So they are trying to grapple him right now, so thats three grapple rolls: Grapple roll vs TTM: 3#1d20+4 19 20 8 As I understand it, thats three opposed Grapple Rolls from John, although he will automatically make the third one, so infact just two needed, vs 19 and 20.