Supercape

Cap Cosmos "Sure, a boost. Don't worry, Betty, I'll be a gentleman" said Buddy, aware that the reputation of middle aged male news anchor was not exactly wonderful. And he had seen some pretty reprehensible behaviour himself. Stuff he ignored when climbing up the greasy pole to success, much to his bitterness today. He couldn't help but wonder if he would be were he was today if he had spoken up, however. Nevermind. Now was what mattered. Now he had the power to make a difference. And not get fired or killed in the process! Feigning effort, he hoisted Betty up into the duct. Even before being imbued with the Cosmic Force, he was a reasonably strong man who went to the gym three times a week (or at least, tried to), and it was certainly not stretching belief that he could give Betty the boost she needed. "Now, scoot!" he told her as she climbed up. "Go get help! And wish me luck!"

Flux Quill contemplated the pros and cons of reactivating the stations power. It was, he thought, to close a call to be sure. On the one hand, having the stations power systems was inherently a good idea, as they would have access to its fascilities and research. On the other hand, it was adding an unstable element to the situation. They knew how things where with the power down. Introducing a change in the environment was unpredictable. However, he though the alien in the armour (at least, he presumed she was an alien, despite looking like a very beautiful woman, in his humble estimation) made a good point. "If the anomaly isn't sucking the reserve power, then its probably safe to restore power. As long as we do so carefully...."

The Scarab already is, but Ill keep an eye out for the others

An awesome strat! Can you give me a reflex roll DC 15 to perfom that stunt? If not you can make another DC 15 reflex roll to hold on to something and not fall. If you fall, its a bad tumble and a DC 20 Tough save!

It will indeed!

Oft a difficult decision! Whilst he is being deceptive about his super ID, I think the bulk of what he is trying to do is reason with her rather than fool her. I think it falls down more on diplomacy. Diplomacy: 1d20+10 23

GM The Giant shin made a splintering sound, and he yelped in pain despite every effort to maintain his rugged, tough guy (or tough - giant) manner. The yelp was surprisingly high pitch for someone so enormous. However, the net result of both the blow and his own involuntary yelp was to aggrevate him more. "You don't need to know more! We will stomp you to the ground! Grind your bones into the earth! And then take the seer!" The three other giants agreed, although given one of them was staggering around punch-drunk, it was more like two - and - a - half other giants agreed. "Long live King Cauldron! Returned to this world to save it from the one that cannot be spoke of!" they chanted, fanatically and devotedly.

Meaning Dreadnought is up, @Exaccus

GM The sonic waves bounced around the Hornet on the ceiling. For a moment, it seemed that green crystaline armour might shatter! But no, the Hornet held tight, although he seemed to be buzzing slightly. "Insect!" he yelled at the Scarab, with some justification. In his vexation at being "buzzed", as well as his lingering loathing of Frost for out talking him, he seemed to quite forget that as the Hornet, he had taken on the mantle of an insect himself. "Who are your new allies, Frost? I shall mark their names well!" he screamed at Frost, full of spite. It seemed that, for now, at least, he had no intention of fighting. Certainly not when outnumbered. He was determined to flee, and strike back another day!

No probs! So he gets two reflex saves (vs area, vs dazzle) reflex save x2: 2#1d20+12 19 28 and makes the latter! @Avenger Assembled Frost is up (and I presume immune to the poison gas!)

Ronin Ronin clicked another bolt into the Street Special, and flicked one of the dials on the weapon. The big guy was big. And tough. Which just meant that Ronin needed to redouble his efforts. He had gone soft so far. Well, that was his style - he didn't fling steel bolts around and split heads as a routine. The Street Special was designed to be non lethal - he had his fill of shooting guns over in Afghanistan. But he had to take it up a notch. He stayed icy cool, even under the pressure. Gotta stay frosty, even when I don't know what the Hell is goin' on. In fact, even more important to stay frosty! Slick and fast, he aimed the Street Special, closing one eye, staring down the iron sights. Liam was in the way, but... TWANG! He took the shot anyway!

So I think that Cultist 2 is the obvious choice of target as before. However, I imagine that Liam is kind of in the way! But, Ronin has Precise Shot 2! So, he isn't go to do anything particularly fancy but fire a bolt of steel at that nasty fellow! This time, shifting attack -2 attack, +2 DC Fire bolt at Cultist: 1d20+12 18 which may miss. If it does not, then a DC 21 Tough Save.

GM Boddy flock was trying to rouse his men; a somewhat futile task. Given, however, the little men were no more than six inches tall (including tall hats) it was easy enough to scoop them up in Pan's hand. Penny Coin was already through - her fae like speed quick to react. And the Fun Guy, roused from his stupor, was dashing through as quickly as possible. "FREEDOM!" he screamed, full of hope. Whatever realm Ozwald's mad mind had opened a portal to - or rather, intended to open a portal to - there was some wrenching of Eldritch energy. The portal opened to a Forest. Those who enjoyed long strolls outside Freedom City would recognise it as the Wharton State Forest...

GM At Neutron Industries... Or what remained of it. The explosion had been both contained and masterful - just the right amount and just the right point. Sir Prize had pulled up beside the rubble and remains, the smoke and dust, and tore of his helmet. He was a man in his fourties, strong and scarred, determined, ferocious and joyous. He loved this. In a bitter, furious way. Waiting him for him was shaven headed woman dressed in anarchronistic steampunk wear, and set of tools by her belt. "I bid you good day, Lady Key!" bowed Sir Prize. "Yeah" muttered Lady Key. "You can knock that speech on its head, you know. No need to put on a show" she said, glinting hey eyes, full of rapture at the mess. She had a slightly odd English accent. "And you have company" she noted, pointing to the Silver Porche pulling up by them! Meanwhile, back at the Bank... Slipping into his regal accent, Fascimile certainly bought himself more goodwill. The reaction, however, was variable. One could hardly expect a group of anarchists to agree. Quite the reverse, in fact. And yet, the response, overall, was generous. A few hurrahs, a few thumbs up, and a couple of drunk ladies staggering up to him offering beer and kisses (and preferably both). It seemed that they were on his side. There was certainly some muttering of discontent about Sir Prize, but they were not ready to give up their loyalty to the Sultan of Anarchy quite yet!

Only antagonist left is the hornet thanks to Tsunami's Tsunami! ?

GM The Hornet spun round. "I didn't presume!" he retorted as quickly as you like. "Now! The plan is clear! New allies, Comrade Frost?" "You do know who she is?" he asked Frost, almost laughing. "But never mind. I think you presumed that I would presume this day would never come!" he said, and leapt to the ceiling, landing on his hands and feet like an insect crawling above them. "Of course, I made contingencies!" There was a hiss, then the sound of popping crackers. Around the floor of the warehouse, little explosions went off. Tiny ones. And from the concrete holes they left, pipes poked out. And from those pipes rolled a sea of green noxious gas! "I built this place! And I made sure it had a few extra surprises in!"

The Hornet is up, and will: Move Action: Jump to the ceiling (30' above) and stick to it, with his wall crawling power. Standard Action: Flood the floor of the building with poison gas! The bottom of the warehouse is now (from 10' and below) full of Paralyse 10, Fort Save, Poison extra effect. As I see it, that does hit Frost, Tsunami, and the Scarab. The gas is an area effect so you get the standard DC 20 Reflex save to evade. As the gas is leaking slowly this round, its a +5 situational bonus, so DC 15 Reflex to cut the Fort save to DC 15 (or whatever!). However, on subsequent rounds there is no evasion. If you enter that area, have a lungful! @Tiffany Korta, the fabulous scarab is up!

Edited TA Lament 23 PP to spend, spending 19PP (for a total of 229/233 PP) 1 PP: Reduce drawback / vulnerability to minor Vulnerability (Psychic; Frequency: Common; Intensity: Minor) [-2PP] 18 PP: Increase Void array. Each power gets 18 more PP, so the Fatigue gets 6 ranks of Sustained Duration Aura, the Dazzle is increased to rank 6, and the Suffocate increased to rank 8 (with six ranks of decrease area progression), thusly: Void Array (38 PP Array, Feats: Alt Power 2) [40 PP]BP: Fatigue 10 (Extras: Sustained Aura, 6 ranks only [+3]) [38 PP] "Void Skin"AP: Dazzle 6 (Extras: Action [+3, Reaction: Looking at Lament], Range [Perception]) [36 PP] "Void Eyes"AP: Suffocate 8 (10-40'r cloud, Extras: Area [Cloud], Duration [Sustained - Status], Feats: Decrease Area 6) [20 PP] "Void Breath" Thank you! EDIT: Added in +3 PP March reward for clarity (now bringing him to 229/233 PP)

GM Stomp stomp stomp It was a somewhat surreal environment. The dim red emergency lighting, the pitch of the alarms, the sunlight half-streaming through tinted windows. The clang of Jones' metal feet on metal stairs. At the next level, Jones tore open the elevator door with his power - wrenches. He turned to look at Justice. "Looks like you know how to make the most of the deal" he acknowledged. Intruder Alert! Level 3! Warning! Intruder Alert! came an accurate and panicked squark over the intercom. "Suckers!" grunted Jones. "Keep 'em off my back, cape!" he told Justice. Then, he fired a bolt from one of his arm into the elevator shaft. The bolt struck into the metal opposite, leaving a cable between the bolt and Jone's arm. And in the next moment, he was gone - shooting down the shaft on that power-assisted cable.

Cap Cosmos "What, you want to stay in here when the bullets go flying?" said Buddy, rather surprised. "I know its scary, but everything is scary right now. You should be scared!" he said. Even he was scared. Reflex, more than anything. "Its your choice" he said, stepping back a little. "But if I was small enough, I know what I would be doing. Crawl out of here, go get some help, be a hero" he explained. Hell, if it worked well (and it probably wouldn't) they might not need Captain Cosmos at all! "But I don't see any other plan falling from the sky. And time is running out. They will send someone else and I'm probably not going to get so lucky next time..."

GM It was a fair point. A logical, reasonable point. However, angry people were not fair, logical or reasonable. And this went doubly so for Jones. "You go look for evidence. I don't know what it would look like. I'm going to smash things" he said, violently. Then, in a moment of insight and good cheer. "Think of it this way, me shashing things is a great way for clever people like you to get into all the secret labs downstairs!" he said, brightly. "So everyones happy. Well, not Neutron Industries" he added. "Its your lucky day, cape!" he said, cheerily. Well, somehow he managed to be cheery and angry at the same time. There simply was no mistaking Jone's livid rage. Stomp stomp stomp...he lunged down the stairway, about to go out of sight...

Cap Cosmos "Pleased to meet you, Betty" smiled Buddy, tossing aside the rifle. He passed the bulletproof vest to Betty. "Here, you better put that on" It came across as chivalry, but in truth she needed it more than him. "I'm a guy whose lucky to be alive. I thought I was going to die. But I'd rather take a one in ten chance of staying alive than a certainty" he explained. "If it wasn't for you, we would be out their waiting to get shot" He paused, rubbing his chin. "This all seems off to me, Betty. These guys aren't professional. They don't seem to have a coherent plan. There is something more to this than meets the eye..." He cast his eye around the lavatory. "But in any case, we got to get out of this hole...." he added, looking for exits. Maybe a window or ventilation duct - that Betty could scqueeze through!

Origin Story.... Beware the Collapse! It was late into November, 2018, on a surprisingly cool morning with clear skies and browning leaves. Buddy Brand was home for Thankgiving. He didn’t like being back in San Fransisco. Not that he had anything against San Fransisco personally. In fact, if he stood back and considered the city, he found it rather pleasing. But he happened to grow up in San Fransisco, and he didn’t really like thinking about that part of his life. It was bittersweet, if he was being generous. He pushed his father out of his head as he knocked on the door. He was not entirely successful in doing so. Every time he came to see his sister, Violet, he had a little clench in his chest, as if some part of his heart – or perhaps soul – was necrosing. He could never completely clench the fear that his father had somehow managed to persuade Violet to invite him. Violet answered the door with a smile. It never quite matched her severe face, her severe clothing, her severe hair, or her severe eyes. She was smarter than Bernard, more driven too. But she had never quite grasped the art of charm. For all that, she did have a genuine smile on her face. The two siblings shared a smile that had some painful splinters embedded in the love they shared. “Come in” Violet was short on words. Maybe, as a lawyer, she used them up in her job. Buddy thought that she used them with spartan efficiency. She spoke with all dressings and obscuration stripped away. He, on the other hand, spoke slowly and with art, his voice like oil, smoothing over pains and woes. It was no less effective in getting to the truth, but it was a different style. He reassured himself that his father was not at the dinner table, or in the garden, or lurking behind some door. Only when satisfied did he sit down. But Violet, sighing at her brothers nerves that followed the same tired pattern every year, did not sit down. In truth, she was not much of a sitter, but today she was in a rush. “Sorry, Buddy, I have to go. Not long. Job” Brutal efficiency, but Buddy got the meaning, because he got Violet. She was a lawyer, always busy, always stressed, always in a rush. He supressed the urge to protest, for he knew it would serve no function other than to pour fuel on a fire. “Sorry to hear that” he said, acknowledging her circumstance. “I’ll just make myself at home” he said “Don’t sweat it!” “Sure?” she asked, although she knew Buddy was pretty sure. “Sure. I’ll go take a walk, I think. Looks like a great day, and I could do with the exercise. They force feed me Danish every evening in the studio!” “Mph” mumbled Violet, taking a little look at his midriff. Buddy was in pretty good shape, but Violet was a thin as a pencil, and didn’t have enough body fat to fry an egg. Later… Buddy walked through the inclines of the streets that were half remembered. It had been thirty, forty years since he walked them as a child, trying to get away from his father. There was some fondness to those memories, even if they were peppered with black spots he spent a lot of energy not expending energy on. But times change, and they were not the same streets. Just echoes. He was feeling rather tired, his legs sore from the inclines, when it happened. A bolt from the sky. Blue. Or Yellow. Or something else. It was hard to look at. It wobbled. It changed. It seemed to be faint and hyper real and all sorts of other things. And it was moving fast. Almost too late, Buddy realised that whatever it was, it was heading straight for him. And it might have been small (although its maddeningly odd realness seemed to make even that estimation uncertain), but anything travelling at that speed would kill him. And so, ignoring his tired legs, he ran and dove. A fraction of a second later, something hit the pavement. And hit it hard. He could feel the impact through the road, and the sound of tinkling glass from the nearby homes. He found himself stunned. Something was pressing on him, from all directions. A sense of himself that both expanded and compressed. It was an unpleasant sensation that unravelled his brain. He felt himself slipping into lunacy. Like a moth to a flame, he turned around to assess the damage. To himself, none. At least, not physically. His legs still seemed to be there, and seemed to work. But on the ground, he saw himself. This was not a reflection. He saw a perfect copy of himself, only dressed in some stylish costume, crumpled up, fading. “Beware….” Buddy shook himself back to intention. What was he seeing? What was he hearing? Was this mad reflection of himself talking to him? It appeared he was. The crumpled figure looked directly at Buddy. “…the collapse?” What the hell did that mean? Alas, Buddy could not ask for clarification. His doppelganger was dying. And now, he was dead. But even more strange, as the figure closed his eyes a final time, as he drew his final breath, he vanished. Not even dust. Simply disappeared. And a wobbling field of hyperdimensional energy that Buddy couldn’t understand. Even looking at it sent his mind into psychosis, hearing piping flutes from idiot gods and spinning dervishes at the centre of infinite nothingness. And then, the energy hit him. It hit him hard, sending tingles down every nerve, and flinging his body across the street. He landed in a mess. But he was still alive, to the amazement of the onlookers who had stopped walking, and stopped their cars, in amazement. “I’m okay! I’m okay! Just a meteor…or something!” he gasped, his spinal cord doing the work his brain could not. His media instinct kicked in like a reflex. Later…. He had found himself walking home, shrugging off offers for help or aid. He felt like he was in a daze, like this was not happening. He heard whispers, frightening whispers. People talking about him, talking at him. Why where they looking at him that way? What did that movement mean? That look in the eye? Was what that woman wearing a green scarf? Why was that man wearing that hat? There was meaning in everything, everything was salient. And not in a good way. He collapsed into Violet’s house, feeling like the world was going to collapse into his skull. Maybe that was what the warning was. He heard whispers in his head. That he was evil, that they would burn him. He felt the CIA beam messages into the implanted microchip in his head. How had they done that? He felt so sure they had. So certain that he contemplated, for one awful moment, microwaving his head to fry the chip. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to write a note to Violet, saying his was not feeling well. He noticed his handwriting was shaky. Someone was obviously transmitting nerve signals into his hand to make it shake. The journey back to Freedom City was all night, fuelled on caffeine. He didn’t dare fly. He constantly checked his mirrors, certain that someone was following him. Hell, he had made enough enemies that someone surely wanted to wipe him out. He had never like guns, but he really wished he was had a pistol in the glove compartment. He didn’t sleep that night. He couldn’t. Even when he covered the radio in tin foil, he could still feel the radio waves in his skull. By the morning, he was a wreck. Unwashed, unshaven, with eyes bloodshot. He phoned the only person he could think of. Doctor Linda LaBelle. By the time she arrived, he was no better. And no worse. The exhaustion was doubled, however. He was as paranoid as before, but somehow, the pure fatigue of his condition had robbed him of his will to argue. And Dr LaBelle was somebody he trusted. By that afternoon, he was in an MRI scanner, heavily sedated. At least that was some relief. He found himself in her office, half asleep from fatigue and medication, but with the voices at least muted, if not gone. “This is…extraordinary….” She said. Linda LaBelle was a very clever doctor indeed. Acute onset psychosis, symptomatically. But mental illness did not appear overnight. And some of Buddy’s story checked out. The results of his scan, and his blood work, was…impossible. He should be dead. But he was very much alive. “Your cellular integrity is off the charts. No oxygen in your blood stream, but you appear not to need it any more. Or glucose” she explained. “Whatever happened to you…it doesn’t seem to have hurt you. Physically, at least. How are you feeling?” “Better” said Buddy. This was true. The voice in his head telling him Linda was trying to poison him was certainly much quieter. “Good. I’m guessing you will need those medications for a week at least. But this is outside my experience. It’s outside ordinary medicine. Maybe outside extraordinary medicine Maybe I should call W.E.S.T…” she pondered. “No. NO!” said Buddy, fear cutting through his sedation. “I don’t want anyone to know. I want to keep my life” “I…don’t think you will ever be quite the same” said Dr LaBelle, gently. “I…know…” conceded Buddy, lying back in his chair, pressing his temples. “Whatever happened to me, I can feel it. And that’s not me getting confused, this feels real. Very real. Last night…you wouldn’t believe the things I found out…” “Try me” “I’m strong enough to bend steel. And I can fly” answered Buddy, almost coyly. “…” “I said you wouldn’t believe me….” “Actually, I do” replied Doctor LaBelle. “It…fits. The energy you absorbed, contained with every cell and mitochondria in your body” she said, contemplating the ramifications. “I’m a damn Superhero!” grunted Buddy. He never wanted to be one, but with this energy in his every fibre, it was the truth. Linda LaBelle nodded. “What are you going to do then?” she asked him. It had crossed Buddy’s mind, but only briefly. “Whoever…whatever….that version of me was, I guess I’ll take a leaf out of his…or my….book” he said. “Put on his cape. Take his name. Try to use his power best I can” “His name?” “He never said it” replied Buddy, smiling the first time in a long couple of days. “But I heard it, in my head. Captain Cosmos!”

After a good start, one or two hiccups in threads using WEST, the cheat way to get plot hooks! Its still active, but I fancy doing (and have space for) another thread as GM. Super science heroes may need to investigate some jurassic chronal flux, or cancerous dimensional lensing. Maybe with some hyperzero radiation thrown in! Etc Etc. Interest?